Brighton. Home.

It's day two for us in Brighton, and boy, are things different! Of course, they would be, wouldn't they? I've always been frustrated by people who state the obvious, so I try to not do it so much myself. For me, Brighton is very much an alien world. It's at once familiar and strange; I'm surrounded by people who are speaking my language, mostly, but I don't understand a lot of it. Some of the stores are the same, many are different. The places you'd expect to buy some items aren't in the same stores as in Canada. And of course, the money takes a bit of getting used to.

The first thing we ate here was fish and chips. Not knowing quite what to expect, we ordered one each. That was our first mistake. After quite a long wait we got our dinner and the piece of fish was bigger than my forearm! I was alarmed at the prospect of having to finish the entire fish in one go, but I sunk my teeth in and eventually did it! Had to leave some chips behind, though.

So far, I like it here. It's very typically a seaside city; the salty sea air is cool and refreshing, but hell on the architecture. There are way too many seagulls, I can already tell they are going to annoy me. Rob hated the city on first sight, found it too dirty and way too many rundown buildings and scary/weird people. However, I think it was just jet lag talking, because he's coming around now. It helps that we've got our phones and internet set up now and can communicate with the world. We're having issues getting a bank account, but it will all work out sooner than later, our flatmate Paul assures us.

One thing I already love is that we are very close to all amenities. On foot. We've been into town and back twice already today. We've had breakfast and lunch, gone to the bank to inquire about accounts, had our phones unlocked, gone to another mobile place and bought sim cards, browsed four or five houseware stores and bought various stuff for the house... I'm sure I haven't told everything. The point is: to have accomplished the same thing in Taipei would have taken at least a day or two, and we did it in a morning. Walking. Brilliant.

Actually, I'm still quite tired from the trip and adjusting, so my sentences aren't coming together as well as I'd like. We're going to head into town now, do a little shopping before the shops all close for the night, then head out to find a pint of cider at the pub.

Tomorrow is one of the biggest gay pride festivals in Europe, so I want to make sure we're rested and ready for that.