Last day here

It's my last full day here. Today Alia and I went to Brighton on the train. Before I left the states I got a 4 day flexi-rail pass. You can only get them in the US and they're well worth the money. Especially because we've done our 4 days travel and they only marked used days twice. The train porters looked at our passes at every station but there were only 2 times they made us write the days down. You can travel as much as you want in one full day each time. So I'm going to leave the passes with Alia when I leave and hopefully she can keep riding the rails while I'm gone. They're good for 2 months, so she should have a chance to use them by the end of march.
I'm really glad we went to Brighton today. It was a quick hour journey and the rolling hills of green and big trees were nice. But the best part was first hearing the sea...in the form of squawking seagulls and then seeing the sea and sitting on the beach. Yes, I miss water and home and I think Alia does too.
There was hardly anyone on the beach but I can see that Brighton is probably very very crowded in the summertime, lots of beachfront pubs and hotels closed up for the season. The town was also pretty nice and we found an excelllent record store. I wish I would have had more cash. There was an exstensive R&B, Rock, Psychedelia era CD collections made on UK labels. Alot of bootlegs and I'm sure only available in the UK. Things like Moby Grape, 13th floor Elevators, etc... I got a CD of the Charlatans... a 60's group that had Dan Hicks in it and our infamous for their stint at the Red Dog Saloon. Read up on it if you don't know what I'm talking about.
I would have liked to get some UK rock but theres so many choices. I have some names of some Welsh bands that I want to check out when I get back. There was also a great record store in Bath, but I hemmed and hawed and didn't get anything and now regret it.
Okay, so I'm out of here tomorrow... find my way to Heathrow by myself cause she'll be working. Sad to leave Alia. We've had a great time, she's a great kid and doing very well for herself here. I'll be home for 7 days and then I'm off to India. Unreal. Never went off the continent except for Hawaii once and now I'm doing two big international trips back to back. Crazy.