So, if I haven't talked about how much I love the Gates community, let me do it now. It is amazing. Besides the fact that the people are amazing, the community is incredibly active at Cambridge. We have student run events just about every week (this weekend, for example, we had a Dance Party in a club in town on friday night and then "golfing" on sunday). Also, whenever I'm out at a pub, it inevitably becomes a Gates event. Even when I was on the Churchill Pub Crawl, when we ended up at the Maypole, the group was basically half Gates people from different colleges.
Then, on Sunday night, we went "golfing" around to some rooms of Gates scholars. I'll admit this did instill in my quite a bit of envy, especially upon seeing the palatial rooms of a girl who lives in Trinity. She has a separate bedroom and sitting room, with a fire place, and a mural on the ceiling. But I still really like my country house and having a home a little separate from work. Regardless, my point is that the Gates is awesome and I'm so lucky to have this opportunity, not just to be here, but to be around such great people!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Super Hall
In my last post, I showed a picture of our dining hall. It was only set up for a regular dinner, but three times a week we have optional (slightly more expensive but with better food) Formal Halls. Of these three, friday night's is a "Super Hall," as since this Friday's was the first one of term, it was particularly well attended.
While many other colleges have a "high table" where the Master and the Fellows sit, it was specified that Churchill will have no such thing. So the table for those important people is at the same level as everyone else, which I quite like.
Basically, for formal hall, you get quite dressed up (although we don't wear robes at Churchill, other colleges do) and have a nice three course dinner with all of your friends. However, there are some traditions associated with these halls that make them more than just a nice meal.
First, the grace is always given before the meal in Latin. Some colleges have long ones, but again, because we're chill, ours is quite short.
There's also a "game" associated with formal hall called "pennying." This is a game whereby you drop a penny in someone's wine glass and they then have to drink the whole glass right there. It's because the Queen's head is on the penny, and you wouldn't want the Queen to drown in your glass so you have to get rid of the liquid quickly. Since I had never heard of this game before, I got pennyed quite a few times...
At the end of the meal, a gong rings, and you all stand up, and toast: To the Queen, to the Master, to Lord Winston (maybe in that order, I forget). And then the meal is over. This time though, it was also our Master's birthday, so we sang to him before he left!
Formal Hall is quite a lovely tradition and I'm excited to get to see how it is done in other colleges. The MCRs at each college often organize formal swaps, so on one day all the Churchillians go to another college, and then we host them here some other time. Plus a lot of my friends are in different colleges, so I'm trying to swing invitations!
While many other colleges have a "high table" where the Master and the Fellows sit, it was specified that Churchill will have no such thing. So the table for those important people is at the same level as everyone else, which I quite like.
Basically, for formal hall, you get quite dressed up (although we don't wear robes at Churchill, other colleges do) and have a nice three course dinner with all of your friends. However, there are some traditions associated with these halls that make them more than just a nice meal.
First, the grace is always given before the meal in Latin. Some colleges have long ones, but again, because we're chill, ours is quite short.
There's also a "game" associated with formal hall called "pennying." This is a game whereby you drop a penny in someone's wine glass and they then have to drink the whole glass right there. It's because the Queen's head is on the penny, and you wouldn't want the Queen to drown in your glass so you have to get rid of the liquid quickly. Since I had never heard of this game before, I got pennyed quite a few times...
At the end of the meal, a gong rings, and you all stand up, and toast: To the Queen, to the Master, to Lord Winston (maybe in that order, I forget). And then the meal is over. This time though, it was also our Master's birthday, so we sang to him before he left!
Formal Hall is quite a lovely tradition and I'm excited to get to see how it is done in other colleges. The MCRs at each college often organize formal swaps, so on one day all the Churchillians go to another college, and then we host them here some other time. Plus a lot of my friends are in different colleges, so I'm trying to swing invitations!
1. Churchill College
Hi Everyone,
So I know that this blog hasn't been super active recently. Ironically, it seems like as activity in my life goes up, the amount I write about it goes down. Consequently, this post will likely be quite long, as the past few weeks have been insanely busy.
In honor of my attempt to review all 31 of the Cambridge colleges (remember that?), I thought I'd start out with obviously the best one, my college, Churchill!
