Brighton Beach(six photo panoramic stitch)
Rather than arrive just in time for the quizzes, we elected instead to go a few hours early and have a chance to see the city and enjoy its most popular spot, the beach. We arrived at the beach and surveyed the situation. It was pretty packed as the panorama suggests. However, we found a good spot not too far away and settled down onto our beach towels and began to soak up the sunshine by the sea. After only a few minutes a friend of ours arrived and with the ability of asking him to watch our stuff open to us, we began to debate the prospect of going for a swim. England (or well, London and surrounding areas) has been though a wicked heat wave recently, so the idea of a swim sounded awfully appealing. Tom (our friend) however, had his reservations. Being only June and the Atlantic, the water promised to be really quite cold. On the other hand, Alex and I bravely laughed in the face of cold, proclaiming loudly that we were Canadians and we enjoyed walking five miles into the up a hill (both ways) to school each day at negative 20 below.... yeah, riiiight.
Long story short, we set out for the water and I’ll admit I was a bit apprehensive as to now having to swim in the water, regardless of the temperature. Luckily my fears were abated when the water, although refreshing, was lovely. The salt of the ocean and the waves reminded me of vacations past, and Alex and I enjoyed the cool respite.
Swimming is Fun!
After our swim, we sat out and let the sun dry us up before heading back away from the beach and getting a plate of onion rings for dinner. Four pounds fifty for eight (8!!!) rings — They weren’t even large rings! After finishing my expensive rings I walked up to the pub, a sleepy looking place from the outside, on a quiet side street.
Although I don't know who you are, your bike is Grrreat!
The team we fielded consisted of about ten of us, so we were confident that our numbers alone would be great enough to take a shot at winning the whole thing. There were a number of musicians with us, some history students, a graphic designer and Alex and I provided some geography for insight. I’m happy to say that we did relatively well. I think in the end we were able to finish in second place, with our prize being the affirmation that there is power in numbers.
We stayed at the pub long after the quiz was finished playing a really tough game, the name of which I completely forget. However, I do remember how it is played.
- Players sit around a table and in turn each player calls out numbers in consecutive fashion.
- Depending on what number is said there are different rules associated. For instance, if you say a multiple of seven, you lose. Another rule is that if you say two numbers in a row on your turn, i.e. “Five and Six” instead of just “Five” the direction of the circle will switch (from clockwise to counter clockwise or vice-versa). Calling three numbers in a row means that the order will skip a turn.
- Now, here comes the complicated part. If a multiple of nine is uttered, the player who lands on that number creates a new rule. Either a new number (and its multiples) becomes a rule or the rule can be completely unrelated. For Example. I say the number eighteen, and I institute the rule that nobody can talk using a personal pronouns (this is exceedingly difficult).
Father & Daughter Teammates We continued to play this game for a while and when I saw ‘we played’ I mean that while the we were all playing, I was constantly loosing :). Afterwards, (now getting to be after eleven O’clock) we headed to a Salsa bar that was just off of the beach.
Now, I had a preconception of what ‘Salsa bar’ would mean. I was, however, completely wrong. Think of what a semi underground, sweaty night club would be like, then add another ten to fifteen degrees, amp the music up thirty to forty decibels and invite fifty-cent. Yeah. That was it in a nutshell. However, instead of focusing on the negative I decided to take the approach of national geographic, and capture the local species in its natural environment. I think the night yielded something in the range of seven hundred pictures. I had a lot of people approach me and ask if I was a professional, to whom I would answer, “I work for a Canadian Travelogue” and that usually struck up a nice conversation and made the night move along well.
Hibbity Hibbity, Up In De Club
Right so, 2 am or so rolls around (I can’t really be sure as I had no watch) and we decide to leave the club. At this point we would probably have headed home, but the trains had stopped running for the night and we had to hang about until the 4:35am morning train. Brighton seemed to be aware of this, and there was a massive beach party raging on! The weather was still cooperating and the beach was littered with people sitting around bonfires, having a great time. I joined a number of the groups, and met people from all over the world there. Mostly people were from Europe, but there were plenty of people from other continents. I joined a few circles of people sitting around guitars, and also had a chance to sit in on a few conversations about politics. Everyone seemed to be having a fantastic time and why not!? Warm weather, cool breezes, bonfires on the beach beside the sea and a wide mix of interesting people to talk with.
Guitar? Yes, Please!
Beach Bonfire!
Finally though, the night came to a close, and we made our way back up to the train station. I’m pretty sure that everyone else waiting with us was up from the beach and all were looking to get home and rest after a long night. The first train however was a milk run into Victoria Station, so what had been just over a one hour trip out to Brighton, was a two and a half hour trip back into London. Once back at Victoria we had a quick walk back to Sloane Square and finally hit the hay around six thirty.
The Never Ending Morning Train
Brighton was great fun. I would highly recommend any traveler in London or surrounding areas to check it out if they have the chance.
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