Bike returned! Plus Halloween in Britain

First off, my bike has been found.  It was deep in an embankment off of the road. My hypothesis is that someone was a little drunk, saw the bike, stole it, realized it isn't that great, and then threw it off the road. 

At any rate, it was recovered, and all is well.

Next we have Halloween in Britain. 

• The first thing I noticed is that there is nowhere near the amount of store space devoted to selling Halloween items.  Americans can attest that Target or Wal-Mart would have a good 2 or 3 aisles devoted just to Halloween--from costumes to candy to decorations. Here, there is hardly that.  You can find a few costumes in smaller card shops and charity shops, but big box retailers seemed to be lacking.
• I also noticed that there isn't nearly as much diversity in what people dress up as here in England.  For example, when one is in America, you see just about everything there is to see.  Here, in general, I saw about 34 black cats, 26 devils, 18 zombies, 21 vampires, 8 Alice in Wonderlands, 7 mimes, 11 pirates and 45 murder victims.  So it isn't quite as diverse.  However, because it was on a weekend, people did often had multiple outfits.  Like one night someone would be a mime, then the next night they'd be a pirate, and then the next night they'd be a mummy.  So I did think that was clever.
• Trick or treating is hardly a thing over here.  Not only that, they don't know the "outside lights" rule, that if the outside light is on, then there is candy there.  I know people who weren't allowed to go out trick or treating on Halloween because parents were afraid.
• Instead, the have fireworks!!  People were lighting off fireworks all weekend, which seems very popular.  It is interesting that in America, fireworks are very heavily regulated, and some states don't allow fireworks that leave the ground.  Britain allows anyone to buy them, as long as they are 18.  You can get every type of firework here as well.   On the same token, they can't get guns, but we can very easily.  Interesting...
• I also noticed that people in my age group weren't as...er...scantily clad as their American counterparts.  To be sure, there were some of those types of costumes, but not like back home where everything sold at the store was "Sexy Witch" or "Lustful Schoolgirl."  I found that interesting, but I wasn't particularly surprised.   The film, Mean Girls makes a point about this American trend, "Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total [prostitute] and no other girls can say anything about it." [Edited from a less family-friendly word]
• I went out as Her Majesty The Queen for Halloween.  This ended up being a smashing hit for the aforementioned reason: Halloween isn't that big over here and diversity in costumes isn't common.  I didn't think it was anything special, but over here I must have posed for a good 50-60 photos with different people.  All in all, it was a successful Halloween, even if I don't have any candy to show for it like I would if I were at home.