Fireworks at King's College

I spent the late evening with classmates Emily and Stephan at the Sherlock Library in St. Catherine's College . We have keys to the college and to the library, which we can access 24/7. This is helpful, as we are not actually allowed to remove the books from the library and take them back to our flats. It's strange how they manage things here...leaving windows open, not having air conditioning- it can't be good for the books. Then again, none of the books in that room are particularly rare or valuable. I'm attempting to familiarize myself with the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. I sat for an hour on a window seat next to an open window. The sun doesn't fully set until after 9:30 here, and there fresh are and the views are lovely.

Shortly after dark, we heard fireworks going off outside. We couldn't see them from the windows, so we decided to take a break and run down to the court to get a better view. After vacillating over whether to wait or go, we jogged to the front of King's College. Evidently, there was some sort of celebration. I've never been much of a fan of fireworks before, as I've tended to associate them with strained family trips to Disney World. There was something so exciting and joyous and spontaneous about unexpectedly encountering the fireworks in this setting. There were pauses of a minute or so between bursts of explosions. We stood on the stone border wall outside of King's gate and hoped that the show hadn't ended, and all of a sudden another colorful explosion would appear. The fireworks lasted for another five minutes or so as we stood there. You couldn't have asked for a lovlier back drop than King's College, except of course for King's College as seen from the river.