I'm currently reading a book (for fun!) that Philip got me for Christmas last year, called "Looking for Class." The author (Bruce Feiler) attended the University of Cambridge in the early 1990s and the book chronicles his time there. I know most of the places and little English nuances that he describes and it just makes me so happy!
Here's one of my favorite passages so far:
"Among students, tourists, even professors, there is one indisputable manner in which Cambridge promotes love: it is an incredibly, at times overwhelmingly, romantic place. For some, the charm is the setting. Cambridge, wrote Henry James, boasts 'the loveliest confusion of Gothic windows and ancient trees, of grassy banks and mossy balustrades . . . of single-arched bridges spanning the little stream, which is small and shallow and looks as if it had been turned on for ornamental purposes.'"
Even though he was there over 20 years before I was, it's amazing to me that the things he talks about are just as I experienced them. The romantic feeling of Cambridge is something I noticed from basically my first day there. I thought I experienced it that way because I already came with a romanticized idea of the place, but it really just is a place for falling and being in love. Because I was alone 95% of the time, I would observe a lot. I would watch (in a non-creepy way) the couples laying on the grass in the parks, common areas, and banks of the Cam. The little streets, especially in the city centre, were just meant to be walked while holding hands with someone. I will clearly always be in love with Cambridge and always be an Anglophile.
A year ago today was the day I left for London on a jet plane. I can't believe how fast the last year has gone!
Here's one of my favorite passages so far:
"Among students, tourists, even professors, there is one indisputable manner in which Cambridge promotes love: it is an incredibly, at times overwhelmingly, romantic place. For some, the charm is the setting. Cambridge, wrote Henry James, boasts 'the loveliest confusion of Gothic windows and ancient trees, of grassy banks and mossy balustrades . . . of single-arched bridges spanning the little stream, which is small and shallow and looks as if it had been turned on for ornamental purposes.'"
Even though he was there over 20 years before I was, it's amazing to me that the things he talks about are just as I experienced them. The romantic feeling of Cambridge is something I noticed from basically my first day there. I thought I experienced it that way because I already came with a romanticized idea of the place, but it really just is a place for falling and being in love. Because I was alone 95% of the time, I would observe a lot. I would watch (in a non-creepy way) the couples laying on the grass in the parks, common areas, and banks of the Cam. The little streets, especially in the city centre, were just meant to be walked while holding hands with someone. I will clearly always be in love with Cambridge and always be an Anglophile.
A year ago today was the day I left for London on a jet plane. I can't believe how fast the last year has gone!
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