The University and the city have been growing up around one another ever since so everything is all jumbled up in this lovely little place of about 100,000. It is really quite charming. Most of the buildings date from about 500 or so years back...but not to worry the Victorians also left their mark too. If you want to get a degree here it will take you about 3 years. At the end of year three you take a comprehensive exam covering your entire degree. So, three years of study and only the one set of exams. No problem.
You will also need to apply to one of the 31 Colleges for admission. These colleges (you've heard of at least three: Kings, Queens, and Trinity) are where you live for your three years but you can study at any faculty. Your dorm room at your college could be built any time between the early 1500s and about 1950. You will also eat at your college in the great hall...just like Harry Potter but presumably with fewer house elves. All of this is very foreign to me but seems to make perfect sense to the Brits. I like to think that the UofR would seem just as complex to them. Sure, they count the likes of Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking as graduates, but the UofR has luminaries too. I just can't think of one at this moment.
For all my bicycle enthuiast friends out there...Cambridge undergrads are not allowed to own a motor vehicle. Just a bicycle. There are bicycles absolutely everywhere! There are even bicylce parks (a parking lot just for bicylces). I have to say that I am a fan. It's a very small town so there is very little vehicle traffic at all. There stats suggest that 25% of people bike to work every day. If you combine that with the general willingness to walk (anthing under 2 miles is completely acceptable for foot commuting here), there is very little motor vehicle traffic at all. A very pleasing experience if you ask me!
On my way back to the station (only a 46 minute train journey from Kings Cross), I stopped at the Fitzwilliam Museum which was, frankly, pretty average. But, just as I was desperately trying to find my way back to the main entrance (how I wish museums were more like IKEA some days...if only there were an arrow on the floor that would lead me back to the exit) I wandered around a corner and came face to face with a lovely Seurat painting. If you ever want to impress your Mom, the painting that Cameron stares at in Ferris Bueller's Day Off is by Seurat and is called Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte. A nice way to end the trip.
Well, honestly, I ended the trip with a Cornish Pasty standing on the platform at the train station. It was excellent too.
