Wolfson and Cambridge

I'm not really in the mood to write much today, mostly because I've started reading Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights (aka The Golden Compass) and I really want to get back into it. But I'll give you all a quick rundown of the latest events and also some pictures.



This first shot is of the facade of W block at Wolfson College. You go in with an access card, down a hall, round a statue that's in a circular room from which three separate hallways run at different angles, straight on, and then immediately left to our room - 105. It's the newest wing of one of the newest colleges at Cambridge so it doesn't have the grand, churchly feel that the other colleges in the city have. Wolfson caters almost exclusively to post-graduate students and has the largest number of international students.

And here are two shots of the room itself. The first one is taken from a position just inside the doorway, at a 40 degree angle or so. You can see the wide desk, the bench over the radiator in the bay window (which overlooks a little garden/yard) and the bed. The second is taken from the same position, just facing straight ahead. The door is obscuring the built in cupboard and there is a slight recess where you see the coat rack. There's a blue tub chair in the nook. We mostly just chuck our excess clothes on that one. (Don't tell my mum I said so!)





The bathroom is really oddly shaped - like a rectangle with a clipped off corner. The toilet is to the left of the sink you can see, on the clipped part of the angle. The shower is on the short end of the rectangle. There's no cubicle or anything, just one screen preventing water from sputtering out into the bedroom. The fixtures are quite new. They're Grohe, and they let you adjust the water to exactly the temperature you want with a little twisty knob. I've decided that I like my water at a warm 45 degrees. :) Anyway, (I know I'm going on about this quite a bit but it was quite intriguing when I first saw it) the oddest thing is that it's really a shower-room. The entire thing is tiled, top to bottom, and there's a drain in the middle of the floor. So when you shower, water goes every which way, splashes on the toilet seat, on the sink, all round the floor. Anyway, it's quite messy coz you tramp the water all over the place and I really wish I could mop! But I don't think there are any implements for that. We got some disposable toilet wipes at Sainsbury and I tried using those but they're not very good. The cleaning lady only comes in to clean once a week. And right about now the dirty shower-room floor is starting to work on my nerves...

Moving on swiftly. So, yesterday, Sameer went off to meet with his supervisor etc and left me to my own devices. So I grabbed my map and wandered off into town. And that's where I took this lovely shot of (wait for it) a bridge, over the River Cam. This one was from one building in Queen's College over to another on the other side of the Cam. :) It was lovely.

So I walked along there and tried not to get run over by all the bicycles. I found my way into the historic center of town, where the only cars allowed are for residents or deliveries. There were students everywhere and - whether walking or cycling - they were all motoring somewhere. After a while I realized that they were all rushing back to their colleges for lunch or to nearby restaurants and coffee shops. Oh and tourists - there were many many tourists.

One funny thing that happened was a girl and a boy were walking along the road in front of me. And they were so obviously hot for each other. He kept putting his hand on her arm and saying arb things and she kept giggling. Anyway, they were so high on love or whatever that first she walked straight into a car (amusing) and then he inexplicably dropped his baguette and spilled all the toppings off (very amusing). Both times, they were embarrassed, tried to laugh it off and made apologetic/sympathetic noises. But as a random person on the street, it was really funny to me. I wonder if they've even admitted to themselves that they like each other. ;)

Anyway, that was mostly how I spent the morning, wandering around the little streets, looking into shops, and hearing snatches of conversation from people going by. I can't remember exactly what people were saying but I just remember thinking how strange it all was.

So, anyway, I found myself right in the center, on Trumpington Street, which becomes King's Parade, and that's where you find King's College, the oldest college at Cambridge. It was a real wow moment. I had to stop and take pictures. But I didn't go in because it costs £5. On the other hand, they have a choral mass on a Tuesday evening which is free and I intend on going one evening. Apparently, the inside is even more lovely and they say the singing is fantastic. So I hope to do that.



After that, I came across a little market type thing (like the one between Cavendish Square and the Link) and I stopped to look at the books on sale. Nothing interested me until I got right to the end -- the full Dark Materials trilogy for £5! Now that was worth £5 so I bought it, then went into a cafe (Aunt Tattie's) and started to read over lunch. (Feta, tomato, and red onion baguette - tasty!)

