Notting Hill Carnival

Today I went to the Notting Hill Carnival, on recommendation from Time Out London, which is almost as cool as my former employer, Time Out New York (london has more typos).

Carnival is apparently the Biggest Street Festival In Europe, and there were tons of people fo' sho', but it was also extremely large area-wise. I got so tired that I had to come back to center city and watch a movie. I chose "The Rising: The Story of Mangal Pandey" which I thought would be interesting, because I did some research about the Sepoy Rebellion this summer, and I have an affinity for the Bruce Springsteen album of the same name. However, it turns out I was duped, and it was a Bollywood movie. God, was it awful. I should have read Time Out before I saw that one.

Anyhow, here are some things I saw at the Carnival:

For starters, Notting Hill is a pretty posh neighbourhood, and, like in the movie, a lot of the houses look like this:



But on the Carnival days, a lot of thoughfoul people boarded up their houses against the rabble. Turns out it was a good idea...



The parade was amazing. All these groups of dancers, called Mas Clubs, a la Carnival in Brazil or Mardi Gras in New Orleans, followed big floats in outrageous costumes, dancing. (Odd because it's nowhere near the time of year for Carnival, but whatever...)



Notting Hill Carnival is a Caribbean street festival, mostly. I'm not really sure how it happened, but I believe the neighbourhooud used to be a Jamaican neighborhood, but got gentrified. I can hardly imagine that though, because some of the houses are really ostentatious. Anyhoo, there were a bunch of rastas smoking spliffs that looked like this (although the king of all rastas refused to let me take his picture unless i bought weed from him - needless to say, i did, and he stole my camera)...



And a lot of dorky white guys who looked like this (note the "Jah Army" t-shirt) and dancing like fools...



And then I bought some jerk chicken:



Then I ET it!



And the big thing about Notting Hill Carnival is the "Sound Systems". All these DJs spinning roots reggae, soca, hip-hop, salsa, soul, and old-skool tap set up SPEAKERBOXXES (yes, like your favorite outkast record) and try to blow eachother into high heaven with levels of bass that would make my mom have a hernia just to imagine them.

Here are some pictures of speakerboxxes to show you how big they are (remember, each sound system has 4 or 5 of these lined up)...









and this one near the bbq where i bought the jerk chicken...



and finally, an image that I feel sums up Notting Hill Carnival quite honourably (note: not in the least bit staged)...



Also, my buddy Justin had a great idea... He suggested, by his actions, that you good people can post any queries you might have on the blog in the form of comments. For all you old folks reading this, that means just click the "comments" link at the bottom of a given post. The first question Justin asked (though hopefully not the last) is "Do they have McPaella in Spain?". Great question, Justin. I'm not in Spain yet, but once I get there I'll make sure to find out.

Also, you can find a short video of what the inside of the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre looks like here. You need Windows Media Player though, I think.

Cheers!
-robbie.