Day One: 30 hour day - arrival in Cambridge
Arrived at Sydney Airport at 1300 hours and said some goodbyes to our families. We were delayed getting through customs: left at around 1600 hours. We aimed to stay up all the way through the flight to Singapore and then sleep from the Singapore/London leg - and we succeeded. It wasn’t hard though, as there was a crazy German/French guy behind us screaming about the ‘incompetent Qantas service’. Quote: ‘Qantas… never again! You forgot my friend’s drink once - so never again.’ The air hostess was particularly doting towards Trent and the rest of our mentors, so we got slightly better service!
After our brief stopover at Singapore, we hopped on another plane to London, to be rewarded with a SECOND SUPPER only 1.5 hours after the last meal (although Yufeng didn’t appear to care)!! Although we failed our goals of flying ‘economy plus’, our flight was most pleasant: we all managed to get between 4 -7.5 hours sleep, leaving us refreshed (although highly in need of shower) when we arrived at Heathrow.
Luckily, we didn’t waste any time waiting for buses at Heathrow. We arrived in Cambridge at approximately 9:00am +1GMT. We were met by tour guide extraordinaire Andrew Goodwin (IChO 1996 Gold medallist and former AChO staff member, now a Research Fellow at Cambridge), who called some taxis and showed us all to our new GIGANTIC COLLEGE ROOMS FROM WHICH WE ARE CURRENTLY WRITING THIS BLOG. The rooms are phenomenal: a huge upgrade from John XXIII at ANU, Canberra. Spacious, complete with window seats, an ensuite bathroom + 3 wardrobes, and a desk for study, as well as a heating system and multiple lounge chairs. We all settled in very quickly. After a brief tour around Trinity College we went straight to brunch, where Elaine felt the need to order two breakfasts for herself, while everyone else starved on a mere ‘traditional breakfast’ at the Mitre pub.
From here it was a tour a Cambridge: the steeples, the castles, the crazy tight-wearing theatre hecklers, the continuous offers of a ‘punt down the river Cam’ for rates of 12 pounds per hour per person; the wood panelling, the British accents, the grass that no-one except college fellows can walk on, the bridge which is the only place in England where it is legal to kill someone in a duel. Yes, we’re all totally sold. Sorry folks, we’re not coming back. We even picked up 2009 prospectus guides!
After meeting Anthony Phillips (multiple IChO and IPhO medallist and former AChO staff member, now a PhD student at Cambridge) in mid-Cambridge centre, we decided we’d stay awake by taking a punt up the River Cam. We split into tutors and students, and as students we can officially say that it’s definitely a skill that takes a great deal of getting used to. It took half an hour before we managed to punt in a straight line, and another 50 minutes to figure out how to turn, and then another 2 hours to get to the end of the river, only to find that the tutors had literally been ‘there and back again’. We even passed the Wren library, where the original manuscripts of Isaac Newton, as well as the original illustrated copies of A.A. Milne’s ‘Winnie the Pooh’ are kept. Simply spiffing architecture! We heard the resident punt tour guides telling the boats full of tourists about the merits of Cambridge and Trinity College. One even went so far as to say:
‘Trinity college is the most prestigious and most academically successful college in the university. It has won 31 Nobel Prizes in total.’
*from another boat* ‘It’s 32, not 31!’
‘Oh really? Have you just won one driving that boat?’
SNAP!
After a recreational game of frisbee (led by Mentor Dustan Stuart) in the Fellow’s Gardens, we headed to dinner: Italian by the river. After engulfing pizza and pasta, we headed off to find breakfast for tomorrow, and ice cream for the night!! Speaking of which, we’ve only just finished with the ice cream, and are thinking of heading off to bed very shortly. The academic program starts tomorrow morning.
Cambridge rules.
Team Oz 2008
Brunch
Punting on the Cam
Frisbee!
