After visiting Kew Gardens, Maija went back home and I went to meet up with Marie, another old friend who is now living in London. I’ve written it before, but I can’t stress it enough. Internet communities such as Facebook and Couchsurfing are really great inventions for world travelers like me. How else would I be able to contact all these people that I’ve met a long time ago and then suddenly happen to be geographically close to again? We had a really nice time, Marie and I, in a café close to the Kew underground station, talking about my trip and her efforts to kind of get used to London life.

These kinds of brief encounters, connecting your present life to your past, I think they are important. Or at least they are to me. I get so wrapped up in whatever I’m doing at the moment, that I forget how things used to be and in the end I might race into the exact same kinds of problems again and again, as if I never learned from my own mistakes. Meeting people that I haven’t met for a while briefly takes me back to who I used to be, and that in turn helps me see my present situation more clearly. Kind of. It was nice, anyway, meeting Marie in London. I guess that was my main point.

On my way back to Maija’s, I walked through Richmond. Apparently, that is one of the wealthier residental areas of London – and I could definitely see that. The town houses were big and had small gardens and being so close to Kew – it must be the perfect place to raise a child, spending weekends in the gardens. If you had money and wanted to live close to the center of London, that is.

Maija lived in Clapham. A very nice area too, with the brick houses and double decker’s running on the streets. It is funny, how obviously English this area was. With the architecture, I mean. The red bricks and the facades, the window decorations and the way every separate house still kind of looked like a townhouse, narrow and all, even though they were all apartment buildings.

For dinner, I went with Maija and Jaakko (Maija’s brother) and had some amazing Indian food. Having eaten so many pub dinners in Scotland and in Cambridge, Indian kind of felt like the most typical London food we could eat. And after that, Maija picked up Neno, her lovely super enthusiastic dog, and we went to a pub for a beer. With the dog. The pub had amazing decorations in the ceiling. Why don’t they build houses like that anymore? Gah, now I’m rambling.

I had a lovely time in London, with Maija and Marie and Jaakko and I kind of wished I had planned for some more time there. But hey, I’m overly ambitious with most things in life and pretty often just end up being super stressed about stuff – so what can I do? Amsterdam was waiting, and at least I got a long day in an immense garden with lovely Maija. And, I didn’t have to bother about the tourist congestion downtown. Perfect day, really!

 

As the true English gentleman, Mr. P obviously adored the class of Kew. He also liked the playfulness of this Edible Plants exhibition that was “served” between the Temperate House and the Rose Garden, even though he after an entire day of walking around in the garden would have prefered the tea cup to actually contain tea.

Well, my visit to Kew would of course not be complete without my traditional botanic garden series of banalities.

 

I’ve been to London twice before, so I felt that doing the typical sightseeing and going into the center of town wasn’t necessary. Sure, the British Museum is amazing, but I’d rather see something new than try to make it through the tourist crowded London streets. So Maija and I decided to spend my London Sunday at Kew Gardens instead.

Kew Royal Botanic Gardens is, according to their own website, the finest botanic garden in the world, old, huge and in 2003 made into a UNESCO World Heritage Site (I’ll really have to make a list when I’m done with this trip, to see how many World Heritage Sites I’ve visited. I’m guessing MANY). The garden was first created in 1759 and now covers 121 hectares of land.

The Temperate House. Beautiful architecture.

So classy, but really, these old greenhouses felt worth seeing more for their actual design and structure, than for the plants growing in them. I could really see the 19^th century society ladies walking around on these wide paths with their long silk skirts and lacey gloves.

But they did have other, more lush greenhouses too.

The little waterlily greenhouse, that more or less only consisted of a round pool full of waterlily leaves, was such a lovely little place, and so warm. London was cold and raw on this particular Sunday, and going into the humid and fragrant laterlily greenhouse was such a lovely prespite for the constant threat of rain outside.

They had a little rose garden too, in front of the Temperate House. Not in any sense comparable with the rose garden in Portland, but still. It smelled lovely, and Maija’s rosey trousers fit right in.

They also had a Mediterranean garden with a waterfall, pretty similar to the one in Edinburgh. But I must admit, the Edinburgh rock garden felt like it was done with more precision, aesthetic consideration and thought.

There were peacocks walking around in the park, completely undisturbed by the visiting humans. At one point, an especially arrogant one basically scared Maija to jump off a path, so that he could walk there instead.

Mostly, though, the garden was made up of what felt like an airy forest with many different kinds of trees, and it was only when you happened to look at them from just the right angle and you saw that the trees actually grew in straight lines, that you realized that everything in the park was planted at one point.

I think, if the weather had been a bit better and we’d had a pic nic with us and maybe some more friends to kind of make it into an all day group thing, the Kew Gardens would have been the perfect place. But now, with a visit to actually just look at the plants, I must say that I prefered the more concentrated and intense nature of the Edinburgh garden. They had some really lovely trees at Kew, though. And spending a day with a lovely friend is never a waste of time, whatever you do.

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.

