Notting Hill Carnival

Sorry for the delays in updates...I know, common theme. So much activity, I've been a little delayed.

Erin's cousin Scott and his girlfriend Reut were in town over the bank holiday weekend (the week before US Labor Day). We had a great time wandering through Camden Market and throughout London. Scott and Reut (pronouced Ray oot) live in Amsterdam, though Scott is getting ready to move to Palo Alto to begin his PhD program at Stanford. We are very impressed. Our only hope is that he can finish and explain to us what computational linguistics is.

While they were in town we went to the Notting Hill Carnival which was not far from our house. The carnival is carribean themed and typically attracts about a million people to the Notting Hill neighborhood. Everyone at work who's been said that it is something we should go to once... It was fun, but a million people is a zoo. One of the most amazing things is that there were no trash cans at all, but tons of trash. I know there aren't a lot of trash cans in a lot of places due to terrorism bomb fears. I'm not sure if that is the same reason as no trash cans there, but I am assuming so. The other amazing feature was the sound systems that were everywhere. Bob Marley was cranking at full volume from massive semi-trucks loaded with speakers surrounded by dancers in full costume.

Unfortunately Scott and Reut couldn't handle the noise and crowd, but Jen, Erin and I drank rum punch, ate jerk chicken and danced the night away. Tons of fun, and some great pictures to prove it.

While it was fun, I think I got my one trip in...not high on the priority list for future years.

Ted