Last Cambridge Days

Sorry--a little out of order, but I realized I forgot to include these days!

August 19th
Thursday morning, Meg and I took our final for The British and Their Sports. We had to write two essays, and then we were free. All in all, it was somewhat of an easy class, (I hardly had to do any work for it), but that is almost precisely what I wanted/needed for the last four weeks of travel. Once we finished, we went back to the room to relax and start thinking about packing.

Later in the day, we met up with one of Meg’s friends from school and checked off one of our Must Do’s: scones at Auntie’s Tea. The scones are so good with jam, and I felt so English eating one. We hung out in Parker’s Piece, (one of my favorite places) and then suddenly it was time to get ready for the last formal hall!

To celebrate Ken’s birthday, Meg and I hosted a little get together with birthday brownies and caramel squares, and Aditya provided a birthday cake. The crew hung out for about 45 minutes before heading over to King’s College. Because of the rain, we were deprived of our final opportunity to walk across the grass, (bummer), and drinks were served in the art gallery instead, in which Meg and I both had our art pieces displayed. It was a great chance to socialize before dinner and see everyone dressed up and with their masquerade masks.

The dining hall was marvelously set once more, and the food was delicious. I was at a table with Bill, Duc, Lange, Meg, Ken, Aditya and David. We had a great time, eating food that while I’m not entirely sure I knew what it was, was very good. Things got a little crazy during dinner, (perhaps too much celebrating for Ken's birthday?), but it was all good fun. After the dinner, there was a “disco” and King’s Bar was opened up with a dance floor and DJ. We stayed there for quite a while and I thought it was a great send off or way to end the program. It was a really fun night!

August 20

Friday morning, I slept in and woke up for lunch—my last Panini and smoothie!!! Meg and I said our goodbyes to the workers at the café, they knew us by then, and we walked around Cambridge, soaking in some of our last views. Around 3:00, we joined a group of girls on the program heading to Granchester for scones and tea. It was about a 45 minute walk through beautiful green meadows. The funniest part was trying to cross the path but cows were in the way! Finally we arrived at Granchester , and we all got scones. The scones were great, and we weren’t the only ones to think that. We naively sat by a bee trap and spent the whole hour protecting our scones from the vicious bees and trying to avoid being stung. It was still a fun trip, but that was a major downer for a pleasant afternoon.

We walked back and had a final dinner with our Cambridge “family.” The boys met Meg and me at Pembroke to help us spend the rest of our meal plan money, and we later met up to buy our last legal drinks before heading back to the States.

The "family" at the Masquerade Ball

A very relaxing last day in Cambridge, and it seemed perfectly fitting to eat scones and drink tea on my last day in England. It was a wonderful trip, and I went to sleep feeling what can be used to describe the entire summer: content, satisfied and happy.

Top Tens (or more!)

This may be my last post. I have been working on my summary of the summer. It will definitely require some more thought and some editing as I remember more of the things I did, but here is a start. I'm hoping to have it finished in the next week or so! I'll also be trying to make a recap video/recap slide show or some other visual recap. Thanks for following the blog! This summer was an absolute blast.

Top Sites (in no specific order)

• Paris Eiffel Tower for the first time
• Fountains Abbey
• King’s Chapel Roof
• Louvre
• St. Patrick’s Cathedral
• King’s College for the first time in its golden halo of light
• Seeing the Royal Pavilion in Brighton
• Hiking in the Trossachs
• Monet’s water lily paintings in the Orangerie Museum
• Cathedral in Berlin