Then Sameer called and said the MBA guys wanted to go to the mall. I walked back across town (took me about 15 minutes) and then we went off. Some of the guys had tried out their bikes and we decided to go hire one for me at the train station, where there is a big bike rental place. It was flippin expensive but beat buying a second-hand bike because it came with insurance and free repairs whenever needed. (Apparently bicycle theft is huge in town and also, people often vandalise your bike just for kicks. I believe it too. As I was walking around I saw loads of bikes that looked as if they'd been jumped on or hit with a sledgehammer.)

Anyway, off we cycled to the mall. Then I dropped the bike and broke the front mudguard. (Yay insurance...) I am such a clutz these days. There were quite a few big shoe sales but I didn't see anything I liked. Beside, my feet are in between a four and five for some strange reason and most shoes I try seem to be either too small or too big. Weird! So we went to Boots to buy some soaps and things and then, for additional supplies, we cycled to Sainsbury's. In the dark. On the road. With cars. Through circles.

I survived.

Paris in the Wintertime

Ah Paris. To be honest I didn't really like it at first. I thought it was just a shoddy version of Rome. :P But then you realize that Paris has it's own thing going on. It's own culture and traditions and a history that is more recent but filled with enough bloodshed and betrayal to be similarly intriguing. And boy do I wish I went to the type of school that sent kids on field trips. I would have loved to have come here when we were learning about the French Revolution. It would have added so much

Okay, so lets see. Before I get bored with all the retrospection.

Day 1

We arrived Paris ten o'clockish then eventually made our way to the hotel which was close to three different train stations but in a generally dodgy part of town. It was very basic, in true Ibis fashion, but was clean, warm, and had hot showers. (Yay!)

We weren't sure what we wanted to do because we hadn't planned for the trip very well but eventually decided to go to the Louvre, then walk along the Seine, have lunch, and go to the church of Notre Dame. So we got lost a couple of times but eventually we did that. The Louvre was enormous and we got a bit lost at times. There was so much to see and we didn't have much time so we looked at some of the Egyptian displays, then went to see the Mona Lisa, Man with a Glove, Victory at Samathrace, and a few other works. Very touristy - I know! But you must understand, we were exhausted from the last few days. I felt as if I was going to fall asleep half the time! When we were about to leave, we stopped to buy some postcards. I reached for a postcard with one hand and then, from the other hand, dropped our camera on the floor. Totally unexpected!

Oh, here's a pic of one of the many many art students who just sit in the Louvre and sketch the statues that are there.



Afterwards, I wanted to go to the Tuileries Gardens (despite the fact that it was winter) but Sameer was starving so we walked to the Ile de Cita and went to the Place Duaphin, a very beautiful square. I can only imagine what it must look like in summer! So there was a large building on the end and I ask Sameer "What's that?" He looks at our map and says "A hotel". I thought "Hmmm... Must be a really posh hotel..." but anyway. Anyway, we go around the corner and see tons of police cars. Later on I read the guide book and it turns out it's a detention centre (can't remember the name) from Revolution times. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were held there until they were guillotined. Hotel my *ss... After that, every time I asked what a particular building or structure was, the answer I got was "It's a hotel."

After promenading along the Seine, we had lunch at a restaurant that served Italian food then went to the Notre Dame, which was beautiful and creepy at the same time. We wanted to climb up to the top to see the gargoyles and things up close but the last access was at 5:30 and we were slightly too late. So we went home, took our first showers in three days (don't judge us, it was a logistical issue), and slept for about 12 hours.

Day 2

We woke up feeling well rested and got a fairly early start to the day. We took the metro to the Place de la Concorde. It was a crisp morning and already the tourists had started to gather. As we crossed the street to get a closer look at the Obelisk of Luxor (23m high and 3 300 years old!), we were overrun by a group of Japanese school kids, aged around 12 or 13. They were adorable, taking pictures willy nilly. We did the same. After that, we walked down the Champs Elysees and popped into a number of the shops which displayed signs saying "Soldes". There were lots of things on sale but they were still mostly out of our price range. I managed to get a plain black jersey and a lightweight, grey hooded top.

When we got to the bottom, we looked at all the plaques commemorating the various wars France has been involved in and saw the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Then we climbed the 250-odd stairs up to the top of the Arc de Triomph and took in a fantastic view of Paris. After that, we were again exhausted and had crampy calves. We took the Metro towards the Eiffel Tower and along the way agreed not to walk up the stairs when we got there!

