Sussex is pretty amazing so far, but before I go any further, lemme give a recap. I probably won’t be typing this much in the future, but for now, I have time on my hands because almost everyone went out but me which I kind of regret now haha.
Iceland air sucks, they didn’t feed me at all. Instead, I had to buy a sandwich for 7 euro because I couldn’t resist food anymore, and it wasn’t even good. When I got to London, I found Susana immediately. We went on a long journey through a sketchy underground tunnel to find the bus station for x26.
I bought my first London drink at the bus station! It was pretty much like Gatorade. From there, we rode the bus for an hour to the ‘fifth’ area of London: Sutton. Although the weather was only around 80 degrees or so, it was so hot in that bus. I think I was getting car sick or something, which has never happened before in my life! We got off the bus very exhausted because of our 4 suitcases and really heavy backpacks.
We went to Mindy's mom's friend's house and stayed there overnight. Their house is so cute. Well, everything about London is just so cute - small proportions of food, small houses, small furniture, small shopping carts, small cars, small road, and plus, they drive on the left side of the road - I love it. We had dinner at their place and then went to buy train tickets, SIM card, Oyster card, and groceries. I finally had the European yogurt and milk that I was craving for since I left Holland. A couple of terms I need to start using: lift, queue, trolley, binbags, cheers and much more that I can't remember at the moment.
The next morning, we went on the train to Falmer. It required three transfers along the way and took about 2 hours. Our dorms are actually bigger than I expected and the people in charge of us did a good job on settling us in. The kitchens are really big as well, kind of like the ones on the first floor of Sue B. The bathrooms, however, are pretty gross. It’s not dirty or anything but it’s co-ed and just thinking about it makes me cringe. There are two toilets, a bathtub (ew…), and two showers shared by about 10 people. I just took a shower from there earlier and I couldn’t work the second shower, this is gonna be one long semester of annoying bathrooms..er…”toilets”…?
A lot of people had arrived already, so I met some and we went to our dining hall because everyone was starving. Btw, my neighbors are from Germany and so far, most are from US, but there are people from Mexico, Denmark, and Holland as well. There are about 55 people in the September program but I’ve only met about 30 or so. Anyway, the dining hall was pretty cheap. It was a bit like the med center food at Rochester in terms of price, the selection was a bit different. I got a duck sandwich and water for about £4.
After that was our campus tour, which was nothing to write about really except that our school is shaped like a cat…and the library is shaped like an open book LOL how weird. We have two pubs on campus to just hang out and chill. Our “corner stores” are all so cheap and there’s a wide variety of alcohol right next to the coke bottles in the fridge. Only thing they don’t have are spirits.
We went to the grocery store to buy food since there is no meal plan here and it would be a lot cheaper to cook. We rode the 23 bus and it was my first double decker experience! (Well, since the last time I went to England anyway) I love the grocery stores here, all the local and foreign brands were really interesting and everything was so cheap!
At night there was a reception where they gave us free wine and beer. How cool is that? It was however much you can drink because they didn’t really care. There was also sushi, “chips”, these cool prawn egg rolls, sausages, and this weird white sauce that tasted like butter and mashed potatoes but no one really knew what it was or how to eat it. One of the tables drank glass after glass of wine and got a bit loud at the end.
Nonetheless, it was a great first day. Met lots of cool people, have a nice room, and taking an awesome scheduled British pop culture class. It’s only Mon, Tues, Thurs 11am-1pm so I am going to have lots of time to explore around the UK – Bath, Scotland, Ireland, etc. Also, France is really easy to go to on a long weekend and Spain the week before class officially begins.
(Norwich house - the dorm I live in)
(I love how the buses here are all double decker)
Day 2
Second day was really fun. I woke up at 6am because of jetlag and the room was so cold. The windows have big cracks that let the outside air in (moths fly in as well) and at night it can get to 10 degrees Celsius – you do the math. I fell asleep in a hoodie and sweatpants, it was horrible.
In the morning, there was a talk about everything we need to know at Sussex, which was informative but of course, boring. I had to move rooms because my lock didn’t work, but now I’m in room 69 in a very sketchy hall that has motion censored lights which doesn’t really detect my motion. We then went on bus 25 to ride into the city and I had my first experience of fish and chips!
I knew I wouldn’t like it because I don’t like fish in the first place. However, it was something I had to do while in England, so I got it out of the way ^_^. We had lunch along the Brighton seashore and it was really pretty. In a way it reminded me of the San Francisco bay area, same kind of weather and scenery. My meal was only £7 for a huge piece of bland flavored, fried cod and lots and lots of fries. Well, at least it was filling haha. We also ordered cider which is pretty much beer with a fruity taste, I liked it! After that we went to a store (I forgot the name), but the clothing was so cheap! It was a bit like Forever21 but the style suited me perfectly, a cross between fobby and European. I bought a jacket for £19, cardigan for £9, and knee high socks for £2 hahaha, there goes some travel money...
At night, there was a “formal” reception, a bit like the previous day. However, this time they served us sandwiches. I really like that here, you can eat sandwiches anywhere for any time of the day. Well, I feel like all I’ve eaten here are sandwiches. Nonetheless, they’re really good, but I hope I don’t get tired of them any time soon because there’s a long way to go.
It’s a bit weird that I haven’t gone out yet. Apparently, Brighton is one of the craziest party cities in England. I've already seen people dressed in really interesting outfits. I feel like I’m always too tired at the end of the day to go out and I just want to chill in my room or talk to some friends, but around midnight I wake up again and want to go do stuff. I’m missing out on so much random and fun things!
Day 3
A short informal tour of London
For some reason, the small links to the picture sucks, so click for better quality!
We left at 8am and got back at 8pm that day. It was really nice seeing bits and pieces of London, I definitely have to go back sometime to spend more time in certain areas. London was fun, but not as beautiful as I remembered/imagined. The sky was always gray and tourists crowded the streets, which I guess was to be expected. It was so hard to take nice pictures without people in it. There is no way I can post all 300 pictures I took on that trip or all the places we went to, but for the ones I will post, I hope I can label each photo with the correct name.
A cute restaurant/pub called "The Anchor"
There was an event going on that day where people biked around the tourist areas of London. It was really great to see so many people be in this event.
St. Paul's Cathedral
Somerset House
Somerset House
Some random cool thing in the middle of a plaza
St. Margaret's Church
Big Ben
We went on a long boat tour that gave us a glimpse of many famous places.
For lunch, we went to eat at a Pub and ordered this drink called Pimm's, which I've never had before either but it was yummy.
Awesome pasta chorizo and veggie pasta
There was an alley of street foods, each from a different country. I bought some dessert that they made from dates and random nuts, paella, and crepes for really cheap. And apparently, curry is the national food of England because of the history between the two countries. I have to try that sometime. Indian food is amazing!
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