Guy Fawkes and a day trip to London

This weekend was great:

1. Thursday was Guy Fawkes day here in the UK. It is a holiday that commemorates the capture and execution of a guy named Guy who was going to blow up parliament. I thought at first that his name was Guy Fox, which would have been totally awesome and almost made me want to think about naming our kid Guy Fox Bullard (which we still might do [unless it's a girl, in which case she would be 'Girl Fox' {still cool, but not quite as cool as 'Guy Fox'}]).
It's a fun day because they always have fireworks and bonfires. Since he was going to blow up parliament but didn't, they celebrate buy blowing up fireworks; and since he was burned at the stake in punishment for his crimes, they have a bonfire and sometimes put a little Guy Fawkes figure on top of the fire. When you put it like that, it sounds pretty gruesome, but they dress the whole thing in a funfair (carnival rides) and fairy floss (cotton candy), which makes it way more respectable.
We went to Midsummer Common with three friends: Sarah, Jackie, and Jonny. You might remember Sarah from our Durham trip; she's awesome so she'll probably be a regular on our blog (how lucky is she!). Jackie and Jonny are from Australia and Ireland, which are probably the two best places to be from. Pictures will round out this section nicely:


From right to left: Sarah, Candice, Collin, Jonny, and Ja... poor Jackie, the lady we handed the camera to was like, "Whatever. Click. Here."


The fireworks exceeded all expectations. A long show with consistent and thematic execution finished off with a memorable finale: Cambridge knows how to party!

Candice and Jackie with fairy floss/candy floss/cotton candy. I think cotton candy is the best description, because if you think about what it does to your teeth, it's basically the opposite of floss.

2. Friday was a good day. Candice and I had been looking forward to Nov 6 for a while, because this cool store was having their grand opening. So we planned to finish work right at 5 to try to make it over there on our bikes before 6. The store is called Primark, and it was a pretty fun experience because all these people had turned up for the opening. It's like a huge department store where everything is very very cheap. The prices are truly amazing. You want a Pasmina scarf for £2, okay. How about a pair of jeans for £3.91? And every now and then there would be a little gleeful surprise: Gloves for a pound, no, wait, that's a two-pack of gloves for a pound! A necktie for £3, no, that's TWO neckties for £3! You see where this is going. All in all, it was fun; but don't expect the quality to be that great when your gloves cost 50p, that's why they gave you two for £1, because they're disposable.

3. On Saturday, we went to London to meet some friends from Baylor: Jonathan (aka Stoops) and Melissa Stoops.


We met at Harrods and went in to check out the food halls and the Christmas stuff. Let's just say that Harrods is the opposite of Primark :).

Next we went to Notting Hill for the Portobello Road market, a huge street market where they have awesome antiques and practically anything else. Here's a Bible we saw that was printed in 1648! Now that's antique!


Next we went to see a musical :)... so much fun. It was called Blood Brothers and it was a pretty great show.


After the show, we ate at this great place called 'Little Italy' near Leicester Square. Then we went for some Ice Cream at the Häagen Dazs store. Yum!


We finished it off with a visit to Picadilly Circus before catching the train back to Cambridge. What a fun day!