Over and Out... of Cambridge

Well, kids, we’re back by popular demand.  The continuous stream of phone calls, letters, and smoke signals requesting updates on our lives has overwhelmed us, so we’ve decided to return to mass distribution to satisfy the informational needs of you, our dear families.

We last left you about a week before we finally packed up and left Cambridge.  Honestly, we can’t remember everything that happened that past week, but we’ll see what we can do.  We had one last formal hall in the beautiful dining hall at King’s College.  All the participants attended, and the dinner was great.  A centuries-old hall in King’s seemed an appropriate place to finish off our summer at Cambridge.  Some of Katie’s art was featured in an art show, and we enjoyed mingling with everybody before we all went our separate ways.

On Saturday morning, we took a taxi to Cambridge station, and frantically searched for another pair of travelers with whom to share a group ticket to London (I think we may have scared a few people away).  Later that day, we were able to meet up with Katie’s brother, Aaron, with whom we shared some deliciously spicy Sichuan cuisine in the heart of London’s Chinatown.  He was kind enough to put us up in a hotel for the night, and we needed the rest.  Jordan - ever the optimist - declined to pay the £15 fee to use the internet in the hotel, insisting that “flights never get cancelled.”  The next morning, of course, we learned the truth from the whiteboard at the end of Delta’s check-in line.  We’ll spare you the dirty details of our travel story; let’s just say we got extremely lucky and landed in Salt Lake three hours early and with a free flight in tow.  Sometimes things just work out.  Jordan, for the record, notes that his optimistic refusal to check his email on the morning of the flight may well have saved us a few days in an airport.

The first week back at BYU was an event in itself - we moved into our apartment on Monday (with the help of family - thanks guys) and began settling in.  When you live in a studio, we soon discovered, “settling in” means giving away or throwing away most of your possessions.  Jordan remains giddy about this happy turn of events, while Katie looks forward to the possibility of someday living in an apartment with a counter.  We got rid of a few boxes of clothes, a few boxes of books, some dishes, utensils, our chairs, couch, microwave, toaster, and table legs.  We procured a lovely, thin Japanese roll-up mattress for our bed, which folds up into a small couch-like object during the day.  We ditched the table-legs, but we kept the top for use directly on the floor.  Our apartment is simple, and we now eat our cereal in zen-like meditation.

Cambridge converted us to the idea of commuting via bicycle not of necessity, but of enjoyment.  Actually, it’s mostly necessity in Cambridge - there just isn’t any room on the roads for automobiles.  Nevertheless, we decided to continue our bicycle lifestyle here in Provo, and it’s been great.  We’ve been back for about a month now, and we’ve used the car perhaps three times (we’re still holding onto it while we see what biking in the winter is like).  On the past few Saturday’s, we’ve biked down to Utah lake, through the Alpine loop (from the top), and around some of Provo’s farmer’s markets.  It’s a great way to get around; we’d highly recommend it.  Since Katie started working for the Lindleys in Orem, she estimates having biked over 200 miles.  Impressive!

A few weeks ago, Jordan had a chance to fly down to Scottsdale, Arizona for a colloquium on “Evaluating the Idea of Social Justice.”  ISI - an intercollegiate student organization - and Liberty Fund co-sponsored the event.  It was a great experience, and Jordan had a great time mingling with students from tiny liberal arts colleges not unlike George Wythe, where he spent a few years studying before his mission.

Speaking of conferences, we’ll both be flying out to Princeton in about a month for a conference on Gender, Sexuality, and Marriage, and we’re pretty excited about it.  It’s being put together by an organization called the Love and Fidelity Society - a sort of academic network dedicated to defending religious principles in the public square.  We’ve been involved in the BYU chapter - the Fidelio Society - for a while, with some of the students who participated in the Cambridge program.  We got funding for one of us to fly out for free, and we’re using our JetBlue credit from the hurricane for the other half.

We’re sure there are things we’re leaving out, but we just wanted to shoot out and update letting the world know what we’re up to.  It’s been good to be see a lot family in the last few months - Amanda and Mary Ann stopped by a few weeks ago, and Jordan’s family blessed Gabriella last weekend up in Bountiful.

