The whole no car and pets at home thing almost threw a wrench in it, but we were happily able to meet up with the wonderful Brant and Mariko (and attached adorable Marlowe) for a day out in Cambridge. It was a long trip, but we happily arrived in down town Cambridge on time and no worse for wear. We had some crepes and walked around the market square, visited the outside of King’s College and couple of lovely old churches, and awaited our punting-buddies-to-be…

What is punting you may ask? Punting is awesome. Granted, I’m completely biased by the amount of fun we had doing it – the whole one time, but anyway. Punting is boating in a punt (you may now roll your eyes), which is a flat-bottomed boat which is square on the ends. The punter stands on the upper part of one of these ends and propels the punt by pushing against the river bed with a pole. Kind of like a gondola, but gondolas use oars. Punts are especially designed for small, shallow rivers.

As Brant and Mariko had the baby and none of us wanted to risk falling in the river, we did a punting tour with a professional, who propelled up along an area of the Cam River known as the Backs. So named as it runs along the back of some of the major Cambridge colleges. The tour guide gave us some facts, some history, and lots of local color commentary, so, in short, the best kind of tour guide patter. He also was incredibly good at yelling at people to pull their arms, legs, elbows, hands, etc. back into the boat so they wouldn’t get broken off when the novice punters crashed into us or each other. I’m not saying he had to yell at Matt twice… But, he did. Matt just really wanted to lose a limb apparently (he wouldn’t have necessarily lost it, but it would have definitely been a painful injury). Highlights from the tour included a great view of St. John’s College and it’s asymmetrical eagle (which is apparently there as an snub to another wealthier college just down river), another Bridge of Sighs (there are just too many of these, apparently everybody has got to have one…), the Mathematical Bridge (not built without nails, not built by Newton, not taken apart by students, or for that matter, not any of the other conspiracy theories), and last but not least,  baby water fowl (ducks, swans, geese, we had the gamut – and they dealt admirably with the obnoxious number of boaters).

After wine in punt came the Round Church, or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is one of only four medieval round churches still in use in England, and was actually kind of delightful for not looking as complicated as EVERY-OTHER-CHURCH-IN-EUROPE… Seriously. It was built in 1130 by knights returning from the Crusades and is based on the Holy Sepulchre  in Jerusalem. Or so says Wikipedia, here. Inside the church is two stories of columns with arches between circling the nave (yup, totally had to look that word up, still don’t know what it means), which is I think the whole of the original church, though other parts have been added (but they aren’t round, so what on earth is the point!?!). Oddly enough we met an Alabaman (?) in the churches gift shop…

I’d like to make it back to Cambridge when we have more time. We didn’t get into tour inside of any of the colleges and there are some parts of the grounds/courtyards I’d like to get a better look at. Plus, as an Oxford employee, I like to think Matt is tempting fate just stepping on the premises. (Note: Oxford and Cambridge are rivals, it’s like U of O and OSU, except their insults would probably be in Latin and somebody would be wearing a monocle).

Anyway, more to come.

– a

*Note: I know Brant isn’t actually a ‘former’ Brit. And, Marlowe is only .5 an Oregonian because she’s little. Also, she and Brant both have dual citizenship, so really together they’d equal one more Oregonian, and only a single Brit, but that’s all too complicated and not nearly pithy enough for a title…