Beaches
The weekend after I got back from California, I was already getting restless again. 
The sun was supposed to shine warm that weekend, so I got on the train south at mid-day Saturday to see the south coast at Brighton. I got a later start than I had wanted, largely because I had been up til all hours of the previous night plotting my getaway over the upcoming reading week in February (very jealous that I had to come back to London while the rest of the family drove up to the snow , I greedily decided to show them all what I thought of that by booking myself a complicated nine-day journey over to Germany, the highlight of which is four nights at the resort town of Garmisch, where the breathtaking Bavarian Alps rise vertical out of the southland plateau, and where we had all skied many years ago). After wrestling plane tickets and hotel reservations out of a couple of somewhat uncooperative websites, I didn't get to bed til two in the morning and didn't get on the train from Kings Cross the next morning until noon. By that time I reached Brighton, an hour and a half south, the weather was warm enough that in the sun it was uncomfortably hot to wear a jacket.
I grabbed a sandwich and headed
for the beach, which is not entirely beach-like in that it's covered not in sand but in endless miles of pebbles the size of a child's fist. In all other ways it looks like any other resort beach town, with a mix of overpriced and basement-quality trinket shops, a boardwalk with screaming kids on roller coasters, families out for a day in the salt air and teenagers out to exchange some pheromonal communication, and a blocky medieval-looking heavily-fortified edifice planted clunkily at the east end of town. Ok, maybe the castle is not something you'd see at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk! Along the coast leading east out of town, the white cliffs begin that presumably run uninterrupted to their more famous counterparts at the port of Dover.
At the beach I arbitrarily turned left and walked until I had worn a hole in one sock and
was quickly working through the top layer of skin. By that time, I had passed the boardwalk, the naturist beach (what we Americans more bluntly term "nudist beach," which was sheltered from the sensitive eyes of children by an artificial berm, which was largely unnecessary given that even the 65+ degree weather hadn't brought out anyone who actually wanted to brave the elements without any clothes on), the mall, the yacht harbor, and the seawall-protected port where the tiniest fishing boats I can imagine hide when the seas of the English Channel get too rough. In all I walked about five hours, grabbing snacks along the march and stopping only wh
en I got back to the boardwalk and my feet gave out. The sunny day had brought out thousands of tourists and the traffic jams they bring - making me very glad that I haven't felt the need to drive anywhere since I got here. I had considered trying to find a B&B to stay out the night since I had come all this way, but in the end I decided to head back to London, giving that I had blown a large part of my monthly budget on reserving planes and hotels for my jaunt to Germany next month. I boarded the train not long after dusk and was back at King's Cross before long - home in time for dinner actually, since at this latitude "dusk" comes somewhere in the neighborhood of 4:30 pm.
So I went to Brighton for the sun. I came to Folkestone for the most opposite of reasons: to escape the cold. Well, not so much to escape the cold, because this is the season where there is no escape from the blood-thickening chill that welds even non-arthritic joints into stiff knots. I left more to escape the atrocious air quality that comes with the cold in London, a slight tone of acrid smoginess that is less than bracing and more like a vapory smack-down to every cell in my mildly asthmatic lungs. I came to Folkestone for clean air.
My classes were over at school by 1 pm, but with some last-minutes arrangements and errands to do, I didn't actually get on the tube to the train station until 4 pm. That mistake in timing put me on a commuter train out of the city, which was not exactly what I had in mind with the large rolling suitcase that was the only thing I could find to throw stuff into at the last minute. The crowd lightened up as the city faded into the distance, and by the time I got off at Folkestone Central, few were left. I got turned around a couple of times but eventually found the quiet and immaculately kept (not to mention eminently affordable) Chandos Guest House, where I had booked three nights, not having to be back in London until two o'clock Monday afternoon. I checked in and walked to the quiet off-season tourist strip and found a fish & chips place for dinner. Afterwards I wandered around a bit, then found my way back and fell deep asleep in my cozy room.
