Welcome to Europe!

 <--- A make-up counter seat for a bathroom.

Last night was the first meeting with my entire residence hall. When I entered the basement, some older students -- whose authority is still questionable -- were ushering all the new "freshers" towards a refreshment table. One look at that spread, and I knew I was in European heaven: an army of plastic cups filled with red and white wine covered almost every square inch of the 20-foot-long table. 

During his speech, a member of the resident hall staff reminded us to eat plenty, as he knew the entire room would be drinking heavily. Seeing as only one bowl of Lays potato chips sat meagerly next to the overwhelming wine display, it was evident that either I had not seen the entire refreshment table, or the man was telling a very bad joke. However, there was definitely enough wine to go around. Viva la 18+ drinking age!

Before we left our dorm to head to a bar, some people ran back to their rooms to grab a beer for the road. I asked them if it was OK for them to drink in the streets. After a series of contradicting statements, I think the crowd finally agreed that is was "frowned upon." I'm not quite sure what this means in legal terms, but I figured I'd just wait until we got to wherever we were going.

On our walk back from the club, we stopped at a pizza stand that advertised "real Italian pizza." Our multicultural group obviously consisted of an Italian -- the real kind, who actually had his suitcase in hand because he was going back to Milan the next day. He of course argued that it was not real Italian pizza, and, yadda yadda yadda, we're all invited to his house in Italy to try the real thing.

Because the tube (subway) closes at midnight, we decided to take a bus home. We waited for 20 minutes so that we could get on the "free" bus. I asked why we didn't need to pay, and one of the boys from London taught me that we were waiting for a bus that had doors that open on the side, as well as in the front. We would get in through the side doors so that we didn't have to pass the driver, and, as long as we didn't make eye-contact with him, we'd be all right.

Oh, I have so much to learn!