A trip to Cambridge worth all the while

Since I seem to spend a relatively little amount of my time in London actually attending my university (classes are only two hours a week each), I decided to spend my Friday at another famous university — Cambridge.

Probably partially because England is such a small country, there are a ton of great day trips just a short train ride away from London. I have a whole list of places I want to go on the weekends that I’m in town and Cambridge was near the top (likely because I’ve seen it in so many recent movies — The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game, anyone?).

So, on Friday a group of eight of us set out for the town in the late morning (train tickets are way more expensive during rush hour so we decided to sleep in and save some pounds). After about an hour-and-a-half trip, we arrived at the edge of Cambridge and set off to get some lunch.

Cambridge is truly a college town in a way most U.S. college town aren’t. Instead of a campus and with an adjacent city center, Cambridge is kind of both the university and the town all meshed together. Add a bunch of tourists to the mix of students and residents who live there and you have quite an interesting group of people milling around the city.

The town itself is full of adorable little shops with colleges randomly sprinkled throughout. How the university works is you attend one of 31 “colleges,” which you live at, but classes are a mishmosh of everyone. The colleges differ on reputation and how big/famous/rich/old they are.

After walking through town, three of us just stopped to quickly grab some sandwiches and continue exploring. We wandered toward some large, pretty buildings, with a sign outside that said St. John’s College and decided to have a peek in.

Unfortunately, the place charged admission, so we pretended to be students there (it’s not that far from the truth) and snuck in through a side entrance.

The college was incredible. I love USC, but it’s got nothing on Cambridge. St. John’s dormitory alone is more impressive than any building on our campus.

After walking around a bit we met up with the rest of our group to take a punt on the River Cam (which has a lot of bridges, hence Cam-bridge. Punting is an outdated way of getting around in which a punter propels a small, flat-bottomed boat using a pole. It’s still big at Oxford and Cambridge, especially in the summer when it’s nice out. While I can’t say it was a nice temperature out when we were there (it was freezing), the sun was out and the sky was clear. Our punter showed us seven of the major colleges in Cambridge located on the river and filled us in out a lot of the university’s history and famous alum during our ride. Way better than a normal tour if you ask me.

After our punt we desperately needed to warm up so we stopped in a cafe for a spot of tea before attending evensong at King’s College Chapel, the most famous of Cambridge’s chapels (each school has its own). One thing I’ve discovered about famous churches/chapels/abbeys in England is that while they might charge admission during most of the day, they can’t very well expect people to pay to attend services so they’re free at those times.

And though I’m not Christian, it’s cool to experience a building when it’s being used for its intended purpose. This was true at King’s College Chapel. Walking into the building with its amazingly intricate stained glass windows was gorgeous, and this was only enhanced by the beautiful melodies sung by the choir, who I believe were all students in the college. I guess we have a capella groups, they have church choirs.

We ended our day in true English fashion: enjoying ciders in a pub. In addition to chapels, if there’s one thing Cambridge isn’t hurting for, it’s pubs which line many of the blocks of the town along with shops and cafes. This might really be heaven.