Some of you may be saying, "What's the deal with these colleges?" The deal is that the University of Cambridge is divided into 31 residential colleges. While the University is the home of your academics, the colleges are basically your social life while you are here (although I feel really lucky to know people at a bunch of different colleges through the Gates community). Everyone in the same college lives and eats together (mostly) and members of a college have certain privileges there that other students of the University don't (although these are nebulous and kind of hard to figure out). Each college also has a really distinct personality, in a way that I definitely did not expect when I was planning to come here. I think a lot of American students don't think a lot about the college system and just pick one haphazardly, but if you are considering studying in Cambridge, I'd urge you to learn a little about the colleges and make an informed choice.
That being said, Churchill College is obviously the best college here, because it's the one that I'm in (your own college is always the best for you). It is one of the newer colleges (founded in 1960) and was conceived of by Winston Churchill to be the Cambridge equivalent of MIT. Thus, 70% of the students here at the College are science/technology/engineering/math etc., and about 1/3 are graduate students. This means that we have quite a strong graduate community here (called the MCR, or middle combination room. More on this later). It also means that I spend most of my time around scientists and engineers, which is super different than being at Amherst!
Each of the colleges has it's own seal and it's own colors. Our are pink and brown, which used to be Winston Churchill's racing colors. The seal is also pretty cool, and the motto is 'Forward' (appropriate for a college mostly focused on science). Statistically, we are the college with the largest grounds (really nice ones, where you actually can walk on the grass, as opposed to at other places! And we have trees planted by both Sir Winston and his daughter) and the largest dining hall apparently...
The college also has some random quirks, history stuff (as does basically every college here). Since I went on both a tour of the college and did a scavenger hunt last weekend, I've been freshly exposed to all of this fun stuff!
In our archives, we have all of Winston Churchill's papers, plus Margaret Thatcher's as well. We also have a bunch of letters from Rosalind Franklin (if you don't know who that is, make sure to check out the link! she was really important in the search for the structure of DNA). We are also slotted to get a new set of prime minister's papers. We don't know whose they are yet, but it has been rumored that they're Tony Blair's.
While we're on the subject of Rosalind Franklin and the structure of DNA, it's worth mentioning that Francis Crick (of Watson and Crick) was one of the founding fellows of Churchill College. All colleges here have chapels associated with them, but Crick was appalled at the idea of a religious institution being associated with a college devoted to the sciences. When some fellows argued that the chapel would simply be there for those who wanted to use it, Crick suggested that they also build a brothel on the college property, for people who wanted to use that. Needless to say, that idea was shouted down. But, to this day, we do not have a "Churchill College Chapel." We do have a chapel "at Churchill College," but it is administered by a completely separate organization.
Another strange/cool thing about Churchill is that there is tons of random modern art around. If you walk through the grounds, you encounter multiple pieces of modern sculpture, including these:
But that's about Churchill generally. What exactly do I do here?
Well, first of all, I live here, in a cute little British house with four housemates. The graduate housing here is really nice, and we even have internet in our rooms, a rarity I've been told. I've finally begun to decorate my room so now it feels a little bit more like a home. We have a cute kitchen and a garden in the back that has pear and apple trees. While Churchill is kind of far from the center of town, it is sometimes nice to have a home that is separate from work and all the business of tourists etc. Plus, since I've gotten a bike (best thing to do here!), my commute is now only about 15 minutes door to door.
Since "Fresher's Week" just ended, I have tons to say about hanging out in College. I've gotten to know a lot of the grad students here through events thrown by the MCR. Everyone is really nice and we have a particularly active MCR, including a bar called "The Vicious Penguin." We've had a bunch of events this week, including a Curry and Quiz night, a pub crawl, and many movie and game nights. We also had two big events, but since this post is getting quite long, I'll split up and talk about them next!
So I know that this blog hasn't been super active recently. Ironically, it seems like as activity in my life goes up, the amount I write about it goes down. Consequently, this post will likely be quite long, as the past few weeks have been insanely busy.
In honor of my attempt to review all 31 of the Cambridge colleges (remember that?), I thought I'd start out with obviously the best one, my college, Churchill!
