rocks and baths

The past few days have been jam packed with awesomeness. Thursday I passed in my first assignment, a 1500 word essay for The Look of America that is worth 50% of my final grade for the course. The paper actually went pretty well and I’m hoping to get a good grade on it. It was about the photographer Jacob Riis and how his pictures of the early 1900s slums of the Lower East Side gave him the title “Emancipator of the Slums”. He took a lot of photographs of poor immigrants in their crowded tenements, which got the attention of the middle and upper class and brought about many urban reforms. Later that night we went to a club, Coalition, that played music from middle school and I sang so much that my throat was sore the next morning.

Friday was pretty relaxing. I only had one seminar and then I just hung out and enjoyed having my paper written and not having to do work for the day. Saturday afternoon I spent in the library with Jen doing some work for Culture and the Everyday. That night a bunch of us went to the movies to see Valentine’s Day, which was wicked cute! I hadn’t even heard of the movie basically until that day but I really liked it! It was packed with some of my favorites like Ashton Kutcher, Julia Roberts and Jennifer Garner. Very cool. Once back on campus I skyped with Michelle and KT, my flatmates from last semester. They kept me quite amused and made me miss them a lot.


Sunday was the highlight of this past week. I woke up super, super early to go to Stonehenge and Bath for the day! The trip was planned through the international student’s office and we left campus at 7:30am. I don’t remember the last time I voluntarily woke up before 7am. Luckily we had a two and a half hour bus ride to get to Stonehenge so I took a nice nap. Stonehenge was honestly a bit anticlimactic. The rock formation was in the middle of these huge fields with nothing else in sight. Just as we were getting there the clouds broke a bit and some sun shone threw which was really quite beautiful. But the structure itself didn’t really speak to me as much as I had hoped. We weren’t allowed to go up to the rocks and there was a rope outlining a small trail going all the way around. I think if I’d been able to walk through the stones and touch them, it would have been a lot cooler than it actually was. I was hoping for a possible Outlander moment; traveling through time and landing in the 1700s. I guess now I'll never know.





We spent about an hour at Stonehenge and then boarded the bus for another hour-long drive to the city of Bath. When we got to Bath we started on a tour of the Roman Baths. As seems to be fashion here in England, everyone got little cell phone looking audio tour thingies to bring us around the museum. I learned that the baths were used by the Romans for all sorts of reasons such as bathing, healing and showing off status. There isn’t much left of some of the indoor baths but the outdoor ones were really cool. They’re naturally heated by hot springs and we could see the steam coming off of the water. The day started really rainy in Brighton but Bath had bright blue skies. There was also a huge church outside of the museum that was gorgeous. I think if I lived in Bath I would go to church every week just to spend time in that building regardless of the fact that I'm not Christian. After the museum we spent a few hours walking around the beautiful and quaint city of Bath. They had a lot of shopping and small cafes and all the streets were cobblestone. We then boarded the bus again and drove over three hours back to Brighton. Overall it was a super long day but very enjoyable.









Monday was pretty average, did some homework and went to a few lectures. Monday night Carey, Riley and I once again went to salsa class and learned a lot! It was pretty difficult but really fun. Gwen and I made cupcakes before salsa and enjoyed them thoroughly after class. Thanks Auntie Heidi! Today has also been pretty low-key. I had two lectures this morning and am currently doing laundry. Thankfully my friend Jen has a washer and dryer in her flat so I’m doing it there, FOR FREE! Wicked exciting!! Tonight my friends are coming over and we are planning our trip to Madrid!!! We’re leaving early Friday morning and getting back to Brighton on Monday afternoon. Ah! So pumped! That’s it for now; my next update will include many adventures from Spain!

observations

As promised I have had a bit of a more eventful week. I did laundry for the second time, which, upon doing a bit of math, I realized costs me about $10 every time. My plan is to invest in a ton of underwear and socks and never do laundry again. I also discovered a fruit and veg (their abbreviation for vegetables which just isn’t as cute as our ‘veggies’) stand that appears on campus every Tuesday. I bought some yummy food that came in super handy later on in the week (explanation to follow). Thursday night some friends and I went on my very first pub crawl with the historical society (club) on campus. A bunch of my friends here study history so they found out about the event. The crawl consisted of a group of about 30 of us walking around to some of the most historical and oldest pubs in Brighton. They all had a very old British pub feel to them with lots of wood and narrow spaces. The last one we went to was my favorite looking. It looked like the inside of a ship! It was really smelly though, kinda like old gym socks. We then ended the night at a dance club called Life. Unlike most of the other clubs I’ve been to, this one has a bunch of small, rectangular rooms with low ceilings whereas most have really open spaces. It was a nice change.

