I got the brains

A few weeks ago I was asked to be part of a neurology study involving MRI scanning. I have never been inside a scanner so I was really excited and agreed even before they told me it was paid (I´d be so easy to rip off)! The scanner was really interesting. I guess it is not for everyone, since you have to lie in this large tube for an hour while it makes incredibly loud noises, but it was cool for a few times. The hardest task,  believe it or not, is to stay awake. Since you are not allowed to move and just see some flashing images on a reflected screen you tend to doze off quite easily (especially if you are as intelligent as I am and book the earliest morning shifts). Participants were not only paid but also got this picture of their brain:

I´ve had some discussions with my family because obviously the face does not match mine, but I have no idea how they scan the outside or how much they care about accuracy in faces. I compared the picture with one of another friend and our brains were clearly different so it does seem to be correct (also if you are wondering why half my face is missing, that´s because she said I had something metallic interfering with the signal. I guess I should have spat my iron chewing gum out before entering the scanner...)

Be as it may not everyone gets to see his brain so I am very happy about this opportunity!

Today's the day to go crazyyyy

The thing about Cambridge that took me the most to get used to are the incredibly convenient opening hours. All the stores (apart from the supermarkets, thank god) close at 6. Yes, at six. And those are just the stores (as in books, mobile, clothing). Banks and other services probably don't even come back after lunch!

I was about to collapse, when my friend delivered the good news: There is one day a week when the shops open until later. One day where you'll be able to buy something after six. One day to rule them all, apparently. Needless to say I was super excited about what they called "Late night shopping". This sounded like hours and hours of shopping until midnight and beyond, to make up for the missing hours during the rest of the week.

Never have I been so wrong.

Nothing more to say.

We all have pets...

Being so close to home one would think that you'd not find strange traditions or weird rules here in the UK, but that, my dear, could not be more wrong. My favorite inexplicable rule so far involves these animals:

Swans. Right. While anywhere else in the world you are free to hunt them or at least catch them if they don't have an owner (apart from mother nature) the British came up with something else: Why should not ALL swans in the United Kingdom AUTOMATICALLY belong to... let´s say... the Queen?!

That's right. the queen owns all the swans. Don't ask me why. I tried to look it up but everyone only seems to be confused in forums. 

If you are a passionate swan-lover and want to have your own, there is hope for you though! During the event known as Swan Upping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Upping as you can see I am not making all of this up...) you have the chance to pick one and mark it. Then it belongs to you. So to be completely correct the Queen only possesses the unmarked swans of Britain. (I am not sure if you have to be part of a team for this upping thing, so before you run out with your branding iron you might want to ask around how that works, because...)

... attacking the swans is considered treason the crown (or that is what I have been told). You might think they don't prosecute people and it's true that they don't control everything but apparently some areas are really being watched.

Only driving on the left was apparently not special enough. 

Summer, autumn, winter and another winter

You know you can forget about spring when even the lampposts need scarfs in late May.

Yes, scarfs:

Cambridge Wiesn

This week Cambridge hosted the 40th annual beer festival. Having lived in the city of the Oktoberfest my stakes are pretty high but I have to admit that we had a great time!

As you can see the tents are not as elaborated as the German equivalent (as an example: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Oktoberfest_bierzelt.JPG). But I have to say I am pretty glad already that there was some kind of shelter, because from what I have experienced so far they like to pretend it never rains in this country (parties outside, open-air theatres...).

There was still an outside area though:

(I have to draw your attention to the pose of the guy in the middle, who by the way is probably not doing it voluntarily but sinking in this:)

Due to some scarce rainfalls here the ground was slightly muddy (you can appreciate that a little bit in the upper corner of the picture). But that is what those festivals are about! Mud and happiness. If I wanted my shoes to stay clean I'd go to a wine tasting (which we did the next day, but that is another story and I have the feeling I am starting to make us sound like alcoholics...). They had amazing food as well and the atmosphere was really nice! Cheers!

Roman...wait what?!

