Dreams do come true.

On Sunday, July 1, I arrived at Cambridge. The intellectual mecca. The Hogwarts of the muggle world. The promised land. It's everything I could ever have hoped for and a whole lot more. I've been limited on tourist time and have not taken many pictures, but I'll try to tackle that today. Anyway, here's some to tide you over:

View from my room. That's Great St. Mary's. The bells ring periodically, which is kind of like living next to the byu bell tower, only a little (a lot) better. 

The view from the other window. It's a really happening market.

My humongous room. Yes, that is a fireplace on the right. 

Things I've done so far:


Sunday, July 1

• Struggled to navigate through town on arrival day - there was a big community race for breast cancer; lot's of closed roads.
• Struggled to find my hostel - nobody had heard of it. Apparently they change the name for this program. The locals were confused.
• Opening feast in the great hall of King's College. It's rumored they wanted to use the King's College dining hall as the great hall for Hogwarts. Not sure why that didn't happen, but they ended up using Christ College at Oxford instead. But still, our's is really magnificent. 
• Walking tour given by BYU grads now completing Master's and PhD's here.
• Sleep

Monday, July 2

• Breakfast/ mingling
• Various introductory sessions
• Errands - walked all over town trying to find an outlet adaptor. No dice. Yet.
• Library inductions. Seriously cool libraries at Pembroke and King's. Minuscule compared to the HBLL, but a little more history. 
• More mingling. Lots of people from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Berkely here.
• More errands - successfully found adaptors at John Lewis, the local department store at the local mall. 
• Surprisingly large city. Yet very walkable. 
• Dinner
• FHE
• Nice hearty chat with Drew, one of the BYU grads, who is about to finish up his mphil. He spoke words of comfort. 

Things I'm about to go do:

Meet with my supervisor Dr. Martland. According to those who know, Dr. Martland is a very good man to have in your corner. He holds a lot of weight here, and apparently makes some great home cooked meals. Word is, he's the guy to know if you want to come back here for grad school. So. 

After I meet with him at 1:00 I have his class (spooks and spies) at 3:25. Toooooootes excited. 

Right now I'm going to go grab some lunch and then try to find the Cambridge Union Society. I've been there before, but I have subpar sense of direction. Maybe I'll take some pictures along the way. 

For those of you who care about my mental and physical well being:

People are very friendly, I might make some friends.

 I've been gargling/ airborning/ alaverting, and I think I nipped my potential cold in the bud. 

Holla!