I woke up early this morning and took a train to Cambridge. I've never been there, but as a little girl I used to dream about attending Oxford or Cambridge and getting swept away by the intellectual fervor of their hallowed halls. Part of me wanted that same magical feeling today as well. I arrive in Cambridge to be confronted with a city that felt like a big fight between the bustling population of people on bicycles and the bus drivers who were constantly dodging them. After a few false starts, I managed to get turned around in the right direction, made it to the charming city centre (really, it was very cute), and managed to work my way to the older colleges.
Cambridge is set up much like my alma mater was. I went to the Claremont Colleges, but within them, there were individual institutions that had their own personality, faculty, and campuses. One could take classes at other colleges, but really felt a belonging to just one. Cambridge is divided up into a crazy number of tiny colleges, some as old as the fifteenth century.
When one begins to walk through the medieval portions of town, passages get smaller, the alleyways become walkways, and the gargoyle-bedecked buildings seem to swallow passersby. I was loving this -- soaking it in. I could picture myself in this place (granted it would take me at least a year to figure out where I was going). On the down side, if you doesn't know where you are going in this town, you're basically screwed. Walk through an archway? You may have just entered a college. Duck into a tiny door in the middle of a medieval gate? You enter the library or your professor's office. It's awesome, but only if you're amongst those who know where everything is. All the while, college members are flitting about in their robes (yes, readers, they look like graduation robes, but one wears them during certain functions and the like).
After asking many, many groundspeople where the library was, a kind gentleman directed me to correct door. It was there that my day deteriorated. To make a long story short, and also not to whine at you, Trinity College Library had misplaced my reservation, were overbooked, and one person in particular was a royal ass to me. In 5 minutes, my girlish dreams of reading medieval manuscripts at a medieval college were dashed and replaced with a strong desire to jump over the reception area and strangle the man who was doing his college no favors as a welcome squad. I managed to look at some manuscripts for a few hours, including a kick ass medieval roll (really, a scroll.
I was supposed to spend the weekend at Cambridge, but honestly, I was in no mood to wander around the city anymore. I hopped on a train and came back to London. I am treating myself to a date tonight. I'm going to my favorite chicken joint, Nando's for some spicy, spicy chicken and then I'm going to see Ne Le Dis a Personne / Tell No One, a French thriller. Hopefully, my day will end better than it began!
3 comments:
I'm sorry to read about this! What a disappointment. I hope you'll go back and will have a more successful trip next time.
Hey, btw, that picture in your Flikr account that says "A college? A church?" is King's College and its chapel. Yeah, that's right, *chapel*. Amazing, isn't it? That's the one that I said screams "Behold our prestige and wealth!" But the older, richer colleges that turn all their sumptuous inside, where you can't see it unless you're allowed past the porter's lodge, look at it and say, "Stop being so ostentatious, really, it's tacky."
OK, institutions can't really talk, but this is what I imagine them saying if they could!
Dr. V, your comment made me giggle. That's EXACTLY what those buildings said.
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