Amanda VS The World: SUNSETS, SHOPS, & CHASING FOG

As you all know my hometown is Tacoma, Washington and since moving back, I've made countless new friends and reconnected with old ones. This past summer, I met a lovely individual through Instagram (I swear it's not as sketchy as it sounds) named Tim (@timminzer). He actually moved to Moscow a few months after I left for Brighton, and before we both departed our separate ways he promised to come and visit me in England; which he did end up doing! Once he told me he booked his tickets to come fly out to London, I was overwhelmed with excitement. Just the day after Erika left back to The Netherlands the following day I walked over to Falmer Station to pick up Tim.

I was so excited to be able to show him where I've been living these past few months and lucky for him he came on a Tuesday, which you know by now… is Tequila Tuesday. I introduced him to a group of my friends and we all shared drinks before heading to Hobgoblin. Once we arrived we did the usual; found a table, chatted, and had a fun night hanging out.

The following day we had planned to head into the city centre to explore Brighton. We stopped for tea in The Lanes at a cute shop called “Blackbird”, we explored the surrounding cute little streets and alleyway that I had yet to explore. We ended the day at the beach watching the sunset; It was so beautiful. What's so awesome about having Tim in town was he takes a lot a pictures, so I don't have to feel bad telling him to wait a minute for me to snap a photo.

We both woke up the next day with Hove on our agenda and the Pier (since we didn't have a chance to do it the night before); McLaren joined us for our adventures that day. We all walked to the closest bus stop and hopped on the 25 for the city centre. We managed to start our adventures for the day by grabbing some Gelato.

We hopped on another bus that would take us directly to Hove and once we got off, we saw a corner shop of flowers, which had caught my eye so we walked over and looked at all of the colorful tulips and daisies. YAY SPRING.

After exploring Hove for a bit we then walked along the boardwalk all the way to the pier. To my surprise it was low tide, which I had yet to see here in Brighton. We walked underneath the pier where we found sand! I was super stoked because Brighton is known for their pebble beach, so I took my shoes off and ran around. I was in my happy place for sure.

I snapped a few photos of the sunset, of McLaren and Tim, and in the process I managed to fall getting my jeans soaked. That night, we all went over to Bram’s Flat (who is from the Netherlands) and played some games like Mafia and this wierd marble game (that I sucked at). Since we were exploring early morning, we decided to hit the hay for the night.

My alarm clock rang at 6:30 AM and I looked out the window to see if it was worth chasing fog. I was so surprised by how foggy it was, I couldn’t see very far just from my window! I texted McLaren to see if she was still wanting to go and she was down, so we all got ready for our adventure that day. We were out the door and off to Stanmer Park by 6:50ish; it took us about twenty minutes to walk to the park then we began to trek though the woods. It felt like I was in a fairytale how beautiful the fog and light looked in the woods.

We ventured around snapping pics here and there, but the whole time I just kept thinking how it was so worth losing some sleep for some fog. Of course since we were in Stanmer, we had to stop by Stanmer House for my favorite tea. Tim ordered a full English Breakfast and tea, while McLaren and I went for the usualy Breakfast Tea. I actually ordered two pots of it, it's just that good to me.

After a few hours of sipping tea and conversation, we then headed back to campus where I had to shoot some photos for Flashstock and Tim did some things for work, so it worked out perfectly. It was a very laid back day, we hung out with everyone again but then we headed to bed at a decent hour since the next day was going to be Tim’s last day in Brighton.

The next morning, Tim, McLaren, Bram, and I head into town to explore the North Laines. We looked at all of the shops, lolly gagged around, stop at snooper alley for a photo booth (!) and before we knew it, it was time to head back home for him to pack up his last bit of things before heading to the train station. A few friends said goodbye to him and we were off for the station. We got there, said our goodbyes and he was off for his adventure for Scotland.

As you can see from this post and my last post it was constant adventuring so you could imagine how wiped out I was. I really enjoyed having Erika and Tim in Brighton and I am super happy I got to show them around. I think it's about time I go and visit both of them and their new homes.