In Pursuit of Trivia

Well, here I am! I arrived in England last Wednesday (the third) and in Cambridge on Saturday. During that time, I walked around a lot of London, then walked around a lot of Cambridge. I have finished a blissful two and a half weeks of unemployment and, as of Monday, will be a Production Editor at Cambridge University Press. While this thought fills me with terror (I have no idea whether I'm actually capable of this job), I'm also relieved that I'll finally have a way to fill up my day. Being a tourist filled a lot of the blanks, but there is only so much touristing you can do on your own.

I don't have any photos to post - apart from a few shots taken on my phone, I haven't been doing much photography so far. Mostly because when I first arrived and took a self shot with Big Ben, I look like I'd aged about 15 years in the 2 days since I'd left Australia. I'll get around to it - these buildings have been here for a while.

Instead of a day by day account of my movements, I thought I'd impart some exciting trivia that I have learnt during my short time in Cambridge.

• English post boxes are often set into walls, and these types of post boxes are a red metal plate sort of thing with a mail slot in them. And you can tell how old they are! They have the initials of the monarch on them - and while this tends to be ER II, once someone pointed the initials out to me, I've also seen ER VII (Edward VII), G V (George V) and even V I. Excitement abounded. Perhaps I'm alone on the exact amount of exciting this is.
• The 2 pound coin has writing around the edge (the actual outside edge) that says 'Standing on the shoulders of giants'. What does this mean? I imagine it's a quote. (I then googled it to actually find out - it is supposed to be a general paraphrase of something Isaac Newton said but as it's not something he actually said in so many words, it is cheating and I don't admire it so much). Equally unintelligible is the writing on the 1 pound coin, but its lack of intelligibility is more to do with being in Latin than being a poorly attributed quote.
• Primark really is as exciting as everyone told me it will be.
• 'Petty Cury' (a street name in Cambridge) means 'little cooks' in old English, because in the old marketplace you would get cooked food in that street. Peas Hill, just nearby, comes from the old English word for fish. Actually a few places in Cambridge refer to themselves as hills. I am yet to see a hill.
• Cambridge is an 'arid' climate. Compared to the rest of England, mind you. In the botanic gardens, they have a 'dry' garden - I felt like doing a proper Australian thing and saying 'You call THIS dry' but that would lead only to stereotyping.
• My accent can be mistaken for American.
• The House of Lancaster only adopted the red rose after the war was over. It wasn't called the War of the Roses at the time on account of only one side had a rose at that point.
• There are circa 38 000 bikes in Cambridge. I will hopefully be the circa 38 001st on account of it is definitely the easiest way to get around. I just have to counteract my general fear.
• The world is an awfully small place. On Wednesday night, I met a lovely girl from Adelaide with whom I have around a dozen friends in common. It was very nice to hear a matching accent.
• The flat white is categorically the best coffee to order at Costa. Bless their hearts, the flat white is the newest thing on the English coffee scene.
• While many wealthy and influential women have been involved in founding colleges in Cambridge - as far back as Queens College, which was founded in the 1400s by the Queen at the time - the first woman to receive a degree from Cambridge was in 1948. And it was the Queen Mother. And she didn't even go there - it was an honorary degree.
• Every college chapel (query on the 'every' - but I like the idea that it's true) has an organ, and an organ player to go with it, from among the students. I would love so much to learn to play the organ. However if 10 minutes on google can be trusted, we mere mortals who are not Cambridge students don't really have the means to learn the organ. But seriously, if anyone knows a way I can learn the organ, let me in on the secret because I will seriously do it. The problem is not so much the means, as the organ. There just aren't that many lying around.

I wish that I had more of interest to share, but as I've already stretched the definition of 'interesting' rather far with the above trivia, it's probably best to leave it there.

Not much else to add, except that Cambridge is a very beautiful place. God is taking good care of me. I miss the people back home, so please stay in touch.

Much love to all!