KATE NASH in BRIGHTON

After Mom and Aunt Barb left I had quite a bit of homework, class, and internship to catch up on so that's what I did for a few days. Then by Friday, I was ready to do some more adventuring, aka I had booked tickets back in early February to go to Brighton, so was now actually going to Brighton!

I left my internship around 1pm and met up with Stacy to begin our journey to the UK. We took the Eurostar train, which was greatly different than the TGV. For Eurostar they made us go through security, they stamped our passports, and made us fill out a customs report. For the TGV, we simply took the escalator up to our train, got on, had someone stamp our ticket and we were in France in an hour. So, it was very bizarre having Eurostar train station be more like an airport than a train station. But cool things that I got to do on this train were go through the Chunnel! Its quite dark down there and your ear's pop. For some reason I thought I'd be seeing fish and the water surrounding the train, but alas no such luck.

When we got to London, we switched trains and took a more normal (aka a train I was more used to) train to Brighton. Once in Brighton, we stopped and got pounds. By the way, the conversion fee is killer! But it didn't stop me from getting cookies and a drink at the train station since I hadn't had time for lunch between my internship and leaving I was quite hungry. Then, we went in search of our hostel. It was beautiful, it was located right next to the sea! So pretty. We got all checked in to the hostel, I was staying in a 8 person mixed room which was full, so that in it of itself was an adventure. Stacy was lucky and was staying in a 4 person mixed room, not nearly as intimidating. After we got all settled, we went to the hostel bar and plotted out our plans for what to do in Brighton, since besides for seeing Kate Nash neither of us really had any idea of what to do there. Well before anything could be set in stone, we decided we were in need of food, so we went to a few different places, and at the last place where I got pizza I got sick. It was disgusting, and ruined my clothes for the weekend. Now they are all laundered, but at the time I did not think to pack laundry detergent with me, so they just sat dirty in a plastic bag then until Sunday. So after that incident, we returned to the hostel and I went to sleep right away.

Saturday (March 26th), I got up and met up with Stacy for breakfast. We had breakfast with this creeper Christopher who wanted to talk to us about Journalism, but frankly it was too early in the morning to deal with sketchy guys talking about politics and the world. After that delightful breakfast we changed and went to the Royal Pavilion.

Janice at the Royal Pavilion

 Next to the Royal Pavilion, we found the Brighton Museum where we learned a little about Brighton's history and saw some art! Following the museum, we got some coffee to help keep us awake and did some window stopping in the famous Lanes area. We passed by the Royal Theatre and saw that across the street at the Pavilion Theatre they were doing a children's show, "Storm in a Teacup" with puppets, so we bought tickets to see that for later in the day! Then we had lunch at El Mexicano, we went their purely for names sake. By the time we finished lunch it was time for "Storm in a Teacup." We were by far the oldest people there, and the only people there without children! Whatever, I loved the show. I don't think it was really Stacy's cup of tea, but she still went.

Inside the Royal Museum

Silly British props

Typical "I'm in the UK picture"

Other side of Royal Pavilion

Pavilion Theatre

Storm in a Teacup set

Stacy at "Storm in a Teacup"

 Following the show, we did some more shopping and wandering the city until it was time to head back to the hostel to get changed for our Kate Nash concert. Kate Nash was AWESOME! Even her opening act of Brigitte Aphrodite was good too! It was a very women empowering night with good music and good friends!

Stacy and Janice at Kate Nash!

Kate Nash singing her heart out

Kate Nash rocking it

Brigitte Aphrodite

After the concert, we were so whipped we just went back to the hostel and went to sleep.

Sunday (March 27th) I got up to Stacy's text of telling me she was on her way to breakfast, so I quickly gathered my luggage together and changed. We then had breakfast and went in search of Starbucks to get some coffee. Then it began to rain. Sigh. No good, but we braved it though and went to the Brighton Pier which consisted of a giant arcade and carnival rides. It was an odd pier. Since I'm not a big fan of carnivals I didn't really enjoy it, I did however enjoy being on the sea!

Brighton Pier

Janice and Stacy on the Pier

Check it out, the sea!

We left the Pier and went to our hostel to collect our stuff as we were now going to take the train to London and spend some time in London cause why not? In London, we went to Chipotle and mostly just walked around seeing the sites, enjoying the sunshine by just taking a little sit down in Russel Square until it was time for our train back to Brussels. Then we left back to Brussels, back to our homes. Its weird, but having been gone from my host family's house for such a long time with Paris, then the passport fiasco, and now Brighton, I was just so happy to be back to a place that I could call home. Overall though, I would say super successful weekend and I would highly recommend going to see Kate Nash in concert if you ever have the time! She makes me very, merry happy!

Clock tower in Brighton

St. Pancras train station in London