Bike City.

Pedals, a basket, and a bell. To what do these belong? My very own bicycle rented for the week in Cambridge, lovely Cambridge. While learning to bike on the opposite side of the road has proved mildly confusing, I’ve learned that if I just follow the massive pack of biking university students, I’ll be safe. Cambridge is in a week of exams and so most of the colleges are closed for the week. Luckily, using powers of the intellect, we’ve learned that attending churches within the colleges means that you gain access as well. Mostly I’m talking about going to church at the King’s College Cathedral on Sunday, one of the largest and oldest colleges part of the University. I am still in awe of their boys choir. I never knew voices could sing that high, let alone male voices. These districts of Cambridge are beyond lovely and give an image of what Medieval England would have looked like. Along with ancient streets and structures, Cambridge is full of bookshops loaded with antiquity books. For a bunch of English majors, a lot of drooling happens in these shops. Seeing first editions of Lord of the Rings, Johnson’s Dictionary and Shakespeare’s first complete folio compilation was rather epic. Our professor considered selling his house in order to buy a few of these treasures. Unfortunately, the idea didn’t take flight. Against my better judgment, I bought several books in Cambridge, most notably a fantastic copy of Anna Karenina. I have yet to figure out where I am going to store all of these books for the next seven months, and a package or two may have to be sent home.

Kings College, Cambridge

Did I mention Newton was a Cambridge Alum?

Well, him and just about every other important Englishman, including Wilberforce and Tennyson just to name a few.

On Thursday we went on a little punting adventure through the Cambridge canals. This boating experience was reminiscent of the Venetian gondolas, but instead of Italian men in striped shirts taking us down the canals, we did our own punting. Figuring out how to balance yourself on the back of a narrow boat while propelling the craft using only a long pole is a bit terrifying, but the learning curve is exponential. After an hour, we were cruising down the canals past colleges, parks, and rows of weeping willows. We only crashed into other boats a few times, so I would call it a success.

Punting.

Embracing our mobility thanks to our bicycles, we paid a visit to Granchester, a small town outside of Cambridge. Granchester is quaint and calm to say the least, and we found ourselves at a place called “The Orchard”. The Orchard is exactly what its title implies, a beautiful orchard full of pink cherry blossom trees. We spent a day there enjoying tea and scones while sitting, reading, and talking in the sun. With each little breeze, pink petals fluttered their way down making a carpet of the stuff. What can I say but beautiful beautiful beautiful.

Cambridge is a place I could easily live in (although I think I could say that about every place we’ve visited). I love the beauty of its architecture, the liveliness of its college town atmosphere balanced with the calm of its parks, canals, and trails leading into the country. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a biking town either.

In the spirit of sharing a bit of my academic learning on this trip, here is a quote from Graham Greene’s novel “The End of the Affair”. A really beautiful piece of literature written by an interesting and complex man.

“It’s a strange things to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love”