Cambridge Finale

Hi,

Well, I'm finally back in Los Angeles. I had an amazing summer and it's strange to think that I'll be in one place for awhile! As for my last week in Cambridge...

I finished my papers early in the week and it was on to celebrations and goodbyes. Monday night, Elizabeth and I went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Girton College gardens. The Shakespeare festival has been going on a Cambridge, and a bunch of the colleges put on different plays in their gardens. This setting was especially fitting for this play, since it is set mostly in a forest, after all. We sat on the grass right in front of the "stage," and it really felt like we were part of the scene! The actors spoke right to us! The production was hilarious, and the actors and actresses were really good. Luckily it stays light pretty late in England (in fact, Cambridge is at about the same latitude as the southernmost part of the Alaska [if you include the Aleutian Islands] - I lost the bet).
On Wednesday, I went to tea and the Fitzwilliam Museum with Kevin and Emilio, two friends from USC at Cambridge. The Fitzwilliam had a ton of different art: British, Italian, French, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, everything! My favorite was of course the French - you can't beat it! We met up with some more friends at The Cow for Happy Hour drinks in celebration of everyone finishing their papers before going back for dinner and then clubbing. Everybody (and I mean nearly all of the students in our Cambridge program) went out to The Fez club to celebrate that night. It was packed (on a Wednesday night? yup!) and so it was very hot and crowded, but we all still had fun dancing for hours.
Thursday was our last full day at Cambridge. We went to our last classes and began packing up our rooms (which was a bit strange, since being in one place for four weeks seemed so foreign to me!). We had a formal dinner that night in the Selwyn Dining Hall, where we all dressed up and they served us by candlelight. After, we all went to the Selwyn Pub for our last evening together, and eventually ended up at someone's room in Newnham College, where there was a big balcony where we enjoyed the pleasant Cambridge evening.
Everyone left the next morning, and it was sad to say goodbye. I made several really good friends from all over - the USC friends I made I know I will see again, but those from across the US and the world, who knows? Luckily, this will just give me more reasons to travel :)
I took a coach to London with Sean and his parents, and my Uncle Tom, who was visiting London, met me at the station. we went back to the flat of our family friend, Bobby, where we were both going to be staying. Bobby was a friend of my grandparents from Canada, and she is the sweetest lady! Tom and I went into the city for the afternoon and went on the London Eye, which was actually really neat and not at all scary, even for someone terribly afraid of heights, as well as the Courtauld Museum in the Somerset House. The museum was fairly small, but had the most beautiful Monets and Cezannes. We went back to Bobby's for dinner with her family (her son Jonathan, wife Lindsay and son Lawrence). I got to discuss some of the British politics I had learned in my class with some actual British people, which gave me a neat perspective in comparing their system and ours. After dinner, I met up with Sean and his parents again at a bar/restaurant and said my goodbyes before trying to sleep for a few hours before my early flight.
I got up at 4:30 on Saturday to get to the airport, where I met up with Kevin who was on my flight back to New York. It was nice to have someone to watch movies with. I think long international flights are actually the best kind - you get really good movies, your own entertainment system, and two meals on the 7 hour cross-Atlantic flight, as opposed to absolutely nothing on the 5-hour cross-country flight. After 24 hours of traveling (it was a never-ending day... I had to keep setting my watch backwards!) I got to Phoenix and went to my Mom's house for the next day. We drove out to LA yesterday and started moving into my new apartment (which is really nice!). My summer abroad has officially ended, and I went back to work today. What a difference - working in an office for eight hours, when three days ago I was on a whole different continent!
This means I am actually available by phone now, if you want to contact me, and I will put pictures up soon, and will post a link in this blog. Hopefully you've been somewhat entertained by my travels. I can't wait to hear all about all of your summer adventures as well!