On Friday afternoon (21/6), Abbie took me on a tour around the Cambridge collages. It’s a wonderful thing, to go on a collage tour with a real Cambridge student. She could get me in everywhere for free, but most importantly, she could tell me all these stories about the collages, both historical and more recent, non-study related student life anectodets. She was a wonderful guide, Abbie! But I hadn’t expected anything different either.
About twenty minutes into the tour, it started raining – and pretty heavily at that. Abbie said that it rarely rained that much in Cambridge, usually it would just drizzle. But hey, I had an umbrella. I didn’t mind the rain, it just gave my Cambridge a genuinely English feel.
Abbie at her collage, Emmanuel.
One of the gates to St. John’s Collage. The collage’s most important alumni: Douglas Adams. (In case you lack the proper education, he’s the genious writer of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series.) It deserves respect, just for that.
The impressive center court at Trinity Collage, with the lovely miss Modaff who kindly agreed to act as model.
King’s Collage Chapel, built between 1446 and 1516. Abbie’s favorite building in all the world. And that is saying a lot, Abbie is a serious architecture fanataic. And I get her. It’s huge. The ceiling is uncomparable. I can only imagine the harmonies that can be created in this immens stone space by a choir singing a capella medieval hymns. Unfortunately, there were no services (evensong) in any of the Cambridge chapels when I was there.
King’s Collage. At some of the collages, only senior collage members are allowed to walk on the center court grass. Kind of like the private gardens in the middle of Edinburgh. For me, as a Swede, these kinds of traditions feel so alien. But I guess it’s nice, in a way. A sign of respect to the professors.
There are areas outside the collages too. But even though they might have seemed nice and cute when seen separately, in comparison with the collages they feel almost pitiable.
It is a beautiful university, Cambridge. Greener and softer than Oxford, and the city as such is smaller too. It’s the grey English architecture at it’s most magnificent.
Katja Malmborg 