Blurgh!

If it’s any­thing I got from watch­ing the first sea­son of 30 Rock, it’s that expres­sion. Blurgh! I’ve been totally behind on so many things. Blurgh! I have so many things to blog about that are mov­ing far­ther away into the time space con­tin­uüm. Blurgh! I just spilled tea all over my pants. It’s okay, they’re sweat­pants, which blurgggh, I’m still in my pajamas.

But blurgh! Let me share with your some pho­tos and my expe­ri­ence of the Renais­sance Fair just out­side of town. A few weeks ago, the Diplo­Man and I, along with our good friends (yet another new­ly­wed­ded cou­ple, what is in the water these days?!) drove out across the invis­i­ble DC bor­der into Mary­land for the Renais­sance Fair in Crownsville, MD. One of the things I’ve loved about liv­ing in DC so far is the acces­si­bil­ity to get out of DC. Slightly ironic, I know. But in our short two months here, I feel like I’ve got­ten to explore the “greater” dc area quite a bit. Start­ing with the “Ren-Fair”.

I’m not a too-cool-for-school type of gal, but i’ll admit: I’ve always been skep­ti­cal of Renais­sance Fairs. Renais­sance Fairs were big with gamers (not me), drama kids (not me), and peo­ple who enjoyed Hal­loween (not me). Or so I thought. After spend­ing a day at the at the grounds in Crownsville, MD, I learned that, lit­tle did I know they are also full of food enthu­si­asts (me!), craft-lovers (me!), and really amaz­ing people-watching (so me!).

The Renais­sance Fair was quite a spec­tac­u­lar pro­duc­tion. The fair was filled with more col­ored fab­rics I’ve seen since the Diplo­Man and I went to India early this year. It was filled with more col­or­ful char­ac­ters than I’ve seen in quite some time too. Though there was a good por­tion of the vis­i­tors dressed in nor­mal civil­ian garb, I was sur­prised at how many peo­ple went all out with their hair, cos­tume, and makeup. I learned lots of things, like the word “Huz­zah!”, which I plan to incor­po­rate into my daily speech, and that I had a pre­vi­ously unknown pas­sion for masks, fas­ci­na­tors, and glass-blowing (cur­rently seek­ing classes in the dc area to recre­ate any or all of those crafts. We’ll see how that goes…)

We threw axes at a wooden wall and shot arrows from a bow at tar­gets just 20 yards away, both are which are much harder to do (accu­rately) than you think. We watched a joust­ing tour­na­ment, slightly dis­ap­pointed at the less-than-youthful knights that graced our pres­ence. It was fol­lowed by log throw­ing, which was much more intrigu­ing than I ever thought watch­ing some­one throw logs would be.

We ate giant turkey legs, hav­ing NO IDEA it was a ‘thing’. I’m so glad it is. We drank some mead and some cider, and also ate, ran­domly, a pizza pocket. We also strolled past an ele­phant ride, wax-dipping lessons, hair braiders, and lots of mugs for sale. We also con­tem­plated buy­ing armored under­wear. The boys played with wooden swords, and we girls tried on flower tiaras.

The renais­sance era was a pretty darned good time, if you ask me.

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