No, Really, I Am an American

Our group has been pretty good at accomplishing the stuff we planned out on our list. Yesterday, we succeeded in yet another misadventure: attending the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The last time I went to the Faire was the summer of ‘99; I’d just graduated from high school and I’d always wanted to go. My memory of attending was definitely a good one, considering how much my head thinks in a fantasy book.

I ended up riding with Mike and Toni. Earlier in the week, I went to the Ren Faire website to find out more information about getting there and ticket prices and the like. The website mentioned something about construction posing a problem so the site listed an alternate route which I dutifully sent to everyone. Unfortunately for us, the driving instructions didn’t account for the express lane that passes the exit we needed.

We ended up getting to the Faire a little later than we had planned, but it all turned out to be pretty five-by-five. While we were waiting for Grant and Al, or Sleepy McSnoozepants and Al (gotta say, that’s a much better name than Tick Boy), one of the Faire employees was above the gate heckling people claiming everyone was late. He was pretty enjoyable.

It’s gonna sound a little weird, but much like when we went to Wizard World, I felt completely comfortable surrounded by Renaissance enthusiasts and their costumes. Only at the Renaissance Faire would I ever be allowed to carry a rapier.

Once we collected everybody, we passed through the “Time Gate”, as the characters refer to it, and made sure to pick up some maps so we had a clue as to where we were going.

After a brief stop at the privies, we wandered down Traders Wharf. There was the Mud Show at the Mid Pit, but it was pretty crowded so we didn’t really get to see much. Grant, Al, and I decided to buy some beef jerky which ended up having a bit more kick to it than any of us expected, in especially surprised Toni. If we had the plain jerky and it tasted like that, we wondered what the spicy jerky tasted like.

At the end of the Traders Wharf, there was definitely something that caught my attention: the Crimson Blades Fencing Academy. Naturally, I walked up to watch.

It appeared that anyone could fence a 3-point bout if they paid $5. Everyone else was all kinds of encouraging me to go and play, but I was just trying to watch first. I was never one to jump into a bout without gauging the other fencer unless there was only one other person to fence in the first place. It just so happened that one of the fencers challenged me; I wish I could tell you why, I think it was just ‘cuz my shirt was bright green so it made me easy to spot.

I went and signed up at the sign-up booth and paid my five dollars. I was trying to figure out if I wanted the Crimson Blades people to know I fenced or not; I’m not a stellar fencer so I didn’t want to embarrass myself or anything. However, when I entered the little enclosure and walked up to the fencing gear, the girl said they would teach me what to do. The jack ass part of me would have no part of this so I just asked her if they were fencing with foil, epee, or sabre rules and she kinda laughed, “Ok. Never mind. What did you fence?”

“Foil mostly, I did epee and very little sabre.”

“Well, we use epees but with sabre rules for safety, so target area is anything above the waist. And we do right-of-way.”

She asked me if there was anybody in particular I wanted to fence, and I told her about the challenge from the guy in black. “Rob?”

“I guess…”

She laughed again. “Ok, so here’s a little tip when fencing Rob. He usually hangs back and waits for you to come to him. He has a low engarde, but then he usually strikes high.”

She and I ended up chatting about fencing while I waited for the other bout to finish. Her name was also Jessie (sp?) and much like the club we started at ISU, she and some people she knew went ahead and started a club at Augustana.

When it was my turn to fence, she decided to tell Rob, “Oh and for the record, she knows what she’s doing!”

“Of course, I pick the one person in the crowd who already fences.”

It’s been a while since I did a formal dry bout. The strip was shortened to accommodate the space they had to work with but for some reason that translated in my head as meaning I didn’t have any room to advance or retreat properly. Rob and I did our salutes and then the judge called for en garde.

I really wasn’t paying attention. My head was no where near ready to fence ‘cuz Rob landed a ridiculously easy hit high on my right shoulder. It also didn’t help that apparently I forgot how to frickin’ parry! That annoyed me to no end.

