Brighton... London Beaches?

So when Laura suggested a day at Brighton, I heard it was the Atlantic City of London and that it was a beach town. Now coming from LA... I was a bit skeptical of a UK beach (rightly so) and having only TV as a reference for Atlantic City I really didn't know what to expect.

This morning Marissa and I grabbed breakfast at Pret (Croissants and Hot Chocolate are much better here than the states btw) and headed to London Bridge to meet up with Jonas, Laura and Sarah for our trip to Brighton. The train ride was a quick 1 hr... good conversation probably made it better. - Side Note: Marissa and I could not for the life of us find a trash bin so we brought our trash from breakfast all the way from Baker St to London Bridge to Brighton. (Because of the bombings in London were in trash bins there are none to be found in the tube stations and some parts of the city you could end up carrying your trash with you for quite some time).

Despite the morning gloom we made our way along the cute streets of Brighton to the beach. While the beach is mostly rocks and pebbles and what I imagine to be super cold water, it is actually quite nice. Probably helped that it was a Friday and most people have work. We got lucky and saw the Royal AirForce Fighter Jets practicing for this weekend's festivities. If you look carefully you can see Laura, Marissa and Jonas watching the fighter jets.

Afterwards we went to find some Fish & Chips... My very first since coming to the UK. It is quite good, the fish is super tender but the Chips or Fries as us Americans call it was pretty standard.

When we walked out the sun had started coming out which was really nice... still not warm enough to swim but otherwise quite nice. We walked over to the Royal Pavillion, King George the IV Brighton residence. It was very opulent and Chinese themed on the inside... supposedly very popular for the time and the outside was suppose to be Chinese themed too but the architect and decorators had never been to China so I think they got it mixed up with the Taj Mahal. No picture taking inside but it was actually quite interesting. Although the Strongbow Cider hit us when we sat down and I almost fell asleep in the middle of the audio tour.

After we walked out we met up with Yuki, who slept in so didn't meet up with us until later in the day. We walked to the Brighton Pier which was finally open and partook in some dessert. There is a place called Moo Moo Milkshakes which have over 100 flavors and from what I hear was quite good. Then we took the free sundeck chairs and lounged in the sun on the pier. Which was really nice. Afterwards we made our way to the end of the pier where all the rides were. Because there were so few people you just bought tokens and if you had enough people to meet the minimum you flagged down an operator and rode the rides. We did the Turbo rollercoaster... which Sarah and I thought was questionably old and creaky looking. Was short lived fun but ended up tossing us around quite a bit so I think we might all wake up with bruises tomorrow. Afterwards we tried to ride the mechanical bull.. unfortunately it was closed so that shall remain on my list of things I want to do.

Afterwards we walked around the really cute cobblestone streets of Brighton with their cute stores and shops. Yuki and I were hungry, having not eaten any dessert like the rest of the folks, and found an Italian restaurant offerring 2 course meal for 6.75 GBP... pretty cheap. Everybody ended up sitting down with us and eating too... most everyone got the Lasagna, which looked and tasted quite good, except Yuki, who got the pizza. We also split a jug of Pimms, a summer drink similar to sangria and arnold palmers.

After dinner we headed back to London. All in all it was a really nice day to just get out of London, hang out and get to know some really cool people better. Tomorrow I have loads of work to do and Stats so its nice to step out once in awhile.