Double your money

The Giants just won, awesome. Now I have some updating to do:

Ok so the last time I posted was last Friday. Since then, a lot went on, but nothing much happened, if you catch my drift. Friday and Saturdays, Hannah and Dali and all of them go home because the locals are all out clogging the pubs/clubs on their nights off. So we tend to stay in Nelson House and hang out with our international and English cohorts.

Friday night, we went to a pub to watch the English rugby match. Johnny Wilkinson and company beat up on some team that I don't remember anymore. I met this kid Philip, who's originally from Hong Kong but has been living here for 3 or four years now. I just had a couple Guinness' (which is much better here then at home), but he drank far too much. He told me that I should never, ever say sorry in the UK. He insisted that you only get 3 points when you score in rugby, even though I watched England score 5. He also raved on about some other things I've since forgotten. But after the game, we went to his flat for a little while to celebrate.

I think it was that night that I made my pact to wrestle Vidar at some point this semester. He's a big boy:
That's my roommate, Pilla, on the left, and Vidar on the right. He's going down. He don't even know. (We're good buddies, it's just in fun)

Phillip proceeded to make all of us laugh the rest of the night. He tackled Lora, Vladimir's girlfriend, and begged her for a kiss. He stole a bite of Donner Kebab right off of Vladimir's fork. When Vladimir went to get him back by putting a dollop of mayonnaise on his face, he licked it right off his finger (ugh). He's lucky Vladimir's a peaceful guy, because he's very big:

That's me and Marta on the left, while Vladimir enjoys some of my fine American hip-hop music (these pictures are from last night, which i'll get to).

So after a while, Phillips alcohol consumption caught up to him, so he had to throw up, and then he had to go to bed. We kept right on hanging out in his flat though, hahaha. Eventually one of his English flatmates came home to find us, and asked if we wanted to go upstairs to hang out with more people. Me and J.B. went, but everyone else went to bed.

Up in 092 were some new English people who's names I've entirely forgotten. They were very nice though, we talked about America, and how every last one of us eats McDonald's everyday and carries guns, and loves George Bush. It was funny.

The last time I posted on this blog, I didn't know my last flatmates name. Her name is Maï-lys (my lease), from France. Mai-lys is a very nice girl. She drew me a picture, and she made us quiche one night, which was scrumptious. Her and John hadn't seen the Clifton suspension bridge, so on Saturday me and Nick walked with them, all around town. Again. It was a nice day though, and I wanted to walk, so it was nice. We also ruthlessly degraded the wonderful statues of Bristol:

Take that, pirate beetle that makes no sense!


On the walk home, I got to take a picture of a piece of graffiti by a man named Banksy. I forgot to mention him last post. Banksy is an anonymous man from Bristol who travels around the world and puts graffiti art everywhere, including the Israel West Bank barrier. They are usually satirical messages. He's recently become very famous, his canvas works selling to the likes of Angelina Jolie for hundreds of thousands of dollars. He has two pieces in Bristol that I know about. I like the other one better then this one:

But this one is posted on the side of a sexual health clinic, which is pretty funny. The people of Bristol voted to have it stay, rather than be removed.

After a long day of walking, we hung out in Ben's flat the floor below. Vladimir made some of the most delicious pizza I've ever tasted. He used eggs and mushrooms on one, and it was actually really really good. He said he's going to open his own pizza business one day, and I told him I'd buy stock in that. He's going to make pizzas for us one night also, hopefully.

On Sunday we went to campus to watch the French vs. Georgia rugby game. (We watch a lot of rugby, it's the world cup so we have to.) The French won 63-7 or something ridiculous like that, it was really funny to watch.

I think Sunday night we met Dali's dad at a pub. He seems like a pretty nice guy, and he works in computer security, so I told him about my internship this summer. When Mai-lys ordered a round of beers, they gave them to her warm for some reason. She asked them for new ones, and they refused saying they warned her, so she said "I don't speak English!" Eventually they gave us a bucket of ice, and we drank our lukewarm beers.

The week was pretty tame. On Monday we went in, and me and John had a bit of a row with our advisers. They told us originally that we could take history classes, but when we came in they said that we couldn't. Eventually John got his Mom involved, and she put her two cents in. Moms fix everything. So now we can take history classes, but it took almost all week.

I had my first class on Friday with John, which was Intro to Visual Culture. The lecture itself was pretty good, our professor is quite intelligent. We learned about art and how technology throughout the ages helped art expand, basically. After a short break, we had a second half of the class, with a tutor. This was much more boring, because the guy just carried on forever and actually said little to nothing.

Art classes are on a separate campus, and everyone there is dressed like...art students. They all wear crazy clothes and have wacky haircuts, and there's me and John, the engineering/math degrees, dressed like lazy Americans. Me and John both fell in love with a girl with dredlocks and a miniskirt. Like dredlocks, she's on top of the rasta.

We've been playing wii bowling and other games at Dali's flat. John's so good at boxing, he doesn't even have to look at the screen, he just throws his fists while he sits and talks to us. Eventually, the opponent gets knocked out. Amazing.

One of the nights early in the week we tried to go out to Oceana, but it was kind of late and the bouncer didn't like the look of me, or something. So I was going to just walk back to Nelson House, but Nick and John left and got me. We Americans stick together. I feel so loved <3. size="3">Żubrówka (zoo brohf kah), which is "Bison Grass Vodka" from Poland. Marta brought that. It comes with a blade of grass inside the bottle, which is like a classy version of the worm at the bottom of tequila bottles. Naturally, I ate the grass once we finished the bottle. It tasted like...grass.

A good time was had by all. Even Pilla joined in!


Jean Baptiste had a little too much to drink and threw up on our carpet, and all in the girls bathroom. Poor guy, it's not his fault - his country is going to win the Rugby Cup! Luckily he didn't let that get him down, as you can see:
Phew, finally done! I have a headache now from all that writing. The things I do to keep good memories...