Rock and Roll (literally)

A very fascinating landscape we saw during our Ireland trip was the Burren. It's a region in the West of the island that is covered in karst, like this:

It's mainly made out of limestone and it is such a special environment, that it hosts arctic, Mediterranean and alpine plants all together. 

As you can see in the picture above, the valleys are green and farmed by the owners of the grounds. The top of the hills are covered in the karst (you can see the beginning in the lower and the upper right side of the picture). The small rock walls were built from the stones in the Burren and, according to our guide, this was one of the strategies of the English to keep the Irish busy. 

On top of one of the hills there was this wishing tree. If you tie something to it while wishing something it becomes true (kind of reminds me of the wishing tree in Singapore where you had to throw the coins). :)

The stone formations are really amazing!!

Very diverse landscapes. Good job, Eire!

Tenth College: Darwin College

I know I am a bit behind on the College challenge, BUT since I will be on this island for another year I can come back to Cambridge in case I don't manage to see all of the Colleges in the days I have left...

More good news: today I'll show you one of the Colleges I grew to love the most. A very good friend of mine is a student there which is why I have spent quite some time on its grounds! I give you:

Darwin College!

A very cool thing about Darwin College is the fact that it has an island (with a cute little bridge to cross over). Also the river you can see on the picture ends at one of the punting stations, so people can punt around the island as well.

I assumed that this college was one of the old batch, but 'tis not so! Darwin College was founded in 1976 by no other than the three colleges Gonville and Caius, St' Johns and Trinity and named after one of Cambridge's most famous alumni: Charles Darwin.

Part of the land conveniently belonged to the Darwin family already, so I can see where the name is coming from (not that these theories Darwin was formulating were reason enough to name anything after him, of course...). Darwin College is the first graduate-only college and also the first one to accept both male and female students (at this point I want to add that female students were not regarded as full university members until 1948!! I am in shock! And this is not even that bad! Harvard only accepted women from 1977 on. I would have never guessed that it was that late!)

The island has a very nice path above the water - it's like going on an adventure!

One of the coolest features this college has to offer are the incredibly fancy interior decorations. The room above is where we very casually had tea after lunch once. Does it not look great?

And it's mostly like that (from what I have seen). This is where I was waiting for my friend the other day reading the paper:

In this college you don't feel like a knight (like at King's and co.), you feel like a Sir! 

I'm back!

And this time I don't have any travel excuse!

I know it has been a while, but things have been quite crazy lately! Good news: my next destination is confirmed now. I will be staying in London for the next year doing my Master's at Imperial College so you'll read about this city starting October. Whoop!

Also, the count-down is on! I have a week left here (pretty much exactly) before I fly back to Spain (I will finally be able to include some pictures with the sun here...). So lots of stress packing and preparing... the time here has gone by so fast! A lot of people are leaving apart from me and I have to make the most of the little time I have left with them.

I know I cannot completely make up for the neglect but I hope this picture helps:

Just when you thought you had seen it all...

Ninth College: Murray Edwards College

Ok, the title already gives it away, but had it not been for the great tradition of counting the Colleges I would have shown you this picture and let you guess what this is:

You have to admit, that the last thing on your mind would have been a College (after all the Hogwarts pictures I showed you, you should know better!). 

Welcome to Murray Edwards!

Murray Edwards is one of the few colleges in Cambridge that only admits women. It was founded in 1954 (what? The incredibly baroque buildings are not from the 16th century?) and initially called New Hall. Although I am not too much of a fan of the new colleges and their architecture I like the entrance of this one with the palms (that photo could have been taken in Singapore!).

This building is a bit bizarre, to be honest:

I guess the weirdest thing was the fact that it was so empty! In the older colleges you expect to be all by yourself in those huge castles, but here you'd think people should be around, right?

The thing I enjoyed the most about this college was the fact that it was very luminous. Some of the other modern colleges are much darker (seriously why, WHY did they pick the fifties out of all times to build the new colleges, where everyone was thinking they had to be so innovative and unesthetic!). Anyways... they also had a lot of art going on there with pictures and sculptures decorating all the hallways (way to go!).

Stepping out into the garden actually reminded you of the fact that you were still in Cambridge and seeing the terrace already gave you the urge of having some tea...

This college could actually be the set of some futuristic movie. I can totally see the villain fighting the hero on the roof of what clearly is his his observatory in the picture above. 

All in one interesting College! 

Also, we almost cleared a third of the colleges, yeah!

Back in the jungle

Although England is a pretty green country, after coming from Singapore this looked like a desert to me (when I went to Madrid the last time I really could not believe how dry it was and it never caught my attention!). There is one little spot where I can get my old Singapore back though. Welcome to the Conservatoire of the Botanical Gardens!

One of the coolest plants there is this one:

It is actually incredibly thick! I was very tempted to try whether it could hold me or not, but there was a second half of a concert that I had to attend so I rather wanted to stay dry...

This was a very climber-friendly tree. I wonder what it has up there that it wants to protect so badly. Pots of gold?

This is basically what my way to work looked like back on the Island, lah! The most disappointing part of going to the lab now is not the lack of plants, though, but clearly the lack of monkeys!

Dublin's Cathedral 1

Dublin is not such a huge place.. and yet it is one of the very few cities in the world that has TWO cathedrals. One of them is Christ Church Cathedral and the other is St. Patrick's Cathedral. The latter is the biggest church in Ireland and quite beautiful:

The windows are beautiful! (more pictures to come)

Luckily they were having some choir practice when we were visiting which created a much cooler atmosphere.

The floor was incredibly complex. It's actually a pity that most people won't even look down after someone has pretty much spent his life on that...

A detail I liked were the pillows that were hanging from the chairs (for kneeling down, I assumed...). They were not only quite cute, but also all different! 

The promised windows (aren't they incredible?!):

Some of the flags there had not been changed in a couple of days/centuries...

Long post with many pictures and little words, but I really need to get to bed! To wrap it up I give you what I assume is the Stairway to Heaven:

Good night!