Well, we were sad to leave Cambridge, but we’re happy to be back in Provo.  We’ll keep you updated on all our adventures, and you’re welcome to stop by our cozy little apartment anytime!

--Jordan and Katie

P.S.  Sweet news - we got a copy of “Cambridge - 800 Years Later” signed by Sir Richard Dearlove for winning PKP’s Best Blog contest.  Hooray!

P.P.S.  Katie just began an amazing internship doing archival research for the Joseph Smith Papers project.  She’ll be commuting up to the church history library every Friday - we’ll keep you posted on the details.

Jordan's final exams caused considerable aging.

Relaxing in the British Museum

Aaron can see with his eyes shut.

A lifelong dream, finally realized - Karate in Trafalgar Square

Reliving memories

Hanging out with Gabriella

Pro Wrestling at the Latino festival!

Biking to Utah Lake

Katie likes swimming in glacial water.

"We like your... couch."

Caleb and Jordan, practicing Charleton Heston lines through clenched teeth.

Biking the Alpine Loop

Enjoying daylight donuts at the end of our ride

Sasquatch.

You didn't get the memo?  It's "grimace in the woods day."

I am grimacing.

What we have here is a lack of communication.

The Bicycle City

Hello, family!  Depending on how tired Katie and I are in the middle of our journey home next weekend, this may be the last time you hear from us!  It's been a fun journey for us, and we're sad to have it winding down.  We've got plenty to do this last week though, so there won't be too much time for sorrow.  

As ever, we had a busy week.  After our bike trip last Saturday, we decided we loved having bikes so much that we just kept them until the end of the program.  It's been nice, because Cambridge is an extremely bike-oriented city.  In fact, the students aren't even allowed to own cars.  When you ride a bike here, you feel like a king - when you ring your bell in a mass of pedestrians, it's sort of like Moses parting the red sea.  It's sort of interesting, because pedestrians are the lowest rung of the food chain here, as opposed to Provo, where cars will stop for you when you're on the sidewalk just thinking of crossing.

Yesterday Katie and I took a trip to London on our own, and had some fun adventures...  As some of you may know, we're both fans of the British sci-fi series Doctor Who, which starred David Tennant and Catherine Tate a few years ago (while not so well known in the US, they're kind of a big deal over here).  This summer, they've been starring in Much Ado about Nothing as Benedick and Beatrice.  The tickets sold out pretty quickly, and they've been going for 150 + pounds on eBay, but the theatre saves 20 tickets for each performance and holds a lottery for them at the beginning of every day.  If you win the lottery, you can buy a pretty good seat for 10 pounds, which isn't bad at all.  So we got to London in the morning, sat in line for the lottery for a while, and to make a long story short, we got a ticket!  Well, Katie did, but I was able to buy a standing ticket a little later.  So that night we got to see the play, which was a lot of fun.  Katie is going to be giddy "for the rest of [her] life".  

Other highlights of London were the national gallery (saw some Van Gogh and Monet paintings...), the portrait gallery, Herrods (I touched a $10,000 jacket...), and the Borough Market, which is like a super-intense farmer's market where they were selling things like Ostrich eggs and truffle-infused honey.  The weather was mostly nice, but we got a few sprinkles in the middle of the day.  

We had another formal hall earlier this week, this time at Pembroke college.  Since the dining hall is under refurbishment for the summer, they had us eat in the old library, which was actually pretty cool.

Well, I'll drop some pictures down below.  We're excited to talk with you all about our experiences in a week!  Thanks for sharing the fun with us.

--Jordan

"Oh Katie, only red wine is against the Word of Wisdom."

(It's apple juice, don't worry.)

In the Junior Parlor before Formal Hall

Formal Hall at Pembroke 

Katie at the Botanical Gardens

Punting at Night!

Jordan was thrilled about shopping.

The sign says it all.

The villain from Doctor Who.  Scarier than he looks...

We've really enjoyed the authentic British food here.

Outside the theatre

Jordan, about to pull a Mike Tyson

"All Good Things..."

All good things must come to an end.  I am, of course, referring to my mustache, which met its maker last Wednesday.  May it rest in peace.

