Mind the Gap II

The sunset on Brighton Beach. The structure standing in the ocean next to the sun was a pier. It burned down about 8 years ago.

A picture of one of the main streets in The Lanes, a district of Brighton with VERY narrow streets. Many of them are too narrow for three people to walk side by side in.


London skyline. The funny looking tall building is the Gherkin, which I found to be particularly interesting.


Kamila and I. Kamila spent a year studying at OU. I stayed with her in London.


This is the Notting Hill market. It's a bit like a flee market that takes place every Saturday. Lots of good stuff though.


That's it for now. Hope everyone is well.

Mind the Gap

This blog originate from sunny (sort of) England! I had two weeks of vacations so I decided to jump a cheap flight to the UK and see what's going on over here. I spent the first three days or so in Brighton with my friend Emrys from OU. He has a great place and the town was unbelievably entertaining. It's roughly the same size as Münster and is down on the southern coast right on the Channel. It's also a university town and there were lots of students out who had just arrived for the fall semester.

After three days in Brighton I was off to London! London is just simply amazing. It's so unbelievably HUGE! There's so much to see and do here that you can't possibly appreciate it all in a week. I'm staying with a friend of mine named Kamila who I met at OU when she was studying abroad there. She and her boyfriend, Carl, live in a borough called Herne Hill which is just south of the river. Only about a 10 minute train ride to the middle of the city which has been very convenient. I've visited lots of the interesting landmarks like Tower Bridge, the Tate, Camden street and Parliament. Kamila and Carl have been working all week so there hasn't been lots of time to hang out together but this weekend I think we'll be hitting the town.

I took lots of pictures of Brighton and London. Unfortunately, I won't be able to post them until I return from England because my internet connection doesn't seem to be strong enough. So, you'll see them as soon as I make it back to Deutschland.

Time for a new list.

Nuances of the British Accent

1. Most questions end in "then". Shall we take the Bus then? Were they Americans then?
2. The subway is the Underground or the Tube. If you ask where the subway is, they'll send you to a sandwich shop.
3. Fries are Chips. Chips are Crisps.
4. Cheers is the most useful of phrases. Cheers = Thanks, Cool, Good lookin out, Bye, See you later, etc. When in doubt use this word, you'll seem polite and friendly.
5. You alright? and You ok? are not used to figure out if something is wrong with you. Only to figure out how you're doing.
6. Bathrooms and Restrooms don't exist. They're all Loos or Laves.
7. Here I thought I was putting trash in the trash can, when I was actually putting rubbish in the rubbish bin. My bad.
8. It's always acceptable to swear.
9. Cigarettes are called fags. So if someone says that the room smells of fags, they're not being homophobic.
10. Mind the gap means watch out for that small space between the train and the platform. Very important.

First Day

Ich bin endlich angekommen!
(I have finally arrived)

Here I am finally in Münster, Germany! The flight went pretty well for the most part, however the good people at STA Travel Company saw fit to give me just an hour and fifteen minutes in London and I made it to my flight with just five minutes to spare. My suitcases were really heavy and lets just say that the charming cobble stone streets of Münster were not designed with rolling suit cases in mind. I made it, however, and in one piece!

My roommates were kind of scattered around the country when I got here but one was present for a little meet and greet. His name is Andreas and he seems like a cool guy. He took me to my first party in Germany on Friday. It was out in the country a bit so we road our bikes. Good times. The others are filtering in slowly but surely. We also have a girl from Spain named Maria (of course) that's living in the house temporarily so I've had the chance to go out with her and practice my Spanish a bit.


Münster! What a beautiful town. Things seem very laid back here. It's a university town of about 300,000 and 60,000 of them are students. There's a lot to do and see here so I think I'll be busy for a while. Münster is the "bike city" of Germany and you can get absolutely every where on a bike with special pathes and lanes that run through all the streets. The people at my school have been nice enough to organize a bike, and a bunch of furniture as well, for me.



I had my first day of school yesterday. The school is kind of far away which isn't so awesome but I think I'm going to be able to enroll in the university, which grants me a free semester ticket which I can use to ride regional trains for free. The ride is about 35 minutes.

I had my orientation meeting for three days outside of Cologne in an old cloister which is pictured above. It's called Altenberg. It was very peaceful there and it was weird to suddenly here so many American voices again. The seminars were intense and long but we made it through and definitely helped me.

I've decided to steal an idea from my friend and old roomie Marna. She made one or two lists on her blog and I've decided to include them in mine from time to time. Lists will be written in no particular order. So first list, here goes:

10 things that I miss about America.

1. Sunny warm weather.
2. Cheez-its and milk.
3. Having a basement to hide out in.
4. A big yellow house in Athens, OH.
5. Cheap clothing.
6. Campfires.
7. Mexican Food.
8. Eating on the back porch with mom and dad.
9. Forgiveness for arriving 4 minutes late.
10. Wide streets.

That's it for now.

Tschüß alle, wir sehen uns bestimmt bald wieder.

Predeparture

Hi all. This is my new blog! I'll be using it to chronicle my adventures in Europe over the next 11 months or so. I'm going to try to keep it updated as regularly as possible.

Feel free to pass this along to anyone who you think might be interested. My first "real" entry will be shortly after I get to Germany.

Man sieht sich!

-Brenton