Discovering England: Brighton and York

Once I was done with my final assignments, I had about a month left to go before our flight home. This was not intentional. Back at the beginning of the semester, we needed to buy our round trip plane tickets. And the dates for the semester said that finals could last until June 16th at the very latest, and so that's when we booked our flight home. Turns out we were done by mid-May. And so my friend's mom visited her for a few days. After she left, my friend and I traveled around for a week and a half. First to Brighton, and then to York.

The bright side of deciding to travel around England is that, since we were already in England, no planes were necessary. Just a lot of trains, which at least have a view outside their windows. Planes can get so boring after a few hours.

Our first stop on this tour of England was Brighton because we wanted to go somewhere with a beach. I really did enjoy it there. The people seemed friendly, and the hostel was really nice besides the fact that we couldn't shower first thing in the morning because the water would be ice cold.

Brighton appears to be the perfect place to just set out and wander. There's the beach that you can walk up and down for miles. You can see the piers. First, there's the West Pier that burned down (which makes for very dramatic photographs), and then there's the new improved Brighton Palace Pier with arcades and amusement park rides like bumper cars.

West Pier

Brighton Palace Pier

There are also the lanes and other nice streets that are great to walk along and look into the little shops. We found a lot of good places to eat, and I found some very nice and interesting places to go shopping. One of my favorite places was Ideya, a little cafe with the best hot chocolate that I have ever had. Full disclosure, I probably don't remember every single mug of hot chocolate that I've ever drunk, but this hazelnut hot chocolate was pretty damn good. I also got a nice breakfast of toast with arugula and eggs over easy. By the way, they don't call it "arugula" over here, it's called "rocket." This really confused me the first few times I saw it listed on menus and in grocery stores. When I told someone that we call it arugula, they thought I'd made the word up.

Boho Gelato was another good place. I got a milkshake and my friend got sorbet. We then went to the beach to enjoy them in the sun. There aren't too many better ways to spend your time than that. Overall, the trip was enjoyable and relaxing. Four days gave us just enough time to take things slow, but also enjoy a range of activities for each day. People told us that we'd get bored with all this time in a place like Brighton, but I think we took the right route.

We briefly visited the Royal Pavillion

Next up we took a couple of trains from Brighton to York. To be honest, I chose York because of an English teacher I had in seventh grade. He and his wife moved there for three years, and I was curious what it looked like.

A goose family in York

We had a hell of a time getting there though. It seems that England really enjoys challenging me with our means of transportation. First, our flight from Edinburgh to London gets canceled because of a fire at Stansted Airport. And then, when our train makes its stop at Doncaster, one stop before York, a woman jumped in front of our train and got hit. You can read more about it here. Don't worry, she's still alive as far as I know. She was injured, but not fatally. I hope she is doing all right. It must take a lot for someone to decide to leap in front of a train. It was extremely surreal. We saw the paramedics carry her into an ambulance helicopter. Then we had to get off the train and wait for the next one heading to York.

Upon first entering York, it looks like a classic quaint English town. Thin streets, some cobbled, and many pubs dotting the streets as you walk. The York Minster looms over it all.

There are a lot of sweet shops throughout York, including a tour of a chocolate factory that involved many samples.

One of my favorite things that we did was to walk along the city walls. We were really lucky with the weather, and most of our days there were sunny and warm. And walking around the city walls gave us a good look at different portions of York. It also made for some great photos along the way.

We also did other touristy stuff, such as climbing up Clifford Tower and looking for a few of the Lucky Cats that are stationed around the city. There are stone cats positioned on buildings all over the place. According to the pamphlet, they signify good luck.

Clifford Tower

One of the York cats. They all look different, so they’re difficult to find.

It was a good mini-vacation, and I think we chose some good places. It would be fun to return someday.