Saturday, October 18, 2008

Where exactly is Sussex?

I'm so excited! I managed to get myself invited to an English home in Sussex!

As it's Friday, the class met up after lecture at the bar in the building our lecture took place in (there is seriously a bar in every building here! On campus!) Drinks for buy one, get one free, so a classmate and I each got a vodka and cranberry--yummy! My new favorite drink. It seems to be a relatively weak drink, because I can drink three without feeling much of anything. Anyway, I only had one. Then another classmate wanted a drink, but she could only pay with a card, and you have to buy 5 pounds worth of stuff to be able to use a card, so she bought a double gin and tonic for herself, the same for me, two beers for other people, and a "packet of crisps." (I feel silly saying "crisps.") I was going along just fine with the double G&T, not feeling tipsy, and then suddenly BOOM. I was drunk. Like, earth-spinning-too-quickly drunk. I did not feel good! Man, I am not a fan of the gin. No more of that for me. Apparently, it's known to make people depressed and weepy. Women, mostly. How bizarre is that? This really chipper girl in my class was saying if she has just one gin and tonic, she'll be actually depressed the next day.

Anyway, on to the real story: one of my classmates, Holly, who lives in my building, mentioned that she was going home for the weekend, and then she invited me to come along. Yay!! I'm absurdly excited. She said her family has a big farm (52 acres?), but even if they lived in a townhouse, I'd be ecstatic. I can't really explain why. It's just, I came to the UK to experience life here, and I can't really do that in a school residence hall. Walking down the street, I hear American accents almost as often as British accents. So I want to meet a British family, even if they're exactly like any American family. Anyway, we won't be there long, just spending the night, really, but I'm thrilled. "Chuffed," if you will.

I got to see me Pops on video last night. That was really nice. I haven't been sleeping well for the last three nights. Really shallow sleep, with lots of dreams, mostly about home and family. I don't otherwise feel homesick, but the dreams get to me. They make me sad. So it was nice to see and hear Pops, and see the house. It was not so nice to see the horrendous mess I left in the spare room. I feel awful about leaving it in such a state. But what's done is done, and I can't go back and clean it (as much as I'd like to fly home for a quick weekend of organizing.) Oh well. Thanks to Pops for going through all my boxes and finding everything! I really appreciate it!

6 comments:

  1. I used to own a shirt with lovable comic book characters named Milk and Cheese. They loved to watch Three's Company and drink alcohol. Then, without warning, they would take umbrage at some trivial thing or another and start burning up the town. Literally. The cute little carton of milk and small wedge of cheese would start running around, punching and knocking people around, with the action escalating, and the episode invariably ending with a crumbling, burning and utterly decimated cityscape.
    Why do I bring this up? Well, you say you are "not a fan of the gin." It's probably because gin makes a man mean, as Milk and Cheese know well. Beware!

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  2. Runs in the family, this reaction to gin as well as the one to vodka. And no duh! Gin is made from the poisonous juniper bush while Vodka is made from, HELLO!, potatoes...

    Vodka good, gin bad.

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  3. You might have had a bad reaction to mixing your liquors. I had a glass of wine and a lemon-drop one time, and I was weak and dizzy (in a bad way) afterward.

    I totally understand why you're excited about staying at someone's farm in Sussex. How romantic does that sound? You're basically living in a novel. Young American female living in London, being invited to stay the weekend at a farm in a town that could not possibly sound more British. It'll probably be a total let-down and not all that romantic, but it sounds great.

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  4. Or she could meet a sarcastic-but-freakishly-handsome British male, fall head-over-heels in love with him, get spurned by him, return depressed to London where she is accidently hit by a car driven by him, and discover that he is in London because he could not forget the wonderful smell of her hair and so came to find her with no idea of where she lived or even what her real name was.


    Or she could be served steak and kidney pie which, considering Karen's gag reflex, won't be a good thing.

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  5. My vision of Kusems's trip was a little different...

    I see Kusems attending a party in Sussex where she gets snubbed by the most eligible bachelor in attendance. Then, when she visits her next British friend's residence (in another equally exotic sounding location in Great Britain), she realizes that he lives in the big, beautiful homestead adjacent to her friend's property. After touring his house, she runs into him and he confesses that he has been in love with her all along...

    Then she finds out that he has an equally handsome eligible friend who also happens to be single. Since her older sister is already happily hitched, she refers him to her wonderful friend, Jax, and they all live happily ever after.

    :-)

    Have a great trip!

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  6. Sussex is exotic?? Who knew?

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