Diwali

For the last week, our little flat has been a noisy place.  Kingsbury,
the place that we live in, is predominantly Indian.  So Diwali is
celebrated with a certain amount of vigor.  Before last week, I must
admit I hadn't even heard about Diwali.  Turns out it is the most
important religious festival that Hindus and Sikhs celebrate each
year.  It's known as the festival of lights, and as far as I can tell,
its all about letting off as many loud fire works as possible.

So for the last seven or eight nights, as soon as it gets dark (which
is about 4:30-5:00 over here) the fireworks start.  And these aren't
little fire crackers, they are proper, large-explosion, lots of fire,
fireworks.  It was great!  We'd look out our window and we everywhere
we'd look we'd see fireworks going off, constantly.  But by the time
10:30 rolled around, it started to loose it's appeal.  By the third
night of this, it started to get a little old.  By the 7th night, my
nerves were pretty darn frayed.

Laura has some friends who have experienced Diwali in parts of London
previously (nothing like Kingsbury though) and they say that their
pets and babies have a tough time with the constant barrage of
explosions.  I can just imagine any babies or pets in Kingsbury would
be rather traumatized.

For those of you who spoke with us on the phone, and could hear the
explosions going off in the background, *with* our windows closed, you
know how crazy it was.

Not unlike anti air-craft artillery, and flack explosions.

It seems to be tapering off now, likely they are just using up the
rest of their stock and soon things will be back to normal.

Incidentally, we've booked our next trip!  In two weeks, we're off to
Nice, in the south of France.  It'll be our first excursion to the
Mediterranean.