Went to the Other Side of the Country For the Day

I actually wrote that paper I wanted to start a few weeks ago! Remember the one that isn't due until May but I wanted to get it out of the way? Well, I finished it! I still have to go through and correct things to make it sound better but at least the hard part is out of the way.

Yesterday, Kara, Rachel Maddy, Kaley, Maddy's friend Hannah and I went to Brighton! This city is on the coast, so while everyone from CMU is posting pictures of them in Florida I still get to enjoy the beach! It was a great day to go, as well. The weather was perfect, and since it was a Tuesday there was not many people there.

Right when we got off the train we headed towards the beach. The first thing we noticed when we started to walk towards the water was that the beach was not made out of sand, but rocks. It actually made it really hard to walk through. We spent a while by the water. We put our hands in it (it was freezing!) and then tried to find some good rocks to skip.

We started to walk towards the pier and ferris wheel, but got sidetracked by ice cream. It was a wonderful day by the water and a pier... how could we not get ice cream?? Then we made our way to the ferris wheel! It was a great view of the city and it was Rachel's first ferris wheel! It was a small one though so she has to go on the London Eye at some point... baby steps.

Then we went to the Brighton Pier to let out our inner child (as if the ice cream and ferris wheel weren't enough!). We played some arcade games (had a dance battle with Maddy.... still not sure who won) and saw the different rides they had on the pier. Non of us had pounds to exchange for tokens, so we just looked at the rides instead of actually riding them. We were getting hungry for lunch and decided it was necessary to have fish 'n chips in Brighton! For anyone who doesn't know me, I don't eat seafood. It freaks me out that it was in water (I know, it's a weird reason! But it's true...). Even though we already had ice cream earlier, we wanted something sweet again. We found a cute little gelato shop down the road. They had Key Lime Pie gelato, but the Aussies have never heard of Key Lime Pie before. We noticed that whenever we make them try something they immediately say "Oh it tastes like..." and then say some crazy name. They said the Key Lime Pie gelato tasted like Lemon Spider I think? We're convinced they are just making these crazy names up.

Sarah met us in town after that. The reason we went to Brighton in the first place is because Kaley, Sarah and I had tickets to the Olly Murs concert! Once we met up with her we still had plenty of time to kill, so we found the mall in town. While shopping, Kaley and I just kept mentioning how we wanted to buy everything and life would just be easier if we were rich. We found so many dresses that we wanted to buy but would have no reason to buy them! The only reason we would need them was if we had a really fancy dinner to go to. But don't worry, we're trying to figure out a way for us to get rich so we can go to these fancy dinner parties in the pretty dresses.

Sunset in Brighton

Our group got split up so we met everyone up at the pier again and headed to a pub for a bit before we had to leave for the concert. The venue was nothing compared to the O2 Arena (where the One Direction concert was held), but it was a good set up! Speaking of One Direction, there was a screen playing music videos on it and right when we sat down they started playing "One Way Or Another" by them and it's safe to say Kaley and I screamed. Then, a little bit later they played a preview for their 3D movie coming out this summer.... we couldn't handle it! We were more excited about the preview than for the actual concert (until Olly came on... but I'll get to that a little later).

We had talked about this before while shopping, but Kaley is basically my twin. She likes all the same music I do, we always buy similar clothes and she has the same dreams I do (living in a flat in London, having a ton of twitter followers and being rich enough to go to fancy dinner parties.... doesn't that sound nice?). But really, we always talk about how natural it feels for us to be in London and how we are not ready to leave! She is also just like me at concerts, dancing, singing and taking a TON of pictures! And it works out perfect since we like many of the same artists!

Ready for the Olly concert!

The concert was so good! The first opening act was interesting, though. It was a young girl named Titch. She was barefoot while performing  (gross!) and she kept playing with her hair. Sarah, Kaley and I decided she reminded us of a mix between Rebecca Black and Cher Lloyd. It was a weird combination. But the next act was awesome! It was Loveable Rogues and they were on Britain's Got Talent (apparently they got beat out by a dog). You should go check them out! They almost have a reggae feel to them... it's fun to listen to.

Then Olly came on! As expected, he was amazing. I feel like it is hard to describe how good the concerts are that we went to! We had bought these tickets in the second week we were here, so we had been looking forward to it. Olly really knows how to engage the crowd in his shows. I know everyone says this at concerts, but Olly definitely waved to the three of us. He walked to the side of the stage we were on and we were the only ones standing in our section so we started to wave at him. He waved back and gave his cheeky smile he always gives... he's so charming! And that wave was meant for us. I promise you! When he sang his song "Busy" it was exciting for me because that was the first song I had heard from him. There is a line in the song that says "You only get one life" and Kaley just looked at me when he sang it. She had that look on her face that was saying it was fate hearing those words from him. I promise you, back home I really don't believe in the whole "fate" and "destiny" thing, but here I do! I'm not sure what it is, but here things have been working out so well for us that I feel like I have to.

After the concert we went to stand by his tour bus. We saw that the last train was leaving at 11:45 so we were going to leave around 11:30 to get to the station in time. After an hour of waiting (none of us thought it seemed that long!) we saw that we had to go. We met up with the rest of our group who stayed at the pub to watch the Manchester United football game, then headed to the train station. Then our night got interesting. The last train left at 11:35, not 11:45. So we were stuck in Brighton until the trains started up again at 4 am. We asked a worker if there were any trains going anywhere in London and he said no. We must have looked desperate because he came back to tell us we could take a coach bus to Gatwick airport. How nice of him to tell us! So we were off to find out first bus! From Gatwick, we took another coach that dropped us off in Sutton. When we got dropped off there it was almost 3 am. We were all exhausted. Then we took the normal buses we take in London to Kingston and went our separate ways to our buses back home. One of our bus drivers did stop the bus to talk to another bus driver. Really?? It was 3 am and all I wanted to do was get home, not sit on a bus while the driver is talking to another driver.  I didn't get home until 4 am. I had a 9 am the next morning and would have to get up at 7 am for the class so I decided to pull an all-nighter. I don't function well on that little bit of sleep, and now I'll be able to sleep really well tonight!

I thought I had fallen in love with London, but I think I have fallen in love with England. Brighton was absolutely beautiful (even if the train schedule is messed up). Is it to early to start looking at flats to buy after I graduate?