Cambridge

As we took to the streets of Cambridge, we were looking forward to finally getting to see the inside of one of the colleges.  First we headed off to Christ College, and when we got there it was closed!  We talked to the student at the gate and he said that they were preparing for the May Ball (I wanted to ask why the May Ball was in June, but thought that might be rude).  We asked if the other colleges would be closed, and he said that he thought some of them would be.  As it turns out all of them were.  So we may be the only tourists ever to visit Oxford and Cambridge and never see the inside of a college (and not even a tee shirt from here).  We did get pictures of the outsides of several of them.

But the weather was nice so we decided to go punting on the River Cam.  Our "punter" was Toby, 23 years old, graduating from Cambridge, but didn't really know what he wanted to do.  In his words, "right now I just want to relax and have fun".  Wise words.

There was one other group in the boat with us, and they were Americans as well.  We told them that we were from Scottsdale, Arizona and the woman in pink said she was from .... Memphis!  Bartlett actually.  Such a small world.

There were lots of punts on the river, but last night as part of the May Ball they had fireworks by the river and Toby said the river was totally jammed with punts.  He said you could have walked from one side of the river to the other without ever getting your feet wet.  We had heard some booming last night at the B&B and didn't know what it was.  Toby said that some of the May Ball parties cost as much at 200 pounds ($400) per person to attend, and that they were all at least black tie, and some were white tie (which means tails).

One of the things that I wanted to see was the chapel at King's College.  Here it is from the river.

If this is a chapel, one could only imagine what they think a cathedral would be.

Then at the point where the punt turned around, there were two guys fly fishing in the middle of the river.

After having punted down the river, I don't think I'd eat anything that came out of it.

Then we passed by this pub.

which is where Pink Floyd played their first gig.

After that we headed back to the room to do some laundry, catch up on these blogs and plan out the last part of our trip where we're making some changes.  It looks like we might go to Interlaken in Switzerland and go up on the Jungfrau.  If we do, be prepared for some incredible pictures!