For the past few weeks I’ve been traveling in England and France. We started out in Nottingham, England, for a video game event my husband was speaking at, and then we took the train down to London for a few days, and visited friends in Brighton for an afternoon. On a past visit to the UK we had been to London and Brighton before, so we didn’t feel any pressure to do typically touristy things, since we’d gotten them out of the way. We mainly walked around with friends, and caught up with people we hadn’t seen in a long time in pubs. I didn’t even carry around my nice camera most of the time–these are all phone snapshots.

One of the touristy things we did was have afternoon tea in the Liberty store. It felt pretty fancy, and was actually really fun. The British sure know how to do tea and tiny treats, and that department store is definitely a unique experience. In Nottingham we also briefly stopped in at the (supposedly) oldest inn in England. It’s called Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem because crusaders stopped there on their way out of the country. Part of it is also in a cave, which was neat.

That faux Indian building up top is the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, which was built as a seaside retreat by King George IV. In the middle is a fancy sheep in Nottingham (I have no idea why they dressed it up), and a sidewalk mural in the town of Brighton. The bottom photo is the view from the Tate Modern, which, if you like modern art (I do!), is a cool place to visit.

We’ve been having a lot of fun, and it’s not over yet. Right now we’re in New York City, where we stopped on the way home to try to let the jet-lag dissipate a little. Today is our last full day in the city before we head home, though, so things should be back to normal around here soon.