Summer 2011 at Cambridge University: 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/