Sunday, September 6, 2009

Renaissance Festival Adventure

On Saturday Ben, Fiona and I joined some friends for a trip to the Renaissance Festival. According to Wikipedia, the Renaissance Festival is:
"an interactive outdoor event which focuses on recreating the look and feel of a fictional 16th Century "England-like" fantasy kingdom"


That sums it up quite nicely! You will meet all sorts of people dressed up in costumes (even the people who go to the fair love to get all dressed up) and there are many different stages which have different shows going on that you can stop by and watch, as well as random performances in the middle of the street.


Fiona doesn't have a very long attention span, so we saw parts of a comedy show, a crazy fire juggling act, and saw a game where the crowd could pay for tomatoes to throw at a man in stocks while he yelled insults at them. We saw a variety of different singing groups, and even elephants and camels that you could ride on!


Another appeal of the Fair is the food. A significant portion of it is deep fried, and 99% of it is extremely unhealthy. One of the most popular choices is the giant roasted turkey leg, which you hold in your hand and tear apart with your teeth caveman-style.

(this picture is not from the fair, I 'borrowed' it from another blog)

We had a hard time choosing, but in the end Ben and I sampled loaded potato skins, cheese curds (battered, deep fried cheese curd nuggets), and I had a soft pretzel with cheese dip. When you consider the size of the entire list, it was really a pathetic attempt!

We took a break from the fun to let Fiona run around and play while the tired adults rested (the fair is huge, and we were exhausted!)


As soon as Ben sat down, Fiona claimed her spot...


Later in the day we attended a real live joust!

First there was a sword battle...


Then it was time for the joust!


The jouster we were rooting for whacked his opponent so hard that he broke his lance in half, but sadly he did not win.


Then it was time to go home. We all had a really fun time, and Fiona even slept in this morning because she was so completely worn out from all the excitement. Good times ;-)


3 comments:

Cathy said...

I want to go! It looks like a really fun time!

Tanya Cothran said...

How fun! I love Renaissance fairs and I have yet to go to the Minnesota fair. It looks like you had a good time. But -- cheese curd at a *renaissance* fair?? really??

Louise said...

Cathy - it was super fun! It's on until October so there's still time!

Tanya - I think it's a state law that you have to have cheese curds at all outdoor events in Minnesota :-)