Summer 2011 at Cambridge University: July 2011

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Weekend in London #1

Whirlwind tour of many major sites in London - way too much to cover effectively in one blog post! But here goes...

1) Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Albert Memorial. We attempted to go to tea at The Orangery, but it was closed for construction...instead walked around the two adjacent parks, seeing swans on the lake and tons of dogs - very cute! Along the south edge we saw the Albert Memorial across from the Royal Albert Hall - way more spectacular in person than on camera, believe it or not.

2) Tower Bridge - lots of tourists (because it's right near the Tower of London) but lots of great photo ops! There was a beach cleanup on the Thames too, which was fun to see.

3) Tate Modern museum. My favorite pieces were two wonderful Dalis in the Surrealist room (by far my favourite section) and an interesting photo exhibit on "living persons declared dead." There was also an awesome timeline on the third floor showing artist signatures next to each of the movements in modern art. The museum is excellent and completely worth spending half a day inside, though as with most modern art, I only truly liked 5-10% of it. And MoMA is better, unfortunately.

4) St Paul's Cathedral. We weren't able to go past the transepts into the east end or up the tower due to the evensong service, but of course it is a stunning place to be inside. Planning on going back to climb the tower next weekend!

5) Back to Great Dover Street apartments (housing for King's College London). AMAZING deal! 55 pounds for a spacious room with two beds, desk, en suite toilet and shower, and even little shampoos and a bag of tea to take away :)

6) Dinner at a lovely French restaurant near the riverfront - can't remember the name at the moment, though I know it's in Partow's photos. Had an open-faced smoked salmon sandwich, and cream tea for dessert!

7) London Eye. Totally worth the money (and the money for the fast track ticket too, btw - 10 pounds more for a 5 minute wait, as opposed to a 50 minute wait! The view is amazing (especially at dusk). I would do it again, even, despite how expensive it is.

8) Piccadilly Circus. Basically the Times Square of London - lots of glitzy billboards, fancy hotels, theatres, Ripley's Believe it or Not (yuck), Trocadero center, Chinatown...it was starting to get dark while we were there and it was becoming more and more crowded...clearly the place a lot of people go for the nightlife. I don't need to go again now that I've seen it, but I'm glad I did!

9) Next day - British Museum. That's all, because you can spend an entire day in the British Museum and still feel like you've seen 1/10 of it, and absorbed only 1/10 of that. By far my favourite place in London so far, hands down :)

Albert Memorial

The Underground

Tower Bridge

The Thames

Tate Modern atrium

Timeline of modern art in Tate Modern

Millennium Bridge and St Paul's

Great Dover Street apartments

London Eye capsule

View from London Eye

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

M&Ms building at Piccadilly Circus

Gate to Chinatown

London Eye at night

British Museum atrium

Ramses II

Gate to Persepolis (Assyrian)

Easter Island statue

Mummy

Bust of Antinous (Hadrian's lover!)

Week 3 highlights

My apologies for getting so behind on the blog posts! A term paper on Rosslyn Chapel slowed things up quite a bit. Here are the major non-academic highlights of last week:

1) Lecture by Lal Khan, a "political activist and Trotskyite political theorist!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lal_Khan) Crazy to hear a real live Marxist revolutionary talk about current events. He characterized the Arab Spring as the beginning of the socialist revolution in the Middle East, and the war on terror as a construct of capitalist countries that is gradually destroying them from within. He was a very smart guy, and being as liberal as I am I really wanted to believe what he was saying, but I just couldn't take him seriously when he used words like "proletariat" and "socialist revolution" in perfect seriousness. He was also unable to answer intelligent (and typical) questions from the audience, such as "what happens after the socialist revolution?" and my question, "if trickle-down economics and Keynesian economics are ideological theories, then why is a planned economy any more objective or less ideological?"It's too bad that Marxist theorists haven't developed the theory more to address these issues.
2) A Midsummer Night's Dream in the St John's College courtyard. Fantastic!!! The setting was gorgeous (see pictures below), the weather was tolerable, and the actors were excellent and highly entertaining. It was actually by far the lewdest production of a Shakespearean comedy I have ever seen...those of you familiar with the play can probably guess which parts were played up the most! Anyway, I will definitely be attending more of these before I head back to Yale...they happen frequently in the college courtyard over the summer :)
3) Plenary lecture by Professor John Hawkins on "Language and the Law" - in other words, how lawsuits in the US frequently arise over disagreements about language and about the meanings of everyday words, phrases, and sentences (particularly libel and patent cases). He was a very dynamic lecturer and I learned a lot - for example, the word "substantially" has two entirely different meanings which can lead to enormous confusion (and lawyers use phrases like "the wrench-engaging surface is substantially entirely below..." in an effort to clarify the issue, only confusing it further...). So now I have a newfound interest in linguistics!
4) Unexpected fireworks on the King's College backs. The most spectacular show I have ever seen, in fact, and certainly the closest I have ever been! The fireworks were huge, and the show went on for at least 20 minutes. Apparently, although you cannot walk on the grass here, you can shower it with burning embers and shrapnel...!

