Guy Fawkes Day

Today is Guy Fawkes Day, also known as Bonfire Night, when English people all get together to celebrate Guy Fawkes's attempt to blow up Parliament some 400 years ago.
So, for a study break tonight I went to see the fireworks at a big carnival here in Cambridge. The carnival was huge... crowds, big spinning rides, flashing lights, loud music. I also saw a carnival game where the prizes included the usual stuffed animals, but also cans of Foster's beer and for one of the larger prizes, a giant handle of Jack Daniels. Somehow I don't think this would happen at an analogous family event in the U.S.
I think the closest thing I could compare the whole celebration to was the Fourth of July. I suppose one of the good things about it getting so dark here so ridiculously early here (I think we're at roughly the same latitude as Maine) is that we could have fireworks at 7:30 in the evening. The fireworks were pretty spectacular and directly overhead of me and my friends. In fact, so directly overhead that my friend standing about three feet away from me got hit by a very fast-moving small cardboard tube that must have been casing for one of the fireworks. She was fine, but a bit startled.
As far as other notable events recently, of course yesterday was election day. Late last night I went down to the Cambridge University Union with some of my American friends to watch coverage. I could pretend this was really cool, but actually it was really crowded and they didn't have a very good sound systems set up. So after watching cnn without being able to hear it for about an hour, I got tired and went home before any states were called. Some of my friends were up until 3 last night to find out the outcome. I got up at 6 this morning and so I found out the result then, and then I went out for rowing practice, which was a lot of fun. It's definitely not anywhere near as cold as it gets in Iowa right now so this morning it was really nice out on the river.
I hope to be able to make some more posts soon and I have some photos of the math building to put up, but right now I'm really busy with my courses and a handful of various applications. We are reaching the halfway point of Michaelmas Term so things are getting pretty rough. I keep telling myself that if the work here were easy, I'd feel disappointed.