Notting Hilly About It

So today we decided to check out the Notting Hill Carnival, which was going on yesterday and continues today. It's really close to where we live, and we went not really knowing what to expect or what it was celebrating. It turns out (via Wikipedia) that it has to do with celebrating the multiculturalism of London, starting after some race riots with Caribbeans and Africans in the 50s. It's expanded since then, but you'll see from the pictures that the style is still heavily influenced by those cultures.

We didn't stay for long, and there were massive crowds (about a million attend), so my pictures are not great. There was no place to get above the crowds to get a shot, and my natural height didn't help much either. I hope you see how beautiful the costumes were, and get a sense of the energy at the place. Oh, yes, after the pictures I'll tell you the adventure of getting to Donna Vinter's (program director's) house last night for the party.

Pretty, aren't they?

Anyway, Donna Vinter. Last night, we had to get out to Gunnersbury for her party, and we negotiated the tubes fine getting there. This was me, Mallorie, Molly, Torrey, Kayla, and Sam (not Sam from our flat, a different Sam). But when we got there, we met up with one of the Professor's also attending and followed him for the first part of the journey since he'd been to the house before. We overtook him, confident we were on the right road (since her house was about 10 minutes from the station) and then, some 15 minutes later, realized we were lost and the Professor was gone. Sidenote: I have a GPS, but the map looked so easy that I didn't bring it. Foresight I have not.

For the next hour, we wandered around looking for this house, because the map provided to us by Donna Vinter had three streets labeled, so when we weren't on those streets we had no idea what to do. We asked people, one of whom (a bus driver) told us we were on a certain street that was clearly labeled otherwise. In the end, we found the house, but didn't stay too long at the party. It turns out that the Professor we initially followed went the wrong direction. It was then I remembered that when we were leaving the station with him, he remarked, "This path used to be a lot narrower." When we found the way we were supposed to go from the station, the path was very narrow. I'm an English major who didn't recognize blatant foreshadowing. To use a tired meme: Fail.

But the party was fun, I met a couple of my professors and talked about getting lost, so it was worth it getting there. Tomorrow classes start (at 11 am, wooo), so I'll be kept even busier for the next few...well, the rest of the time I'm here.

Oh, and if you read the blog and haven't made yourself known, leave a comment! If you need a topic, discuss the wittiness of my title. Or bemoan the punniness of my title. I love feedback.