First Night

So now that I've had a decent night's sleep and am not "positively knackered," I'll fill you in on my adventures so far.

My flights were great until Amsterdam. The 10 am flight to Norwich was canceled due to weather, so I was stuck in the Amsterdam airport until 5 pm. If you're going to get stuck in an airport, Amsterdam's not a bad one to get stuck in. There's lots of shops, though they mostly sell perfume, and there's a cool restaurant on the top floor that's decked out like a ship, which is awesome.

My flatmates are really fun. There's Taylor and Bob (or Rob, they seem to use both interchangeably), Ed (who doesn't live in this flat but apparently spends all his time here), Harry, and one other guy whose name I can't remember, and Sonia, Zahra, Rachel (who's from Australia), and another girl who's from Arizona. I also met Alec, Kevin, and J.D., who live in the same block of the building, but on different floors. Alec is a northerner, Kevin is Irish, and J.D. is 28, so I'm not really sure if he actually lives in the building, but he's friends with the people in our block.

There was a campus dance party that we went to really late last night (Midnight? The night is young! The party doesn't even get rolling until 2am!). I've decided that I love British clubbing. In the States, everyone agrees that I'm an awkward, terrible dancer. Now I know that my dancing is not awkward, it's British. You just kind of stand around and jostle to the beat. This place was PACKED, and I only saw one couple grinding. One. Instead, we just danced as a group and had a really fun time.

Oh, and they were all impressed over how I could take a shot. Shots over here are only an ounce, not 1 1/2, so it was really easy. We all took shots of Jager, which tastes like black licorice. It didn't burn at all. They should all try taking an American shot of Monarch--anything is easy after that.

The bed sheets are a really weird texture, like dryer sheets, and there aren't any fitted sheets, though I'm not sure if that's a UK thing or a UEA thing.

My flatmates all make fun of each others' accents; Bob gets teased because his is "really posh." He's from a town south of the Thames, and apparently all of the "posh" people live south of the Thames. Also, anything north of the Thames is considered "north," but it isn't until you get past Leicestershire that the accent starts really being "northern." Sonia is from Leicestershire, and her accent is considered to really be more "midlands." Alec gets teased the most because his accent is really northern, though not as northern as the accents in Billy Eliot. Mostly they tease each other for sounding northern--apparently northern accents are their version of the Texas/Alabama twang. And they think Irish accents sound ridiculous. I think they sound attractive. I was literally told to "take a wee drink" from an Irishman last night!