Week 1

My week has been...Interesting.

My room is...well, it doesn't feel like its that small, but i guess it is, compared to my room at home. My roommate is pretty cool. We aren't going to be the best-friends roommate types, I don't think, (shes tall and blonde and is clubbing right now. On the plus side, shes not 18 yet, and so hasn't been coming back drunk.) We seem to get on well enough, though. I think we're gonna go to Rome in November for bonding time or something. It'll be good. And our room is a very acceptable state of mostly-neat but not spotless.

I'm really enjoying living in res. Its a nice feeling that when I don't have class or anything to do, I can always find something. I'm on an all girls floor (there are 127 first-years here and something like 22 boys, so its no shock that none of them are on my floor) and I'm, well, not at the "friends" stage yet, but I like some of the people here a lot. We've gotten past the "hi who are you" stage of conversation now and have moved a little deeper, which is really nice.

Yesterday we spent the day on a field-trip to Brighton. Its a nice little town, I suppose. We didn't have that much time there (we also went to the University of Sussex library, which we are to use to supplement the one here and to some pretty cool cliffs which were called something that I can't remember) but some people and I are going back to Brighton on Saturday to do some shopping and hang out on the beach. (Theres a pretty nice beach there.) (Image 1: The Cliffs)

Last night (the night before classes started) we had a wine-and-cheese mixer with our profs. It was nice to get to talk to them before classes started. Most of mine are pretty awesome, actually. The history prof is going to do some archeology digs on the castle grounds, and the politics prof is Greek, and therefore is teaching us about the etymology of the politics words. Its interesting.

I can't get used to being served alcohol, though. The pubtender thinks I'm hilarious. I asked him for a free sample the first night, because I didn't want to spend money on a drink before I knew what I liked. He gave me a sample (I wasn't surprised, having spent most of the summer giving out free samples, but most of the people I was with were pretty shocked, and regretted having already ordered drinks) and so now anytime I come in he calls me sample-girl or something to that effect. As it turns out, I'm not a huge fan of drinking. I like being able to buy liquor, I'm just not a big fan of consuming it (which I'm sure will come as a relief to my parents.) A lot of people here don't drink, or don't drink much. It costs a LOT of money. (Image 2: Lia and Jamie at the pub.)

Classes started today. I had Art History, Politics, Geography and History. They seem pretty good. People keep warning us not to over-extend ourselves and whatnot, which I'm sure is a good warning (as I haven't done what I need to to prepare for tomorrow yet...) but it doesn't seem like a really outrageous amount of work. We'll see, though, I bet it is and they're just trying to lull us into a false sense of calm... (Image 3: Lia's first day of school.)

We're going to London all day Friday.

The food is terrible. Like, its so much worse than I could have imagined... Literally, there are three or four starch options at each meal (at least two kinds of potatoes, pasta and rice) and not really any edible meat. At least there is a salad bar, thank goodness.
On the other hand, the dining hall is in a castle, which is nice.
(Image 4: On the way into the Castle.)