Two days in Cambridge version 1

I had a conference in England at the beginning of this week, so I prefaced it with a trip to Cambridge.

The flight from Boston to London was straightforward, as was the train trip from Heathrow to Cambridge. I arrived late in the morning, and started to look around the town. It's a little smaller than I expected, and perhaps more modern looking (everything other than the colleges). I stopped by St Bene't church, part of which dates to 1025. I was a little surprised at how similar everything looks: it's not easy to distinguish hundred year old construction from thousand year old construction. I then went across the road to The Eagle, which claims to be the site of the announcement of the discovery of the structure of DNA. Yu Heng is a little sceptical of this claim: the pub has been closed and renovated since then, and it may be exaggerating the importance of the fact that scientists sometimes went there to drink and chat. I just had a little look around.

I then had some lunch at Arches: fish and chips (I decided a typical English food should be my first meal). After looking around some colleges, I headed over to Cavendish Lab for a meeting I had arranged with Alessio Zaccone, a researcher there. I was surprised and pleased to hear that he had heard of my supervisor: perhaps Martin is more famous than I had thought. We had a very interesting discussion, that leaves me wanting to work more on the area of drying creep (but I know I need to finish a few papers first).

I then walked (and ran for a few minutes, calculating correctly that just a little running would get me to the arranged meeting point on time) back into town to meet Yu Heng. I joined him at a poster session for a chemistry department conference he had been at: he needed to stay until the end to receive his prize for best talk (the winner hadn't been announced, but he was glad he stayed).

We went back to Yu Heng's place to change for the Trinity College weekly grad students' formal dinner. We began with gin and tonics in an overcrowded combination room, where we happened to bump into Joy. I met Joy more than 10 years ago (wow!) when we were both taking the philosophy distinction course, and she also knows Yu Heng from high school. She is now beginning a PhD in biology at Cambridge. It was good to see her, albeit briefly, and catch up.

Dinner was ok: Yu Heng claimed that it was better when he was designing the menus (he wasn't claiming causation), and I could see how there would be room for improvement: the soup was extremely simple ("chicken stock" was one description heard), and the other courses were nice but nothing special. I noticed that the portraits on the wall of Maxwell and Bacon, both of whom I admire, were separated by just one other: I meant to look and see who it was to see if he is someone who can join those two in my esteem, but I forgot. A little searching suggests that it might have been Arthur Cayley (a biography states that his picture is next to Maxwell's: if correct and current, that gives a 50% chance that it was him, or perhaps slightly more since I'm not certain that Maxwell wasn't the last portrait on the right).

After dinner, it was back to the combination room for more chatting, this time over port.

The next morning, Yu Heng took me for a tour of some of the colleges. They are very grand, and extend far beyond what I saw.

We then had a lunch at a little pub just across the river and a little out of touristland. The food was excellent. We were both tossing up between plaice and oxtail, so we ordered both and swapped halfway through.

We then visited Kettle's Yard, a large house turned small art museum nearby.

Yu Heng had badminton practice in the late afternoon, so he passed me onto Anne for a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum. The quantity of art was a bit overwhelming but very enjoyable. We then went to King's College for Evensong. It felt like a strange hybrid of a worship service and a tourist attraction, which was disappointing. The singing was nice but not quite my style: I've never been such a fan of boy treble singers (they sound a bit too squeaky for me).

We then had dinner with Kelly and Clemens, at a dumpling restaurant. I was happy to learn that Yu Heng and Kelly, who met at my farewell party in 2009, are now good friends. They're both doing well in their PhDs and starting to think about what's next.

Sunday morning began with brunch at Yu Heng and Anne's place: bacon, sausage, Yu Heng's homemade sourdough bread, etc. It was certainly filling. The morning was not especially energetic, and we didn't venture anywhere (except for Anne, who went shopping) until a trip to the train station around midday.

I caught the train to London, hoping to find Mass (preferably at a beautiful and/or historic church), then visit the British Library briefly. Unfortunately, the website at which I had looked up Mass times was wrong, so I traipsed across London twice, and that took up most of my time there. I did go past Buckingham Palace on my way: after two days in Cambridge, it was less grand than I expected! I went to Mass at St James' at Spanish Place: certainly a beautiful church, and reasonably historical (the church was built in the late nineteenth century, and the community dates from the Spanish Embassy in the time of Elizabeth I).

A short train ride took me to Guildford, location of the conference. After a longer than necessary walk, I found my hotel. I found a kebab for dinner and had a quiet night, ready for the conference the next day.