end of Day 7.

Neil, Mel's husband, is driving a toy radio-controlled car around the dining room table while i'm typing this, and Mel is on facebook. their 15 year-old-daughter is trying to get them to go to bed.

hi, i'm in Brighton. i've been welcomed with open arms, near as i can tell. Mel had Neil fire up the grill and i ate more tonight than i have all week. then we, the of-drinking-age adults, went down to the local pub and had grown-up conversations. now there's the remote controlled car and conversations about Michael Jackson and i'm drinking beer alternating with Black Currant tea. Mel is trying to explain chavs to me. (they're basically DudeBros, but they haven't discovered Icing yet.)

i'm having difficulty blogging and having a conversation at the same time.

can... can i have some rock'n'roll french fries? oh. oh. can you just call them that? call them rock'n'roll french fries?

spent the day walking around Brighton. oh wait, i didn't talk about last night. hold on a moment.

right. everyone else is gone to bed, now it's down to business. where was i? oh yeah.

last night: finally had fish and chips, although i've been told since that the place i went isn't very good, so perhaps i'll have to try again. i spent yesterday hanging out with two random Australian girls, friends, they didn't seem to mind my presence so much. we saw Kele Okereke of Bloc Party, who just put out a solo album, play live at some club called Digital. it was really good and something i'm pretty sure i would've never seen in America. i took a picture as proof, maybe i'll show it to you.

after Kele, the girls and i wandered a little more, then ended up back at the bar beneath the hostel. turns out Thursday night is karaoke night at the bar. it's a contest, winner gets a bottle of champagne. so of course i competed.

one of the Ozzie girls also competed. she's not a great singer, but she's animated and bubbly and kind of cute so she had quite a few fans. she and i both thought we were doing quite well in the contest, until Bilbo and Beth showed up. ringers. he did a Sinatra-esque croon, i can't remember the name, and she did Holding Out For a Hero. they shared the bottle. the karaoke host sort of realized i got robbed, i think, so he bought me a shot and wished me luck next time. then i went to bed. it was about 3am.

woke at about 6:30, but i and the other four people in the room, though all awake, pretended we were still sleeping, each afraid of being the one who officially wakes the others accidentally with a squeaky floorboard. we played that game until about 7/7:30, when a loud American moseyed in. i was ashamed for my country, he was talking loud, not showing an ounce of courtesy for the five apparently-sleeping people in the room. jerk.

then it was breakfast. then i checked my backpack in at the hostel and went to say hi to Mel. found her work, let her know what i look like, then spent the day seeing Brighton. felt a bit like my skin was going to catch fire, from the heat. tried to stay out of direct sunlight, not sure i succeeded. i saw the museum and the shopping mall, and i bought aftershave (my face kinda burns if i don't use it) and moisturizing lotion (my hands are dryer than a desert).

caught up with Mel at her work's closing time, she drove me to her home, and now you know the rest of the story. going to bed now, goodnight.

for the record: Flight of the Conchords - Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room), The Killers - Mr. Brightside, Placebo - Nancy Boy, Soft Cell - Tainted Love.