We went back to the line. I was starting to get back into the sport fencing mindset and landed a good hit on him. Heck, I even advanced a bit to do so. Yay.

I couldn’t remember exactly how Rob got his second point, but he landed a good hit on my stomach. I think I got him back with a riposte when his attack missed me. I also happened to get an off-target hit on his leg. (If only we’d been using epee rules!)

Rob ended up winning the bout because as anyone who’s ever sparred with me knows, I have this ridiculous habit of running myself onto the blade. I saw an opening and went for it without really thinking about it.

It was a pretty decent bout. I should have done a lot better than I did, but I was happy to have spent the $5. I laughed about it later when I remembered that that was the same price as the floor fee in Mount Prospect.

When I went to return my gear, Jessie asked me how it went. After I’d told her the score, she asked me how old I was. I thought it was kind of an odd question, but it turned out that the fencing captain was looking for more people to hire on for next summer. She suggested I apply.

Dude, if I wasn’t moving to England, I totally would.

After my bout with fencing, or more appropriately my fencing bout, we wandered towards the archery booth. I was sorely tempted to buy a bundle of arrows, but for reasons beyond my ken, I ended up just watching Toni, Mike, Grant, and Al shoot. Because they all bought 12, and there were a lot of people wanting to try, we had to wait a spell while the booth people went and collected arrows.

Once the booth people had them all, the arrows were distributed to the people who were waiting, and because they had to wait, everyone was given extra arrows to shoot.

The bows were compound and a bit small for most people it seemed. Then again, because we were at the Ren Faire, my head thought they would at least have replica longbows. It all worked out, though. I didn’t really get to watch Mike and Toni shoot — there were lots of people in the area — but I did get to watch Grant and Al shoot.

The targets were deer painted on perhaps canvas and mounted on bales of hay. Both Grant and Al were doing pretty well; but the guy next to them was definitely more proficient. He kept hitting the target in the head! It was decided that he definitely shot a lot before or something of that nature.

We took our leave of Traders Wharf thereafter. We wandered back a little the way we’d come to discovered a Celtic jewelry place. We passed some time looking at all the jewelry there. Near that booth was also a Tarot reading place and Al and I flirted with the idea of having our fortunes read again. (We’d done so many years ago and it was a fun experience.)

While we were waiting for Mike, who was looking more closely at the Celtic jewelry, we spotted elephants, so we went to see what was going on by the animals; there was this little pony there that we discovered was absolutely a boy pony. VoW and Toni spotted a dragon in a tree and went to investigate, and I saw a procession for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. You can always tell when she’s near because her guardsmen can be heard proclaiming “God Save the Queen!”

Mike eventually returned to us and we talked about maybe getting something to eat. However, to get to the food vendors, we had to go down Guild Hall Row; naturally, we took some time to explore the many wares displayed at all the shops that piqued our interest. There was a lot of cool stuff, too. Lucky for me, there weren’t any armorers of note, so I wasn’t pulled into looking at something I shouldn’t.

I couldn’t tell you how long we wandered around Guild Hall Row, but eventually, we made it to a food area. I had my heart set on having Shepherd’s Pie; I’d eaten it for the first time at the Ren Faire nine years ago, and I really wanted to eat one again. The particular food stall we found didn’t have any Shepherd’s Pie, so even though the food they sold sounded incredibly appetizing to me, I passed.

We were on High Street now, and there were these two booths side-by-side that caught Mike’s and VoW’s attention (and possibly Toni’s, but I clearly wasn’t paying attention): knife throwing and axe throwing.

Of course, this meant they had to try it. Meanwhile, Al and Toni discovered a Jacob’s Ladder game. They talked about the time they tried to win the game while they were at Great America. I was like, “Hey! I would have gone!”

“You were in Japan!”

“Oh yeah…”

Still, I would have tried to go.

