Live, Laugh, Love, London: Happy Days

With just one week left of summer vacation, I've made the most of my time, getting out and about to see more of the area. Last Saturday, I took the overland train out toward Windsor to go visit a new friend, Sheila, who lives in a small town called Slough. Sheila picked me up from the train station, and we had a most lovely lunch at her house. Then we took a drive around the countryside to check out some local sites. I really enjoyed seeing the gorgeous old buildings. The history in this part of the world really is fantastic. There's such a difference between "older" buildings in the States and "older" buildings in Europe.

Some of my favorite buildings we saw:

Love all these cool old doors!

That's the oldest building in Slough, located behind the old church.

Then we drove out into the countryside a bit more, in the direction of Eton College. The weather changed on us so quickly! While we were driving toward Eton, it's was brilliant and sunny. But then as soon as we arrived there, a massive downpour hit, and we had to stay in the car. Oh well, though. We've already decided that's just a good excuse for me to come out for another visit so we can go walk around through the town and campus.

The weather is still doing OK at this point, but wait...

Two minutes later, and it's starting to get grey.

The blue and the grey skies are starting to fight...

And, rain...
But, this field is famous for being mentioned in Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor."
Windsor Castle is to the far left, way out of the frame of the photo.

We also stopped by the Eton rowing lake, a special lake Eton College had made for it's rowing teams. The lake was used as the rowing lake for the Olympics and will be used for the Paralympics, too. Security wouldn't let us get close enough to see the lake, but I did see this guy:

That's one of the Olympics mascots. He's called Mandeville. I don't really get it...

We then drove out towards Windsor so see if we could get a good view. The castle looks amazing, and I've decided it's definitely on my Must See list for later this year.

Windsor Castle. I found it odd that you can actually drive right up to it. Can't wait to come back for a visit!

The town of Windsor looked quite fun, too.

It was a successful, but windy/rainy, day!

The next big hoorah was the Notting Hill Carnival, which I went and checked out with another Fulbrighter, Cindy. Cindy is currently living about an hour outside of London, so she took the train in and we met near Notting Hill. The Carnival is a long-time tradition here, and it's the largest street festival in Europe. It's not actually a carnival, but more of an all-day extravagant parade and massive booze fest. We got there around 11 a.m. and people were already partying hard. :) Since the event so big, the city actually shuts down the near by Tube stations, so you have to get a bit creative with your route. We had a nice walk through the Notting Hill area, though. I really loved the clean, beautiful rows of houses that line the streets.

This way to Carnival!

Woah, flowers...

Clearing the streets for the parade route. Major bummer for the BMW owner.

Once we found our way to the main streets, we took a few minutes to just soak up the chaos. Reggae and party music was blaring from all directions, the bass was so loud it tickled your ears, and the mouth watering smells of jerk chicken were pretty overpowering. It was awesome! We stopped at a booth so Cindy could pick up a little festival flair:

Cindy and her pretty head garland

Then we stumbled around a bit and then found this little jem, completely on accident!

The bookshop from the movie "Notting Hill" YAY!

The rest of the afternoon, we walked around and checked out all the different parade shows. It was a vibrant party, and things were really starting to get crowded around mid afternoon. Sunday is family day at the carnival, so I can only imagine how wild it must get on Monday! Here's some of the pics I took throughout the day to give you a feel for what it was: