The Beach and New Neighbour Part 2 — Monday 26 September

Today, we (Jessi, Conor, Josie, James, and I) went to the beach. There are two in Sunderland, and we ended up at the north one. Unfortunately, we couldn't see Norway, but the North Sea was nice and ocean-y. The beach was great, with clean sand and not very many rocks. This might be partly because when the tide is in, or when "the sea is in" in local parlance, the water comes all the way up to the seawall.

We finally found the beach!

Sneaky water snuck up on me.

I was big on waves crashing, but not very successful in capturing them.

Proof.

The shoreline had impressive curves.

I was also fascinated by this little wall thing and the way the waves crashed into it.

Birds!

It looked cooler in real life. That wall is the seawall, and there's a crisp packet drifting along the little stream of water from further along the beach.

We don't follow rules. 

Obligatory cute picture of Josie and James walking on the beach. Jessi is on the left there.

Can you pick and choose?

Those things with white roofs, if you can't tell, are train cars. For Andrew.

Not one, but two lighthouses. For Mom.

The sea came in. The grey in the foreground is the seawall.

I think I walked down those stairs.

Shadow pictures!

More attempts to get sprays of water from crashing waves to follow.

It sounds so fancy, promenade.

The sea promptly started behaving like a huge body of water when it came in. No crashing waves, just big rolling ones.

Bird!

Danger, ha. I laugh in the face of danger.

Here's a couple more lighthouse pictures for Mom:

Sorry about the fuzzy. I thought I had a better one.

Not actually a real light house, but still cool.

We had lunch at a fish and chips place, and I had what was billed as a "cheese patty". It turned out to be a lump of cheese and potato that had been battered and deep fried. It was kind of weird, but the chips were really good.

 I got a picture with someone else's fish for the blog.

Another English tradition checked off my list!

After that, I wandered around campus trying to get my computer troubles sorted. I can't check my timetable because I'm not actually registered for any modules, as it turns out. This made me rather irate. The fact that IT was only available from 10 AM to 2 PM today didn't help my mood.
In the end, I skipped my first class in protest of not being able to pick out classes until two business days before they start, not that they'll really know on account of me not being registered. Also, it was at 18:00 and I was reading and didn't want to catch the bus. I need a pair of slippers, because my feet are really taking a beating.
After we all got back from our various errands, Jessi hit a steep downward slope on her W-curve. The flat's common area was really messy, which has been irking her for a few days, and then there was a note on the door telling us to take out the trash and recycling. She stomped around in a bad mood and cleaned the entire common area while muttering that she hates the cleaning lady, the trash can, the vacuum, the floor, the carpet, the sink, the counter, Clanny House, Sunderland, and England. I did try to help, but she was in the sort of mood that doesn't welcome too much help.
She bounced back pretty well once the place was clean and everyone commented on it.
Tonight, we decided to have a subdued welcome party for Tom, the new guy. He didn't get back from class until after 21:00, which was about two hours after we all gathered. I suspect that we share that class, but there could be other 18:00 monday classes.
When Tom finally showed up, we discovered that he is from County Tipperary in the Republic of Ireland (so, from the British Isles, but not British as such). He's in what I believe is an education programme, although he says that he's studying history and english. I think it's because he's doing secondary (essentially the same as middle school/high school in the states) education with the intent of teaching english and/or history; he's done a semester of student teaching 14-year-olds (I think he said first years, but I'm really not sure now that I've looked up the English school system on wikipedia). He plays hurling, which is referred to as the fastest game on grass. It's pretty brutal, like a cross between field hockey and rugby. I feel that this should prepare him pretty well for teaching adolescents.
It also appears that Jessi (my roommate) is quite taken with Tom. It's pretty funny, and also induced one of the first gossip-y moments that we had as a flat (sans Jessi and Tom). Thanks to the fairly even mix of genders and wide spectrum of personality types in the flat, there've been almost no snippy, catty little incidents.
We had a fun discussion about accents in general, which occasionally prompted arguments between Adam and James (northern and southern, respectively) in which they mimicked each other's accents.
Around 23:30, a general craving for pizza was discovered, and we hunted frantically through our collection of flyers and takeout menus for a pizza place open after 23:00. Once we found one, Josie called and had a hard time communicating with the pizza person. I'm sure it didn't help that her australian accent isn't very similar at all in any way to the pizza person's Geordie accent. I'm really not sure why Adam didn't call in the first place, because he can actually talk with a Geordie accent.