Sunday, May 22 and Monday, May 23
A charter bus ride from Uptown Normal to O'Hare and then a flight to London is my typical way to get to my fav place, and this trip was no different. It just works pretty well!
My flight was at 5:05 pm Chicago time on Sunday, with arrival at about 6:00 am London time on Monday. The flight was uneventful and went quickly. Customs is incredibly seamless at Heathrow; I didn't even speak to a person. They just have machines that scan your passport and you're on your way.
The next leg of the trip involved a charter bus from Heathrow to Brighton. They call it a coach there, and I needed to find where the coach would pick me up. I've done this before, but the pick up location was different this time, so I had to ask someone and even then I was still a little confused. I had some time to figure it out and ultimately ended up waiting probably an hour or so before the coach arrived. The ride was also uneventful and the time flew. It took about 2 hours to get to Brighton.
Once we got closer to Brighton I was watching on Google Maps where we were located so that I could get off the bus at the closest location to my AirBnB. This was at about 10:00 am, which was too early to fully check in, but the AirBnB host said I could drop off my bag. (Every host has let me do this so far and it's so helpful!) I had to walk maybe 15 minutes to get to the place and it was raining... hard. It was not easy to negotiate hills and stairs and a suitcase and an umbrella, but I made it!
I met Richard, the AirBnB host, and he took my bag.
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| 38 Guildford Road, Brighton |
Then I was off to see what I could do in Brighton in the pouring rain. I decided first to go the Royal Pavilion, which was a palace for King George IV and was commissioned in 1815.
The outside style of the pavilion is Indian (you can clearly see the inspiration from the Taj Mahal) and the inside style is all inspired by China. It was truly impressive. The attention to detail in these places is always astounding. I had a little audio guide that led me through.
It was still raining heavily when I left the palace, but I wanted to see more of Brighton, so I walked down to the pier.
Brighton Palace Pier is basically an every day carnival.
I've been on several piers, but not really like this. There were proper carnival rides at the end. You can enjoy a full range of carnival treats and games. Almost everything was shut because of the rain, though. Only me and a handful of other people were walking out there.
I was honestly kind of in a bummed mood because of the weather, so I didn't take any photos of the water. It was just gloomy and not at all pretty. The pier itself was wooden planks and, I don't know if it was because it was wet or what, but some of the wood felt so unstable! Like it squished under your feet and gave way when you walked on it. I was amazed it met building code haha. I felt unsafe and wanted to get out of there!
The pier is very long. I just Googled it and it is 1,722 feet long. Here's an overhead view to give you an idea.
Definitely a spot meant for kids and families and teenagers. I'm glad I walked the whole thing once, but didn't need to go back haha.
After that, I walked around an area called The Lanes. It's all sorts of cute, small streets in Brighton with unique shops and restaurants and pubs. Mostly I needed food and wanted to pick a good first place to have a meal for England 2022. I went to a proper pub called
The Cricketers.
Cute, right? I took this first photo a few days after I ate here. I love the couple in the front staring at me. After I took the picture, I looked at them and said, "Smile!" and walked away. I hope they knew I was telling them to smile for the photo, not just to smile in general. But also, smile in general? I dunno.
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| The inside of The Cricketers |
I had fish and chips, which wasn't gorgeous to look at, but here it is! With a side of mushy peas.
After this, I walked around a bit more until about 4:00 pm. At this point I had been awake for 26 hours and had walked 2.5 miles. Usually on my first day I try to stay awake until about 8:00 pm, but I just couldn't. I slept for about 4 hours, woke up at 8:00 pm and looked at my phone for a while, and then fell back asleep until the next morning... and hoped for better weather the next day!
