bacon, fireworks, and candy
zeke brought back tons of american treats from his recent trip to asheville. and in another instalment of hello america, dan tried a few of them:
hello america: halloween edition
then on saturday we went to platt fields park to celebrate guy fawkes day aka: bonfire night. US friends, you may know a little about this from the movie V for Vendetta. to learn more you can play this game: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/games/gunpowder/index.shtml
but overall it is quite a strange holiday that seems really just to be about blowing stuff up (which sounds more american than english, really).
we met some friends and started the night off with sparklers
then masses of people crowded inside the park to watch the 20 minute fireworks display.
then after the fireworks, they started a really huge bonfire. some places apparently burn an effigy of guy fawkes! quite macabre for a country that doesn’t even like halloween.
the park is also filled with fair rides, games, and food stalls. zeke and our friends katherine and claire rode this:
it was a bit scary that their ride had to be stopped and restarted before the giant pendulum hurled them upward. the flashing strobe lights were enough excitement for those of us in the tame crowd waiting below.
afterwards zeke got a chilli dog…
and chips for wendy at this place:
yes, it says ‘made in heaven’.
but at least we didn’t eat here:
can you believe there’s a queue for this?
guy fawkes day is such a spectacle. november is a pretty fun month around here, because not too long after bonfire night the christmas markets come!
also this weekend zeke got a special treat…
american bacon! (which here is called ‘streaky bacon’) he ate half of the pack on saturday and the other half on sunday (!) when wendy made biscuits and fried eggs to go with it.
it was the first time vegetarian wendy had ever cooked bacon and she kept thinking it’s no wonder we americans have a reputation for being unhealthy… that being said, the unhealthy food consumed this week (documented in this post) has made us quite happy and fed our nostalgia for home.
