Cambridge! Is amazing. :) Part 1

Another really long post coming up. Sorry. Between classes, seminars, exploring Cambridge, making friends, and trying to figure out how to work a converter/adapter, it's been a bit hard to get on and blog. But here I go.

June 26th.

We headed off from the Youth Hostel and arrived at King's Cross, where we met up with a group of other BYU students. We were all able to sit close together on the train, so that was fun.

I've got a ticket to ride to Cambridge!

We're all really excited, for one reason or another.
The train ride went well; the English countryside is beautiful. It felt a lot like Harry Potter--again--going off to school, on a train, with our luggage. I fell asleep for part of the way, and when I woke up, I was in Cambridge! It was a really cool feeling, and I was really excited because I was finally there!
We decided to walk to the University--specifically to King's College, where we were staying. (It is the Pembroke-King's Programme, after all.) But, we took a wrong turn, so most of us ended up getting a taxi to get to King's instead of walking for thirty minutes with our luggage. It was so awe-inspiring to drive up to the Porter's Lodge at King's . . . even more awe-inspiring to see the King's College Chapel and the lawns and beautiful architecture of Cambridge.

In front of King's College Chapel

After registration, I checked into my room at Bodley's Court. It's in King's College, so not far from where we checked in. I love walking to breakfast every day and seeing the Chapel. Stunning. My room is really cool, too. It's very spacious. I have a living room area and a bedroom, with shelves in the closet . . . and a sink in the closet. It smells good, too.

Living Room Area

View from the Living Room area



The sink in my closet. Awesome.

After unpacking a bit, I went exploring around Cambridge with Sarah Smilanich, another BYU student. We saw people punting down the River Cam, we walked along the Backs and saw the King's Cows, and we took lots of pictures. We also went around the city and watched a bit of the England-Germany football game at an English pub, and saw a really cute street market that I really want to buy fruit from one of these days.
Me in front of King's College Chapel




English pub/store we watched part of the game from

Market Street

A King's Cow

Punting down the River Cam

After our exploration, we had an orientation. I honestly don't remember what was said, but that's typical of most orientations for me, actually. If they had sung the orientation, I probably would have remembered it. But that's not very Cambridge-y at all. Anywho. But I do remember the tour that three LDS YSA Cambridge students, Phil (I think that's his name :\), Victoria, and Brady. They showed us some good places to shop for supplies and groceries while we're here, and they gave us inside tours of some of the different colleges at Cambridge. We visited Darwin, Emmanuel, and Pembroke Colleges. I didn't fully realize how spread out Cambridge University is, or how the individual colleges mean more to the students than the University itself. That's different from BYU.

Well, I'll do another post soon. This post is too long as it is. I always write too much! :)

My favorite picture of our tour--Pembroke College.