Thursday, February 19, 2009

Huzzah ye of thy skalliwag good day to thee....

We took a field trip today to the Renaissance Festival. 20 8th graders. It was remarkably enjoyable, and I had a good group that didn't ditch me...

My thoughts:
I am always struck by the grandeur of it all - some of these people are VERY committed to their avatars.

I never cease to find amusement in the amalgam of historical time periods. Vikings chatting it up with Cloak and Rapier men-of-arms, drinking Pepsi whilst chatting up a belly-dancing faery... all while shouting at medieval icons such as court jesters and plated knights... wonderful.

For kids who never leave the staggering confines of Buckeye, AZ - my students took the obviously foreign atmosphere in stride.

Turkey legs are still gross when they taste like ham.

Renaissance Festivalites - whilst anachronistic, are still basically carnies.

As today was the "schools day" they could have eased up on the pricing a bit - a 3 dollar soda is a drop in the bucket for a rich teacher such as myself - but most of our kids had allowances in the 1-2 dollar range. Also, did they really expect kids to drop 300 bones for custom boots or 150 for a hand-made hardwood flagon?

Our bus driver was named Moses - and we all concur that he was just about the best bus driver we've ever had.

The falconer, the Wyldmen and Dexter Tripp are still my absolute favorites.

Dead Bob is overrated, in my opinion.

It was hilarious - repeat HI-LARIOUS - watching my pubescent male students stumble over themselves looking at all the boobs flowing from too-tight bodices.

Actually - that wasn't the funny part. The funny part was watching them cover their embarrassment when they noticed that I noticed them.

It is also kind of awesome to sneak innocent peeks at said boobage flows.

No matter how "cool" they may be, a leather rose is a lousy souvenir for such a trip.

I had fun. Lame conclusion - but true.

Merry be the tales... Blessed be the snails

Jed

1 comment:

emery_rose said...

I always thought it was amazing just how much some of the people working at the Renaissance festival seem to think they REALLY live in that time period. I mean it's cool, but really, those little false front houses aren't enough to fool anybody that much are they?!!
I always loved going there on high school trips though. I bet it would be fun to go as a teacher. I remember one of my teachers actually thought the turkey leg WAS a ham leg. I bet he still gets made fun of for that!