Partying is great, but the morning after can be painful. In my case, I was up partying until 2:00 AM "earlier today" before getting up at 7:00 AM to finish my packing and disposing of items that I won't need upon returning to the States. Yes, today is sadly my last day in Cambridge. Some of my Cambridge friends have already left, and even some of my fellow CME's have left to start on their internships. Despite these absences, there is still plenty of life left in Cambridge, as this week is May Week!
May Week in June!? Don't even ask me why that is the case. Needless to say, this is the time when all of the colleges have these big celebrations to allow students to wind down after a hard year's worth of work. The top of the line events, also known as the May Balls, are extremely elaborate (black tie is minimum for gentlemen - remember when I talked about Mark & Spencer and a bow tie?) with a lot of food and drink in addition to various festivities ranging from comedy routines to musical performances. From an MIT perspective, this is one of the major highlights of the experience because we do not have anything comparable to it. When we finish our final exams, we are packed up and out of there! No reason to stay any longer unless we plan to stay for the summer (e.g. internship).
However, with poche and elaborate comes large price tags (on the order of hundreds of pounds), and for some students, that isn't something they want to pay. Colleges also offer smaller events known as Garden Parties, which are not as elaborate and don't last as long into the night, but do offer nonetheless a very nice, celebratory environment for students. As this is my only year as a Cambridge undergraduate, my motto was "go big or go home sad." Thus, I was less willing to "settle" for such events and wanted to attend one of the larger May Balls, which would belong either to King's, Trinity (they were having their 150th anniversary celebration), or St. John's. However, as I was not a member of any of these colleges, tickets would be hard to come by because they are available only to college members, so the only way to get in is by either going with a member of the college OR choosing to be a worker for part of the ball.
As you can see from the photo above, I snagged a ticket to St. John's, which I did by choosing to work for part of the ball. Now you may think: doesn't that take away from the "full May Ball experience"? Perhaps, but I also was being pragmatic: these events last from 9 PM to 6 AM, and how much partying could I actually do before passing out? I guess I could drink for most of the night (this is what many students choose to do), but that really wasn't my cup of tea, especially since I still had some packing to do later that day.
Another reason for working: it's significantly less expensive (only 67 pounds). In addition, I got to enter the college from a different entrance from the rest of the guests. This is quite significant because there are significantly fewer workers than there are guests, meaning that the line at the worker's entrance is significantly smaller than that for regular guests. The line for regular guests is so long that they offer "queue jump" tickets that allow you, for additional money, to cut the line! Otherwise, unless you want to wait for a long time, you have to start lining up probably 45 minutes to an hour before the event starts! For me, I got to the event at around 9:00 PM (when it started) and got in in about 10 minutes.
I should also add that the work was pretty chill for the most part, and I didn't really scuff up my nice clothes despite working. Most of my time was spent picking up trash and transporting bags of ice to the bar, though others were actually mixing drinks or taking trash outside into the dumpster. The jobs can vary, but overall, in combination with the nice, cool weather, I didn't exert myself too much, and I was even able to take regular brakes on my own time without causing too much disruption to the overall operation of the ball. If you are considering working during one of the May Balls, I would suggest though that you ask about what the expectations are for the work, just so that you don't find yourself slaving away on what may be your last night in Cambridge. Do your homework first! :)
Back to the actual event! Once I got inside, I was essentially free to do whatever I wanted until my work shift began. So what was I to do? Admittedly, being by myself for the event makes it slightly more inconvenient (tickets are generally sold in pairs, so people go with someone else), but it wasn't too difficult as soon as I saw the food and drink stands. They are literally everywhere, and I made a beeline for the first one I saw. I should say that I did not eat any dinner, as I did not want to have any surprises on my way to the ball until I had found a suitable restroom there. In addition, I figured the food would taste better at the ball than at the dining hall, and I was definitely right about that. They had everything, varying from burritos to pizza to sushi to gelato to waffles to macaroons. No real meat stations (e.g. steak), but that was alright. There were more than enough yummy things to consume.
Nearly endless food does have its downside though. Everyone else is thinking the same thing! As a result, I found myself spending a good amount of time waiting in lines to get food (interestingly enough, that wasn't the case for drinks). I wanted to eat enough food before I started my shift, and fortunately, I felt the urgency early enough that I loaded up on food from a few stations early on instead of spreading it out to all of the stations because sure enough, the lines soon became pretty ridiculous that they weren't waiting in about an hour and a half into the ball. Now you can start to see why these events last for so long. :)
Fortunately, there were plenty of non-food / drink things to do. They had a hot-air balloon centre-piece in the middle of one of their giant lawns that took people a short distance up before coming down. They also had several student musical groups, which weren't too shabby in fact (the quality varied across the board, but the better ones were certainly worth listening to). There was also a comedy entertainment section, which was quite enjoyable for me because I got a real taste of British humour. While it isn't super difficult to pick up, it does feel somewhat different from that in the US (with greater exposure, I might be able to tell you more, but that's all I can give unfortunately).
The major highlight for me though was the fireworks display. Now I've seen a lot of fireworks (New Year's, Independence Day), but this display was very impressive, so much so that I couldn't even use my phone to record it because I didn't want to waste any time getting my video set up! In addition to being extremely colourful and loud, it was synchronised to music! This was something I had not witnessed before, and it was nicely timed so that larger fireworks explosions happened at musical climaxes and vice-versa. The best part though was when they lulled us all into thinking the display was over (you could tell because people started leaving), and then suddenly, the fireworks came back in full force and continued for another couple of minutes before ending for good. That was genius and certainly something I won't forget. You know the fireworks have to be good when tourists are willing to pay money to punt up the River Cam to watch them.
Even though I did attend the ball by myself, didn't mean I didn't get to socialise. On the contrary! I saw plenty of my friends, both Cambridge and CME alike while I was there, and it was great to be able to hang out with them (at least the Cambridge ones) one last time in such a relaxed and celebratory atmosphere before leaving. As I could not drink because of my working part of ball, it was quite amusing to see my friends initially sober descend into various levels of drunkenness, though admittedly none of them were as bad as other people that I saw, like someone who attempted to climb an imaginary stairwell in front of the restroom. Yep, that's Cambridge at its best. :)
One major tradition at May Balls is to take what is known as the "Survivor's Photo," which is for the guests who manage to stay for the entire duration of the ball. While I may not necessarily encourage you do it, it would be pretty cool to do nonetheless, though if you intend to attend multiple balls, being able to rest without necessarily screwing up your sleep cycle might be a good strategy.
Speaking of which, that five hour sleep is starting to hit me hard now. I think I'll need to rest (or rather, crash) myself before I head off! Until then, stay tuned for my final blog post where I wrap everything up and provide my final thoughts and conclusions! In the meantime, feel free to search on YouTube for these May Ball events, as they have some great footage that can give you further insight into what these events are like and get you even more excited for them in the coming year!