I figured that the best
way to find balance would be to take a day off and sort things out. So today I had a “me day.” I got to say I’ve really enjoyed it so far. I started my morning off by sleeping in, or
as my Dutch friend Will would say sleeping “out.” Then since I was feeling lazy I watched Pitch
Perfect – a very funny and enjoyable movie.
After that I convinced myself to go for a run at the nearby gym. I’m pretty much healthy again so I could no
longer use being sick as an excuse.
Next on the agenda was laundry, which I am still in the process of
doing. I have feeling though that before
I finish writing this I will have to go collect my laundry from the dryer.
My plans for this evening
are to write this blog post, finish putting away my laundry, maybe read a few
things for school, and research trip options for my Easter Break. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before or
not but I get 3 weeks off for Easter.
I’m definitely planning to take advantage of that time off school. My little sister, Amanda will be visiting me
for the week before and the first week of my break. I’m really looking forward to showing Amanda
around England and parts of Europe. I
just haven’t decided which parts. There
are so many things that I would love for her to see but two weeks in Europe
goes surprisingly fast. Hopefully I will
be able to plan an amazing trip for her.
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| Poster of the Royal Pavilion I bought for my room! |
The Royal Pavilion is a
strange palace. The exterior has Indian
influence and evokes images of the Taj Mahal.
The interior has Chinese influences and makes one think they are in
China rather than England. It is
beautiful for sure but it seems out of place somehow.
Unfortunately photo taking
inside the palace was prohibited so I can’t show you what I saw. Instead I will tell you how it felt to wander
around the palace. With the cost of
entrance we were given an audio guide to listen to.
King George IV was the
epitome of a selfish monarch. He liked
parties, being the center of attention and spending excessively to indulge his
every desire. As you walk through the
various rooms of the palace you can’t help but marvel at the grandeur and
extravagance.
Sometimes I think how
different the world would be today if monarchs of the past had spent less time
and money building and feathering their castles. But then I stop myself and think how sad it
would be to not have those palaces to visit.
Their beauty wouldn’t exist for future generations to draw inspiration
from. There would be no Versailles and the
Hall of Mirrors, no Sans-Souci Palace, no Tsarskoye Selo (Catherine’s Palace near
St. Petersburg)… just to name a few that I have been fortunate enough to have
visited. I love visiting palaces! I can’t tell you why exactly but I do. I’m glad they exist.
Sunday was the last day
that there was an ice rink on the lawns of the Royal Pavilion. I felt like going skating at the Royal
Pavilion was one of those experiences that one needs to have while in
Brighton. I went with a group of friends
– Amanda, Charlotte, David, Justine, Melissa and Will. Justine came along just to watch us skate and
hang out afterwards. We had a lot of
fun. See…
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| Charlotte, Will, Amanda, Melissa, Me, and David! |
When I was younger I was
in a figure skating club so I was excited to get back on the ice. The others were a little more
apprehensive. I remember correctly but I
think David had skated only once before and the last time Will skated was like
10 years ago. Charlotte was the most
anxious though since the two times she skated previously she ended up with
broken bones - a fact that she didn’t mention until we were on the bus heading
to the rink.
It didn’t take very long
to re-accustom myself to wearing skates and enjoy being on the ice. I think it took a little longer for the
others to feel comfortable.
Charlotte spent the first
20 minutes or so slowly making her way around the rink desperately clinging to
the handrail. We suggested she use a
penguin that was designed to help children learn to skate and even managed to
steal one. Unfortunately it was too
small for her given she isn’t a child and the rink staff took it away.
I tried to help Charlotte
whenever I could but her fear was like a barricade. I broke it down eventually though. I was persistent and I think it helped for
her to see how steady a skater I am.
With much encouragement I convinced her to hold onto my arms and skate
with me. For the first little while I
was more or less pulling her along as I skated backwards near the rail.
She improved slowly but
surely as I continued to encourage her and give her advice on how to stay
balanced like “bend your knees” and “butt out.”
At one point she realized we were in the middle of the rink and almost
freaked out. When her confidence built
she managed to move from holding my elbows to my hands and finally to holding
only one hand. In the end she did 6 full
laps of the rink. I was so proud of
her! I guess third times the charm
because she didn’t break any bones!
After skating we went to a
cute little shop in the South Lanes called Cloud 9. They had warm drinks, cakes, cupcakes and
gelato. I chose a delicious gluten free
cupcake. Ever since I arrived in England
I told myself I’d try to avoid wheat since I have a sensitivity to it and I’m
astounded by just how widely available gluten-free options are here.
We chose to stay in town
for the couple hours before dinner since there wasn’t enough time to go back to
halls. Since it was a Sunday most
businesses close at 5pm so we had to move to a pub.
I was very pleased to
discover the pub we ended up at the Prince George serves Kopparberg – a Swedish
brand of cider. It was so good and every
sip reminded me of when I lived in Sweden.
I’m not sure how it
started but I ended up quizzing Will and Amanda with how to spell challenging
English words. It is very difficult to
think of hard English words off the top of my head so I looked up “hard to
spell English words.” Amanda was
surprisingly good and Will was surprisingly bad. Amanda had the fact she speaks Swedish,
Italian, English and some Spanish I believe on her side. And in Will’s defense most of the words he’d
never even heard before and they were words most English speakers would spell
incorrectly.
For dinner we went to a
Chinese restaurant called Lucky Star. We
were supposed to meet up with Nicole, the Canadian girl who first showed me
around Brighton, who was back in town for one last night but her train was
delayed.
Dinner was delicious and
at the end of the meal we got to see Nicole briefly to say goodbye before
heading home for the night. It was a
long but good day.
So that was more or less
my weekend. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading
about my adventures in Brighton :)
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PS. For those
interested I finished my laundry, made myself dinner, and did a number of other
things before I managed to finish writing this post. For some reason I
always feel the need to write exactly what I'm doing when I start writing and
usually by the time I'm done it no longer applies. Weird, eh?
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