Some of you may be saying, "What's the deal with these colleges?" The deal is that the University of Cambridge is divided into 31 residential colleges. While the University is the home of your academics, the colleges are basically your social life while you are here (although I feel really lucky to know people at a bunch of different colleges through the Gates community). Everyone in the same college lives and eats together (mostly) and members of a college have certain privileges there that other students of the University don't (although these are nebulous and kind of hard to figure out). Each college also has a really distinct personality, in a way that I definitely did not expect when I was planning to come here. I think a lot of American students don't think a lot about the college system and just pick one haphazardly, but if you are considering studying in Cambridge, I'd urge you to learn a little about the colleges and make an informed choice.
That being said, Churchill College is obviously the best college here, because it's the one that I'm in (your own college is always the best for you). It is one of the newer colleges (founded in 1960) and was conceived of by Winston Churchill to be the Cambridge equivalent of MIT. Thus, 70% of the students here at the College are science/technology/engineering/math etc., and about 1/3 are graduate students. This means that we have quite a strong graduate community here (called the MCR, or middle combination room. More on this later). It also means that I spend most of my time around scientists and engineers, which is super different than being at Amherst!
Each of the colleges has it's own seal and it's own colors. Our are pink and brown, which used to be Winston Churchill's racing colors. The seal is also pretty cool, and the motto is 'Forward' (appropriate for a college mostly focused on science). Statistically, we are the college with the largest grounds (really nice ones, where you actually can walk on the grass, as opposed to at other places! And we have trees planted by both Sir Winston and his daughter) and the largest dining hall apparently...
 |
| Here's a picture of the dining hall set up for just a normal night's dinner. For Formal Halls it gets a lot fancier! |
Here are the trees planted by Lady Soames (left) and Sir Winston (right).
The college also has some random quirks, history stuff (as does basically every college here). Since I went on both a tour of the college and did a scavenger hunt last weekend, I've been freshly exposed to all of this fun stuff!
In our archives, we have all of Winston Churchill's papers, plus Margaret Thatcher's as well. We also have a bunch of letters from Rosalind Franklin (if you don't know who that is, make sure to check out the link! she was really important in the search for the structure of DNA). We are also slotted to get a new set of prime minister's papers. We don't know whose they are yet, but it has been rumored that they're Tony Blair's.
While we're on the subject of Rosalind Franklin and the structure of DNA, it's worth mentioning that Francis Crick (of Watson and Crick) was one of the founding fellows of Churchill College. All colleges here have chapels associated with them, but Crick was appalled at the idea of a religious institution being associated with a college devoted to the sciences. When some fellows argued that the chapel would simply be there for those who wanted to use it, Crick suggested that they also build a brothel on the college property, for people who wanted to use that. Needless to say, that idea was shouted down. But, to this day, we do not have a "Churchill College Chapel." We do have a chapel "at Churchill College," but it is administered by a completely separate organization.
Another strange/cool thing about Churchill is that there is tons of random modern art around. If you walk through the grounds, you encounter multiple pieces of modern sculpture, including these:
But that's about Churchill generally. What exactly do I do here?
Well, first of all, I live here, in a cute little British house with four housemates. The graduate housing here is really nice, and we even have internet in our rooms, a rarity I've been told. I've finally begun to decorate my room so now it feels a little bit more like a home. We have a cute kitchen and a garden in the back that has pear and apple trees. While Churchill is kind of far from the center of town, it is sometimes nice to have a home that is separate from work and all the business of tourists etc. Plus, since I've gotten a bike (best thing to do here!), my commute is now only about 15 minutes door to door.
Since "Fresher's Week" just ended, I have tons to say about hanging out in College. I've gotten to know a lot of the grad students here through events thrown by the MCR. Everyone is really nice and we have a particularly active MCR, including a bar called "The Vicious Penguin." We've had a bunch of events this week, including a Curry and Quiz night, a pub crawl, and many movie and game nights. We also had two big events, but since this post is getting quite long, I'll split up and talk about them next!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Freakish and Amazing
I know I recently posted a list of things that I don't really like about being here, and it's true that living in a foreign country is weirdly challenging at times. However, it is also often freakishly amazing, particularly when you are living at Cambridge University. This can manifest itself in many ways, but one of the key ones is the density of famous people here. Not only does Cambridge draw some of the most interesting people from all fields to come and lecture (Sydney Brenner is giving a talk this month!) but day to day life here is fraught with celebrities.
For example, the other night, on the way into town to meet friends, I saw Stephen Hawking. No big deal, he was just being wheeled around on King's Parade. A man walking next to me said "Good evening Professor Hawking." I was torn whether or not to a.) take a picture, b.) awkwardly walk up and say something embarrassing like "wow, you're stephen hawking", or c.) just keep following him. Clearly I chose option c.
