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Visiting Cambridge
By Kimberly Camu - Revius Lyceum, Doorn
Public Speaking Award Audience prize winner
2006
Whenever I hear the name Cambridge, I immediately think of grand university buildings, punting and that little wall in front of King's College. This majestic college city is renowned for its beautiful buildings and history. But I wondered, did my mother know this as well? 'Are you sure that those Stena Line boats are safe, didn't one of them sink a few years back?'. When my mother confessed that she wasn't really too pleased to go on a boat onto the open sea, I told her how much fun this trip was going to be, she shouldn't worry one bit! After I had, of course, checked the web thoroughly for any recent boat accidents, just in case…
On a stormy Tuesday morning, after having said goodbye to my father, my mum and I got on the ferry.
After only an hour I remembered why I never took a liking to boats and why I preferred the plane - sea sickness! After taking some anti-travel sickness pills, my stomach was still not equipped to tackle the rough waves and I turned a little green. And we still had two more hours to go… Luckily, when we came closer to the English shores my cheeks turned red again and a smile returned to my face. We were nearly there!
When my mother and I collected our bags and survived the sniffer dogs, we walked towards the train platform and asked for directions. We were told that our train would leave in just three minutes, so instead of waiting for the next, we ran like crazy women and managed to catch our train! I thought that would mean that we would be there in under an hour, two tops. Unfortunately, it turned out that it would take us three and a half hours before we would even see the outskirts of Cambridge. However, the scenery was breathtaking and even though we were both rather tired, after a good cup of coffee, we were ready to explore the city!
We saw so many beautiful colleges that we didn't know where to begin, so we decided to take a punting tour and hear all about the history whilst enjoying the beautiful weather. The following day we also took a walking tour and visited two of the colleges and enjoyed all that wisdom surrounding us. I saw first editions of A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, Shakespeare's plays and Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica. I went into every store, bought nice souvenirs and a couple of books from Waterstones. I loved every minute of Cambridge and so did my mother, who saw the purpose of that ferry crossing in the end.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and did our trip. After some packing and having one last cup of Starbucks coffee, we headed back to the dockyard to catch the ferry to Hoek van Holland. But alas, it was not the relaxed trip we had anticipated, because the British government decided to close all airports that day to prevent a possible terrorist attack… This meant a very full and cramped ferry back to Holland and more than a two-hour delay. Nevertheless, I still felt all the hassle had been very much worth it, because it had been the short getaway trip I dreamt of and together with my mother we had had a lot of fun shopping and walking around in this truly wonderful city. So when we finally arrived home and my father asked if we had had fun, I answered with a great big smile; 'Yes, it was great!'.
Kimberly Camu/ 23 August 2006
