Notting Hill Carnival (from August!)

Another late report from here!  The end of august gave us the Notting Hill Carnival, apparently one of the biggest street festivals in Europe. How can you miss that?! We decided to go on Day 1 ("children's day"). We got up early on Saturday morning (though not early enough to make the opening time for the parade). ah well.... we all got UP, which is the mainthing, and headed off to the tube station.



clear sky to the left...



...clouds to the right

 Now I have already heard that London weather is wierd.  But seriously.... this is ridiculous.  Here we are at the Woodside Tube Station getting ready to go to the Nottinghill Carnival.  On the left hand side, you have a photo catching the left side of the sky.  On the right, is a photo of the right hand side of the sky.   the other capturing the right.  Now HOW do you plan for weather on such a day?!  :-)

You don't.  You just roll the dice





a musical bike!



stopping for a snack



So off we headed....down to Notting Hill.   There were foodstands aplenty, and a place for us to sit and grab a bite to eat.  There were musicians aplenty, including one who had somehow managed to turn his bike into a one man band!  

Steel Drum Extravaganza

 

the parade route

We wandered a bit further, and arrived at the parade route, where huge trucks were carrying musicians and dancers around the route, with more musicians and dancers following behind.   As far as we could tell, the job of the trucks was to carry enough sound equipment to ensure that the sounds could be heard on the beaches of Dover.  :-)   It was great fun to watch, but amazingly loud.  The kids were worried that they would sustain not only permanent hearing loss, but that their internal organs might be ruptured by the sound waves. 



dancers...

 


drummers....

  


costumes...

 

 

Olympic protests begin...



There were other interesting moments for me.  One was when one of the

 floats went by with an 'anti-olympic' poster stuck to its side ("Burning Injustice: London Lympics Big Rip-Off! Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Businesses Carved Out of Contracts").  It warmed the cockles of my heart to see that the spirit of olympic protest is as alive and well here in London as it was on the westcoast for the winter olympics! :-)

 

a new take on rubbish bins

The other tricky moment was figuring out what to do with our garbage.  Impossible.  Finally, the penny dropped.  'Garbage cans' are something that you don't really find here at a festival. It was the same difficulty the first time we went to King's Cross station. I could NOT find a place to throw out the garbage from lunch. when i finally gave up and asked a police officer, he told me they don't have any: they are a terrorist threat apparently (someone might put a bomb there). so... what to do with your garbage? apparently, just leave it on the ground and let someone else clean it up later. it was the same thing at the festival. PILES of garbage on the corners of the street. Someone comes around at the end of the day to clean it up. It didn't seem to bother anyone else, but i will admit to discovering a certain fastidiousess that I never knew I had!