Cambridge Day Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve (July 8th-11th)

This week was a lot less eventful compared to last week! Monday began with session on The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. I took a nap in the afternoon and just rested after the exciting weekend. In the evening, we had a lecture on John Milton, specifically about his years here at Cambridge. I went to the grocery store in the evening, and that was pretty much Monday. Tuesday, we had session on Milton's Comus. The Milton scholar who gave the lecture sat in our session too. In the afternoon, Heather and I walked in to town to this bookstore that sells first edition copies of books. It was so cool! We spent a good while in there, just browsing through and marveling at how old the books were (yes, we are English major nerds). I wanted to buy something, but most things were really expensive (anywhere from 50-200 pounds). I'm probably going to go back next week, though, and might get something, depending on how much money I have left haha. There's a big market area in the middle of town, and we spent some time walking around there and browsing. We saw a street performer get on an 8-foot unicycle. For dinner, I went out with some friends to a restaurant called Nando's. We all split a big platter of chicken and sides. It was really yummy.

Wednesday was another London day! We met at the train station at 9am. (I also got my morning exercise in when the group I was with missed our turn for the station and walked a bit too far...then had to run back to make it in time!) We went to the British Museum first, which was really cool! We'd had to read the book Through the British Museum with the Bible before we went, and my group's tour guide was one of the authors! (I got him to sign my book, haha.) We saw the Rosetta Stone, the Black Obelisk, the Cyrus Cylinder. We were there two hours, but there was so much to see! I didn't feel like we even came close to seeing half of it. It was really neat though, because our tour guide was telling us how all of these different artifacts prove the truth of all the historical facts mentioned in the Bible. It was so fascinating! After the museum, we picked up lunch at a Pret store, which sells ready-made food like sandwiches and stuff, and we ate at a nearby park. From there, we walked to the British Library, which was awesome! We saw all the illuminated manuscripts, which included the Magna Carta and some early copies of the Bible (including the Gutenberg Bible), as well as early works of literature and music. There was also a letter from Napoleon to his brother that had been intercepted. From there we were on our own until 7pm. I spent some more time in the Library, just looking around, and then I went with some friends to Baker Street! We were going to go in the Sherlock Holmes Museum, but unfortunately the line was too long and we ended up not having time for it. Instead, we went in the gift store and just looked around there. It was really cool! Then we went to the National Gallery and looked around there for awhile. I'm not a big art person, but some of the paintings were really cool. Next, we went and saw the London Bridge! (No, it wasn't falling down, but we did see the drawbridge go up and down.) The London Bridge was close to the Globe (where we were meeting at 7pm) so we picked up dinner and walked there.

 Sherlock Holmes Museum

The London Bridge, with the Tower of London on the left.

The Globe was awesome! We saw A Midsummer Night's Dream, and it was a lot funnier watching it than when I read it. It was such a neat experience being there and very cool to see Shakespeare how it was meant to be seen. The play lasted until around 10:30pm, and then we had to rush back to the King's Cross Station. There were no more trains going to Cambridge, so we had to take one to another town and then catch a bus to Cambridge. I got back to my room at 1am. Our professors were nice though, and they delayed class Thursday morning until 10:30am. :)

Inside the Globe.

We had session on Tennyson's poem "In Memoriam A.H.H." After session, we all walked over to the Tyndale House, which is this house with a library that has every serious doctrinal work written in it. It only contains books/dissertations/etc. related to the Bible. They also do Bible translation work (from the original Hebrew and Greek). The head of the house (I think), Dr. Peter Williams, gave us a lecture about Bible translations and language. It was really interesting! I got back to my room around 4:30pm and took a nap, then read some. I finished my reading for next Tuesday last night, but I still have one more book to read that is due Wednesday that I get to start and finish this weekend. I'm still having a really good time here; it's hard to believe there's only one week left!