If you want to feel sudddenly and irrevocably worthless, walk into any bank and exchange your life savings for the same amount in British Pounds Sterling.

It's just amazing. Have you ever been to Quebec and found that soda is still a dollar and lunch is still five? Remember how excited you were when you found out that would only cost you 60 cents or three dollars?

Imagine that, only the exact opposite. Coffee for $3, a movie for $12.50. A sandwich for $8. But the numbers look fine: £1.60 for the joe, £8 for a movie (£5 with student ID).

The city of Brighton England is where I have wanted to live my whole life. All city bus system. Clubs, pubs, theaters and restaurants surround a little green. To the right a turn of the 19th century Britons built a pavillion of the size of the Taj Mahal.

People walk everywhere and there is not a single thing you can't find in this city if you look hard enough. It is San Fransisco but with swimable water and a year round ferris wheel and roller coaster.

I set out today because my room smelled like playdough and it looked like housing quarters from the Institution of Living. Given that I have very little money, I relished at stores like Oxfam (a salvation army where the money goes abroad because, well, there isn't much of a homeless problem here or in London), Poundland (everything for £1 including toothpaste and gallons of orange juice), and Woolworths.

But having spent too much on too little living, my stomach growled and filed for neglect. I shook the coins in my pocket and found less than £5. Morosely, I walked past Burger King, the place I specifically promised myself I would never go, and looked at the prices for a black bean burger.

I walked to another store with plans of returning to my imperialism value meal. Inside "T.K. Max" the British cousin of my sunday school clothes companion "T.J. Max" I rode the escalator up and behind me an embarassment of British girls giggled. "I know, it is so trashy here, but I found a French Connection rollneck for only ten quid once!"

Demoralized, I headed down the escalator having not found sheets and readied myself for super sizing when I walked out the side door to a sign.

"Eat-As-Much-As-You-Like Indian Buffet." £3.50

Oh, the British...

Take the seven ugliest buildings at Kenyon College. Now add every suburban highschool built after 1962 and multiply it by twelve. For good measure, add the changing room from your community swimming pool. And to top it off: include any building designed by George Gund or any other post war designer with a love for gravel and a small but stiff erection for the ability to make something out of concrete.

Now weather it for 30-50 years. And place it on the edge of a freeway that leads to San Fransico.

And welcome yourself to the University of Sussex. My new home.

My favorite part of this whole British country has been the piles and piles of history everywhere. I stood in the Natural history museum of London and had to collect my dropped jaw when I read "The short and stout Homo Neaderthal inhabited the regions in and around London as many as 500,000 years ago."

The plus side is that it is easy to get around and easy to get away from what with the busses. But goodlord, I feel sick imagining a team of archetechts in hardhats watching the concrete dry and saying, "My goodness me, old chaps, this little mudpile of ours sure has turned into the seaside's oxford now hasn't it."

"Now now, Higgens, don't count your chickens you know. The concrete has just poured, at least wait for thirty minutes while it dries before you say so."

Cheated out of a semester abroad in India by Pervez Musharaff, I am missing out on a number of things. Among them: being rich in a comopolitan city, and th euphoria I read about from my abroad friends that comes from ordering their meals in the local language.

To rectify this I have perpetrated two things:

1) I rarely eat, because American money is worthless here.

2) I am working on my british.

To do this well I have to climb into the mind of a Brit. I have to sally up to the counter and order a meal using a voice I previously reserved for making fun of Kenyon College.

"Cheerio, could I trouble you for a spot of coffee?" If you heard me, you'd think I was doing a bad monty python, but to them I sound either convincing or not from around here.

The point is that most of these people hate Americans, especially since we're draggin them to war. If there is to be rudeness, food spitting, or ridicule, it won't be aimed at this mate.

"How much ah'owe you for't? Three quid and a bollygag, then?" I say as I fumble through coins and flip each one over to check its denomination. "Yes, there we are (I hope), cheers."

While taking pictures of a woman's statues in the window of a "shop" we struck up a conversation and upon telling her that I was from New York she said with delight, "Really? Well you don't have an accent."

The keys are in the little words: You're my mates, that'll be a fiver, I'm terribly sorry. Swallow the R's. It's a lot of fun.

