Sunday, August 27, 2006
Nottinghill Carnival - Dominic's First Party
27-Aug-2006:
Labroke Grove is the heart of the spectacular Notting Hill Carnival, held each August Bank Holiday since 1966. This holiday always falls on the last weekend of August with Sunday and Monday being the major carnival days. The festivities started as a local affair set up by the West Indian immigrants of the area and has become a full-blooded Caribbean carnival, attracting millions of people from all around the world. There are scores of massive ’sound systems’, many spectacular floats and steel drum bands additionally, to keep you well fed, there are hundreds of stalls lining the streets of the area selling all sorts of food and drink including Caribbean specialities.
That was what the website said about the Nottinghill Carnival. To me, it is like a huge street party, with loud music, dancing and food everywhere. There was also a parade and lots of people. It was the largest party I've ever been to. And it was Dominic's first exposure to loud music. My heart went 'THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!' whenever we walked past a 'sound system' and I'm sure Dominic's did too. He looked neither happy nor unhappy. But I think he was rather confused.
We had jerk chicken for lunch and we watched half of the parade. That day, Dominic woke up almost every hour during the night crying.
And since we're talking about music and sound systems here, we recently bought a docking system for my iPod. Since I had Dominic, there wasn't much use for the iPod. I used to hook it up to a pair of old PC speakers and played lullabies for Dominic. Since we bought the docking system, I could really feel the difference in sound quality and the iPod is now back to good use. We bought the Altec Lansing iM7 docking system. According to CNET review, it is the best of all iPod docking systems. You can get one too by clicking on one of the advertisements below. :-)
