Monday was the first day of classes so I had Travel Writing
bright and early! There’s only five of
us in the classroom (classroom is a loose description, it’s really more of a
sitting room stuffed with some desks) so I think we’ll become really familiar
with each other and each other’s work.
In class my professor, Tom, talked about what travel writing is and what
it means to travel and be a travel writer.
We talked about the initial curiosity we all have somewhere in us and
the desire and determination to follow that curiosity to a place of
displacement; a place we feel out of our element, unknown, anonymous. I really liked this idea because some people
would consider displacement to be a bad thing but others consider feeling out
of place, new and unknown a beautiful thing because it allows us to see some
place from a different point of view and to be someone new in an unfamiliar
town, city or country. We also went out
for a tea break half way through class, which was brilliant!
After class I had all day to explore the beautiful city of
Cambridge, let me try to describe it to you: it’s mismatched, cobblestone
streets run haphazardly around the city, bearing the wear and tear of centuries
of footsteps. The buildings are made of
yellowy stone, dark red brick or a sort of white stone whit brown roofs that
resemble gingerbread houses. The
contradiction of the pretentious and regal gothic architecture with the quaint
and plain cottages exudes a sense of history.
The river weaves its way through and around the city, covered by various
bridges, green parks and sensuous gardens flourishing in the unnaturally
beautiful English summer. The people,
too, are interesting. Different accents
and languages reverberate throughout the squares and down alleyways. I play a game as I walk where I try to
identify the various languages passing me in the streets. If it’s French I hard core eaves drop to try
and see what they’re saying; most of the time they speak too fast for me
though!
After exploration time, we had tea, which is served at 4pm
every day! I think I had about 4 or 5
cups of tea yesterday so I may have to cut back my intake as the summer
progresses but, as it’s only my second day here, I’m not restraining
myself. More bonding after tea followed
by dinner and a group pow-wow where we began discussing trips to Ireland and
Paris… exciting!!! After that Tom’s kids
and wife invited us all to go out for ice cream but we all got distracted and
somehow ended up where they start the punting tours.
Punting is kind of like the gondolas in Venice where there
is a very narrow boat filled with people and a punter on the back with a rod
that is pushed down to the bottom of the river and is used to propel the boats
forward as well as steer. The water
looks like pond water or swamp water or my Uncle Jason’s pool after a long
winter of being covered and barraged by heaps of leaves and pollen. However, I did find out that this has more to
do with the silt being stirred up at the bottom of the river than it does the
toxic waste I initially suspected lay at the bottom. Our tour guide told us lots of interesting
facts but a lot of the time I was goofing off with the kids, so I was a bit
distracted! The spontaneity of the
punting/ice cream trip was so great and is one of the many things I look
forward to continuing as my summer here progresses.
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