Notting Hill Carnival -- London, England

Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit. 

~Bernard Williams  

I awoke in Violet's top bunk Sunday morning to the reverberating sound of Oscar's "I MUST POO NOW" bark. This breed of bark is lower and more rhythmic than his "THE POSTMAN HAS ARRIVED I MUST DEFEND MY STUFFED SNAKES AND HUMAN FRIEND BEASTS" bark. 

Reluctantly, I rolled out of bed, dropped to the floor, and released the hound. The morning mist blanketed the back garden and Oscar was granted a moment of privacy as he accomplished his before breakfast bowel movement. The mist quickly yielded to woodfiddly rain, and I decided to save the weekend's poop scooping work until after I'd made the American pancakes I'd promised my English family, hoping the rain would relent before I biked to look after the two horses up the road. Table set and fat, fluffy banana pancakes wrapped in tinfoil and stacked in the oven, I looked out the window. 

Still mawky out. Bullocks. 

The weather cleared slightly after breakfast was eaten and the dishes were tidied, and Charlotte drove me to the station in Great Missenden. I was London bound. Pascaline had already gone off to the outskirts of London to stay with a friend she'd met whilst living in Spain (a well-traveled Scottish chap named Orlando), and had invited me to stay with them Sunday night. I'd arrive at noon on Sunday, explore the famous (or infamous) Notting Hill Carnival, stay with Orlando, his younger brother, and Pascaline Sunday evening, scamper about the carnival Monday afternoon, and board the train bound to our respective homes that evening. 

I'm finally going to London. Win. I've spent over seven months in the UK and have yet to visit London. It's high-time I rectified that situation.

The train arrived at 12:07, and I scurried out of the coach and into the station, scanning the thronging crowds for signs of Pascaline and the faceless Scotsman (who has English heritage as well, but I'll refer to him as Scottish because his accent seemed more Scottish than English to this tone/lilt deaf American). I quickly spotted my French friend in her flowing pants, vibrant shirt, and bold necklace, and I assumed that the blonde fellow standing beside her was the friend with whom we were both staying. Knowing that toilets are excruciatingly difficult to find in Europe, I hugged Pascaline, awkwardly hugged/kissed Orlando --

"I always do that! GAH!"

and immediately moved on to --

"Would you guys mind if I used the toilet real quick like?"

Tip for travelers in Europe: Make good use of public facilities. They are few and far between, so don't feel too tremendously guilty for making people twiddle their thumbs and wait on you because the opportunity to pee for free is too good to miss. 

Orlando hadn't lived in London for years, but he still managed to get us from the Marylebone train station to the Notting Hill Carnival with only one or two switchbacks. On the way, he did his best to point out various famous streets and explain the history of the upcoming carnival.

A Bit on Notting Hill

One of the largest street carnivals in the world, Notting Hill Carnival has been taking place in London over England's three day bank holiday in August since 1966. It emerged as a reaction to racial issues in London (led by Claudia Jones in response to the Notting Hill Riot) and as a general hippie movement (led by general hippie, Rhaune Laslett). 

The event seems to have morphed from a social issues/hippie haven to an advert laden, exorbitantly priced food nightmare. Mostly. However, no one has been shot/stabbed to death whilst in attendance since 2004, which is somewhat encouraging. There was a cheeky chap named Greg Fitzgerald Watson who was stabbed to death in 2000... because he argued over the price of his food. After paying seven pounds for a pathetic looking piece of jerk chicken atop a bed of flavorless rice and iceberg lettuce, I have much more empathy for his... umm... tactless reaction.

I don't know exactly what I expected the carnival to be... but whatever I expected, I was certainly taken by surprise. Memories of Morocco flashed in the back of my mind. The chaos, the crowds, the overwhelming smells, the lack of respect for personal space and the noise made me relive my two months in the hornet's nest of Marrakesh. But instead of Moroccans garbed in djellebas flaunting their pistachios, figs, and tagines from the backs of donkeys, it was a crowd of Caribbean Brits semi-garbed in bling, flaunting their fried plantains, jerk chicken, red stripe beer, and goat curry from street side grills.

They filled the bowl with cheap rice and beans so they could skimp on the goat curry. Clever, crafty Caribbeans.

 Honestly, the first day was tiring and disappointing. I tried to keep my chin up because my company was so lovely, but I'd hoped to see more vibrant costumes, choreographed dances, and affordable food. Instead, the food absolutely broke me, the "dances" involved walking down the street with a smidgen of provocative ass shaking thrown in every now and then, and the costumes were primarily fluorescent shirts with logos printed on the front/back. We saw a couple of things worth stopping to watch, including a fine display of Capoeira. Capoeira is a form of Brazilian martial arts that combines dance, music, and acrobatics. It has a very playful feel to it, but Orlando assured me in his Scottish accent (that I dare not try to write, for fear of completely butchering it) that it could be quite dangerous.

 After five or six hours of agonizing stimulation, we took two metros and a bus to the apartment of Orlando's mother. We slipped into a supermarket on the way, purchased three pints of Bulmers, and found a bench where we could enjoy our drinks and watch a game of cricket. Orlando did an admirable job attempting to explain the bizarre sport to me, but I regret to admit that I'm still 90% in the dark regarding what exactly you have to do to stay IN the game (just about everything gets you out, apparently).

