Remember, Remember, the 5th of November

Guy Fawkes Day in London! Most of my friends and flatmates were in Paris during this weekend, so during the day I ventured out on my own and went exploring around my area a little bit. I walked through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, Notting Hill, over to Speaker's Corner, and just generally all around the parks. They were absolutely beautiful, everyone was out enjoying the fall weather and there were several people sporting Guy Fawkes masks. That night my friends Jorge, Sharon, and I went to Battersea Park to see some fireworks...£10 entry for 20 minutes of fireworks and looking at a bonfire, don't know if it was quite worth it! But it was a very cool atmosphere, it felt similar to a Fourth of July celebration and it was neat to be a part of something so 'British.' On the bus ride over we met an American missionary from the Church of the Latter Day Saints who tried to recruit us.. so if nothing else,  we got a funny story out of the night! Once again, not too many pictures, but here are the few that I did manage to take.

Fall in London! Taken during my walk through Kensington Gardens.

Fireworks at Battersea Park -- they played pretty much any song that you can think of with the word "Fire" in it during the fireworks show.

The bonfire

Battersea Bridge, which was teeming with people as we tried to leave

British Halloween

This Halloween, we tried to break out of the South Kensington/Piccadilly Circus bubble and went to a club in Camden Town. All of our costumes were pretty improvised but it was still a fun night and Camden at Halloween was interesting to say the least -- most people we saw around London still celebrate Halloween with scary costumes rather than funny or pop culture costumes like they do in the States.  There was a lot of elaborate face paint and fake blood going on! I didn't get too many pictures but here are the few that I took.

Jorge and Melanie -- to give Jorge white hair we dumped almost an entire bag of flour onto his head/the kitchen floor

Molly and I

I don't know what I was looking at, but this was at the club! Molly (nerd), Jorge (old man), Andrew (postman), Melanie (goth), Andrea, and I (as 80's workout video people)

Melanie, Molly, and I

Fana (witch), Molly, Andrew, Melanie, Andrea, and I

In the end, Melanie fit in with the crowd at Camden a little better than I did..

Some London Highlights

During the first few weeks some friends and I ventured out to Camden Town, one of my favorite areas of London. There's lots of markets, good (and cheap!) food and clothes, and tons of interesting people-watching to be had there.

Trying on sunglasses

Delicious Indian food, only 4 pounds!

The Thames River Festival also happened during our first couple of weeks in London.. it was a really cool atmosphere, lots of vendors, performance artists, and people milling around

Skate Park near the Thames

Churros! We got some filled with chocolate and dulce de leche..so good!

One night my flatmates and I were watching The Parent Trap (the remake with Lindsey Lohan) and discovered that the house that they live in in London was in South Kensington! Obviously we had to find it, so the next day we went looking for it. This is Eggerston Terrace (aka Pembroke Lane)

The House!

My friend Stephen and I went to a "contemporary music festival" in Clapham Common one weekend. They gave us these different colored capes, then we went into this weird series of tubes that looked like this, and in the background were people singing opera or just repeating the words "red, blue, yellow, green, silver" over and over. It was pretty strange but also very cool.

Naturally we had to take some artsy pictures in order to fit in.

As a last hurrah before going off on midterm break, some friends and I went to a club in Camden to see this band, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - I had never heard of them before but they were pretty good! At one point they came out onto the stage in these cool jackets and played Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance With Somebody.