Nat Locke: Welcome to Coimbra, the home of one of the oldest universities and excellent capes

It’s been a while, but this is as good a time as any to pen another chapter in my occasional series Observations From Foreign Lands™ (yes, I had to google how to do that little trademark symbol, thanks for asking).

I’m writing this from the delightful town of Coimbra in Portugal, which is famed for its university, because — get this — it’s one of the oldest universities in the world.

There are two very impressive things about this university. One is that it has a spectacular library that you’re not allowed to take photos of, but believe me, it’s awesome. And two is that being a student there comes with a whole lot of traditions.

Like, they have a uniform. Now, they don’t wear it all the time, but definitely during ceremonies (of which there seem to be a lot), on official business, and once a week, just for fun.

The uniform was originally designed to make it difficult to tell who was rich and who was the child of a peasant farmer, for example. The uniform is a doozy, too, because it’s basically the inspiration for Hogwarts. It’s an all-black affair, with a white shirt and uncomfortable black shoes. Foot pain is a great equaliser, it would appear. And it’s all topped off with a black cape. Expelliarmus indeed.

There are lots of rules revolving around the cape, like if you’re crossing through the iron gate in uniform, your cape has to be covering your shoulders. You have to take your cape off when you enter a class as a sign of respect to your teacher. You’re not allowed to use the dark arts. Oh wait, that’s Harry Potter again. You don’t even get your cape until you’ve survived a whole year of pranking and challenges from the older students. A YEAR of pranks? Give me strength.

This particular university also has a LOT of ceremonies. At the end of the academic year, the party goes for over a week, with different festivities every day. Yes, that’s a lot of drunk students wandering the streets of a relatively small town.

One of the activities during this week is the burning of the ribbons when students write what they want to leave behind on ribbons that are colour-coded to their field of study. These ribbons are then ceremoniously burned to symbolise the transition from university student to regular old member of society.

There’s also something revolving around top hats — once again colour-coded to your degree — and a matching cane, and when you graduate your loved ones whack you on the head with the cane, presumably to show you how proud they are? Interesting way of showing it, but there you go. It’s seen as a sign that you’re popular and loved if your top hat is subsequently quite beaten up at the end of this process. Fun!

There are lots more, of course. And I’m sure that if there’s a graduate of the University of Coimbra reading this, they’re appalled at my basic understanding. And before you come at me, yes, I know these sorts of things go on at almost all Portuguese universities, but they got the idea from Coimbra, and nothing beats the OG.

But it got me looking back at my own university days and I was a bit sad that we didn’t have any of these ancient rites of passage.

We had O Week, naturally, whereupon we had a sausage sizzle and someone from the university health department showed us how to put a condom on a banana. This seemed a bit pointless when there were sausages right there, but I digress. This was less of an ancient ritual, and more of a public service announcement.

When we graduated, there was no week-long street party, just a table full of triangle sandwiches in a reception room under the hall where the ceremony was held. This buffet (and I use the term loosely) looked like a plague of locusts had picked over it before we even got near it, so I wouldn’t exactly dwell on that fondly as an ancient tradition.

Now, I’m not saying a cape would’ve made a big difference, and maybe it’s just that my university wasn’t 700 years old, but a bit of tradition and pomp and ceremony might have been nice at some stage during the entire course of my degree .

An 18th-century Baroque library would have been a lovely touch too but might have looked a little out of place in outer suburban Melbourne in the 90s.

There’s probably a good reason why J.K. Rowling never based any parts of Harry Potter on my university experience, come to think of it.