I'll be out somewhere shopping.
Received the email yesterday. Any other advice is welcomed.
Dear Summer Program Participants,
I look forward to welcoming you in person to the Southwestern University School of Law Summer Program in Cambridge, England. Once we all arrive in Cambridge, there will plenty of time talk face-to-face about the program, the courses, your careers, travel in England, and anything else you like. I’m writing you now, though, because there are some things I think you may want to know, even before you leave home for England.
Here’s what I have in mind:
1. Getting to Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge, from the London-area airport where your plane is likely to be landing.
2. Bringing the right clothes for Southwestern-arranged extra-curricular activities, and for the weather.
3. Having British money for meals, snacks, buses, trains and taxis, on your first day in England.
4. Buying a BritRail or Eurail train pass, if you plan to sightsee in England or Europe during or after the program.
5. Having a cell phone for your use in England.
6. Getting to know Cambridge.
Books for your courses will be shipped to you in about a week, along with an updated copy (on paper) of the information in this email. Here, though, is what I think you may want to know about these things, before your books arrive:
1. GETTING TO FITZWILLIAM COLLEGE IN CAMBRIDGE FROM THE AIRPORT:
Your trip to Cambridge involves (at least) two stages. First, you’ll fly to London; then you’ll travel from London to Cambridge. The transportation you’ll use to get from London to Cambridge depends on which London-area airport your plane lands in. There are two possibilities: Heathrow Airport (which is 71 miles from Cambridge); and Gatwick Airport (which is 95 miles from Cambridge).
If your plane lands at Heathrow
If your plane lands at London’s Heathrow Airport, you can take either a bus (which will be convenient if you will be traveling straight from the airport to Cambridge) or a train (which will be convenient if you are arriving in England a few days early and will be staying overnight in London before coming to Cambridge).
BUS SERVICE (DIRECT FROM HEATHROW AIRPORT):
The least expensive transportation between Heathrow Airport and Cambridge is by National Express bus which leaves the airport from the Heathrow Central Bus Station approximately every half hour. The journey to Cambridge is 2 hours and 40 minutes by bus. You should get off the bus at the main Cambridge Coach Station on Drummer Street and take a taxi to Fitzwilliam College. (The Cambridge Coach Station – i.e., “bus” station – is within walking distance to Fitzwilliam, but it’s somewhat uphill and may be a long walk with luggage in tow, after a very long plane and bus ride. That’s why you may want to take a taxi for the very last leg of your trip.)
To see bus schedules and fares, log on to www.nationalexpress.com.
It is possible to purchase a student discount card for National Express buses which allows a 30 percent savings. The initial cost is £10. The round-trip (called “return”) fare between Heathrow and Cambridge is £29.50. The single (one-way) fare is £24.
Note that there are luggage size restrictions for the National Express buses.
TRAIN/BUS/TUBE SERVICE (VIA LONDON):
It also is possible to take a train, a bus or the tube (the subway) into London from Heathrow Airport, and then to travel from London to Cambridge by train or bus.
The fastest way into London from Heathrow is on a train called the Heathrow Express. For schedules, see www.heathrowexpress.com. The Express takes just 15 minutes from the airport to London Paddington station. The fare on is £13 single (one-way) or £25 return (round-trip.)
You also can take a National Express bus from Heathrow to London’s Victoria Coach Station which is adjacent to the Victoria (tube) Station. The bus leaves approximately every 15 minutes and costs £9 single (one way) or £15 return (round-trip.)
Or you can take the tube from Heathrow (it picks up at all terminals) into London. In fact, you can take the tube all the way to London’s Kings Cross Station, if you like. (Kings Cross Station is the departure point for trains to Cambridge; see the following paragraph.) To download a London tube map, visit www.tube.tfl.gov.uk.
To get to Cambridge from London by train, you must travel by tube (subway) to Kings Cross Station which has trains to Cambridge. From Paddington or Victoria Station, you would take the tube to King’s Cross Station and then take a train to Cambridge. Trains run about every 15 minutes and take 45 minutes to an hour to Cambridge. Fares and schedules are available at www.nationalrail.co.uk. (Note that when inserting travel dates on the National Rail website, the information is listed as day, month and year, not month, day and year as is US custom.) The fare from London to Cambridge is £16.40 single (one-way) or £26 return (round-trip). Getting around on the London tube system with heavy or bulky luggage is difficult work, though many travelers do it. You also can take a taxi to King’s Cross Station, but London taxis are expensive.
If you wish to take a bus from London to Cambridge, there is service leaving Victoria Coach Station to Cambridge Drummer Street which costs £9 single or £15 return. It leaves every hour and takes 2 hours to arrive in Cambridge.
2. Bringing the right clothes for southwestern-arranged extra-curricular activities, and for the weather:
For classes and recreational activities, bring whatever clothes you’ll be comfortable wearing. You’ll probably walk a great deal more in England than you do at home, so be certain to bring good walking shoes. Also, it’s likely to rain some (or even a lot), especially during the first couple of weeks we’re in England. (That’s why England is so beautifully green, even during the summer.) So bring a lightweight rain jacket (it won’t be cold, even while it’s raining). (I use a rain jacket that’s so lightweight it can be rolled into a little sack and carried in a backpack, when it’s not needed.)