Pictures! http://www.flickr.com/photos/donnahorning/sets/72157627131235591/

Yo! Sushi

British candy store in Cambridge

Norman round church right in front of the PKP classrooms!

Keynes seminar room

Catholic Church in Cambridge (Neo-Gothic)

St John's Courtyard Shakespeare setting

Best store ever

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Week 2 highlights

As you may be able to tell from the decreasing frequency of my blog posts, work has picked up significantly this week! My classes are great but exhausting, and they move very quickly (already having a midterm in Gothic Architecture next week...). Nevertheless, I was able to do a couple of cool things around Cambridge this week:

1) Cream Tea in the Thomas Gray Room at Pembroke College. Delicious scones, sandwiches, cake, and tea, and an impromptu lecture from PKP Director Alan Dawson on the history of the room (due to a pause in the event caused by running out of jam. By the way, the proper way to make an English scone is jam FIRST, with clotted cream ON TOP. We were strongly advised that preparing the scone the wrong way is social suicide!). He showed us two drawings hidden behind the paneling of the room, including an late 16th century man that looks significantly like my relative, John Foxe! Dr. Dawson was able to determine that John Foxe has a Cambridge connection through the Archbishop Grindal, but it is very unlikely it is actually him since he is in secular dress.

2) Plenary lecture by Sir Richard Dearlove, master of Pembroke College and former director of MI6 (that's the British equivalent of CIA director!). He spoke in generalities (I guess his job doesn't permit him to talk specifics), but there were still some interesting points. He said that the five most important issues facing the world today are 1) demographics (A few statistics he provided: the population of Yemen will overtake that of Russia in 2014, Sub-Saharan Africa will double in size by 2040, and China currently has 38 million more men than women...!!!), 2) food and water supply, 3) energy security, 4) climate change, 5) volatility of international markets, particularly the food market. He also enumerated the five biggest "security threats", including 1) terrorism, 2) nuclear proliferation, 3) unexplained cyber warfare, 4) organized criminality, and 5) economic systemic collapse.

3) Midnight premier of Harry Potter 7, Part II! Spoiler alert: it was fantastic :) I won't say any more online, but it was truly special to see the last one here at a local theater in England, five hours before the entire USA. This will definitely remain a highlight of the entire trip.

4) Gothic Architecture field trip to Ely Cathedral, a short train ride away to the north of Cambridge. I'll put up pictures of the cathedral shortly! It's so nice that we get to do stuff like that for the class. While we were there we were setting up the stage for the "Rave in the Nave," an annual tradition in Ely...pretty hilarious!

5) The Eagle pub, the most popular spot in Cambridge! The atmosphere was very lively and homey (not sketchy or gross at all like an American bar), and there were some really neat features, such as a plaque on the wall marking the spot in the pub where Watson and Crick made their first public announcement that they had discovered the essence of life itself, DNA! There was also a room in the back where members of the Royal Air Force (British and American) signed their names on the ceiling the night before they left to bomb Germany. It's crazy how much history there is in Cambridge.

Pictures at this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/donnahorning/sets/72157627199369822/ and this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/donnahorning/sets/72157627206091320/