Glenn's "May Day" Party

We don’t have Bank Holidays in the US, so this was a very important party for me. I learned the importance of celebrating nothing. On Bank Holidays, pretty much no one has work (save Tesco and the like), or school or anything. It’s not to celebrate someone famous getting killed or being born, or to remember wars, or whatever-- it’s just a day where everyone is obligated to hang out with their families and friends and enjoy the possibility of sun.

Nikki and I were lucky enough to get a facebook invite to Glenn’s party (we were the only Americans there) which was very fun. We walked over to Southgate and got a bit lost. When we got over there we were the only people there. Oops. Then when people started showing up we realized we also didn’t bring as much food as everyone else did. Oops again. I told Glenn we would do a song and dance for him to make up for it. Then Glen and I bonded over our love of the Spice Girls.

They all started a barbecue in the back “yard” (which I was told is not a nice thing to say because yard sounds trashy-- it’s called a “garden”). The barbecue was very tiny, and looked like it was only there for decoration, and I thought that was funny... I figure they must not barbecue a whole lot in England. They were doing all right for themselves though. The whole gathering really reminded me of summer back in the states. I ate a whole bunch of food, since grazing tends to happen at such functions, but the best eating was done with the “banoffe” pie. This exuberant dessert was new to me, as we don’t have it back at home. Everyone couldn’t believe that Nikki and I didn’t know what it was (note: they referenced it in Hot Fuzz-- so awesome). Pie is my favorite food, so I was super excited! It’s a pie made of bananas, whipped cream, chocolate sauce/pudding, crumbled biscuits, and toffee that’s made out evaporated milk, and it is sooooo delicious. This girl Cathy who was a third year made it. It was incredible. Really good memory. I had two pieces. We put on a bunch of hats.

Later Glenn had a bunch of games planned. We did a quiz (like a pub quiz... yet another thing that’s really popular in England that I didn’t understand/know about). Our team did pretty well, as I have a pretty good knowledge of bad pop music and was able to answer the few American history questions that were on there, but unfortunately we didn’t win. Then we had a cracker/biscuit/whatever you want to call it whistling contest where we had to put a certain amount of crackers in our mouths and then whistle. Glenn said whoever won this could win the pub quiz (I don’t know how that makes sense), and somehow my team nominated me to do it, but the thing is, I don’t know how to whistle, with or without crackers shoved in my mouth, so... yeah. Haha. It didn’t really work out anyway because we all ended up running up to Glenn, who was the judge, trying to whistle in his ear and spitting bits of crackers all over the place. It was pretty hilarious.

As things started to wind down, Nikki and I were still being asked to sing and dance to make up for the fact that we hadn’t brought a dish to share. I was kind of kidding when I suggested that, but they all really wanted us to entertain them with something. We couldn’t think of any song and dance we both knew. So, I had to sing and dance to the Spice Girls’ “Stop” by myself in front of everyone. Whatever. I’m cool.