Mike's Senior Picture

Mike 2007

SAME dinner - St. Catherines College

Last night, Don and I had the opportunity to attend a dinner at St. Catherine’s College in Cambridge University. It was a function sponsored by the Society of American Military Engineers. (SAME) of which Don is a member. There are quite a few British Engineer members that work for the American Military and they helped to set it up.

It was awesome to walk into the courtyard of the college and enter the hall through a very old doorway, that you hit your head on to go through (and I’m 5’3’’!) and still has a gate-like latch on it (no lock). There was a crack in the wood that you could look right through to the inside! I felt like I was going back in time!

The room for our dinner was one of those old, dark oak, hand-carved, wood paneled rooms with oil portraits of past collegiate/important people hanging around to watch you eat! Since the school is approaching 900 years old, these portraits are very old! The windows were stain glass and they had books on the shelves that could have been as old as the school!

(See blurry picture below)

We had a fascinating speaker on the history of Cambridge; the city and the college. I’ll try to remember the highlights.

The college is one of 31 colleges in the University of Cambridge. It currently has 600 students, so it is one of the medium size colleges in the University. Although in each college you can obtain any degree, the colleges have specialties or stronger emphasis on certain degrees. I think St. Catherine’s focuses more on the medical fields.

The town flourished when the Danes used it for a shipping center. This is remarkable in itself as Cambridge is 60 miles inland! So they used the river to bring goods to the city. The college is on the river. The story is that Cambridge and the College had about 6 bridges over the river and at that time the barges were powered by horses towing them from a path along side the river. Well, due to the bridges, they couldn't tow from the path so the Danes put stone and rocks in the middle of the river so the horses to go into the river and walk. They were up to their necks in the water, pulling the boat!

This also explains the punting dilemmas that people encounter when they try to punt.....losing your pushing stick to the river. The rocks are only in the middle of the river. On the sides of the river is mud. So when you punt, you want to stick to the middle of the river so your punting stick doesn't get stuck in the mud!

Before the meal we all met at a pub that is the oldest in Cambridge and since it is in the middle of all the colleges, has a long history of famous students and people lunching, drinking and sharing ideas there. Shakespeare himself was one of the famous occupants, performing one of his first plays in the courtyard. The Eagle, as it is now called, is most recently known for Crick and Watson who entered the pub and announced “we have found the secret of life!” in 1953. These are the guys who discovered DNA. Their laboratory was around the corner from the pub.

Now we went to this pub before we heard the speaker and so now I have to seriously doubt my powers of observation….. The speaker told us several things about the pub that I’ll have to go back sometime to observe as I saw none of what she described! (In my defense it was rather dark and crowded and we weren’t there that long, and I was busy meeting new people and doing what I like to do…talk)

The speaker said the pub started in the 1500’s as a Coaching Inn by Corpus Christie College. In the courtyard, there are numbers on the walls that are the original numbers of the stalls where the horses rested between trips. (There are two 26’s as the lead horse worked extra hard and so they had two horses for that position)

I didn’t see the numbers.

Another was the sign that tells the story of the guys who discovered DNA.

I didn’t see this.

The last, very obvious thing, (if you happen to look up) is the names, burned with cigarette lighters, by hundreds of US and British soldiers that frequented the place in WWII.

Now how could I have missed that?

Anyway, this ceiling is now protected by the government and can never be taken down or covered up. Relatives of all the names, except for 3 have come in to see the names on the ceiling. Supposedly, the names of the crew of the Memphis Belle are there with a drawing of a naked lady underneath.

Okay, so I have to go back to see these things…during the day…when it’s not crowded….and have more time…..and aren’t meeting new people….and not talking!

The college history was interesting, but I especially liked the stories about the pranks students have pulled over the years. The story the speaker liked best, was when they put a car on the roof of one of the colleges, but I liked the one where they floated a Volkswagen down the river on two punting boats (Flat bottom boats), tied it to the bottom of the Bridge of Sighs and removed the boats. It was suspended from the bridge for a week, until they figured out how to get it down. (The river is on the backside of the colleges)

All in all, a fascinating evening. Good company, good food and a good speaker! What more could you ask for?

Back home to England

While most of our trip was cold and rainy, the last day was beautiful and this is the sun setting on the hills of Scotland as we were driving home. Don and I agreed that Scotland has better roads than England. (Notice the 6 lane highway with an actual berm!)

Glasgow Cemetery

This cemetery was on a hill right by the Cathedral. Mike thought the setting was cool.

Cemetery headstones!

St. Mungo's under the Nave

Church underneath the cathedral.
Had many chapel's....wonder why I picked this one?

