Hello everyone, it smee again.

We just wrapped up our stint in Worthing and had a wonderful time. On our last day we took a day trip down to Brighton and had a fun day. We took a tour around the Royal Pavilion which was a palace that was built by Prince Regent George IV back at the turn of the 19th century. It is an amazing creation in that it was based on the culture and architecture of India and China; it looks very out of place here in England. It is a very extravagant structure, and it’s just fascinating to think what daily life was like back then. Here is the website for the Palace if you want to see more about it:

http://www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk/RoyalPavilion/Pages/home.aspx

After the Palace we walked along the waterfront and then attended the Brighton Rotary lunch meeting for fish and chips. Later that night we had fish and chips again for dinner with the Worthing Rotary club and finished off the night with bowling. As an aside, team North America convincingly beat team British thanks to a few timely strikes and spares by our fearless leader Hutch (we think he’s been bowling more than he says he has as evident by his elegant form and follow through).

Today we said goodbye to our wonderful hosts in Worthing and were introduced to our new hosts for the next leg of our GSE adventure in Burgess Hill. We all gathered and had a cup of tea and refreshments before departing with our appointed hosts.

The weather here has been “brilliant”, very similar to what we would expect back home in the Spring.

Recently I’ve been working on my Cockney accent and trying to learn the lingo (I think I've pretty much mastered my Canadian accent as our Officer Rod Farva can attest to). Cockney apparently refers to the very distinct accent and vocabulary that someone born and raised in London would have acquired. My previous host was one such Cockney, and I had a fascinating time trying to understand what he was saying. True it was English (I think), but the vocabulary and speed at which he talks made for very interesting conversation. They have rhymes and abbreviations for many words and phrases, and originally this slang was developed so two people could carry on a conversation of a somewhat “dodgy” nature in a pub and not have to worry about any wandering ears from the police overhearing their conversations. For example, my last host asked me if I had my “daisies” with me. He could tell by my blank expression that I wasn’t following him so he clarified his previous question. Do I have my daisy roots on me? Still, no idea what he was talking about. Finally giving up he blatantly explained, “Daises... daisy roots... BOOTS!”. It’s a fascinating slang language and I wrote a bunch of it down to confuse the locals back home, I’ll give it to you all when we get back.

Cheers!
-Scott