First Excursions

Today we made our first two excursions. The first was to the Cambridge Guildhall where the City Council meets. We were met in the lobby by George Swindles, the Sargeant at Mace, who is originally from Belfast, but has lived many years in Cambridge now. This is a picture of the Guildhall as seen from the outdoor market in the center of Cambridge.



Here are the Council Chambers, with the coat of arms of the city on the banner on the wall.






Here is a close-up of the coat of arms. You can make out the original castle that fortified the city depicted at the top of the seal.



Here George displays the 12-lb Queen Anne's Mace which he carries at the head of processions and during all official ceremonies. We saw photos on the back wall of the Council Chambers of many royal decrees concerning the city, beginning with one from 1207 that authorized the Cambridge Mayoralty to the most recent decree, from 1951, declaring Cambridge a city. After this information session we met the Mayor himself, John Hipkin, who gave a brief talk about the challenges facing Cambridge today. We were then offered tea and crumpets (of course) in a side chamber and chatted with him.

We left the Guildhall at about noon and took our first trip outside of Cambridge, to visit Ely Cathedral (pronounced EE-lee). Ely is a fifteen-minute train ride north of Cambridge (but still within County Cambridgeshire). It is the site of the spectacular cathedral that is the home for the Anglican diocese for Cambridge.



Here are a few pictures of the back and side of the Cathedral, including a picture of the 'Octagon,' an octagonal-shaped tower above the apse.
This cathedral sits atop the hill in Ely and can be seen from many miles away; we could see it from the train long before we entered Ely!
Just a little history: it was founded as a monastery by St. Etheldreda in 673. The building of the cathedral was started in 1109. Most of the original architecture is Norman, but you can see some Victorian era updates in the "newer" parts.

As you might expect, the Cathedral has a number of small chapels throughout. Below are a few of the more ornate ones.

Here is a picture of the altar in the Lady Chapel (so-called since it was dedicated to Our Lady).






This is probably what we would call the main altar. It is St. Etheldreda's Chapel and sits behind the 'choir.'





This is a picture of the entryway to Bishop Alcock's Chapel. The photo doesn't do justice to the detail in the stonework of this screen: highly ornate. Another very visible feature throughout the cathedral is the destruction of the statuary that took place during the Dissolution, when Henry VIII threw out the Catholics and ordered that all vestiges of "popery" be destroyed.


This collection of medieval buildings along the south side of the cathedral is still in use today. There is a school on the grounds of the original monastery, called Kings School. The students are using some of the original buildings from the monastery. Here are the Prior's Buildings, dating from around 970. The age of this place is astounding! It is said that it costs approximately 3,000 pounds (about $5310) per DAY in upkeep for the cathedral alone.

First Social Events

Yesterday we attended our first 'Coffee Morning.' We met a number of women who are volunteers for this (nearly) weekly event. And quite a few of the people there were associated, in some way, with Wolfson College: Henryk and Magdalena, a Swedish couple, with their two smal children, and Rita, the wife of another visiting fellow from Montreal. Some told us they would be at the formal dinner later in the evening. Each Coffee Morning is held at the University Centre, which is located in the center of the city, right on the River Cam. See the pictures below.



While we are talking about the Cam, here are a few more pictures. The first shows a herd of ducks (or is it a lamentation of swans?) along the riverwalk south of town. The Cam is a very narrow river that flows through the heart of the city. The city itself was built in a 'fen,' a marshy grassland. Outside of the city proper the fens and marshes are abundant. To the right are a few pictures of the river as it winds through town. In the middle photo you can see 'punts' moored along the river; this is one of the locations where you can rent one of these narrow riverboats and, trying vainly not make a fool of yourself, knock up against everything in sight and wind up drifitng downriver anyway. We're looking forward to trying out ourselves when the weather warms some.

After Coffee Mornings there is usually a tour of some part of Cambridge. Today, however the tour guide, June, was ill and there was no walking tour, so Danny and I decided to go back to the Fitzwilliam Museum and finish our tour there. We had seen the galleries on the ground floor earlier. Today we walked through the first floor (i.e., the second floor; as one Brit explained, the first floor requires one flight of stairs to reach, the second floor, two, and the ground foor, none). There were paintings by Botticelli, Titian, the two Brueghels, Rubens, Constable, Monet, Renior, Matisse, Picasso, El Greco, Degas, etc. It is a remarkable museum. Here is a picture of the front of the Fitzwilliam.

When you step outside of the museum, here is the view down Trumpington St. Everywhere you look, one building is more beautiful than the next!




After finishing at the Fitzwilliam Museum, we had lunch at a little cafe up the street, and then went to the Market in the center of town. The vendors are here every day selling their wares, from fruits and vegetables to clothes, linen, candy, jewelry, incense and fish.

