RIP, Spunky Fitzgerald

I would just like to say: RIP, Fitzgerald, my lovely purple and red betta fish, who lived almost 2 years in spunky happiness in his bowl with his plant. He went blind (so Mikah believes) and died yesterday (he has been blind for a while, not just yesterday). But don't worry, he didn't get flushed. He had a proper burial (as far as I know) and is now fertilizer for my Jade plant. Circle of life. It's quite moving, isn't it?

I think I got my first real sense of "Britishness" when I went on a countryside tour. We went to see the Seven Sisters, which is a chalk cliff, Eastbourne, a city near Brighton, which is known as "God's Waiting Room," Pevensey Castle, and Alfriston, a tiny village quite near our campus.

At the Seven Sisters, we learned all about how when buying a bus ticket there, it is now mandatory to buy a return. As the Seven Sisters is one of the few cliffs in England (I think the rest is quite flat), it is a prime suicide location. Jump off, drive your car off, the world is your oyster (sorry, bit morbid...). Looks like by forcing people to buy a return, which is three pounds sixty, instead of a single, which is one pound eighty, England, at least in the south, has solved the horrible problem of suicide!Eastbourne was where I had my first Cornish pasty. Delish. We even ate them on the pier. It was such a slow, easy city. It had more of a smalltown feel to it than anything. I guess that's because in walking down the High Stree, 90% of the people on the street were over 65.

Pevensey Castle was more just a very very green field with some ruins at one end. It was really pretty, but didn't have much of a fairytale castle feel to it. Although I did get some good experience in being a sheep...

My favourite part of the trip was Alfriston. It was so tiny, so British. We went to a tiny teahouse where I (yes, I, at 5' 4 3/4"!!!) had to duck in the doorways. We sat in a garden and had tea and scones, and listened to little old ladies in their fancy hats gossiping.

It must have been the old ladies who made the village seem so British. I think they will be one of the things I remember most from my time here. Either that or the image of skinny, drunken University boys. That is quite British as well...