Spicy Uno at the Pub Crawl

The past few days have just been a blur. I had my Gothic Architecture midterm yesterday which went fairly well. We just had to compare and contrast two slides showing two very different styles of architecture. The pictures were not the best so that made it a little more difficult, but overall it wasn't too bad. Plus, it only counts for 10% of my grade anyway. Today I had a midterm in my European History class. Dr. Steinberg decided to do a little experiment and give us a midterm that doesn't count for a grade (unless we all do really well). He just wanted us to relax and see that we do know the material without having to worry about the grade we would be receiving. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but in a class full of very intelligent kids the idea of relaxing about an exam, regardless of whether it counts or not, is utterly crazy. This is why I studied more for the history exam that doesn't count (but that does have alot more material to learn) than I did for my Gothic Architecture exam that does count. I do have to say that I didn't really study all that much for either one, but I know some kids put alot of time into it. For some reason, I have the ability to read through history notes two or three times and have them pretty much memorized which is wonderful. Anyway, the history exam was probably easier than the Gothic Architecture exam...pick 3 ID's out of 12 (!) and 1 essay out of 4.

Yesterday I also went on a rooftop tour of King's College Chapel. It was so much fun, but I was a bit nervous up there even though I'm not usually afraid of heights at all. It was still immensely fun. Two of the PA's, Ruth and Moses, unlocked a door that lead to a narrow spiral staircase that we climbed until we came to the ceiling of the chapel. We then entered the area between the ceiling and the roof so we were walking on the ceiling of the chapel. There are some holes in the ceiling that they use to hang microphones through when they do recordings which I thought was pretty interesting. Also, people used to go up there to have lunch. I have no idea why they did that, but they did. There are also various types of carvings in the stone as people working on the building wanted to leave their mark on it. After leaving the crawl space, we walked along a long passageway that lead to the opposite side of the chapel and then climbed yet another spiral staircase until we came out onto the roof of the chapel. It was incredible. We climbed up to the very top point of the sloped roof and walked along it to the other side and took various pictures. It was rather cloudy out yesterday, but the views were still great. Moses told us about night climbers who climb up to the very top of the pinnacles on the four corners of the chapel and stick things on them. Last year a night climber put Santa hats on one of them at Christmas. The Porters saw it the next day, but they couldn't reach it and they didn't want to climb up the outside of the pinnacle to get to the top so they put up big spikes to prevent it from happening again, but they only finished half of the project on the first day. So that night, the same night climber went up and moved the hat to another pinnacle. Quite a cheeky chap, but I sure got a kick out of that story. Unfortunately it started to rain after a little while so we had to go back down, but it was an amazing experience that most people will never have and I'm so glad I did it (I'm actually thinking of going again!).

Today was mainly spent stressing out about trying to get everyone from the Arcadia group into the London trip for this Saturday. The online sign up process was a disaster. The server crashed because so many people were trying to get on at one time...it was worse than Cyberfriar on registration day. So I was able to get on in the morning before they shut down registration, but nobody else was. Luckily when they reopened registration later on in the afternoon almost everyone was able to get in. So I will be going to London on Saturday, but I'm hoping to spend most of the time in Greenwich at the Prime Meridian and the Royal Observatory. We will also be seeing a Shakespeare play at The Globe Theater. Tonight was one of the best nights I have had in Cambridge. A large group of us met up with some of the PA's for Pub Night. They took us to an area of town that has three pubs (Cricketers, The Free Press and The Elm Tree) right next to each other. I spent most of my time in Cricketers playing "Spicy Uno" with Lauren, Heidi, Jenna, Andrew and some of the PA's- Oli, Chloe and Ruth- played with us as well. Spicy Uno is regular Uno with a few fun twists. It was so much fun even though I didn't win at all. It was really fun to just hang out with everyone. One of the best parts of this program is all the people I have met. Everyone is so nice and fun to be around. It makes me think that if I did come back to Cambridge for grad school it just wouldn't be the same because it's the people that really make it special. I really do love it here though...there's just something magical about Cambridge. Every time I feel like I'm completely settled in and I'm in a routine that doesn't feel any different than the daily grind back at PC, I find a new restaurant or ice cream shop, try something that I have never done before, or even just meet a nice British person and I realize all over again why I love Cambridge and everyone here. Even living in King's College and eating in the amazing dining hall can't keep you in awe forever, but there is always that one moment- the moment where you see something new or just appreciate something that you've looked at over and over but have never really seen- that ushers in the sense of awe and appreciation all over again.