Punt, what!

Today was exciting: my first punting experience on the Cam, and surely not my last. Maxine, Graham, Michelle, Lauren and myself all "hired" a... punt?... from King's to take up and down the river. I was too scared to try, but Michelle did extremely well, and then Graham took the bulk of the trip.

It was really hysterical, actually, 'cause our little boaty-boat was filled with water (from the rain, surprise surprise), so we had to scoop it all out, as you can see. Okay... Graham, Maxine and Michelle had to scoop it out. Promise, I offered.

Either way, everything got squared away, and we ended up spending a great almost 2 hours lounging on the Cam. It was really incredible, actually, because it didn't rain a single drop. Kind of shocking, actually, considering it doesn't really go 5 minutes without raining. I love rain, but c'mon. Pick one: rain or shine. Not that difficult.

The best part was actually getting to see more of Cambridge. Not the insides of anything, surely, but the outside, facades of buildings and other colleges, from The Backs, as it's known.

I have never seen so many bridges concentrated into one area before. I know that each of them have names, but I'm really horrible; I'll look them up eventually. (*going to look up bridges*) Okay, this one to the right in the foreground is the Queen's College Mathematical Bridge. The one in the distance is... I don't know.
This next one is the Bridge of Sighs, connecting one part of St. John's College to the other -- probably one of the more beautiful colleges that I've seen (next to Pembroke College -- omg, it's amazing, more on that later when I have pictures), though this picture I'm posting is of the backside of the chapel. I heard one of the punting tour guides tell a group that they called it the Bridge of Sighs because the college used to be a prison an each executed person would breathe their last sigh as they walked across the bridge. He continued to say that people still sigh as they walk across the bridge, though now it's because they have exams to take. He wasn't very funny.

(Note: I'm including Wiki-links to everything, because all the history is so interesting, if you have any interest at all, you should check it out.)

Oh, and check this out!! A black swan!!! I mean... I never thought I'd see one, and there one was, chillin' with us on the river near Trinity college and some punting hire places. Wow, right? Beautiful much?

All in all, punting was a lot of fun. This was a long post, considering the experience was quite brief, but mainly I just wanted to write a little and not just leave you hanging with a bunch of random-ass pictures, as pretty as they might be.

Punting looks hard, but when you're watching the Cambridge boys doing it (the ones that work and haul tourists around), you can kind of see the technique behind it. I'm definitely going to try before these 8 weeks are up, and I am hopeful that I'll be pretty good at it. I'm not so worried about steering well as much as I am about possibly falling in. I would die. Die. I can't imagine something more embarrassing, especially since the Cam is usually so crowded with people. Oy, the horror.

So. To finish all this off, I figured I'd post a video that I took, though it isn't quite as complete and well-put-together as my last ones. =P But you can at least see the landscape a little, even if it's super boring.

Which it is.

These punts only go so fast.

PS. I have a crush. Gell, he looks like... kind of like... a certain actor we happen to like for certain reasons people don't really get except us (and Barb and Kim). Yeah. I'm gonna work on it.