A little party in Notting Hill

Challenge 3: Go on lots of day/weekend/many day trips

The talk of the town in London this Bank Holiday weekend was Notting Hill Carnival. Not having experienced one before I began to imagine it was going to be like Portobello Market on steroids; tea cups and trinkets galore with an abundance of men who resembled Hugh Grant. I was definitely not prepared for possibly Europe's biggest street party.

In fact the carnival is a huge Caribbean street party with a parade that processes through the streets of West London. Large trucks pump out Caribbean music while voluptuous women donned in amazing costumes made with feathers, sequins and glitter dance behind them. To be more specific they follow the trucks while whining, a dance that involves the women twisting their hips while a man often gyrates behind them. Google it if you've never seen it, but all I can say is I didn't know whether to stare in awe of how well they move their bodies or book them a hotel room. I quickly discovered that I definitely can't whine, but regardless it was impossible not to smile and shake my pathetic white girl booty when surrounded by the sea of colour and music. Even the police couldn't resist busting a move with the beautiful partially clad women.

Off the main streets we found an abundance of jerk chicken stalls as well as other street food. After building up an appetite dancing we grabbed a quick bite and congregated outside a bar which was hosting one of the many parties for the day. The music from the bar spilt out onto the street, so armed with BYO wine and beer a mass of people began dancing on the pavement outside. Eventually a crowd began to form around one woman who was easily 75 years old had all of their attention with her old school dance moves. Delicately placing one foot to the side and then in front while holding her floor length floral skirt, she would lure in young shirtless men and relish in their attention.

Eventually we left our little street party and went in search of some colour. Feeling as though we were lacking the glitter required to fit in at carnival we headed straight for a little face painting stall. However, when we were informed it was going to cost 8 quid per face, we decided our money would be better spent pooled and we would nominate one person to take one for the team. When one of the boys announced that we all knew who it was going to be, I completely misunderstood where he was pointing and assumed he was picking on the youngest, me. High on the spirit of the festival my hand shot straight up in the air and I declared, of course I would do it. Unfortunately I had not realised that the deal was I didn't get a say in how my face was decorated. Imagining I would get a beautiful glittery butterfly across my eyes, I was mortified to see my friends flipping through the catalogue and picking out zombie faces. Eventually we came to an agreement, a koala seemed to be the most appropriate option for the loud mouthed Australians. This didn't bode well with the face painter though as it would have been time consuming so somehow my friends settled on a kitten.

For the rest of the day I was subjected to walking around the carnival with my face painted as a white kitten with big whiskers and a pink bow in the middle of my forehead. Luckily we soon found ourselves not watching the parade from the side lines like before, but smack bang in the middle of it. Surrounded by the amazing costumes I merely became an attraction for camera phones and had my picture taken with numerous strangers. It was amazing to be right in the middle of the crowd and to bump and grind our way down the street with the rest of the carnival goers.

After a long day of festivities my housemate and I decided to make our way home by bus. In my tired state I had completely forgotten what I looked like and was only reminded when I saw a lady on the street waving up to me. At first I began to look around to see who she was waving to until she began pointing right at me and waving. Possibly worse were to the two Rastafarian men sitting on the bus who started exclaiming 'what a silly face...look at the joy on that silly face'. They weren't wrong I suppose, it was a pretty joyous day even if I did get meowed at on the walk home from the bus stop!