The Healer and the Pirate


Monday, March 21, 2011

Media Monday - Florida Renaissance Festival - Part 2

My co-author Maggie and I returned to the Florida Renaissance Festival at Deerfield Beach again on Sunday. You can get a rundown of our Saturday experience, along with a kind of setup of the place, at Part 1.

There's very little to do before 10:30 or so (although, one place we walked by had a breakfast menu set up!). So Maggie and I just did some contemplating.

As an aside, if Masha Bell is to be believed, English spelling wasn't really formalized until the 1750s.

So the first show we saw that morning was Wonderfool. I hadn't been impressed from the description on the website (plus jesters always seem a little like clowns to me), but he did impressive things with fire and made me laugh a lot, even though some of the humor was a touch borderline. (Quite a few kids present, so nothing too bad.) I finally felt like I was back at home at the Arizona faire!

Then we saw the flea circus. We were in the back and of course fleas would be small anyway, so no attempt at pictures! The guy did some interesting sleight of hand at the start, but the flea circus itself was surprisingly dark humor (every "flea"--which the humans spoke to more and more like family members--was coaxed into doing a trick, or failing at the trick, and subsequently died). Now, granted, fleas aren't very nice, and it appears the old-time flea circuses relied on tormenting the fleas for real, as opposed to "killing" fleas that aren't real. But still.

So this is a baked potato with butter, sour cream, cheese, and an Italian sausage.

From the same place that had chocolate-covered bacon and fried Oreos. Maggie and I split it and it was good! Honestly, the sausage wasn't strictly necessary but I thought that was what made it an interesting food item, versus just a baked potato. And I like protein.

Then we did some more wandering, I believe, before we resorted to this.

In my defense, by splitting it, it was only 1/4 pound of cookie each.

So we sat down to eat our cookie, and what do you know? Here comes something the Arizona Renaissance Festival doesn't really have...a parade! It has pretty much EVERYONE in it, including many of the shopkeeps.

I need to make a medieval dress someday. Maybe particolored.

Note the fairy catcher chasing a fairy. Given the fairy focus of the Florida Renaissance Festival, that's a great costume/character idea (though I think he and the fairy were together):

King and queen.

I told you there were a lot of fairies.

Then we saw the Drake Irish Dancers (again, not the best view, so no pictures). I thought they were good, though I'm pretty much dance illiterate.

We were set to do some more wandering, but we were passing by as Tribal Circus was about to start their act and I figured since there was a trapeze it had to be pretty good.

Just as they were getting started, it started to sprinkle, so they had to take off their microphones.

So I'm not sure if everything they did was their regular act or not, but it was fun to watch anyway! The rain soon stopped.

Solely for my backbend-loving friend.

Then we went to see Wolgemut (and by the end, "some guy" whose name I've forgotten!). German bagpipe. It was so loud I wore earplugs...

So I like to look at things, but I'm really not much for actually buying. You wouldn't know it for all the clutter in my house, but unless it's things that I love, and/or at a deep, deep discount (see VNSA Book Sale), I don't usually buy much. Didn't get much in Florida, either--just a little trinket necklace with a pirate ship charm I'm 95% certain came from Hobby Lobby, and then, finally, an amber pendant like Kirsten's!

Not very pure, and frankly the shopkeep wasn't really friendly, but I needed a souvenir, darn it!

Then we saw The Duelists, who were a bit edgy for the kids (though as they put it, if your kids understand their double-entendres, then "you're bad parents"). The show we saw wasn't too bad, but they do a later one that they say is just for adults, which would have been too much for me. Anyway, they gave lessons on dueling (and during the demonstration, one of them died in Maggie's lap--after asking her to scoot over on the bench).

Sometime during the show it started to POUR. Not sprinkle; I mean POUR. To the Duelists' credit, they did not give up, but finished the show (mics still on!).

We'd figured to stay until close and see a couple more shows, and it looked like the rain would stick around--I can't see how they would've started any of the shows directly following the one we saw in the rain. We headed toward the gate, noting that every tent and awning was full of people hiding from the rain. And despite my umbrella, Maggie and I were both soaked to the skin, so we decided to call it a day.

Sure enough, before we'd even reached the car, the rain stopped! I was still cold and uncomfortable, though, and I think heading on home was the right choice!

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