January 17, 2007

January 15: Cambridge


The ducks were ducking themselves into the water then splashing all around. I thought the kids would enjoy this picture.

Vanessa’s Dining Room, Histon: Monday 7:45 pm GMT

Vanessa dropped us off by the William Fitzgerald Museum today. Unfortunately, it turns out that they’re open from Tuesday to Saturday. :-P So we ended up wandering around parts of Cambridge that we hadn’t seen yet (and some parts that we had).

We came across Little St. Mary’s Church and though we didn’t go in, we did walk around to the garden in the back and enjoy listening to the birds and looking at the back of Peterhouse College. (Peterhouse is the oldest college at Cambridge. It was started in 1284.)

As I sat looking at the greenery and the paving stones that were used to shore up the areas of the garden that where higher than other areas, it suddenly dawned on me that the rocks had writing on them. Then I realized that they were gravestones. Someone had rearranged the gravestones to make them into borders that held back the dirt behind them!!! I became convinced of this when I found a stone that had been set in place with the text sideways.

We then wandered over to St. Botolph’s Church, which was built in 1320. Believe it or not, the city of Boston (first the one on this side of the pond, then the one over in Massachusetts) got it’s name from St. Botolph.

After Botolph’s we found ourselves in an area that we’d seen already. But we knew where the internet cafe was from there, so we buzzed over there and uploaded pictures. On the way Rob grabbed a cornish pasty. I believe that’s his new favorite (or shoudl I say favouritie?) food. (See Mary. It’s not all complaining. Rob keeps throwing his hands in the air every time we pass a pasty shop. (He was pronouncing it as “paste-ey” then he changed it to “pahsty”))

From the cafe we tried to find St. Tibbs Row to take a picture of the sign, but it turns out they’re doing construction there. So the street sign (if there ever was one. Have I mentioned that the English don’t seem to like street signs?) was gone or hidden behind construction supplies. That was a pretty severe dissapointment because I knew the kids would have loved to see that. (Speaking of the kids. Nathan was diagnosed with strep. yesterday and now my mom tells me that she thinks Anna has it as well. :-P )

While we were wandering looking for St. Tibbs Row, though, we managed to find a funky rocky church. Again, it’s only about 100 years old, but it was still cool.

We passed by the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology and hoped to go in, but they’re not open on Mondays either. We did find a sign for another school of Economics, though. That’s always important. So we took a picture.

We made our way to the touristy part of town to find a place to exchange the rest of our dough. Then we hit the pub. This time I got cider. It was nothing to write home about.

We walked back to Histon and made it in record time. We tried to find the place that Rob’s brother Ryan had stayed when he was here (we only just today found out that he had lived in Histon when he attended Cambridge) but we couldn’t find it. (He later sent a map in an email so we’ll go hunt it down later.)

We grabbed some groceries at the mini-Tesco and headed home. For dinner we had leftovers over baked potatoes. Yum! And Rob, Nathaniel and Rebecca are now making brownies.

32 comments:

  1. Oh that! There's no double yellow lines, so why not park there? Not like they have their own driveways to use!

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  2. Only for Cambridge/Oxford, when it means more or less that. People are more likely to say then were at Trinity College, for example than Cambridge or Oxford. Otherwise a college is for 16-18 years olds, where you go to do A-Levels before going on to do University. That's the way I use the word College, and the way most people would. Usually university and college are two completely different things here, but Oxford and Cambridge like to be different, being old.

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  3. Nice. Guess what's just unseated a Walking Dead panel as the desktop wallpaper for my kitchen computer... :)

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  4. yeah, yeah. i meant to mention that as well.

    still weird for us. in the States the word "college" only refers to what you do after high school. (high school in US = college in UK)

    when we talked to the Scottish guy on the train out of nottingham (see Tuesday's pics) he explained how the scottish educational system compared to england's and it all sounds much closer to what we have in the US.

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  5. really?!! do you like the gravestones or the building?

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  6. The building. But, really, just the whole mood of the shot is somber and expressive, which is what I like about it.

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  7. Sorry to hear about that. Did he get a prescription for...crap, can't remember the name of it now...the pink stuff that Ben said tasted like bubblegum. Ben actually liked the medicine and was the one who remembered it when I'd forget...

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  8. Odd. Wonder what legally qualifies as a picnic. What if you have a sandwich and some chip, but no Little Red Riding Hood basket. Hmmm...things to ponder...thanks for that.

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  9. Maybe if you're bringing a pic-a-nic basket...?

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  10. You're correct, these are a iguanadon and a ground sloth. Also is this actually the Sedgwick Museum?

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  11. That's my kind of building/discipline.

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  12. I know around here people would take a bat to the sign more than likely.

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  13. This irritates me as a driver. Just this morning I was driving in a neighborhood where cars were parked on either side of a relatively narrow road...I nearly tapped each car for good measure.

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  14. Whose grave stone is that? It's not kept up is it (the grave stone that is)?

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  15. "As I sat looking at the greenery and the paving stones that were used to shore up the areas of the garden that where higher than other areas, it suddenly dawned on me that the rocks had writing on them. Then I realized that they were gravestones. Someone had rearranged the gravestones to make them into borders that held back the dirt behind them!!! I became convinced of this when I found a stone that had been set in place with the text sideways."

    That's crazy!!

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  16. LMAO! Is it an epidemic there or something?

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  17. *gasp* That is an absolutely stunning building.

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  18. *groan* How many economic buildings does a country really need to have?

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  19. I have seen this in Geelong, in the older part. In the olden days I guess they didn't build houses with driveways (though I don't know why) and most people had to park in the streets. I am sure that being in a built up area the drivers wouldn't be driving fast around there. I am sure it's just a matter of common curtisy to give way to the driver who was there first and perhaps a bit of patients needed by all. As far as I am concerned if you don't have the patients to wait your turn then you shouldn't be driving on the roads.

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  20. Once again as I stated before if you don't have the patience to give way then you shouldn't be on the road. The Islands are to slow traffic down, we have similar structures in numerous built up areas is larger towns and cities.

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  21. Now that is poetry to the eyes. I could watch them all day hehe

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  22. Oh now that I would love to be able to see. I always wanted to be an archaeologist I guess other things got in the way. sigh

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  23. This looks like a house I remember from an after life.

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  24. No, the name started with a 'c'. It'll drive me nuts until Christene sees this and says what it is.

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  25. could be. i just know that the geology museum was in around here and these looks like critters that would match up with geological topics (the iguanadon, at least, representing the finding of bones inside of rocks), so i labeled as a geology place. the geology, archeology and anthropology were all in the same area. ... makes sense, really.

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  26. i'm telling you man, the sidewalks have lichen and moss growing all over them. you could put up a headstone and i wouldn't doubt that within a few years it'll look as old as the best of them. i keep meaning to take a picture of the roofs of the houses. they almost all have moss growing on them. everything looks old whether it is or not. (well, with the exception of the stuff from the 60s and 70s which simply looks ugly now doesn't it?) ;-)

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  27. I don't know what kind of antibiotic Nathan got. And it appears Anna didn't get anything. And my mom is convinced that the last time Nathan was sick (before Christmas) it must have been strep also, despite the fact that he was better the next day. hmmm.

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  28. I believe Nathan did get Amoxicillin

    St. Tibbs (hehe)

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