Tuesday, 16-06-2015 & Wednesday, 17-06-2015

Days 300 & 301

Because we were able to take an earlier ferry across the English Channel, we’d arrived in Brighton a little earlier than we’d initially planned. We were staying with our friends Charly and Martin and their two kids (whom we'd first met in Bali).

As it turns out, they had had just arrived home from their journey a few weeks before our arrival in England, so they invited us to stay with them in their spacious, four-story house. They rent it out on the weekends for hen parties.

We didn’t do much in Brighton. The day after our arrival we took the four kids down to the local playground and had a picnic lunch, which was nice and relaxing. Then we walked down Kensington Gardens and stopped for some ice cream (for comparison purposes, of course).

We also walked by a pair of giant kicking can-can legs on the outside of a cinema. These legs are an homage to the original pair of legs that grace the Duke of York's Picture House (which some say is the oldest cinema in Britain) across town.

During our walk around the Brighton city center, we came upon the strangest thing we saw in Brighton — The Royal Pavilion, (also known as the Brighton Pavilion). This building was formerly a seaside getaway for King George IV when he was still the Prince of Wales.

The building dates back to 1787 and looked more like something you'd expect to see in India, not Brighton. These days it's a museum with many exhibits that illustrate what the place looked like during they heydays of George IV's reign.

Brighton Beach

From the Royal Pavilion we walked a short way down to the shores of Brighton Beach. We chilled out here for a little while — and by chilled out I mean chilled. It was June, and there was a brisk breeze coming off the sea. Even though the sun was out, it wasn’t the warmest spot.

The pier reminded us a little of Santa Monica Pier back home, but the beach was quite different. Instead of a fine layer of smooth sand, the beach itself was comprised of countless small rocks.

We spent some time checking out the Donut of Brighton Beach, which is a large brass sculpture of the Earth as, well, a donut. I could find very little information about it, but it was pretty cool.

Other than that, we didn’t do anything too fancy or too touristy — although we did try to complete a 1000-piece puzzle of the city of London before we left. And while we didn’t quite finish it, we did manage to build the Thames.

But mostly it was really nice to not to have to worry about doing anything or going anywhere and hanging out with friends who had the shared experience of traveling the world.

Header image: Houses along a Brighton street.