4 Fans and a Boat

Today we went a–punting.

Jon and his lovely daughter Vanessa took us down to the scenic river Cam and we rented a punt. Then Jon poled us up to Grantschester. It was quite nice to lay back in the boat and observe the passing countryside. There aren't very many buildings along the sides of the river, apparently this is mostly Commons area, since this is where they were grazing cows. Kind of weird to see cows in the middle of the town, but nice. You have to watch where you step, but that's good advice anytime.

While we sailed along, the talented Vanessa mixed us up several batches of Pimms (http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/pimms-cup-10000001646369/). Pimms is apparently a very popular drink around these parts, as you can order it by the pitcher just about anywhere. Pimms is made with Pimms # 1, which is a pre-blended concoction made from gin and various other ingredients. It's then mixed up with assorted vegetables and lemonade and it's cool and refreshing and packs a subtle kick. Pimms apparently makes a number of these pre-mixed concoctions and they've been around for over a hundred years, and thus you can find them all through-out the commonwealth and former possessions (http://www.anyoneforpimms.com/recipes/). Something to look forward to in our travels.

Once we reached Grantschester, we went back to The Green Man and had lunch. I had the rabbit, which was very good. I don't eat a lot of rabbit. You can usually only find it in the Asian markets, and even then, it tends to be entire rabbit carcasses, which have a lot of little bones. Feh. However this was so good that I am inspired to look again, if only so I can introduce the Experiments to the joys of Hasenpfeffer and rabbit stew.

Despite everything we had heard about punting, Jon made it look easy, so Kaja decided to try it. We were prepared for Comedy, but in fact she seems to quite have the knack, and polled us all the way back to Cambridge without incident.

On the way back, Jon told us about the Mathematical Bridge, which is a wooden bridge near Queens' College. The popular story is that the bridge was built by Sir Isaac Newton, and was made without any bolts. Later the bridge was seen to be rotting in places, so they took it apart and then realized that they had no idea how to put it back together, and finally had to use bolts because Sir Isaac was apparently this mystic mathemagician who probably built pyramids during his summer break. In reality, the bridge was built by William Etheridge and James Essex in 1749. Those people with no romance in their souls will point out that Sir Isaac died in 1727. Good story, though.

Once back, we sat around and watched the tai kwon do Olympic finals. Great Britain won the Gold, and the U.S. won one of the Bronzes, so everybody in the room was full of international accord. Whew.