My day as a 7-year-old

I had a hard time titling this blog because so many good titles came to mind. "My day as a 7-year-old" beat out "Let me Brighton your day!", which I deemed a little corny. Anyways, today I had a fabulous day! Rebecca and I spent the day in Brighton and had an absolutely wonderful day. Be prepared for a long post - it was such a long, fun day.

So Rebecca and I woke up fairly early this morning. We left our flats at 7:00 to get to the bus station at 8:00. We boarded our bus and got to Brighton in just two hours or so. The ride was nothing and it was fun seeing the outskirts of London.

Once we got there, we spent a bit of time exploring. We first walked to the Brighton Pier. It was still early, so many places were closed and there weren't many people yet. We saw lots of cute rides and fun places to get carnival-type food. After that, we walked alongside the beach and saw some shops and art galleries. We also saw lots of awesome restaurants (many of which served mashed peas. We did not try them - they look like guacamole, but worse.)

After our mini exploration, we walked in the direction of the Royal Pavilion. There was an art gallery attached to the pavilion, which we went into first. There was a lot of modern art, clothing/image exhibits, and an awesome comparison exhibit which was my favorite part. This exhibit hung two portraits together that shared a common theme or element. It was really cool to see how creative the museum was in their pairings and whatnot. After the art, we went to see the Royal Pavilion. (We got a great deal and got a joint ticket to the pavilion and sea life center - yay us!) The pavilion was build for George IV in the 1800s. It was the most amazing building I have ever seen! Unfortunately, I could not take pictures on the inside, but I wish you could have seen the interior. It was extremely lavish and there was so much decoration and plushness. I don't even know how to describe it - I was simply awe-struck.

After the pavilion, Rebecca and I decided to go get lunch. We, being such indecisive people, had a hard time picking which of the 5000 restaurants to eat at! We ended up at a place called Opposition and had a very cheap, but tasty, lunch. It was quite an interesting experience, seeing as the people kept forgetting about us and our waitress barely spoke English and had a hard time understanding our order. It was really amusing, but we loved our pizzas, so it was all good.

Next, we decided to venture back to the sea life center. We had an absolute blast there! We, first, saw a million little kids. They were too, too cute! Second, we got to see so many different species of cute fish and turtles. I think my favorites were the huge sea turtles, who were rescued. I also liked the Amazonian exhibit, which was creative and well-planned. My favorite part in general was touching a sea anenome. Rebecca and I had a really stupid moment when we forget what the sea anenomes were called and had to ask. We felt so dumb after he told us and laughed at us a bit. All in all, the sea life center was so great and I didn't expect to like it as much as I did!

After that, we decided to venture down little side streets and do some shopping and looking. We found another Octopus store! It is by far my favorite in England - and luckily there are shops in London, too!! Rebecca bought some fudge and we both bought some tupperware containers and household items at the 99 pence store. We walked into a store that sold expensive chocolate - cakes cost 2000 pounds! It was fun just window shopping and getting "lost" along side streets. it was really great.

After a while, we decided to walk back towards the water and walk along the pebble beach. It was fun attempting to take pictures (when you only have two people, it is difficult to do such things) and pick out our souvenir pebbles. I have one that I hope to paint into a ladybug or something.

We ended our night by going back to the pier, which was all lit up for nighttime. We got ourselves a healthy dinner of chips (fries), fountain Diet Coke, and ice cream. We ate on the pier and did some people watching. It was great!

After that, we only had about an hour to wander around before the coach came to take us back to London. We walked off some of our carbs and just talked some more. Eventually, we made it back to the coach and had a hilarious driver. He was one of the highlights of my night!

Now I'm back and blogging about my awesome day as a 7-year-old. Ice cream, piers, arcades, and the beach - what could be better? I can't wait to go back when it's warmer and actually enjoy the beach!