Today is Laundry Day for me. At Emma, you have to sign up for a time to use the machines, then get a key from the Porter's lodge, and then do your laundry in your time slot. Interesting.
It was very cold here yesterday, colder than it has been in a while. You can see your breath again, which hasn't been possible since we first got here, really. I can withstand the cold
way better than I expected to. This is a very good thing, too, given my intention of grad school on the east coast and all. So, yay for that! It might snow again in a day or two, so that would be quite fun.
Yesterday and the day before I had my second round of classes. My individual class, Philosophy of Art, went well. I turned in an essay and got it back with no grade (are we not getting graded assignments here? that's strange...) but plenty of positive comments. Yesterday I my large-group class, Space and Time in Contemporary Art, which was fine but nothing to write home about (literally...). After that was a walking tour of Cambridge with my small-group English Architectural History class. We started at the round church:
and then walked down Trinity Street/King's Parade (because no major street here is satisfied with having only one name) and around Kings, Gonville and Caius, Queens, Trinity, and maybe another college that I'm forgetting. They were beautiful! Our teacher is a young Scottish PhD student, very earnest and happy to be teaching, but a little bit nervous at first. I think he warmed up to us yesterday, though. Here are some pictures from our walk:
Trinity College, from inside the first courtyard:
Behind Queens, I think. The sun was out, and the Cam was beautiful!
The river Cam, at the Backs. Gorgeous.
One amazing part was King's College Chapel, which was just this gigantic Gothic church (it really shouldn't be called a Chapel anymore) that was built by Henry's VII and VIII. At the part where Henry VII stopped building and Henry VIII took over, there is an obvious and delibertate change in the style of the church. Suddenly, it goes from simple Gothic style (well, simple for a huge amazing church) with little ornamentation, to carvings and statues and initials and "look at me! I'm the king!" everywhere. Pretty funny, and also very cool how visible history can be.
Took my breath away when we first walked in.
Look at that height! And those windows!
From the altar-end of the church, looking back down the nave.
Ornamentation added by Henry VIII. Lots of gates and roses and crowns.
Sorry for the slight blurry-ness, but hopefully it won't
distract you from that beautiful fan ceiling.
Before our walking tour, I got coffee and a pasty and sat in a window and looked out on the passersby. I actually hadn't had a pasty until getting here, but they are SO GOOD. Basically a flaky dough pastery stuffed with whatever you want...sausage (if that's your thing), cheese, potatoes, onion, chicken, etc. Perfect to eat on the go and SO damn tasty, and fill you up forever, too. My friends say that in the US we pronounce them "pay-stees" and here, all the Brits say its "pah-stees." Not even just because of the accent, either...I'm supposed to say "pah-stees," too, and I always have to pause before ordering to make sure I'm getting it right. So, before class I got a delicious pah-stee and a nice cup of coffee on the go. Lovely. Anyway, I'm off to laundry!
Ely Cathedral is over 900 years old (100 years older than Cambridge University!) and was built when the town of Ely was originally an island in the marsh. Folklore says that the town got its names from the large number of eels that were swimming around the island. The Cathedral, also known as "The Ship of the Fens" is huge. HUGE. This tower is 215 feet high.
It was built and rebuilt over hundreds of years, though, so it isn't all Gothic per se. There are rounded arches and other Romanesque features, but the whole thing is just simply beautiful, and remarkably coherent (at least to my untrained eye). This is a look down the center of the Cathedral, or the nave:
In one of the little side chapels, they had embroidered pillows hanging off the backs of the chairs, for people to rest their knees on when praying:
This is the octagonal "lantern tower" that rests over the cross of the Cathedral. It was constructed in the 1300s and is definitely my favorite part of the church:
Posing in front of the church:
Flying buttresses!
I really liked this little crest that was on the city's trash bins:
Goodbye, Ely! Just in time for the weather to turn back to that typical English sky...
