Dang - Western Europe is Expensive!

Train Tickets, a couple of books, a box posted to America, food, a dinner out, and few pints. Throw in a weak exchange on the Yankee dollar and your head will spin with the reality that Western Europe is very expensive right now. Gone are the salad days of single rooms and every dinner out while traveling Asia. Now its camping, crashing on floors, and reduced for quick sale sandwiches. Even with a paupers approach it's a struggle to keep things within reason. If I were a typical 2 week vacation a year career American I’d throw caution to the wind but with the way I roam Western Europe isn’t a budget friendly place to travel under the current economic circumstances.

I skipped Paris because a shared dorm room in a hostel costs $50+!!! That’s crazy in my opinion. Asia was cheap, Eastern Europe reasonable, and the French Yoga festival free due to a work exchange. I guess it wasn’t until I left the Yoga festival that I was hit with the harsh reality of how much it costs to travel Western Europe. It almost seems more worth it to hop a plane to Prague or something. Eastern Europe is very interesting and runs on a whole different economy. Anyway, just wanted to get this issue off my chest.

On another note, Tuesday and Wednesday were migraine free so I’ll be leaving Lewes tomorrow. I seem to be doing better so my plan is to head to the South West Coast of England and hike along a National Trail for a week and see how it feels. I think some walking would do me some good right now. I’ll keep my fingers crossed on the weather. England is grey, windy and kind of cold right now.

While in Lewes I’ve been staying at Jerome’s home. The setup crews cook, Arian, and her 13 year old daughter, Kiki, have also been staying at Jerome’s. We all crossed over from France together in Jerome’s old ’89 VW van. His place is a small. It's an old 2 bedroom two story brick building next to a relatively busy road. Three of us have been sleeping on the living room floor. Jerome and his flat mate occupy the rooms upstairs. Arian fixes us dinner while Kiki browses the web for the latest K pop sensation and Jerome plays some fine Gypsy music on a sweet guitar he hand built himself. At this point it feels like a family of brothers and sisters. We all get along well and it’s quite nice. Jerome knows I’m not too interested in returning for setup next year but he’s already sure I’ll be back.

Yesterday I roamed around the neighboring city of Brighton. I think it’s fair to say that it’s the San Francisco of England. There are numerous funky shops, women with pink hair, street entertainers and a large gay pride festival coming up this weekend. The general majority of locals are young and it’s a university town. There’s a rocky beach and an amusement pier to add the already attractive assortment of traditional English style architecture. It’s cool, hip, and only an hour away from London by train.

Well, it's three hours by train to where I'll begin my walk. Better get myself together.