GMT + 1

Fair times are coming

2010-06-07T00:10:00.001-07:00

After a year’s absence, I am finally back where I belong.

I am in the land where the gypsies dance softly (and slightly erotically) and the ale flows freely.

I have come back to the Colorado Renaissance Festival.

Though I rejoiced appropriately at spending my 2009 summer time in southern Spain (along with a good deal of my parents’ money), a part of me missed something more, something essential to my existence as a human being, and furthermore, as my family’s resident renaissance nerd.

Turkey legs.

Men in tights.

Macaroni and cheese on a stick.

Puke (and, God rest his soul, Snot).

I account my lack of financial success to my Fest addiction during my primary and secondary years of education (that, and a strange fondness of Harrison Ford movies). At 15 bucks a pop (now 19), admission to the fair wasn’t exactly an afternoon’s cheap entertainment. Factor in the cost of rides, food and assorted trinkets, and that pretty much accounted for three months’ worth of allowance for me. Some may have called it unhealthy, others may have called it simply strange and wacky, but for me, the Fest is and was nothing less than the love of my life.

Larkspur, Colorado is the tiny speck on the map that it is only because of this annual festival that draws thousands of people to the town that is home to a single gas station, a pizza store and a pot shop.

For a few hours each weekend, visitors can escape the nonsense of the modern world and escape into reality where ladies are fair, lords are loyal and good and evil are white and black. Life becomes simple, and visitors and actors alike hearken back to a time when it was easy to tell the good guys from the bad, and the artery-clogging delicious foods from the so-so far-too healthy foods.

For years, the Fest has entangled itself within my brain, snarling itself within my thoughts and tricking me into thinking that perhaps I was born a child of the wrong time period. Surely, I was meant to be one of King Henry VIII’s many wives? Well….the ones with heads, anyway.

Every year for about a week or so before that big cannon goes off and King Henry welcomes his guests into his realm for another summer of boozing and wenching, I go on Rennie Watch.

“Kate, what is Rennie Watch?” you might find yourself asking.

Allow me to enlighten you.

Definition - Rennie (noun): a wandering vagabond who travels from renaissance fair to renaissance fair, working as jewelry sellers and crafters, ride operators, food vendors, trinket smiths, and throwers of fine insults (see entry for Vegetable Justice).

The famed Rennie Watch is much akin to bird watching, except I would argue it to be a smidge more fascinating and far more intriguing (I hear it is being considered as a new sport for the 2012 summer Olympics). The goal is to be the first member of the team (often a family unity) to spot a rennie or a rennie vehicle (often identified by large peace decals and a back bumper that is near to falling off). The first rennie sighting of the season is always a momentous event, as it officially kicks off the start of summer.

Popular locations for a rennie sighting?

The bar.

The library.

The gas station.

The bar.

And now that Larkspur is home to a fully functional medical marijuana dispensary, no doubt, the pot shop shall also make itself a hot spot for a rennie sighting.

Though the childhood charm of my fair has begun to wear off some, the memories this place holds for me are irreplaceable.

My sister passed out from hyperthermia as well as hypothermia in the same summer at the orange slush cart near the jousting arena. Needless to say that was the last summer she sought employment at the fair.

My fearless brother-in-law bought me my first-ever sword for my 18th birthday at the Fest’s forge, then proceeded to purchase himself a highly functional pen knife in addition. It is my belief that every bp executive should carry one with him.

My sister and brother-in-law battled it out with some feather pillows on a couple of logs near the wedding chapel, where, in all of my nerdiness, I had always dreamed of getting married. Who wouldn’t want to release doves on their wedding day?

So many absurdly ridiculous times that shouldn’t have stuck with me, but for some reason, they did.

Maybe it reminds me of what life used to be like? Maybe it is wishful thinking on my part as I long for the fancy dresses and shiny swords that existed once upon a time?

Maybe.

If I ever arrive in heaven, I imagine it will look something like my fair festival. Brightly colored ribbons flitting about, smoking incense, ladies in swirling skirts, broad-shouldered men wielding their gleaming weapons, prancing steeds, vibrant arrays of perfumes and soaps, and merry-making all around will surround me and welcome me home.