Cathedral of St. Kentigern (St. Mungo's) -Glasgow

Another cathedral! This one had started putting up the Christmas trees. They were real and smelled wonderful!
Built in 1192 (back of the church)
Walking into to Nave

Castle wall

Castle Wall
This day it wasn't raining. Thankfully! A bit cold and windy though

Tapestries

Tapestry that was recreated for the castle. The original tapestries are in New York.

Lion atop the castle's great hall. Stone with gold trimmings.

Views from Stirling Castle

Beautiful views from the castle

The wall surrounding the castle

Stirling Castle grounds

Outside the "new" quarters built by a King for his bride. Can't remember which King and Queen, but this was the Thistle and Rose marriage that was hoped to unite England and Scotland. It wasn't very successful as depicted in one of the columns below. The king is looking at the other column with the queen's head. Both are not very happy.

Stirling Castle
Mike pretending it's his castle!

Stirling Castle

A bit far off in the picture, but you should be able to see Stirling Castle up on the hill. This castle and town were important in the Middle ages because it divided the two regions of Scotland: Highlands and Lowlands. Many fierce battles were fought here and locally. (According to our wonderful Scottish tour guide) The book calls it the "Cockpit" of Scotland because of the many battles fought there ....comparing it to the cockfights male chickens are forced to engage.
Evidently, Braveheart starring Mel Gibson, was the story of the Scottish national hero William Wallace whose battles were fought here. But most of the filming took place in Ireland, not Scotland.

Thistle - a revered weed in Scotland

Okay it's late and before I quit for the night, I found an article about the "great weed of Scotland" The next post will show Stirling castle, where we had a great guide share his stories of the occupants of the castle. He talked of the thistle and the rose marriage between a Scottish King and British Queen. Seems that Scotland is known for it's thistles and England is known as the rose.

Anyway, why is the thistle so important to the Scots?
Seems there is a legend (isn't there always a legend?) that in the Middle Ages Vikings were invading Scotland. On one such raid a band of sleeping Scots were nearly overtaken by the Danes, but one of the attackers stepped on a wild thistle and cried out in pain. The noise woke the Scots up and they succeeded in thwarting the attackers. Hence, a national emblem was born!

Thistles are on a lot of Scottish things: coins, Royal Arms, they even have established the Order of the Thistle. The funniest one is that the members of the Knights and Ladies of the Thistle wear a breast star with the thistle on it. Their motto is: Nemo Me Impune Lacessit - no one provokes me with impunity (without punishment).

Good night........

Scenes of Edinburgh

View of Ferris wheel in front of Sir Walter Scott Monument
Sir Walter Scott at base of monument (Patriotic poet and writer, also romantic novels: Ivanhoe)

We could have climbed up 287 spiral steps to the top of this monument, but we were too wet and cold!

Walking up steep steps
Two more modern buildings.

Still raining, feet getting more and more soaked.

Kilt making

Kilts galore in Scotland. Here we saw a machine making the plaid material for the kilts. Very expensive though.

The Great Hall in Edinburgh Castle

Still trying to get a good picture with dark rooms! (Not too successful yet)

Blurry picture of the armour in the room
Hammer-beam roof of the Great Hall inside the castle

Edinburgh, Scotland

Rain, rain, rain and more rain. This time enough to require an umbrella all day!

(No Don, it's not going to stop raining!)
Edinburgh Castle built on volcanic rock
Panoramic view of the city. However, we thought to escape the rain and cold for awhile, but the castle is mostly an outdoor type of activity! Shoes getting soggier!

Welcome to Scotland

I think we're not in England anymore!

Clifford's Tower, York England

Lastly, this is the only remaining part of the York Castle.... it's tower. William the Conqueror built the first castle on the same site.

York Minster

I didn't get any outside pictures of the Cathedral. But did take two inside only to discover that you weren't allowed to take pictures, so here are my "illegal" pictures. Ooops. Not the greatest as I'm still learning how to take pictures in dark areas.....
I read in one of their pamphlets that York is both a Minster and Cathedral. Minster because of a relationship to a monastery or abbey and Cathedral because it is the seat of the bishop.

This one has it's own police force since 1829 when someone set fire to the church.

Another interesting tidbit:
"It is believed that for many years there has been a ghost of J.H. Charles, one of the former organists, who fell to his death while cleaning the valves of the church's organ. Some have claimed to have seen him in person, later to recognise him from the church portraits kept from the time. Others say that you can hear him playing hymns late at night. This is just one of the hundreds of myths that have come to get York the title of the most haunted city in the world."

I did hear organ music when we were there at night, but that's because there was a service going on! (Or maybe I just thought there was a service going on..... hmmmmm)

York, England - nighttime lights

Night time with the Christmas lights on the buildings

York City scenes

Mike on the left :)

In front of a "you name it, we got it" type of secondhand store.
York's version of the Grand ole opray