Anyway, the pirate in charge of the game offered to demonstrate how to successfully execute Jacob’s Ladder. He explained that a lot of it was making sure your weight was distributed evenly. The pirate dude made it all the way to the top.

Al and Grant decided to give it a go. I alternated between watching them try the ladder and watching Mike throw stuff. By the time he got to the axes, Al and Grant had given up on the ladder thing and were more or less still covered with straw (at least Grant was on his back). Mike did pretty well with throwing axes; so well in fact that he got a little certificate thing. It was fantastic when he was awarded with it ‘cuz the vendor guy just stabbed the paper four time and handed it to Mike. Very official.

We were to the Black Swan; it was said that there was good food there. Unfortunately for me, we didn’t find Shepard’s Pie, but I did try a Cornish Pasty. When I first ordered mine, I ordered it without the gravy. It was sad and dry; I tried some of Grant’s that did have gravy. It was happy and tasty. I went back and asked them to put some gravy on mine, too. It was happy and good.

Everyone had eaten but Mike, he didn’t find the pasties as interesting as the rest of us. VoW went to take a layer off of her costume (she was dressed as Death’s something or another), and then we continued on.

I don’t remember exactly where it was, but I finally spotted a good armory. It was right next to the hat shop where Mike bought a cool brown adventurer’s hat; he was flirting with a black one of similar style, but that kind of hat just looked better in brown.

I myself was having a love affair with a rapier. It was so very pretty, with a black handle and a guard that didn’t annoy me. To make matters more appealing, the guy selling them knew what he was talking about and even knew a place in Chicago that taught Capo Ferro. Again, I was mildly sad at leaving the country — I could be studying Capo Ferro!!

I had to walk away from the pretty, pretty swords. We wandered around more booths and shops, watched Her Majesty the Queen eat pies presented to her by Lord Darby and got to talk to one of her attendants, and then found Shepherd’s Pie.

I was pretty sad that I wasn’t hungry when we found the Shepherd’s Pie; the mashed potato top looked so creamy and tasty. But it was in this area that we paused once again and Mike could finally eat something.

We decided that we should try watching a show. The two that were mentioned to us before were Doktor Kaboom! and MooNiE the Magnif’Cent. We happened to be sitting at the Globe Stage and there was talk of maybe watching the Barely Balanced Tumblers, but we eventually moved on so that we could make sure we got through the whole Faire.

There really wasn’t much else to see in terms of shops. There was one other armory that I looked in, and they had a nice short sword, but other than that nothing else really caught my attention in there. Grant and Al looked around the jewelry booth that was right next to it, and eventually we all just chilled out in the Three Sisters Encampment.

We finally came full circle. Since we already knew what was around, we went back for things that we passed earlier. I tried (and failed) to convince Al to go back to the hat shop and buy one of the hats she thought was great; I really just wanted to go back and look at the rapier again. Mike went back to the Celtic jewelry place and bought two items while we talked to one of the leech guys.

And we came around to the Globe Stage again to watch Moonie. He was most entertaining; he was kind of a mime. He balanced on a teeter-totter type thing, juggled, set things on fire while juggling and walking a tightrope; it was overall a fun little show.

After watching him, we caught the rest of Doktor Kaboom! at the Traders Cove Stage. It was starting to get cloudy then, and there were a few drops of rain to be felt.

Doktor Kaboom! was just as entertaining. He made a lot of jokes about how “historically accurate” the place was, “Say it with me people — theme park.” Some of his science helpers weren’t the brightest of the lot, but they were cute. He did a pretty neat trick where he fooled our brains into thinking his head both ballooned and deflated. He also demonstrated the air cannon and a trebuchet. He blinded us with science of a most entertaining degree.

We left not long after. The Faire was coming to an end and as much as I wanted to hang out more, I think we were all pretty beat.

It was a fantastic day at the Faire and I was really glad to have spent it with mine friends.

Huzzah for the Ren Faire! Huzzah!!!