Wednesday, September 4, 2013 @ 9:01 PM in 2013 Europe
Day 70
I had a horrible night's sleep last night because the guy in the bunk above me must have been having some issues and literally tossed, turned, coughed, sneezed and shook the entire freaking night. Each time one or a combo of those would happen, it would send vibrations down to my bunk, amplifying them along the way.
When I woke up, I had a couple cups of coffee to snap me out of the bad mood I was in from having the worst night's sleep I can remember in recent years. After breakfast I changed into my beach gear with the plan to get my travel to Belgium booked for next week and to try my hand at stand up paddle boarding.
First, I wanted to get my travel booked and get it out of the way. I went to the bus station but realized the ticket office was a few blocks away. When I got there, I had to wait in line for almost an hour with other people trying to book train, bus and coach tickets.
I already had the coach information I wanted written down, but upon talking to the ticket agent he told me I could take a train to London for half the price of the coach and get there twice as fast. I was sold. The coach from London to Brussels was still the best option so I also booked that.
Yesterday when I was walking along the beach I saw a company advertising an hour long paddleboard rental for £10. I made mental note of where it was and went back today. I've never tried paddleboarding before but it didn't seem like it should be that hard. It seemed like it was mostly a balance sport and if you could master that, you'd be fine.
I rented the board and got into the water. I realized right away that it wasn't going to be quite as easy as I though. For the first 15 minutes I just stayed on my knees paddling around. Eventually I stood up and paddled around for a while. The waves didn't seem too bad from shore but when you're on a 2 foot wide board trying to balance and paddle while not falling off, any disturbance in the water seems extreme.
My hour was coming to a close so I headed back to shore and officially made it without falling off! I was pretty proud of myself for that accomplishment. There was a group of people who took lessons and they went out a little after I did. I watched several of them fall in multiple times, so I felt like I at least did better than that, even without a minute of instruction!
I got back to the hostel, ate, showered and caught up on a few episodes of Dexter. Tomorrow I'll get up and run in the morning. It looks like it's the last hot day here for a while so I'll try to take advantage of it. I'm debating going to a digital art / electronic music show tomorrow night. I'll do a little more research and see if it looks worth it.
Teaser photos:
Tags: daily journal, england, brighton
Posted from: England