The sun was supposed to shine warm that weekend, so I got on the train south at mid-day Saturday to see the south coast at Brighton. I got a later start than I had wanted, largely because I had been up til all hours of the previous night plotting my getaway over the upcoming reading week in February (very jealous that I had to come back to London while the rest of the family drove up to the snow , I greedily decided to show them all what I thought of that by booking myself a complicated nine-day journey over to Germany, the highlight of which is four nights at the resort town of Garmisch, where the breathtaking Bavarian Alps rise vertical out of the southland plateau, and where we had all skied many years ago). After wrestling plane tickets and hotel reservations out of a couple of somewhat uncooperative websites, I didn't get to bed til two in the morning and didn't get on the train from Kings Cross the next morning until noon. By that time I reached Brighton, an hour and a half south, the weather was warm enough that in the sun it was uncomfortably hot to wear a jacket. I grabbed a sandwich and headed
for the beach, which is not entirely beach-like in that it's covered not in sand but in endless miles of pebbles the size of a child's fist. In all other ways it looks like any other resort beach town, with a mix of overpriced and basement-quality trinket shops, a boardwalk with screaming kids on roller coasters, families out for a day in the salt air and teenagers out to exchange some pheromonal communication, and a blocky medieval-looking heavily-fortified edifice planted clunkily at the east end of town. Ok, maybe the castle is not something you'd see at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk! Along the coast leading east out of town, the white cliffs begin that presumably run uninterrupted to their more famous counterparts at the port of Dover. At the beach I arbitrarily turned left and walked until I had worn a hole in one sock and
was quickly working through the top layer of skin. By that time, I had passed the boardwalk, the naturist beach (what we Americans more bluntly term "nudist beach," which was sheltered from the sensitive eyes of children by an artificial berm, which was largely unnecessary given that even the 65+ degree weather hadn't brought out anyone who actually wanted to brave the elements without any clothes on), the mall, the yacht harbor, and the seawall-protected port where the tiniest fishing boats I can imagine hide when the seas of the English Channel get too rough. In all I walked about five hours, grabbing snacks along the march and stopping only wh
en I got back to the boardwalk and my feet gave out. The sunny day had brought out thousands of tourists and the traffic jams they bring - making me very glad that I haven't felt the need to drive anywhere since I got here. I had considered trying to find a B&B to stay out the night since I had come all this way, but in the end I decided to head back to London, giving that I had blown a large part of my monthly budget on reserving planes and hotels for my jaunt to Germany next month. I boarded the train not long after dusk and was back at King's Cross before long - home in time for dinner actually, since at this latitude "dusk" comes somewhere in the neighborhood of 4:30 pm.So I went to Brighton for the sun. I came to Folkestone for the most opposite of reasons: to escape the cold. Well, not so much to escape the cold, because this is the season where there is no escape from the blood-thickening chill that welds even non-arthritic joints into stiff knots. I left more to escape the atrocious air quality that comes with the cold in London, a slight tone of acrid smoginess that is less than bracing and more like a vapory smack-down to every cell in my mildly asthmatic lungs. I came to Folkestone for clean air.
My classes were over at school by 1 pm, but with some last-minutes arrangements and errands to do, I didn't actually get on the tube to the train station until 4 pm. That mistake in timing put me on a commuter train out of the city, which was not exactly what I had in mind with the large rolling suitcase that was the only thing I could find to throw stuff into at the last minute. The crowd lightened up as the city faded into the distance, and by the time I got off at Folkestone Central, few were left. I got turned around a couple of times but eventually found the quiet and immaculately kept (not to mention eminently affordable) Chandos Guest House, where I had booked three nights, not having to be back in London until two o'clock Monday afternoon. I checked in and walked to the quiet off-season tourist strip and found a fish & chips place for dinner. Afterwards I wandered around a bit, then found my way back and fell deep asleep in my cozy room.
posted by skylanda at 3:14 PM
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