Fall Fun Part Two: Renaissance Festival

First of all, I realized it was time for a seasonal change. The color scheme I have in my head never seems quite matchable in reality, and so I’m never sure if my final choice is fun, cheery, sedate or just plain obnoxious.  If you feel this latter description applies (i.e., it gives you a headache), please let me know in the comments.  I will attempt to readjust.

Secondly, it has recently been brought to my attention that I’ve fallen behind in my previously maintained blog schedule.  I would apologize, but the truth is I’ve been too busy having Fall Fun, and my normal blogging time has been taken up by things like driving and eating fried foods.

Never fear, I shall do my best to catch you up.  That means we have to travel back in time.  Are you ready?  This will be but a brief visit, all the way back to Sunday October 14th…1549.  Sort of.  This was the morning Miss Chef and I drove to the northern fringes of the Charlotte area for our annual jaunt to the Carolina Renaissance Festival.

Although we spent about five hours there, I took very few pictures.  I guess I was enjoying just looking around, taking it all in.  Kind of like this:

Keep an eye out for the colorful guy on stilts. You’ll soon see more of him.

 

This year we took full advantage of many of the stage shows.  First off was my perennial favorite, Barely Balanced.  They’re young, good-looking, funny and amazing.  (You might need to turn up your volume to catch all the repartée.)

Their stage names are, from left to right: Large, Small and Medium.

 

If you notice a little shaking of the camera, that would be me laughing.  Here’s a better example of their typical routine.

 

We also saw Miss Chef’s favorite performance, a local troupe of belly dancers called Jewels of the Caravan.  Here’s another video, which actually doesn’t show a whole lot of dancing, but there’s fire, so that’s something.

It’s also kind of short…

 

Then we finally saw one of the perennial favorites, Hey Nunnie Nunnie!  It’s two women dressed in plain linen nun’s habits telling nun jokes, playing with props and singing lots of funny songs.  I didn’t take any pictures, since we were pretty far back, but I did get the song about five constipated men in the Bible stuck in my head for several days.  If you’d like to see them in action, go here. 

Since everyone always asks, no, we did not eat turkey legs.  The last time we tried one there it was horrible!  So we stuck with nice safe chicken tenders and fries.  Exciting, eh?

The rest of our time was spent wandering, looking at costumes, trolling through shops eyeing jewelry, candles, fancy hair braiding and all kinds of decorative arts.  We did get a couple of crêpes, which were nowhere near as good as the one we fought over in Paris.  But with no Sacré Coeur in the vicinity, that’s not unexpected.

I hope this sates you for at least a few days.  But check back soon, as I have another, longer adventure to share with you from this past weekend.  It involves much more exotic foods than turkey legs!