Cambridge, London and Sixth Floor Reunions abroad

I know it's been a long time since my last post... life at Cambridge is pretty busy! I'll start catching you all up:

On a typical day here at Cambridge, we get up and go to breakfast around 8:15, class at 9, optional plenary lecture at 10:30, class 11:45-1 and then go into town for lunch or shopping. Cambridge is full of little boutiques, restaurants and pubs. Dinner is a 3 course meal, usually consisting of at least one thing I don't eat. So far we have had at least 3 nights of pork and 2 nights of fish, which in case you didn't know I can't/don't eat either. Luckily the vegetarian options are usually pretty good, unless it's giant mushrooms in which case I'm completely out of luck.

Thursday (two Thursdays ago...) night Cambridge hosted a celidh, which is Irish dancing sort of like square dancing. The instructor had us running and jumping around for almost two hours! I danced with a French guy named Guillaume the whole time, and we had a blast! My legs we definitely killing me for a few days after that though... After, we went out to Club Revolution again, stopping at a nice bar called Ta Bouche first. I was with a huge group of people - there must have been at least 30 of us, mostly from USC, Florida and Michigan St.
Friday I went to class and then hopped on a bus to London to meet my good friends from USC Laura Klein and Jack Kovacs. Laura had just finished 7 weeks in Rome with the Viterbi School of Engineering and Jack had just done 2 weeks in London in a songwriting program with Thornton School of Music. Laura's parents put us up in a hotel (I didn't even have to stay in a hostel with 5 random people in my room... weird) and I met Jack there and we went to dinner while we waited for Laura to come from the airport. Once Laura arrived, we all went out to a bar/club near the hotel that Jack and I had seen on the way to dinner called The Moose. Of course it poured on our walk there so we were soaked, but warmed up quickly in the crowded bar. This was either the type of place or the type of people that are not big on the dancing thing because the three of us definitely became the center of attention. We showed the British how we do it over in the States ;) I was really glad Jack was there to sort of intimidate the guys that had circled up around us...
On Saturday, we went over to the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewel snad all the towers and armories. I especially enjoyed the room with the statues of the horses of all the English Kings. After, we went to a pub for lunch called the Hung, Drawn and Quartered (all the pubs here have really cool/weird/random names...) where Laura got her first English fish and chips. Then we walked down to St. Paul's Cathedral and looked around for a while. Jack went to dinner with his uncle and Laura and I went off to find some good Indian food. We went up to Soho and found a nice little restaurant with excellent curry and naan. We went back and got Jack and then went to find a new club. We went back to the Soho area and wandered for a bit before we finally went into one. This one was very different from the night beofre - more people were actaully dancing and the crowd felt a little older than us. There were several bachelorette parties which was very interesting to watch, and we eventually ended up dancing with a group of British guys who had gone to baording school together - aka some major bros. It was fun though and afterwards we walked back to the hotel in the still-crazy streets of Soho/Mayfair.
On Sunday Laura and I went to Big Ben, Westminster, Parliament, the Horse Guards (where there was some sort of commemeration for the Belgian Army) and met Jack at Buckingham Palace for the changing of the Guard. While walking to Buckingham, Laura and I just happened to see Katie McKitterick, a fellow Helene! What a coincedence, especially because she was on her way to Kenya and only in London for a few hours! What a small world... After Buckingham we went to Kensington gardens, walked around and inquired about tea at the Orangery. While we waited for tea-time, we went over to Abbey Road to see the famous recording studio and interection - of course recreating our own Beatles album cover picture. We went back to Kensington for our traditional English tea, which consisted of cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and cake, along with tea of course. Laura and I went off to catch the bus back to Cambridge, and said goodbye to Jack, who was leaving London on Tuesday.
Monday after my classes, Laura, my friend Sean and I went into town to go punting on the River Cam. Punting is the quintessential Cambridge thing to do - you sit in little rectangular boats while someone stands on the back with a long pole which they use to push off the river bottom to propel the boat (think gondola-style). We all took turns punting, and I think I held my own. After punting we walked around the town a bit and then went back to the college. We went out that night to Revolution (again, I know) since Mondays are gay night.
Tuesday, Laura, my friend Elizabeth and I walked through Cambridge to see the Botanic Gardens. They were incredible! Designed by Henslow (Darwin's teacher), there are glasshouses with plants from different regions of the world, a rose garden, scented garden, systematic beds, and genetic garden. The flowers were so pretty and it was really neat seeing all the different varieties of plants. We hung around the college with some friends for Laura's last night at Cambridge, before she left back to London for the day on Wednesday morning. I loved having her here and I was so happy to see her and Jack, especially in England... amazing!

I know I'm not quite all caught up, but this is long enough for now and I should do some classwork, so I'll update again soon!