Cambridge 2nd Day Blog: Discovery and Disappointment - Micah Weinstock

After a bunch of time touring these schools, we decided that it was a great opportunity to explore more of the city that we have called home for the past two days, so we went on a trip to the local market. The group split into two. One group went to a crepe stand while the other half went to a Thai food truck. I was personally in the Thai group so I cannot speak to how the crepe stand was, but the Thai was wonderful. After our quick meal, we took the opportunity to walk around the market a little bit. I was amazed at how many different national foods they had. There was everything from Greek to Spanish to Malaysian. It was all in all a great experience. 

Post-lunch, we attempted to visit the Fitzwilliam Museum, but we were turned away due to our group size and lack of reservation, though we agreed to split to make the group size accomidable and the fact that it wasn’t possible to make a reservation as that wasn’t an option on the website. We had to make a choice of what to do as a group with our newfound freetime. We decided to take our chances and experience what was available nearby. We walked down the road and visited the gorgeous Peterhouse college, who made arrangements to accommodate us on short notice. It was a short visit as we were unable to enter the buildings, but nonetheless an enjoyable one. 

After a fractured vote on our next move, we chose to break off into two groups: a shopping group and a wandering group. The wandering group was the group that I was a part of so I will be able to speak to that experience. Our first stop was actually a shopping one, in which many of us got Cambridge merchandise. But our next was incredibly fun. We got to visit the top of Great St. Mary’s cathedral tower, in which we got an uninterrupted view of the whole city. While the view was definitely worth it, I can’t say that the walk up an ancient, cramped staircase of 124 was helping the case. After getting back down, we got to spend some time looking at the interior of the grand building, decorated in years of tradition. It had amazing stained glass windows, hundreds of years old, beautifully illustrating the nativity story. Following that, we walked around the area again, but this time getting poured on before finding refuge in a small cafe. 

We spend a decent amount of time waiting out the rain with snacks and drinks before finding the rest of the group to get ready to go to dinner. This was our second disappointment of the day, when we were turned away from our planned restaurant as they were unable to accommodate our group. We turned around and found ourselves in an Italian spot, where, I believe, everyone left happy. 

Our final excursion of the night was seeing the play Kiss Me, Kate at the theater. Many were apprehensive at first, but all left happy. I myself was unsure that I wanted to go, but I honestly enjoyed it a whole lot. 

Overall, today was about making good on the time we had, even if it wasn’t what we had planned for.