A Dina Birthday in Brighton

So, mingled with our cultural and tourist outings in Brighton when we visited with Gerry and Ben, there was cause for celebration. For, yea, on this week in 1977, a Dina was born. Naturally, we needed to do some celebrating. We began the celebrations with a tasty meal at what has been called the finest vegetarian restaurant in England, Terre a Terre. We arrived to a modern, slick restaurant with some interesting organic beer and wine choices. While some of the choices were of the “make meat dishes but out of vegetarian fare”, they mostly had true vegetarian dishes done well. Take this nice one for example:

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It was a Thai-inspired dish. We particularly enjoyed the sampler starter which allowed us to have a taste of all the wonderful food they had to offer. We had a seat by the windows and, an amusing sight kept walking by. In the UK, a bachelorette party is known as a Hen Party. This typically involves decorating the bride-to-be in embarassing clothes and going off to get very very drunk. We saw at least four of these groups wandering (or shall I say stumbling) past. A very amusing side note. 🙂
After dinner, we retired to Dina and Adrian’s flat for a little rest before the next phase of the outing. We also met up with their friend Heather met us. Here would be the whole happy crew at this point:

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Alas, at this point, I developed a horrible, horrible headache. Since our next part of the birthday night was to be dancing at a club, I took a little time to rest. Our plan was to go to a special club night called Stick it On, in which people can submit their own playlists for a 15 minute set and be a DJ for a few moments. The idea was intriguing, so we made our way there. I shall spare you any photos of the revelers (alas, there are some thanks for Gerry 🙂 ), but it was a fun time out.  Obviously, when the DJ changes every three or four songs, you’ll get a few songs you don’t like, but there were some excellent choices of music. My headache subsided, which allowed me to enjoy ourselves and I think, when we took our leave at whatever hour it was, we were tired and content.

The following day, besides going to the Brighton Pavilion, we also enjoyed a Brighton favourite of ours, cream tea at the Mock Turtle. While we devoured scones and tea, Dina bought a Meringue. It was ginormous. See for yourself:

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With a little help, it did get eaten :). We also wandered Brighton some more so Gerry and Ben could see some of the other sights of this fun little city. For those aware, on the side of a coffee shop near the train station, the graffiti artist Banksey put up one of his more famous pieces of art, two male police officers kissing:

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Now, you might notice that this one actually has protective plastic over it. While most Banksey’s have a bit of a temporary aspect to them and could be removed if and when the owner of the property of the government decides to remove it (although I think now that they are quite valuable, this is increasingly less likely), this one has become quite famous and infamous. Apparently, the original was defaced by someone finding it “immoral”. It’s been fixed up and made “permenant”.

Anyhoo, we had some tasty beers, good food, and saw tons of fun things. But it was time to go backto London. Good times were had by all.

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