To start it off, I went to the Pembroke College Formal Hall last Thursday evening. In case you don't remember from one of my earlier posts, the formal halls are fancy dinners where everyone gets dressed up, and students and professors dine together at one of the colleges. It's a really nice way to meet other students as well as get to know your professors better. Here we are, getting ready to head over to Pembroke, all dressed up in the King's College courtyard:
Dinner was wonderful, and I had a great time. The food was very good, and we had a lot of fun pretending to be very fancy and pretentious. Unfortunately, my friend Amy took most of the pictures at the dinner, and she hasn't posted them up on Facebook yet, but there are some very funny photos of Blake "being smug," which has become his new favorite pastime. We did manage to get one nice one, though:
During the dessert course, my history of medicine professor, Dr. Barnett, came over to my table and said that because a large proportion of our class happened to be at the Hall, he was inviting everyone out for a round of drinks after dinner. Now, I know this sounds quite strange to us as Americans, but I assure you it is quite normal at Cambridge, as well as throughout the United Kingdom. It's supposed to help students and professors get to know each other better and to develop a dialogue outside of the classroom. Of course, I accepted the invitation, and we all went out to the River Bar, which is a very nice place right on water. For some strange reason, I didn't think to get a picture, but such is life. We stayed for quite a while, and had a wonderful stream of conversation about everything from our studies and our plans for the future to different types of British accents and the book on the history of gin my professor had just finished writing. Dr. Barnett and I also got on the subject of great British television, because I really love "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" and "Blackadder," and we talked for quite a while about our favorite sketches and episodes. It really was a great time; I was a bit nervous at first, because I've never hung out with one of my professors before, but I really did enjoy it. It also helped me to get to know my classmates better, and I've become good friends with a few of them since then.
The next afternoon after classes, Pembroke was holding a cream tea, and I just had to go. After all, what's a visit to England without afternoon tea? You can go to tea at almost any restaurant or cafe in Cambridge, but the ones that they hold at Cambridge are free to students on our program if you sign up ahead of time. It was a very traditional tea, with scones and clotted cream and all the works.
However, there seems to be some debate as to whether the jam or the cream goes on top... I put the jam on second, but someone told me that was wrong. However, when I looked it up online later, I found that this is actually a hotly debated issue amongst the Brits... who knows! Either way, Amy and I were having fun and feeling quite classy, sipping our tea in the Thomas Grey room.
However, that weekend is when the work really set in and I had to begin preparing for finals. However, I feel that I've said quite enough about my workload that week, so we'll just skip ahead to exams, which were yesterday. I had two: history of medicine at 9:30 and then neurobiology of addiction at 15:30. All in all, I was well prepared and I feel that I did well on both of them. They also weren't terribly difficult; if you had paid attention in lecture, participated in seminars, and done the reading, you were fine. But once exams were over, the real fun began.
Parties here in Cambridge are called "bops," and there was a post-exam bop last night at the Hidden Rooms, which is an underground bar and club. It was also a costume party, and the theme was "Cool Britannia," so pretty much anything British was fair game. Now, I LOVE costume parties, and I was determined to have a great costume, but I really couldn't think of anything. I thought about maybe buying a bright jacket and dressing it up and going as one of the Beatles from Sgt. Pepper, but I wasn't wild about it. I had an hour to kill between classes on Wednesday, so I decided to just go to a few stores, shop around, and see if anything inspired me. And after finding a royal blue wrap-style dress in TK Maxx, I recruited my friend Blake and we concocted a truly awesome costume:
Prince William and Kate Middleton, who are incidentally also the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (how appropriate!). I had so much fun putting the costume together, and it also gave Blake an opportunity to act smug, one of his favorite activities. I mean, could his nose really be any higher up in the air?!
Being a costume designer, I really must point out one of the awesome details of this costume that I thought up (I'm really quite proud of this is you can't tell). I made a great hat out of a sunhat I found on sale and a Claire's headband:
I really enjoyed that hat... I'm actually starting to feel a classy hat/fascinator phase coming on. I'm bringing this trend back to the States. It's just too fun to pass up... I also found a ring at New Look that looked kind of like Kate's actual engagement ring, except about fifty times larger (you can kind of see it on my hand in the first photo). And in case you're wondering what we're drinking out of, they are our matching Royal Wedding commemoration coffee mugs, of course. Classy, right?
Blake referred to them as our "smugs" all night.... I really don't understand this obsession with smugness. Everyone else had really great costumes, too, and all very British; from left to right, we have the Magna Carta (my personal favorite), a punter, a British bro, and Mr. Smee from Peter Pan:
The club was also a great time, but it was so hot in there!!! We were all so sweaty that we looked like we had just gotten out of the shower! I mean, my hair was wet all the way down to the tips; I don't even sweat that much when I run! But all in all, a seriously fun night. I hope they do another one at the end of the second term, because I'd definitely go again.
So between the Formal Hall, afternoon cream tea, and my first Cambridge bop, it was an awesome, quintessentially British week! The new term starts on Monday, but I'm only taking one class this term (as opposed to two first term), so I'm going to have a lot more time to do fun things, which can only mean one thing: more blog posts!!! I have big plans for the next month, but I won't spoil it; you'll just have to wait and see all the awesome things I'm going to do. Until then, cheers!!
P.S. Still no sign of Professor Dumbledore... I'm starting to get a little discouraged, but I still have four more weeks here, so fingers crossed.
Kimberly, You neglected to explain that the British TJ Maxx is actually called TK Maxx. Most people will probably just think that it was a typo. Mom
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