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| Sunday, September 26, 2004 07:31 AM |
| Huzzah! |
 by Fëanor |
First of all, today is poppy's birthday. Happy birthday, poppy! Yay!
Yesterday, I attended my first renaissance fair, accompanied by poppy, Super Tarzan, Sarcasmo, Dave, and some of poppy's friends. Despite incredibly bad planning (if you're in a big group, and you're going to split up, make sure you have a means of communication--read: cell phones--or, barring that, establish clearly a time and a place to meet up again!!), I think we all had a pretty good time. The place is, admittedly, mainly about commercialism. There are people in costume hawking various wares in every nook and cranny. But some of the stuff they have is pretty cool. I've been aching to own a real sword since I was about 8, so I was particularly fascinated by the various weapon stores. The guy on the pirate ship was desperate to make a sale to me for some reason. He overheard Dave and I talking about the Lord of the Rings weapons, and asked me what my favorite one was. I said Aragorn's sword, so he brought over the cheaper version of that. Dave and I then discussed poppy's disapproval of the idea of me bringing a large pointy object into the house, so he threw in Arwen's sword for only a slight increase in price (with the theory that if poppy had a sword of her own, she'd be mollified), and when I still balked, he added Sting in for free! But seeing as how I knew poppy certainly didn't want a sword of her own, and three swords was way too many, I walked away empty-handed. Some day, though--especially seeing as how poppy has now given me the green light. :)
Anyways, another cool thing at the fair was the wine. Now, I'm not really a drinking man. I only recently found a beer that I can tolerate enough to drink an entire bottle of it (that would be la cerveza mas fina--Corona), and I've never enjoyed any kind of wine. But for whatever reason, I was excited about the wine-tasting at the fair. And sure enough, we found some really good stuff, and came home with a few bottles--one of the concord (like grape juice with a nice, warm bite at the end of it), one of some apple-flavored stuff (which is to be drunk warm on a cold night), and one sangria (which simply rocks--I opened it up immediately upon returning home and had a tasty glass of it with some late dinner).
But the fair really seems to be more about food than anything else, and most of the food has been covered with breading and fried until it is as unhealthy as possible. Seeing as how I was still feeling sick from some fried food I had the night before, it probably wasn't the best stuff for me to be eating, but I soldiered on! I had a few things for the first time there--a scotch egg (which is just a hardboiled egg wrapped in some sausage and fried--yum!), and, oh holy of holies, the might fried oreo. I'd heard of these many a time before, and had always dreamed of having one, since I love oreos, and I love fried things. But it didn't come together for me until yesterday. I have to say, they are quite good, though perhaps not as good as I might have hoped. The oreo can barely be tasted, buried as it is among all the hot, fried breading. But it lingers there, as a slight chocolaty flavor that is rather nice.
Of course, what I'd heard the most about were the giant turkey legges (yes, spelled just like that). Poppy had been dying for one, and had gotten me pretty excited about them, too, so we picked up a couple of them pretty soon after entering the fair. They were good, but were also indeed giant.
The big performance events at the fair were plagued with technical difficulties and other flubs, but were still pretty fun. I took some pictures with ye olde digital camera which I will post eventually. There's a story running throughout all the main performances (the human chess match, and the various jousting performances) which has to do with the great antagonism between the noble English and the filthy, cheating Scottish. We didn't stay for the last show, to see how the punishments turned out, but (spoiler alert!) the English definitely won.
Anyways, after a long day at the fair, and another communication mix-up, our group eventually met up again and rode home. On the drive back, we had some lovely conversations, and I felt a great feeling of pleasure and well-being in the company of those excellent fellows. Thank you, my friends! Huzzah! |
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