reaaaally catching up.

Dearest both of you,

And now I have no idea where to start. It has only been four days and I feel like my whole life has changed. So much has happened - there are so many good stories to tell! I won't bore you with all of them or all the details, so I will summarize with a few tasty highlights:

1. Upon my arrival, I slept nineteen hours straight. My flatmates thought I was dead.

2. I adore my flatmates. There are three floors with four bedrooms on each floor. On my floor, there is Anna [the punky, rather crazy one], Rosie [the rather sensible, sweet one], and Lorri [the blunt, always worried one]. On the middle floor there is Max [the sweet little fella], Charlie [the disappearing one whom I still haven't met - he isn't really into the whole family house bonding thing], Celia [the sultry, partying one], and Sadie [the type A, drinks like a sailor one]. On the bottom floor there is one empty bedroom, Luciano [we call him Lucy, which has made him somewhat avoidant of us], Matt [the intelligent, nice one], and Alan [whose actual name is Alanus, I discovered tonight - for obvious reasons, he chooses to be known as Alan].

3. Brighton is an incredible city. It is quite picturesque, as much for its architecture as the beachfront. The buildings are so lovely and classy looking. Rosie is so sick of hearing me call everything classy that she nearly hit me tonight. But it all is! Sunday we went during the day and had drinks at a pub right on the beach. There isn't any sand though, only pebbles, which I personally think is amazing. Then Monday night we went out on the town proper-like. There are infinite pubs, bars, and clubs - not to mention people frequenting them. One club we went to was right off the beach. I think my favorite part of the whole night was seeing that grinding doesn't happen here! Everyone dances separately! No nasty boys expecting the girls to pleasure them for no reason! Yes Brighton and the triumph of feminism! My other favorite part of the night was being called a "bonnie lass" by some man I walked by [and me flashing him a cheshire cat smile for not knowing how else to respond - I am so smooth] and Lucy telling me my accent was "so hot." Aah, brilliance.

4. I have introduced Anna and Rosie to "I'm on a Boat" and they are obsessed. It's beautiful.

5. I hate banking. There have been infinite problems with my citibank card and I want to kill it. Or something. Maybe I will just find a lot of money so I don't have to worry about it. Speaking of which, Matt and Alan found a cash machine tonight that doubled whatever you took out of it! So they emptied their entire bank accounts and got double what they were supposedly taking out. Sadly, by the time we got there, they had apparently reversed it to make up for the difference, because Max took out twenty pounds and only got ten. Sad day.

6. My school related sessions have been pretty much a waste of time. The other international students are kind of lame, and the info sessions have told me nothing. But I am going on various sightseeing trips with the international groups, so I suppose I will have to get over my elitism and talk to them. Surprisingly, they aren't all Asian. Didn't see that coming. But still, I haven't been impressed with the ones I have met. This one Canadian guy spent half an hour telling me how much the world hates America. Enough said.

7. I am attempting to go the entire time here without cooking. Mostly because I hate it. I don't think I'm going to make it, but I have so far. I've pretty much just been starving, living off of cereal and fruit and granola bars. I found some bagels at a shop on campus today though, so that was exciting.

8. Our house was robbed! We let these guys in to talk to us, and then we all went upstairs and when they left, they took a bunch of food and some of Max's really expensive whiskey. So we have sworn revenge against them - leading us to tonight's excitement. There was a huge party at the Brighton Pier, this amusement park out on the pier on the ocean. We were walking around the pier when I spotted them. Instantly burning hatred filled me, and we devised a brilliant plan. Well, actually first we went a bit overboard and I snapped a bunch of sneaky pictures of them and we picked up their cigarette butts for DNA evidence. We thought it was funny? But then Sadie developed the brilliant plan. They hadn't met her, so she went up to them and started flirting and found out where they live. So tomorrow she is going to tell our porter and get him to find the stuff in their rooms and bust them! Woo excitement!

9. We are basically detectives. There was tonight's incident, and another one earlier today. We were at the activities fair and passed a table that had a hand written sign boasting, "Badger Baiting." Long story short, these three guys kill badgers around campus by ramming drill bits into their heads or breaking all their legs to cause them to starve. They said they preferred the word "dispatching" instead of "killing." We were, naturally, horrified seeing as how they themselves admitted to the illegality of said activity. Anyways, Celia gathered some of their papers because she wants to write for the paper, and is going to expose them! We're so sneaky!

10. I rode my first roller coaster tonight at the pier. I think I might never do that again.

11. I went for a run yesterday on the paths behind campus (what they call "the Downs") and it was painfully beautiful. There were rolling hills dotted with sheep, ruins of old houses in fields of wheat, old fences containing horses munching on real English grass. I could have cried it was so perfect.

12. I might just have to move here. I love it. The most amazing thing to me so far is that you can shop for your groceries online and have them delivered to you for just a few pounds. It is the most incredible invention of all time. Their money is significantly cooler looking, too. Everything is much cooler looking, really. Classy, if you will. Rosie wouldn't, but you should.

13. I'm sure I'm forgetting things I really wanted to tell you two, but there is always tomorrow. I'm getting quite sleepy now.

Well, perhaps you are up to date now. I hope this hasn't bored you too badly.

I love both of you like mad.