Brighton! Tons of bright! Right, got that out of my system. Anyway, after nearly a year of dreaming about the pebble beaches of Brighton, which rest less than an hour away from rainy London, we finally did it! A 45 minute train ride from Clapham Junction took Anne, Ulfie, and me to the sunny Brighton seaside and far away from the overcast, suffocating skies of London. What a refreshing, rejuvenating, and exhausting day.
Yesterday was a sunny and warm day in Brighton. Windy, of course, but it is a coastal city so what can we expect? Though it's a small city, it's packed full of happy, friendly and colourful people, interesting shops, and yummy food. Oh, and sea gulls. The place is chock full of gulls. But it doesn't detract from the beauty or serenity. Moving on, right. So anyway, we went to Brighton for the day. After getting off the train, we walked straight to the pier. We gawked at the masses of sea gulls (doing bizarre and amusing things), smoothed over the pebble beaches, and soaked up some long overdue sunshine. On the Brighton pier, yummy carnival food, carnival rides, and tourists. Also surprisingly yummy Asian cuisine. Oh, and what are apparently Brighton's best milkshakes. Unfortunately I didn't try one. Don't fret, it's at the top of my list of things to do on my next day trip to Brighton.
Ulfie, our fabulous tour guide, lead us from the pier to "the dome" where we stared, heads cocked, at a strange and out of place building which slightly resembles the Taj Mahal. Interesting, especially considering it's location on the southern England coast. After "the dome", we went to "the lanes." Now, if my life were a movie, this is the scene where, prior to shouting "action!" the director would certainly have said, "cue ridiculous masses of friendly people!" The lanes=the busy shopping alleys of Brighton. Narrow streets, weird shopping, crazy people, all jammed into a street barely wide enough to permit one-way traffic. But, again, don't get me wrong it's part of the culture and allure of Brighton. And I want to stress the friendliness of the locals. When we wandered into a hat shop (of course, a hat shop) and, after Anne bought a fabulous new hat (logically), we asked the shop keeper if we were, as we had thought, anywhere near the famous Banksy "Kissing Coppers" graffiti, the shop keeper smiled widely and said something along the lines of "Yes, in fact I'll show you!" She then left her shop and accompanied us to the street where she pointed and enthusiastically directed us the rest of the way. See what I mean? Brighton's got some seriously friendly people.
We went up the road to the Banksy. We took photos, obviously. I crossed something off of my bucket list, and we headed back down the hill towards the beach once again. After further wandering through "the lanes" we made it back to the pebble beach where we parked our bums and attempted to capture seagull behaviour on camera. I think I got some decent shots with the oh-so-reliable LC-A+, but didn't finish the roll so I'll have to wait to confirm this. We refilled our depleted stores of Vitamin D, watched the waves come in and out and even had the supreme opportunity to view a local hairy and rather large man in a speedo wade out into the waves. Awesome.
So by now it's been five hours since our arrival and the sun has taken it all out of us. Our return train wasn't scheduled for another four hours. We figured we wouldn't last, so we walked back to the train station, slipped past the ticket inspector and onto the earlier train. I should mention that this is the second day in a row that Ulfie and I have traveled illegally. I hope this isn't the beginning of some sort of vigilante traveling streak. Probably not. Thus ends the tail of our sunny day in Brighton. It was perfect. I even got a sunburn, which has by now faded into a lovely golden tan. Finally my shoulders and chest match the colour of my forearms.
Lessons learned: (1) don't wait nearly a year to experience something so easily accessible and so wonderful, (2) sneaking on to a "peak time" train with an "off peak" ticket is actually much easier than it sounds, and (3) vigilante travel induces unnecessary stress, but is strangely exhilarating.
