Aaahhh...alcohol buzz...

Just got back from a mini pub-crawl with a couple of girls on the program. Great fun, actually. I have now had three drinks in one day - a record for me! (But rest assured, I remain in possession of my faculties. I'm just more buzzed and fuzzy in the head than I normally would be.)

We started at the college bar, where I had my second-ever Guinness (yummy stuff), and finished the whole half-pint in a game of Kings. (Thanks to Julia, Jess, and Cheryl for teaching me how to play last semester!) Then I was planning to quit, when Kate knocked on my door and said that some people were going to go to the Eagle and Child.

Well, tempt me with Tolkien and I'm in!



I discovered there that I like hard cider a lot. It helps with my essential alcohol wimpiness; I still feel like I'm drinking, but there's a buffer between me and the alcohol taste.

Then we moved on to the Lamb and Flag, which is literally right across the road (the Eagle and Child was very full and very warm):



I didn't know the girls we were with that much, but I really like them a lot. I got a delicious cider-esque drink called Thatcher's Gold, made with apples, which was extremely yummy and frighteningly easy to down quickly. Also, I did make the mistake of admitting early on that I was a sipper, which led one of the girls (Caroline) to instruct me to gulp frequently. Out of the four of us who were drinking, though, I finished mine third. Which is an improvement over my typical last-to-be-done thing. I think this is progress.

My head is actually a lot more fuzzy than it's used to being. I keep blinking a lot. And I really, really wish there was a water fountain in every building. I swear, the must-imbibe liquid here is water. There's an incredible shortage. They serve it at meals, but good luck finding a water fountain or a water cooler on campus! (We stopped in at one of the buildings on our way back because there was supposed to be a cooler. It was empty. CURSES.)

I'm going to bed now. We'll see how I feel in the morning for Hampton Court!

(And if I feel dreadful, I suppose I can sleep on the bus to London.)