Three balls, two cities, one long weekend abroad

Last Wednesday I hopped on a metro, a train, a tube, and a bus to find myself by late afternoon in the university town of Cambridge-- the original, in England. Here, Tanya, a fellow MIT 5W alum met me and brought me back to her dorm room. It was finally time to put my pet project to use. In a whirlwind of tea, champagne, gossip, laughter, hairspray, powders, creams, and lipstick, her friends and I readied ourselves for the Pembroke June Event, Tanya's college's May Week celebration.

You read correctly, May Week, and no, they haven't re-ordered the months on this side of the pond. Back in the day, Cambridge University colleges used to hold their celebrations back in the month for which the celebration week was aptly named, but it was eventually rescheduled to coincide with the week after the year-end exams, an occasion worth celebrating. Each college annually hosts either a May Ball or a June Event, which are mostly the same thing-- completely excessive, all-night-long parties-- though May Balls can be even more extravagant (and twice the price which, at 75£ for June Event entry, is no small fee). The colleges at Cambridge, the equivalent of the houses at Hogwarts, are steeped in tradition though I'm sad to report that they do not have the same personalities à la Hogwarts houses, or so I've been told.

The Pembroke June Event went off like a well-planned fireworks display, with each new eye-opening, colorful surprise following the next in such rapid-fire sequence that I hardly had time to catch my breath. We were greeted in the courtyard where we waited to formally enter the castle-like college entrance with sweets, a drum band, and a pair of live alpacas. From here the evening only got better:

• learning salsa in a dining hall older than my native country
• sipping on sweet cocktails from an open bar
• relaxing with massages and aromatherapy oils
• grooving to a silent disco
• refueling at the coffee/tea/biscuit lounge that opened at midnight
• riding a ferris wheel at sunrise
• indulging in a breakfast that the English found appealing (I've been in France too long, guilty as charged) without even caring precisely what I'd been served
• bouncing around on the dance floor at dawn.

I wasn't sure if I had it in me anymore, but I'm pleased to say that despite (happily) being several years past my undergrad all-nighter lifestyle, I can still rock out 'till dawn. Here's a few photos that capture my evening.

The June Event was over within twelve hours of my stepping foot in Cambridge, but the weekend's adventures had hardly begun. For the next two days, I wandered through colleges ripe for fairy tale fantasies, down picturesque streets, and into cafés and pubs where (the PhD student that I am) I could catch up on some reading over a cup of tea or a pint. I basked in a town where the concept of a campus with a young, vibrant, multi-disciplinary academic community thrives, a refreshing experience after years of life in total contrast on continental Europe where universities, generally speaking, are a place to work and study but not a place to stay to play.

Breaking out dress #2 (this one not sewn by yours truly), I even braved the Cambridge University ballroom dance team/club ball on Friday, my last evening in Cambridge.

Tanya and me at the Cambridge University ballroom dance team/club ball

Tanya, the blur in the red waistband in the middle of the dance floor, had learned an impressive amount during her first year on the ballroom dance team.

I may not have had Tanya's skills, or any ballroom dance skills for that matter, but I didn't spend the entire evening as a wallflower: a series of kind souls collectively danced me through the basics of the rumba, waltz, chacha, jive, and quick-step. Learning involved plenty of toe-stepping and pauses to get back in time with the music, but it was postively delightful! Now to find a place in Paris to reinforce those new skills... Is ballroom dancing even something the Parisians do these days?

Before my return to the land of those bewildering Parisians, I had one more stop along the way: London. Here I first checked out something close to home and dear to my heart: the DeRose Method School of Yôga. I practice regularly in Paris, of course, and I even checked out the chapter in New York, but my yoga explorations had yet to take me across the channel. I was thrilled to get a chance on Saturday afternoon to check out the school, which was offering a delicious afternoon brunch in its cozy and luminous lower level. I even hopped in on a class.

The DeRose Method School in London, a sister to my yoga school in Paris which I visited on Saturday afternoon.

Having found a theme that was working for me, I of course spent Saturday evening-- where else?-- at a ball, this time the Imperial College Summer Ball with my friend Rich and company. Here I was treated to a real fireworks display, bumper cars, and dancing to the sort of bass-heavy clubbing music that renders attempts at conversation pointless and reverberates through your chest cavity.

Fighting against a confusing night-time public transport system, cold rainy English weather, and a mild cold I'd picked up, we still managed to get home in one piece on Saturday night. The next morning I dragged myself up with hardly enough energy to catch my Sunday afternoon train home, very ready for the soft bed and chatty cat that awaited me on the other side of my adventures.