Whooo hoo! Flat on his back... err... tummy!

We did go to the Medeival festival today. We'll probably regret it when we run out of money a week before pay day, but for now I'm very pleased with our decision. Because it was fun! The location was perfect, the old part of town with a castle tower, church ruins and all in all... a super-cool place even when there's nothing going on there.
And today, seeing the place bustling with people in costumes and all the booths and the knights and armours and... oh my...
When we arrived, a choir were singing chants. Pretty cool. Then the jester show which we wanted to catch. Loads of colourful costumes, acrobatics and flame blowers. And a funny, chubby man who laid down on a spikey mat. What more can one ask for? Actually, it kicked ass and was worth the entrance price alone!
After that, Love sniffed out some Medeival soldiers that were having an educational performance on weapons and battle techniques. Major drooling going on for Love, and when they sent out a sample of chain mail for all the audience to look at, he didn't want to pass it on!
And I was the one with the camera, so he was begging me to take loads of photos. Which I did, of course :)
The soldiers were very entertaining. Especially seeing what damage a sword can really do! They had hung a pork ham up for one of the men to cut at. First with padding and chain mail, then just padding and at last nothing for protection. You could already see two dents from the first two attempts, but nothing more than equal a serious bruise for a human (or, possibly internal damage if the blow was hard enough). But the unprotected blow? First he did a blow standing still, just slashing with his arm. Huuuge gash in the ham. Then he added a step for extra energy. Whoah... Cut straight through the bone of the ham! I mean, seriously deep cut. If it had been a human thigh, you could just carve off some muscle and skin, and the entire leg would fall off. Yikes... Those things, swords I mean? Dangerous stuff. And that kinda explains why REAL medeival soldiers didn't fence, but tried to get a lethal or unarming blow at the first try.
There was, of course, a Knight Tournament also, the big crowd pleaser. They even did the Queen thing, from "A Knight's Tale". Five brave knights, with squires and all. And they did a whole bunch of different exercises including apples, hoops, wooden men and the much anticipated final... jousting! Whooo hooo! One of 'em landed flat on his tummy. Or, he did jump off the horse and it was first after he had lost, but hey... a man off the horse is always interesting (well, not really). Oh goodness, it was so surreal to watch. If it hadn't been for the fact that most of the audience were wearing normal clothes and there were booming speakers, one could easily imagine oneself being 1000 years back in time.
The market was also an experience of its own. They were making all kinds of foods that smelled very unfamiliar and people from all over Europe were there with their handmade stuff. I saw loads of beautiful jewelry, pendants and such, but alas... no money for that. We did however try one of the foods. Meatballs on a loaf of bread. The bread wasn't interesting, but the meatballs were the best I've ever tasted in my life. I have no idea what kind of spices they had put in there, but.. yummm!
Oh, and the costumes... ahh.. *sigh* *drool* I want one, real bad. This festival is a bi-annual thing, so in two years I *will* have a costume to wear for it. Even if that means I have to make it myself!
And did Love behave? Barely. He stayed back, talking to the soldiers about their organization while I went with the friends who came with us to check out the market. And when we got back? He was gone, of course. The possibility of him actually clinging to one of these men, begging them to take him with them wasn't entirely unlikely, so we decided to go look for him. Apparently he did the same for us. And the place was packed. And dummy Love had left his cell phone at home because it had run out of battery and... arrrgh!
But we found him, and he behaved perfectly fine afterwards. Good for him.

Oh, and did I mention I took pictures? I don't have a digital cam, I was taking pictures with my old SLR, so I dunno if they turned out OK. But when I have some extra cash (like, when is that ever going to happen?) I will get it developed and post some of them for you to see.
And did I mention one of the knights was super-hot? Yumm!
But seeing them scrape the sweat of the horses afterwards... not so yumm. Incredibly icky, in fact! Bleurgh!

But, a fun and action-packed day. I'm all grins now, that's how much going to that festival did for me. Whooooo! *does the happy dance*
And in case you can't wait until I get my photos developed, here are some photos from a former festival.