We crossed a bridge over the Seine and approached the tower from the wrong side. You may think "What do you mean, the wrong side?" Well, lets just say, if you go to Paris to see the Eiffel Town, approach it from the Ecole Militaire because the view from that end is much more impressive! When we saw the swarms of tourists at the base and the lines that were snaking out from the different entrances, we decided to take a break for crepes and coffee. Hmmm... After the three kilometres up the Champs Elysees and the 250-something stairs up the Arc, we destroyed any calorie deficit that we might have created by sharing one crepe that was smothered in Nutella and about a cup of whipped cream. And then we felt sick.

And so began the most overrated part of our trip - the journey up the Eiffel Tower. Well, the Tower is cool - no doubt. And I think engineers in particular would really enjoy it. At the top they had these panoramic pictures with numbers and labels for each major site in the city. There was one building that I'd been asking about since the previous day, and of course every time Sameer would say it was a hotel. So we had to check to see what it was, and wouldn't you know it, it was called the "Hotel des Invalides"...

But honestly, there were better views of Paris from other places which were much less crowded. We stood shoulder to shoulder with people the whole way and most of our time there was spent queueing and queueing and queueing. Totally overrated. Eventually we managed to get out. At the base of the tower, groups of young people were offering Free Hugs. Jaded, Sameer and I decided they must either be trying to cop a feel or pickpocket naive people.

We walked towards the Ecole Militaire. This part was great. There were kids everywhere, riding the bikes and scooters or just running around. It was one of the things that I loved about Paris. Everywhere you looked there were parents taking their kids out for bike rides or walks. There were parents cycling alongside their kids and parents walking around with baby buggies. We saw loads of dads, walking alone with babies in buggies or kids on scooters, which is not something you see every day, especially not in South Africa.

Sameer stopped to tie his shoelace at one point and I looked around to see this over-enthusiastic, little, black dog running towards us. I involuntarily went "Ooh!", this surprised Sameer who looked up to find a dog right in his face. He fell over. We both laughed as the dog ran back to his owner. A minute later we heard screaming. A little girl was running away from the same dog who was hot on her heels. He must have though she was playing with him and she was so little, running in small circles, crying in fear. She kept crying and her brother - who was only slighter older - just stood there looking puzzled as she ran around. Eventually her mother grabbed her and the owner came to fetch the dog. Poor child must have been emotionally scarred but really we found it so funny.

With afternoon on the way, we rushed off to the Picasso Museum which was great except that there were no guided tours and no audioguides! But seeing the work there really made me want to read up more about Picasso and Cubism. Something drastic obviously happened in 1907. Wikipedia shows it was his African-influenced period. At the museum they segued directly from the Rose Period to Cubism so it was quite a jump.

After that we wandered around the Marais area of Paris. Oh-my-god... It was fabulous. Shops and shops - atelier or whatever, little studios all selling the most amazing clothes, shoes, bags, art, knick knacks, furniture. Boutique stores galore. It was absolutely amazing. Like those little streets in Florence on crack...

And then, starving, we went to Mickey Ds, coz it was late, dark, and we couldn't find any of the restaurants recommended by the bloody Frommers guide book. (Note to self: No more Frommers every again...) At McDs, we had to get my favourite in France - wedges with sour cream dip, hmmm... Bliss. After that we went to the Pompidou Center which is one of my two main regrets about Paris. Not enough time in the Pompidou Center! There was just SO much to see! We got through most of one modern art gallery and then had to hoppit in order to get to the architecture exhibition that was on downstairs. That was great because it was all about the architext, Richard Rogers who, together with another architect Renzo Piano, designed the center. There were models, displays, plans, and videos all about the conception and the construction of the Center. Oh, and may I also add, there were great views of Paris from the Pompidou Center as well. From the escalators running up the side of the building we saw the Eiffel Tower all lit up. Ah yes, the Eiffel Tower - better seen from afar... *snerk* Give it a skip, and go to the Pompidou Center instead. Better yet, the Musee d'Orsay which we never got to see. That would be my second regret from Paris.

Day 3

The final day. We got up late, alas alack and then took a train to Chateau Versailles. This after Mr P got us lost a few more times. Fortunately, wifey pulled through for the team.





Versailles. Oh Lord. Wow wow wow. WOW! Mindblowing does not even begin to explain it. We 21st century peeps were awestruck. I cannot begin to imagine being an 18th century pleb wandering up to Versailles. If anyone here is going to France, please do yourself a favour and spend an entire day there. You want to see more of Versailles rather than less. Take the guided tour through the private areas, and then grab the audioguide and go through the public areas, and then do something we didn't get to do -- walk all the way through the gardens, to the Grande and Petit Trianon and to Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. Again, I wish I went to the kind of school that sent kids on excursions to places like these. My teacher showed us pictures but really, you just don't get the scale of it. Holy holy!

