struggling against our posting inertia

so i'm thinking we need a post at this point so as to save our blog from falling into disrepair before it even starts. i feel it my civic duty, nay, my preordained destiny to save this blog from stagnation.

that said, i have absolutely no idea where to begin.

a wise man once said "begin at the beginning"
but i don't listen to proverbs.

also, i just made that up.

so instead, i'll compose a thematic post on a topic that i'm sure none of you saw coming;
"alcohol consumption in britain"

don't worry, this shan't be a "dude, i got so wasted last night, and then i passed the fuck out in your yard!" post, no, far more classy than that.
it will instead be a "sir, do believe that, after that last glass of fantastic '72 port, i was rather battered (thats the common synonym for drunk used here), and because i am far too dignified to sleep among the rabble at this pub, i chose instead to sleep on your lawn"

so as to construct some semblance of a chronological narrative, i'll begin with our first days here. matt's first facebook album was entitled "Turns out, drinking cures Jet-Lag!"

and how untrue it is!

we quickly discovered four things about our lovely little south london neighborhood (camberwell)

1). the first pub we went to the very first night i was here, the bartender said "..well...this isn't really a 'walk around alone at night' kind of neighborhood" (actually, just yesterday a rapist escaped form the hospital 2 blocks away...so thats fun)

2). our dormitory has its own student bar within it!

3). our dormitory's student bar is rather shitty, and the prices aren't so cheap as we'd expected

4). there is a wonderful pub called "the fox on the hill" one block north of our dorm, and we love it dearly

we slowly have come to learn other things about the state of drinking here, and because i like the little list i just made, i'm going to make another one. if you don't like lists, then you should just deal with, and you should also probably get someone else to do your grocery shopping.

1. Cider
1. oh my goodness, i'm falling in love with cider faster thank you can say 'beer is better' (which i'm sure you're thinking, especially if your middle name is elias and your last name ends in 'orte')
2. there is a brand of cider called 'K' which comes in 550ml cans for 1 pound, and is 8.4% alcohol. we love it more than most people love their cants of cheap cider, because we think in dollars, and then we say 'fuck' and buy the cheapest, strongest thing we can find (well i do anyways).
1. As an aside, i might mention that josh and i have, on several occasions, bought three cans of K at once and consumed them in a night. we flirted with a few names for nights when three or more cans of K are consumed...we're thinking a baseball metaphor will be best...
   
3. there also exists a very foul, but very cheap brand of cider known as "white strike" which is sold in 2 liter bottles for about 2 pounds sterling. i had one during the nfl playoffs a few weeks ago, and a british student here was kind enough to inform me that "that shits for chavs mate"
1. yay! a new aside! apparently, a 'chav' is somewhere between douchebag and wanna be badass, usually very young in late teens or early twenties. yay slang education! yay asides!
   
2. Drinking Culture
1. so when we were at our nice little macalester orientation, the british woman who came to speak those of us coming to london said that we should be warned that 'binge drinking is more acceptable there'; at which point josh and i looked at one another with terror and i jumped into his arms for fear of alcohol consumption
2. she wasn't kidding. or rather, she wasn't kidding, but was a little bit wrong. kids here DRINK. a lot. but they do it more often, and not quite as ridiculously. i'd say they average 4-5 drinks 3-4 nights a week....well, for some 4-5 nights, so they aren't stumbling around drunk all the time, but a lot of them are tipsy more often than not, which is nice, but not conducive to getting work done when people are down with drinking on any given night of the week :-( ...... :-D
3. granted, i should also point out that we live in a freshman dorm with a bunch of 17, 18 and 19 year old kids. its weird that the 'dorm culture' here is one where everyone can go out to the bars/clubs....
   
3. shhhhhhhhhh
1. speaking of the last post, that means that drinking in the rooms isn't quite as prevalent here, which means we americans get yelled at for being loud with a relatively high degree of frequency when we hang out and have a few bottles of wine (that is, Sainsbury's Basics Spanish Red Wine ^_^).
   

oh, and i almost forgot. the greatest discovery of our young lives: ye olde cheshire cheese. its a fantastic pub at which dickens drank frequently (and apparently is implicated in tale of two cities) that was rebuilt in 1667 (fires suck). it has wonderful old londony atmosphere and delicious beer (exclusively samuel smith's) for very reasonable prices, especially considering its in central london. if ever you come to london, ye olde cheshire cheese is a must.

well thats about it, i should finish tidying up my room. they have a cleaning staff at this dorm that forces you to have your room tidy so they can clean it. weird huh?

'cheers'
~Nibl without the orte