On the Road (Again): It's BRIT-on, dammit!

Yes, readers, today was the trip to Brighton.

We went to Brighton because one of the books from the spring class, a stated favorite of a couple students on the trip, was set in Brighton in 1940. (Unexploded by Alison MacLeod) The book gives you a real feel for the town and the tension of being on the French side of the country, just across the water, as Hitler threatened an invasion.

The trip began with me forgetting my Tube pass and we missed multiple busses to Victoria Station as I sent a student back to my flat for it and a jacket, which another student wore all day. Sigh.

Then off to Brighton.

We walked over to The Level, a park that is a prominent feature of the book. This took some doing, as I wanted to go east, but coming out of the train station's front, there was no road east (you could see south down the hill to the sea) and eventually ended up going back through the station, out to the car park, and down a set of stairs.

The Level had a huge children's play area. There are silly pictures, including one (I don't have) of me sitting on a wooden sheep, looking happy. What a thing!

The couple in Unexploded live on Park Crescent and we walked by there. The houses are there as described -- a series of row houses backing onto the park. I'm not sure any of the students got a big bang out of this, though one said "I didn't imagine them being houses like this -- I thought they had yards" -- Evelyn, in the book, has the keys to several neighbors' houses as they have evacuated.

Then we walked to the pier. Here's photo op 1:

The Brighton Pier is, as EH says, the Asbury Park of England. Turns out my students didn't know what Asbury Park is (EH found out later), so...

But there were booths with ice cream, with donuts, with hot dogs, and then there are arcades (like the building behind us in the photo), and rides (there was screaming, of course, from the roller coaster) and something of a crowd.

Maybe the highlight of the day

If you wonder why I have a picture of a seagull eating something, let me show you phase 1

Morgan and I got ice cream at a stand at the front of the pier and began walking. Moments later Morgan gave a yelp and THAT seagull had swooped in and snatched the cone from her hand and it was gone!!! The photo was a quickly as I could get my phone out for the pic -- it chomped down the cone in like three bites -- like it was its job!!! LOL. Morgan was non-plussed, to say the least. But ice cream!

I tried to get a good photo from the end of the pier, back towards town.

I am aware I didn't succeed.

BTW, the beach at Brighton is pebbles. Students found this weird. They live a sheltered life. :)

You can also see it wasn't exactly a sunny beach day. It may have been 70. No one was in the water.

Hannah had wanted us to have high tea; K suggested doing that in Brighton (no one had had lunch). I found a place up the coast three blocks from the pier, and we had theirs.

The Old Ship Hotel not only advertised their afternoon tea, they supplied a "do's and don'ts" of the tea experience. Several of them were violated (OC), including the ones about "not setting things other than the tea service on the table (like phones)" and "don't talk about your like or dislike of the foods, that's why there is choice at tea". Here's the money shot:

Our host, Toby, was very nice and took good care of us. There was a discussion of whether to start at the top (the sweets) or the bottom (the savories). Highlights: the top maringue thing is a passion fruit curd with whipped cream and marzipan on top; one of the bottom sandwiches was chicken curry.

And then to London for dinner. I'm not kidding.

I won't regale you with the adventure of getting to the train station -- 3 taxis, none in sequence or close to each other in time -- etc. Par for the course. Six of us were on the train back.

I met EH & K and Katie and Julie (from the 2015 trip) in Covent Garden at Jamie's Italian (Jamie Oliver restaurant). The prix fixe for two courses was £12.95. It was Italian, of course.

This is my favorite meal in London on this trip, though I know it's not the best meal (probably Dishoom next door to this restaurant on Sunday was the best), it was my favorite. I love Italian food (not a surprise to readers of this blog). I got good shots of the apps -- this is the crunchy squid EH had as prelim --