In the afternoon we went to Monmartre. Okay, it is one giant tourist trap. But boy is it pretty. :) We walked up the Butte to the Sacre Cour and as we came up the stairs there was a busker playing "Wonderwall" and everyone on that staircase was singing along. Cheesy but romantic. There were couples everywhere. And - ahem - 'nother great view of Paris from here.

Then we went on a walking tour through the streets. After dodging all the dodgy art sellers in the more pedestrian-heavy squares, we managed to track down two of the windmills in the immediate area. I so badly wish I could have taken pictures but by this time my camera was kaput! They were hauntingly beautiful in the twilight. Then we went to the cemetary which was again, something completely out of this world. If you have the time, you must go there during daylight. We didn't get to go in because it was closed at night but we could see it from a bridge we crossed. Think of those New Orleans cemetaries you see on TV (and Buffy of course) and you'll know what I mean. And finally, we found our way to the Moulin Rouge, which was to the other moulin as Vegas is to the Bo Kaap... As we left that area all we saw was shops titled "Sexy DVD" or "Sexy Store" and a few that were three or four stories high saying "Sexy Superstore" or something to that effect. Needless to say, it was the redlight district...

And yup, that was basically it, up until the disastrous journey home, which I've already written about.

We're Wolfson College people now

Hey all. You're probably wondering why we "went dark" over the last few days. Well, long story short, Sameer left his laptop and cellphone in Welwyn Garden City (WGC) where Lamiese stays and my cellphone battery went from fully charged to kaput in two days. Incidentally, I left my charger in WGC too. This led to a comedy of errors that was actually not that funny. But I'm trying to forget about all that frustration now...

Anyway, things here are going alright at this point but I am still MOER homesick. That's probably gam-attically incorrect (get it?) and more than a little impolite but it does get the point across. I am really tired, so I'm going to do a naughty thing and copy and paste some text from an email I just sent Razia, then embellish a bit.

Starting from the beginning, this morning we

1. sat around CDG airport for two hours, waiting for our delayed return flight to the UK
2. eventually got back to the UK, only to take the same shuttle three times, miss two busses, and eventually get a taxi to WGC
3. starving and late, gobbled down McDs only to find out that Mujkan (Hooman's aunt) had cooked us lunch
4. barely made it in time for the train to Cambridge

Then, in a change of luck we

5. arrived at Wolfson to find the Ntuli's standing on the college steps and immediately felt better
6. met David, the Paul McCartneyesque Wolfson porter who was hilarious and made us feel really welcome
7. met up with the rest of the Sainsbury peeps and, being surrounded by safas, felt even better
8. heard even worse travel horror stories from them and began to feel that ours wasn't so bad
9. had dinner in the college dinner hall (erm, jury's still out on this one)
10. are now ready for a hot shower and a warm bed

By the way, our room rocks. It's 2.5 times the size of my room at home so I don't think I'll be going stir crazy in here. I think for tomorrow I will get my spouses college card (so I can buy food and do washing), look up some employment agencies, shop for necessities such as detergent, explore the town a bit, and try to attend the weekly visiting scholars and spouses meeting. Maybe I'll even take a run. :)

I have taken a few pictures of the room but I'll probably add them to this post later tomorrow. Sameer is already in bed and he can't really sleep with the gentle clattering of keys going on here, so I need to quite asap.

Oh, and regarding the Paris trip, well there is an awful lot to say and I've taken loads of pictures, despite smashing the camera's LCD on the first day. (Don't ask...) But that will be one long post, with lots of pics needing downsizing, uploading, and explanation. It will probably take me a good few hours to write so it'll probably only be up tomorrow night I think.

Missing you all profusely,
F.

Snot en trane

The big day finally arrived. My god. After counting down since July 11th last year! Well, it was a bit of an anticlimax and at the same time very emotional.

Let's see. We were at Sameer's rents until about midnight then went home to pack. Sameer and I couldn't squeeze everything into our little bags and started to get a bit short tempered with each other because it was late, we were tired, and we were all emotional too. Se he went to bed, and I stayed up because I knew I wouldn't be able to wake up early enough to finish what needed to be done. By 3:30am I had packed the last of our stuff into our bags (after chucking a load of stuff I just couldn't fit in), taken a shower and got into bed. I had this sneaking suspicion that I would be moody and depressed come morning.

