Nov 20th- Cambridge

With all of my whining and complaining yesterday, I didn’t take the time to talk about our trip to Cambridge yesterday. We took a trip with “John’s Journeys”…another in a long line of local bus trips offered by the base. I had thought the trip was going to be a guided tour of Cambridge…so I didn’t bother to study up on Cambridge before we went. I figured I’d probably study all of the wrong sites and I’d learn more if I just went and listened. Instead, we boarded the bus (actually, it was more like a van) to find out that this was a “go and do your own thing” trip.

With nothing more than a rough printed copy of Cambridge to work with, we headed off toward the university campus and the more historic sites of Cambridge (John at least pointed us in that direction). And, this turned out to be one of my favorite adventures so far. We walked along the streets until we saw something interesting. We stopped in a local grocery store, Sainsbury’s, to buy some milk chocolate digestive crackers (which we all snarfed right down). We fed the ducks along the river Cam at King’s college. Wes particularly enjoyed that part! We stayed there for at least half an hour and fed them Cheese-it crackers.

We pretty much saw all of the courtyards of all of the different colleges that are part of Cambridge University. Cambridge University isn’t laid out the way an American University is. It is a conglomeration of smaller “colleges” that dot the entire city. At first, we thought we were seeing a bunch of smaller city colleges or high schools. We kept looking for something that said CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY, but only saw it once, written on an obscure door in an alleyway stating that that particular door went to the Cambridge University Anthropology society. It wasn’t until later that we discovered that all of the little colleges (Trinity College, Christ’s College, St. John’s College and King’s College) were all a part of one big university. I don’t know why it continually surprises me to learn that the British do things differently. You’d think I’d come to expect it now. But, I’m still floored every time my assumptions are wrong.

While out on our adventures, we were privileged to see King’s College Church. It was absolutely huge. We decided not to go in at that particular time, mainly because they were charging 5 pounds per person, and we didn’t have that many pounds on us. We decided to go and feed the ducks behind the church instead. I think we ended up having more fun doing that. Weslee was tired of sitting still in his stroller by that time anyway.

I will say that while Cambridge was absolutely bustling with college students, riding bikes and walking, and the city is alive with things to do and see…the huge cathedrals and old stone churches simply can’t compare with the charm of the small town parish churches around Mildenhall. The old stone churches in Cambridge are impossibly cramped between malls and shopping centers, their headstones in their cemeteries crowded around their foundations like so many sentries. Many of them are closed to visitors. The warmth and familiarity that is present in so many of the country churches vanishes in such places. It was impossible to capture any good photos of them from the tight alleyways that surrounded their grounds. Occasionally I’d snap a tall stone tower reaching for the blue sky out of the darkness…but I was never able to capture any real charm or majesty from any of those churches.

But when it was all said and done, we walked around almost every nook and cranny of the historic part of Cambridge. We even stopped in “Christ’s Pieces” park at the heart of it all and let Weslee play for a while. It was a nice, leisurely visit. We’ll come back and tour it all…but for today, we enjoyed strolling and looking. We’re glad we got to go.