Travel to the English Channel

Monday started with a bang as Keena and Grigo were up all night as Rica became very ill. We decided to skip out on the day's activities and pick up the rental minivan early. Here is Keena with sick Rica as they walk to my place for their last meal in London.

We picked up the car and drove about 75 miles south of London to Brighton. The city of about 200,000 people is situated along the English Channel. We met up with Anna, a friend from graduate school who is a professor at the local university. Anna has a one bedroom apartment with a loft only two blocks from the beach. Here is a view from her balcony.

As Rica was sick our entire time in Brighton, we kept our adventures low key. We ventured out to the beach which is covered in rock rather than sand.

One of the famous landmarks in Brighton is the pier. It has tons of rides on it.

Unfortunately, Rica was too short to ride any of the rides (and to be honest...it would not have been pretty if she did), but we hung out on the pier for an hour or so sitting on candy-striped deck chairs as we ate fish and chips (I had a horrible sausage as I don't eat fish).

What makes the pier so famous is the Helter Skelter ride (below) made famous by the Beatles song. Surprisingly, we walked by it without even noticing it because it was rather unimpressive. It is a tall slide.

One day, Keena and I ventured out to visit a shopping area that had a lot of used bookstores. Here, all the non-profits are called charities and they have used stores that support them. Oxfam has stores everywhere. As I don't have a television, I am now buying used books whenever I can. Keena and I found some books at a nice Oxfam shop.

One the last day in Brighton, we visited the Royal Pavilion. It is a exotic palace that King George IV built. The Pavilion was not what I expected because the entire place is done in a Chinese-style. According to our audio tour, it was too far to travel to Asia, so the style of the house was decorated in "what people thought" the Orient looked like. Therefore, all the wood was carved to look like bamboo and there were dragons and other exotic things throughout the entire Pavilion. Unfortunately, they do not let you take photos inside, but here is a photo from outside.

From Brighton, we headed to Oxford to pick up another friend for our trip north. More tomorrow.