Monday, November 07, 2005

Happy (belated) Guy Fawkes Day!

Erika and I, being one of the few still in town on Saturday, went to find a decent Guy Fawkes celebration and decided to go to one in Lamsted Park (??) somewhere waaaay the hell out there in southwest London, just a few Tube stops away from Heathrow Airport. There was supposed to be a bonfire at 6 p.m., but when we got there at 5 (we left at 3:15), there was nobody there. Not a soul. Not even at the funfair.

So we go with Plan B, Alexandra Palace, on the OTHER side of town -- aka northeast London at Wood Green. Thankfully, both places are on the Piccadilly Line, or it would've been a pain to change trains. We left Lamsted Park around 5:30-ish and got to Wood Green around 6:15, I forgot, I was sleep, but anyway, we go to the palace itself around 6:45 or 7, just in time to hear the annoying DJs talk and not play music.

Supposedly, it was the biggest Guy Fawkes Day firework display in town that night, so I guess we went to the right place. It was a pretty spectacular show, I have to admit. It was even timed to the soundtrack!

So afterward, after the estimated 60,000 people filed (slowly) out of the hilltop of the "Ally Pally," Erika and I went to see "Elizabethtown." Everybody go see "Elizabethtown."

Well, today I went to see Westminster Abbey as a way to procrastinate the paper writing. I realized a couple of days ago that my U.S. history paper is due the same Friday as when I will be in Hungary, so I have to write the paper 3 days early,nd that has never happened. Unless you count WRIT 340, when we had to have drafts ready.

But anyway, I never knew the Poet's Corner was inside ... or all of the tombs, for that matter. I always thought they were outside, like regular churches. But apparently, Westminster is no ordinary church. Everybody is buried inside. Crazy.

I also didn't know that no photography, flash or otherwise, is allowed in the church, so I have pictures of the Coronation Chair, Elizabeth I and Mary I's tombs, also Henry VII's chapel and some of the poets and writers in the Poet's Corner, which is where the guy caught me taking photos. Bummer. :(

Anyway, that's the way event of the day. So now I am going to read a book and procrastinate the paper-writing some more. Happy, happy times.

picture of the day:
a view of the River Thames at sunset from the Tate Britain.

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