Greetings from Brighton!

Welcome to my summer blog! As you may or may not know, I'm studying at the University of Sussex this summer. The university is located in the city of Brighton and Hove, which I was told is a prime vacation destination for the English. My main purpose of creating this blog is to keep my family and friends updated on my whereabouts and adventures. This is my fourth day in Brighton so far and I have already a million things to share! Unfortunately, being the terrible photographer that I am, I can only provide pictures to only one of these adventures. I hope you enjoy my first post! I will try to recall the day to day events.

Sunday
I arrived at the London Gatwick airport around seven in the morning or so, but I didn't reach the campus until about noon (long story that I do not really need/want to get into to). I was able to meet a whole slew of people waiting at the airport, the train station, etc. I immediately noticed that the ratio of guys to girls was approximately 1:4. When the shuttle brought us to the university, we were given a welcome packet as well as our house keys. Each house is three stories tall and houses twelve students. Two floors have kitchens, and the other has a bathroom. I ended up being put on the second floor, which has the bathroom. I took a couple pictures of my room:

The view from my room:

After we got settled in and I met a few of my housemates, it was off to a supermarket trip into town. Oh, I neglected to mention that it was raining when we arrived and continued to rain on and off a few days after that. Jennifer, one of my housemates, and I ended up taking the wrong bus back from the supermarket and got lost for about two hours. In addition, the bus drivers were giving us wrong details! We finally returned to campus after a half mile walk from a bus stop nearby, lugging around our groceries, in the rain! We were soaked by the time we reached our rooms and we changed quickly to attend the welcome party.

I didn't take my camera to the welcome party (naturally), but there was a DJ (who was also an International Summer School employee, Michael is his name), finger foods, and beverages (mainly alcoholic). I was able to meet a few more people ("few" is an understatement) and as the welcome party was dying down, a few students and I went to the campus pub to get futher acquainted. It was the perfect ending to my first day at the University of Sussex.

Monday

My lovely housemates Gaby and Jennifer and new friend Tammy were kind enough to wake me up from my late and exhausting adventures the night before a little before nine that morning. From there we attended the mandatory orientation. What exactly was said during the orientation, I couldn't not remember because I barely awake. After the orientation I took a nice nap (one of many). Later that night (because I honestly don't remember what I did after my nap), Gaby and I joined several other students for a not so brief walking tour of the city of Brighton. The local shops were very unique and I wish they were open at the time. Again, I failed to take any pictures, but seeing that the tour took place during the evening, I don't think a lot of it would have been too exciting.

Tuesday
I attended my first class at around 3 pm. I believe I slept in until noon or so! I was still recovering from the first day of being up for more than 24 hours. My class consists of 5 other people and my professor/teacher/tutor (not quite sure what he wants us to call him) seems like a decent fellow and he is very passionate about the subject he is teaching.


Wednesday
Gaby and I decided to go into town when the shops were actually open. It was lovely to see the town during its peak hours! *Sorry, I didn't take pictures again!* We went shopping at H&M (yeah I know, there's one in L.A., but they had some cute stuff!). I finally bought a proper wallet! The British pound note was too big for my mini Coach "wallet." Later that night, we went to the school planned pub crawl and clubbing and I actually took some pictures that night! We went to three clubs and one night club that was located on the beach.
L to R: Housemates Jennifer, Gaby, and me at pub #1


Me outside of pub #1. The building behind me was pretty, but sadly my camera could not capture it.


At pub #2, waiting for Gaby to bring us out first taste of cider, which by the way is delicious!!


Cheers to yummy cider!

Being silly on the beach outside of the club


It was a lovely couple of days so far. Tomorrow, we plan on taking a walker tour of London and I promise ahead of time to take more pictures! Then on Saturday I'm heading over to Stonehenge and Bath. I can't wait! Please leave me comments because I miss you all so much! If you want a postcard, leave your address in a comment or shoot me an email if you do not want to disclose your address on the Internet. Until the next post, cheers!