Kira Looks For Extra Colors: Last Day in Cambridge

Today was our last full day in Cambridge. Tomorrow we are getting up and onto the bus at 9 am to go to Heathrow airport. Wait, no, thats not right! Not just to Heathrow- to Stockholm, Sweden!
After wandering about town for a bit in the morning, Hannah and I went to Waterstone's to meet up with Abba and go to lunch. We immediately fell into conversation, and over the course of our lunch talked about everything from college to healthcare and government in various countries to the problems that arise when oil becomes an issue between powerful people. It was fascinating to hear Abba's perspective, as he was very knowledgable and gave us a look at some of the perceptions other parts of the world have about American politics. I was much more politically invigorated after our talk. Bring on the presidential campaigns!
We ate in a Turkish restaurant and tried a set menu, which I believe was a very good choice on Abba's part. I got to try several very different and very good dishes that I likely would not have otherwise tried. He was very generous and not only paid for lunch for all of us (thank you Abba!), but because of our topic of conversation, insisted on giving us a book called Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (thank you again!). I am really looking forward to reading it because the description is very appealing and I am interested in finding out what has really been going on in Iraq for the past few years (slightly late, I know). I seem to be collecting books on this trip! I came with two and I suspect by the time I leave I will have trouble fitting them into my bag! This one is moving towards the top of my booklist, however. I'm excited about it.
I am very glad that we had such a good experience today.

Abba and Hannah

Translation: University Museum of Zoology

The Cambridge Beetle Box

After we left Abba, we ran over to the Museum of Zoology to catch up with the rest of our class. Unfortunately, the guide who was supposed to be giving us a tour of the museum was unable to make it, and we were set free to interpret exhibits on our own. The sheer number of displays crammed into this two story museum is nearly overwhelming, and the obscure labeling by species etc combined with the noticeable deficiency in explanatory signage made it difficult to work out the significance of many of the things on display. I wish I had more experience in evolutionary biology! It was still very, very cool, and I had trouble pausing in my picture taking to actually focus on what was in front of me.
The section devoted specifically to Darwin was smaller than I had thought it would be. The Cambridge Beetle box drew my attention however. The open box is slightly larger than an open laptop and is completely full of pinned beetles of different sizes, shapes, and colors. The time planning and organizing the box, let alone the pinning itself, must have been enormous.

Artist's idea of what this animal looked like

The fossil the above picture is based upon

Hello!

Even esteemed Zoologists still play with plastic dinosaurs

Plastic dinosaurs all over the place!

Archaeopteryx: one of my favorite fossils

Venus's Flower Basket; I thought of Helene when I saw this.

Puffy bird!

What are you looking at?

After a while, the museum began to feel like a building full of dead animals and was starting to weird me out (it was still cool though!!). I left with a group of seven others to seize our last opportunity to go punting. We split into two groups of four and hired self-punting boats. The first bit was stressful, simply because none of us had any idea of correct punting form and the docking area was just experiencing a surge of tourists coming back from their own punting trips. We ended up perpendicular to the flow of traffic quite a few times and experienced a lot of boat bumping all the way up the river.

King's College

We made it to Clare College bridge before we turned around and headed back. At one point, we left our pole behind in the river once, thus assuring a complete punting experience, and had to paddle back to get it. The way back was more relaxing, likely because the river traffic was lighter and because we had begun to figure out how to move the boat. By the time I exchanged places with Jannette to begin my punting time, I was feeling more relaxed [though my legs did shake a bit in anticipation of completely failing and falling into the river ;) ]. After about 10 minutes of punting and a bit of observation of other punters, you begin to get the hang of it and can stop worrying about moving the boat in the wrong direction. We got back with time to spare and decided to take the punt for a spin (almost literally) around a very pretty country-style duckpond in the opposite direction of that we had just headed (we probably should have gone the less crowded way in the first place!). I think self punting is a good option because it is cheap (yay for ISIC discounts), but only really becomes enjoyable after you finally figure how to turn the darn boat around!