 The other day I was walking around Cambridge with my friend Ana who was visiting, when something caught my attention:

"One of the many old buildings you can find in Cambridge" you will say. Well yes, but maybe not so old after all?

Either that or the people from the 15th century had some pretty good fortune-tellers...

Congratulations!

Today I will talk about one of the biggest addictions of British people. It's not tea, it's not wearing crop-tops at -100ºC (that's their second biggest), it's way more exotic. And colorful (at least than most crop-tops):

Greeting cards.

I am not kidding you, it is a serious issue. They have them everywhere!! EVERY supermarket has shelves with greeting cards. ShelvES. The picture above was taken at a regular local supermarket (no specialization in gifts or anything) and as you can see the hallway for the greeting cards takes almost as much as the one for fruits and vegetables. And it's is like this everywhere. A small mart close by my place has about 8 shelves and more or less 0.75 of them are greeting cards. That does not sound like much, but it's twice as much as they have for cereals or fruit. 

With this dedication they produced an endless variety of cards. There is ANYTHING you could possibly want to wish to anybody in the world neatly organized by categories. Look up "Father" and you'll find hundreds (not exaggerating) of cards from "I love you, daddy" to "Congratulations on your job anniversary" or "I need money, please". 

With this market it is only natural that there are even whole stores only dedicated to cards. I spent ages looking for a card for my sister in this shop because I could not decide between a card with One Direction singing "Happy Birthday" (also available with Hannah Montana and all the other Disney kids) and one with the endearing message "In dog years you would be dead". 

You have to spend your money on something, I guess...

Now you know...

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BB

Living in the UK this moment was inevitable: a post about the Big Ben is probably not much of a surprise. Considering its popularity I am sure you have seen it a million times from every imaginable angle, so to make this a bit more interesting I have gathered some fun facts about this iconic landmark to go with the pictures!

1. Most of you will know, but this has to be clarified from the beginning. Big Ben is actually the name of the biggest bell inside the tower. Not the clock, not the tower and definitely not the building.

2. As a matter of fact the tower is called Elisabeth Tower in honor of the diamond jubilee of Queen Elisabeth in 2012. Not a bad monument to give your name to...

3. The clock is the LARGEST four face chiming clock in the world and the third largest free standing clock tower. This is even more impressive if you consider...

4. ... that it was built in 1858! One would have thought that humans would build something bigger over the last 150 years... (yes, Dubai, I am talking to you).

5. The tower is 96 meters tall. Good to know.

6. On the 10th of May 1941 two of the sides were destroyed during a bombing from the Germans. The best part is: it continued running completely accurately throughout the complete bombing and after it.

7. The actual Big Ben bell weights 13.5 tons(!). It's a good thing that you don't have to lift it ... I don't know... 16 storeys?!

8. Due to excavations of tunnels near Westminster the tower is tilting. To be exact 0.9 mm a year since 2003. Beware, Tower of Pisa, this one is not only leaning but can also sing!

Crowns, crowns everywhere!

For some reason the weirdest objects are wearing crowns in London.

(And the street-lamps are from Chanel:

)

Fourth College: Churchill College

I know what you are thinking "Oh no, another of these tours around Hogwarts with pictures of chapels and lawns that one cannot step on...". Not this time my friend! I introduce:

Churchill College!

Founded in 1958 this College is a little different from what you have seen so far. For starters it is located in the outer part of town and is therefore not surrounded by high walls. 

As you can see the style of the buildings is completely different from what I posted so far. The inside as well:

It is not the only modern college though. As a matter of fact 15 of the colleges were built in the "modern" period from 1800 to 1977. The gardens are very nice and you can actually run around the fields, which is a big plus.

As you walk up the main stairs you find this guy looking down on you:

Sir Winston Churchill does not seem to approve your way of walking up the steps. From what I found out about this man he is quite an amazing fellow. Apart from being one of the most influential prime ministers of the United Kingdom he actually obtained the Nobel Prize in literature in 1953! Hats off!

Family time

After 8 months of being all over the place I finally met my family again! They came and visited me in Cambridge over the weekend, hooray!

