20 Jul 06 Out the Window, right now
Just snapped these shots, the view from the front window. No exercising at the moment, just soaking up the sun. (this post is dedicated to Mary!)
19 Jul 06 To the beach!
This time I’ll give in and admit there really is a heatwave happening here! Current temperature is 34 degrees, and schools have even closed early. It’s not a good day to be riding the tube, which fits just fine with my plan to stay inside as much as possible.
Especially since I got a bit scorched down at the beach on Sunday :)
The south-coast beach at Brighton isn’t the closest to London. You can get to the east-coast beaches at Essex in about an hour by train, but we’ve wanted to take a Brighton trip for quite awhile and it’s only an extra 15 minute ride. The train departs from Blackfriars Station which is a few tube stops from home.
We arrived in Brighton around 9:30 and it was already sweaty-hot, even at the shore. Ocean! The water was a gorgeous deep aqua colour… but that’s one long stretch of pebbly beach.
Much of the beach is dotted with canvas lounge chairs you can rent for £1.50, but exploring the promenade and pier was more interesting. Just like any town with a beach, there’s a fair number of chippy’s (essentially a concession with a deep-fryer), pub patios and boat rental outlets lining the promenade.
The pier is where all the fun fair action goes on, it houses a gazebo with carnival games and casino slot machines. I blew about £2 playing a silly coinslot game where you drop your coin onto a huge pile of other coins with the goal of hitting a metal sliding thing that pushes all the coins into an even bigger pile. You cross your fingers and hope the big pile shifts just enough so a bunch of coins (ie. the ‘booty’) will fall out, but odds are rather slim I’d say. You might just win 50p though, never know!
Next destination: Crazy Mouse!
With some (just a little) persistence, Matt convinced me to climb aboard a Crazy Mouse coaster car, a ride which from the ground seemed harmless. We had watched others go round and not heard any shrieking. And it’s not like there’s upside-down loops…
But now we know what the ‘Crazy’ part is: just the feeling you’ll launch off the end of the track and over the edge of the pier, crashing into the water 100 feet below while locked into a coaster car. No biggy :) The cars jerk around so rigidly, too, that you can’t help but imagine that loud snap sound you just heard means you’re strapped into that one car in a million bound to go off the rails. It didn’t.
Later, just beyond the mini-golf course, we caught ‘the world’s oldest operating electric train‘ eastward down the beach toward the sand sculpture festival. Housed under a big tent (so you have to pay to see) are several enormous, impressive sand creations made with a Roman theme. We gasped at the skill, time and patience required to achieve such works of art, then giggled at how erotic - even pornographic - some of the sculptures were! Hey, kids admission is only £4.
Away from the beach we shopped a little in the Lanes, a nest of winding streets with all sorts of shops, and Matt bought me a lovely pink purse :) Had a cursory look at the exterior of the Royal Pavillion and ducked out of the heat into the air-conditioned Brighton Museum & Art Gallery which has free admission but was very entertaining, worth every penny.
We had dinner reservations at Terre a Terre, a vegetarian restaurant recommended as the best in the country. From their website:
Forget everything you have ever read or heard about vegetarian food. Forget everything you have ever eaten at vegetarian restaurants. Dining at Terre à Terre is a culinary experience like no other, with intense flavours, sublime textures and a combination of ingredients that few have the imagination or daring to put together.
The food was great, all components works of art, and definitely the best vegetarian we’ve eaten. My dish was Hot Parmesan Dumpling, with Beetroot Chevre Battenberg served with green olive and fresh leaf smash, brunoise of pumpkin and cumin crecy, lentilles de lait, merlot soft sticky onions and rosemary rub. Sounds pretty good right? Lots of supremely rich flavours, the kind I could treat myself to once a year.
Matt had Terre à Tapas a selection of lovelies, hot & cold, served with garlic & herb focaccia (large enough for one hungry person or two to share). The Tapas samplers were beautiful, but not large enough to keep him from ordering dessert.
All that and we were home around 8:30pm, exhausted and crispy.
18 Jul 06 Tower Music Festival
It’s been and gone, but last week Matt and I attended a concert as part of a music festival at the Tower of London. The performances spanned two weeks with headliners including Pet Shop Boys, Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy and James Brown. We had no plans to go, but I got lucky and won tickets for the Madeleine Peyroux show from a community magazine that was delivered to our flat. With tickets selling for £35 each it was a pretty good deal!
The Tower is just a 10 minute walk from our place and we had perfectly beautiful weather for spending the evening in the Tower moat. Ticket holders were encouraged to arrive early and linger on the lawn with picnic and wine before the show started. When you finished up you could check your baskets into a tent for pickup after the concert, just like checking your coat.
Lounging around on the grass in the evening sun was great, but later the audience was herded into rows of uncomfortable, connected plastic chairs. Not so great. There was some space to stand, far back from the stage and behind the banks of seats, but overall the atmosphere was orderly and ‘civilised’.
The opening act, ‘Athena’, was a disappointment - a female singer attempting a vague imitation of Sarah McLachlan meets Tori Amos, without success. Madeleine Peyroux on the other hand, who we had never heard of before the nigh, was a treat. Her voice is more than reminiscent of Billie Holiday’s and she sings several covers, including songs by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed.
10 Jul 06 Spending: pounds vs. dollars
Using today’s currency conversion rates, I thought I’d share a few examples of how much stuff costs here. If you’re traveling to the UK from the US, you might want to save any purchases until you return home! Or take the eurostar to Paris and do some euro shopping there.
Book
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris: £6.39 vs. $9.72
US price is £1.14/$2.11 less
Digital SLR Camera
Canon EOS 20D Body: £829.00 vs. $999.95
US price is £288.80/$534.57 less
Movie/cinema
Weekend Ticket: £12.50 vs $10.75
US price is £6.69/$12.37 less
Matt and I planned to see Pirates of the Caribbean Saturday but couldn’t bring ourselves to drop USD $46 on just two tickets! Yes I know it’s just the cost of entertainment consumption here, and we usually avoid any temptation to convert currency, but this seems such a scam, no?
GET FED: