More Carnival

The Notting Hill Carnival is in its second day, and our walls are thumping with the bass line from music in the street below. I've come to the conclusion that the carnival isn't nearly as scary as our neighbors warned. I went out at lunchtime and wandered for about an hour, and everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun -- there were food stalls serving jerk chicken and Red Stripe beer, and lots of drums, music and dancers in elaborate feathered costumes.

I shot this video from our bedroom window, so you could get a sense of what the carnival is like. And some long-time attendees said attendance is down this year!

Dave is not at all thrilled with the noise, and wasn't interested in exploring. Now we know to get out of town in future years!

In terms of danger, of course, things could change once it gets dark. The carnival is supposed to end at 7 p.m., but I'm not sure how even the huge numbers of police on duty could clear the streets of this many people. We'll see how it goes.

Alcohol will probably play a factor. It's one thing to have some Red Stripe, but I saw some people in the street quaffing straight from bottles of Jack Daniels. There's some hard-core drinking going on out there!

One difference I noticed between the carnival and similar events in the states: Crowd control, or the lack thereof. Here, there are no barriers along the parade route, so people can leap in and out of the parade's path and get photos taken with the dancers, for example. It's fun, but it definitely slows things down. The efficiency and safety experts (and lawyers) in America wouldn't stand for it!

(Photo: All the shops board up, but at least this one, the Village Bicycle, got into the spirit of things!)

Carnival

As many of our friends back in the states find themselves housebound because of Hurricane Irene, Dave and I are trapped inside by a different phenomenon -- the Notting Hill Carnival.

The carnival is a two-day annual festival that draws thousands and thousands of people to our neighborhood. It's reportedly the largest street party in Europe, and has attracted as many as a million people in the past. The parades go down Westbourne Grove, directly below our windows.

Folks in the neighborhood treat this event like the Siege of Leningrad. We were warned to buy lots of food and just stay indoors for two days -- and if we did venture out, to leave wallets and jewelry at home. Many residents go out of town, and businesses board up their windows. (The photo above is a cafe across the street from our apartment complex.) Homeowners fence off their yards. Apparently the main carnival parade -- which is tomorrow -- has in the past attracted troublemakers, and law-enforcement authorities even considered canceling this year's events because of the prospect of more riots.

Today's parade is more for children, and man is it loud. It basically consists of big trucks hauling immense mobile sound systems, followed by packs of dancers, some done up in elaborate, feathery costumes and veils. Apparently the carnival stems from Notting Hill's history as a place where immigrants from the Caribbean set up housekeeping decades ago.

It's loud, but it's also pretty fun, and despite our neighbors' dire warnings and the concerns of the authorities, it doesn't seem at all dangerous. I went downstairs and watched the first part of the parade from the street. Here are some photos.





And here are a few pictures from our bedroom window:



I also shot a video, just to give you some sense of what it sounds like:


If tomorrow is anything like today, it will be noisy, but a perfectly happy occasion. Keeping our fingers crossed!

UPDATE: As of 5 p.m., crowds have increased exponentially:

Berkeley Square

Today I have another time-traveling post. When I visited London in 2000, I made a special effort to visit Berkeley Square in Mayfair, where the nightingale famously sang.

Above is my photo from that visit. It was March, so the purple hyacinth bulbs were blooming and the trees weren't yet in full leaf.

Today, Dave and I walked back to Berkeley Square to see how much it had changed in the past 11 years:


As you can see, it's just about the same! The only differences I see are that one tree (far right) has been removed, along with two of the phone booths. Looks like a few new benches were installed, too. Good ol' Berkeley Square, a constant in a changing world!

Unfortunately, I didn't see a nightingale on either visit. I did see some crows today, though. Does that count?

Time Travel

I visited London twice before moving here. My first time was in March 2000, when I met up with my friend Arthur, who was in London on business. We stayed off Norfolk Square, near Paddington Station, and explored for a few days en route to our real destination -- Paris.

The second time was in July 2003, with my then-boyfriend, now-friend David. (Not to be confused with my current Dave.) We stayed in the same hotel off Norfolk Square and also made London part of a larger European trip that included Prague and Switzerland.

On my first visit with Arthur, I took very few interesting photos -- mostly just tourist spots like Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Those places really don't change much.

But on my second trip I took some more random shots of buildings, doorways and such. Now that I live here, I thought I'd try to find a few of those places again, to see how they'd changed.

Here's one example. The photo above was taken in 2003 on Pembridge Road. At the time, David and I were walking with his sister and her boyfriend (now husband) to find the Portobello Road Market. We passed this great window, and I loved the little peace sign sticker and the groovy paint job. Portobello Road earned a reputation as a hot spot of "swinging London" in the '60s, and the window seemed to express that.

