Gone to the Sea

      Last week was super stressful. I had a big project due for one of my classes, and it was a little challenging. Over here in the UK, at least for my graduate course, I have no exams. All of my grades are determined by the coursework that I do. That being said, each class only has a few assignments so the assignments are worth a lot of my grade. It was super nerve wracking turning in an assignment that was 60% of my grade, but I felt relieved after it was over and done with. 

     Over the weekend my friends and I went into town to get some work done on our next assignment. We have to practice giving poster presentations, and design our own poster to give a talk on. After a while we needed a study break, so we decided to go to one of the neighboring towns. Brightlingsea is around 6 miles away from Colchester, depending on where in Colchester you start your journey. The town is super cute, and had some really cute looking pubs and taverns. The beach is a very different kind of beach than I am used to. I am used to California beaches where there is lots of sand and plenty of room to sit out on the beach. In England, the beaches are really muddy, and there was very little sand. The majority of the beach was mud and big shells and rocks that had not been broken up by the ocean and turned into fine sand. It was still a cute beach though. There are long rows of little beach huts that are available to rent out during the summer months. My friends and I went to see the sunset, so while we waited for that we played on the playground and explored the beach a little bit. It was super fun and relaxing watching the sunset over Mersea Island. It was pretty cloudy so we didn't get the best sunset, but we still got to see some really pretty colors in the sky. I would definitely go back in the summer to see the beach huts in action. Overall it was a super fun day spent hanging out with friends and working on homework. 

These are the super cute beach huts that line the beach. Each one is painted a different color, and they all have super cute names. 

Here is the beginning of the sunset we watched right in front of the lighthouse. The colors in the photo do not do the sunset justice. The sky was a gorgeous lavender color. 

This is the last bits of the sunset reflecting off of the big pool of seawater on the upper beach. 

Here is another view of the sunset between two of the cute beach huts. I thought that the pink and white stripped one looked like something from Victoria Secret. 

All in all it was another great week in England. I spent time with friends, got to go exploring, and submitted my first assignment of grad school. I can't wait to see what the week ahead holds!