22 August 2007

mirror world ii: University of Cambridge (backblog)

Despite a late start, I made an afternoon of Cambridge, the English-speaking world's second oldest university and thus perhaps the closer sister to Yale in American collegiate history. Despite my hasty online research the night before, I was woefully unprepared to find my way, particularly as there were so many colleges and few were visible from the main thoroughfare leading outward from the station.

But first I meant to exchange my euros as drawing on my American account was getting very painful with the horrendous exchange rate. Owing to a block-wide power outage, a long queue of customers formed behind me at the bank by the farmer's market as I fidgeted impatiently. I was first in line for the longest time, but heaven knows what kind of transactions the two customers being served were closing. A third employee whose computer wasn't working was busily counting cash and piling it into a bag to hand to the Asian male customer, and the other fellow was trying to wire several thousand pounds to some middle eastern country. Oddly, they were both quite poorly dressed considering their transactions. Clearly the mafia was at work. "The British love to queue," Chip advised me later, making me hope this had been an invaluable cultural experience.

Even after purchasing a map at the tourist office, I was at a loss as to where to start amongst the thirty-one colleges. There wasn't even a university bookshop; there is a Cambridge UP Store (filled with decidedly unsexy-looking book jackets relative to my former employer Yale UP) but no Cambridge Bookstore, the reverse of the situation at Yale. Fortunately I eventually tailed a group of Japanese tourists into King's College (1441), the place to start if you're looking for magnificence. Its ceiling, the largest fan vaulting in the world, ensured that I would never be proud of Harkness Tower's singular fan vault again, despite its uniqueness in American architecture. I was also surprised by the presence of Flemish art -- Flemish stained glass glowed from the clerestory and Ruben's magnificent "The Adoration of the Magi" (1634) crowned the altar (lowered specifically for the painting, to some continuing consternation). The northern arcade contained an interesting exhibit that perhaps explained the silly entrance fee, but then I was sent out into the courtyard and experienced the déjà vu of walking into Christ Church at Oxford. (Apologies to all insulted.) The Gatehouse and Great Tom, the vast green courtyard, the overcast skies... At least to a dumb American they look very much alike. Very breathtaking, too.

The guard who took my admission fee at Trinity College knew where Rochester was, although he couldn't recall why. A fountain at the center of the courtyard was surrounded by a shock of bright red flowers that looked surreally luminescent beneath the grey skies, and I wondered if this was the gardeners' way of staving off the meteorological monochromaticism. I found some comedy in the magnificent dining hall; first was the contrast between the purely functional and slightly ugly cafeteria equipment and the stained glass and soaring open timber roof, second was the sign casually mentioning that the dining hall had been continuously used as such for six centuries. One finds this kind of history all over the place at Cambridge... one finds little from that era in the US; the Native Americans may have been around but they lived lightly off the earth and didn't endeavour to build their cantines as eternal monuments.

By the time I was done gawking here and there 'round Trinity, it was 17:00 and, I reckoned, too late to enter the other colleges as a tourist. Fortunately I had dressed the preppy student part just for this purpose ("Are you going sailing with that sweater tied around your neck?" Jon asked me in the morning), and strode confidently into several other colleges from the Backs (literally referring to the backs of the colleges on the Cam) without being questioned. St. John's became my absolute favorite, a veritable architectural wonderland of fairytale white spires, magical courtyards upon courtyards, quaint passageways, and the Venetian Bridge of Sighs under which tourist-filled punts were still floating.

After wandering Sidney Sussex, Naomi's alma mater, and taking a peek into one of its marvelous red common rooms of which Yale's are only an echo, I rolled up my sleeves in search of nourishment, finally settling into a busy Indian restaurant on Regent next to a table at which an educated middle-aged man was talking to two teenagers with classy accents. I found the place not without a great deal of wandering, intent as I was to get a feel for the city. My wandering nearly got me into trouble as I took a long way back to the station in hopes of spotting Lammas Land (just for the kick of being a TDer initiated at Llama Land), but I made my train with time to spare and returned utterly exhausted to Balham, where I went straight to bed.

P.S. While consulting Wikipedia's article on Cambridge, I chanced upon the origin of the Harvardian epithet, cantab. Somehow the term Cantabrigian, abbreviated in post-nominal letters as Cantab., found its way into our vocabulary for the Harvardian. Whether this is meant as pretense or irony is not yet known to the author.

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