Our Beach Getaway

That's right, we went to the beach! Granted it wasn't your typical beach experience and it wasn't very sunny or warm, but it was a beach all the same.    We took a day trip to Brighton, a town on the channel coast.  The train ride was a good 2 hours, so we all brought homework (or in my case, Harry Potter) to pass the time.  Once we arrived, we wandered down to the coast.  The town was beautiful!  There were lots of little shops and stores on the hilly streets and there were so many colors.  It was definitely a typical "beach town."  We finally made our way from the train station to the "boardwalk" of sorts, which was full of seaside shops, restaurants, galleries, and more.  We were a little shocked to discover that the beach had no sand.  Instead, there were large rocks!  Some of the girls had worn rain boots and were wading into the water, while I just enjoyed the smell of the sea and the roar of the waves.  After some pictures and splashing around, we found a place to get the "real" fish n' chips we had come for.  And they were by far the best one's I have had here yet! We strolled down the coastline towards the pier and checked out some of the shops.  The pier was really cool! It was like the San Francisco of England, with an amusement park, arcade, and treat shops.  There were a lot of photo opps, including one with the royal family!  A few of my friends rode the carousel and got some ice cream.  There was even a ferris wheel on the beach!  We called it the Brighton Eye, and there was a clock tower right by it that we deemed the Brighton Big Ben ;).  After the pier, we headed back into town to check out the Royal Pavilion, which is a oriental style palace.  We walked through the gardens (we didn't want to pay to go inside) and explored more shops.  I had some delicious amarena gelato from a cute little desert shop.  We also found some discounted Olympic gear in a sport's store.  After that we decided we were tired and ready to leave.  We went back up to the train station, but discovered that buses were replacing the trains due to construction for part of our trip.  We fought our way onto one of the red double deckers and drove about 45 minutes on the highway to another train station before we were headed home.  After we returned to Twickenham, we went to get Chinese for dinner and came back to watch Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging, a book-turned-TV-movie that was filmed in Brighton.  

It was a long, but exciting weekend!  Today we took it easy and went grocery shopping in Teddington, so that we have some real food in our dorms.  Of course it was raining, so we figured out how to take the bus. Later in the afternoon, after it had stopped raining, a friend and I went out to explore a bit more of Twickenham.  We strolled along the river Thames, which was flooding onto the sidewalk from the rain!  We found a cute little park and bridge over the river, an old church, and some new pubs we want to try.  I also took some pictures of the St. Mary's campus, and the Strawberry Hill House (our campus castle).  Tonight we are hoping to get some trip planning done for our Fall Break!

On a random tangent, I am craving fall things so badly right now! Pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, pumpkin pie shakes from Whitey's, caramel apples, apple cider, and cider donuts from Tanners, and pretty much anything fall related that I haven't found here.  It's just not the same! Though I did find this Toffee Apple Hard Cider, which is the most delicious drink I have ever had. I'm hoping that I find some more fall things here soon!