Well, my cellphone went off and - naturally - I put it on snooze. But then I heard a voice - Razia's! So I hopped out of bed and jumped in with my parents to hear what she had to say (on speaker phone). When my parents were done chatting, we spoke and by that time Sameer was up too and he also had a few words with her. It was such a strange coincidence (fate?) but it put everyone in an upbeat mood.

Shortly afterwards, Faizal turned up to help Sameer with the bags and AG came over to greet us. Then we went to Sameer's parents to greet. Sameer's dad asked him if he had his passport and according to Sameer, this was proof that he was trying to reach out and show his feelings because obviously he had his passport. :P

Off to the airport and checkin. Ho-hum. Nothing exciting there. Then breakfast at News Cafe until boarding. Here's a pic. Detect a hint of emotional stress here? I was hiding behind the camera. No pictures of me will be posted at this point because I looked terrible throughout.

At 7:20 I started hustling people towards the gate because whenever we fly long distance, I always have this paranoid fear that we will miss our plane. Also, I knew someone was going to open the floodgates any moment. So we got to the gate and everyone was just standing around and I decided to just take the leap and make with the hugging and kissing before people started bawling. I was very proud of myself. I only shed a few tears. The same cannot be said of certain other people. (Nuran, Ferzana - I mean you two!) I think my mum held up quite well under the circumstances but I also think she was holding herself back for the same reasons that I was. We'd spoken about my leaving before the time a couple of times so I didn't think that anything more needed to be said. It would just make both of us bawl anyway. :(

Moving on swiftly! We got to the gates and after a double-take at our boarding passes, the BA people moved us up to World Traveller Plus. It wasn't first or business class but there was a lot more leg room, and the seats were wider and extended more than usual. Also, there were fewer people in the section we were in. Sameer wasted no time in inflating his little pillow thing, putting on his shades and falling off to sleep.

This was our first day flight and my first BA flight. Apparently Virgin flies over the Atlantic most of the way but on BA today, we flew through the center of Africa and because it was day, we kept looking out to see the land below. Seeing the desert and mountain tops and dried out rivers was really, really cool! I know I should be more descriptive but really pictures here would tell more than a thousand words. My camera sucks so I couldn't take any good ones but this one shows a bit of what we saw. I think this was from over the Sahara.

There were a lot of movies but I didn't see anything good. I watched Hairspray in fastforward then watched about ten minutes of High School Reunion just to see more of Zac Efron. (He was much better in Hairspray, although the film sucked on the whole.) Oh, I watched Shrek 3. Ho-hum.

Oh, and we played Scrabble. (Thanks Khadija! I see the Travel Scrabble set getting lots of use.) I sucked badly, had to chuck my tiles about four times coz I kept getting consonants only and we played ourselves into a corner. We quit the game when the plane started to descend.

Ohmigod I forgot how big London was! As we landed I just kept seeing lights, roads, cars, highways, housing estates. It just went on and on and on as far as the eye could see. And planes. Dude! (I mean "For Real!") As we descended, I spotted four other planes around us. And as we landed one plane took off alongside us and another in the distance, and then another landed. Why did I not notice this the last time I was at Heathrow? Anyway, we were 20 minutes early but after the planes taxiing/parking/landing system quit on us, we had to wait 20 minutes to get a tug to drag us to the terminal.

Anyway, then there was passport control, which was fine except that we had to have xrays taken to rule out TB. (VFS didn't tell us about that. Take note all you prospective work visa peeps.)

Lamiese fetched us from the airport, then we went to pick Hooman up from Watford Station, and then we came to their home and had a very large dinner. (The area they stay in is very much like Pinelands - our own "Garden City". I'll take pics tomorrow.) We are now watching the wedding video. We're exhausted but we don't have anything planned for tomorrow so I think we'll have a lie in. :)

Family braai

I really want to post a long email about the braai we had at my 'rents house but I'm a bit pressed for time. So, to cut a long story short it was really great. The entire Cape Town family contingent was there, plus a few friends. The weather was good, we sat out in the garden, and the food was yummy. And then when people started to leave I started to get all moody and sad feeling. Sort of like when we left the First Avenue house. Oh and then the packing, last night. Don't even get me started. That was just depressing. Moving on swiftly! Here are some pics from the braai. I'll post about the last day later on this evening. Or tomorrow morning. Or maybe the next day. :P