Brighton Sassy at Sussex: Cambridge: kinda like Oxford but with Punting

Ok, so this was way back the weekend before my essays were due, so what I can recall about Cambridge is vague and far from complete. Cambridge was the last Sussex arranged trip and not many people ended up going on this one because of the weekend-before-essays thing. We started off with a guided tour of the colleges. Our guide however clearly had no idea that we were affiliated with Sussex because he kept saying things like "you could perhaps study here" and I kept thinking things like, "no I'm busy studying somewhere else with a history that is less elitist and more hippyish." Anyway, the University of Cambridge is made up of a bunch of colleges, which are self governing and have their own property and endowments. The university was first started in 1209 when scholars left Oxford after a dispute with the townsfolk.

The tour was nice. We went by the various colleges including one area where our tour guide insisted Chariots of Fire was not filmed. Now, I'm not really familiar with the plot of Chariots of fire except that it has something to do with running but this certainly got the song stuck in my head for the rest of the day. The Chariots of Fire story does however relate somehow to a clock and a race held at (I believe) Trinity College (I only think so because Newton was mentioned and I've look him up). Anyway, here their clock goes through the whole strike twice, so one a year students are invited to race around the courtyard and see if they can get around it by the time the clock has finished striking noon (24 counts). And to think, at Oxy we only have undie-runs. :)

Next we went to King's College chapel, which is quite pretty and wikipedia tells me it has the worlds largest fan vault. One end of the chapel was built by the pious Henry VI. Work was resumed after the War of the Roses by Henry VII and completed by Henry VIII. There are various Royal symbols such as the Tudor Rose all over the walls of the later section of the chapel.

After the tour, we went to lunch at a nice pub where all of the staff were dressed up in costume. The guy who served us was dressed as Jack Sparrow. Unfortunately, I dd not take a picture. After lunch, it was time for punting during which we were treated to another tour of the colleges but this time from the river. Punting was lots of fun. The river was very crowded though and even with our guide there were a few collisions. I'm certainly glad we didn't try and rent a boat and pun ourselves.