Piccies
So in order to kill some time while I am listening to the Wicker Man soundtrack in honor of May Day, I'm gonna finally post some month-and-a-half old pictures which I promised two weeks ago! These are from when Jackie came to visit over her spring break in the middle of March. Most of them are when we were in Brighton for two days, because it was one of the only times that I remembered to bring my camera. Brighton is a pretty big summer destination, kind of in the same way as hampton beach but with history and with things you would actually want to do. George the II (I think)came in the 1700s sometime and built the Royal Pavillion, which is this outlandish Dr. Seuss-like miniature Taj Mahal made to house mistresses and the like. Anyhow, since then people have been digging the beach and rock candy (more on that later) and such, but we went in the middle of a cold, windy stretch, so no sunbathing, although yes rock candy. We did plenty of other stuff over the week, but it's all lost to the photographic record so alas, you'll have to amuse yourself with the pictures and dinky captions presented here.
So, on monday morning we got on a train headed south to Brighton. We made it about halfway, to Three Bridges, which is just after Gatwick Airport on the way down, before the train stopped because of electrical problems somewhere ahead. This was my first and so far only trip on British rail, but I gather that delays are pretty dang common. So we dutifully hopped off the carriage and decided to eat lunch in a place called The Snooty Fox which was kind of a chain pub deal. I had fish and chips and Jackie had a sandwich.
Here we are. Jackie is blinking.
So after a good while of waiting on the platform, we continued down to Brighton and, after a trot down towards the beach, got our first glimpse of the sea. Here it is, with an old sad skeleton which appeared to be the remains of a pier on the far right.
Here's the actual living pier, the famous Palace Pier with all its flesh and skin still on.
We stayed at a place called the White House, which is a nice little B and B just off the marine parade. Since we were basically the only people there, the couple that runs the place gave us a better room, with a big iron bed and IKEA fixtures and such.
The view out of our window.
Languishing among the wallflowers.
So after loungin and watching BBC and such for a while we walked around and picked out places to go next day, strolled by the pavilion (I didn't get any pictures because it was dark out and the big mushroom domes were covered in scaffolding, so find a picture online or something if you want a look but basically all you need to do is imagine that quasi-arabian place from "Potoffel Pock, Where Are You?" (home of Neepha Pheepha, the eyeball dancer that haunted my childhood dreams).
Aaaanyway so after browsing a lot of nifty little boutiques and such the next day (I got a skinny tie), we went down the pier and sported some embarrassing runny noses (at least I did) since the joint is exposed to all manner of chill breeze. Although I'm sure in the summer one would feel a bit like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle strolling down among the paper lanterns and roasting chestnuts and so forth.
Here's the front of the main Pier building which houses a whole lot of video games which are really expensive, and gambling machines which are kind of pointless. Granted, I only tried the 10p kind because petty gambling, although mysteriously popular in England, is kind of a joke since you can probably put your day's winnings (provided you manage to decode the zillions of blinking lights) toward a big mac or something. Anyway, there were a lot of French students on the pier when we were there. I mean, a lot.
Did you know that in Brighton the water is green?
The seaward end of the pier houses a little amusement park.
View from the Merry-go-Round
We thought seriously about the carousel, but I think 4 tokens in fake money turned out to be a preposterous amount of real money.
Me in my wooden horse suit.
Bad music was playing over the sound system at the Dodgems.
The world famous Helter Skelter. I had serious aspirations to ride, but no one was tending it.
As you can see, this haunted house was very expertly airbrushed. The only sign we could find on it was TRAIN in big sparkly letters, so maybe the scary part (i.e. BLOOD_____ or THE LONG DARK_____) was down for repair.
The crazy mouse. THE ROLLER COASTER AT THE END OF THE WORLD. That was a lot of pictures of rides, I guess I got a kick out of the idea of a merry-go-round on stilts.
I don't remember why we didn't go in here, but it looked pretty fucking fantastic. If you can't see, the sign is a dude with a long white beard standing in front of a stone circle. DOOOM.
Okay, so I'm not going to try and justify my love for a Thompson Bros. machine gun with the round loading clip. I will mention, however, that ensconced behind it is an actual WWII German MP40, just like from Day of Defeat! This was in the front window of a place called the North Laines Armory, and a trip inside is really enough to turn any mere mortal into a momentary gun (or sword) nut.
Okay so here is a piece of Brighton Rock. Can you all read it? Apologies if you cant.
Jackie eating rock on the train back
Get it? still says BRIGHTON ROCK
Here we are, back in London. The daffodils had just started blooming in Green Park! Nowadays everything is in bloom.
And we round out the odyssey with boring old Royal Albert Hall.
Well, I hope you enjoyed watching my grammar and sentence structure unravel. I know I did. I have a few other pictured left, but nothing worth showing, really. There's a series concerning the re-use of empty nutella containers, but it's just filler, really.
I'll maybe update this before I leave London, if not, see you real soon!