Notting Hill Carnival

I joined back up with Julia and Anna (who made me promise not to put the picture I took of her up on the Internet because she hated it) and we set out to take London by storm.  We made it as far as Notting Hill, where the festivities for the annual Carnival were winding down.  It was basically a parade of colors.  If we had made it a little earlier we could have participated in the street party and Caribbean foods, but we didn't realize what time it ended until it was almost too late to see anything at all!  So we were glad to witness what we did (except for the woman sleepily grinding on a guy on one of the floats...we weren't glad to witness that.)

Yay!  We've caught up!  I actually am in London right now!  Right now as I type this and write now as you read it (provided you read it the day it goes up on my site, because September 2nd I take the Eurostar back to Paris).

The fringe

I love it when I accidentally wind up in a city at the same time as a festival, and I arrived in Edinburgh smack in the middle of the Fringe Festival, which is an arts festival involving street performances, dramas, comedies, magic shows, musicals singing...and freshly made donuts.  Donuts so fresh you watch them make them after you order them.  Delicious.

Upper left: This guy would stand perfectly still for tips.  It was so perfect, he looked like a painted statue.  I just had to have a picture (I paid him for it, don't panic).

Upper right: I'm not sure what show they belonged to but this creepy duo would sneak up on you to give you their flyers while playing super eerie accordion music.

Lower left: Some people stood around shoving unwanted flyers in your face, which is massively annoying, but others found creative ways to get you to take the flyers from them.  Like this group that pretended to sleep in the middle of the street.

Lower right: The one place in all of Europe that tried to card me...and I had stopped carrying my ID weeks ago.  Luckily neither me nor Anna nor Julia actually wanted to get in.