That was pretty cool (read awesome), but then the next day something equally awesome happened. I was reading the Times online and they had an article about Robert Edwards who just won the Nobel in Medicine for pioneering in vitro fertilization. It was interesting, so I was reading the article, and turns out Dr. Edwards did a lot of his work at Cambridge. Cool. But Cambridge is a big place right? Well, it turns out that Dr. Edwards is in fact a fellow at Churchill College! Haven't seen him yet, but I'm still hoping!
For example, the other night, on the way into town to meet friends, I saw Stephen Hawking. No big deal, he was just being wheeled around on King's Parade. A man walking next to me said "Good evening Professor Hawking." I was torn whether or not to a.) take a picture, b.) awkwardly walk up and say something embarrassing like "wow, you're stephen hawking", or c.) just keep following him. Clearly I chose option c.
That was pretty cool (read awesome), but then the next day something equally awesome happened. I was reading the Times online and they had an article about Robert Edwards who just won the Nobel in Medicine for pioneering in vitro fertilization. It was interesting, so I was reading the article, and turns out Dr. Edwards did a lot of his work at Cambridge. Cool. But Cambridge is a big place right? Well, it turns out that Dr. Edwards is in fact a fellow at Churchill College! Haven't seen him yet, but I'm still hoping!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Punting and Resolutions
So, this weekend we had probably the nicest day we've had since I got here almost two weeks ago. Saturday was sunny and beautiful and I jumped at the chance to explore some of the older colleges a bit more. I'm still not sure what the rules are for university students to visit other colleges, so I am taking it as my rule that if no one stops me, I'll go wherever I want and it was fun to just wander through the gothic halls of Kings, Trinity, Clare, St. Johns, and other gorgeous old colleges.
In the afternoon on Saturday, the Churchill college MCR (basically the grad student society) organized a trip to go punting on the Cam. As I'm sure you all read my link from the last post, you already know that punting is where you go on the river with a really shallow boat and one person uses a huge pole to both propel you forward and steer. There are guys who give professional punting tours, complete with historical facts about all of the colleges (many of them totally bogus). However, we did not have that, so we had to punt ourselves. This turned out to be really great fun, and yield many pictures (some slightly embarrassing). Here are some of them:
In the afternoon on Saturday, the Churchill college MCR (basically the grad student society) organized a trip to go punting on the Cam. As I'm sure you all read my link from the last post, you already know that punting is where you go on the river with a really shallow boat and one person uses a huge pole to both propel you forward and steer. There are guys who give professional punting tours, complete with historical facts about all of the colleges (many of them totally bogus). However, we did not have that, so we had to punt ourselves. This turned out to be really great fun, and yield many pictures (some slightly embarrassing). Here are some of them:
So these pictures are of me punting, the "Mathematical Bridge" (apparently designed so that it doesn't need to be held together by nails, even though it is...), and two other buildings which I don't remember what they are. I think the one on the left belongs to Trinity and the bridges on the right are from St. John's.
On the punting outing, listening to the punters pedal their made-up history, I realized that I actually wanted to know stuff about these colleges, my own but also all of the other ones. When I was in Italy, I really liked that I had all of this information to put on here, about all of the museums and the art. So I'm going to try and do a post on each of the colleges here. Hopefully these posts will be accompanied by me actually having done something at each of the colleges, but there are 31 of them, so that might not happen. It is so nice to have friends at a bunch of different colleges through the Gates, so hopefully I'll be able to impose on them to show me the fun things to do at each college. I bought a little book that has short histories of each college yesterday, so I think that I'm well on my way to making this resolution a reality. Although, we'll see what happens when work starts up again...
Burned by England
So, I've been super positive about my life here so far. And it's pretty hard not to be, meeting such amazing people and living in such a beautiful place. But it isn't all fun and games here. There are many ways that this country (and life outside the Amherst bubble in general) is designed to screw with a naive American girl like me, and I thought that you might enjoy reading a little bit about it:
1. Sides of the road: Just a refresher, they drive on the left here. In the US, they drive on the right, and therefore my "survival instinct" to look to the left when crossing the street has almost gotten me killed multiple times since I've been here. I'm not sure what'll happen when I start riding a bike...
2. Automatic locking doors: Maybe this isn't an England thing, but just a non-Amherst thing, but my door automatically locks behind me. This was kind of a problem the other night when I went to the bathroom in my PJs and returned to find my door locked. My next door neighbor was kind enough to lend me shoes and a coat to walk to the porter's lodge to get an extra key. The porters made quite a bit of fun of me. They were entitled.
3. Getting wet: Just about every day here involves getting wet. Sometimes it's expected, like when we went punting, and other times it is a gorgeous sunny day and then it suddenly starts raining. I hope my shoes dry quickly because right now I don't really know which ones I'll be able to wear tomorrow.
4. Metered everything: Stuff here is "metered." That means they keep track of how much electricity, heat, and internet you use so they can charge you accordingly. The free internet limit is 1 GB, which is actually quite a bit unless you, say, try to download an episode of Bones from iTunes. Then you get back from the bathroom to find it's done downloading and you've been charged 16 quid (pounds, for laymen) for overuse of internet.
5. "Crawling" (and drinking in general): so this is a term I never heard before I got here. Basically I have learned that "crawling" means walking around to different locations, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol at each of them. We had a "Hostel Crawl" last night at my college (Churchill), where we stopped at each of the graduate houses and played drinking games. Each hostel was themed a different country with a different liquor for each (UK = gin and tonics, Australia = beer, Russia = vodka, etc. My hostel was Mexico = tequila, thank you RC seniors for teaching me how to drink tequila so I didn't make a fool of myself!). Needless to say this didn't end well for many people, although I stayed relatively fine throughout the night. Of course, afterwards we went to the pub. It was raining. We got wet.
6. Banks: Apparently when you cash a check here, your bank takes 5 business days (which do not include Saturday or Sunday) to process it before you get your money. This is why I still do not own sheets or a bike.
7. Two tap sinks: This makes no sense to me. The sink in my room (yes, I have a sink in my room) has two taps: one for freezing cold water, one for scalding hot water. What if I want in-between-temperature water? Yes, I know, you're supposed to fill the basin up, but that is a pain and it would make so much more sense to just have one tap.
I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I've thought of so far. Funnily, despite all of the difficulties, I still love living here. I guess when you are around awesome people being wet or broke or locked out of your room in the middle of the night don't bother you so much.
1. Sides of the road: Just a refresher, they drive on the left here. In the US, they drive on the right, and therefore my "survival instinct" to look to the left when crossing the street has almost gotten me killed multiple times since I've been here. I'm not sure what'll happen when I start riding a bike...
2. Automatic locking doors: Maybe this isn't an England thing, but just a non-Amherst thing, but my door automatically locks behind me. This was kind of a problem the other night when I went to the bathroom in my PJs and returned to find my door locked. My next door neighbor was kind enough to lend me shoes and a coat to walk to the porter's lodge to get an extra key. The porters made quite a bit of fun of me. They were entitled.
3. Getting wet: Just about every day here involves getting wet. Sometimes it's expected, like when we went punting, and other times it is a gorgeous sunny day and then it suddenly starts raining. I hope my shoes dry quickly because right now I don't really know which ones I'll be able to wear tomorrow.
4. Metered everything: Stuff here is "metered." That means they keep track of how much electricity, heat, and internet you use so they can charge you accordingly. The free internet limit is 1 GB, which is actually quite a bit unless you, say, try to download an episode of Bones from iTunes. Then you get back from the bathroom to find it's done downloading and you've been charged 16 quid (pounds, for laymen) for overuse of internet.
5. "Crawling" (and drinking in general): so this is a term I never heard before I got here. Basically I have learned that "crawling" means walking around to different locations, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol at each of them. We had a "Hostel Crawl" last night at my college (Churchill), where we stopped at each of the graduate houses and played drinking games. Each hostel was themed a different country with a different liquor for each (UK = gin and tonics, Australia = beer, Russia = vodka, etc. My hostel was Mexico = tequila, thank you RC seniors for teaching me how to drink tequila so I didn't make a fool of myself!). Needless to say this didn't end well for many people, although I stayed relatively fine throughout the night. Of course, afterwards we went to the pub. It was raining. We got wet.
6. Banks: Apparently when you cash a check here, your bank takes 5 business days (which do not include Saturday or Sunday) to process it before you get your money. This is why I still do not own sheets or a bike.
