Greetings from Cambridge

As with all trips through the University we started this particular one at 7am in a down pour.  The farther we drove the rain just seemed to follow us and it wasn't looking like we were going to have a sunny bright day of looking at the city of Cambridge. However, after 3 hours, one stop and umbrellas in hand we set out.  Now the first thing you learn when going to Cambridge, it is not one huge city wide University it is in all actuality 32 smaller colleges that make up the city and main University of Cambridge. There are only of few of the main colleges that are really worth going in and looking at we started at King's College King's was founded in 1441 by King Henry VI, and next to that is the Kings Chapel and it was built over a period of a hundred years (1446–1531).

Walking out of the chapel we walked more towards the city center, now in Cambridge this is not a hard thing since the city is very small, the popular mode of transportation is on the bike. Though they do have buses and streets for cars they are small and narrow and as a pedestrian you really do have to look  out for the buses coming down the street. The first thing that we all see that we want to look at is the Mr Simms Old Sweet Shoppe. Now this isn't an old shop but it is a throw back to the candy stores of the past and oh how we loved it.

Maria, Me, Emma, Martina. We were so happy to be 1 out of the rain and 2 looking at all the Chocolate!











Heading down the stairs to see more candy and more chocolate! So yummy! Now of course we couldn't leave the shop with out buying something to snack on! Joe (who is missing from these pictures) bought something of other, Maria lemon chocolate bar and a chocolate hedgehog. Me now I think that is would have been a sin if I didn't buy something at this form of heaven, so I left with chocolate truffles, sour gummy worms, and a chocolate hedgehog. All in all it was yummy and fun to look around. After this we walked through two street markets, were I saw many things I wanted but I was good and kept saying to myself I will shop in Paris and London. Now Joe and Maria much to Joe's delight got street vendor hot dogs which I wish I had a picture of since they were HUGE. But the rest of us just wanted to sit at a pub and eat food and get a drink. And you know that was just what we did after walking in two huge circles and looking at several places we found a table and a pub that I now have no memory of the name.  It was here that we all got to dry out and eat, and eat some more for Joe at least. Oh and try some Cider,

which was delicious and I think I have found my drink of choice!
After leaving the pub fed and dry we decided that we didn't want to walk to each (and pay to get into) the different colleges so we did a very Cambridge thing to do, we went Punting. Punting down the river takes you around the backs of all the colleges and so you just have to pay one fee and not five or so. Now this was fun, out captain, really I have no idea what to call him other than the guy with the big stick that pushes the boat. He was fun, and knew a lot about the area and was able to answer all our questions and entertain us with funny pranks the students pulled at the school.

Here is Martina and Maria all nice and snug for our river trip , and our fearless leader who to date had never fallen off of a punt and yes secretly I wished I could see someone fall off as long as it wasn't me.






 This is the Bridge of Sighs, their are two stories one that the prisoners had to walk across this before being killed and it was the last day light they saw and so they sighed, and the second one is this is the bridge the students have to walk across to take their exams... somewhat the same story :) 

 This door had quite the funny story to it. One of the classes wanted to play a prank on the new freshers and so they set off the fire alarm but had pointed all the fire exit signs to this door and they all fell into the river. On the other side wall there was a banner that said welcome to Kings College and the upper class men were standing there laughing.

And this was our side of the boat, we didn't get a blanket, however, my sad lil face got us one since we hadn't left yet. And I don't know what Joe is doing.... haha it was fun!
This trip in a whole even though the sun never did come out and it was very damp was very fun and beautiful.