Wanderlust Strikes Again

My lungs ached with laughter as I ran up to our favorite not-so-secret-secret spot, aka that spot on the beach bordering the underside of the pier. The hilarity in this was partially derived from the fact that the lovely little city of Brighton’s appeal was the fact that it was a gorgeous beach town in the UK—a gorgeous beach town with pebbles in lieu of sand.

As a California native, I tried to explain to my friend Breeze what ‘proper’ beaches looked like, but it may have been slightly lost on her as she struggled to keep a wary eye on the killer seagulls. The Brighton seagulls, I had been told, had developed a taste for junk food—crisps, ice creams, the works—and were prone to swooping down and stealing them out of unsuspecting tourists’ hands. I tried to dismiss this comical yet slightly unnerving thought as I sat down on the beach, opening a bottle of white wine.

With my first trip in England spent as a study abroad student, this time around I had had no one to frolic with. I was painfully shy, and Brighton was filled with vivacious, colorful people, so when my new friend Breeze invited me to the pier I had no idea what the gesture would come to mean to me. We’d start by collecting all our change together and heading to the closest grocery store to buy a few loaves of nice bread, some cheese and wine—and merrily head down to the pier.

Those days under the pier were filled with laughter, of sharing drunken anecdotes about family friends and life in the UK vs “the states”, of meeting new friends on the beach. They were days spent in perfect happiness where it wasn’t uncommon for me to plunge into the sea for no clear reason at all, wearing my full set of clothes, giggling like mad, feeling more liberated than I ever had, more alive and free to enjoy the simple pleasures I had so often neglected back home.

Walking down the pier, Breeze and I stopped in at the carnival area to score some chow mein. The intoxicating smell of it nearly overpowered me but I secretly hoped Breeze would share her plate with me, so I remained silent.

We never quite got to that happy point, however, as I saw in slow motion a seagull heading towards Breeze. I cried out her name, but it was too late. The seagull, with no modesty whatsoever, swooped down on Breeze and ripped the chow mein out of her hand and flew away, while I collapsed into laughter as Breeze ran full speed down the pier, shouting about stupid birds and injustice and many other things I couldn’t quite catch.