Cambridge

Monday today and we headed up to Cambridge. Travel guru Rick Steves rates both university towns (Oxford and Cambridge); he says he prefers Cambridge and as we are within "easy" travel distance to Cambridge and not so much to Oxford, Cambridge it is and off we went.

As we didn't plan on spending a great deal of time in East Anglia and with gas 8 dollars/ gallon, we opted not to rent a car, so instead, set about piecing together a plan to get up to Cambridge by bus.

Next time we're in the are, we'll rent the car.
Because of oddly timed connections, it took us close to three hours to make the 26 mile trip to Cambridge. (The return was a bit faster because we hopped on the charter bus headed down to the London airports). And, the bus wasn't cheap. I've never thought public transportation was a major expense. Not so. We easily spent 30 pounds (60 dollars) to get back and forth to Cambridge.

Worth it, sure, but sticker shock... oh yeah.

Speaking of sticker shock:
We are routinely spending $25 dollars for a lunch that would cost $15 at home and $40 for a dinner at a pub (which I'd say are comparable to Friday's/Applebees type chains at home). Furthermore, portions here are closer to what portions should be, so we've tried to split entrees and add soup, but found there really wasn't enough food for two people. Coffee is $4 a cup (2lb) but that's mainly because you really can't order drip coffee. It's all espresso. So to get coffee you order an Americano (espresso with steamed water). Here, they're constantly asking me if I want milk, whereas at home if you want milk in your espresso you order a latte.

The upside, we're staying in a nice room for dirt cheap ($32/night) with free gourmet coffee in the lobby, free computer labs, and free laundry, so I imagine once we'll find that once we move on to areas that are less expensive overall, we'll end up about the same as we'll have to pay more for lodging and the little extras.

Anyway, back to Cambridge-- What a fabulous town. In another life I'd be doing a post-doc there, poring over texts in the drafty library or papers in my overheated office. As far as spending one afternoon there, however, it was a bit overwhelming. It has all the historical draw as a place like Williamsburg, enough boutique shopping for a resort town plus all the trappings of a typical college town.

We decided to focus on the historical aspect and went on a "college tour," spending about 2.5 hours walking through the various colleges that make up Cambridge University as a whole. The most famous of course is King's College, alma mater of the "heir and the spare."

One of the library's (forget which one) houses the original Pepys diary. And another boasts the burial place of Oliver Cromwell's head.  Cambridge supposedly  has the apple tree under which Sir Isaac Newton sat.  I'm doubtful as to if it's still the same tree, but that's just me.  Most of the buildings  in town were finished by 1600 which makes Cambridge a remarkably developed medieval/renaissance city. What Gondolas are to Venice, Punts are to Cambridge (see first picture): flat-bottomed boats that seat up to about 15 poled through the rivers that form the backs of the colleges. You can steer them yourself or let the experts guide them and it was entertaining to watch the inexperienced punters bounce them back and forth from bank to bank across the river.

Speaking of that other life, not only would I be post-docing here (and walking across the grass; fwiw only fellows can walk on the grass).  But perhaps I'd have a book at The Cambridge University Press bookstore.  I even went inside looking to purchase a copy of "the Cambridge", arguably one of the most important reference books in Early-American lit, only to find that it cost so much that I'd wait until I actually had a faculty office before I stocked its shelves.