Playing in the snow

On Saturday I woke up wicked early- my alarm was set for six something- showered, packed and met up with the other BC girls at QM to go to Waterloo station. I met up with Liz and Paul, and re-met Anne. Everyone got their own seats on the bus, which was sweet; much sleeping ensued.

We stopped at Lewes and did a walking tour. Our tour guide knew a lot about Thomas Paine, which was very interesting, but it was cold and windy and we were all exhausted. We went to the "Anne of Cleaves" house. What a misnomer, she never even went there, it was a wedding gift that she didn't use. But it was very cute, the garden would be gorgeous in the spring. I guess lots of people get married there. Highlight? The dress-up room. Pictures on facebook. I really liked the bit when we were passing a bowling green, and there were a bunch of old men out bowling, and our tour guide goes, "Oh, those are friends of mine, let's go have a jeer at them!" And she called them over and talked for a moment. It was very cute.

At lunch, my fish still had scales, a tail, and a face. Eyes and jaw included. It was kinda gross, so I cut off the head and tail and put it on Paul's plate, since he'd already finished eating.

We also stopped at the Royal Pavilion, the party palace of George the fourth (I think), who was very fat and loved eating. The outside is India-inspired, the inside China-inspired. I really want the gorgeous dragon chandelier. I'm probably going to google pictures since we couldn't photograph the interior.

There was a mess up with our hostel in Brighton, so eight of us girls that were supposed to be in one room got split into fours. The first four got sent up four stories, and then the rest of us had to wait a little while... then they found us a room to go to, which had two other boarders we didn't know. Neither one was around, but there was a stuffed penguin on one bed, and the other was of course the bottom bunk by the window.

We had a really good dinner, and after, Anne, Paul, Liz and I went to the pier, and Liz and I got ice cream cones. It was an interesting flavour- sort've more the cream that the Brits like to put on everything than vanilla.

Pretty much everyone met up after that to go to a club- since that's the thing to do in Brighton- and we wandered along the waterfront. The place that was recommended to us was closed, so we were having a huge (loud) discussion on the beach when two police officers came by and told us to move it along. Some people decided it was a good idea to ask for the cops' opinions on clubs around, but the woman kindly told us, "It's Brighton. You have the beach, (gestures), and bars (gestures)." It was really funny. We finally got into this place called TRU for free, danced until the music style changed and everyone cleared into a different room, and then Liz and I called it an early night since we were exhausted and I've had a cold.

The room was really hot and I kept waking up every time someone came in. There was already a girl asleep in the bed by the window, and evetually the other two BC girls came in; really, really late, the door opened again... and it was this giant, bearded man in black leather, combat boots, and tattoos. He crawled into the bed with the stuffed penguin.

We got woken up the next morning to his ringtone- "Where are all your friends? ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD!" He sort've was chipping in to the conversation the four of us were having, but not really being audible at all; he finally stumbled down to breakfast, limping a bit and still drunk, now wearing flame pajamas. It was so weird. AND HE SLEPT WITH A PENGUIN.

We had a walking tour of Brighton this morning, which was even colder than the one yesterday, but also pretty interesting. Though when our guide was talking about the Mods versus the Rockers and describing their clothing, I couldn't help but add on in a whisper to Liz after the "wear black leather and ride motorcycles" that the Rockers also "really like penguins."

After lunch, Liz, Paul, Anne and I decided to just go get hot cocoa and stay warm until it was time to catch the bus.

I met up with USC Kevin to finish our Diff Eq homework, and left straight from there to see Slumdog Millionaire with Vanessa, Caitlin and Haider. It should NOT be called the "feel-good movie of the year," but it was definitely really good.

After that we stopped at Haider's and had hot cocoa, since it was snowing rather a lot (it's accumulated a couple inches, I'm impressed!) and on the way back to our rooms, some of Haider's friends bombarded him. Us girls decided to go get slightly more appropriately dressed and joined in the MASSIVE snowball fight that was happening (they don't really get snow in London, so it was really exciting for everyone). I decided running around in the cold wasn't the best idea, so I started a snowman. The girls stopped their snowball fights and started trying to help, and I eventually got them going with a good method. The British guys were trying to outdo us by simply mounding up snow, but I showed them the error of their ways, and got them rolling huge snowballs as well. Other British people kept coming over to have their pictures taken with us and our massive amounts of snow, it was really funny. The boys ended up with a MASSIVE snowman (I taught them well), and I think our snowwoman was still a bit taller than me. I really hope they're still there tomorrow for everyone to admire!! We got a couple pictures of those as well, unfortunately not on my camera.

Pretty much I stayed out in the cold snow WAY too late for someone with an awful cold, but it was so fun.