I’m on the move again. Sitting on the train, due to arrive at London Liverpool Street Station in just a short while. From there, I’m somehow supposed to find my way to Clapham South, where Maija lives. Maija, my best friend from my year in Tanzania back in 1999. I haven’t met her for at least eight years. It’s a useful thing, Facebook.

Cambridge was great. My train arrived at the station at around seven, and Abbie was already waiting for me by the platform exit. After dropping off my bag, she took me to a goodbye dinner with a big group of her Emmanuel Collage friends – it’s the end of term and people are leaving, going back to the States, Germany, Korea, London, and all the other places that they call home. It must be very strange, sitting like that with people that you have seen daily for a year, knowing that in a couple of days you might never meet many of them again. I’ve not been in that kind of situation since I graduated high school, and even then I didn’t even mind that much. I didn’t like my class very much and I actually only hang out with one high school friend now six years later.

But Abbie, she’s had a wonderful time in Cambridge. And even I, after haning out just for a couple of hours with her friends, felt that I wanted to stay, just lie on the meticulously cut collage back lawns, drink wine and discuss really smart, intellectual things (that I as a natural science student don’t really have the proper education to discuss, but love to talk about anyway).

After dinner, we went on to meet another group of her friends, mostly old classmates (she’s studied the history of intellectual thought, highly complicated stuff, their degree of interlectuality intimidated me). They were at this wonderful little pub, named after some Norse saint that I can’t remember, with writings in the ceiling, wood panelling on the walls and cosy little booths to sit in. It felt like this is a real genuine English pub.

Another thing that kind of scares me with Great Britain, except for everyone sounding so smart (probably at least partly due to their accents), is how many different kinds of beer that they have. Going to a pub and ordering a beer is so much more complicated than in Sweden, because here, they require you to choose between several different kinds of drafts, ales and lagers. I couldn’t, of course, so I took the same as Abbie: a really dark draft, that tasted like rye bread and could only be drunk in small sips. I must say, after drinking beer here, I actually think I could enjoy drinking beer, but also have a really hard time forcing down the cheap lager that they sell on tap in most Swedish bars.

Now, I need to pack up and venture into the London Underground. Keep your fingers crossed!

Liverpool Street Station

See, I made it into the right underground train, no problem at all. And found Maija waiting for me when I arrived in Clapham South. I survived my first night in the big city!

Mr. P with some Harvard scholar memorabilia.

Well, teddybears are generally not accepted to study at Cambridge, but if they had been, Mr. P is sure he would have fit right in. As the English gentleman that he after all is.

Abbie is one of those super smart persons who is going change the scholarly world with her intrellect. As a part of this brilliant academic career, she’s managed to snatch the position as the Harvard scholar at Emmanuel Collage. Except for getting to do your Master’s at Cambridge, this honor also entails “having” to live in the Harvard room.

The Harvard room is a replica of the room where John Harvard lived. John Harvard went to Emmanuel Collage, and later went on to cross the Atlantic, settle in New England and donate his extensive book collection to the newly started university in Cambridge, Massachusettes. The university now holds his name, and might be the most famous academic institution in the world.

To honor this connection between Cambridge and Harvard, the Harvard room, situated in a old 16^th century building at Emmanuel collage, was decorated in the early 1900’s and dedicated for visiting Harvard graduates doing their Master’s at Cambridge. And this past year, the Harvard scholar at Cambridge was Abbie. I was so impressed.

The room actually consists of three rooms and a tiny kitchen pentry. A bedroom, a guest room and a huge living room, with dark leather couches and dark wooden panellings on the walls. And ever since the first Harvard scholar at Emmanuel Collage, every inhabitant of the room has left one thing in the room. One can find almost anything among all the stuff, guide books to almost any place in the world, old rowing trophies, sepia colored photos of sports teams, board games and charmingly fading maps of the Harvard campus and other places in frames on the walls.

And among all this history, Abbie has lived for the past year. Studying in the days, having friends just drop by in the evenings, slouching on the couches. It is a kind of life that I will never have, and in a way I’m so envious of Abbie for getting this opportunity. But on the other hand, she really deserves it. She is the lovliest of persons, such an energic, excited and open-minded host and guide and previous farm co-worker, that I wish her all the best, from the bottom of my heart.

Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to go visit her in New England in a couple of years, where she’ll soon take the academic world with storm as the superstar scholar that is just waiting to burst into bloom in her.

It’s midsummer’s eve and I’m sitting in a little hidden corner of the limestone garden in the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, a bench with a seat shaped like a half circle, sheltered by high rock walls covered in purple flowers on three sides. The bees seem to love the purple flowers, because the air is filled with the hum of their wings.

The sun is shining behind a thin veil of clouds and the temperature is of that pressing kind, like as if it’s awaiting thunder. Abbie told me yesterday that it’s common here, but that the thunder never comes. Must be trying, the constant wait for a release that never comes.

It is calm here, in the garden. Birds are singing and the grass is still a little wet from the rain earlier today.

There’s just something about this place. When it comes to gardens, the British really know what they are doing.

They even had a grass garden. Flower bed full of different kinds of grasses. Isn’t that wonderful? And just so English!

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.