Chapter 9

                                    

                                          
Finley
I remember hearing a Japanese phrase once - koi no yokan. I'm sure I saw it on Instagram, big serif letters on an aesthetic background. It means something like love at second sight, when you meet someone you're going to eventually fall in love with, even if you didn't know you'd fall in love with them at first. That doesn't totally apply here, because I knew I'd fall in love with England before I even got here. And there was definitely a first sight love, and there had been an instant first love with Canterbury, the quintessential Englishness of it all.
This was like love at third sight. Was there a word for that? Falling in love over and over and over again? Brighton was everything I thought England couldn't be. A beach town. I didn't picture beach towns when I thought of England. I pictured places like Canterbury, winding cobblestone streets and rain. I mean, it started to rain as we left the pier, but it was raining on a beach. A pebble beach, but a beach. And the pier felt like a movie set in Florida. Arcades and amusement parks are eternally fixed in hot, tropic places in my mind - which I know is crazy, because I've been to Six Flags in St. Louis - and I'm not sure what to do with this. It's not until we make it to the Royal Pavilion that I remember I'm in England.
Harlyn sweeps his arm at the building in front of us as we cross the street. "Welcome to the Royal Pavilion."
I try to put words together in my brain so that I can describe it in my blog post later - something I've been trying to do all day - but I'm so excited, my brain just keeps saying "amazing" over and over again. I know it's amazing. But what else is it? The only building I can compare it to at the moment is the Taj Mahal. But it's smaller, spires just barely taller than the four story apartment building to its left.
"This...doesn't look like it should be in England," Max says, hand shoved in his pockets and squinting through rain spattered glasses.
"No, it doesn't," I agree, following as Harlyn leads us through trees and bushes to the entrance around the back.
"Yes, cultural appropriation runs deep in British culture," Elly declares, making a few tourists near us scowl at her. "It's true," she stage whispers, and I laugh.
"Yeah, British fascination with Indian, Islamic, and Chinese architecture is all over this place," Harlyn says. "Actually, King George IV's fascination with those places is all over this place, even though he never actually visited any of them."
It's a self-guided tour, but we get access to an audio tour on our phones. I'm grateful I stuffed my earbuds into my sweatshirt pocket this morning just in case I needed them. I was thinking more along the lines of decompressing on the train home by listening to music, but this works, too. Max and Elly both have their own, too, but Harlyn shrugs off not having any.
"I've heard it before. It's fine," he says. I hold an earbud out.
"You can use one of mine," I say. "I'm not fancy. I still have corded ones, so we'll have to be careful not to yank them out of each other's ears, but..." I shrug, feeling my face heat up. But he doesn't say it's a stupid idea. Or refuse. He takes the offered earbud and sticks it in.
We wander through absolutely fabulous rooms. There's so much color, I actually have to blink a few times to let my eyes adjust. It's still so very English, which makes sense. As Harlyn said, King George IV never actually visited these places. So, the layout and the pianos and some of the decor probably wouldn't be found in the Taj Mahal, especially since I'm pretty sure the Taj Mahal is not a place of residence.
The Pavilion isn't either. It was. King George IV started building it while he was still the Crown Prince, loving how far Brighton was from the eyes of London. It was added to by three different architects, growing from a house to a lavish palace. The next king, King William IV also used it, but Queen Victoria - here she is again - hated Brighton. By her reign, Brighton was a tourist destination, and she felt too exposed. Plus, it wasn't big enough for all her children. So she bought a house on the Isle of Wight for the royal family to vacation in the summer instead. Parliament thought about tearing it down or selling it off. The town ended up buying it and opening it to the public. It's the only royal residence that isn't owned by the royal family or the state.