March 3rd

Upon arriving in Cambridge we booked into our hotel, a smallish one that started out as the first "women's college" within the town of Cambridge. Up until then they had a college in a small village south of the town.  The separation was felt necessary due to all of the young men in Cambridge.  When the women's college did move into the town it originally had five students.  Women at that time could learn, but were not given degrees, just letters of completion.  It wasn't until 1947 that they finally received a full degree and it wasn't until 1980 that the last male college went co-ed.  Of the 31 colleges, 27 were all male dating back to the 1200's and four female colleges were started in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  It is interesting to note that of the 27 male colleges, all of them are now co-ed, and of the four female colleges, only one is!  Reverse discrimination?

We enjoyed the city in four ways and each day I'll tell you about one.

Cambridge by bus - Yes this was a double decker open top bus.  Fortunately for us it had a small section on the front of the bus that was covered, because as in Oregon, it was raining.

The city tour was interesting as it gave us an over view of all the different colleges and some information about the town.  Cambridge is now called a city, but according to the rules that make a town a city it actually isn't.  The Queen has allowed it to become a city under special license - the reason is that it has no cathedral.  It does have this:

Which you might think is one.  But no, as this "chapel" is known as Kings College Chapel and doesn't have a Bishop's seat which is required to make a church building a cathedral and a town a city.  Hard to believe that something this big and beautiful wouldn't qualify but it doesn't.

The tour was interesting and we spent an hour in the front seat of the upper deck.  Cold but dry as we drove around the town.  Winter probably isn't the ideal time for open buses.

A special note about language once again.  One of the colleges is Magdalene but it is called
"Maudlin"  We were driving down the street called Magdalene and the driver kept saying Maudlin and I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.  Finally he cleared it up by saying I know you think it should be Magdalene but we call it Maudlin.  No reason for the difference- just what it's called.

Hopefully we'll get used to the words and the way they use them and pronounce them.  I have to admit it keeps us from saying things to other people for fear of mis-pronouncing them.  And they say we speak the same language!

Love to all,
Dawn