Settling In

I’ve made it to Brighton!  WOOOOOOOOOOO!  Unfortunately, (or, fortunately, considering the amazing opportunity I have in studying here) the number of O’s in that last exclamation are probably the number of hours I’ve slept this week.  I’m joking!!  I got at least one more O than that.  However, it has been quite a whirlwind tour!  There certainly is something special about studying a place for months and then having the opportunity to set foot in that place and become a part of it. 

Brighton is at once cosmopolitan and progressive, funky and quaint.  The downtown area is a bustling system of squares, alleyways and large city streets where graffiti art, Victorian architecture, tourists and locals coalesce in what amounts to a dynamic and exuberant urban core. 

Double Decker buses lined up on the main drag in Brighton - North Street

This past week has given me the opportunity to explore the city on my own and with the new friends I’ve already made here!  I’ve also participated in several tours led by student guides from the University of Sussex.  Later in the week, I went on a University sponsored trip for international students to London!

The very first place that I explored in Brighton – indeed the first place I set foot besides the train station – was the seaside.  An addendum to Brighton’s modern-day urban core, but nevertheless a consequential one and a common denominator in its own right, the seaside is what shaped Brighton into the modern city it has become.

The Brighton Seafront (Central and West) as seen from the Palace Pier.

The seaside has been busy since I’ve arrived here – busier than I would have expected during this rather cold and dreary time of the year.  The locals like to walk their dogs along the seafront, and a bike path along the sea is also very busy.  I almost got run over by a cyclist on my very first day here, as I thought that I was walking on the pedestrian-friendly portion of the seafront promenade, when in fact I was standing in the bike lane!

One of my favorite places to explore on the seaside so far has been the Brighton pier.  The “Palace Pier” features a kid/adult casino (picture a Dave and Buster’s, but with real slot machines thrown in just in case the adults want to gamble too), carnival rides, and street food.  I’m hoping to dedicate one of my future posts to the history of the pier (and Brighton’s previous piers, which, *sigh*, no longer exist…but stay tuned for my piers post which will definitely be titled “Piers for Fears,” in honor of one of my favorite English pop rock bands).

The Brighton Palace Pier

This past week has been a unique learning experience for me.  I learned how to use the public transportation here, how to navigate the Sussex campus, and how to avoid the local seagulls.  Just two days ago I woke up to a seagull staring at me and tapping on my bedside window with its beak!  Talk about a wake-up call!

Perhaps this was the perpetrator of my early morning wake-up call

In addition to the seagulls, I’ve also had the opportunity to interact with other international students that are studying here from all over the world.  A few of the other students that I’ve been palling around with hail from Italy, Hungary, Greece, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and Luxembourg – and those are just the students from Europe!  

Sussex is a veritable self-contained international community with large groups of students hailing from every continent in the world (minus Antarctica – though I’m sure they could get an emperor penguin up here and dress him or her in Sussex gear if they really wanted to).  More than 25% of the student population is composed of international students.

The Sussex Campus is actually much larger than I expected it to be.  A plethora of small cafes, pubs, and eateries will give me plenty to explore on the day-to-day.  My favorite place on campus so far (and I’m sure this want come as a surprise to those of you who know that I do, in fact, live in Mullins on the U of A campus), is the library.  I plan to do most of my studying here, as it is very spacious and has a distinctly official air about it.

             

Transitioning back to life in town, I wanted to mention very briefly (out of respect to my neighbors here) that I don’t actually live in Brighton, but rather in Hove.  Hove is Brighton’s western neighbor – albeit one that rather seamlessly blends into Brighton when travelling from west to east.   Many of the locals call it “Hove actually” because the Hoveans are very proud of being separate from Brighton.  A peace statue very close to where I live (dedicated to King Edward VII who was a frequent Brighton and Hove visitor) marks the boundary between the two cities.

While we’re on the subject of statues and monuments, I’d like to share a little bit about my introductory tour to London, which was organized by the Office of International Student Support here.  This tour was an excellent intro to many of the most famous landmarks in the city.  Despite the fact that it was a cold and dreary day today, our charismatic tour guide, Glenda, managed to keep the mood light.  We drove past many of the most famous landmarks, including the tower of London, the tower bridge, Westminster Abbey, the houses of parliament, and 10 Downing Street, while Glenda filled us in on the history of the different London neighborhoods.  

After our bus tour, we were given some three to four hours of free time to explore the city by foot.  I chose to spend my time in the National Portrait Gallery – a large collection of portrait paintings that is housed off of Trafalgar Square.  I then explored the square itself before briefly walking along the river.  

 

Obligatory selfie in front of the National Galleries in Trafalgar Square, which include the National Portrait Galleries

I hope to revisit London at least a few more times during my stay here in Brighton.  I’m particularly interested in devoting a day or two to seeing Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the British Museum, and the interior of the Tower of London.  It’s definitely going to take a few more days to see it all!  More to come on those adventures at a later date!

Another one...

My favorite part of all of it so far has been the people I’ve met.  Many of them have asked me to describe Arkansas to them, and they’ve even asked me to describe larger regions like the Midwest or the South.  I’m finding that it’s difficult to describe myself in a culturally relativistic way.  I have been trying very hard, though I’m still working on it, to fully and accurately describe my home.  I tell them that Arkansas is small, beautiful, and “kind of” in the middle of the country.  I’ve also spoken with them about the University of Arkansas and how, in many ways, it is very similar to Sussex – in that diversity and international education are very high priorities. 

   

I actually talked quite a bit about Arkansas and the Northwest Arkansas region last night when I was eating dinner with a few of my new friends here.  There were four of us at the table, and the other three students were from Norway, China, and Iran.  In addition to our home countries and regions, we talked about our secondary school experiences, sports, and even global politics.  I felt very alive during that conversation.  I felt that I was an incredibly unique individual surrounded by other unique individuals, but I also felt a sense of sameness.  I felt that the world – or, the way that I perceive the world – was simplified during the course of that conversation.

There we were – four individuals representing four very different world regions, and yet we were able to have an intellectually stimulating and productive time together.  Education – more specifically, a term spent studying abroad at the University of Sussex – is what brought us together.  And that’s all it took to get the conversation started.   

Now that I’ve started to converse with the other students here and interact with my surroundings, I plan on challenging myself to continue having that conversation and those experiences.  It is my goal to talk to at least one new person and go to at least one new place each week that I am here in Brighton.

That’s all for now, but I plan to post again sometime next weekend – at which point I will have completed my first week of classes!  Thank you very much for following along with me on this journey.

Cheers,

BD