I realized that I haven’t really described the seafront of Brighton yet which is weird because it’s one of my favorite parts of the city. I’ll do my best to describe and try to take pictures of it next time I get a chance. So pretend you’re walking across the street facing the ocean. You cross the street and get on to a sidewalk. There’s a pretty green barrier/fence and every so often a set of stairs. Walk down the stairs and you’re on another sidewalk. On the left is the beach and on your right is a long line of little food stands, pubs and clubs that are built in to the wall. There’s another sidewalk/path closer to the ocean that has some freestanding buildings where people sell homemade cards and other art during the day. There are also a few boats on the sand and places to sit and watch the beautiful ocean. I hope that was an okay description and you were all able to visualize well.

Okay, back to business. On Friday Gwen, Riley, Carey and I traveled for about 7 hours to finally make it to Norwich, where a bunch of other Clarkies are studying at University of East Anglia. Since I knew I was going to be gone for the weekend I brought all my fruit and veg on the bus and we had quite a feast. Especially when we transferred buses in London and got sandwiches to bring on the next bus and were forced to throw them out. Apparently hot food is not allowed on the bus but you can bring as much cold food as you want. DUMB. Friday night we went out to eat at the most bizarre Chinese restaurant I’ve ever been to. It seemed like every party in the restaurant was celebrating a birthday! A waiter came out with a cake every 10 minutes or so and a Chinese rendition of the happy birthday song would begin to play. It was very bizarre. Then we went back to our friend AmandaLee’s flat and hung out there and caught up.

On Saturday I went with Yonatan to synagogue and then to this guy’s house for a delicious vegetarian Shabbos lunch. On our hour long walk to shul we experienced every form of weather. Sun, snow, rain, hail, you name it. A very typical English weather experience. Saturday night we went to a club on campus and busted some pretty sick moves. The thing that I noticed most about my whole experience at UEA was how many stereotypical English people I saw. I’ve never come across more hair products and short dresses in my life. All the boys were wearing Abercrombie and Hollister and had most definitely spent longer on their hair that day than I have in the past year combined. I felt like I was on the Jersey Shore! A “stereotypical” English boy is very similar to “metro” or “guido” boys in the states. They style their hair, wear brightly colored polos (with popped collars) or brightly colored graphic t-shirts, cardigan sweaters, tight jeans in many different shades and washes (probably some sort of fake tear somewhere) and colorful or dress shoes. The girls wear leggings or tights with EVERYTHING. Even though there’s no snow on the ground here, it’s still pretty cold. I’ve been wearing my leggings and tights underneath my jeans and I’m still freezing my butt off, I can’t imagine how cold they must be. The girls also wear really short dresses or skirts out to clubs paired with very, very high heels. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m probably always going to stick out as an American because I actually wear clothes that keep me warm. Another big fad here is wearing shorts with tights underneath. Do these girls honestly not understand that it’s winter?!

I’ve decided that the people at Sussex and in Brighton in general are really similar to people in the Clark community. Every other person I see has dreads and everyone is really liberal. A bit too liberal on certain issues if you ask me. They’ve banned all Israeli products and cut all ties with Israel on campus and their Palestinian student groups are really active. I’ve heard that about a quarter of the students on campus are international and a lot of them are from the Middle East so it makes sense that they have a big presence on campus but it makes it a little uncomfortable for me at times. Anyways, Sunday we returned to campus and just hung out and stretched my legs after the many hours sitting on a bus.

Monday is always my busiest day of the week because I have three lectures and a two hour seminar every other week (which I had this week) but I ended this crazy busy day with a really fun salsa class with Riley and Carey. It was my first time ever being in a class where there was the perfect male to female ratio! CrAzY! Tuesday I went to lectures, did some homework, went to more lectures, bought some fruit and veggies at the Tuesday fruit and veg stand on campus and did some more homework. Then I went to my friend Jen’s flat for dinner to celebrate PANCAKE DAY! Which is apparently a Catholic holiday celebrating the day before Lent. Since most people give up some of the ingredients in pancakes for Lent they use all their leftover sugar and flour to make pancakes. They don’t have real maple syrup in England so instead they put lemon juice and sugar on their pancakes. I tried one dressed as such and it was not very good. I think I’ll stick to my American ways on this one.

I’ve realized that I’m slowly adapting more to being here and am beginning to think and speak like an actual inhabitant of this country. When I go shopping I’ve stopped calculating how much I’m spending in dollars and now can usually just think about price in terms of pounds. I know now what is a reasonable price for certain items and what is way too expensive. There are some things, especially certain foods, that I just have to accept are more expensive here and I’m not going to find a better price anywhere. For instance, fruit is way more expensive but I love fruit and want to eat it so I can’t really get around that. (I’m currently consuming some delicious strawberries.) I have also begun to say certain British words such as "uni" instead of university or college, "bit" has found it's way into most of my conversations and "flatmates" instead of apartment-mates or roommates (I actually really like the term flatmates and think that I'll continue using it when I return home).

