It’s the first (and really only) night of the Durham Juggling (and unicycling) Convention. Today was the way most British juggling conventions seem to be, long periods of free-type juggling in the big hall (and unicycling in the littler hall), interspersed with games, workshops, and with an evening show made up of acts by local (or occasionally not so local) jugglers and performers. It’s been good for the most part. There’s lots of talent to watch and several memorable characters. All-in-all the first day seemed to go pretty well.
UPDATE: The Second Day
Well, let me tell you about last night first. When I wrote the last post I was in the communal sleeping hall sitting on a pile of blankets in a self-designated rectangle to be my sleeping quarters last night. After I finished writing, I headed back into the main hall where I juggled a bit with Rachael, who tried to teach me to pass clubs, which I can do for about two rotations before dropping them everywhere. Either way, she was really patient, and we had fun with the whole thing. After that, she positively hammered me with questions, including where I would take her if she were to visit the US, and what quintessential American things we could do. She wanted to start the day out with pancakes (big American stacks), but didn’t like syrup, and when she suggested putting sugar and lemon on them (a British thing) I had a hard time not laughing as I reminded her that British things were not, in fact, traditionally American. For lunch she absolutely wanted a corn dog, and went on and on about how she’d love it and take a picture of it, she even had me run over how they were made (and what they were made of). Her most ideal American experience, though, was finding that place in California where there are long lines of palm trees and people Rollerblade down the sidewalk with headphones and short shorts.
After this winded down, I headed to bed in the previously-mentioned sleeping hall. The lights at this point were on. There were several really bright fluorescent lights (like two feet apart) all over the entire ceiling, and after I had tried to sleep for about an hour, some of the convention planners came in and told us that the lights were on an infrared sensor, and would not in fact go off unless everyone were absolutely still. And even if the lights did go off, if another person were to come in the room (which is what happens all night, as people go in and out and slowly make their way to bed) the lights would turn back on again. Well, the VERY bright lights didn’t go off. All night. All things considered, I slept tolerably, although it was very confusing to wake up with everything so bright, because you had no concept of what time it was.
The next day was mostly hanging around. We apparently missed breakfast, because when Miark and I got there, all they had left was Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, room temperature milk, and some pre-wrapped danish thingies. Apparently there was a hot breakfast that morning, and we just hadn’t gotten any of it. After that I hung around and chatted with various people until we went to a pub in the next town for lunch at about 1:30. The food was actually very good, and we sat and talked for about three hours before setting off on our way.
We made one stop on our way back, to the mining village (which is really just a mine) called Killhope. This is something that Miark had discovered last time I was in the country, and thought was hilarious, so we went this time to see if we could find a t-shirt or something that said KILLHOPE in nice big bold letters. There were no t-shirts to be found, but I did get a keychain and kind of a cool purple sparkly mug.
Hope Helps 