reach for the stars

This past week was filled with twists and turns and a few unexpected events. I finally feel settled here and have begun to feel pretty comfortable in my new apartment (or flat as they call it here) and my new routine. Because of this comfortability I’m started to get anxious to get out and explore the world! This past weekend I ventured to London with a few friends but I’ll start more towards the beginning of this week and explain about London later.

This week I saw…… S CLUB 7!!!! Well, it was more like S Cub 3 but it was still awesome. For those of you who don’t know who S Club is, they were a British band in the early 2000s who were very popular in Britain. They were decently popular on the radio in the states but were better known for their tv show on abc family. On the show they were living in Miami working at a hotel and performing most nights. During the short time we had cable in our house it was one of my favorite shows. Paul, Jo and Bradley are now doing a reunion tour and they came to a club in Brighton! It was so packed, everyone was wicked excited and I had an absolute blast.




Friday afternoon I took the train from Brighton to London! It only took an hour to get there and we were greeted by Lisa and Katie, friends from Clark who have been studying at the London School of Economics since September. Friday night we went to a bar called Roadhouse which was supposed to be American themed and was complete with Coke ads, a cowbell and a Harley. We got some happy hour drinks and then made our way to a club across the city. To get into the club you had to go through this tunnel and around the corner. The club was inside the tunnel walls and the floors inside were all pavement. There were a few different rooms playing different kinds of music which was nice and one room had a huge blowup Velcro wall. People put on Velcro suits, ran and threw themselves at the wall and stuck in all different directions. It was pretty neat. At one point we were all dancing in the main room and all of a sudden foam started pouring out of this huge cannon looking thing! We didn’t realize it was going to be a foam party but it turned out being really cool for a little while. By the end of the foaming there were at least six inches of foam on the floor and everyone was disgusting. On our walk back to Katie’s room it was raining and my shoes started to foam out the sides. Pretty nasty.



On Saturday we woke up and began our sightseeing adventures. We walked around the National Gallery, went across the river and saw some street performers and the London eye and then walked back across the river and walked past parliament and Big Ben. Then we went down past the president’s house and by Buckingham Palace. We hit all the major places we wanted to go, got a taste of the underground, their subway system, and rode on double decker buses. Although I had a really great time in London I’m glad I’m not studying there because everything is SO expensive. I’d be broke already. Riley and I took the train back to Brighton late Saturday night so were in London for a little over 24 hours.





Sunday I spent the day in Brighton, running errands and enjoying the beach and the beautiful sunset. I meant to go in to go food shopping but didn’t realize that grocery stores here close at 4 on Sundays! By the time we got there it was 4:30 so I have to go back today. Big bummer.


Today I did laundry, which is a process and costs money. I’ve never paid for laundry before so that we an experience. I also have to drag my laundry halfway across campus to the launderette so I suspect that my muscles will grow a bit

New things I’ve learned:
-paper is longer here and doesn’t fit in any of my notebooks. They call standard sized paper A4
-they use 4-ring binders instead of 3-ring
-new words: safe is slang and is of equal meaning to rad, tight, or sweet, mince is a term referring to meat meaning ground, such as ground meat for hamburgers, plaster means band-aid, someone who works at a cash register in a store when calling for the next person in line says, "can I help?" whereas we would just say "next".

Until next week!

week one

As my first real week at Sussex comes to a close I have many things to reflect on. I’ll start with my new classes. For the most part each of my four classes has two one-hour lectures and one one-hour seminar a week. The seminars have about 15 to 20 students in them and so far seem to be interesting. I really like all of my classes and find each one to be pretty interesting so far. I’m taking developmental psychology, communicating art (an art history course), culture and the everyday, and the look of America. My favorites so far are culture and the everyday and the look of America. The culture class seems like it has a lot to do with sociology, my minor, and also already has me thinking about my everyday life and the choices and decisions I make every day that effect my day, week, month or even year. You may be wondering why I’m taking an American studies course while I’m studying abroad in England and to be quite honest I chose this course in hopes of an easy A and because I needed to take four classes. It’s turning out to actually be really cool and I’m glad I chose to take it. The material focuses on how America and different events and time periods in American history are portrayed through the media. We’re starting at the Civil War and going right through to present day. It’s interesting to hear what other people think of us and I was surprised to hear how well they know their American history. Different people’s perspectives on anything always intrigue me so I think this course will prove to be quite enjoyable.

The biggest difference from college at home that I’ve noticed is that most courses are taught by multiple professors. All of my classes have two or three professors who take turns lecturing and a few teaching assistants who run the seminars. 9am classes also seem to be more of a pain in the ass than at home since most students live off campus and buses are usually really busy in the morning. I had a 9am start on Tuesday and the professor didn’t show up which caused major uproar from the class of 250 students. Apparently the weather was bad so the buses and trains weren’t running at full capacity so he couldn’t get in to campus. Oh well.

