I went to Eastbourne last weekend, where we stayed with the lovely Dan. Eastbourne is the sort of town you go to to die – except not in a “I’m going to spend my last few months in this beautiful town” way. Rather, apparently you hit an age, being British, where you decide that the city/town/countryside is too shit and you’d much rather die in a shit town that happens to be by the sea. I guess the elderly Eastbournians can love it despite the large number of scallies and townie rascals. Basically, Eastbourne is just like any other English town with the addition of a stoney beach and some seagulls that don’t live entirely off of inner-city rubbish.
Some highlights of Eastbourne include: the pasty shop, the fish and chip shop, the pound store, and the nightclub at the end of the pier (I find this distinctly foreign – the only piers I’ve ever seen in New Zealand are the ones old men fish from, young kids jump into the sea from, and the ones that boats moor themselves to. I didn’t realise they had any other use.) We also enjoyed the screams of townies leaving the bars on the street below in the early hours of the morning. They were loud, by the way.
It wasn’t all bad though – the beach is actually quite nice, although strangely unsalty smelling (just like Dubai). If I were blind, I probably wouldn’t have realised I was at the beach. You know, with the rocks and the lack of sea smell, although all the old people might have been a bit of a giveaway. The buildings were generally quite pretty – from the front. Apparently the promenade is like a Hollywood film set, with pretty facades and wooden stilts surrounded by litter on the derriere. However, we had fun sitting on Dan’s roof terrace and chilling in the lounge while the boys discussed the pros and cons of PSP hacks.
We went to Brighton for the day on the Saturday, which was met with many aww shits from Peter and I. It turns out that Brighton is fucking awesome. It is so much like Wellington that it’s just odd. It’s by the sea, has loads of cool boutiquey stores, some even with incense burning (the smell of Cuba St), we had lunch at a sushi restaurant, drinks at a pub, and every time we walked outside we were surrounded by funky looking Wellington-esque hippies. It was very weird. We both decided that we wished we would have known about Brighton before we moved to Manchester. Although it is apparently very expensive to live, I think it would probably be worth it. I bet the quality of life there is much greater than in poo-filled Manchester. And it’s still only about an hour away from London.
Conclusion: Brighton is awesome, Eastbourne is a dump, Manchester is slightly less of a dump, and Jonty has a wonderful ginger beard.