Keep Calm and Carry On: Art and Science in the flesh

On Thursday, we went to the print room in the British Museum for art class. We were able to study early sketches of artists, including Ghirlandaio (master of Michelangelo), Verrocchio (Leonardo's master), Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. One sketch was Madonna and Child with a cat, another was an early sketch of David (which was eventually put onto the Sistine ceiling), and another had dozens of standing babies. It was cool to see these rare sketches that few people get to see.

In the evening, a few friends and I played poker. They take it WAY more seriously than I do, but I got a straight flush so that was exciting and it was a fun night.

Friday morning we got up rather early to walk to the train station. We then took an hour train ride to Cambridge and a 15 minute walk to the city. From there, we got split into two groups and went on a two hour tour. There have been so many famous discoveries here, including Watson and Crick (and Franklin) discovering the structure of DNA, first webcam, first in vitro fertilization, and Huxley and Hodgkins discovery of nerve cell excitability. We saw the buildings where all of these discoveries were made, as well as several of the colleges including Trinity, Corpus Christi, Downing, King's, and Peterhouse. It was busy on campus as first year students were moving in. Talk about a late start to the year! The tours were very informative and gave us a good sense of the city.

After our tours we were quite hungry so we went to The Eagle. The Eagle is a famous pub in Cambridge where Watson and Crick regularly ate lunch and first announced their discovery. Furthermore, during WWII this was a place a lof of soldiers came and wrote on the ceiling so there are lots of drawings and messages still there. For lunch, I got a delicious mozarella and tomato sandwich on delicious ciabatta bread with chips (fries). It was delivered really quickly, was delicious, and filled me up! From there, our group (Meredith, Stephen, Eleanor, Kate, Aaron, Austin, Matt, Thomas and myself) went to the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. The museum had lots of fossils, rocks and minerals. In a strange coincidence, they had a panel that was comparing real dinosaurs to the fake dinosaurs at the crystal palace, which is what we studied on Monday in History of London. Further on in the exhibit, we saw minerals used to make paints, which we have studied in art history. They also had the chemical structures of minerals using models I had used in organic chemistry this past year. Overall, this museum was very nice and the epitome of liberal arts. It was not huge so it felt completely manageable and yet still big enough we were not all stuck in a tiny room.

Before heading to the next museum, we took a quick break at a candy shop. Someone let me try their toffee and it was super chewy. I think I ate it for 15 minutes it was so sticky! We then went to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. When we walked in, they stopped us asking if we were a school group. We said we were just friends (our school field trip was done at this point) but they kept saying we needed a reservation and if we were all to come back we should really make a reservation in advance for our own viewing pleasure. It was so strange but we stayed for a bit. I think a lot of people felt really uncomfortable because of this and we did not stay very long. There were a lot of really cool cultural objects, Gods (I had studied in South East Asian Religions), Totem poles, and cool sculpture. After this museum, we went to the Museum of Classical Archaeology where they had lots of replicas of sculpture (originals are at the British Museum). It was still cool because I cannot see them that close at the British Museum.

After this museum, we rushed to the Whipple Museum of the History of Science. We only had 10 minutes before closing, but in that time I was able to see two of Darwin's microscopes, Shackleton's diary, and lots of microscopes, telescopes and timekeeping instruments. After we were kicked out when it closed, we walked to the train station, walking through a beautiful park on the way. The train was quite soothing and we all realized how exhausted we were. Finally, we walked home and then crashed. We were so tired (we had walked over 8 miles) and had dinner, watched Sherlock and went to bed.