Carnival On

I started last weekend by hitting the Brick Lane Sunday market in London. This was pretty cool, but I felt not hipster enough. Most of the market was overpriced new clothes, but more so, overpriced vintage clothes. Outside of that there was some awesome street food to be had, which frankly interests me way more than clothes of any era. I had an awesome Japanese 'rice thingy' and a Thai pumpkin curry which I plan to attempt to replicate when I get home. The Sunday market spreads to the street where tiny yard sales take place right on the pavement set in 'Banglatown' where there are about a million curry houses as well as cool foreign grocery stores and sweet shops. I stopped in to the Brick Lane Beigel Bake because when the queue for a place doubles back and out the door, it is almost always worth standing in. Here you can watch them bake the bagels and then buy one for 20p. A true London bargain.
In the evening, I took in a free organ concert at Westminster Abbey. It's great just to get into that place for free and when it was over, I was not the only one with the wise idea to loiter, everyone was wandering around, taking it in, and driving the ushers mad.

The next day I headed to Notting Hill carnival. This was the most insane event I have witnessed. At this two day street carnival to celebrate Caribbean culture and music, over a million people come out to watch the parade, dance in the street, and drink lots and lots of Red Stripe. I stepped off the tube at 10am and the smell of the open grills cooking up jerk chicken, fried plantains, and sweet corn on the cob was already in the air.
I wrongly assumed that I could find a good place to camp out for a couple of hours and watch the parade. You know, sit on the curb, watch a marching band go by and be on my way. How wrong I was! If you camp out to watch the entire Notting Hill carnival parade, you will be very tired and hungry! It started around 11 and was still going on when I left around 4. Over 60 entrants participated this year. I started watching near the judging area, which was nice as all of the bands stopped to perform and dance and do whatever they were doing.
The crowds gathered, the bands about burst my ear drums, and the costumes were amazing, but after about 2 hours I realized that it could go on forever and I hadn't had any jerk chicken yet. So I gave up my viewing spot and joined the swell, wandering down the (I'm sure once peaceful) streets of Notting Hill, now lined with delicious food stalls and on every corner a block party. Huge speakers were set up blasting calypso, soca, or samba music. In some places the base felt as though it was vibrating the street and with my every step it resonated through my whole body from foot to head. You could say it was loud. But it was really a nice atmosphere. People were, admittedly, getting drunker by the second, but mostly happily dancing in the street, eating Caribbean foods, and being generally good natured.
I saw about a thousand cops and only one incident where a fight must have broken out and the next thing I knew two cops were dragging this unconscious guy through the crowd and literally laid him down in front of me. Ah, drunk people, how I miss you!
The rest of the day I wandered through the streets seeing what I could see. The smoke from the open grills filled the air, random whistles and horns broke through the thumping music, and people were dancing like crazy. I had never seen so much public drinking, blatant pot smoking, and trash in the street in my life. And I've never seen so many people. It was a little scary how many people were there, but I had been properly warned and carried only my camera and a change purse in a zipped pocket.
Meanwhile, the parade was still winding its way through town. After it left the judging area, it just sort of became a mobile party, providing entertainment to the crowd, making little progress, dancing through thousands of people.

That's some people!

Once I'd had enough of the crowd and the loudness I headed out, though my exit strategy was kind of flawed. Actually, I guess it worked out as well as it could have, but I underestimated the size of the crowd and of Notting Hill. It took a long time to walk back to my hostel to get my stuff, but it was easier than fighting public transport. I was more than happy to get on the train home and enjoy its quiet and calm.