Ramblings of Naiveté

I should probably try to blog more often than I do so that I can help myself to remember later on what I did here. That’s what I miss about keeping up with a journal… I used to remember events so clearly and in chronological order, too. Now, it’s not as easy for me to remember certain things because I never wrote it down or recorded the memory. It’s not even that I don’t have the time to do so, either… I just get lazy about it. :/ I even brought my 10th journal with me but I haven’t written a single word. Instead, I’m off doing other things like watching HIMYM or writing this blog. I guess I’ll make that one of my goals before I leave… to write at least one entry before I leave. Which is in less than a month, actually, so I’d better not forget!

Anyway, since this Sunday marks the end of the last “full” week I have in Brighton, I thought I’d share some stories and pictures of random explorations. For these last two weeks, I’ve stayed within the relative vicinity of Brighton. Next weekend I’ll be in London and after that, I’ll visit Paris and Barcelona. So since no trips had been planned for these past two weeks, Michelle, Alex, and I decided to explore places around Brighton and in the next cities over.

It took me a while to thoroughly understand, but Brighton itself isn’t quite a city. Apparently, the city is Brighton and Hove since they have a combined city council but Brighton is half of the city and Hove is the other half. Brighton and Hove are part of Sussex county(?) which is split into East and West Sussex. Within Brighton & Hove city, there are villages and small areas like Portslade. During the two weeks that we haven’t gone travelling, I’ve visited Hove and Portslade. I also visited Shoreham, which is a city next to Brighton and Hove but I’ll talk about that visit in another entry. :)

Since visiting Hove and exploring more of the Brighton area, I’ve taken an exam and written an essay do I don’t remember details that well… which is why I need to start recording memories sooner rather than later. .___. It’s sad because it was only last week. xP last Thursday, Michelle, Alex and I met up and walked all the way down one of Brighton’s main roads to go to Hove. We figured out where one of the city buses stops and found a quaint little garden. England is full of parks, or random areas of land of just grass and trees where people can just sit, talk, read, contemplate, etc. I don’t know if it’s because they were one of the first countries to have an Industrial revolution and cut down a bunch of trees, but they really do have a lot of parks. They’re really pretty and can be relaxing when it’s not too cold to sit outside. :P That Thursday was pretty chilly. It was overcast and superrr windy next to the beach. Hove is a coastal part of the city, like Brighton, so we eventually ended up at the beach again and hung out there for a little bit. There are a lot of little storage houses, all numbered and different colors, so that was pretty neat. There wasn’t really a whole bunch of things to do in Hove, so we didn’t stay for long… but it was very pretty! The architecture and residences in Hove are a lot prettier than the ones in Brighton. But, Brighton is a lot more active and has all of the shops and food places. The rest of the time in Hove was spent walking to Portslade. Michelle and I had looked up different things to see, like Portslade village for its old houses, but we didn’t really end up seeing much. We walked through neighborhoods and talked but ended up just going to Portslade train station, taking the bus back to Brighton town centre, and going to Primark. [Primark is a reallyyyyyy cheap clothing store that has some pretty nice things so it’s difficult to go in and not buy anything. xD] I ended up getting new tights and a Cinderella/Tinkerbell-esque(as described by Mia… through Andrew compared it to the dress the Fleur wore in HP4, hehehe… hence why I like him.) dress. And, that was the end of that day.

Because I didn’t get enough exploring out of my system on Thursday, I went exploring on my own on Saturday. I decided to actually figure out what I lived near, since my homestay house is at the top of a hill and I live 15-20 minutes by bus away from Brighton town centre. I looked at a map and I found out that I’m right next to a roundabout that leads to Hove, Lewes, and London. I walked to the roundabout, hoping that I’d be able to walk towards one of those areas but it was pretty busy with cars and I was the only pedestrian in sight… Also, two of the roundabout exits led to ramps so I decided against exploring that area and went back towards my house. Instead of going back though, I explored the area across the main street from my house. I knew that there was a place there that people would walk there dogs, but I didn’t know what it was. At first, I encountered a small grass area with trees but then I realized that there was a path beyond the trees that led to a pretty big clearing covered with green grass and outlined with autumn colored trees. :) Since it was sunny that day, the scene was gorgeous and I was ecstatic. Since I live on a hill, the clearing sloped downhill and  another path showed itself at the end of it. After taking pictures, I walked down the path and was immediately surrounded by more trees. What I realized was that the path was behind people’s houses and side yards, so they literally have a little forest behind or to the side of their houses. Because it had been overcast over the past few days, I realized that exploring in ballet flats were probably a bad idea… mine got all muddy but it was still fun to walk down the path on my own. It was really peaceful and I encountered a lot of families walking their dogs on the way down. I also saw a mother and her daughters having a little photoshoot with the trees and it reminded me of my middle sister. She would LOVE to do something like that. xP After about a half hour, the path ended at a sidewalk next to a two story house. Across the street was Hove park, another laaaarge grassy area with trees. I walked around the park for a bit while it was still sunny, but since the sun sets at around 5pm here, I knew that I should head back. So I did! And I cleaned my ballet flats. :P

It was really nice going off on my own because it gave me a lot of time to think and remind myself that I have a lot to be thankful for. Even though this England experience is turning out different than I may have expected it to be, living in a homestay house instead of on campus, everything happens for a reason and it’s all according to His plan. It made me happy that it was really sunny that day. :] I’m glad that I finally decided to explore the area near where I live and it’s actually partially thanks to Jonathan! I had hesitated for a second, before following the path all the way down because I didn’t know where it lead and I didn’t know how far it went. But, I thought about Jonathan and how he wouldn’t care not knowing and would want to explore anyway… and about how he’d probably reprimand or make fun of me for hesitating. xP So, I kept on going. :] Mmm… and since my internet is too slow to upload photos, I’ll post them in the next entry. Goodbye for now!