Cambridge 15-29. of October 2011

I arrived late Saturday afternoon after a relatively peaceful trip from Aarhus. I was a bit stressed out to begin with since I almost did not catch the bus to the airport. I spent the last half an hour packing before running out the door so I forget essentials such as my nail clipper. The rest of the trip was uneventful apart from a very rough landing. The plane hit the ground so hard that the even the tough slightly masculine, Ukrainian Ryan Air-stewardesses looked frightened. It bounced like a ball on the strip before staying on the ground without crashing. A tape with a fanfare was played only seconds after this drama to mark the fact that Ryan Air landed on time once again. Distrust distractions!
I was welcomed to my home for the next two weeks by the daughter of my host(ess). I am a little embarrassed that I cannot remember the name of the daughter, but my hostess’ name is Jenefer. She is a nice lady. A bit motherly and her typical British home with three stories is kept clean and tidy. Her son lives here as well and her daughter has her own small house in the backyard. There is another student here, Jose from Spain - a friendly kid in his very early twenties.
After unpacking I went for a short run across the river and into town. We are a few kilometres from the centre and I got a little high on anglophilia running down St. John’s & Trinity Street watching the ancient colleges.
Sunday was bright, bright, sunshiny day so I decided to walk to Grantchester which is a small hamlet 6-7 kilometres south of Cambridge. Rupert Brooke immortalized the place when he was feeling homesick in Berlin in 1912:
“(...) Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? And Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? ... oh! Yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?”
From “The Old Vicarage, Grantchester”, Rupert Brooke 1912
Time does seem to stand still in Grantchester where I had my afternoon tea with lemon-meringue pie under the fruit bearing apple trees in the “The Orchard”. Here a very interesting group of people consisting of Brooke, Virginia Wolfe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maynard Keynes, just to name a few, also had their tea. Now it was only me and a about fifteen English families, but I still managed to find both beauty and rest.
The walk over the meadow was also fantastic – a bit like the part of Dyrehaven north of Copenhagen that has no trees. You are able to walk alongside the River Cam- which also goes through (just east of the centre) of Cambridge - most of the way.
When I returned to Cambridge it was just in time to catch Morgan Spurlock’s new documentary ‘The Greatest Movie Ever Sold’ about product placement and artistic sell-outs in Hollywood. Like ‘SSM’ Spurlock uses himself and his own “brand” in trying to uncover the practice of handing over control of your art before it is even finished. The subtitle is “He’s not selling out, he’s buying in” and I believe that to be true. It is a very entertaining and informative film that I can recommend to everybody.
In the nighttime I am generally missing Mette. I grade papers, watch BBC and read.
Monday was my first day at Central Language School, which is placed – as the name would imply – very centrally in the old part of Cambridge. The first day consisted of two tests – a listening test and a “grammar”-test. I think I passed them both with flying honours. I had the chance to speak a lot of English, however, and apart from what I can do myself talking with native speakers is the best thing about being here. I stayed after school for a discussion and since it is a Christian school the object was about forgiveness. We read the passage in which Jesus heals a paralyzed man to prove a point about him having the power to forgive sins. After this we had a brief, guided tour around central Cambridge.
Tuesday was my first real day of school. It is very thought provoking to be the top student and my patience as well as my didactic skills are tested. The written material, however, proves a challenge without a dictionary, so that is good. I only have two weeks to really prepare for the CPE-exam in December and since I do not know this type of exam I have got all the challenge I need.
After class we went to the Fitzwilliam Museum, the largest museum in town, and saw a special exhibition about Vermeer and his women. Actually an interesting showing with a lot of Flemish masters illuminating the symbolism of home as a motif i.e. the place in which you removed yourself from the public eye. As a consequence the painters showed women in everyday, but still very private situations. I looked in vain for the 1600-versoin of Scarlet (with the pearl earring).