Dadaisms

Greetings family and friends.

Again I find myself not having blogged in many months. Donovan, you must be giving up on my by now. As soon as I’m back I will voluntarily walk with you to the gallows, and I’ll even put the noose around my own neck. However, this is the easiest platform to reach everyone.

I left SA nearly a week ago already. I’ll start at the beginning (it’s a very good place to start, you know) for those of you I haven’t filled in already. For those who know this part, tough. Haha.

After a relatively uneventful flight to JHB from Durban, I finally arrived at the Virgin Atlantic check in counter. Now as you know, I’m paranoid about getting things wrong. I’m obsessive about knowing EXACTLY what I need to do. So you can believe me when I say that I had checked Virgin’s website many times about baggage allowances and rules. The website expressly stated that I can take 23kgs, but up to 32kgs if I was willing to pay an extra £35. Sure, that’s not a great deal for 9 extra kgs. Great. So I trotted up to the counter, with an enthusiasm to match Maria’s as she was calling to the hills. That little bubble was soon deflated. The check-in lady looked and me and said I was only allowed to take 23kgs. “Yes,” I replied, “but your website says I can take 32kgs for an extra £35”. “No,” she said, “That only begins in November”. “But I checked your website today! It didn’t say that – it said that the policy is already in place!” At this point the blond lady behind the other counter chipped in with a: “No, it’s not on the website. He can go look right now – it’s not on there. It’s not our problem”. Panic. The thought of emptying 6 kgs (as I had only packed 29kgs) at the airport was horrifying. After much pleading and begging, I eventually played the scholarship card – thank goodness for the British Council. A quick flash of the letter giving me permission to take in an extra 10kgs was all it took, apparently. But not after Virgin Atlantic charging me an extra R300/kg!

Needless to say, I’m not flying Virgin again.

After that it was a mere 3 hour wait until my flight. All proceeded well enough. It was a very cramped flight, and the food was awful. My Nationwide flight to the UK a few years back was actually better than this Virgin flight. Anyway, enough complaining. The best is yet to come. Arrival at Heathrow: 6:45. Departure from Heathrow: 11:20. The queues. THE QUEUES!! Apparently every student in the world has decided to study in the UK. The queue was insanely long. And of course, the mandatory x-rays and medical report for SA students are useless: it is evident that the British do not trust SA doctors, as I had to stand in ANOTHER queue to get confirmation that my xrays were real and that my doctor is credible. Ugh.

Fastforward: 2 hours, a calm coach drive, and an exhausting walk with a 30kg bag and 6kg handbag later I arrived at my residence. Missing several fingers and surely suffering from dehydration, but alive.

My location is amazing. I’m on the 5^th storey of a University-managed building right on the beach. And my room is sea-facing! It’s our building, the main road, the promenade, then the beach. It reall is as close to the sea as possible. There are about 180 students from all over the world staying in my building, and I’ve only met a handful of them. My roommates are all very friendly: I haven’t spent much time with them, but we get on well. I have 5 roommates, from China, Japan, America, Iran and Singapore. Over the past few days I’ve managed to connect with to fantastic people – Peter and Beth. Beth is from SA and is on the same Scholarship as me. She’s doing her DPhil, in a field that I can’t do justice in my filtered and watered-down understanding. Peter is from America, and is also into theatre. He’s doing the same course as me, which is fantastic as I don’t have to travel around alone!! There are so many South Africans around: the Residential Advisor is from Cape Town, and there’s a guy on the 1^st floor who actually went to St Charles 10 years before me. So I certainly do not feel isolated or alone.

What have I been doing? Walking!! I’ve never walked this much in my life. Brighton is an amazing city – it’s a beach town, but a big city as well. It reminds me of Durban in many ways. If Durban was cleaned up, made extra extra safe, and given a good shot of tolerance it could be Brighton. The history is incredible. My res is right by the Royal Pavilion, build by the Prince Regent in the early 19^th century. There are Gothic churches, modern libraries, tudor homes, European-style squares..everything you can think of. There are lanes and gardens all over, with so many different shops. I haven’t even begun to explore the shops! I’m thinking about getting some rollerblades to get around – loads of people have them, and there are lanes on the roads dedicated to cycling/skateboarding/rollerblading. I’ve been out every night – not to clubs, but just exploring the city. It’s amazing to be in a place where there are police patrolling 24/7, and I don’t feel afraid to walk around alone or in a small group. Beth, Peter and I spent one night wandering around a suburb, and eventually made our way onto the beach to discuss politics and gender theory. Last night we went to an open mic evening at a bohemian coffeehouse where we heard incredible live music and spoken word. It’s so refreshing to be in a city where tolerance is infused with the mainstream. There was a girl last night who read a poem dedicated to her girlfriend for their 3 year anniversary – and everyone cheered. I haven’t encountered any hate (except towards the government). I’m not naive to think that it’s not there. But it’s certainly not as tangible as in South Africa.

What else to fill you in?

Tomorrow I’m going onto campus to meet my lecturers and classmates for the first time. I’m looking forward to starting classes on Monday! The link to my program is below:

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/publications/pgrad2009/areasofstudy/Gender%20studies/20442

I’ve taken loads of pictures already. You can view them here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158211&id=503735358&l=68034a2880

It’s very expensive living here. I’ve stopped converting to Rands, thank goodness, because if I carried on I’d die of heart failure. The transport is pricey, but I purchased a rail saver card today. And as for the food…I’ve been living on Pepsi and Mars Bars. No, not really. I made lasagne the other night that I’ve frozen for the next week. Come Sunday I’m going to have to plot out exact meals for the week, because otherwise all of my money is going to be spent on food. Which I don’t want.

I can’t WAIT to go into London and spend all of my money on musical theatre! Wicked! Les Mis (again)! La Cage aux Folles (with John Barrowman!!!!!!!). Ah, bliss.

I think that’s all for now. I’ve been sick for the last day (lack of sleep and general travel fatigue I think), so my mind is a bit hazy at the moment. I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening in my life!

Watch this space.

Miss you all

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.