Cambridge

One of the best things about living in England is all of the amazing places to visit. One of our 1st weekends here, we decided to visit Cambridge. We drove down to the park and ride, then rode a double decker bus to the city center. I wish that I had a pic of the kids on the bus. They loved it so much that they cried when they had to get off, both times. They were lucky, though, because we missed our stop the first time and had to ride the bus back(:

I wish that we had taken time to do a little more research on Cambridge before we visited, because there were so many colleges and historical sites that we would have appreciated more had we known their history. However, we did get to do everything that we'd planned. We walked past several different colleges, but King's College, founded in 1441 by Henry VI, was one of the most impressive. It will be fascinating to go inside these buildings sometime.

Across the street from King's College is the Corpus Clock or Chronophage by John C. Taylor. Worth over 1 million pounds, it has a very unique design and meaning. Per Wikipedia: "The clock is entirely accurate only once every five minutes. The rest of the time, the pendulum may seem to catch or stop, and the lights may lag or, then, race to get ahead. According to Taylor, this erratic motion reflects life's "irregularity".

Conceived as a work of public art, the Chronophage reminds viewers in a dramatic way of the inevitable passing of time. Taylor deliberately designed it to be "terrifying": "Basically I view time as not on your side. He'll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he's salivating for the next." Others have described it as "hypnotically beautiful and deeply disturbing"."

Like I said....unique(:

We also had the chance to go to the Fitzwilliam Museum. It has the largest collection of relics from around the world in England, outside of London. We did a little treasure hunt provided by the museum that the girls really enjoyed. They would use a little fishing pole to catch a fish that held a clue to the next artifact for us to find. It took us all over the museum and through thousands of years of history. We can't wait to go back, especially after we learn about the different time periods in homeschool. Cambridge is only about 35 minutes from us, so it will be an easy weekend trip.

Last, but definitely not least, we went punting on the Cam. Brandon used a pole to push or punt a flat-bottomed boat on the river. The kids were a little nervous at first, but they soon overcame their fears and waved to passing punters, called to passing duck, and enjoyed seeing the backs of the colleges with their lawns and flowers. Brandon was a real trooper, since punting is not a easy as you may think and the kids moved around enough to make it difficult to keep his balance in the back of the punt. There were a ton of tourists from around the world on the Cam and we had plenty of pics taken of us. I think, that as a family with 4 small children, we were quite unique in their eyes.