Brightoning your day

Yesterday we took a trip to Brighton by the sea.  A pretty touristy place but still very cool.

After waking up 10 minutes before we were supposed to be on the bus we took a two hour ride to the England's southern coast.  Once we got there we went on an hour long tour of the Royal Pavillion - King George III's summer home and then explored downtown Brighton.  The town itself was really nice; lots of little alley ways with vintage clothing stores, record stores, and little pubs and one of Britain's top 10 chip pies.   After looking for the place for close to an hour, we sat down and I gorged myself on one of the biggest fish n' chip plates I've ever seen.  Once we'd recovered we walked back to the beach and pier and checked out the British beach...nice, but just a little different than American beaches.

Once we arrived back in London after a heinous, three hour, traffic jam filled bus ride my roommates and I ate some brie on a baguette and then headed out to Fabric; a club in London about a twenty minute walk from our flat.  We all got a little taste of London's underground techno, electro, dub-techno scene.  Definitely crazy.

An awesome day overall, though.  Now two more days of weekend before class on Tuesday

                      

The Royal Pavillion:  Not a bad summer home                                      Brighton streets

One of the coolest streets

    Roommates Micah and Jack during their food-  induced comas


Chippie...

   
















The Brighton beach from the pier

Just a tad rocky

Thanks to Thomas Isen for the picture.  Club Fabric.  Insane.

Pizza'd out

I officially have a 4-day weekend!  Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and now Monday are all completely free.  I switched out of a 10 a.m. Microeconomics class on Mondays and picked up a Social Foundations class on tuesday mornings so now I'll have an extra day to travel or recover from a trip if I need it.  Maybe it will be used for homework, too.  We'll see.

But after class on Tuesday, my roommate Jack and I set to work to cook dinner for 18 or so other Jans that signed up.  Everyone gave us 5 pounds, we went to the store, we cooked for a long time, and the finished product was 12 delicious, homemade pizza pies.  A lot of work but definitely worth it and also a good start to our weekly Tuesday night Big Dinners.

 

Mmmmmm....Pizza

Here we go...

Hey everybody!  I was looking for a way to keep everyone updated on my trip and I think this is the way to go!  Hopefully every couple days I'll be able to update it and document my time in London and wherever I manage to go while I'm here.

The first week was pretty filled with mandatory orientation events and information sessions that essentially told us how to survive here but were pretty tedious (especially after a red-eye flight that got me to London at 1 am Eastern Time).  There were some good orientation events, though like the London bus tour and a half-day trip to Greenwich yesterday.

Classes started today and I've successfully managed to find my way around Bloomsbury (our neighborhood) and, more importantly, to find food!  Success.

Hope you enjoy this,

Cheers!

                                         
                                                           Does it get anymore British?

                            Big Ben                                                             Buckingham Palace

     Queen Elizabeth's house in Greenwich.              
The design for the White House came from this palace.
The London Eye from the River Boat on the
way to Greenwich.  Also the world's largest
ferris wheel.

The City of London.  The city itself is only 1 square       A wing of the palace at Greenwich on the banks        
mile and has mostly financial buildings, while Greater     of The River Thames                                            
London encompasses the rest of London.



Greenwich Park: Home of the Equestrian events during
the 2012 Summer Olympics (hence the green fences)
The building at the top is the start of time and the
home of the Prime Meridean