The Cambridge Chat Thread

I've mainly been looking on lastminute.com. And a student specific site.

Could try expedia.co.uk as well

My friends flew out with Qatar for their electives. They said it was pretty nice, IIRC. You have to stop over in Doha which presumably makes it a comparable length to the Emirates ones though.

I booked late and went with Air France via Paris, which was not too bad as it meant I had one very short leg (~1hr) and one long one (~11hrs). Not as cheap though, but it was all there was left!

If the manifest of ingredients on the bottle [of condiment] had been legible, it would have read something like this:
Water, blackstrap, molasses, imported habanero peppers, salt, garlic, ginger, tomato puree, axle grease, real hickory smoke, snuff, butts of clove cigarettes, Guinness Stout fermentation dregs, uranium mill tailings, muffler cores, monosodium glutamate, nitrates, nitrites, nitrotes, nitrutes, nutrites, natrotes, powdered pork nose hairs, dynamite, activated charcoal, match-heads, used pipe cleaners, tar, nicotine, single-malt whiskey, smoked beef lymph nodes, autumn leaves, red fuming nitric acid, bituminous coal, fallout, printer's ink, laundry starch, drain cleaner, blue chrysotile asbestos, carrageenan, BHA, BHT, and natural flavourings.

is the student site STA?

Don't think so...

For what it's worth, Etihad has the reputation of being a good airline - they fly via Abu Dhabi, and were set up recently (around 2003 or 4) to compete with Emirates, the Dubai airline. People I know who flew on them said they were good. You do, though, still have to transit, via Abu Dhabi.


Just a small word of warning - as someone who travelled worldwide on business before coming to Cambridge, make sure there is a decent amount of time at the transit location. If the next flight leaves only an hour say after the first flight arrives, any delays in the first flight could mean you missing your connection - or alternatively you making the connection, but not your luggage. I used to reckon on needing 2 hours to transit - you might still of course have problems if your first flight is delayed by 2 hours, but usually you will be fine!

I don't like America very much, so I'm spared this particular evil. Nonetheless a quick scan through the Cambridge postgrad application thread in the Postgrad forum hinted that applying for an MPhil here is likely to be a bit of a slog!

However, 2 hours may only just be enough time to make a connection if you have to go through security (e.g. Hong Kong) and/or immigration (e.g. US) at the connecting airport. On the other hand, it's certainly no fun to be stuck in an airport for hours waiting for a connection... (Well, it depends on the airport. Once I had to wait around in San Francisco for about 7 or 8 hours - that was very boring. If it were Singapore, on the other hand...)

I'm posting from an internet cafe in stockholm. Had a lovely time sailing but now have a cold

Last year I had to kill 11 hours in Johannesburg. And I was there on the day when all the museums are shut so I couldn't go into the city.