Well PKP 2010 has been over for a few days now and, although it was sad to see everyone leave and to walk out of King's as a PKP-er for the last time, I have eight weeks worth of amazing memories to look back on. On Thursday morning I took my British and Their Sports exam and it went well. After my exam I headed over to Parker's Piece to meet dad at the bus stop. I gave him a tour of Cambridge and took him to Pembroke and King's while I continuously talked about how amazing Cambridge is. Thursday night was our final Formal Hall. It was actually a Masquerade Ball and everyone looked incredible. The Dining Hall looked great and I had so much fun. It was bittersweet, however, because it was our last night all together as a group. It's sad to think that we (all the PKP students, the PA's, Greg and Carlos) will never again be together in one place at the same time. Greg gave a speech about how good this summer has been and what a great group we were. He got a standing ovation, of course. Then Oli presented some awards to various PKP students for random things. After the Masquerade Ball there was a disco. It was a ton of fun and I stayed until it was over. They played such good music which made it even better. I was a little sad when they played "Time of my Life" but it was an appropriate song since this was by far the best summer of my life. The night ended with "Hey Jude" and then came the first wave of goodbyes.
On Friday morning Dad, Barrett and I went punting. Barrett hadn't been punting all summer so I made her come. I did a much better job at punting than the first time I went, but dad was not so good at it. It was his first time though so it's understandable. Barrett was quite good. It was alot of fun. We went down past King's towards Trinity and John's which was fun because last time I went punting we went the other way down the river. After punting, I took dad to Grantchester for lunch at The Orchard. I love it there. It's absolutely, perfectly British. Then we walked back to Cambridge and explored for a while before going to dinner at The Eagle. A lot of my friends were also eating at The Eagle so there was a second wave of goodbyes. Later that night, a bunch of us met outside of the library and there was yet another wave of goodbyes. Then we ran across the grass, but I've already described how awesome that was :-)
On Saturday morning I finished my packing and checked out. I handed in my swipe cards for the Union, Pembroke and King's and I was really disappointed that we weren't allowed to keep the one for King's. I did, however, keep my King's lanyard. After that, we headed to the train station to go to King's Cross. When we arrived in London, we checked into our hotel and started our sightseeing. During my previous times in London, I had skipped most of the major sightseeing because I knew I would be back when dad came to visit. So Saturday was spent doing all those touristy things. We saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The Abbey was closed for the day by the time we got there which was disappointing because I had really wanted to see Scientist's Corner because Newton and Darwin are buried there. We then headed across the river to the London Eye and also saw some cool street performers. After that we headed to Trafalgar Square where I climbed up on one of the lion's that guard Nelson's column. Next we went to Picadilly Circus which was pretty underwhelming and filled with tons of tourists. We tried to get tickets to see Phantom of the Opera, but there were no unobstructed views available so we grabbed a late dinner and headed back to the hotel for the night. On Sunday we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and then decided to go back to Buckingham Palace to go inside the State Rooms which are only open to the public for 6 weeks every year. Unfortunately, photography was prohibited. The rooms were spectacular. After that we grabbed lunch and then headed to the train station to catch our train to Paris. I was a little nervous about going in the Chunnel, but I ended up falling asleep most of the time anyway. When I woke up, I thought we were still in England, but as we came out of a tunnel and pulled into the Calais station, I realized we had just exited the Chunnel and were actually in France.
Today was our first full day in Paris and it was spectacular. I am absolutely in love with this city despite the fact that I got stuck in a Parisian monsoon. We decided to do the Free Tour and about an hour into the tour it started to pour. Our tour guide said she has never seen it rain so hard in Paris. Wonderful. Anyway, the tour was still very good.
I'm continuing this posts about 2 months after getting home, but I figured I would quickly finish it up. After Paris, dad and I went to Geneva, Venice, and Rome too. I would update about everything we did there but it would take more time than I have right now. I'm very busy with grad schools applications (Yes, I'm applying to Cambridge). I'm currently trying to decide where I want to travel to next summer, but I'm sure nothing will ever be able to compete with this past summer.
Cheers!
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