After a few failed attempts of taking a family picture with the self-timer (who would have thought that those sheets were so slippery) we managed to get a decent one:

My father has been joking about having a family blog for as long as I can remember so I guess I can call this an honorary family post - it's not the dream, but it's a start.

O, brave new world that has such people in't!

On our trip to London we went to see "The Tempest", a great play by William Shakespeare - and what better place is there to watch this than in the original (-ish for it is only a reconstruction of the one one that burned down in 1613) Globe Theater?

The Globe Theater is definitely worth a visit. Don't let the modern glass facade fool you, as soon as you step through the door thou might'st start speaking in an old-fashioned manner, for thou feel'st as in 1599.

There is a small inner courtyard with amazing views. As you can see in the background St Paul's Cathedral is pretty close with the Thames in between (which you can not see here).

The inside looks stunning! Unfortunately we had standing places, so the vision was relatively limited but it was still spectacular. There is one small little detail I don't understand though. WHY ON EARTH is there an open-air theater in London? LONDON. Famous for its good weather and rare precipitations. We were lucky that day, because it was mostly sunny, but as soon as the sun goes down it gets really cold!!

The pictures are pretty bad, but that might eventually be due to the fact that it might or might not have been very accepted to take photos there and I shot a few in a hurry by accidentally pressing the camera button...

From the outside the theater looks also very traditional. The play was very well staged with beautiful costumes and very good actors! Thank god I read the play beforehand though. If you go in just like that you might understand very little and, as it usually is with Shakespeare, that little is not necessarily logical...

Third college: Trinity College

Since I still have quite a few colleges to present I better introduce the next one now! Today's college is very impressive, not only because of its great buildings:  

but also because of its alumni and its reputation! Ladies and gentleman: Trinity College!

It is the largest college in Cambridge (I think Wikipedia is referring to the number of people here (look at me searching for interesting fun facts to tell you with the pictures!)) and this shows in its never-ending grounds.

Of course they have their own small, little chapel (who doesn't?):

Famous alumni include Isaac Newton, Niels Bohr and Prince Charles! You can even see some original letters from Newton in the college library!

As you can see the building makes you feel like in the middle ages! And this is a regular door people use!

That building is the library and it's open for the public during certain hours so I definitely have to go and see it because apparently it is very nice. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures inside, so that post is going to be a challenge...

Some good hooks they must have...

This weekend I went to London with my friends from the department. Since they have been here for a while we did not run from tourist sight to tourist sight but went to specific locations that we wanted to visit instead. Our first stop was Camden Town. This is a very interesting district of London that has many small shops and the internationally famous market. What caught my attention the most though were the facades of the stores:

And it's not just one shop! Every little business had his own special decoration.

This street must have an immense amount of car accidents, I am not sure how I did not get hit by a car myself, since the last thing I was paying attention to in that place was the traffic...

Cities would be so much more interesting if all their shops had these decorations!

Keeping it classy

Tonight I went to Churchill College to my very first formal hall. This is a very fancy dinner that colleges have from time to time for their students and their guests. One of my friends is from Churchill and brought me along. It was really cool!

Usually there are more people, but since today was Thursday we were only one big table. As you can see the napkins are in the colors of Churchill (pink and brown) and everyone dresses very elegantly. At the beginning we were all standing until the Master had said grace (it's all about traditions here!). The meal was fantastic!:

After all of this we had to stand up as the Master and the remaining VIPs left the room (that reminded me of church) and then we went to the College bar for a while. This is a very nice tradition! Not only is the food delicious it is also very cool to see everyone dressed up (some people even wear their gowns, like in Harry Potter!!). I could get used to this! 

Dat sky

I hereby provide proof of the fact that England does have a blue sky underneath all the clouds:

Look at that blue!! After living in Singapore where there was always a thin layer of clouds in the sky this bluest of the blues is quite amazing. 

I also have to admit that the weather here is not too bad regarding the rain. It's just so cold! Tropical temperatures I miss you!!