burn this city

so it was guy fawkes last weekend (aka bonfire weekend) - where poms turn into pyros for a weekend. it is to do with the burning of catholics in elizabethan times and also guy fawkes & co's terror plot to burn down parliament (400 years ago).
actually i think it has been guy fawkes month judging by the amount of firecrackers that have freaking me out recently (they're not illegal here)
anyway, after a bit of deliberation (weather related-the weather people were predicting storms (there were none)) rohan and i got off our arses and headed down to lewes - the centre of guy fawkes celebrations in england (about 1/2 an hour south of us).
lewes goes to town on bonfire weekend (literally and figuratively) - all the locals get in on the action it seems. (james would love it) there are 5 'bonfire societies' (?!) that spend all year planning their bonfire bonanza. basically there is a parade through the town to the various bonfire sites. thousands of people come from all over the place. they don't actually encourage people from out of town to go (which i found out the hard way - no toilets!) but i dont know who would be there to watch it if they didnt.
we got there early cos they block off the roads, and then walked around lewes for a bit (which is actually a really sweet little town) and went to the pub before the parade started at 7pm.
when we lined up along the pavement there weren't too many people but we got up on some window ledges anyway - which was lucky cos soon enough there were thousands of people crammed into this narrow little road.
the people in the parade carried flaming torches there are marching bands and firecrackers were going off the whole time so it was pretty explosive and claustraphobic place to be in, but it was an amazing atmosphere. we then headed to a bonfire where they let off heaps of fireworks. the bonfire site was at a highish point and we could see fireworks going off along the coast and lots of little towns around the area - pretty spectacular.
it was a good night.