Trip to Brighton

Yesterday I took my first trip away from London. My friend, Kate and I went to Brighton, which is a seaside town on the coast of the English Channel. We took a bus there, because it was cheaper than the train, but it took about 3 hours (mostly because we were sitting in traffic trying to get out of London, and the bus stopped at Gatwick Airport on the way). We finally arrived in Brighton at around 7, and we checked into our hostel. We booked beds in an 8-person room, because of course that was the cheapest option. We did not know, however, that the rooms were co-ed. We also didn't know that the hostel doesn't change the bed linen in between customers, so I had a bed that was unmade from the last person who slept there. Kind gross, and the whole room was stuffy and smelled funny.

Anyway, once we settled in, we went to dinner at a Thai restaurant which I was very happy about. We went back to the hostel for a bit and then went out to a cocktail bar. We managed to get two cosmopolitans for 5.50, which is a great deal, and the drinks were very yummy. Unfortunately, we ran into a crazy Romanian woman. She must have been in her 30's, and she started talking to us and seemed kind of nuts. The people who worked at the bar came up to us at one point to tell us that the woman is, in fact, nuts, but they think she's harmless. We quickly exited the bar and ran from the crazy Romanian woman. We walked down the beach until we found a club that let us in for only a pound (it's usually about 6 pounds in London). The club was extremely empty for a long time but got pretty busy toward the end, so it was fun. We went back to the hostel around 1:00 AM and went to bed.

Surprise, surprise, I didn't sleep so well. The guy in the bunk below mine was making some strange noises, and snoring quite loudly. We woke up at 8:30 and got free breakfast downstairs (which consisted of instant coffee and cereal.. but what can you expect from a hostel?) and then started exploring Brighton. It's a really pretty town, actually. I'll be putting up pictures sometime soon on my picture site (they are already up on facebook). One thing we realized is how used to living in a city we are, already. At night we couldn't believe how dead it was.. like, where are all the people? Even the club being empty was sort of a shock to us. It was a fun trip, but it felt good to get back to London.

As far as other news, I already have a lot of work to do after only a week of lectures! Tutorials start next week, as well. For Econ of Labour and Environmental Econ, I only have tutorials 4 times per term, but for European Macro and my history course, I have tutorials once every week. Tutorials are the classes that you need to prepare work for; so I have an exercise to prepare for European Macro on Monday, and readings to do for History for Tuesday. The work is much different from in the US; for example, my European Macro exercise has problems on it that we didn't discuss in lecture at all--you are expected to read up on it on your own and figure it out. That's fine, but because the teachers give us so much reading with little direction, it takes forever to complete the assignment!

That's all for now, check out my picture site for Brighton photos: http://www.picturetrail.com/justinekelly