While on the payphone in Picadilly Circus, I realized something. It was after I had spoken with the same woman from the pre-paid calling card company for over 20 minutes. I desperately need someone to talk to. Instead, I'll go to be and go to college tomorrow.

Dinner with Jesus.

He's been here three months, but he came to me to ask if the Picadilly Line went to Earl's Court. I informed him that this was my stop and I was getting off there already.

Without the benefit of accents I would type his name 'Jesus' as he if from Mexico.

We shared a horrendous dinner together at our stop. I had easily the worst falafel ever. No tahini, only ketchup and mustard. You can imagine.

Throughout the meal he tried to speak English to me, and I would throw in my various spanish words to help him.

"So you dropped out of esquela to come?"

"Yis, but I am back home going in december."

We had a pleasant conversation in the present tense. It was mostly about how godamm exprensive this city is. He informed me that 50 pesos is a five dollars, but only one pound in England. He lives across from the hostel where I am staying, but he could not recommend any restaurants inasmuch as he has never eaten out in the three months he's been here because it's too expensive.

How do you not pay for a guys' burger after that?

Of all the obvious advantages to dating Amanda, there is one I commonly overlook and that is the ability it gives me to talk to people without sounding as though I am hitting on them.

Given the amount of heterosexual clothing I wear, this gives me great ability to meet people, find "mates" for meals, and discuss things like the history of St. Pauls Cathedral and the London Underground without making anyone nervous.

So long as I mix it into the converstion, of course.

Thus, even when I am making up a person to be, I have to get it in there. Oftentimes this gets difficult given that I will plan on being Parcel, an auto mercedes mechanic on the way to work on a new project at the plant, because I will also mention that tomorrow I am heading for Turkey to see my girlfriend who is abroad this semester.

"We met in school---uh..highschool."

Why my school will never be mentioned in US News and World Report

This is an email from the International Education advisor to me.

----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 2:43 AM
Subject: RE: OCS Fall 2002

> Dear Brendan: Please clear up something for me. You ARE on OCS
> this semester at the University of Sussex - right? Just wondering - do
> you leave later?
> >
> >
> >Bobbie McPhail
> >Administrative Assistant
> >Office of International Education

>Yes, I am. I leave for England in 8 hours.
>
> -brendan

Brendan: GREAT! Have a wonderful time and enjoy Scotland. Bobbie

Of all the sub-genres of people I thought I would meet in London, I never considered "Indonesian Homosexuals" to be high in the likely list.

On the bus to the movies, I met a man named Leo and we talked for a long time. He directed me to the Movie theatre and we discussed things to see if you have a day to kill. He asked what I was doing here and what not.

By Knightsbridge, we had become good friends and he invited me to a party that night. I figured that this was how travel horror stories begin, but I realized that,if nothing else, I could take this little guy down if necessary.

I had set a goal for myself that day of spending only the £8 in my pocket for food and travel, and I was falling behind.

So at 4:30, realizing that if nothing else, I could eat the chips and dip at this party, I called him. "I should tell you that my friends are, kind of, uh, different."

I met him at the tower of London, when I still thought he was straight, but as we walked further, I started to sort of grasp the potential gravity of the situation. This small asian man is going to hide me in the tower and torcher me for the years of Colonization he lived under.

Instead, we walked around the tower to an amazing "flat" on the other side of a Yacht Marina.

His friends could be described thusly: Indonesians who have trouble talking to their mothers on the phone. Self described "Island Princesses", the majority of them nurses, with a few fashion designers and salesmen in there too.

The mood of the night was happy, and gay. Their jokes were weak, but they laughed heartily at every time they made a small ha-ha ("I thing I getting sick","you should watch what you eat", "Hey, I careful what I put in my mouth!") My favorite type of superficial friend, because I don't even have to work hard.

They served up the most filling and delicious tofu stir fry, curry, and "halaba" a cocounut cake. When I had nothing buy a greasy paper plate in front of me, one of the princesses leaned over and asked me in broken English "You finish?"

"No," I ennunciated "A-mer-i-can." Instant ins. They laughed their Island asses off, and I couldn't stop thinking about how terrible that joke was. I couldn't even use that one on my grandmother. "Hoo-hoo, 'Finnish.' No not are you from Feenland, are you done with your plate." The slow ones caught on and the laughing happened again.

