Cambridge Newcomers and Visiting Scholars Group

I found this group on Facebook, and went along this morning to the weekly coffee to see what was going on. Since this is Robert Burns' birthday, they had a mini Burns Night celebration, with bagpipes and the haggis and the all important toast to the haggis, etc.  You might think this was going too far, but Burns is important here. Did Google have the Burns doodle in the US? The UK site had this:

(Source: http://www.google.co.uk/)

We sang "Old Lang Syne" too.

This is not the first Burns supper I have been to. We had one in the hall dinning room in Aberdeen when I was doing my junior study abroad there. Since I was only there a semester, and I started the second week in January, this was early in my time there, and I really had no idea what was going on. This time it seemed perfectly normal to me. We also learned a bit about Australia Day, which is tomorrow, from one of the ex-pat Aussies.

The group is interesting. It is almost all women, the spouses of men who are here to study or work at the university. The organizers, as far as I can tell, are wives of senior college officials, and they do this as volunteers. Most of the younger people there were Asian, as far as I could tell mostly Chinese. The most important thing the group does for many newcomers, probably, is a weekly language conversation/practice time earlier on Tuesday mornings. There were women from a variety of other places.  I met several other Americans, and some who have been here for years, and help organize the group themselves. I also met a few women from New Zealand and Australia. 

The groups is also a social club, and I have signed up for several tours and outings they have scheduled during the Lent term. I went on the first of those this afternoon, a walk though the Botanical Garden, but that will be another post, probably tomorrow.

Comments

[Christy Story]

Well how appropriate to sing auld lang syne when you met all those new acquaintances!!! I distributed the blog url in the department meeting notes today!! :) so you were there in ether if not in spirit ;)