Top Memories

• Scottish dancing/3rd of July Party/Going out into Edinburgh after
• Top of the Guinness factory, looking out over Dublin
• Hot chocolate in Berlin with Meg
• First formal hall dinner playing games at dinner with Ken, Duc, Ben, Caitlin, and Meg
• Evensong
• Winning croquet and beating the kid from Penn who beat us at trivia the night before
• Getting hot chocolate in Paris with Meg’s family at Angelina’s
• Puddle jumping
• Hearing the Irish live music near Temple Bar, befriending one of the members of the band on the pub crawl and meeting other students from Michigan State
• People watching on Brighton beach with awesome Malteser milk shakes
• Pub crawl in Berlin-most epic night, so much fun with fun cast of characters
• Climbing the Eiffel Tower, hiking up all 686 steps to the second level
• Seeing the Anne Boleyn play in the Old Globe Theater and walking along the Thames River after the play
  

Things I Never Got Used to

• Seeing babies in the drivers’ seat, and then realizing they weren’t actually driving
• Seeing all the stag and hen parties
• Realizing that I was actually in Europe
• All the incredible, old, historical buildings and museums in Europe—the Europeans must be so spoiled to have this all in their backyards
• Calling soccer “football” and football “American football”

Things to remember about Cambridge

• “Do you want to go punting?”- Constantly avoiding being asked about this
• Trailer of Life-late night snacks
• Sainsbury’s grocery store self checkout
• Running through Parker’’s Piece
• Fudge Kitchen and Fudge Fridays
• Living next to Darwin’s old flat
• King’s Bar and 2.05 ciders
• Unpredictable weather
• Pembroke Café: paninis, smoothies and hot chocolate with marshmallows
• King’s Chapel and the buildings around it
• The daily market
• Walking by the bakery “Fitzbillies” everyday and seeing the sweet treats
• Ice cream stands everywhere
• Always tripping because of the uneven cobblestone
• Going to “The Works”—best store EVER!

Favorite European things:

• Maltesers
• Cider
• Pimms and lemonade
• Music: Euro-influenced American music
• JLS-“One Shot” –best boy band song EVER!
• Fudge Friday
• English teas
• European fashion
  

Done-zo!

I just got out of my last final and turned in my paper, so I am done with summer school!

There is so much to squeeze in in the last few days before I leave for the States. I'm wondering what I was doing with my time during the last 7 weeks instead of seeing all of Cambridge!!!

Laundry time and then exploration time!

A Chance to Dance...

...in the rain! We finally got what we expected in England: a good rain storm. What did Meg and I do? Puddle jump, of course.

Energy Level: Last Day of Tourism

Sunday was the last real day of our trip since we were leaving early on Monday morning to go back to Cambridge. I decided for this day to follow my energy level, indirectly related to my excitement and happiness levels. I’ll take you through the highs and the lows of the day, (although in this case, the lows just refer to my tiredness). Lucky for us, the weather forecast was not very accurate about Sunday, and most of the day was rain-free, with the sun peeking through every once in a while. Looks like our Cambridge weather luck followed us into Germany.

Breakfast (around 9:45) perked me up after a restless night of sleep. I really liked the hostel we chose, but it is difficult to get good sleep in a room that sleeps 8 people when they come into the room at all different hours of the night and aren’t exactly quiet when they return. Again, I took advantage of the nutella and also had a big glass of milk, something that I miss having access to back in Cambridge.

Meg and I took the train to Alexanderplatz, the location of the Berlin equivalent of the Seattle Space needle. There was a really cool market being set up, but it wasn’t really happening yet because it was kind of early. We walked over to the Museum Island, stopped for a break to appreciate the beauty of the Berliner Dom, (a cathedral pictured below), and then hit up a few of the museums.

The museums were definitely interesting to see, (5 in total), but Meg and my energy levels were quickly deteriorating. We zombie-walked through three of the museums, trying to take in as much as possible, but recognizing that we are kind of museum-ed out from our last 4 trips. I think it's safe to just say that I saw a lot of cool old stuff. While the museums were really interesting, (my favorite things: paintings by Renoir and Monet and the bust of Nefertiti!!!), this correlates with my lowest energy level on the graph.

