I wasn't too familiar with Guy Fawkes Night, aka Bonfire Night, before I moved here. For awhile there I could never remember what it was called either, and kept thinking it was Sadie Hawkins Night. Ha! Not quite.
In 1605 (I kid you not), Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. His plans were foiled, and Guy Fawkes Night is a celebration of that. Yeah, STILL. School children are taught the rhyme "Remember remember the fifth of November" and there's all these traditions that go along with the day, especially big fireworks displays throughout the U.K. Fine, but it gets strange... they also build bonfires on which they burn effigies of Guy Fawkes!?
I didn't see any effigies this evening, but I went to the Blackheath fireworks with my upstairs neighbors and it was super fun. Also great because we can walk from our house and didn't have to deal with the insanity of parking or even the public transportation. There were TONS of people!
Incidentally, I'm not sure I'll ever get used to fireworks in November.
1 comment:
Mindy,
It's Jessie Tress. We had the same party here...except we aren't in England. Our friends work at a school here in Jerusalem where there are lots of Brits. We had a bonfire and burned Guy! It was sort of traumatic but fun! I wanted to post about it on my blog..maybe I'll still do it. I'll give them a link to your blog which explains it well. Looks like you're having fun. Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving.
Post a Comment