Cambridge

Today we went to Cambridge and it was quite the adventure. We all met early at King's Cross Station so that we could take photos as Platform 9 3/4. It's not really, because it's just a photo op thing set up by Platform 8, but we went anyways. When we got on our train (it was supposed to be an express), we learned that there'd been a "fatality" at a station earlier, and so we'd been put on the main line and it would be slower. Later, we got stopped completely because apparently a train had passed the station where the incident had occured and "seen body parts" so they'd stopped all the trains. Eventually, they got it sufficiently cleaned up, but they needed our train back in London, so they switched us to another train.

We finally made it to London close to two hours late and were met at St. John's college (the site of the origins of Cambridge, but not the first college) by one of Professor Cooke's collegues- Frank I think. He showed us around the college and then took us to lunch. It was quite a posh affair, and the only things I really like about it was the Elderflower drink, the scones with clotted cream, and the chocolate mousse with mango. Then he took us to Jesus College to see some Morris stained glass. On our way to the chapel, we walked past a courtyard with some interesting sculpture. It looked vaguely familiar to me, and lo and behold, it was Anslem Keifer! (We had some of his work at MoCA last summer). I was practically bouncing up and down with excitement. It was definitely one of the best things about the trip, even though it was so coincidental.


Then we headed over to Queens' College for some more stained glass. The best part of it all was talking to Frank as we walked from place to place about Cambridge and various other things. The funniest moment was when we walked past this shop and there was a green tweed jacket in the window that he quite admired. When he noticed that is was only 45 pounds, he mused if they had it in his size. It was adorable.
After our official tour, some of us wanted to go punting on the river, but when we heard how expensive it was and it began to rain, we all headed to cafes, some of us to wait out the rain, and others like myself to abondon it altogether. I had some Darjeeling and lemon tea cake then headed out to meander to the station. I stopped into some shops on the way and took a back way through the residential area of Cambridge which was quaint and so British. I still made it to the station about 30 minutes before our train and set about to sketching a nearby building. Eventually everyone made it to the station and we headed back without incident.
I'm not sure exactly why, but I think I prefer Cambridge to Oxford.