Guy Fawkes Day

Yesterday it was Guy-Fawkes-Day. It is an English holiday where they celebrate that an attempt to blow up the parliament (and the king) was anticipated.

About 400 years ago - where the English already had their own church (Church of England, where the king/queen is the head of church) Catholics where discriminated against. A group of Catholics wanted to start a kind of revolution. In order to do so, they wanted to blow up the parliament while the king was about to meet the members of parliament there. But they where caught in the basement of the parliament with loads of gunpowder before they could conduct their assassination. After all they were killed themselves and the king was saved.

The holiday is named after Guy Fawkes who was member of this group of revolutionists. It is celebrated by having fireworks and bonefires. There was a very big event in Oxford as well. It was probaly the biggest and longest firswork I´ve ever seen. I think it lasted about 20 minutes and was very well done. Afterwards they had a huge bonefire. And there was even a littl funfair.

Actually we would have had to pay 6 pound for the entrance to the park where this event took place. But we were as lucky as to spot a whole in the fence of the park. So we slipped through the fence and saved some money ;-)

cheers