Episode 10 – Cambridge (Part 2)

Once again, I’m in a pub. It is now officially miserable weather here in Oxford – it’s raining, and thundering, and there are massive puddles everywhere. My jeans were soaked almost as soon as I stepped out of my room, and even worse by the time I got to the library. This morning I looked at some letters on microfilm, and now I’m having a lunch break before going back to devour more manuscripts. This pub is nice and cosy, and has good soup (potato & leek today), so I thought it would be a good place to warm up for awhile.

Now that you’ve heard about my extremely exciting times in the Cambridge University Library (did I mention that it’s a fairly modern building, but has doors and corridors and different wings everywhere, and it took me until the third day to find my way around?), I can move on to the rest of my time, when I was engaged in less academic activities.

St John's College Chapel, Cambridge

On Monday and Tuesday nights I hung out in the Eagle pub writing blog posts on my laptop. On Wednesday night, I had the pleasure of meeting the delightful Sophie for dinner. I met Sophie at the BSHS conference in Manchester, where we presented our papers in the same session. Sophie has recently completed a PhD (at the University of Leeds) on the natural philosophy of Francis Bacon, and is now a junior research fellow at one of the colleges in Cambridge. She was in London at a Greek language course during the day, but we met in the evening in town, and went to a pizza place next to Parker’s Piece (basically a playing field – apparently students of the university are not allowed to use it, as a concession to the town people who thought the university students had too many privileges – both Oxford and Cambridge have experienced conflicts between “town and gown”). I had a lovely evening with Sophie, and we agreed to meet up on the Saturday afternoon to go punting on the Cam.

On Thursday, I took things quite easy. I spent the morning checking and replying to emails, and catching up on blog reading. I went for a wander in the afternoon, but didn’t do very much. I browsed in a few shops, purchased a nice silver ring, bought a sandwich, salad and fruit for my lunch and dinner from Marks & Spencers, and then went back to my room for a nap. I had considered going to a service at Emmanuel College Chapel, but didn’t feel like getting out of bed. So I had a very lazy evening, reading and watching Lost on my laptop, and went to bed early. I spent Friday morning sorting through all the paper I had accumulated so far, working out what I had to keep and what I could throw out. In the afternoon, I was working on an application for funding from CASE to attend the Christians in Science/American Scientific Affiliation conference in Edinburgh in August. One that was done, I decided I deserved a drink and a nice dinner – at the Eagle, again! It was quite busy that night, and the only table I could get was literally in the old fireplace. It was kind of cosy, but got a bit too warm after awhile, so I didn’t stay long. I had a fabulous steak & Guinness pie, and a pint of cider, and then went back to my room for another early night.

Near the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Saturday was my tourist day. I wandered around some of the shops in the morning, and bought a pair of flat black sandals to replace the ones I’d brought with me that broke while I was in London. Next I walked down to the Scott Polar Research Institute Museum – not a very big place, but some quite interesting exhibits about expeditions to the North and South Poles. There were letters from Scott’s party in their attempt to reach the South Pole – people writing to the family of the explorers who had died, saying that they had died a noble and honourable death, and the last letters written home by a number of these people. After that I went to the Fitzwilliam Museum, passing the house where Charles Darwin lived on the way. It’s a beautiful building, and has some very interesting exhibits – quite a wide range of things, from Egyptian mummies and coffins to Picasso paintings. Best of all, it wasn’t too large, so I managed to walk around most of it, even though I was already getting tired. At 2:30pm there was an introductory tour that I considered joining, even though I would have been rushing to meet Sophie at 4pm. I thought it would be interesting to hear a little more detail about the collection. Unfortunately, the tour cost £6, which I was too cheap to pay, so I wandered around a little more, and then headed back to my room, before taking off again to meet Sophie.

Sophie lives in Cambridge, and had never been punting on the Cam. I do not live in Cambridge, but I have been punting on the Cam. To be fair, I’ve been to Cambridge twice before this trip (once purely as a tourist) whereas Sophie has only lived there since last October. However, I believed that this was a gap in her experience that had to be filled, so we wandered down towards Magdalene Bridge, and accepted the first tout we came across, hot-footed it down to a waiting punt, and off we went. Unfortunately we were facing backwards, which was not ideal, but it was still very pleasant. I enjoyed it very much, and I think Sophie did too, although she said the highlight was went our punter lost his stick! Even though it was so packed on the river, at that particular time, there were no punts heading back in our direction to bring the stick, so we were stuck there for a bit, just sitting idle.

In a punt on the River Cam

There are always interesting sights to be seen on the river. In addition to the colleges, gardens and bridges, we saw a wedding party, what we thought was a hens party (we wondered how much they’d paid to have their punters punting in their underwear...), people falling into the river, other people losing sticks, and plenty of collisions. Unfortunately the sun got to us a little, and both Sophie and I ended up with slight headaches. However, some Nurofen soon took care of that (for me at least) and we went to have dinner at a Turkish place near the river. Again, it was very pleasant spending time talking with Sophie. She’s a very lovely girl, and it seemed that we had quite a lot in common. I learnt a lot about the history of science profession in England (for example, how early modern studies seems to be unfashionable at the moment compared with 19th century history of science; which, according to Peter Harrison, professor of science and religion at Oxford, is “dull as dishwater”), and got some tips about applying for junior research fellowships. I do hope to live and work in England for a few years at some point in the future, and I certainly hope to be able to catch up with Sophie again.

The Bridge of Sighs, Cambridge

On Sunday morning, I decided not to go to church, as the services were all quite late in the morning, and I had to get the bus into Oxford. I packed my bags and walked to the bus station, stopping on the way to call my parents. The bus ride was not particularly pleasant. For starters, the bus was full of noisy Spanish (I think) students. Also, it’s a rather long trip, with lots of roundabouts. For someone like me who is prone to motion sickness, that is not good. Still, I survived, and my trusty iPod kept me entertained on the way (when I wasn’t napping). Once in Oxford I took a taxi to Mansfield College where I’m staying, had a nap and then went out to church. I’ll leave that for the next episode – On Oxford!