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Kickin' it Old School

August 23, 2009 11:37 PM

o, in keeping with a now-established tradition, my friends and I ventured to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival for the second year in a row. Last year was my first time at a RenFest, and I was pretty impressed. This year, I had a much better idea of what to expect, and, while the novelty began to wear off a little bit, it was still a lot of fun. In fact, knowing what to expect from each event meant that we knew what to avoid, so there was less waiting around for a lame fucking joust and more just enjoying being out on a beautiful day with knights, wenches, and fairies all over the place.

I had decided that I would allow myself to spend a little bit of money on cool but not entirely impractical things. I was specifically looking for a letter opener--I get an entirely ridiculous amount of mail, and I get sort of sick of opening it all with my fingers. Plus, who wouldn't want a little dagger on their desk? In the end, though, I ended up buying a completely impractical item: a lace-up fancy-pants vest. I didn't buy the super-badass Captain Morgan-style jacket, even though I thought it would be an awesome, completely over the top item to wear should SuperKarateMonkeyDeathCar ever play an actual show. I'm now in the market for a puffy shirt and some parachute pants in order to complete a pretty awesome Halloween costume.

I also bought food and drink, of course. I decided it was stupid of me not to get a turkey leg last year, so I bought one. And it was worth the $6 I paid for it. It was delicious, warm, and filling. I was less enthused by the Scotch eggs; frankly, they sucked, and I didn't even finish my portion. They were terrible. But the mead more than made up for it. Now if only the Mead Booth's webpage didn't seem as though it was actually coded by someone from the Renaissance and offered online ordering, I might actually be able to enjoy mead away from the Festival, not to mention trade my money for the owner's product. But whatever. Chelsadilla had some cheese curds, and pH had a cream puff. Both seemed very satisfied.

One of the highlights was one of the performers on one of the small stages sprinkled throughout the fair grounds. He was a balancer-juggler dude. One of his tricks involved climbing to the top of an unsupported ladder, balancing with one foot on top of each of the ladder's vertical beams, and spinning a ball on a stick on his forehead while while juggling five rings. It might not sound like much, but it was impressive. He followed it up by walking across a burning tight rope while juggling flaming torches and balancing a spinning, flaming framework on his head. The guy was awesome.

The whole day was a lot of fun, even if it was exhausting. I can't wait to go back next year wearing Renaissance garb. I bet Mr. Vice feels the same way--he picked up enough medieval clothing to fill a prince's chest. I have to admit that he looks pretty good in a cape.


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