Cambridge, Enland

today is my first full day in cambridge, england. cambridge is a beautiful college town. we are staying at clare college, which is part of cambridge university. at cambridge, a college is the part of the university where students live and study, and there are 31 colleges at cambridge. students can study any subject in the colleges, but certain colleges are more prestigeous for their science department or business department.

yesterday we left belfast very early, we had to be out of the hotel at 6 45 to make our 9 45 flight. we flew on an airline called easyjet, and on this airline passengers get to pick their seats, which i thought was fun. i sat by my friend bo and we managed to make the middle seat appear to be occupied so no one would sit in it. my friends charley, ryan, and morgan were sitting in front of us, and part way through the flight bo and i pushed charley's call button, which we thought was pretty funny. we flew into the london-standsed airport and met our coach, which drove us to the town of ely. once at ely we all went on our own ways to find lunch, and a large number of us decided to eat at a little cafe on the corner of a courtyard. i had a ham and cheese toasty. a toasty is essentially a toasted sandwich. after lunch, we all gathered at ely cathedral, which is a massive, beautiful cathedral. before going in, professor brothers, the art and music professor on the trip, gave a quick talk about cathedrals. then we all went inside to explore.

i have been struck by the religious buildings i have encountered in europe, and ely cathedral has been the most impressive so far. the sheer size of the cathedral caused me to be overcome with a sense of awe and wonder, and this sense was deepened upon entering the catheral. it is one thing to view these buildings in pictures, but to be standing outside of a cathedral is an almost unreal experience, not to mention that these massive structures were created well before the modern crane, truck, or engine for that matter were invented. the amount of man power necessary to create one of these structures is unbelievable. once inside the cathedral the attention to detail is amazing. from the stained glass windows to carvings in the stone of the walls and the celling, there were tiny details covering the cathedral. i love the fact that everything in the cathedral directs the observers attention upwards, to the heavens. everywhere i looked in the cathedral, i kept tracing lines and shapes upwards until i was looking at the celling, which ultimately led my thoughts to god in heaven. here the form of the cathedral, the upward shapes and designs, contribute to the function of the cathedral, worship.

after being in awe of the cathedral we all loaded back into the coach and headed for cambridge. when we arrived in cambridge, we made our way to our rooms at clare college, and then gathered for a city report on cambridge. during this gathering time i received my second letter from katie, which absolutely made my day. getting letters from katie is one of my favorite parts of this semester. i am a romantic at heart and i love the idea of writing and sending letters to the one you care most about, it makes me feel as if i am living in another, simpler time without computers and the internet. so naturaly i was in an excellent mood for the rest of the day.

after some light exploring, nine friends and i ended up having dinner at a spanish restaurant, which wasnt very good. then we met up with the rest of the guys and went back to clare. last night i was exhausted, so i ended up going to bed at 9, which was amazing, and slept until 8 20 this morning. i forgot how much i love sleep since i came on the trip because i have been so excited to see things and do things and explore things.

today we had our art class and our nationalism class. after that we had a 3 hour break for lunch and exploring, so newty, davis, brandon woods and i went to a little cafe and got sandwiches and i had a delicious pastry, or tasty treats as we have been calling anything delicious since the trip started. daily i have tasty treat conversations with several people on the trip, which has been fun. this afternoon we had a walking tour of cambridge with a tour guide who was very knowledgeable. we were given a tour of kings chapel, which is a massive cathedral here on the campus for the kings college. this cathedral was also massive and beautiful. the chapel was covered with these gorgeous stained glass windows depicting scenes from the bible. i have decided that i love stained glass windows. in kings chapel, on each section of window there was and upper and lower section. the upper section showed a story from the old testament, and the lower section showed a story from the new testament, and each of these stories was connected. for example, on a window that our guide pointed out, the upper section showed johnna being spit out from the fish after he repented for not doing the lords will, and the lower section showed jesus after the resurrection, and the parallel was the darkness of the tomb and the darkness of the whales mouth and that god delivers us from darkness.

after that i explored cambridge a little more iwth some friends and then came back to clare to use the internet, because there are computers with internet access with us to use for free here, which has been very nice.

cambridge gets its name from the river cam, which runs through the town. today on our walking tour of cambridge the guide told us that when the romans came to conquoer england, the built a bridge across, the cam, thus the name cambrige. a popular activity here is punting on the cam. punts are these boats that are for rent around the town, and thus punting is boating. tomorrow i am going to organize the punting olympics, and we are going to race and battle using the punts on the river cam, i am really looking forward to it.

cambridge has been a nice break from belfast. there is a much different feeling here than belfast, and it has been nice to get out of belfast and the issues surrounding it, but at the same time i do not want to forget belfast and the troubles and will continue to pray for the city and that peace can be truly realized. that is all i have for now.

love and blessings,
mikey