There were a few other white guys there: bus driver, business guy, an american (as if that's an occupation). The only women at the party were likewise homosexuals (I have no idea how these people find one another, but I can't imagine it was on the bus.) I sat back suddenly fearing that I was someone's date.

How do you get out of that one? I had slept a fitful hour on the plane, but by 10 it wasn't helping. I was too far from the subway to get myself there. "You wan go?" asked Leo, noticing me face deep in orange juice. Oh shit. Oh shit. This is how the stories start. I stalled in going so not to be rude and to have other people come with us.

"So Brendan," one of the white guys asked, "What are you doing here, exactly."

"Brendan is an Inglish-reading major," Leo answered for me. "Hiss girlfriend she go to school in Cypress and he go see her."

After an entire evening of uncomfortable attacks, I forgot that I had told him that within a minute of our bus conversation.

When I left I had already made friends. Of couse, they thought my name was Brendan Markowizc from New York City, a 25-year-old Junior at NYU. But to be fair, they created me. ("Brainden, how old are you 25, 26?" " New York City? Do you go to NYU?" "You got a big family, don't you, I bet you have half a dozen brothers and sisters.") There is little reason to lie, but even less compelling reasons to tell the truth.

I said goodbye. "Was nice meeting you, come back soon, you welcome anytime." They said and we exchanged limp handshakes. "Say hi to your seven seesters for us. Oghay?"

Getting off of the train, I jangled the £6 in my pocket, and went out to Piccadillly circuse for the night to look at people.

While it may be easy for me to make friends on the bus or at the airport, I should add: my entire hostel hates me.

Last night in the TV room I was reading my book for a while before bed and the man next to me leaned over and exhaled some Lucky Stikes on me: "I con't beleive you're reading during 'Warlock', I mean this is a quality film."

"It's not exactly difficult to follow: the two 18th century guys are chasing eachother in the 80's."

Time passed and they exchanged who-the-fuck-is-this-guy glances. I went back to my book.

Half an hour later: "Could you do my a favor then, mate? Why don't you just read out loud, it'll be less of a distraction."

Like New York this is a paradise for all economic means.

For £3 I can ride the bus and subway all day and go to dozens of free museums.

Today: Natural History

Tomorrow: History of London Transportation.

Brittain so far is everything I wanted out of my cross country trip and never got.

It's a place so close, yet so unintelligible to understand with background noise. When I go into conveneince stores there a products on sale under different names than in America. I can walk past the new Starbuckses where Germans tourists talk about how the cappucinno is in America, and I can laugh thinking about how European people always feel when they sit and sip a Frappuchinno in West Hartford Center.

In short: it's weird and I can safely laugh at it.

For example: I got off the airport and a man with a British face was driving one of those inner airport golf carts. I laughed my out-loud-ass off thinking about that Austin Powers 21 point k-turn.

Oh Britons.

Flight Check:

The two Scottish women next to me were the best plane cohorts ever. We became friends within minutes which made everything on the trip "just luvley." Given that we were friends it became and act of companionship to put down our headphones and ignore Frasier so that someone could climb over to the bathroom.

Such is what I think I'll do from now on, just to keep my airplane spirits up. I normally dread flying because I can't stand people's travel attitudes. We had great conversation, but there was a time delay while I translated each sentence:

"OOO Brigh'on willyou'va flatshare?"

".....Uh, yes, actually the University has arranged a room in an apartment for me."

Security check:

They definately had me unlace and take off my boots while they took them to a backroom for inspection. They also had my belt, which left me standing spread armed in my white socks, holding up my pants and not allowed to pick up my backpack.

Anyone who goes into an airport has either been saving for this day or has an expense account. Thus there are thousands of ways to lose your loot here.

Newstands aside, you can buy CDs at Altitunes, a caesar salad, Sushi, Beer, cappucino, chai latte (separate place), Gap clothing, or a full body massage at D-parture spa.

And they definately snagged me. I just found out I couldn't get a vegetarian meal, so I bought a veggie burger and rice pilaf (both of which were un-aiportly good.)

Oh, and yes, this is my second stop at the internet payphone.

The girl in the booth next to me is on the phone having one of those conversations that seem to surround the white girl dreadlocks lifestyle.

