And if you'll look to your right, ladies and gentlemen, you'll see the World's Worst Punter...

As you know, finals are now over, and yesterday was our first day of second term classes.  READ: This was the laziest weekend ever.  Since I had literally no work, I slept in, went running, had picnics, went shopping, and pretty much did all of the things I've been wanting to do since finals week started.  And, of course, no lazy weekend is complete without a punting excursion.

If you don't already know, punting is a quintessential Cambridge sport in which everyone sits in a punt (basically a long wooden canoe with a flat platform on the back), and someone (the "punter") stands on the back and pushes the canoe along the River Cam with a ten to fifteen foot wooden pole.  Sound weird?  It kind of is..... but it's also incredibly fun and relaxing.

Now, there are a few ways to go punting.  Most tourists pay to go on punting tours, and a guide does the punting for them.  However, King's College has its own punts that students can take out on the river for free, so that's what we do.  I went punting on Sunday afternoon with a couple of people, and luckily my friend Pablo is a pretty good punter, so he started us off:

We headed downstream towards Saint John's, which is one of the prettiest colleges of Cambridge.  The place basically looks like a castle:

It was actually a pretty busy day... lots of punts out on the river.  Luckily, there weren't too many traffic jams, though, and we only ended up getting hit by another punt once.  The people in it were pretty cool, though, and we ended up talking to them for a while and sharing a few Digestives (Digestives are these really delicious chocolate dipped biscuits that they sell over here.... we can't figure out the name, though. They're not particularly high-fiber or anything, if you know what I mean....).  

We just punted along for a while, enjoying the awesome weather, until we came upon the Ben and Jerry's punt, which is exactly what it sounds like.  A punt that sells Ben and Jerry's, bringing happiness to all who encounter it.  I mean, look how happy Pablo is with his ice cream:

You can kinda see it punting away in the background (the one with the greenish awning).  Once we got pretty far along the river (up near Quayside), we turned around and began punting back towards King's.  We passed again under the St. John's bridge (which is my personal favorite):

Everything was going smashingly... that is, until we got back to King's.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is when I experienced one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

Pablo insisted that I try to steer the punt (which I've never done before).  I had a bit of a foreboding feeling about it, but, trying to be a good sport, I agreed.  DISASTER.  I was absolutely horrible at it, and I couldn't even get us to go anywhere.  However, the worst part was yet to come: after about three minutes of sheer embarrassment, Pablo agreed to take back the pole, but just then, an ENTIRE PUNT-FUL of tourists went by, laughing and pointing and taking pictures on their iPhones, and one of them yelled "You're a terrible punter!!" (Note that he was sitting on his butt letting a guide do his punting for him.)  I literally could have died at that moment.  I had become an official Cambridge tourist attraction: the World's Worst Punter.

Not to be discouraged, though, we continued past King's up to Queen's College, at which point my embarrassing moment was topped by Pablo, who actually fell off the punt.  The pole had gotten stuck on the low bridge we were passing under, and it pretty much just yanked him off.  He was a good sport, though:

On our way back to King's, we passed a group of boys wrestling on the riverbank, all trying to throw each  other into the river.  They were fighting tooth-and-nail, which is not surprising considering how dirty the Cam is.... I wouldn't want to be thrown in either.

Of course, we stopped to watch the fight for a while.... they were pretty evenly matched, but after about five minutes or so, someone ended up in the river.  We punted over to talk to them and shared a few more Digestives; evidently, they were high school students from Spain, doing a programme through Queen's.  There are so many international students here!!

Punts also have names, usually after monarchs (the one we took out was Henry the something.... I can't remember), and so we passed one on the way back that I just had to take a picture of:

If you can't read it, it's called "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge," so it's basically my punt. :)  (If you've forgotten, Kate Middleton is the Duchess of Cambridge...)

Finally, about two hours after getting on the river, we ended up mooring back at King's.  The sun was just beginning to set, and we had a great view of the Chapel from the river:

All in all, it was a lovely, lazy day on the River Cam.  However, classes have started once again, and this term, I'll be taking a class on the English Reformation.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Well, I must get back to getting ready for the day... I have class at 14:00, and I think I'm going to go to afternoon tea in Pembroke afterwards.  Should be a lovely day!  Cheers!