Over the past few weeks I got bored and got one of those "Free 10 Day Trials" from Ancestry.com, and did a bit of ancestry work. I have already done work on my Dad's side before, so this time I decided to do work on my Mom's side, and I found some pretty cool stuff. Obviously if you are able to trace ancestry back far enough, you will inevitably find something cool and interesting. I happened to be able to trace one of the many great great grandparents on my mom's side all the way back to the 1300's in England and as it turns out, my 14th great grandfather, Samuel Maycock actually studied at Cambridge University from 1612-1614 before moving to Jamestown, Virginia and being massacred by native americans in 1622. The college he studied at is Gonville and Caius College, which is literally right beside King's. I may have mentioned the above info in a blog post a couple weeks back, but I mentioned it again because I actually walked inside Gonville and Caius College today to see what it is like. There is one courtyard that is actually original from well before the 14th great grandfather studied there. I know it sounds really cheesy, but it was kinda cool to walk around the college grounds and think that exactly 400 years ago one of my many 14th great grandparents was living and studying in the same exact buildings and grounds. He may be a very obscure ancestor, but without him I suppose I wouldn't be here. Here's the college grounds:

Even the wooden floors are all uneven and old and creaky. Although I would bet those stairs and floors were added in the 1700's or 1800's when most colleges were refurbished.

And Mom, the picture below is to show you what I meant yesterday when I said just about all pubs have the best floral arrangements in town. This isn't even one of the nicer floral arrangements you see outside pubs. I'm telling you...if you want to see nice old storefronts with nice flowers, go look for old pubs. For some reason they are the nicest looking businesses in town. Same thing goes for the pubs we walked past in London... this pub happens to be in Cambridge though.

Tonight we walked into a bakery to get a little treat, and as I walked in I heard the store owner talking with two customers that were tourists from Asia. I heard the tourists say "This is nicer than Oxford... we heard about a rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge."  and the store owner says "Yeah, it's a huge rivalry...kind of like, eh, Harvard and Princeton in the States." 

I'm thinking: WHAT.

I was waiting in line thinking (not actually mad or upset of course, just amused) of how he would even get that. Even a non-American knows that the biggest rivalry has been between Harvard and Yale for more than 300 years. How does someone even think Harvard and Princeton are the arch-rivals? Haha, the funny thing is, Princeton students consider themselves to be both Harvard and Yale's arch-rivals, but Harvard and Yale students view Princeton as the third wheel that wants to be more of a rival than it really is. It was just funny... it's kind of like saying the University of Georgia and Kentucky are arch-rivals. Nope. Same conference, but no. Haha. 

My fiance leaned over to me and said "You're bitter he said Princeton instead of Yale, aren't you?" Humorously enough, I was bitter...but in the funny way, not in the actually bitter way.