My energy level spiked up after we walked from the museum back to the Alexanderplatz market around 1 and got a crepe again for lunch. Crepes seem to be the perfect option for operating on a college budget: cheap and delicious. We were also saving room for one of the things we were most looking forward to: hot chocolate at the store that used to make chocolate for the royal families. We passed by the store with giant chocolate replicas of major Berlin sites and decided we had to come back on Sunday. We walked about twenty minutes to the store and indulged in the Rausch-Plantagen-Schokolade hot chocolate from Fassbender & Rausch Chocolatiers. It was amazingly rich and delicious (although it still didn't compare to Angelina's) but it was just a perfect moment to be enjoying the hot chocolate in the company of Meg, overlooking a beautiful square in Berlin. This corresponds to the highest level of energy I had during the day because I was just so happy.

After being rejuvenated by the hot chocolate, we walked to our final destination of the day: the Reichstag building. It is the government building in Berlin and runs free tours to the top of the building for a good view of Berlin. We had to wait in line for about 45 minutes, and during that time, the umbrellas that we had been carrying around all day pointlessly came in handy when we got a 10 minute shower storm. At least it cooled down though. Once we got to the top of the building, we got to walk in the coolest egg shaped building with a mirrored center, (you have to see the picture to get what I'm saying). The view of Berlin was very good from the top and it was nice to walk around and see from a bird's eye view everywhere that we had walked during the weekend.

We got dinner afterward at Kamps and then headed back to the hostel. We decided to take it easy and just sat in the lower lounge area watching Sherlock Holmes. We met a very outgoing Canadian teen who introduced us to some fun German kids and we just hung out with them for a while before calling it a night. It was a fun hostel experience as I realized that people are just so friendly and outgoing. It was cool to hear about everyone's travel experiences and it makes me realize how many teenagers are just traveling for fun and seeing the world. I definitely have to get back to Europe next summer! Great trip to Berlin--definitely a pleasantly surprising city!

August 15

Learning about Berlin

The day started with the standard hostel breakfast: rolls with butter and jam. This hostel gained points by having nutella as an option, and that was definitely an option I took advantage of. As we left the hostel, the weather was exactly what we expected from the forecast--it was raining pretty hard, but luckily we had umbrellas and we decided not to let the rain stop us.

Brandenburg gate in Pariser Platz

Having stumbled across Sandeman’s New Europe tours in Dublin, Meg and I continued our New Europe free walking tour streak and went on the tour through the Berlin city center. Some of the sights we covered included the Brandenburg gate, (one of the most iconic gates of Berlin), the Reichstag building, (a government building), Hitler’s old bunker, a Holocaust Memorial for all the murdered Jews of Europe, the Book Burning Memorial outside of Humboldt University, Checkpoint Charlie, the SS Headquarters, the Berlin Wall, and finally the Museum Island. It was almost unreal walking on the tour because the history is so recent and powerful. I guess I just hadn’t realized that the Berlin Wall only came down about twenty years ago, about a month after I was born. This was definitely the most intellectual and historical tour that I had been on and was very sobering. After the tour, Meg and I continued in our Paris mindset and got crepes—best crepes ever!

Checkpoint Charlie

After the crepes, I went to the Topography of Terrors, a museum about the history of Hitler, the Holocaust and the Berlin wall. Walking alongside the wall was very thought provoking, and while it wasn’t the happiest or most joyful thing to see, I am very glad I got to experience it. The museum was teeming with information and pictures and it was overwhelming to try to take it all in. We spent quite a bit of time in the museum and ended up sitting for a little while to rest our very tired feet.

A remaining portion of the Berlin wall

We walked back along the walking tour route and stopped for an early dinner near the Holocaust Memorial. The day had tired me out more so than past travelling days, and I decided it had to be because it was the last travelling weekend and my body was just tired. We headed back to the hostel around 6:30 to get ready for our pub crawl later that night.

