In England with PGP

 Dear Currier,

PGP in the 12th Century Village of Castle Acre

Castle Acre Priory

We hope you had a great spring break. It brought us a welcome contact with Currier when PGP came to stay with us in the other Cambridge. She detected many similarities between Currier and the Cambridge Colleges despite Currier's lack of a giant chapel.  Indeed as we traveled around it was hard to avoid huge churches and her holiday had a definite ecclesiastical bent as we visited Kings College Chapel Cambridge,  Ely Cathedral and the ruins of the 11th Century Cluniac Monastery of Castle Acre in Norfolk.

PGP listening to the audia guide at Castle Acre

We decided that this is because so much of English history is tied up with the church and indeed the various stages of building of Kings College Chapel closely follow the history of the War of the Roses and the marriages of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, whose initials and crests can be seen carved into walls and woodwork. We traced the increasing corruption and decadence of the 16th Century Roman Catholic church in England in the ruins of Castle Acre Priory and saw destructive impact of the reformation which reduced the priory from one of the most richly decorated in Europe to its present magnificent skeleton.

Patricia wearing her red nose

On a lighter note we also supported the fund raising efforts of UK charity Comic Relief by celebrating Red Nose day.

Good luck with the last half of the semester. We hope that you have exciting plans for the summer and we look forward to hearing what you have been up to in September.

All the best

Elizabeth and Richard

The Tip of Africa

Dear Currier,

Table Mountain looking south towards Cape Point

African Penguins, Western Cape

Hi from Cape Town, South Africa. We are at Stellenbosch University just outside Cape Town for 3 weeks. Richard has joined a human evolutionary biology group here and I am on holiday! It is a really beautiful area, very like southern California. Stellenbosch is very like Santa Barbara and the whole area is covered with vineyards. We have resisted the urge to spend every spare moment wine tasting and have turned our attention to the famous sites.

African Penguins mate for life

Cape of Good Hope on a calm day

Last weekend we visited Table Mountain, nesting African Penguins - the only penguin that lives in Africa and had a wonderful trip to The Cape of Good Hope. The scenery was stunning, the vegetation unique and we thought about what it must have been to be Vasco da Gama rounding this often stormy point where currents from Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet not having any idea what was ahead.

Cape Point - where the cold Atlantic and warm Pacific currents meet

Next weekend we hope to visit Robben Island and some inland sites and then it is back to the UK. But that is not all bad! We are so excited that PGP is visiting us in the other Cambridge during Spring Break.
We hope you are all enjoying the semester. Unbelievable to think that the academic year is almost over.

With very best wishes.
We miss Currier!

Elizabeth and Richard