1.06.12 (Cambridge, UK) The Professional Trespassers

1.06.12 (Recap of Sunday's Shenanigans - Cambridge, UK) - The Professional Trespassers

Sunday, and I wake up somewhat early and try to plan a trip to Huntingdon.

Ahron texts, "It's just a small town. Those guys come to Cambridge for a good time."


and I think that maybe I should shoot for something bigger. He suggests Norwich, but by the time I have food and get ready, I'm certain I'll only be able to make the 12:55 train. The doldrums of a Sunday afternoon threaten to set in and steal my day, I tuck a trip to Norwich into my back pocket and save it for next week.


Ahron and I decide to meet up so he can show me parts of the town I haven't seen. The sky is a blip of turquoise packed in pillows of clouds, devilish with rain. On my way through Jesus Green, I encounter a Run For Life marathon just coming to its conclusion.  Thousands of people watch women in pink tank tops and jogging shorts run through a narrow canal of pink tape tied to London Plane and metal struts, which cuts along the park's perimeter.


I head out the back of Jesus Green and toward Christ's Pieces and wait for Ahron in the Diana, Princess of Wales Rose Garden and read Finnegans Wake. There are scores of people looking for the Run for Life and two ask me how to get there. Unlike last week, when I was completely oblivious how to help the women in the car and the two Asian boys, I calmly tell them how to get there.

To the west side of Christ's Pieces is the Rose Garden. There, Diana, Princess of Wales is memorialized in a somewhat unambitious garden divided in quarto and joined by metal arch trellises.

Strangely, there are very few roses in the Diana, Princess of Wales Rose Garden...

Working the beard, awww yeah

Ahron arrives after about a half and hour. We head toward the outskirts of the City Centre (a mall area called The Grafton). Ahron points our places as we go: here's where I work, he says, here's where I got those books I gave you. He tells me about "Footlights," a comedy import where famous comedian troupes such as Monty Python and Black Adder got their start. 

We head to lunch at an Italian cafe plus grill and get a few drinks. I get a Peroni and Ahron gets a Desperado's, a tequila/beer concoction that is actually quite tasty. It threatens to rain, but doesn't get up the nerve to commit. We have burgers with garlic mayonnaise and talk for a while.  

Ahron says he likes a lot of head on his beer.

After lunch we go to the Fitzwilliam Museum and go through some more of the exhibits that I missed last time. This time I see some medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, coinage, and jewelry in a dark annex next to a room Ahron calls "The Armory," which features fourteenth through seventeenth century armaments (mostly German and Italian, but some British, Spanish, and Scottish).

On our way back  from the Fitzwilliam, we stop at Little Saint Mary's Church, where a lonely vendor has boxes of old books on consignment. 

We go through Peter's House (the oldest college in Cambridge) and sneak in because of some soiree the college is having. I snap a few photos and Ahron gets one of me, looking mighty.

"Hello there, I'm Ahron. A proper British lad. I have thirteen Ph.Ds and I live in that dainty window just to the left of that tree."

The backside of Cambridge...

Once we've done that, it's off to Pembroke College!

He looks like a Pitt, doesn't he?

"I often ponder the meaning of existence. I stand here, just like this, and ponder it."

Don't go inside. It's a dump.

The view from a strange lens, looking out on a garden. Reminds me of Myst.

By the Portland Arms, I find this...

This one is for James Brothwell. I read this, laughed, and thought of you. Ahron says he'd read this before when he was drunk, but when he reads it now that he's sober, he says it still makes absolutely no sense.