Thus the decline of a great pogonotrophic empire.
In other news:
Chelsea and I finally went to the museum section of the British Library. We've been there so many times, yet never seen the cool exhibits there. So we saw, among other things, an original copy of the Magna Carta which had been heavily damaged in a fire (like nearly everything in London, it seems), some early Gutenberg Bibles, some papyrus scraps showing fragments of new testament texts from as early as 300 A.D., and all sorts of manuscripts from all sorts of authors like Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen (including a handwritten letter from her dad in the front cover of a journal containing handwritten stories she wrote as a teenager to entertain her family). So that was pretty awesome. No pictures, sorry. They weren't allowed.
Also, we had the joy of experiencing our first Guy Fawkes day in the United Kingdom, which was pretty awesome (Disclaimer from Chelsea: V for Vendetta should not be taken as historically accurate. However, incredibly awesome movie). The closest thing to it in America is Fourth of July, though the reasons for celebrating are totally different, and really the actual end result of the celebration is pretty different as well. Really, all I meant by that comparison is that there are fireworks.
But yea, we had a "bonfire" (sometimes the holiday is called bonfire night, and they make a massive bonfire and burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes on it. Our bonfire was quite small...just a fire in the back yard. Also, I must applaud the ingenuity of the stove itself; they found an old washing machine on the side of the road and now use the metal barrel, complete with ventilation holes all up and down the sides, as a homemade stove). We had jacket potatoes, which you're supposed to cook on the embers of the bonfire, but we just did it in the oven. We also grilled hot dogs and sausages, which was awesome. Though they call that barbequeing - a grill to them is more like what we call a boiler, to be used only indoors. They only "grill" bacon...they think it's very strange to fry it in a pan.
We also tried to teach them about s'mores over the fire...they don't do that here. So us and a few other North Americans (there's a Canadian girl in the church as well) tried to put that together. They only have small marshmellows here though...not mini-marshmellows, but not full-sized ones either. Also, they don't have graham crackers, so we had to use tea biscuits...which are kind of like a graham cracker but different somehow. And, it started raining right about the time we started that. So, the s'mores weren't really a true American s'mores experience. But they still tasted good, and I think all the Brits enjoyed it anyway.
We also had mulled wine, which is basically hot wine cooked with spices. Kind of like mulled cider. A very strange drink, but pretty good too.
That was all actually on the 5th of November, which was a Friday. Saturday, they had fireworks at our park. Not really sure why Friday night was inappropriate for fireworks, but they pushed it back a day nonetheless. So we basically celebrated Guy Fawkes day twice. That was a lot of fun too. They had the entire park decorated, and there were all these stands set up with games and food and stuff, kind of like a fair, but without the rides. A couple of our friends bought "candy floss" (cotton candy).
The fireworks were pretty awesome. We got to stand about 20 yards away from where they were shooting them off, which was quite cool. There were a few close calls with malfunctioning fireworks, which was exciting, and we all had a light coating of ash and sulfur on us by the time we left. We were both really impressed with the fireworks, since they were specifically hosted just by our little section of London...there must have been hundreds of different fireworks displays all over the different little communities all across the city. Yet, ours at least, felt like a main attraction, complete with everything you'd expect from a fireworks show, including a grand finale.
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