Cambridge, UK - Part 1

Dear Friends:

This week, I'm back in the UK.  Specifically, I'm in Cambridge...attending a big event for my company.  This particular event is held annually, and brings all of our corporate partners together into the small college-town of Cambridge.  More on that later.

I arrived in London a little early.  I actually hadn't planned on it, as I came directly from a family reunion in Utah.  Without any advanced planning, I decided to take the train into central London and at least visit one museum.

The list of museums that I haven't visited is getting pretty short, but London still has plenty more for me to see.

I chose the Churchill War Rooms as my destination.  This is the secret WWII bunker that housed much of the British government, related to the war efforts.  Churchill met here daily with various ministers and even slept here, at times.  It was an amazing catacomb of rooms and hallways that was vital to England's efforts during WWII.  They have preserved almost all of the rooms, even placing mannequins of military officers to show what it was like in those days.

This is part of the Map Room - where they kept track of all the military intelligence.  The maps covered all the walls, as they tracked Allied and German troop movements.

Within the facility, was also the Churchill Museum, focused on the life of Sir Winston Churchill.  He's always been a fascinating figure to me, especially if you look at his career spanning back to WWI.  I found this particular quote about families quite interesting:

 I'm always interested in "interactive" displays (one of the jobs I secretly wish I had, is creating these kinds of exhibits).  This long table - maybe 20 feet - was essentially a giant touch screen, that showed Churchill's timeline:

I wasn't aware of how much he devoted the last part of his life to warning the world about the growing Soviet power.  During WWII, he had to deal with Stalin as a key part of the Allied front against the Axis powers.  The quotes are hilarious:

Nearby the War Rooms was the Household Cavalry Museum.  They had two soldiers on horseback, just outside the entrance.  Because it's tourist season, the poor animals were mobbed by tourists...with good intentions.  Nonetheless, I can't imagine how calm those horses were ; )

I then grabbed a train and headed northeast to Cambridge.  It was an overcast day - not a big surprise in England - but still quite pleasant.  I walked from the center of town to my accommodations.  Along the way, I crossed over the River Cam, where boats were floating behind the great colleges of Cambridge University:

This year, I'm staying in the college dorms again.  My company is bringing 1,500 people into Cambridge and we give our corporate partners access to the available hotels in town.  This means that almost 300 employees have to stay somewhere...so we have rooms at several of the local colleges.  Last year, I stayed at one of the finest colleges.  This year, not so much ; )  For the week, I'm at Robinson College.  It's almost like I was destined to be here... It was built in the 1970s, but is still a decent place with a beautiful set of gardens.

 Not bad to walk through every morning ; )

For anyone that has read my previous blog posts about the UK, you know that I'm a huge fan of the Marks & Spencer stores - at least the "Food Hall" parts of those store.  These are grocery stores that really cater to people "on the go" - with fresh, healthy food that you can grab for a full meal on the run, or to take home and prepare quickly.  On the not-so-healthy side, they have a line of cookies called "All Butter".  You can probably imagine that they taste pretty darn good.  I've had several different kinds of these...the latest is called Sultana...

...and they are worthy additions to the collection.  My favorite remains the Cranberry and Orange, but this is basically a raisin cookie...taken to another level.  For those that don't appreciate a raisin in your Sultana cookie...please hand it to me ; )

The next day, our big partner meeting started.  It takes place at one of the more prestigious school within the Cambridge University system - Clare College.  As with most of the high-end colleges here, they have private gardens and beautiful buildings...that can only be accessed by students and faculty.  Let me show you what my walk to work looked like this morning:

Overall...not a bad way to start the day!  Even though it's overcast, and lightly rained for a bit, it's still beautiful.

That's if for now...the next post will finish the big conference here, complete with a dinner in a dining hall that is almost 600 years old ; )