Notting Hill Carnival

A couple weekends ago we went to the Notting Hill Carnival:

Us walking in:

It's basically a gigantic street party that lasts two days.  It started in 1964 and has a distinctively Caribbean feel and is run by members of the West Indian community (particularly Trinidad and Tobago) who have lived in this area since the 1950's.  

The carnival has attracted up to 2 million people in the past making it the second largest street festival in the world, after the Rio Carnival held in Brazil.  (Now I have to go to that one!  Anyone want to meet me there?)  

A parade runs through with people in crazy costumes, floats, and bands playing steel drums on lorries (flat bed trucks).

It can get pretty loud.

Music is everywhere, either live or from DJs in booths above the crowds.  Below are a couple DJ booths, one looks like a farm and one (on the very right of the picture) is a silver motor home looking thing:  

Official beer of the carnival, I hadn't had a Red Stripe in forever.  Red Stripe, Hooray Beer!

I'm sure there are always various crowd control functions put into place, but being that the riots weren't all that long ago, I bet it was a bigger part of the planning this year.  These guys had riot gear in the house behind them (masks, shields) just in case I guess.  

Jerk chicken and fried plantains were everywhere, yum.  "Sweet 2 de Belly"!!!

Notting Hill is one of the prettiest neighborhoods, all the buildings are so beautifully colored:  

These guys all looked about 15, but they were probably university age and I'm just getting old.  They did a free show at the pub where we stopped.  Big plastic neon '80s sunglasses must be back in!

Late that night we ended up at our friends' flat, eating Thai food and playing Guitar Hero.  Have you ever played this game?  We hadn't, it's awesome!  They had not only the guitar, but the drum set and microphone for singing to form a whole band.  It is now officially on our Christmas wish list.  Also, our friend Alex had this original LP.  Stephen now wants to send out a Christmas card in this pose.  :)