7. Two tap sinks: This makes no sense to me. The sink in my room (yes, I have a sink in my room) has two taps: one for freezing cold water, one for scalding hot water. What if I want in-between-temperature water? Yes, I know, you're supposed to fill the basin up, but that is a pain and it would make so much more sense to just have one tap.
I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I've thought of so far. Funnily, despite all of the difficulties, I still love living here. I guess when you are around awesome people being wet or broke or locked out of your room in the middle of the night don't bother you so much.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Retreat Number Two: Essex with the Gurdon
So, last night I just got back from my second retreat in one week. This one was a little closer (in Essex as opposed to the Lake District) but was just as fun. When asked what would be happening at this overnight retreat I replied that we would likely be talking about a lot of science and doing a lot of drinking. And I was basically right. There were science talks all day and a poster presentation in the evening. Then there was a disco (which I'm starting to think is just the generic British word for party) in the evening. It was so great to get to know all of my new labmates in such a fun environment. The party was super fun, except that the DJ was miserable and sometimes I thought I was in a flashback to middle school bat mitzvahs (think, YMCA). It also helped A LOT to hear all of them talk about their posters and to hear my advisor give her talk. When I went into work today I really appreciated already knowing everyone, so I'm glad I went even though it left me completely exhausted.
And when I got back to Cambridge on Thursday night, I had to immediately get ready for the welcome dinner being put on by my scholarship. The Provost of the Trust is changing right now, so the new Provost, who is also the Master of Fitzwilliam College, hosted a formal dinner at his college. It was one of those experiences that you stereotypically envision when you think of "Cambridge." Everyone was dressed up and we sat at long tables with assigned seating. All the napkins had the college crest on them and we each had like 4 forks (this caused me some problems). We drank wine, ate great food, listened to speeches, toasted the outgoing Provost, and then drank port. It was quite lovely. Then we went out to the pub, which I think I've done every night since I got here. Needless to say tonight is a needed break.
Today was pretty slow, especially as I just think I need some time to recover from the intensity that has been the past couple of days. I've been in England a little over a week but have slept in my own bed for maybe only two nights, so my room is still pretty bare and disorganized. I still need to buy sheets and a bike and other necessities, so I think that will need to happen either this weekend or next week (at least I managed to get a phone today!). "Freshers week," which is the equivalent of orientation here, starts tomorrow, so I'll probably be just as busy for a while, but hopefully the errands will get done in between trips to "punt" on the Cam (look it up) and pub crawls (yes, more pubs. It's a big deal here). Then work starts and things will hopefully settle down a bit.
I'm still really behind with pictures, particularly because it is always raining here, so I have very little desire to walk around with a camera, but I promise to put some up as soon as there is any nice-ish weather, and hopefully I'll be putting up more Italy pictures soon.
And when I got back to Cambridge on Thursday night, I had to immediately get ready for the welcome dinner being put on by my scholarship. The Provost of the Trust is changing right now, so the new Provost, who is also the Master of Fitzwilliam College, hosted a formal dinner at his college. It was one of those experiences that you stereotypically envision when you think of "Cambridge." Everyone was dressed up and we sat at long tables with assigned seating. All the napkins had the college crest on them and we each had like 4 forks (this caused me some problems). We drank wine, ate great food, listened to speeches, toasted the outgoing Provost, and then drank port. It was quite lovely. Then we went out to the pub, which I think I've done every night since I got here. Needless to say tonight is a needed break.
Today was pretty slow, especially as I just think I need some time to recover from the intensity that has been the past couple of days. I've been in England a little over a week but have slept in my own bed for maybe only two nights, so my room is still pretty bare and disorganized. I still need to buy sheets and a bike and other necessities, so I think that will need to happen either this weekend or next week (at least I managed to get a phone today!). "Freshers week," which is the equivalent of orientation here, starts tomorrow, so I'll probably be just as busy for a while, but hopefully the errands will get done in between trips to "punt" on the Cam (look it up) and pub crawls (yes, more pubs. It's a big deal here). Then work starts and things will hopefully settle down a bit.
I'm still really behind with pictures, particularly because it is always raining here, so I have very little desire to walk around with a camera, but I promise to put some up as soon as there is any nice-ish weather, and hopefully I'll be putting up more Italy pictures soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)