1) Cambridge! I went to Cambridge for a day. Our tour guide was entertaining but questionable. It was graduation day, which made me think of being at Yale for my brother's graduation two years ago. Except Cambridge is 800 YEARS OLD.
2) Eurovision! When I got back from Cambridge I watched Eurovision, which is sort of like a condensed European American Idol. Basically all of the European countries who want to have a participant, who sings a song that is unique to that country. There are three rounds, but we just watched the finals because otherwise you see a lot of repeats. All of the countries performed (there were over 30!), and then there was a sort of intermission while they waited for all of the countries to call in with their votes, during which Cirque du Soleil did a weird performance in some sort of plastic portable swimming pool, but it was flexible so as they jumped in it morphed to shape their bodies and the audience could "touch" them as it was lowered down. Yeah, it was weird. Then representatives from all the countries call in to award points to their favorite performers, and it's basically political, like oh surprise, Cyprus voted for Greece! If you want a taste of Eurovision, search for "Fairytale" by Alexander Rybak on YouTube. He was the winner and that song was the theme song in my flat for awhile.
3) Summer term = death! I had three papers and an exam in the past month. Now, I've gotten through this amount of work and more at Wash U, but the difference here is that the material was stuff I hadn't looked at since March, and in all cases it was either the only or one of two grades in the class. It was easy to get out of my good study habits, and I pretty much went through academic culture shock because I have always cared too much about school. I just didn't handle the situation well and it was an ugly time. But I got through it and regardless of what marks I get they can't say I didn't try. Moving on to happier things...
4) Visitors! My good friend Katherine came to visit after she finished her program in Rome. Though she came at a time when I had to study a lot for my exam, we still got to hang out in Brighton and Rottingdean. She got GORGEOUS, completely uncharacteristic English weather - sunny, in the 70s, and no rain until she was getting on the train to Gatwick. In Rottingdean we had cream tea (obligatory), crashed a wedding (aka people-watched outside of a church), and sunned on the beach. Glorious. In Brighton we sunned by the Pavilion, finally (for me) sang karaoke at the King & Queen, and discovered RedVeg and Lick. RedVeg is a vegetarian fast food place (hamburgers, hot dogs & falafel) which has pictures of Communist leaders on the menu and fat potato wedges covered in spices which are perfect with their accompanying sweet sauce. Vegetarian food + Communism = delicious. Lick is next door and has natural frozen yogurt. Literally, it just tastes like cold yogurt, but you cover it in toppings like honey and fruit. mmm. We also discovered a delicious Indian restaurant, saw a production of My Fair Lady, and sampled doughnuts on the pier (thanks for the tip, Mom and Dad!). 'Twas a good visit.
5) The final countdown! Now I am balancing writing my last paper with enjoying my last days in England. I have a "Sussex/Brighton To-Do List" that is posted in my flat's kitchen. You will probably not be surprised to know that many of the things on this list involve food. Successes so far include a visit to Stanmer Park, a nearby nature preserve with a cafe that sells DELICIOUS scones (these scones might be better than the ones in Rottingdean. I'm not kidding.) and dinner at La Tosca, where we used a 50% off coupon to get drinks, bread, tapas (about four each to share) and dessert for 15 pounds! yummy. My flatmates are determined to help me accomplish at least most things on my list, so that's exciting. This includes day trips to Canterbury, Dover and Drusilla's, a zoo mostly housing small, adorable, furry animals.
6) Babies! We have a birds' nest outside the front door of our flat. Somehow, even though we just noticed the babies two days ago, they have all already flown the nest. One of them flew the nest a little too early and was hopping around the entryway for awhile looking and sounding thoroughly confused. SO adorable. Now most of the others have followed suit but the rest of them were better at flying.
7) London! I am taking my final (!) trip to London this weekend, to visit a friend from home who is interning there this summer. The Queen's birthday is on Saturday, so she gets a proper celebration with a parade. We're mostly hoping to seduce Prince Harry and William. Wish us luck. ;-) Then she'll be coming back with me to lovely Brighton on Saturday night and Sunday. The weather is supposed to be pretty again, yay! I'll be introducing her to cream tea - I know you're surprised.
In short, please explain to me why I have to leave. It's not that I don't love my home in Indiana. But if you could figure out how to bring my house, my family and Wash U here instead, that'd be fab.
No comments:
Post a Comment