Bognor Regis

I am going to start my first post by talking about the place over in Europe in which I spent the majority of my 5 months. It was a small town on the South of England right on the English Channel called Bognor Regis. It was one of the cutest towns I have ever been it. It reminded me of one of the Eastern US beach towns such as Wildwood NJ, or Ocean City. There were many small shops selling beach type items, as well as multiple fish and chips stands. I got there in January so many of the places right along the water were closed because it was not tourist season, but the small town shops were opened and we spent a lot of our free time there walking around and enjoying talking to people. It was basically only locals there at that time of year, so they were fascinated by "the Americans." All of the bars and restaurants there were filled with locals and regulars, and we because well known in the area probably because we were not only new comers, but also we were not from England. People were very nice to us, and it was easy fall into a rhythm there.

One of the things that was neat to do was go to the grocery store. Since we lived in dorms, (very small campus, called University of Chichester. We had the entire top floor of the 4 floor dorm, and there were only 12 of us who went over to teach.), and ate at a dining hall we did not really need to buy food, but we did because it is all so different! They have food there that we don't have here and it was fun to try it all.

Another thing that was cool was their beach. It is all stones, and not small pebbles, but stones that barely fit into my fist. This was so normal to them. They got confused when we would talk about sand beaches. Once tourist season came around, in April or so, people would lay out on towels just like we would do here. I tried it, but found it to be very uncomfortable!

The final thing I want to discuss are the signs that were all over. They were on all the lamp posts, and they said "Welcome to Bognor Regis, the Sunniest Place in England!" It was NOT sunny! It rained everyday for at least a few minutes. It could be sunny and 5 minutes you would find yourself caught in a downpour! We had to have an umbrella with us all the time, even if there were not clouds in the sky!