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!!!