Brighton day trip

Last week I went on a daytrip to Brighton Beach with Alissa, Dan, Zach and Dylan. We took the bus and man am I glad I packed the Dramamine, it was a bumpy ride. It was pretty empty, so for most of the ride I slept curled up on two seats. At one point I was sleeping facing the backs of the seats and the bus driver braked really hard and I fell into the leg room area. Rude awakening!

When we arrived we couldn't believe how sunny it was! I was sorry I had forgotten to pack my sunglasses. We of course did the expected, cheesy, "it's so bright in Brighton" jokes. hardy harr harr. lol

The beach! Famous Brighton Pier. Which turned out to not be all that impressive. Just a bunch of subpar carnival rides that were waaay to expensive to ride. Must have been a huge deal in the 40's though.

Where's the sand!? I picked up two rocks to take home. One for Sue in my office and one for me.

Alissa and I.

The Royal Pavilion. Built by George IV.

Brighton's history is quite tawdry(that's a good word). It's history reads like a cheap romance novel and before it was a place for families to go on a beach holiday Brighton was known as a place to take a mistress or two for a weekend.

Because it was such a beautiful day we spent most of it wandering through the town, the gardens and the palace grounds. So many people were out on the streets and everyone was smiling. I heard more than one person say, "it's just like summer!" We got milkshakes at a place called Shakeaways. They have over 160 flavors of milkshakes, including tic tac flavor eeeeeew. I ended up getting the kinder bueno flavored one(I'm currently obsessed with this candy bar).

We saw all sorts of street musicians: jazz, raggae, a dude with a guitar, and big bands like this one. The sign says community.

They were showing "Danny the Champion of the World" at the playhouse and I was freaking out with excitement because that is one of my favorite books of all time. Turns out it was Alissa's too. So she and I decided to see the matinee show. The boys didn't want to so they went off somewhere and we went to see it. It was geared towards kids but it was still great.

After the play Alissa and I went down to the beach to the first beach sunset we'd seen since we'd been here.

I took about sixteen shots. I won't put them all on here but they're all on flickr of course!

After the sunset(which put me in such a good mood.)we met the boys and together went and had a fantastic dinner at a place called Pinochio's. It was the best meal I've had in a long time. They had a two course deal so I had minestrone soup and four cheese ravioli. It took us longer than it should have to count everyone's change for the bill and the waiters started laughing and making fun of us!!!

Afterwards we went to have a pint before we caught our bus back and picked a random pub. Turns out it was a gay pub. It was called the Black Horse lol. The bartender tried to sneakily take a picture of one of the guys in our group hahahaha. I don't know what the was about but I've never seen the poor boy so red. After that we went to our bus depot. Alissa and I had to pee so we popped into a random club next to the depot. Turned out it was a gay club! HAHA. Brighton must have a huge gay community. I got hit on by a woman wearing a GI Jane costume(it was dress up night there). She asked what my costume was and I said tourist. That cracked her up.

We had a little bit of time left and the boys wanted snacks for the bus. How they were hungry after that meal we had I have no idea but we went to the nastiest grocery store I've ever been in. It smelled soooo bad and the fruit was rotting in the bins. Gross.

We all napped the whole way back to London. It was a good day.