Welcome back, dear readers, to this week’s Travelling Tuesday where I’ll be talking about another random and not-well-thought-of trip around England. Perhaps a bit lighter in mood as opposed to last week’s, in this piece I’ll be writing about my experience going to the University of Cambridge.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have always been dreaming about one day attending the University of Cambridge and living in England – the main reason for my exchange semester this year. I must admit that my overall thoughts on England as a place to live have changed but as I move along with the semester my mind is rapidly changing once again. I am now stuck in a highly uncomfortable place in which I am undecided whether to come back to Australia at the end of this semester or to stay until the end of the year – but that’s a different story.
The past few weeks have been chock full of exciting – and, frankly, a bit scary – events which have made me seriously consider what the hell I was doing. Don’t get me wrong, I love a nice party every once in a while and will thoroughly enjoy clubbing and getting home in the shamefully early morning although occurring too often simply takes the fun away from it.
About a week after the events I talked about in the previous column, not having gone out with my friends at all and having become a shut-in, I realised I needed to be motivated again to study as hard as I was at the beginning of the year. (I’m sure we all know how quickly we can lose momentum as the weeks pass.) So, I decided to finally go to the University of Cambridge – my main motivator when it comes to studying. I booked a slightly overpriced train ticket to Cambridge and started getting ready for the day I had been waiting for.
I started with my outfit. Possibly the most important part of getting ready is choosing the perfect outfit. I think we can all agree that what you wear will determine the mood you are in for the rest of the day. The level of confidence you have. How you walk and, therefore, see the world.
I felt as if this day was something of a formal meeting between me and my inspiration so I dressed myself accordingly with my nicest dress and heels – skirt no higher than my knees, collar up to my neck and modest stockings. I tidied my hair and put a full face of makeup on – two things I rarely do – and set off for my train.
Of course, me being me, I missed my first train by a second. The doors were still open, I was running and yet the man in the bright-yellow vest still blew his whistle. The next train was in another hour and cost just as much so you can imagine my frustration as I walked back through the platform. However, it wasn’t all bad seeing as I was starving and there was a coffee shop right outside. I ordered the biggest breakfast wrap they had and told the kind waiter to put absolutely everything on it and he watched in amazement as I shovelled it down. I’m usually very graceful but in that moment my neanderthal persona came out and that wrap was my raw meat.
I finally made it to my train and had a great time reading the rest of my book, Stoner by John Williams (which I highly recommend to anyone), for about 2 hours before I made it to Cambridge. It was then about a 20 minute walk from the station to the campus so I started making my way over. Fortunately, it was a nice, sunny day with little to no wind so the walk was very pleasant and only faintly tiring.
I was feeling quite tired from waking up so early, eating so much and the sun in my eyes so I went to get a coffee from Cafe Nero – a chain of coffee shops in England – paid an ungodly amount for a small coffee and made my way towards the campus.
On the way there, I passed the University of Cambridge museum of art and antiquities called The Fitzwilliam Museum. It was free entry and huge so, of course, I stayed there for 4 hours inspecting each piece of art for way too long each. There were Ancient Egyptian antiques, Greek, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, French – three stories high and full of culture.
I saw small paintings by Monet (my favourite), Van Gogh, Picasso, even some Titian. In fact, I loved the museum so much that I refused to leave to see the campus and only got to walk around it for half an hour before having to leave to catch the last train before it got dark.
Once I got to the campus, I was shocked by how many people were there on walks, getting places on bikes and even tourists on sight-seeing buses. A few young people excitedly leaving a souvenir shop speaking Italian caught my attention so I went in to have a look around and ended up leaving with a University of Cambridge hoodie and a keychain. I thought, ‘now I have to study here, I have their official merch.’
Again, I only got to see a few buildings on campus but they were magnificent either way. They were huge with almost gothic details – an architect’s wet dream. I saw the beautiful residential halls and gardens and got my photo taken by a nice stranger, which I reciprocated for him as well.
Of course, being there for so short a time, I didn’t quite get to see the full image of how I’ve been imagining it my whole life but it was different in a good way – maybe even better. It’s safe to say that it was a great decision to go when I did because the moment I got back to my room I immediately started studying and loved every second, remembering where that hard work would one day take me.
I hope you enjoyed reading about yet another impulsive trip and if you did make sure to catch next week’s column where I’ll be talking about travelling around Europe on my own.
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