Remember, Remember, The Fifth Of November...

Hello! You found the compass!


Today is the famous Fifth of November! To make a long history short: the Fifth of November (also known as Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night) celebrates the time when on November 5, 1605, a plot to blow up Parliament was foiled. They celebrate the fact that Parliament did not explode by setting off explosives all across the country. (Wait, what?)

Fun fact: Fireworks are legal! I can buy them in the grocery store!

Guy Fawkes had taken barrels filled with gunpowder into Parliament, but was caught before he could detonate them. Fawkes, a Catholic, planned on killing the Protestant King James and putting Princess Elizabeth on the throne instead. (Interestingly, many people misinterpret Fawkes' intentions. He is often celebrated as an anarchist, when in fact he just wanted to put a different religion in charge. The mix-up is probably due to the movie V For Vendetta, where a man in a Guy Fawkes mask wants to blow up Parliament in the name of anarchy.) After Fawkes was captured, he was tortured in the Tower of London until he revealed the names of his co-conspirators. All were hung and quartered, though Fawkes was spared the agony of being quartered because his neck snapped from the hanging. So...plus side?

The Guy Fawkes masks were made post-beard-trimming, apparently.

I realize I haven't updated this in about a month, so let's see what's new...Well, to celebrate being in England for one month, me and my flatmates had a big dinner. Sandra kindly cooked up a Mexican feast, and it was mighty tasty!

Yes.

So much yes.

This past weekend was fairly busy. On Halloween I went with some friends to the campus bar where there was a dance and a costume contest. I met some great people and had a wonderful time! (I was dressed as Harley Quinn.) Saturday night, I went up to Alexandra Palace for a night of fireworks and a German beer festival! I hadn't heard of Alexandra Palace until getting invited to go to it. The palace, lovingly known as Ally Pally, was built in 1873 and has survived two fires since then. It is open to the public as an entertainment venue. Located on a high hill north of London, the grounds surrounding the palace offer spectacular views of the city. The history of the palace includes such events as hosting the first television broadcast and being an internment camp for German, Hungarian, and Austrian civilians in World War I. When we went, the grounds were covered in food vendors and carnival rides. We didn't manage the best view of the fireworks, but the show was still enjoyable. 

Phone camera isn't great in low light, but that's London.

And there's Ally Pally!

After the show, we went into the palace to check out the beer festival! Even being fully aware of the size of the building, I did not expect to walk into what we did. The first room was big enough, and filled with beer and German food vendors. It also had a little turf area in the middle of the room where there were benches, an area to dance, and a band.

At first I thought that was that was the only festival room, which was cool and would've been fun on its own. Then we found the real beer hall...

This isn't even the very back of the room.

It was enormous! There was a German band, people wearing lederhosen, pretzels for sale, and even more beer and schnapps for our consumption. We learned a German dance and sang along to some decidedly-not-German-but-still-fun songs such as Hey Jude and Bohemian Rhapsody. When the German band was done, an Oasis cover band called Noasis came on stage. They did very well! 

As close to the brothers Gallagher as I'll get!

That's about all of the exciting news I have from England. There should be more to come as I have two weekend trips definitely happening this month: Amsterdam and Scotland!

It was suggested that I discuss on here what a typical week in England is like. Despite trying to keep busy I don't think my typical week would be too exciting, but here it goes: I only have classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. After class, the writers tend to go out to a pub together to relax and, more often than not, discuss writing. I am a member of the Kingston University Video Game Society, or KUVegas for short, the Kingston Anime, Sci Fi, and Tabletop society (KAST, which seems to be a rival of KUVegas despite a few people like me rolling with both) and the Connect UK International Society. Every Wednesday, the International Society will put on a free lunch for us, and occasionally will have different events. For the Wednesday before Halloween, we met up and played a party game called Werewolf. The werewolves won, and here's our winning team picture:

KAST and KUVegas have events throughout the week as well. KUVegas has meet-ups every Tuesday night at a pub where games are played and good times are had. They also occasionally host LAN parties, stream game tournaments, and other such things. They have competitive teams in both Call of Duty and League of Legends. They also recently got officially sponsored by X-Box, so there you go! We're official!

KAST has a bunch of things going on throughout the week, from board/tabletop game nights (my personal favorite, as I love those kinds of games), to anime screenings, to bad movie screenings, and more. As I'm new to the society, I haven't been to many of their events yet. I didn't plan on joining, but it was highly recommended that I become one of them after Halloween; that dance I went to where I was dressed as Harley Quinn was put on by them. They then proceeded to "kidnap" me to one of their houses where we had a great time listening to music and watching funny Youtube videos, so I was won over and joined.

Smirks and smiles all around!

Outside of those societies, I'm part of the A Cappella group when I can be. Scheduling conflicts have limited my time with them, unfortunately. I did manage to get the position of Student Representative for my degree. That just means that occasionally another woman and I get called to faculty meetings to discuss student issues brought up within our course. I've gathered quite the list of issues right now, for better or worse, so hopefully at the next meeting I can help set things in motion to see some overall improvement for myself, my peers, and future Kingston writers. 

All that aside, I do homework, I read, I write, I go grocery shopping, and I go to the pub. Life is good. And when I need a place to crash, I have my Hobbit Hole (also known now as the Ship's Cabin) to go home to. For those who asked for a tour to see just how small the room is, here you are:

(Apologies for vertical-cam. I wasn't thinking when I filmed it and I'm too tired to re-film.)

There you have it! Standard life in England. Actually, looking back on it, my typical week is pretty darn cool. I like it.

Tomorrow I have some errands that I really need to run (getting a cheap U.K. phone and a bank account, for example) but I might go into central for a little while to have fun. I'd like to go at some point soon, as it's been awhile since I've run around there. The Museum of London has a Sherlock Holmes exhibit going on right now which I would love to see. I'd also like to get back to that awesome cookie place (Ben's, yum) and do some strolling around the city. The next update won't be as far away because, if nothing else, I'll have a weekend in Amsterdam to write about come the night of the 16th. Until next time...Cheers!