Getting here was hell. My flight was delayed. The fat lady in front of me put her seat as far back as possible for the entire duration of the trip. The bus from the station was delayed and I had to take a transfer bus that wasn’t originally part of the route. Then another bus. Then a grueling walk trudging through the snow in the FREEZING weather through the entire huge campus, since my dorm is located in the far back and the usual shuttle service was not running due to the snow. I honestly felt close to tears due to how cold and exhausted I was, especially my gloveless, mitten less, bare hands. Then I had to figure out how to get my key and find my specific room and such. I did run into some luck. I ran into another clarkie attending Sussex at the airport in London, so we were able to work together to figure out how the hell to get to Brighton. Then at the bus station the two of us meet a very friendly man from Finland that was going back to Sussex for his second semester and without him guiding us on the bus transfers and directions through campus I think I would have died out in the snow somewhere. Exhausted, frustrated, overwhelmed, and such, I set up my bed and took a lengthy nap.
This is my room:
I woke up a few hours later when I heard “Sunrise” by Yeasayer blasting across the hall from me (the dorm is set up with 4 singles on 3 floors). I came out and a few people were hanging out in the small hallway area outside my room. They were extremely friendly, introduced themselves, and invited me to drink with them. One of them showed me how to get to the campus grocery store so I could buy beer and I randomly picked this beer called “Kronenbourg,” which came in a 4 pack of tallboys. We played some texas holdem’ with a few people until things quickly escaladed. All of a sudden this small hallway had about 10-12 people in it and the real drinking began. Looking for a new card game to play, I showed everyone how to play fuck the dealer, and we played a round of that. Then a ton more people came and this small hallway was as packed as it possibly could be, and we played a new drinking game, which is when I realized that these people are very, very heavy drinkers. This is how this game worked. There is a community glass and someone pours a bunch of whatever they are drinking into it, no matter what kind of alcohol they are drinking. There is one person that controls the deck of cards, and you have to guess if its red or black suited. If you guess correctly, you pass the glass to the next person, they put some of their drink into the glass, and then they guess. When someone guesses wrong, they have to chug the cup. I had to chug an entire beer glass full of a mix of beer, whiskey, rum, and wine. Within a half hour of playing this game I was already wasted, as was everyone else. I stayed up late partying with everyone and then passed out around 5am.
*as another note, I tried to pick a few songs while we were all hanging out and they turned out to be failures, as both songs were changed about 30 seconds into the song. I went with what I thought were solid classics in Crystal Castles’ “Vanished” and Passion Pit’s “Sleepyhead.” I shall keep trying.
Day 2. I met up with Jesse and we were able to find a stream of the pats playoff game online, so we chilled out, drank a few beers and watched the game. By the 3rd quarter it was obvious they had no chance of winning anymore so we went to one of the 2 bars on campus with some guys from Jesse’s flat. The bar was incredibly crowded and I drank quite a few beers. Eventually Jesse left for bed but I stuck around with some of my flat mates I met on the first night. We got wasted, went to some crazily overcrowded party, I bought some hash of some random guy selling at the door of the party, and then I was just drunkenly stumbling around trying to find someone who wanted to smoke with me. Eventually I did find someone so we went to his friends room and I hung out with them, smoked a spliff (this seems to be the only way they really smoke here) and drank some straight rum. Then I ended up in some other random room smoking more, and then I passed out. At this point I had still barely slept at all and the jetlag finally hit me. The biggest problem I have had here is that I did not bring the right plug adapters, so I could only use my computer for about 2-3 hours until the battery died. With no access to electronics, I had no communication with anyone and I never had any idea what time was. Thus, I slept all day, waking up at 7:30. I took it easy this day, just going out to the campus bar again and having a few beers, met another American from Indiana that enjoys the herb so we smoked together and then I went to bed.
Day 4: I decided I should attend my first orientation event, the pub crawl. Basically the school bussed the international students into Brighton and then we went bar hoping to about 5 different bars. This was a ton of fun, all the bars I have been to so far are really cool. One strange cultural difference, no bar stools. Nobody sits at the bars and drinks, they either stand or sit down on benches and tables scattered throughout the bars. I got good and wasted once again, eventually trying to cut a huge line into a club and having the bouncers stop me, so I went home.
Pub Crawl:
Day 5: Back to Brighton with a bunch of my flat mates for my first clubbing experience. It was pretty awesome, the first club we went to was called Digital and we went because on Wednesdays they have 1 pound drinks, so it’s kind of like a Dollah draft for us. I guess they could call it a pound pint or something if they need a catchy phrase. The music at the club was interesting, there was some terrible stuff like Kayne West remixes and such, but also some surprisingly cool stuff like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The second club was more house and fast paced electronic stuff that was really fun to dance to after a lot of vodka and whiskey. Brighton has soooo many clubs and bars. Also the bus ride is hilarious, everyone is wasted, they don’t care if you bring drinks onto it, and everyone sings songs together and such. I’m gonna try to get some video of this.
So those are some recaps of some days. Some random things to talk about…classes here are interesting. Basically you have each class twice a week. One class is a lecture in a big lecture hall. The second class breaks the class down into small seminars for discussion, questions, debate, etc. It seems like a good idea, but I can’t really decide if it’s a better system yet.
Everyone here loves Obama. Some people even have posters of him in their rooms. I’ve had a ton of drunken political conversations with people here and it’s been very interesting. It’s amazing how much Obama’s address to Europe in Berlin and his intelligent rhetoric has changed the perception of Americans and American politics in the world (or at least here). It’s been encouraging since there hasn’t been a lot to be happy about with Obama’s lack of action so far, although I blame the democrats in the senate for that mostly. It was very important for me to establish my hatred of Bush so I can get some level of respect politically as an American.
So that’s that. I have no class on Friday so I’m likely heading into Brighton later for another club/bar hoping experience, so there shall be more stories to be told. I hope all is well in the states!