"Dude, my life is fucked too. Alright? What do you want me to say?"

This just goes to show why I have so much trouble travelling. When it comes to packing, I bring so little in the venue of entertainment because of people like her, who are my stage and screen. Well, her and the thousands of other people here at Newark International Airport who thrill me to no end, including this mother-in-law-to-be who shouts across the people movers from a newstand:

"I'M GETTING GUM DO YOU WANT MODERN BRIDE?"

And my mother was phaberghasted when I told her I didn't need to bring my disc-person.

My father is a project manager for the State. His job is to plan and do much with very little in a short amount of time. Imagine that on vacation.

My mother is the worrying-type who doesn't find excitement in getting lost.

Between the two of them, I have trouble explaining my unthoughtout philosophies. The idea of packing the night before going somewhere is repugnant to them. The mere thought that I would skip the first two days of orientation is blasphemy. And just thinking that I would spend two days getting lost in London is just more than they would like to stand.

International travel to them meant bringing travellers check and buying McDonalds in Canada on the way to Michigan. Somehow it upsets them that I would go somewhere without exchanging money, or carrying a ticket.

I'm sitting at a pay for use terminal at Newark International Airport. Yes, I am at the airport, upset that all the good material is taken.

As one of those last minute individuals put on this earth to upset the schedule-oriented, I made few friends in the check in line as I realized that I had not packed my bags for departure, nor did I know where my passport was.

A disgruntled dad behind me asked me if I could please move up to fill the 6 foot void in front of me in the labyrinth line. "I'm sorry, but are we in line?" I asked.

He looked perplexed.

"That is to say, are we all in a very long line and not very close to the counter? When I move up, you're going to move up no matter when I do it. Am I right?"

Of course, that's only what I was thinking. He really only gave me nasty looks as I packed my raincoat.

Here's a song for the beginning of the trip:

"England Belongs to Me"-Cocksparrer.

Before I head off to England (tomorrow) I would just like to mention a few things I plan on doing unapplogetically in the next three months:

1) Pretending to be from England.

2) Expressing delight with the word "lovely."

3) Shaving with a single razor blade.

4) Going into restaurants only to drink espresso (cup and saucer only).

5) Going to Ireland simply to work on the accent.

6) Living in a "flat."

7) Taking pictures of the Eiffel tower.

8) Going to Piza and taking pictures of all the tourists lining themselves up so that their pictures will show them holding the tower up.

9) Pretending to be a student at Cambridge or Oxford.

10) Involving myself in conversations wherein the essence could be described as "Well I say, those Irish simply are a nation of imbeciles and canal diggers."

11) Making note of street signs, traffic arrangements, local customs, eating techniques, lifestyles, philosophies, shirt and pants combos, and shoes that are superior to their American counterparts.

12) Going to art museums in the middle of the day.

13) Being genuinely interested in the lives, happiness, and health the royal family.

14) Telling people I am from New York.

15) Sending postcards from towns with names like "Ramsbottom", "Brown Willy", and "Shitlingthorpe."

16) Introducing myself to other Americans, merely because we are both American.

17) Introducing myself to such Americans as "Bihad, from Bangladesh."

18) Explaining "Apu" from the Simpsons.

19) Throwing my hands up in the air and saying "I don't know, no one asked me." when asked to account for the new James Bond movie, and why it is made by and for Americans.

20) Returning and starting every story with "In england.." and not "when I went from one remote college to another and had everything paid for for me..."

INTERMISSION
Abandoned Mini Golf Course

that i found on the way to a story one day.

Just think about all the teenagers who came here when they didn't get invited to the cool parties in the eighties. Imagine them as they quote--without a trace of irony--movies like "Say Anything."

Do you think they threw shit into the volcano or hid behind the skull when it stood upright?

Just like when Amanda and I went to Centralia, I suddenly got overcome by the death of the place. People used to work here. Someone built this place. This windmill was a big part of someone's life. And now: nothing. It's scary to think how fast that happens.

Plus, the place was just fucking dirty. You know that feeling you get when you're in someone's house and you don't know them well enough to be ok with it smelling bad?

But, look at this: moss grows over the astroturf, and a yellow flower sprouts out of the third hole.

That's so fucking heroic.

[end fatalistic interlude]