Balance

There is so much happening here in Brighton and I am failing miserably at balancing everything.  It seems that every day or every night there is something different going on.  On the one hand it is great because there is no time to get bored.  On the other it means I pushed myself to join in a little too soon when recovering from being sick last week and thus fell ill again.  This time I had horribly dry, sore throat and Wednesday I even had fever like symptoms.  Good news I’m on the mend again and this time I’m trying to take it easier so I can recover fully.

Another thing I haven’t been very good at is writing posts regularly and thus I have much to catch up on.  I will probably just have to mention the highlights otherwise it would take me all day to write this.

Last weekend the weather here in Brighton was gorgeous.  I took advantage of all Brighton has to offer shopping, nightlife and hanging out on the seafront.  It was a good weekend.  Check out the some of pictures I took below.  Brighton is really quite beautiful.

On Monday I went to London.  I slept pretty terribly the night before so when I fell asleep after my alarm and woke up with only half an hour to get ready I definitely debating skipping out on the day trip.  I’m really glad I didn’t.  It was a great day!

Eight of us went and the countries represented were Canada – Justine, Melissa and I, Germany – Christian and Mario,  The Netherlands – Willem, and France – David and Geoffrey.

We caught the train into Brighton then got another train to London.  The train to London only takes about an hour.  So for me the commute was very similar to going from Tsawwassen to downtown Vancouver.

The train from Brighton arrives at London Victoria station, which is near Buckingham Palace so that was our first stop of the day.  Having been to London before I didn’t have anywhere specifically that I wanted to go.  It was nice to let the others decide where we would go next.

My second time seeing Buckingham Palace and my impression of it was much the same.  As far as castles/palaces go it’s not all that impressive.  But I have a feeling that the inside probably fully makes up for the outside.  All the same it is still cool to see it in person.

The guys

The Canadians

From there we walked through Green Park to Piccadilly Circus – London’s mini version of Times Square.  It was a nice walk and it was an area of London I didn’t see on my previous visit.

Our next pit stop was M&M World.  Basically it was a massive four-floor store filled with the delicious chocolate candy and merchandise stamped with the M&M logo or cartoon characters.  There were also cartoon M&M statues pretending to be the Beatles crossing Abbey Road and even an M&M bobby.  It was way better than the M&M World in New York.

We spent the afternoon wandering around Chinatown, Soho and Oxford Street stopping at a few shops here and there.  It was very chill.  The pub we stopped at for lunch was terrible though.  First of all, it was cold inside. Second, 45 minutes after we ordered and some peoples' food had already arrived the waitress came up to us to tell us that some of the things ordered and already paid for were unavailable.  It was quite ridiculous.  But really it is the only negative I have to say about the day as a whole.

After shopping on Oxford Street we jumped on the tube to see Big Ben, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey.  Much like the Eiffel Tower, those are sights that never get old no matter how many times you see them.  I got really lucky with one of the shots I took – I got Big Ben, a part of the London Eye and a red double decker bus all in one picture.  I think it’s almost a postcard quality shot.

Next we zipped over to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, which is often mistakenly called London Bridge.  The sun was beginning to set and it was just beautiful.  It was a nice place to wander around as the sun faded from the sky.  A helpful passerby kindly offered to take a group photo for us.  I was glad to get a memento of the whole group.

The whole gang! Left to right: Christian, Melissa, Geoffrey, David, Me, Justine, Will, and Mario.

Trafalgar Square was our next stop.  There was still some daylight when we went to catch the tube but when we resurfaced it was fully night-time.  Having seen the Square in daylight previously it was cool to see it at night.  From there we walked back to Piccadilly Circus to see it at night.  It wasn’t quite as impressive as Times Square but still pretty cool.

At that point the group split.  Mario, Christian, Melissa and Justine headed home and Will, David, Geoffrey and I went in search of a restaurant for dinner.  We ended up at this little, apparently Italian place.  I say apparently because the menu was more or less Italian but I had a prime rib dinner with Yorkshire pudding and that is definitely not Italian.  It was a delicious meal.  But I have to say my Uncle Don’s prime rib dinners are much better.

Once we finished dinner we went to catch the train home.  We arrived at London Victoria station with only a few minutes to catch the train we wanted and had to run across the station.  It was kind of funny.

The best parts of the day are the hardest to convey.  I’ve told you all the places we went but I couldn’t share all the good conversations and shared experiences.  Oh and it was nice not having to constantly be wondering how to get to the next place.  Will had brought a map and took care of directions.  Usually I tend to end up being the one in charge of getting the group from one place to the next.  Actually one of my nicknames here is “mental map” which I’m not particularly fond of but somehow it stuck.  I have a really good sense of direction and when asked about how I knew where certain places were I responded that I had a really good mental map.

Anyways, this post has already gotten long enough just talking about London so I’m going to cut it off there for now.  For all the London pictures click here.  Shortly I will start writing a post about this weekend - touring the Royal Pavilion and going skating on the ice rink right beside it.  Hopefully I will have it up sometime tomorrow.