Thursday, May 17, 2007

Strolling the Streets of Brighton

It was a quite a full day in Brighton yesterday. Jyn's map got us around quite well--even with Dani's poor sense of direction! We made our way down to the shoreline and back to the Royal Pavilion. The place is beautiful--especially with the garden that surrounds it in full bloom. We did not actually go in the palace due to the costs (I couldn't have taken pictures inside anyway, so where's the fun in that?!) but I did learn that it was King George IV's seaside palace, which somewhat reminded me of sitting around with all my friends just last week and dreaming up the mega mansion we'd build with lottery money. Of course, King George's "for fun" palace was filled with elegant rooms with furniture that I would be afraid to even touch where as ours would be filled with...well, it's too ridiculous to go into all that right now.

We walked down a million narrow streets filled with the most random shops--picture Bardstown road all squished into an eighth of the space it is in now, and cooler. I was disapp
ointed that all of the churches that I tried to get in were locked up. I have quite an infatuation with seeing the insides of churches when they aren't having services. There is something so special and holy about an empty church. I don't think anything gives me quite the same sense of tranquility--not that I don't enjoy regular mass or anything. I also just enjoy churches--especially those over here--due to the age. Maybe I'll have more luck with the churches later in this journey.

We met up with Jyn in the afternoon and explored more of the town while stopping in a pub type place for a snack--well, we thought it was a snack but since when do places serve side salads with onion rings? Not that we complained--at least we felt a little healthy!

We returned to Jyn's house and had a little down time before going out for the night. We stopped in at a bar, Heist, where I enjoyed some sort of cider--I've forgotten the name at the moment and Dani isn't around to remind me--but it was most definitely an A+ drink! We then went on to a club found along the shoreline that was full of mad dancing. And I learned three things about English boys in clubs.
(1) They actually dance. By that I mean they don't stand along the walls and creepily stare at all the girls while they dance. Instead, just like the girls, they also dance around with their friends.

(2) They don't take initiative. As opposed to in the states where you
can accidentally make eye contact with a guy and suddenly he's all up in your space, these guys don't come dance with you even when you've made it quite clear that you aren't trying to avoid them.
(3) They don't grind all over you--thank goodness! They will spin you around and just have fun. It may have helped that the music selection at the section of the club we were in could have been something that we would have put on at a track party (which included Backstreet Boys, Grease, Dirty Dancing, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun) so you could not help but just dance around and have a good time while singing along.

Needless to say, we had a really good time.

1 comment:

Joan said...

I feel just lke you do abou the churches. I hope you can see lots of old cathedrals.
Love, Aunt Joan