Southwestern has arranged several extracurricular activities for which dressy clothes will be appropriate (maybe even necessary), so men should bring a jacket and tie, and women should bring a dress or pants suit – in other words, business clothes of the kind you would wear if you were going to appear in court in the United States. You’ll want clothes of this kind for visits we have planned to London law firms, to the legal office of the British Museum, and for the opening day dinner which will be attended by a Master and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College. In my experience, the British are very friendly; but they are more formal in their attire than Americans (certainly more formal than those of us from Southern California). One summer when I taught in London, several students were not admitted to a pre-arranged (and expensive) dinner in a private club, because the men were not wearing jackets and ties and the women were not wearing dresses. Southwestern has not scheduled any activities in places as stuffy as that private club; but dressy clothes will be appropriate for a few events, so don’t forget to pack something you could wear in an American courtroom.
3. Having British money for meals, snacks and taxis, on your first day in England:
The least expensive and easiest way to change American money into British money is to use your credit or debit card at an ATM machine in England. You will need some British money shortly after you arrive, for transportation to Cambridge or into London (by bus, tube, and/or taxi), and for meals or snacks. You probably will be able to use your credit card to buy train or bus tickets, but not for tube tickets, taxis or meals and snacks. So, the question is what you should do to get British money for those purposes.
There are (as I recall) ATM machines right in Heathrow and Gatwick Airports. Consider, though, that when you arrive at one of those airports, you will be tired and anxious to get going. You may even be in a hurry to catch the next departing bus or train. So, if you get through security at your departure airport with time to spare before you plane to England actually boards, look around inside the airport terminal for a foreign currency exchange booth. It is quite likely you will pay more to buy British money there than if you wait to use an ATM in England itself; but if you do buy British money before leaving, you’ll have some as soon as your plane lands, and then can buy more later at an ATM in Cambridge using your credit or debit card.
4. Buying a BritRail or Eurail train pass, if you plan to sightsee in England or Europe during or after the program:
Sights throughout England and Europe are available easily by train. If you think that you will be traveling throughout the UK or the Continent, consider purchasing a BritRail Pass or a Eurail Pass before you leave the United States. BritRail passes are only available to tourists, and they must be purchased before you leave for England. They come in 4, 8 or 15-day increments. Although they initially seem quite expensive, they represent sharp savings in comparison to purchasing train tickets to individual destinations. For Eurail and BritRail information, see http://www.raileurope.com/us/index.htm. Since they must be purchased while you still are in the United States, leave time to have them mailed to you well prior to departure.
Megabus, a new low-cost bus service that connects 20 cities (not including Cambridge, unfortunately) in England, Scotland and Wales is offering 20% of its seats for less than $3.00 per ticket this summer. It has 30 94-seat double-decker buses in operation and may be booked 6 weeks to an hour before departure. For connection information, go to www.megabus.com. Backpacker bus service also is available at www.radicaltravel.com or, for travel within Scotland, www.macbackpackers.com, a hostel-to-hostel service. For budget, student service, also check out www.statravel.com, a collaboration between STA Travel and Let’s Go, the student guidebook series.
5. Having a cell phone for your use in England:
We are waiting for confirmation from Fitzwilliam that phones will be available in your dorm rooms, and if they are, how much it will cost for you to use them. (The British phone system is quite different from the phone system in the United States. In the UK, people pay for their outgoing calls by the minute, even if they are simply calling across the street!) Even if dorm phones are available, however, you will be able to use them only while you are in your room – not while you’re out-and-about in greater Cambridge, let alone while you are in London. So, if you think you may want to be able to keep in touch with family or friends back home, or even classmates from the program, while you are away from your dorm room, consider renting or buying a UK cell phone. (Your U.S. cell phone will not work in England, unless it is an “unlocked tri-band” model; and even then, you’ll need a UK-specific “SIM” card.)
If you Google “cell phone” and “UK,” you’ll come up with dozens of companies that rent and sell the kind of phone you can use in England (and elsewhere). I just bought one from www.cellularabroad.com – a company that’s located here in Los Angeles (on Pico Blvd. in West LA). I did a little comparison shopping online, before buying from Cellular Abroad, and it seemed to be the least expensive – or at least no more expensive than any of the others. You’ll note (from the Cellular Abroad website) that it costs little more to buy a phone and SIM card ($205 including tax) than it does to rent one for the 5 or so weeks we’ll be in England ($148 plus tax). If you’ll be traveling in other countries after the program, you’ll need an additional SIM card for each country you want to use the phone in; but they are available for purchase too.
6. GETTING TO KNOW CAMBRIDGE:
Cambridge is quite compact (by comparison with Los Angeles and London) and thus is quite “walkable.” That is, it’s likely you’ll be able to get from Fitzwilliam College to all other Cambridge attractions on foot (including the train and inter-city bus stations, when you’re not carrying luggage).
Cambridge also is perfect for bicycles. For information about bike rentals, see http://www.cam..ac.uk/cambarea/local/bikehire.html. There is a free shuttle bus service within Cambridge. For information, see http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambarea/travel/bus.html.
There are innumerable websites and travel books about Cambridge, London and England. Books will be available to peruse in the program office. Information also can be found at the these websites:
http://www.e-cambridge.co.uk/
http://www.cybercityguides.com/cgi-bin/framefix.pl?new=sightseeing/attractions.html&Domain=cambridge
http://www.plcane.clara.net/cambridge/
http://www.eastofenglandtouristboard.com/index.htm
http://www.thisisessex.co.uk/essex/local_interest/dunmow/trials2004.html
I'm looking forward to meeting each of you in person. If you have questions that need to be answered before you leave for England, feel free to email them back to me.
Best regards,
Director, 2004 Cambridge Summer Abroad Program
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