In other news, Katie and I had a very eventful week.  Let’s start off with the most recent stuff, and work backwards - I’m just trying to make this as confusing as possible for you, our dear readers (all two of you).  This weekend, we decided to go on a bike trip to Hunstanton, which is on the northeast coast of England.  We had originally planned to go with another group last weekend, but we bailed out for some reason - I think the weather was looking sketchy.  But we went this weekend, and it was grand.  Katie and I rented bikes on Friday night, and took a little ride around Cambridge.  It was a revelation!  I can’t believe we’ve survived so long without having bikes; we got to see some things we never would have otherwise.  Cambridge is actually a very bike-friendly city, so it’s quite easy to commute this way.  That evening, though, we biked out west of the river Cam and visited a few of the more out-of-the-way colleges, like Newham college and B… B something.  Bismark?  Bloomberg?  Bulldozer.  Blast, I forgot.  Anyhow, it was lovely, and started with a B.  Or maybe R.  We’ve really enjoyed going to some of the smaller, periphery colleges in Cambridge.  They’re much less crowded, especially in the Summer.  Most people who visit Cambridge of course want to go visit St. Johns, or Trinity, or King’s, so they’re usually accosted with visitors during the daytime, but the further out colleges are more peaceful.  Lots of them have beautiful gardens, orchards, and even fruit trees.  

So we biked around those colleges, and followed the river up for a few miles before heading back home.  It’s just hard to put into words what a great city Cambridge is.  It’s one of the intellectual capitals of the world, but it still feels like a small, friendly town.  We’d love to come back here to study if we can - our program(me) actually held a workshop last week for those of us interested in returning for graduate work.  We’ll see what the future brings.  

Back to the bike trip, Katie and I - along with two other students - woke up early on Saturday and took a train to King’s Lynn, which is about 16 miles from the coast and Hunstanton, our destination.  Our route took us mostly through rolling hills and farm fields.  Strangely, we saw a lot of flattened hedgehogs along the road as well…  One of our party blew a tube along the way, but we were able to get it patched up and our journey proceeded without event.  After a few hours we rolled into Hunstanton, which is a beautifully quaint village on the beach.  And it’s quite an interesting beach - it’s extremely flat.  When we showed up, the water was probably a quarter mile off the embankment that separated the beach from the road, and by the time we left, the tide had come up all the way to that barrier.  So we frolicked in the water for a while, ate some delicious cinnamon-sugar donuts on the shore, and went to get fish and chips for lunch.  We rode back that night and took the train from Kings Lynn back to Cambridge.  Along the way, we stopped to get kebabs from a great little mediterranean place.  Predictably, I dropped mine while riding my bike and proceeded to run over it.

Today was another adventure for me.  My military intelligence class had a field trip to Bletchley Park, the secret British installation that was in charge of codebreaking during WWII.  We saw some pretty amazing stuff, most of which I didn’t begin to understand.  They had some working enigma machines and some hugely complex computers dedicated to breaking German encryptions.  It was very impressive.  

Oh, good news!  After resigning ourselves to the fact that we’d probably have to live in a cardboard box upon our return to Provo, we noticed one of the apartments in our old house up for rent on craigslist.  We called our old landlady up and got the place!  It worked out pretty nicely, and we’ll go back to living in another cozy little studio.  We’re thinking of buying a Japanese roll-up sleeping mat this time.  Small spaces are fun!

Well, we love you guys.  Enjoy some pictures!

Drinks on the lawn before a formal hall

The view from a window in King's Library

Getting rid of the mustache made me look younger:

Before 

After

Sneaking in the gate of Newham College

Katie,  thinking grassy thoughts.

I'd like a sign like this to use when I get back to the MTC.

England just has a thing for incredibly ironic signs. 

Getting started from Kings Lynn

"Shouldn't there be an app for this?"

Cruising into Hunstanton

These are the cliffs.  You can see how far out the tide is.

Jordan's feet are getting dirty.

Jordan, hiding his lack of mustache.

Walking on water

The water was surprisingly warm.

It's a clam-field!

Mossy rocks

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Ah, but where is the home of home cooked homes?

On top of the cliffs

Jordan, enjoying a profound slumber.

Katie has gotten pretty good at arm's-length-self-portraits.

Space, the final frontier.

And this is how far the tide came in.