THis was written on May 29th and I only posted photos and not the post. oops.
Renaissance Fairs are the reason that everyone loves life. I mean, princesses, princes, dashing peasant boys, and lady knights, who are the epitome of everything. I mean, they’re lady knights. I would be a lady knight if I could be. Like Joan of Arc. I would be a lady knight like Joan of Arc.
But yesterday and today, I went to a Renaissance fair with my host family and it was really fun. Almost everyone was dressed up– and being in France, it actually made sense to hold a Renaissance fair because the buildings are all from the Middle Ages and so it actually feels like you’ve gone back in time. It was similar to the Napoleon III festival since all of the architecture in Vichy fits right along with the 19th century. In Cusset, the architecture goes extremely well with the 13th century, so seeing everyone in period costume walking around a real medieval town was really cool.
I got to see a cute mini-farm with a ton of baby animals, I saw a Minotaur and his companion (who was barefoot holy crap) and a ton of lady knights. There were also male knights, but most of the actual fighting and stuff was done by lady knights, which was really cool.
We first made a stop in the Court of Miracles, where there were tons of medieval games and a really cool Inn set up where there was a bread oven and you could drink spiced apple or grape juice. Then, I sat with the kids while the city librarians read a ton of stories about knights and princesses while my host parents walked around the festival by themselves. After the story, I went and played some “jeux d’époque” with the kids. They had lots of fun with the games and then they decided they wanted to get their faces painted. While we were waiting in line, my host parents came back and told us that we were going to go and watch a bear do tricks, so the kids couldn’t get their faces painted. They were sad for a moment, but then realized there was a bear to see.
Unfortunately, we missed the bear show by 30 minutes and so decided to take a stroll through the festival together.
I walked through the town a little bit with my host family and then found myself very attracted to the crossbow shooting stand, so I walked over to see if I could have a shot at it. It turns out I am pretty okay. There was a guy next to me who was very cocky about his ability to hit the target because he’d shot a crossbow before, but I hit the target more times than he did. I don’t know if it’s because I took my time or because I took a second to pretend I was Katniss, but it was pretty fab. There was a little girl watching me and her dad kept saying “wow look at that lady, she’s doing really well! So can you!” and it just made me very happy to know that she was being encouraged to shoot a crossbow. My host dad took a video, so when I have that, I’ll make sure to post it.
Then, I caught up with my host family and we talked to the farmer who brings us all of our vegetables and eggs and meat since he was roasting a whole pig for the festival. Then, he let me baste the pig with cider and honey. I almost let the stick fall into the fire. Considering it was soaked in alcohol, that would have been disastrous. But it did not fall into the fire and so all is well. But it was so much fun to help cook.
Then, R and Kylo Ren found the horses and knights! We watched them battle a lady knight on a golden horse and it was so much fun. A lot of the festival was made for kids and so they had so much to do. It was super fun for them. Then, we decided to go see a bird show and I saw a majestic bald eagle up close (‘MURICA). And also a vulture flew over my head. That freaked me out a bit. Then, my host family decided to head home, but I wanted to stay longer, so I headed back into the fair since earlier, I had seen a group of girls and I thought, “hmm, since they all appear to love history as much as me, I will try to find them and talk to them because maybe we could be friends!”
I have one friend in Vichy and she’s going home on Tuesday. I really need friends.
I managed to find them and they danced for a little bit in the pouring rain, which was pretty cool. Like, it was storming and they were like “no problem! Let’s dance!” I took a short video of them dancing and then after, asked where they were from because if they were from Vichy, I would for sure have asked them to hang out. However, they are from Clermont-Ferrand, which is an hour drive/ thirty minute train ride away, so it’s not exactly practical for friendship. At this point, it started storming in earnest and being in a dress-up princess cape, I needed to get home as soon as possible so that I wouldn’t be sopping wet when I got home. I was sopping wet when I got home, but I’d had so much fun that I didn’t care. The only problem there is that I idiotically did not get any names or phone numbers from any of the girls to even try a friendship. That’s fun.
Today, I went back to the fair with my host family to watch the bear do tricks. It was pretty cool. His name is Valentin and he is a Canadian Black Bear from the United States. If that makes any sense. He was super cute and I was too small to take pictures without people being in my way, but if you look up “Bravo Valentin” on Facebook, you can see pictures. Then I said “a tout à l’heure!” to my host family and took off into the fair for the afternoon. I saw a bunch of stuff that I’d seen yesterday, then stumbled upon a medieval spa and hair salon. I got my hair done in a braided crown and it really suits my inner princess. I also have the perfect color of hair for me to be considered a romantic medieval beauty, or so they told me. Then, I found a calligraphy tent. Never in my life have I been more content than to sit for an hour and perfect my calligraphy. I didn’t realize I had spent an hour at the table until the “maitresse” asked how I was doing after an hour. Finally, I realized that I should probably go home because it was 6 on a Sunday night and I’d spent all of it doing something I enjoyed immensely, so I needed to write all of it down.
I will continue with the series of posts after this unscheduled break.
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