Ashes and Brighton

The second last weekend in April, we expected a visit from Anja and Kristian, Tollef's sister and brother. We were all very disappointed when the ashes from the volcano erruption on Iceland made the trip undoable. We really hope to be able to have the visit at some later point. As the weather was still incredibly nice, we decided to go to Brighton on my day off. Apart from wanting to se the famous Brighton Pier and the Prince Regent's Royal Pavilion, we both have people we know there, through software development and boardgames.

We didn't get on the road as early as we wanted to, but arrived in Brighton just after noon. We walked through the city centre to the Royal Pavilion and had a guided tour around the building. It was very special, more like a Indian/Chinese/Eastern palace than an English castle, which is of course why it is so special. The Prince Regent was not known for his modesty, and the decorations throughout the building was impressive, with dragons, phoenives, and bright yellow, red and green colours.

After the Royal Pavilion, we had lunch at a pub in The Lanes, old market streets of Brighton, and the main city centre from before Brighton became a popular tourist city. After lunch we met up with my friend Helen, and we walked down to the pier for ice cream. All the fun rides were moved out on the end of the pier, and it looked rather scary with some of the high and fast rides out over the pier edge. It was quite crowded but very nice to be close to the sea and all the nice views. Not very far from the Brighton Pier is the remains of the West Pier, that burned down some years ago. It looks like a skeleton pier and a bit of a special site compared to the other one. Out on the pier we met a couple of Tollef's friends from Debian, and as Helen left ut, the boys went for beer, while I got Odin. We caught up with them on a nice pub and had a drink, before Odin and I walked to a nearby park to relax in the sun.

Before leaving us, Helen was kind to invite us to dinner, so we set off from the city centre to her place, a very nice house outside Brighton. The food was very good and a nice change from the planned pub food, and we ended up leaving a bit later than we intended. A car accident just on the way out of Brighton delayed us for another hour, and we came home about midnight, rather tired after a long, but very nice day in Brighton.

Karianne