First Few Nights Here

The second day here was pretty cool. It was also really long. I had decided to explore the campus for a bit. Needless to say, I got lost something massive. I was trying to head to Selly Oak so I could get a spot of breakfast. I ended up there completely by accident but that was not before I took a wrong way... ended up going past the Aston Webb, the clock tower and the guild.

I finally found my way there though. I found a small hole in the wall diner called Cafe Face. I got the full English breakfast. If any of you ever go to England this is the one thing you need to try.

The full English consists of eggs, baked beans, two pieces of toast, two pieces of sausage, mushrooms, tomato, hash browns, black pudding and bacon. I might be forgetting something. There is just so much food. I had it with coffee. I've since been told not to do that because it is best with tea. I had it again later in the week and it is a lot better with tea.

By the way, the British do make tea all the time. I mean, all the time. It is pretty quaint.

That night we had an invent at the Social which is one of the many university sponsored pubs on campus. It's on the second floor of the building. The front of it is all glass. It's a pretty nice building.

Anyway, the even being held was called a Traffic light party. If you were wearing green then you were single, yellow was a question mark (i.e. you could be persuaded) and red meant that you did have a boyfriend or girlfriend. It was pretty interesting.

We did a little bit of pre gaming beforehand so as to not spend all our money at the bar. Once there it was a flurry of meeting people, trying to explain where Iowa is in the states... that sort of thing. There was one man I met named Fairchra. He was Irish. Strange thing though is that he goes completely against type in that he actually doesn't like the taste of alcohol at all. He told me that he doesn't even drink.

But that wasn't the most interesting thing to happen that night. Later on in the evening I met a man who had lived in Iraq for most of his life. He was about my age. He and I had a very intense political discussion. An Iraqi and an American talking politics and religion probably sounds like a recipe for a roadside bomb but it actually went quite well with quotes from the Koran, French philosopher Bertrand Russell and we both talked about our own personal experiences. It was quite academic. My flat mates though had left in a hurry just because they thought it would blow up but like I said, it was quite academic.

I turned in earlier than most though. The music was quite loud and I was pretty exhausted from walking all over the place. I just needed to pass out.

If I had to say what my biggest frustration is with this university is though is the amount of running around I've been having to do. Unlike Iowa, wherein everything is pretty much online, here everything is done in person. While that is nice, as it does force one to move around quite a bit, it is so slow and sometimes quite annoying. For instance, just to get my online code (which they should have sent to me by the time I got here, but they didn't) it took about an hour and a half of waiting in line. I registered online pretty easily but still... I couldn't get my ID card until the next day. I also haven't been able to open up a bank account just because of all the backup the banks are facing.

That's not to say that there aren't good things on campus. Near the university center there is a fruit stand. I bought some strawberries for a pound... quite a lot of strawberries actually. Fruit here is surprisingly cheap and it all tastes a lot better than what I've had in the States. Also, the sodas do taste a lot different here than they do back home. I had a Dr. Pepper today and was taken aback by how different it was flavored. I don't know if I like it yet or not.

I finally have gotten registered for some courses. I'll be taken Cold War Film, Death and the Moving Image, John Donne and Metaphysical Poets as well as Voicing Women in the 17th Century plust The Thriller, Fiction and Film Theory. I'm still not finished registering but I'm quite excited.

They also have a lot of sponsored clubs on campus. It is much more prominent here than it is at Iowa. I plan on joining the film club as well as joining the Eurobrum club. It is a club designed for foreign exchange students. They organize a lot of day trips and stuff like that. It'll be a good way of meeting other foreign students as well as being able to see England for cheap.

Probably though my biggest frustration with uni is Fresher's Fest. It is essentially a big party which goes on throughout the course of the first two weeks of school in which everybody goes clubbing especially first years. I've been there and I've done that so I'm not really interested. My biggest annoyance is one of my flat mates Harry. He came back last night with the party in tow and started pounding on everybody's door screaming "Oakley Court! Flat 4! Party Flat!" It's funny now in retrospect but it was not funny then. It took until four am for him to pass out. This type of rave/club atmosphere is going on until the end of the second week of school. I'm not happy about that and neither is my next door neighbor Andy. He's a post grad student. The other foreign exchange student, Maggie, is not happy about it either. Us three feel that he may have insecurity issues. That whole loudest dog in the room is also the most unconfident kind of thing.

Well, more to come soon.

Ted, I want my sandwich.