Holocaust Memorial-different height blocks on uneven ground

The pub crawl made for one of the best nights out in Europe. We left the hostel around 8:15 and the first place we went had an outdoor backyard which was super crowded with other “crawlers.” The entertainment provided at the pub was a really outgoing pyro-man, juggling fire and playing with a blow torch. We met quite a cast of characters throughout the night including a stag party (think bachelor party) with the groom dressed as Elvis, a trio of “Teach for England” teachers, two awesome girls from Ireland, a pair of au pairs from Munich, 2 engineering students from Cincinnati, and some German natives. Everyone was extremely friendly and it was just a solid fun night.

Meg and I with the groom to be (Elvis), the best man and another friend. They were a riot!

August 14

Stress Level

A pictorial representation of my stress level (above) and the corresponding thoughts running through my head (below).

• 4:30 pm I’m going to head to the bus so that I’m early and I’ll make sure I don’t miss the bus 4:45 Okay, I’m at the stop, it should be here any time.
• 5:00 Where is the bus? It was supposed to leave now! Why isn’t there anyone around here for me to ask about this? Why won’t the bus drivers talk to me? The rain is probably slowing everything down. I’ll be totally fine on time as long as I leave by 5:15. Meg’s 4 pm bus was supposed to be 20 minutes late so it’s probably normal for buses to be late.
• 5:15 Where is a number for me to call? This is making me nervous. The bus totally should be here by now! I have a flight to catch. I wonder if that guy over there is waiting for the same bus as me….”Sir! What bus are you waiting for? …oh, not the same one, okay nevermind.” Worth a shot, okay here’s a number to call. I hope this won’t drain my minutes on my phone.
• 5:30 THE BUS IS BROKEN DOWN! What do you mean the bus is broken down?!?! (Talking to bus company representative: “What am I supposed to do now? I have a flight to catch!!!!...okay, yes you can call me back after you talk to your manager.” I can’t miss my weekend trip to Berlin! Okay, so if I do miss the flight, there must be another flight later that night. Meg can get on our original one and I’ll meet her there. Why, why, why!?! Maybe a taxi would work?
• 5:45 Talking to representative again, “I don’t think the bus that gets me there at 6:50 for a 7:45 flight is going to work!...Okay, so I can take a taxi and be fully reimbursed? Guaranteed? Just keep the receipt? Okay, thanks so much!” Okay, got to flag down a cab! There is one! This better work. “How fast to Stansted Airport? Do you take credit card? Do you give receipts? Okay, let’s go!
• 6:00 Come on, let’s get a move on! Why is traffic stopped? We’ve hardly moved at all. Text to Meg: “He estimates around 6:30. AHHH!!! I’m nervous!” I have to stop at a cash machine…this better be fast.
• 6:15 Okay, we’re finally cruising, should be there soon. I better get reimbursed for this!
  
• 6:30 I’m here! Where is Meg? I just have to get through the lines and then it’s smooth sailing.
• 6:45 Oh darn, I got in the wrong line to get my passport stamped. The right line just got so much longer. Ask at the front of the line? Wow, they were so nice to let me go to the front…I mean, it did only take 5 seconds to get my passport stamped. Still, very nice people. Now to security! Thanks Meg for getting me dinner while I was panicking!
• 7:00 At the gate, finally able to eat, my heart rate can finally resume normal human beating patterns. Slow down. Eat food. I made it.
• 7:15 Board the plane, I can’t believe this worked.
• 7:30 Relax
• 7:45 Relax more, heart is still beating kind of fast
• 8:00 Time to sleep
• 10:30 I made it, almost no stress now. It totally worked out and I’m in Germany! This is so strange. That lady was nice to help us get our bus tickets.
• 11:00 Why is there construction on the bus line we need to get to our hostel? I don’t read German and this is super confusing. Why is everything going wrong travelling on this trip?
  
• 11:30 I really hope this bus is taking us to the right place.
• 12:00 Meg and I are travelling pros. It may have taken us a little longer, but we totally have this down. Nice try Berlin, but we figured it out. Now time for bed. We made it.

August 13, (Friday the 13th!!!)