Think what the future would be with a poor boy like me.

Welcome to Mary Chapman Court. I'm trying to get everyone to lovingly refer to it as "Shawshank". Shall we take a look around?



There's our kitchen! See that washer on the left side? It's a dryer as well! That's what we call a "space saver"!

There's the dining room. There are five of us in here, but only four chairs. The message from UEA is clear: eat quietly alone!


There's my bed! It's probably about 6' long. I'm 6'1" and 3/4s...



And there's the ol' desk. I'm writing at that desk right now.


I covered up the previous British student's graffiti with... all of that junk. Pictures and the like. Those three blue post-it notes have my phone number (it's too long to memorize!), my Pipettes ticket confirmation number, and my Barcelona confirmation number. How exciting!

Patrick says, and I agree, that British graffiti is much nicer than American graffiti. There was a huge sign on someone's garden wall that just said "Hey There!" His postboard had all sorts of encouragement on it. Conversely, Joseph still hasn't put anything on his postboard, and there is a lovely poem urging him to fall into a pit of despair. I don't call it Shawshank for nothing!



This is Patrick and me. We were getting ready to go out. The ties are a big hit, Mom! I'm glad I brought them, despite your raised eyebrows.



This is Joseph. Someone told him he looks like Orlando Bloom. I don't think so.

Life is quieter now that fresher's week is over - on Monday, we had a mildly offensive "French Night" where we drank red wine, ate brie on baguettes, listened to the Amelie soundtrack and drew moustaches on. British accent + french = fun!

And last night, we went to the pub up the road that we are trying to make our own - so far, each night that we are there, we take over one of the rooms and discuss such far ranging topics as CSS, prices at Tesco's, our love of Mary Chapman Court, and the weather.

I don't have class for these first few days of the week, so I have taken to wandering. I have time to write letters finally, and time to cook. The campus has a lovely lake that, I'm almost positive, has mermaids and a giant squid underneath. And every street in Norwich is just too picturesque and quaint to describe in anything other than tired cliches. I'm going to try and explore more of that today with a Belgian girl I met at that awfully loud international students night.

I also have time to go to Barcelona (I bought my tickets yesterday), Cambridge (I bought my tickets last weekend), and Amsterdam (still working on it.) Europe, here I come!

(exclamation mark count for this post: 12)