Vienna Teng/Guy Fawkes' Weekend

The good news: Joe got a job bartending at BrewDog in Camden, the exact job he wanted and the only one he applied for. Only this man comes to England and lands his dream job only 36 hours after submitting his CV.

The bad news: He got scheduled to work seven closing shifts in a row, two of which fell on days that we had plans (and tickets) for events in town.

Because of this scheduling conflict, I spent last Friday and Saturday nights trying to make sense of public transportation to locations much more far-flung than normal by myself. Those of you who know me know that I am a nightmare with directions, so when I have to figure out tube and bus transfers in new places with unexpected closures or changes, I can get quite flustered.

Friday, November 1
Vienna Teng at Bush Hall in Shepherd's Bush

I met Cynthia/Vienna when we became roommates during a trip to Argentina to build houses with Habitat for Humanity in 2008. She had been enticed onto the trip because it was a Canta y Construya (sing and build) event and she was a singer and songwriter about to release her fourth album. On the night before the build began, she shocked our whole team by getting on stage during the welcome festival held for us and performing "Harbor", a song from her second album about going home. Mostly, she sang in the tent where we ate lunch, a capella or with a guitar.

The clothespin method of playing guitar

enjoying empanadas in Buenos Aires

Our Global Village team

reunited a few months later when she performed in San Diego

This trip was extremely emotional for me. It was after my dad had died and I'd lost my job. I needed to do something that was entirely separate from my regular life. 

(Someone recorded Vienna talking about the experience during a performance shortly after we got back here; someone else stole a bunch of my pictures of the trip and made this video that I just discovered today.)

When I found out that Cynthia/Vienna would be performing here in London while I was here, I knew I couldn't miss it. The venue was standing room only and it was packed. She opened the show alone on the stage, just her and a keyboard, with "Harbor." I cried. I was transported immediately back to that tent in Recreo when I spent two weeks digging a hole for a water tank and had never been more fulfilled by a day's work. I was surrounded by the people on my team and those who were helping to build their own homes and their neighbors'. In some ways I'm glad I went to the performance alone.

totally stolen from someone's flicker since my phone pics sucked

As always, the show was wonderful. I love Vienna's music in any form, but hearing her live is such a pure and moving experience. She and the other performers who work with her, especially Alex Wong, are funny, entertaining, and incredibly talented.


Saturday, November 2
Guy Fawkes' Day: Back with a Bang at Ally Pally

Remember, remember the fifth of November...

This uniquely British holiday is a commemoration of the night in 1605 when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament by placing explosives below the House of Lords. Apparently people celebrated the fact that the king (James I) survived this attempted mass assassination by lighting bonfires all over the city. Thus Bonfire Night was born. Now, over four centuries later, fireworks shows occur all over the city (and kingdom, I imagine) for several days before and after the official holiday.

This year, festivities began on Halloween (which some people do celebrate here) and included fireworks displays on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I attended one of the bigger shows, Back with a Bang, a return of the event to Alexandra Palace, affectionately called Ally Pally by Londoners.

The event was only £5 to attend and was sold out by the Thursday before. Inside the park there were games, carnival-type attractions, and all of the trappings Americans might expect at an Independence Day celebration. Since I had no intention of overpaying for fried food on sticks, I planned to meet Tammela and her boyfriend about an hour before the fireworks show. What I did not plan for, however, was for every part of my journey to take two or three times as long as normal. The route to my bus stop was across a park that closed early and was locked. The bus I was meant to take, which had 3 different stops on its route for Ally Pally, had been completely re-routed away from the event. I had to jump on a different line and follow some fellow revelers through the freezing wind in the hopes that they were heading the same direction I wanted to...

I arrived just fifteen minutes before the show, gave up on finding Tammela in a crowd of over 30,000, and left immediately after the show in hopes of following the crowd to the proper bus stop to get home.

crazy sea of crowd

I enjoyed the show and I'm glad I participated in the holiday even if I had to go alone. It was a fireworks show, and being that my birthday entails a fireworks show every year at home, fireworks always make me feel special.