Today has been a homework day. It’s almost 6pm and I’m still in my pajamas, sitting in bed but I’ve written basically an entire paper. Very productive but still very relaxing. Perfect combo! I don't have class today or tomorrow! My seminar for tomorrow was canceled for this week because it's midterm week. Sussex doesn't really do midterm week but most other universities and colleges (A-level schools, which is basically 11th and 12th grade) have the week off to catch up on work and prepare for exams. While in the states our midterm week is full of exams, their midterm week is totally free. NICE.

I really need to start posting more often because I’ve been working on this post for a good couple of days now. I’ll try to get better.

Things to look forward to: tomorrow night going to coalition to boogie to some 90s and early 2000s music; Stonehenge and Bath on Sunday!!!

already a month?!

This past week has been relatively low-key. I went to a few dance classes, took a trip to the big grocery store, Sainsbury’s and Lisa came from London to spend the weekend with us. We went out to dinner Friday night, went shopping in Brighton on Saturday and Saturday night took her to one of the bars on campus. Although I really didn’t do much this week it was nice to have a relaxing and quiet week and weekend because I don’t know when the next time I’ll get that is. We did a lot of planning this week for our coming adventures and I’ve slowly been getting myself organized, which is always fun for me. ☺ Now comes the part that makes my bank account cringe. For those of you who don’t know, I have a month-long spring break when I will be traveling to some beachy places along the Mediterranean. The plan so far is to start in Barcelona, then to Marseille, Cannes and Nice (all in France) and on to Italy where I want to spend a large chunk of time in many different cities. Then back to Brighton to do laundry and on to Ireland to meet Mom for a week! I’m hoping to live in my bathing suit and flip-flops for most of it so it should be fun.

My classes are all going well still, I have my first deadlines coming up in the next few weeks so I’m going to have to start doing some actual work. Bummer. This post is really lame, but I don’t have much else to say about this past week. Next week will be a bit more adventurous, I promise.

divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, alive

This week was very pleasant. It was perfectly balanced between work and play and I did some things that were necessary for my sanity here at University of Sussex. On Tuesday I went to the activities fair, which I’ve been waiting to go to for a while. I put my name on all sorts if lists for clubs that I probably won’t do much of such as kickboxing club and canoe club. Although I do want to do both of these clubs, they are far too expensive for my small college budget. I do however plan to do a bunch of dance classes. Much to my dismay, there is nothing like Variant here but they do have a club that holds a bunch of classes every week so Carey and I will be attending a handful of those every week. I also am planning on going to the Cuban Salsa club’s weekly practices, which should be fun. I’ve always enjoyed salsa but never really got a chance to do it often.

On Wednesday I had my first film screening for my Look of America class. We watched Birth of a Nation, which was three hours too long. It’s a silent film, first shown in 1914 or 1915, I can’t remember. When it was shown in theaters there would be a live band playing the score but we obviously didn’t have that, but the music was on the DVD. It was a strange movie and I could go on for a while about it but I’ll stick with a short version of my opinion. It takes place in the Civil War and follows two families, one from the South and one from the North. The two families are friends but are divided when the Civil War erupts. The first hour and a half of the movie is spent battling and being dramatic about war and the second hour and a half deals with the reconstruction period of the south. It’s been said that this is a racist film and I have to agree that there is a lot of it that is pretty unnecessarily racist. By the end I really didn’t care, I just wanted to have it be over with. When we discussed the film in our seminar for that class on Friday we went around the room and everyone had to say their reaction. This was the first time I’ve spoken in the class so the cat is out of the bag: I’m American. I didn’t really want to say much before because then people would automatically know I’m American and I didn’t want people to assume I know everything they’re talking about it the course. Sure enough the next person who spoke after me kept looking over at me as if to ask “am I right?” and kept asking me questions about the Civil War and American history. I’m really no expert hence why I’m taking this class but I guess this had to happen at some point. All of my other classes are going really well, I’m really loving my art history class because I keep seeing different paintings we’re discussing in museums and will probably see many more in my trek around Europe. Culture and the everyday is also pretty good and has a lot to do with sociology which I know a lot about already so it makes a lot of sense. The next few weeks sound pretty cool, we’re talking about food, transportation, “going green” and other exciting topics. My developmental psychology class is probably my least favorite class thus far because it’s been a lot of review from my psychology of learning class that I took last semester. The nice thing though is that all the subjects in the studies we’ve read and everything we’re learning has to do with babies, so at least I have something cute to look at. Here are some pictures of some of the beautiful views the crazy weather here creates. I took all of these from my window.





