Friday, October 30, 2009

Texas Renaissance Festival



So this past weekend I made a trip out to the Texas Renaissance Festival, or TRF for you cool people. This was my first ever trip to the TRF and I must admit that it was not entirely what I expected it to be. To be fair, however, my preconceptions of the event were founded entirely on that episode of King of the Hill which had Will Ferrell do a voice over as the Black Knight. To be perfectly blunt, I sort of expected it to be more “Medieval’y” and a little less “People wearing raccoon tails’y”.

I am not quite sure I understand the idea of wearing a tail on your otherwise normal attire. But, for some reason, this seemed to be one of the things that many of the people were doing. There were even a multitude of shops dedicated to tails. Needless to say, I did not participate in this. I’m not judging, I just don’t get it.

The food was pretty fantastic. Per the King of the Hill episode I mentioned earlier, I was anxious to purchase a turkey leg. In fact, due to the drive being about 2 hours, the food and beer dispensary was the first shop that we hit up. The turkey leg, sausage on a stick, cheesecake on a stick and funnel cake were absolutely delish. I am a big fan of food on a stick. It just makes life so much easier. It is one of the universe’s true tragedies that science has not come up with a way to put funnel cake on a stick. Let’s just say that if the cake had been on a stick, I would not have ended up with powdered sugar all over my right arm...

Anyway, one of the main reasons I wanted to go to the TRF was to hopefully acquire a sword with which to defend myself against zombies when the ammo runs out Mila Jovich style. I had wanted a sword ever since I was in England and saw how bad ass they were. I quickly realized that many of the more bad ass swords were entirely out of my price range. One sword in particular was so expensive because it was supposedly forged in the fires of Mount Doom by evil Lord Sauron himself. I decided that should the sword ended up being called on by its master that I would most likely be the one called upon to make the arduous journey to Mordor and return the thing from whence it came. And since the fall tv season is in full swing, I just can’t afford to make that kind of commitment right now.

So instead of dropping 2 grand for a really cool, unique, possibly cursed blade at Ye Olde Sworde Shoppe, I went with the more economical cheap knock off which has all the bad assness of the real thing, but doesn’t require me to make an epic journey with a wizard.

Moving along, I was intrigued by the jousting event. Having never seen a “real” one before, I was a bit disappointed by how fake it all seemed. Once again, my only knowledge of jousting comes from television and movies. I thought that the general purpose of the joust was to remove one’s opponent from his steed and then deliver the final blow to him with your sword. Yes, I realize that these people are actors and are not actually trying to kill each other but the cheesiness of the whole thing left a lot to be desired in my most humble opinion.

We walked around through all the shops and looked at a lot of over priced hats and then headed out. We hit up a chicken express on the way home and then perilously sat in Heather’s car as she freaked out to Tech getting blown out by A&M. It was terrifying to say the least. All in all it was a bizarre day. No where else can a full grown adult throw caution to the wind a let their ass hang out proudly in public. Oh, and there were storm troopers for some reason...

3 comments:

Heather said...

Next year, we HAVE to dress up. And wear tails! Srsly.

Also, I want to meet a wizard. You should have taken the quest...

Oh, and A&M got lucky this year. WRECK 'EM TECH!!!

<3

Unknown said...

You didn't mention shine in the wine. I'm disappointed.

Annie said...

Sweet! Hey, how much was the sword you bought, and how much was the cheapest?

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