Another busy day, for my book, but all in all a good learning experience. To begin, I woke up fairly early and went to Ladbroke Grove station, putting time on my oyster card (a month). I then went to Bloomsbury and ran up to the coach (I was about five minutes behind) and arrived for the coach, and apparently they were all sitting there waiting for me, and I quickly loaded the bus. On the way there I sat next to some bloke, but we did not strike up any conversation or anything and I nearly immediately fell asleep. I awoke when we approached Brighton, and we stopped near the Brighton piers. We went on a little walk about the place, going to the Brighton Lanes, as well they were rather enchanting they had some funny and cool looking shops in them, including the Lanes Armoury, which I later returned to, and it was quite simply the best and most exotic collection of weapons by a single shop I had ever seen. I talked to the owner for a long time about things in military history and such, it was rather fun. The other strange thing I saw in the Lanes was an erotica shop, and out on the road near it, was a pink car advertising for it, replete with handcuff on the rearview mirror. Let me explain for those of you who do not know what the Lanes are, and I might add that before I went to Brighton myself, I would have included myself in this address. The Brighton Lanes are these series of little back allies essentially that are rather narrow, so narrow in fact that a fat man could block the way completely for anyone else to get by in (in some areas anyway), and they are loaded with shops and things and apparently they have a somewhat robust reputation.
After the Lanes we walked by the Brighton Pavilion which we would later enter, and we walked back to the pier. At the pier, I ordered six American donuts, and ate many of them, they were somewhat like Krispy Kreme, but not quite as good, and were only coated in sugar, which got a bit sick to me after a little while. I wandered around, and took a picture of a gay bar, because apparently Brighton is supposed to be the San Francisco of Britain. There were actually a lot of homosexual oriented things there, and I think it is just because it is a nice seaside resort. I also walked back up the Lanes, and I then proceeded to go first inside the erotica shop I was talking about, but was a little disappointed by the selection. Afterward, I went to the armoury shop I was talking about. I then went to the Brighton Museum and explored around there for a while, they had some African stuff, and things like that, and they had this contemporary artist on display who did ceramics, and he was very political, and very opposed to people like Margaret Thatcher, and the likes of that including the royal family to some extent, and also of course George Bush very heavily. It was a very interesting viewpoint to see, and especially because he liked to make a lot of tea pots or things like that.
After I left there, I then went to the Pavilion to join my group, and fortunately it was right next door. The Pavilion was an amazing building. Inside, it was very well done, and extremely Chinese in its architecture and decor, which was quite a feat for the 18th century, I have little doubt. It had a huge kitchen, which was extremely modern in its time, and I guess the first chef who ran it was actually a French chef who made the idea that chefs would wear white to show you how good they are by how unstained their shirts are, and also made the tall chef’s hats... he actually wrote a lot of the books on chef-dom which apparently are still used today, right from there. After that, we headed back, to the coach, and along the way I stopped at a little café, and bought a sandwich at a restaurant called Frank-in-Stein, which was a cute little diner next to a nice garden and fountain. We then headed home, and when I came back, I decided to stop off at Abbey Road finally. I made it there, and it was near dusk, but I took some pictures anyway, and I have to say I never had such a magical moment crossing the street as I did there, just seeing the picture of the Beatles doing it, and moreover the trees and everything being nearly perfect, it was really fun. I actually asked two girls standing there to take a couple pictures of me by the sign for Abbey Road. And I should have taken a picture of the studio itself, but didn’t think of it.
After that I got back and went to sleep. The next day I woke up, and got a lot of work done essentially, but really didn’t go out save to Portobello Road for the market and bought some salmon and mushrooms there for a rather decent price (60p for a lb of mushrooms!). I then went to Iceland grocers and got some more stuff. I stayed in that night because everyone else was out and watched Lost in Translation, which was a delightful film to see for some reason, and ate my pizza and drank the Vanilla Cokes I bought too, it was a rather nice relaxing evening, and one that I want to do more often. The next day I got a lot of work done, by emailing many people, and such. As well, I also cleaned a lot of stuff up, and made some good mushroom burgers (minus the beefs), they were actually rather good. Being too tired, I didn’t want to write an entry for that night. Tonight (Monday 19 September) I sit here, telling also of today’s events, which began in the morning by me waking up, and trying again to accomplish some things on the computer. I later went to the STA office and got my reservations for Venice- Berlin, but I also confirmed my African trip, which I had a huge debate in my head about doing, but finally decided it would be the better course, and one that hopefully I’ll be very happy about in future. Those, essentially are the details for today, save to say I started but didn’t end my Theodore Roosevelt series, and of course I finished writing this entry!