This week I went to dinner in town a few times and saw Sherlock Holmes, which was really great. I finished up my essential shopping and stocked up on food. The highlight of the week was definitely Thursday night. I went with a few of my flatmates to a club called Jam. On Thursday nights they play 50s music, reggae, and a bit of jazz. It might not sound like these genres go together but the set seemed to flow together very nicely. Everyone was dancing and just having a really great time. It was a lot of fun and my feet were wicked sore the next day, but in a good way of course.
I’m finding that I don’t have much to do here and may go a little crazy with so much free time. I did hear that there’s a club fair next week or the week after so I’ll check that out and hopefully join a few clubs. I don’t really have any written work due for any of my classes until March or April and only have a small fraction of the amount of reading as I do in a normal semester at Clark so I feel like I’ve been sitting around twiddling my thumbs a bit.

Today me, Riley, Jesse and Carey decided to be hardcore tourists. It was the first sunny day we’ve had since we got here so we took advantage of it. With cameras in hand we walked along the beach and up and down the pier and I had my first fish and chips. The pier reminds me of Old Orchard in Maine a bit and looks like it’s going to be really fun when it gets warmer and everything is open. It smelt delicious as we walked past all of my favorite fair foods. After a week of rain and snow I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day.





Here are some new things I’ve learned about England:
-there are two faucets (they’re not called faucets but I forget what they’re called) at most sinks; one for hot and one for cold. I don’t think they believe in warm water here. You have to be one extreme or the other.
-everyone smokes cigarettes. It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t.
-Welsh is the strangest language I have ever hear. Here’s a link to the longest name of a town in Great Britain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNN3Cpnur1k&feature=related
If aliens were to come to Earth they would speak Welsh.
-baby carriages are encased in plastic, I’m assuming to protect the babies from the cold, although I’ve always been told not to stick my head in a plastic bag.
-new words: all of the terms referring to college are different. Here, college is before university, universities are called unis, course means major, module means course and timetable means schedule. Pants means underwear and trousers means pants. Candy floss means cotton candy.

Greetings from England!

I'm here! It took over 24 hours of traveling but I've finally arrived! My first flight leaving from Boston on Wednesday got canceled so I had to reschedule for Thursday flying from JFK in New York. Luckily Jesse was with me so I wasn't alone (don't worry Nanny) but we had to take a four and a half hour bus ride from Boston to Port Authority in NYC and then another hour and a half bus to the airport. We then waited for five hours in the airport, got on the plane, landing in London at 11am London time. Upon arrival in the bus station at the airport I was warmly welcomed to England by a lovely pigeon pooping on me. Our next bus was two hours from London to Brighton and then finally a taxi to the University. I slept very well and very long Friday night to say the least.

Here in Brighton they've gotten a lot of snow in the past few days which has caused a state of chaos. Of course the snow they have is no more than a foot but it's expected to keep snowing for the next couple of days. They just don't know how to deal with snow because they so rarely get it. All of the pathways have been shoveled to be about six inches wide and I'm pretty sure they just poured salt everywhere hoping for it to melt. Already almost all of the international student orientation programs have been canceled and my roommate got an email today saying her class on Tuesday is canceled. I thought I wouldn't see snow while I was here but I was wrong.

The flat that I'm living in has eight people; four boys and four girls. There's a kitchen and a small dining room, two toilets, and one shower. It’s pretty small but quaint. I have however, definitely been spoiled by Blackstone living. All of my flatmates are first years at University of Sussex and they informed me that after first year most students move off-campus. My roommate Julia is very nice and she took me in to Brighton on Saturday to do some shopping. The train from campus to Brighton took less than ten minutes and was very scenic. Brighton is very cute and reminds me a bit of Boston. There are a couple different sections that really reminded me of the Haymarket area of Boston, complete with cobblestone walkways. I had to buy some essentials like a pillow, a hairdryer and groceries and getting those things brought me to some interesting stores. One of the stores we went to was the coolest store ever. You walk in and they have a bunch of stations with big catalogues that have to be at least eight or nine inches thick. You search through the catalogue for what you need and write down the number on an ordering form. Then you bring the slip to the cashier, pay for it, and pick it up at the back. This catalogue had everything from mattresses to fridges and even hairdryers. I guess since storefront property can be so expensive, it’s cheaper to have all the stuff in storage at the back. Regardless, it was so cool. We also stopped and got cell phones today. My phone is free to call people through skype so if you have a skype account friend me! My address is annaweitzler, pretty simple. Our last stop before returning to campus was the grocery store. All of the card swipers in the store were out of order which caused mass chaos. It really made me think about how reliant we have become on credit cards and electronics in general.

Here are some things that I’ve noticed so far about England:
-the carts in the grocery store are about ¼ the size of those in the states
-they don’t use fitted sheets on beds
-they smoke a lot of cigarettes
-new words: squash is a juice concentrate never to be drunk without mixing with water first

Today I spent relaxing and organizing some more. Classes start tomorrow, which will be interesting. My classes range in size from 30 to 250, much larger than any classes at Clark. I’ve heard that there’s not that much work and I hope that turns out to be true. It would be nice to have a light semester. That’s about it for now, but I’ll update again at the end of my first week of classes.

Leaving tomorrow!

Well, this is it. At 7:45pm tomorrow I will be on my way to England! The many months of waiting are finally over and the adventure is about to begin! Cheesy, I know. But really, I'm ready to go, almost all packed up, just tying up loose ends here and there. It feels a little surreal that I'm not going to be home for six months but I'm excited to actually be embarking on a totally new experience. My next post will be from England... so cool!