Dusk had fallen, the game had culminated (I'm not entirely sure as to which team won), and our ciders had only the dregs remaining. We picked ourselves up and trudged to Orlando's apartment. Although it was just around the corner, my aching feet made it seem worlds away.

Carnivals are hard work. 

Once inside, I gravitated towards the bookshelves and immediately started flipping through Orlando's multitude of Jamie Oliver books. Orlando's little brother Oscar came downstairs, and between the entertaining bouts of brotherly horseplay, I had a very engaging (to me, anyway) philosophical conversation with the younger Scotsman. He was a very well-spoken, intelligent chap studying philosophy at Cambridge who possessed mannerisms that were uncannily similar to those of my old roommate, Rudy. We chatted about cooking and the culture of gift giving and dined on a sort of Spanish tortilla Orlando quickly whipped up for us.

After which we watched an incredibly disturbing French film. As one does when staying at the home of an international Scotsman in London.

We didn't get out of the house the next day until after eleven -- which is usually not how I operate (I'm the earliest of the early birds), but Pascaline is a lady who requires a significant amount of sleep in order to function properly. So I plopped myself down on one of the living room chairs and swiped my Kindle awake and commenced guiltily gobbling up Game of Thrones.

After sipping a cup of coffee and saying goodbye to Orlando and Oscar, Pascaline and I boarded our first bus back to London center and to our second day of Notting Hill Carnival. We prayed it would be better than the first.

Our prayers seemed to be answered, as the second day did indeed start off much better than the first. The only early afternoon mishap was the purchase a sad looking bowl of obscenely expensive food that was bland and disappointing... but we found some London gin! The cocktails were all made for the carnival, so we had to order off of a limiting list, but Pascaline and I were both pleased with the outcome.

We had the Sky Juice. I challenge my reader to find something more unhealthy and delicious.

 The second day had more dancing and parade participants wore more interesting outfits than fluorescent shirts advertising big businesses.

 One of my goals for the afternoon was to try fried plantain.

 So we did.

 And it was delicious. Significantly better than the sad looking chicken from earlier.

 The costumes truly were resplendent and diverse. As were the various body types wearing them.

The way men and women danced whilst wearing these rather skimpy costumes made me worried that someone was going to accidentally contract a baby. While I certainly don't judge (and am more than a little jealous of some of their sexy dance moves), I was just mildly surprised that this manner of movement was permitted in public.

 Having sated our desires for loud music, barbecue smoke, and scandalous costumes accompanied by sketchy dance moves, Pascaline and I decided to call it a day. I phoned up Charlotte on Pascaline's phone and asked if she'd be available to pick me up from the train station in Great Missenden at 19:00.

"I'm having an absolutely fabulous time," I added near the end of the phone call. "See you soon!"

And I was having a fabulous time.

And then I wasn't.

Chaos struck. Pandemonium. Mayhem. If using more synonyms could convey just how stressful the situation was, I would copy/paste the entire page from Thesaurus.com. Thousands upon thousands of drunk, high, overly enthusiastic carnival-goers thronging through the streets. I suddenly found myself being pushed and shoved by towering sweaty bodies reeking of marijuana and alcohol. I clung to Pascaline's backpack and we did our best to navigate our way through the overcrowded streets. I felt a bubble of panic rising in the back of my throat after we'd been immobilized for a few minutes.

The stench of others.

The sweat of others.

The inability to see where I was going because I was so surrounded.

The pounding music that jarred my spine, deafened my ears, and vibrated in my chest.

The violent shoving and groping.

"Zis is just 'orrible!" Pascaline shouted over the terrible cacophony.

I nodded, mouth dry and head spinning. A group of 5-10 generously sized blokes decided that they'd had quite enough of crawling along at a pace a snail could laugh at, so found that the best solution to their dilemma would be to aggressively charge through the crowd as a unit. An elbow jabbed against my ribcage and I hurtled against the person to my left, and the desperate men nearly knocked over an elderly woman with a walker.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to close my eyes and float out of my body and be above it all.

Instead, I kept my purse in front of my stomach, my hand on Pascaline's backpack, and my scream inside my head. After an hour and a half of this 'orrible chaos, we made it through.

I was exhausted. Absolutely spent.

We made it to the train station with admirable ease, boarded our coaches, and set off for home. My smelly, bruised body collapsed into the seat, but my mind refused to let me sleep. My brain felt like it was doing a dance on hot coals whilst juggling hot potatoes.

I arrived in Great Missenden just before seven and was delighted to find Jack waiting for me outside the station in his Porsche.

My brain let go of the potatoes and started to relax.

We walked through the front door of my Buckinghamshire home and a gorgeous smell wafted over us. Charlotte had been cooking.

I love it when Charlotte cooks.

Ribeye steak with melting cheese, sweet potatoes with rosemary, caramelized onions and courgette cooked in a wine and cream sauce.

My brain stepped off of the hot coals.

Preconceptions: None for today

Challenges: London Gin!