The same window today, unfortunately, looks like this:


I guess whoever owns the house now decided to go the minimalist route. I think it's a sad statement. In fact it took me a while to figure out which window it was -- the relatively unusual wrought-iron, the crack in the wall and the telltale chip in the windowsill make it a certainty.

It's always interesting to see how things change over time. In this case, it wasn't even very long -- just eight years!

Brompton Cemetery

While on my walk near Earls Court on Monday I made a fascinating discovery -- Brompton Cemetery. I was utterly unaware of this huge graveyard, where tangled tall grasses, sweet peas and wildflowers grow over and around more than 35,000 headstones. Many of the stones date from the Victorian and Edwardian periods, and feature sculptures and detailed epitaphs about the people buried there.



Many people think of cemeteries as morbid, depressing places. In the U.S. they tend to be vast, carefully tended lawns, empty of activity. But this one is more like a park -- in fact, it's operated by The Royal Parks and there were people walking dogs, sitting on benches, reading, jogging and lounging in the sun. It was interesting to see so much activity in a cemetery.



A few small animals were out and about. The big blackbirds seemed Poe-ish and a bit creepy, and I saw several squirrels lying with their bellies against the cool gravestones, like this one. I suppose it must be comfortable. (Not sure where that squirrel got his peanut -- I suspect someone fed him, but it wasn't me.)



Aside from rows and rows of headstones, there are a large chapel with twin colonnades and many mausoleums on the property, some of them quite ornate. Supposedly many well-known Londoners are buried here, but the only name I recognized was that of Blanche Roosevelt, an American author and opera singer.

It's an amazing place to wander, especially with a camera. I was already on my way home when I found it, and I wound up spending an hour there!

Entomophagy

There was a fascinating article in The New Yorker recently about "entomophagy," or eating bugs. It's pretty well known that people in many cultures around the world eat certain types of insects, worms and grubs. This article examined the possibility of widening the appeal of entomophagy by bringing bugs into the Western diet.

Apparently some Westerners are already pretty comfortable eating them -- the article described, for example, a young couple in Los Angeles as they cooked and ate a whip scorpion. (To their knowledge, no one had ever eaten one before. The writer, who had sampled other insect-ish dishes, called it "far too much bug for me.") A chef in L.A. was shown going to extreme measures to get a certain kind of ant's eggs from Mexico, to serve them in his restaurant. A woman made chocolate chip cookies with crickets.

I'm sorry to say I had exactly the same, tired response you'd probably expect -- BLEAH!

There is simply no way I'm eating bugs. Yes, I realize honey is excreted from bees. Yes, I realize there are undoubtedly bug parts in virtually every processed food we eat. But that's a far cry from whipping up a batch of mealworm flour or maggot grits, in my book.

I have always considered myself a fairly adventurous eater. But I realize now that's only within a relatively narrow, and largely vegetarian, parameter. I don't eat a lot of canned, frozen or otherwise prepared foods. Only since I met Dave have I started eating meat that I declined for years, like beef, pork and lamb. (I gave up my vegetarian leanings to allow him to more fully explore his culinary desires.) I still shy away from veal and lobster -- lobsters are simultaneously cute and big bugs, two qualities that kill my appetite for them.

Dave has asked me to consider eating organ meats, bone marrow, blood sausage, offal and all kinds of shellfish. So far I have mostly declined. I like scallops, but other mollusks seem pretty gross to me. And although I occasionally eat them, I'm not crazy about shrimp and crabs. It's that insect thing again -- I'm much more likely to eat a crab cake than a crab leg, for example, because it doesn't look like a crab. And I have never eaten whole softshell crab.

On the other hand, I can't think of a plant that I wouldn't try. I've happily eaten seaweed, marigolds, all manner of mushrooms, mysterious fruits and fibrous root vegetables. None of that bothers me.

I'm just naturally not a meat person. And bugs, as far as I'm concerned, are meat.

(Photo: A flower seen on my walk to Shepherd's Bush on Monday.)

Nasturtiums

The sun was shining yesterday and the temperature was beautiful, hovering around 80 degrees, so I went for a long walk to the west of our neighborhood, through Shepherd's Bush, Hammersmith and Earls Court. I'd never been in those areas, and it was great to explore for a few hours.

One of my favorite sights was this pub, its window boxes overflowing with nasturtiums. I've long loved nasturtiums -- they're one of my favorite flowers. While living in Florida I tried several times to grow them, but never succeeded. I think the heat and sun in the South are just too intense. So, in any case, I always get a kick out of seeing nice ones, and these were spectacular.





Maybe I should give nasturtiums another try, now that we're in London? They'd provide an interesting garnish for Dave's cooking!