Last week, I posted about the importance of studying abroad and the people you meet along the way. Well, another great thing about studying abroad with friends is… beach day trips! A couple days ago, Jazy and Sam happened upon my room late one night and we spontaneously all decided to go to Brighton, UK for a beach trip. We bought train tickets for today, added Nick and Lauren to the mix, and that was pretty much the last anyone thought of it until today!
We arrived this morning to an extremely windy, beachy town that felt like a cross between Galveston’s small town charm and San Francisco’s little shops along the hills:
It was supposed to rain in the afternoon, so we headed straight to the beach and dipped our toes/fingers/whole body (SAM/NICK/JAZY!) into the ocean (sea? channel? Brighton is kinda on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and the English channel, so who knows).
We took a bunch of pictures throughout the day on the beach. The gray overcast gives some of the pictures a grainy black and white appearance. I’ve put them in a gallery below; most of them are us romping around the beach carefree (because how many times do you get to go to the beach with your best friends and boyfriend and just have fun?!), and a few of them are silly couple-y pictures.
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- Just arriving at the pebble beach and discovering the WIND!
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- Matching smiles and leather jackets
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- You could almost do the titanic lean into the wind without falling
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- I was posing for a shot when suddenly I heard a freak wave coming behind me; this is me about to run in panic
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- My very soaked friends trying to dry out after getting hit by a rogue wave
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- We’re just being silly here… also, awesome photo-bomb, Mr. Runner.
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- Some thousands of miles away over that ocean is America!
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- The sun came out for a while!
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- The little town of Brighton in the background
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- As the day went on, those waves were splashing *over* that sea wall.
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- Marking a very adventurous, fun day.
Nick and I split off for a little while so that we could see the Royal Pavilion, which is this extravagant castle George the 4th built in the early 1800s that has a pseudo-Indian style exterior and Chinese/Asian interior. It is definitely the most unique palace I have ever seen:
(I had to borrow pictures for the Royal Pavilion from the internet, as photography wasn’t allowed inside).
Inside the castle-ish thing, there was an entire banquet hall that I am 99% sure would be the dining room of the Dragon Queen Khaleesi in Game of Thrones. The dragon theme throughout the whole palace was nothing short of awesome:
The top of the chandelier in the grand banquet hall literally has a massive dragon carved out of silver at the top:
And rooms that look like this:
Pictures do not do this palace justice – it is an absolute must-see for anyone Brighton, or even London, bound. You can see castles with fancy gilding and stuffed pastel furniture anywhere. This palace, however, is a unique blend of Indian/Asian/European influences that I can’t imagine exists anywhere else.
For being just a little over an hour outside London, Brighton definitely has a small beach town feel with a British flavour. While we got battered by the wind all day (as you can see below), it was most definitely a good use of an October Sunday!
Something to think about while sitting at the office desk inside all week:
Adventures in the UK! 