Two Weeks of Cambridge Fun

Hullo!

I am back safely from our long bus ride trip to Bath and Salisbury! Now, I know I haven't been keeping up very well, but we've been very busy. Two Thursdays back we had our second formal dinner, at Pembroke this time! It was very nice but extremely hot out! Come to think of it, it's been hot here for over a week and a half! But after dinner we had a crazy karaoke party down in the Pembroke New Cellars - it was pretty darn exciting. Gideon, our program director, and I sang the theme from Titanic "My Heart Will Go On." Boy was that fun! So eeeeearly that friday morning I boarded a bus all alone for Stansted airport and visited Aunt Paula, Uncle Greg, and Mary Claire in Frankfurt, Germany. Greg was doing research there for a month. Mary's friend from Slovakia, Monica, came the same weekend and we had a lot of fun just hanging around, drinking German beer and walking down by the river. It was VERY restful! Greg bought us the best ice cream in Germany and we went to a really interesting film museum.

Then last week was crunch week here. We are halfway through the program and I had a final in Political Philosphy and a midterm for creative writing due on Friday morning. So it was a full week of studying and everybody got a little stressed. But now one of my classes is over and it's going to be a litttle easier from now on. I think my final went ok - I couldn't study very much b/c it's just very mind-numbingly confusing. But I prepared as well as I possibly could.

Once we were free of all that silliness - we went punting on the Cam! Yay! It was so beautiful - we had wine and bread and cheese. So nice! That night we had a small party here at Fitzwilliam street - even the TAs came! Super fun! And then of course the next morning we left for Bath. First we stopped at Stonehenge - it was raining and super windy but I sat out in the field anyway - I loved it, just sitting there, because I already had enough pictures of it on a better day. Then we went to Bath and I didn't tour the baths again, but had dinner with Basant and just generally hung out. Everybody went out to the pub that night. Bath has SO MANY! And it's incredibly beautiful there! In the morning Elaine and I went to parish services at the Abbey - they were so nice and one of the guys welcomed us and asked if we were new. They have a fan vault too, just like King's College Chapel - so pretty. After having pasties for lunch and walking the river we headed back on the bus to Salisbury! We only had an hour at the Cathedral, but it was AMAZING! Built in only 38 years! The most consistent Gothic Architecture! But then we had a LOOOOONG drive back home - about 5 hours due to traffic.

Oh, I forgot to re-mention our trip to the top side of the vault at King's College Chapel. It's the amazing gothic building in all the King's pictures... we were both on the vault AND on the roof. This is really something very few people ever have a chance to do and I feel incredibly special. So amazing.

Anyhow, things are back to normal for a little while now. We have another formal hall tomorrow and pretty much every week until the end. Yay! I will need to find more things to dress up in. And until I have more news, I hope you are all doing very very well. Glad to hear from everybody once In a while. I will be home in 5 more weeks if you are counting the days.

much <3
-amanda

O and here are all the pictures:

Pembroke Formal
Frankfurt
Cambridge Days - punting, roof, etc.
Bath Trip

have fun!