I continue this recounting of my Cambridge visit, lazily lying on Maija’s couch.
Friday was spent sightseeing in Cambridge, first through the rain with Abbie around the collages (she could get me in everywhere for free with her university member card – it pays to know people on the inside!), and then, once the sun had finally come out, by myself, all the way to the Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
Dinner (vegetarian pie and an ale) was eaten at Abbie’s favorite pub, the Free Press. By chance, some of Abbies friends were there too, and we dived into a game of either/or, discussing whether only Old World food or New World food for the rest of our lives would be more tolerable. The girls around the table were pretty convinced that they wouldn’t want to live without cheese, and therefore chose Old World, while the guys were more ambivalent, bringing New World foods such as chocolate and tomatoes into the discussion.
Since it was Swedish Midsummer’s Eve, Abbie had invited some friends to eat strawberries with us. Earlier in the day, we had walked past a market and ended up buying six cartons of strawberries, which probably meant more than two kilograms of berries, and I also bought a bottle of rosé wine.
The Emmanuel Collage back lawn earlier in the day.
I really regret not bringing my camera with me out to the collage back lawn, to capture this lovely evening that I spent, celebrating Midsummer in Cambridge. I forgot the camera, and then couldn’t be bothered to go back up Abbie’s rooms. But let me paint the picture for you, in words:
Abbie had brought out a blanket that we spread out on the grass. The sun was shining, but soon disappeared behind the collage chapel (obviously, it wasn’t up for as long as it was in Stockholm), but the light still lingered for quite a while, letting us sit there with our glasses of wine and the huge bowl of strawberries. You should have seen it! My one regret (more or less) for going away in the middle of June and not coming back to Sweden until the tail end of July, is that I will miss the strawberry season. Nothing can beat our Nordic strawberries. But, last year I handled that by systematically eating myself through the Duckworths’ strawberry field in California, and this year me and my fellow Duckworth farm volunteer made sure to get our share at least on Midsummer’s Eve. I probably ate half all by myself, a kilo if not more, and I felt content just listening to the others talk.
Abbie’s university friends, in a picture taken by Tatiana to get the absent friend Darius to come to the party. It’s the only memento I have of this evening and I hope Tatiana is okay with me stealing it from Abbies Facebook feed.
Most of the people there were Abbie’s classmates, some I had already met the night before, and I couldn’t always keep up with what they were talking about. This world of theirs, the prestige of Cambridge and the academic tradition and practice of the humanities, felt so alien to me. Which surprised me, because I’ve studied philosophy myself (five years ago, but still), litterature might be my biggest passion in life. Coupled with my interest for music, history, philosopy, language and art, it shouldn’t be anything odd. But it was, and I kept mostly quiet. It fascinated me though, all the same, and I listened intently.
After some more students joined, a group of people started playing croquet. Apparently, it’s a very English thing to do – so obviously, I had to play too. It was hard. Very very hard. The swinging technique, the aiming, how to weigh the force you put into the croquet mallet. I barely made it through the first hoop, and the dark was already falling and eventually we couldn’t even see hoops. It wasn’t as if that many of the other players had played before either, so that’s when we gave up. It was fun while it was light enough, though, and you know I’m always up for trying something ‘local’ when I’m traveling.
The night was rounded up in Abbie’s big livingroom, lying on the couches and eating cookies. I got to talking about Danish tv shows with a language genious. Not that I know anything about Danish tv shows, but apparently he had learned Danish from them, just like that, but for some strange reason could not understand spoken Swedish. Seriously, these Cambridge people are not your ordinary kind of twenty-something-year-olds.
All in all, a really nice Midsummer’s Eve. Despite it being spent without the Scandinavian summer night light, fresh potatoes and dancing around a May pole.
Katja Malmborg 