I am A New Yorker in England at present, in Cambridge to be specific. My husband and I are on vacation, and this year, we
decided to return to the place where we first met twenty-six years ago. We
met at a scientific (flow cytometry) conference that was held at Cambridge University (scroll down to end photo).
The majority of the lectures and parallel sessions were held at Trinity
College. It was my first time in Europe, and my first opportunity to attend an
international conference. I arrived alone in London a few days before the
conference, and made my way to the Belgravia section of London where I had
booked a room at a small boarding house run by an immigrant Italian couple. I
spent those days touring London, Bath, and Stonehenge on my own before heading
north to Cambridge by train from King’s Cross station. It was an exciting time—making
my way around London and taking day trips from London by bus at a time when
internet, cell phones and social media were non-existent.
The first
time I was in Cambridge, I became completely captivated by the city and the
university. I soaked in the university atmosphere. What made the experience
complete was being able to live in a dorm room for the week of the conference.
The room was austere, fit for a monk, containing a bed and a desk and chair,
and not much else. The bathroom was down the hall, to be shared by the
inhabitants of the dorm rooms on that floor. The dorm building was a stone’s
throw from Trinity College, so it was a pleasure to wake up and to walk across
the street to get breakfast in one of the main dining rooms with long tables
(think Harry Potter at Hogwarts where he and his friends sat at those long
tables, and you’ll get the idea). This is where we ate breakfasts and
dinners—formal affairs where the food was served from the head of the table and
passed along down to each diner. I remember some really good dinners—roast beef
and roast lamb with different sauces. The organizers of the conference made
sure that we experienced real university life. I spent some time wandering
around the city’s many bookstores; the end result was that my luggage became
much heavier, and I ended up having to ship the many books I bought back to New
York as I could not haul them around for the rest of my stay in England. After
the conference was over, a colleague and I took the overnight train from London
to Edinburgh and toured Scotland for several days, before returning to London
for the trip back to New York. I met my husband a few days before we left
Cambridge, and we managed to spend some time together wandering around
the city and getting to know each other before we returned to our respective
countries. The rest, as they say, is history.
Yesterday,
we wandered down the same streets as we did when we first met. We discovered
that some of our memories of what transpired many years ago were faulty,
whereas the walk through the city brought back other memories that had been
buried. We stood on one bridge overlooking the river Cam and watched the
amateur punters trying to steer their boats in the right direction in order to
avoid crashing into other boats. It brought back memories of punting with my
colleagues from Memorial Sloan-Kettering; my former boss was the designated
punter, and he did his level best to keep from falling into the water and
ruining his leather jacket and shoes. He managed that amidst our laughter and teasing.
My colleagues also joined me for a traditional English tea with scones and
clotted cream at a tea house in the city center; my two wishes upon landing in
England, both of which were fulfilled, were to experience a traditional English
teatime and to eat fish and chips. We also enjoyed a beer together at the Eagle
pub that Watson and Crick (of DNA fame) frequented.
Today, we
met an old friend, Judith, whom we both know from the time when she did her
doctorate in Norway; she and Charlie kindly made the trip from London to
Cambridge, and we met at the Fort St. George pub/restaurant on the Midsummer Common for lunch.
It was a beautiful warm sunny day and three hours passed in pleasant
conversation. On parting, we made plans to keep in touch and hopefully they
will visit us in Norway at some future point.
One of my
‘bucket list’ wishes is to take a summer literature course at Cambridge
University. I have already found some online information about the different
courses available. It would be a real privilege to study at Cambridge, even if
only for a few weeks, and I hope it comes to pass.
These photos of Cambridge University are from 1987, and were taken from the tower of Great St. Mary's Church, which provided me with wonderful views of the university buildings and city. The photos of the Bridge of Sighs were taken during our punting trip on the river Cam.
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| notice the beautiful lawns |
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| King's College |
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| Bridge of Sighs, St. John's College |
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Bridge of Sighs
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