"From Soho down to Brighton..."

Ok. I know I literally just finished a post - but I was technically supposed to have that one finished yesterday. I'll go ahead now and write about how literally awesome and amazing Brighton was.

First of all, let me explain some very important information. Brighton is famous for being called the place of the "Dirty Weekend." There was a king, I don't remember which, who housed his 'second' wife in Brighton. He built her this huge palace and visited on the weekends - hence - love affairs lead somehow to 'dirty weekend.'

Anyway, on my little adventure over to the sea there was no love affair although I did fall in love with this city. Brighton has a lovely quaint feel and the coastline is full of all these beautiful buildings with Regency style architecture. AND there's the ocean and a pier with all these rides on it and stuff.

The only problem was that of course - it is England - so of course - it rained. It was miserably cold and rainy the whole time. Luckily I had my umbrella but of course I didn't think to lug my rain jacket around everywhere. I've noticed that when people travel over here (at least in the UK) they always have these huge athletic looking backpacks. Now I know why - if they are doing any sort of traveling they need to carry about such a ton of rain gear that they have to have huge backpacks to put it all in.

Now. Onwards with the story. We met our British Life and Culture professor at the train station. She had her lovely beautiful dalmatian with her named Roxy. She took us on a quick tour of all the side streets that she called "the hippie bit." Well I was excited because they had a vinyl store on every street corner and all sorts of cheaper looking used clothes stores. Oh how I love Savers and Goodwill.

As soon as we had the time to retrace our steps I bought a leather jacket. I know what you're thinking she did what? But the jacket was practical because I was cold and it's still too warm for a pea-coat. It's really cute I'll post a picture of me in it soon. I promise.

Anywho - Susie took us to the ocean and we were all a little amazed by the rocky beach. I've never seen anything like it. I picked up a bunch of rocks and such because it was fascinating to me to see a beach that was so different. After being on the beach Susie left us to explore the town. Kemper and Mandi and I went to investigate the pier. I think if it hadn't been raining I would have definitely ridden the carousel.

After that we went back to the beach one more time to walk along the shops that they have that are literally right in front of the beach. I guess that England doesn't really get hurricanes? The shops had a lot of artist studios housed in them and I thought that would be neat to work right off the beach. I really wish it had been sunny.

After we traversed for a bit we got lost in the alleyways of the city. Susie told us when she was leading us around that the narrow streets are the same layout of Brighton that existed in the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries. I was amazed by that and found that this information made walking through tiny alleyways all the more fun.

We happened to visit Brighton on the weekend of their food festival. Haha. So, they had all these booths out with all these foods. I couldn't help myself - it was like a cross between the farmer's market in the river market and a food festival. There was a booth with special bread so I bought a loaf of olive bread that was larger than my had. I made a grilled cheese sandwich with it when I woke up this morning and I'm thinking it puts sourdough bread in the states to shame. It was definitely a good purchase. I also tried a cupcake, because there was this booth that had all these sweets and the cupcakes were so dainty. They reminded me of Jess and her love of cooking, so I thought I might as well eat one.

We ate an Italian lunch for cheap and I got a Calzone. It was delicious but not as good as Vino's calzones. I have to remind myself I'm not in Italy. The group (their were nine of us that went) split up after Kemper and Mandi and I went to the pier so we called the other group to try to figure out the plan. We got such a discount on our tickets because we travelled as a group - so we all needed to leave the train station at once.

They were on a mission to hike to see the cliffs - apparently they are beautiful. I was instantly jealous when I heard about it because I wanted to go too, but not in that weather. Well, we decided to stop at a cute looking cafe and get some tea while we waited on them for dinner. We spent most of the day examining the town and looking in all the crazy funky shops. We also spent some time at the Brighton museum. I have to say that Susie is right, there's really not that much to look at in there. Kemper and I sat on a bench and criticized pottery for about a half hour. Amidst our giggling, I don't think the serious patrons appreciated our presence much.

Anyway, we had tea at a place called "Bubbles Kitschen." I guess they don't know how to spell? The tea was great I tried this brand called Pukka, because it was calling to me. The label was green and I kept it. I'm so weird and sentimental about things like that. Anyway - we chatted at the cafe for a long time and then finally figured out that we were all meeting for dinner. We happened to have Italian again (Brighton has plenty of good, cheap Italian restaurants.)

After that we all got back to the station. When we got to the station, however, Mandi and Kemper and I all needed to use the restroom. The rest of the group must not have noticed that we were gone because they hoped on a train without us. Maybe it's stupid, but that hurt my feelings a little bit. Moving forward, the bathroom at train stations charge you. I had to pay 20 pence to use the facilities. We figure they do this for vandalism reasons as well as upkeep...but I was a little indignant about that. Next they'll be charging me to breathe air. Sheesh.

Anyway I got back here yesterday and wrote a post about Thursday and Friday. This is my post for Saturday. Brighton was a nice break from the city. I know I don't ever want to live in a huge city like London - and Brighton's not small, necessarily. BUT Brighton is quaint and the people there seem nicer.

(I forgot to mention. It finally happened. Someone finally made fun of my accent to my face. We were walking down to the beach and a group of probably drunken middle aged men were yelling through the streets to each other. I was caught right in the middle of them and one of them turned to me and asked, "Do you know where there's a pub with a pool table?" His accent was pretty thick but I have no idea what kind of accent it was except that I'm sure it was vaguely British. This is the thirtieth time that someone has asked me, a foreigner, for directions. I politely responded, "No, sorry," and started moving off. I heard them screaming back in a very nasally voice to each other, "no, sorry!" as they wobbled down the streets. Unfortunately for all the bystanders we realized that their five o'clock somewhere had already come and passed. Ugh.)



I miss you guys!