Where I was yesterday

[Image removed]I went to the Lewes Bonfire, which is a lot like Fourth of July celebrations, except for England. I don’t really know how many people were there, but I’ve heard numbers as high as 80,000 for last years attendance. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was at least that many people this year.

It’s called the “Lewes Bonfire,” but there are actually seven different bonfires you can choose from, each with their own fireworks display. Before people split up to go to those, however, there was a parade that lasted approximately five million hours. Apparently the bonfire has been happening for the past 400 years.
[Image removed]
I remember that at some point during the parade I told a street full of drunken Englishmen that this reminded me of the 4th of July, “the day we beat you.”

I also think I told them I was just “taking the piss out of them, though,” and they must have believed me, because I’m not missing any limbs right now.

The parade also had some sort of folk dancing:

[Image removed]

So naturally, I joined in:

[Image removed]

But after the parade, we all followed the signs to a huge bonfire…and I’m still not sure who we paid to get in or even if we had to, but it was 3 pounds and worth it. We sat and ate [Image removed]previously-packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the top of a huge grassy hill while we watched about six fireworks displays and a ridiculously large bonfire.

All-in-all it was a pretty good night, even though it rained a little bit and we had to wait for almost an hour just to take the five minute train ride back to school.

Oh, and we also found a confused-looking pirate:

[Image removed]

You can find all the photos from Lewes on FlickR here.