I LOVE CAMBRIDGE!

The RIVER.

Cambridge is a beautiful city to live in, purely from a landscape point of view, and the River Cam can be lovely. I cycle past it every Sunday morning between Robinson College and the Perse Girls' School hall, where City Church meets, and when it's sunny I can't help but be struck by the beauty. It's great to go punting along the Cam when the weather's nice (or at night)... It's just generally lovely, really.

A few photos of the river-->

The GARDENS

There's just so many beautiful "green patches" in Cambridge. Whether it's public commons like Jesus Green and the Backs, or the gardens belonging to individual colleges, Cambridge is a great place to learn to love nature!

<-- The lake and a little bit of the gardens in my very own Robinson College.

The SKY

Cambridge, it's undeniable, is very flat. Northerners sometimes moan about this ("I miss the hills!"). But one thing the flat landscape offers is large amounts of sky...

I love the sky. I love its bigness - the way no matter how big and impressive man's achievements are, you just look above at the effortless beauty, the shapes and shades of clouds, the range of colours (especially near dawn or sunset), and you're reminded just Who's really in control and just Whose achievements are the more striking!

I've taken a few photos of particularly striking skies here in Cambridge. I've only scanned one of them in so far, but as a taster: here it is -->

The COLLEGES

Cambridge can really rival Oxford for the title "The City of Dreaming Spires" I could have chosen any number of pictures on the left - the inside of a lovely court in Christ's or Caius colleges? Maybe a view of King's College Chapel? Something equally aesthetic but less famous, like a pretty shot of Trinity Hall, or Jesus College?

One thing's for sure - I'm spoilt for choice. The thing is, it really does make a difference to my life as a student here, being constantly in the midst of such beautiful surroundings.

The COMPUTERS

Okay, a bit of a change of style for the last four things that I Love About Cambridge. And anyone who knows me will vouch for this - that I'm a total Internet junkie.

I love the Net. Yes, it gets quite silly amounts of hype and yes, there's an awful lot of junk or worse on it, but the fact remains that it can be put to such wonderful purposes. I'm able to email my friends in college to arrange when to meet up - it hardly has a negative effect on my social life! I'm able to chat online to friends in different colleges - we still have deep chats till 2 in the morning, it's just that 75% of the time we're not in the same college while doing so.

And I'm able to meet new friends too. There are several people in America who I've met online and have chatted to, and grown to love and support. I've met people through the Net who I've later gone on to speak to on the phone or meet up face-to-face - sometimes becoming one of my closest friends.

This is all before mentioning the research, websurfing, online gaming, online reference... And it wouldn't be possible to anywhere near the same degree if Cambridge University weren't one of the most online cities in the UK.

The SOCIETIES

Among the societies that I've been involved with in some way or other are the following. Note that there are also vast numbers of other groups - particularly sports teams, musical societies of one form or another, or groups to support people of one nationality or another.

	The Christian Union - both college and University-wide...
	The Diplomacy (board game) Society
	The Assassins' Guild
	SPEAK (campaigning and praying on issues of injustice)
	People & Planet
	Cambridge Dancing Club
	Sheila And Her Dog (sit reading childrens' books in silly voices drinking chocolate and throwing fluffy toys around)

The CHURCHES

The churches in Cambridge are among the best I've heard of, anywhere in Britain. For two simple reasons: they're sound, and they're united.

There are loads of churches in Cambridge that numbers of Christian students go to each week. They're amazingly united despite great differences in tradition, denomination, and worship style; they freely preach that secondary differences diversify the Church, not divide it. They don't claim that their way of looking at things is the only way, but encourage students & others in the congregation to think things through for themselves; that said, what they preach is normally very good, practical, applicable, and normally straight from the Bible - always consistent with it.

Go here for the webpages of my church, or follow this link for a list of most of the other churches in Cambridge, and links to the websites of those that have them... You'll notice there's rather a lot of them :)

The PEOPLE