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The Concept of Time, the Festival of Ideas, "When Was Reproduction Invented," and Wandering around St. Johns

About two weeks ago, I was running late for everything. Still working out the distance to things, not to mention where things were in the first place. As 5 pm rolled around, my phone calendar informed me that I was, unsurprisingly, late for one of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas* panel discussion/debate called “When Was Reproduction Invented?” Undeterred, I decided to brave whatever public shame walking in late would bring. I biked over to St. John’s College, and power walked to the building, marveling as I did at the beautiful red ivy covering the walls around me and wishing I had the time to photograph and admire the general splendor.
*Cambridge Festival of Ideas is two weeks of intellectual FOMO. For two weeks, absurdly smart and qualified people discuss and debate their research and passion projects, usually with five different panels happening all at the same time in five different locations, at exactly the time you have something else planned.
Turns out I did! I had put the event into my phone when I was in Budapest and had forgotten to adjust the start time to reflect the time zone difference. I had unexpectedly bought myself 50 minutes of free time to wander around a beautiful college. (I’m not sure if non-St. John’s college members are allowed to walk around the grounds unsupervised. If we’re not allowed, then I deviously snuck in, and if we are allowed, well then I probably could have been a lot less subtle about my picture-taking)





Shrewsbury Tower, built in 1671 depicting the Countess of Shrewsbury (who helped finance its cost). Not to be confused with Lady Margaret Beaufort, the founder of St. John's (more infamously known as the mother of Henry VIII, of beheading and six wives fame).

The Bridge of Sighs from Inside


My favorite picture. You can almost see the monks and scholars walking beneath the arches.



Wondering how many centuries of architecture can be seen here



These are not goats. They are creatures the size of a hippopotamus, with the tail of an elephant, the body of an antelope, the jaws of a boar, the head of a goat, and swiveling horns. 
Think you know? Check your mythical beast knowledge here

The Bridge of Sighs from Outside.





Time was not kind to one of these ladies.


Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 30, 2019 at 2:39 PM

    So beautiful! Thank goodness for Dr. Schneider and WGW for reminding me about your blog posts. xo Becca

    ReplyDelete

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