Friday the 28th and Saturday the 29th

Hello, I'm sorry for not keeping up the daily writing on my blog. As some of you might already seen on Facebook, I went to a performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth and therefore was home late and I was too tired to write anything. So now I will tell you about what I did yesterday as well as what I did today.

So first, Friday. The first thing I did was buying a bike. It took me some time to find a shop that could sell me a second hand bike. I was looking for a particular one but ended up somewhere else because I got completely lost. Nevertheless I now own a bike here. It is pretty nice and has 16 or 18 gears (can't remember). I do have to tell you that English bikes are different from Dutch bikes. Not on how they look but on how "complete" they are. English bikes are just bikes, nothing more. No lights, no locks, no kickstand (I had to look that word up, wasn't sure about what a 'fietsstandaard' was in English). But a bike is a bike and I can now go everywhere I want. Probably faster and it's cheaper than taking the bus every single time.

At first I wondered why so many English people were wearing helmets when they were cycling. After cycling for two days now, I now understand them. It is insane how not bike friendly the roads are here. You are lucky when there is a lane made for bikes, but most of the time you just drive on the road, very close to the cars. As a cyclist you always stay on the left side of the road, even if that lane is used by cars to go left, and don't ask me about the roundabouts. You have to go onto the roundabout with all the cars! Praying you won't get hit by any car. Luckily there are a lot of traffic lights that help with who can go on the roundabout or not. Oh by the way, speaking of traffic lights, I like the traffic lights here. They also turn orange right before it turns green, so you know when you can set off again. Very handy!

Anyway, after I bought the bike I found my way to the centre and parked my bike. I then ate some lunch (cream tea, see picture) and bought a ticket for the guided walking tour. I learned so many things from the tour. We had a very friendly tour guide that really knew how to tell the historical facts without sounding boring. I'll make a list of the things I learned:
- Cambridge has always been named after the river. Right now the river is called Cam but during the time of the Saxon's the river was called Granter. Therefore the city was called Granterbridge. The first time the name Cambridge was used in writing was in 1600.
- Cambridge has grown around the Market Square that was built by the Saxon's.
- The University of Cambridge was founded in 1209 by Roman-Catholic Priests and was the second University of England. All universities were for guys to become priests. A lot of Universities were build because of the pest.
- As a student you join/apply to one of the Colleges and not the University.
- Cutton College was the first female only college. In 1871 woman were allowed to join the University of Cambridge but were not allowed to get a degree until 1948.
- Steven Hawking went to Gonville & Caius (always called Caius (pronounce as "keys")). Newton went to Trinity College and a descended of the famous apple tree is standing in Newton's garden at Trinity Hall.
- King's College was first only for the boys of Eaton.
- King's Chapel was the first church to be built out of stone blocks. For it to be built 25% of the town had to be destroyed first and it took them 99 years and 5 kings to finish it. 
- King's Chapel's massive windows survived the Purists attempts to shatter all church windows with biblical stories. The first time because Henry the Eight paid for them and you don't want him to be mad at you. The second time because the soldiers who where ordered to shatter the windows were actually using the church as their dormitory and they didn't feel like shattering them while it was a very cold winter.
- The Rubens painting I talked about in a previous blog was painted in only one week and Rubens used his family and himself as models.
- The name "big bang" was actually given to the theory by a Cambridge Professor -who didn't believe in the big bang theory- to insult all those who did believe in it.
- The Eagle (a pub owned by Corpus Christi) is haunted, which is why a particular window has to be open at all times. Close to the bar are names burned into the wood by soldiers during World War II.
- The double helix (from DNA) was discovered in Cavendish Laboratory as well as the electron, proton and neutron.
- The tower of St Benets Church is the only thing that is still original and it was build by the Saxons.
- As some of you may know, there is an ongoing rivalry between the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. One of the things that is been said is about their emblems. Cambridge has a closed book on theirs and Oxford has an open book on theirs. So Cambridge says that Oxford students never learn something because they are still at the same page, while Oxford says that Cambridge students learn even less because they never open the book.
- It is because of Napoleon that we drive on the right and England doesn't. England was never under the rule of Napoleon.

As I already said in the beginning, I also went to see Macbeth. It started at 19.30 and it was held at the King's College garden, a place you are normally not allowed to go into. I arrived a bit later than I wanted to because I couldn't find it (again, yes I know), and so all the chairs where already taken but I could still find a place on the grass in front of the chairs. Halfway through the place there was a brake and I saw that there was a chair that hadn't been used during the play at all so I asked if it was taken. Since it wasn't, I quickly claimed the chair as mine and got into a conversation with an elderly couple sitting next to me. It was a very nice conversation and we ended up sharing the food we brought and I got some wine from them as well. Everyone has been so nice to me up till now. They also told me that the boat I went on during the tour was called a punt and that the movement of the guy moving us forward with a big stick was  called punting.
The play itself was wonderful to see, but unfortunately very hard to follow. First of all, it was is Shakespearian English (so Middle English). That alone already made it hard to follow. Secondly, I could not hear most of the actors when there backs where turned to me and none of them when an ambulance came by. Nonetheless I think I got the mainline of the story and it was really nice to just watch the drama unfold before your eyes and see the wonderful costumes. That concluded my Friday.

Today I met up with a friend of mine who moved to Cambridge and we walked around the centre to see what was where and we talked a lot. It was quit nice. I saw a little garden that was a memorial for princes Diana and a lovely shirt at Primark (see pictures). 
 

Tomorrow will be a day filled with resting and getting to know my landlady/host a bit better. So I'll probably won't write anything tomorrow. Oh and Monday is a bank holiday so I think the next time will be Tuesday (when I'm going to meet up with the teacher I am going to help at Cambridge Steiner school). I just remembered I didn't tell you yet that I am going to help at the Elderflower Kindergarten group. So three to six-year old it is!

Anyway see you soon!

Love,
Nina

p.s. I also posted a short video I made of one of the street musicians. It sounds really, really nice!