A reason to stay in England for a second year

I had been looking forward to my first Guy Fawkes Day in the UK for a while. I understood the basic gist of the holiday; I knew the story of the attempt to blow up Parliament and I had heard all about the festivities and the bonfires and the fireworks that traditionally commemorate the event, but I wanted to see for myself what all of the excitement was about.

It turned out to be about fireworks from my window and little else. There were plenty of local celebrations taking place, certainly, and I could smell the bonfires from my window. But that was as close as I got to the fun. Some odd viral thing took hold of me on Thursday and knocked me off my feet for three long, miserable days. The weekend came and went, and with it, Guy Fawkes Day, and I slept through almost the whole damn thing.

So much for immersing myself in local customs and cultures; one of the biggest British traditions of the year happened this weekend and the only thing I immersed myself in was my pillow. A disappointing turn of events, to be sure. But you win some, you lose some, right? On Guy Fawkes Day, the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot lost one, and this year, so did I. Maybe next year I'll have better luck than they ever did.