Photos of college meals - for my grandpa!

My grandpa came to Cambridge university for a short while when he was studying medicine, and he was curious what kind of food they serve here now. I was surprised to discover on my first night here that we have a sit-down three-course meal with entrée, mains and dessert every night: with waiter service! Breakfast is a large buffet that we help ourselves from, and lunch we have to find for ourselves.

The meal from our first night in the college:

Pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce for entrée

For mains: mashed potato, greens and beef gravy with a chicken breast wrapped with bacon and stuffed with cheese and sun-dried tomato. I'm not sure what it's called, but it was pretty good ;)

For desserts: mousse with raspberry compote and whole raspberries - very delicious :)

The second night we had a fruit entrée (melon, watermelon, and pineapple), salmon and greens with a delicious tangy sauce for mains, and a trifle, meringue thing for dessert.

Tonight we had minestrone soup for entrée, beef stroganoff and greens for mains (wonderful stroganoff!), and something that I think was a panacotta with berries and cream for desserts. 

I am very impressed with the meals we've had, I thought we'd be piling our own plates at a buffet!

Photos from around Cambridge

Punting boats on the river Cam near St Catharine's college, for punting.

St Mary's church

The mathematical bridge. When it was originally built it was perfectly constructed to hold together without nails or bolts. A hundred years later it was in need of replacing, so they took it apart and replaced the wood, but couldn't work out how to put it back together again so that it fit perfectly, so they bolted it in place just in case!

Inside one of the many churches in Cambridge.

A scale model of the city of Cambridge

King's College. Don't walk on the grass!

Detail from a medieval door. Very cool.

A medieval door that was so big they had to make a smaller door for people to go through.

The Round Church - an historic Cambridge landmark.

A man playing guitar in a bin. I'm really not sure what this was about, maybe he was dared, who knows.

A pint.

Another pint.

Day 7

The last three days have been incredible, and very, very busy!

On Sunday we had registration and orientation - basically signing into our respective colleges and letting the ISS (International Summer School) staff know that we are present and ready to learn! Monday was the first day of classes plus several introductory/welcome/instructional talks, and today (Tuesday) was the first day of just classes.

I have met so many people from so many places in the last three days. We've been told that there are representatives from 34 countries here, and so far I have met:

A young woman from Holland

An older gentleman from the Hague, also in Holland

A woman from India

Three people from Michigan

One woman from Texas

One woman from California

One man from Florida

One woman from New York

One man from Warsaw, Poland

One woman from Serbia

One woman from Brazil

One woman from Argentina

One woman from Guyana, who now lives in Florida

Several people from Australia: Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra

One man from Canada who studies in Zurich

One woman from Finland

One woman from the Netherlands

Several people from the UK

One woman from Cape Town, South Africa

One man from Tokyo, Japan who studies in America

One man from Italy (named Luigi!)

And I'm sure I will meet many more :-)

The classes have been fascinating, but also quite challenging. They are very academic, highly intellectual, there are a lot of very complicated philosophical and psychological concepts explored in every class, in every piece of work we study. The special subject course classes go for and hour and a half, and although we discuss so much in that time, it often feels like we haven't covered a quarter of what we could if we had the time. The plenary lectures so far have also been very interesting, although sometimes they are so full of complex ideas I have trouble following what's being said - it would have helped if I had studied some kind of philosophy. Most of the people I've met have done at least philosophy classes, even just in high school, and they find the lectures a little easier to penetrate.

Other than that, we stay in a few separate colleges, although most of the science and literature ISS students are staying at St Catharine's college. We eat breakfast together and we eat dinner together, but are responsible for getting our own lunch. The last two nights we have gone to the pub closest to St Catharine's called The Eagle, which has been in business since the 15th century. It's amazing to go to a pub that is that old! Having said that, St Catharine's is about six hundred years old, and the university is older still. I love how old everything is here :-)

The next week and a half are going to be very amazing!

~ Jemimah