dipping my toes...

While settling in I met a girl named Melissa and she helped me lug my ginormous suitcase of doom up two flights of stairs (I’m on the third floor), so we met up and went down for dinner together at the Selwyn Dining Hall. It was a buffet style since it was Sunday, but normally dinner is served formally. I met some other people who had also arrived early, mostly comprised of a large contingent from Florida (including Melissa, and some others: Nick, Taylor, Jessica, and John) and one girl, Stina, from Denmark. After dinner I would have been interested in exploring, but a lot of things around Cambridge are closed Sunday night, and the Floridians had a separate orientation by their program director, so I ended up back in my room, started unpacking and organizing my life. I meant to stay up a little later but ended up falling asleep around 10 pm last night accidentally, waking up at 1 am still in my jeans and t-shirt. (I guess I wasn’t as over the jet-lag as I’d thought…) I then changed and got a couple more hours sleep before awaking again at 7:15 am.

Went down to the Full English breakfast at 8 and found my same group. I was surprisingly adventurous, trying the marmalade (on my croissant) and tomatoes (with my egg, potatoes and sausage) and enjoying them considerably. Next steps for me are the beans and Marmite, haha- I wasn't that daring yet. Met the Resident Tutor for my and Melissa’s building, Mark, who is the same age as me and a student at Cambridge. After breakfast, I went to the Summer Schools library, which is a really misleading name- it’s one tiny room with maybe 6 or 7 bookshelves. But they had all of the books I needed for my classes, so I can’t complain too much.

Then I met up with the Florida group (as we were still pretty much the only ones to have arrived, most people were registering that day) and we went out to explore the city! One of the FL directors kind of gave us an immediate tour of the buildings where our classes would be, and then we ventured westward and decided that, despite the probability of rain, we were going to go punting! So we went on the tour and it was very informative. The river goes past many of the principal Cambridge colleges so we got to learn a lot about their history, and some amusing stories associated with each one. Since it was a tour, we didn’t actually get to punt, but I’m hoping to actually try it Saturday.

After that we grabbed lunch at a pub right next door, The Anchor. I had minestrone soup and my first pint, of Stronghold- a cider that’s kind of sweet. It was also the first legal drink I’ve purchased ;) yeah UK! We wandered about some more afterwards, went to a drugstore and I bought an English chocolate bar that is really good. I’m determined to sample every kind of British sweet possible while I’m here. It was sprinkling on and off, sometimes heavily, and of course I didn’t have my umbrella because I’ve lost it in my room somewhere and can’t find it, which is rather inconvenient, but luckily we tended to huddle anyway. I was wearing my khaki capris, but it turned out to be a good idea because it wasn’t that cold, and the bottoms couldn’t get soaked like when you wear jeans when it’s raining and have to walk through puddles. Also peeked into Kings College, which only students have access to, which was really neat. There are tons of gorgeous gardens and courtyards here, but Kings is one of the most spectacular. We looked around for good Cambridge name gear, but I couldn’t decide on any one item so I’m going to wait that one out a bit.

So I’m back in my dorm now, and our group is going to meet up in a bit before dinner tonight. My dorm has two rooms, one larger area with a desk, a chest of drawers, bookshelves and a huge closet- I definitely won’t need all that room! Then there’s the bedroom, with a twin bed, a sink and another larger chest of drawers. I also have like five chairs total in the dorm, which is good I guess if people are hanging out here. Melissa’s room is smaller and more like a studio, which is bizarre that they would have different room styles in the same building, but whatever, I’m happy with mine. My windows directly face the courtyard and is right across from the Selwyn chapel. Here's my view: pretty, no?

The showers are not en suite, there’s two to a floor , and only one has a shower (the other has a bathtub!?) which might be a little bit awkward, but oh well. On my way back from the shower I actually saw people moving into my hall, which is a promising start I suppose. Still haven’t run into any USC people yet, or Khushboo, which will hopefully happen later tonight! There is an orientation session at 8:30pm, so I expect I should run into those I have not yet encountered. But this first taste of Cambridge has already been tantalizingly good, I'm eagerly anticipating what comes next!