City of Festivals

If Paris is the City of Light, London is the City of Festivals.

Like most large cities the powers that be assume we need a reason to get off the couch and go shopping.  So they create a variety of festivals, events and gatherings that give you something new to do in a city with a million things to do.

Last weekend it was the “International Chocolate Festival” which I think was just a bunch of people trying to sell chocolate.  But they had some cool things, like an expensive entrance fee, a wall of chocolate where you could carve your name and melted chocolate with a paintbrush so you could paint your name on canvas, in chocolate.

Once inside Vinopolis just outside of Borough Market, it wasn’t just a bunch of people selling chocolate.  You also had people who trained you in smelling chocolate, tasting chocolate, and of course eating and drinking chocolate.  The girls loved it, there were more free samples than China Town.

This week we schlepped to Kentish Town on Saturday morning to jump into the world’s coldest pool.  Beyond that, however, we were taking part in a world record attempt at having the most people treading water in one place for one minute.

Two children joined me for this excursion (my wife seemed to have made it to the Chocolate Festival, but I got the iceberg swim).  We jumped into the frigid water and spent the time trying to avoid being kicked and then helping a drowning man to the side because the life guards were too busy counting the number of people in the pool to see if we broke the record.

It was very official, we even had to sign release forms for our photos in case we made it in and the Mayor of Camden pressed the starting button.  I counted about 150 people, the number we needed was closer to 300.  We did receive a certificate which, if you read closely, congratulated us on “attempting” a world record.

And then there are the big events.  For example, this was the weekend for the one and only American football game at Wembley Stadium.  Friday night we sat with Cuba Gooding Jr and a few thousands folks to watch the movie Jerry McGuire outdoors in Trafalgar Square.  They sold plenty of Bears and Bucs hats and shirts but the intermission interview by a local radio host revealed how little our hosts know about football.  And then on Sunday we took the train out to Wembley to watch Chicago and Tampa Bay.

While the purpose of the event is to introduce American football to the Brits, what it has become is a chance for expats to dress up in their hometown gear and root for a good play.  A chance for grown men to wear those cheeseheads and Viking helmets they dragged here from the States.

We waved our Bucs flags and enjoyed some of the British questions (try explaining a safety and why they punt the ball afterwards), but it’s a beautiful stadium and real enthusiasm for a game where very few care who wins.

A couple of very British things while we were there:  At halftime there was an announcement that the game will “re-commence in five minutes, please make your way to your seats.”  There were signs to text the word “issue” to a certain phone number if you see “anti social behaviour.”  And while the Brits laugh at the Americans for our patriotism (they think playing the Star Spangled Banner at the start of games is hokey), when they sang God Save the Queen, at the start of the game, the place exploded in song.