I love holidays, especially ones that really have no meaning other than to give us a long weekend right in the middle of the summer. Up until this summer, I've usually spent every long weekend at the cottage, so it's been a bit of an eye opener as to what people actually do on long weekends.
The reason I didn't go to the cottage this particular long weekend is because I'd made plans with my roommates from University. They were vague plans, but they were there. One night last week I was driving along the 407 and saw the sign for Ontario Rennaissance Festival and figured that it might be a fun thing to do. I've heard about them before from other people, and thought in passing that it might be neat. The radio has been running ads forever, and my mom mentioned a conversation she'd had with her chiropractor about it as well, so all of that combined had me interested.
We didn't arrive till 3pm, which is a shame (we got a late start, and got lost), because there were a million things that we could have done. We had to eat as soon as we got there, and after that we found the nearest pub so we could try some meade. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I didn't think much of meade. It's brewed in Oakville, and it tastes sort of like cream soda. The Celtic Ale was far more to my liking.
We headed off to the jousting arena after that. I was definitely underwhelmed with the jousting, it was interesting, but not nearly as exciting as the jousting I've seen in movies. I suppose it's too much to imagine that they're going to put on a real joust. It would involve way too much preparation. As it was, the lances were extremely thin and had about 6 inch rubber pieces on the end which more often than not broke off as they hit the opposing knight. The three of us had been to see A Knight's Tale last summer, so we had visions of Heath Ledger in tights, that's not nearly what we found. Still fun though.
We wandered through the shops, there's lots of stained glass, flower head wreaths, renaissance type clothing, candles, etc... I probably could have spent an entire day looking around at just that stuff, and I know for a fact, I could have spent more than just one pay cheque there. We watched this crazy guy set his tongue on fire, and extinguish burning torches in his mouth, but had to skip his second show where he was going to eat 20 sewing needles. Miranda has a bit of a weak stomach.
We wandered into this building and discovered that you could get all dressed up in Victorian clothes and have your picture taken, and after much discussion we decided to do it. So we booked an appointment and returned later.
I've never had an experience quite like that before. I'm not used to being ordered to take off my top, then my bra. And, if the photographer had told me one more time that my breasts were crooked, I think I may have hit him over the head with something. Yeesh. However, the photo got taken and it turned out alright. I have a dreadful tan line across my chest, and the photographer saw far more of me than I wanted him to, but...I have my picture.
Altogther it was hilariously fun. I couldn't quite tell the difference between staff and some of the people that were just there enjoying themselves. I was quite amused to stumble across a match of wench croquet. They'd gone around and collected all manner of trashy looking women (all dressed in renaissance clothes of course) and then posed them all in rather provocative poses and then grabbed some guys from the crowd and gave them balls and croquet mallets and had them play. It was truly hilarious. There were a couple of 'ladys' standing watching who told us they thought it was rather garish, but that it was ok because it amused the peasants. It's a whole other world. And a whole lot of fun.
Posted by Michelle at August 5, 2002 03:02 PM