Thursday night me, Gwen, Carey, Riley and Jen, all friends from Clark, went to a few clubs. We started at Jam, which is the 50s/reggae night that I went to a few weeks ago and then went to a club called Coalition that has a Thursday night “Secret Discotheque” themed set. As Gwen put it, every song was “epic” and we all had a great time. They played all the songs that everyone knows all the words to such as don’t stop believing by Journey, Hanson’s infamous mmm-bop, a couple S Club 7 songs and even c’est la vie by B*witched. I knew it was awesome because my throat hurt really bad the next morning and my voice was really horse.


While I was out I realized that every night of the week if I go anywhere there are drunk people. The bus coming back from Brighton was full of drunk university students, a lot of whom were very, very drunk to the point of passing out. Since I have a big fear of throw up, I was nervous someone was going to throw up on me. It was not pleasant. I think that the immense amount of binge drinking in this country has been the most surprising element that I didn’t expect. I thought that because the drinking age is younger than in the states that binge drinking wouldn’t be a big thing, but it really is. I’ve never seen this many passed out and falling over drunk people at any university at home. The worst part about the drinking is that people leave their friends when they are sick. When I was in London the other week there was this passed out girl on the bus we were on. And when we were leaving the club on Thursday night we saw this 17-year old boy throwing up on the beach alone. He had gotten sick in the club and was kicked out by the bouncers and his friends didn’t follow him out. It was so sad! I talked to a few of my flatmates about it and they said that that’s pretty common… how horrible! If anyone gets sick at home there’s always someone there to help them. If it’s the same friend over and over I suppose it could get annoying, but still. I’ve been shocked by the number of drunk alone people I’ve seen here.

Friday a few of us went into town to go to sta travel, a student travel agency that has an office in Brighton. We were hoping to book train tickets for weekends in Paris and Brussels but it was super expensive for any of the weekends for the next month so we’ve decided to postpone our more expensive travels to try to find cheaper tickets. It was a bit disheartening so we decided to cheer ourselves up and go out to eat instead of making food. We went to this 5pound vegetarian Indian buffet and it was so good! They had 3 or 4 different kinds of curry, soup, rice, delicious nan, vegetable tempura, some yummy sweet potato thing and lots of interesting sauces. It was really tasty, very satisfying, and very cheap; doesn’t get much better.

The highlight of my week was definitely Saturday when I went to Windsor Castle!! It was one of the trips offered through the International students office on campus so about 80 of us from Sussex boarded a double decker bus and drove the two hours to Windsor. The castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world and as my audio tour told me, it is the queen’s favorite residence and she spends most weekends and holidays there. They also hold many official banquets and parties there. The tour took us through a lot of the castle and we got to see all the different rooms and famous artwork that hangs there. They also had a special Henry VIII exhibit, celebrating the 500th anniversary of his accession to the thrown. One of the drawing rooms was dedicated to work from artists who were in his court and had many different paintings of the king and his six wives as well as drawings of what Windsor castle looked like then. It was really neat because I have a small obsession with Henry VIII after reading all of the Phillipa Gregory books about his wives. It was the perfect day to go to the castle, the sun was shining and even though it was really cold, we walked around the town of Windsor and did a little shopping. By the time I got back to campus I was ready to crawl into my bed with a cup of tea and watch a movie.





On Sunday me, Gwen, Riley and Carey went for a nice long walk through the rolling hills of Falmer. We walked down this dirt road and all around us was hills of green dotted with sheep and small farmhouses. It was absolutely stunning and my pictures don’t do the view justice. Before turning around to go back to campus we walked up to the top of this hill and could see all of Brighton in front of us with the ocean in the background. We could also see the ocean peeking out between two hills to the east. It’s views like that that make me pinch myself to make sure it’s real. After our walk we got a couple pizzas and wine from the grocery store on campus and ate dinner before going back to do yucky homework. Blech.





Today’s been my busiest day so far on campus. I had three lectures and a really boring practical for my psychology class. Then me, Riley and Carey went to salsa class! It was really fun and the teacher was hilarious. We were rolling our hips and shimmying like crazy. I’ll definitely try to go every week.

New things I’ve learned:
-they don’t have drip coffee here
-everyone drinks bottled water, I don’t think I’ve seen a single water bottle like a nalgene or sigg (which I suppose is understandable, the water tastes really bad)
-new words: society means club (i.e. salsa society, canoeing society), they use the word proper which doesn’t really have an equivalent in the states. The closest I can think of is correct or right but that doesn’t even really make sense. Proper is used in situations like: a proper meal, a proper dance class. They use the word bit a lot. It has the same meaning as in the states they just use it excessively such as: could I have a bit of water, see you in a bit.

That’s it for this past week. Toodles!