The formal dinner at Wolfson started with an hour-long reception in Lee Hall that included wine and champagne and about 10 varieties of hot h'ors d'oeuvres. Then we moved to the Dining Hall where dinner was served. It consisted of the following courses: 1)soup; 2)plaice with mushroom & tarragon filling, zucchini, potatoes and rolls; 3)chocolate mousse; 4)coffee in the gallery alongside the hall; and 5)fruit back in the main room. Of course, wine was served with the main course and port and/or Pinot Noir was served with the fruit course. The porter was kind enough to take our photo on the stairs leading up to the dining room. Notice Danny's formal robes, required of all the fellows at dinner.

At the meal, we happened to sit across from an American visiting fellow (from St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico) who grew up in Cincinnati and graduated from Walnut Hills High School (the same school our children just graduated from)!! It really IS a small, small world.

New Home

We went to Mass on Saturday since move-in day was Sunday. It was the coldest Mass we had ever been to. The lectors and distributors wore their coats! The Church is called Our Lady and the English Martyrs. We are going to Mass this week at the Dominican Priory, which happens to be very close to our house.

Move-in was relatively easy. Rosemary and her mother, Joan (89 years old), had been at the house all day weeding and straightening up. They are very sweet people. Below are pictures of our home away from home.






We were able to find the main grocery store in town, Sainsbury's, and do some preliminary shopping there. We can only buy what we can carry home; that's why people go to the grocer every day. Everything is small here, even the stove and oven. Cooking has been an adventure, but we've done fine so far. Here is Debbie cooking our first meal.




Each day, since Sunday, we have gone on a walking tour of a different part of the city. On Wednesday, we were able to "hire" (rent) bicycles for 6 months, so it will make our traveling much quicker. It's almost impossible to navigate a car through the tiny streets here. It is much quicker to either walk or bike. Riding on the wrong (?) side of the street will take some getting use to, though.

We've been to the one and only "mall" in the city, Grafton Center. It is so small! It takes about 2 minutes, at most, to get from one end to the other, walking leisurely. It is really kind of cute.

We have been to Wolfson College several times. Danny will have to check in there several times a week to pick up mail. We have accepted an invitation to attend our first "formal" dinner at the college. Danny will have to wear his academic robes. I'll definitely take a picture of that!



Now about doing laundry in Cambridge. Unbelievable! Each load takes TWO HOURS to wash! Our washer sounds like an airplane getting ready to take off. Also, there is no dryer, so everything is either hung on the line outside (impossible since it's rained nearly every day since we've arrived) or hung on racks in the house. It takes all day to do two loads!

Our TV/DVD was delivered yesterday, so we are finally feeling connected to the world. More to follow later . . .

Back Online!

Well, we're /finally back online. It's been a week since we arrived in Cambridge, and we're only now ready to post our first journal entry. Boy, do we have a lot to report...

The flights were mercifully uneventful, but neither of us was able to sleep on the plane over the Atlantic, so we really did lose a night's rest. Still, we made it through Heathrow airport to customs; I'm glad I kept with me my invitation letter from the Head of Wolfson since the officer asked for it.

We took a taxi from Heathrow across London to King's Cross Station to take the train to Cambridge. While we were waiting, we found Platform 9 3/4, and like all good tourists, took the obligatory photo. Muggles, for sure.

From the Cambridge Station, we had a nice short ride to Ruth Lambert's B&B in Newnham with our four huge bags. We arrived about two hours earlier than we had advertised and our room was not ready, so we took our first walk around Cambridge, first stopping at Wolfson to check in, where I picked up my first mail at the College, all the necessary introductory information. We then headed into town to the Accommodations Office where we got an updated list of available properties. The woman there was very helpful; she gave us a University Centre pass card that allowed us to eat our first meal in town. Our next item of business was to buy a pair of cellphones (or 'mobiles,' as they're called here). They turned out to be invaluable for our search for permanent accommodations. By the time we returned to Ruth's, our room (on the third floor, with a comfortable bed and a lovely warm duvet) was ready.

We spent all day Friday walking around Cambridge, investigating various prospects. It added up to about 10 hours on our feet, an exhausting day. We stopped at the Granta Pub for our first beer (Deb had wine), then had a nice Italian meal at Bella Italia. Saturday was another day of searching, including an extremely small two bedroom apartment (no more than 500 sq. ft.) that was going for 800 pounds/mo. After all the looking, we settled on a modest townhouse with 1 1/2 bedrooms just north of the city centre. (Those of you who wish to send us mail, just drop a quick email and we'll be happy to give you our new address.)

We'll write more tomorrow to catch you up on news in Cambridge. Cheers!

Happy New Year!!

Here is what our packing job looked like. The bags are loaners from Mike & Mindy Goldweber from their round-the-world travels last year. They came over with Eli for dinner today and Eli tried DDR for the first time. Mike and I tried to submit my gas reading to CG&E this evening without success. And I got great tips from Mike about how to configure the PowerBook: transfering big files from one computer to another by Firewire is awesome! We also loaded Skype on all our computers and tried it out this evening with Keith (on Sara's computer in Etown). ("Lo que inventen los blancos!" as my Dad would say.)

We said farewell to the crowd at Little Flower after Mass today and cleaned out the files for 2006; tomorrow I'll be assembling stuff for our tax preparer. (Ugh.)