We should all be so lucky.

Ready for your dose of fair frivolity? The 2010 Colorado Renaissance Festival kicks off at 10 a.m. Saturday June 12 (this Saturday!). The fair runs weekends through Sunday Aug. 1.

Resurrecting the blog!

2010-06-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

After a year with my nose to the grindstone at CU, I've decided it is time to stop editing writers' work and create some of my own. Expect more posts throughout the summer!

A commentary at La Campana

2009-07-19T10:28:00.001-07:00

I have mixed feelings about my last week in Seville. I am so very excited to be escaping from a place with such oppressive heat and such overcrowding. I am also overwhelmingly grateful to be returning to people who genuinely appreciate and actively seek out my company. It is difficult to have a great adventure in a foreign city if there’s no one to share it with.

On the other hand…I can’t believe my great study abroad adventure is almost over. I knew it wouldn’t last very long – after all, is IS only six weeks. But somehow, I feel like it should have been a bigger chunk of my life. This is not to say I’ve been relishing in every moment since I’ve been here; rather, at times I’ve even been counting down until my parents get here and until I fly back to the States.

I will say one thing, though: It’s an empowering feeling visiting La Campana, my favorite café, and being able to order exactly what I want as the German tourists next to me use English to ask for a menu. There is no menu. If they were a true “local” like myself, they would know that. The American tourists underneath the umbrella have no idea what the waiter is saying to them. They ask if he speaks English – “a little”, he says. You fools. You’re in Spain. At least TRY a little Spanish. The waiter brings them their food. They say thank you and ask for a glass of water - in English. Come on – if nothing else, didn’t you learn how to say gracias when you were in elementary school? You expect these people to be fluent in your language while not being able to manage the simplest of Spanish words yourself. Some worldly traveler you are.

I know that the lady eating the pink pasty next to the newsstand is part of what I like to call the “Afternoon Gang”. She’s a part of a group of older folks who all meet up at La Campana in the afternoons to sit and while the day away. They people-watch, chat with the waiters, flap fans and simply exist as Sevillanos. Typically, it’s a group of about four women accompanied by one man. So far today, it’s just the one lady. A group of three foreigners are sitting at the table she usually sits at. You know it is HER table because the minute they pay their bill and leave, she is already on her feet with pasty in hand, moving to reclaim her rightful place at La Campana.

A tourist stops to take a picture of the famous café. I happen to be right in the line of fire, unfortunately. Great, so now I’ll be in some guy’s picture-perfect memory of a place where he’s never actually eaten.

The Americans who don’t speak a word of Spanish are both on their third cigarette – each. Smoking is a European way of life: wake up, have a cigarette. Eat breakfast, have a cigarette. Go to work, have a cigarette en route. Eat a late lunch accompanied by….a cigarette. You get the picture. Funny, these two American ladies seem perfectly acclimated to this European custom. Yet daring to actually speak the language? Surely, I jest.

Of course, we’re all tourists, really. It’s 5 p.m. on a Sunday, and the only people in sight are holding cameras and guidebooks and have perplexed looks stamped on their faces. I’m a tourist, just like the English-only Americans. We’re all tourists…

…except for pink pastry lady. Two of her typical entourage have shown up to join her, laughing and joking with the waiter as usual. Tourists usually travel to see how the locals live, and to watch what they do. Perhaps these locals are just setting in for a long evening of tourist watching.

Churches, skulls and bird droppings

2009-07-18T05:28:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to take myself on a walking tour.

I feel like Christopher Columbus. I had always felt that Puerta Osario, my neighborhood, was the edge of the world called Seville because it is so far north of where the other students live and of where most of the action in Seville happens. Today I ventured even further north into Macarena, and discovered a new land.

Not on any particular time constraint, I headed down a new route that looked like it would head vaguely in the direction I wanted to go. It proved successful when I ended up at a convent and a church right next to the street I wanted to start my tour down. That made sense. I had been seeing pairs of nuns tottering down that street for the last five weeks.

I wound my way to Calle Feria, where my guide book told me that the mercadillo (market) would be “packed with stalls selling local produce, all painstakingly laid out…it’s a great place for taking photographs”. Well, it wasn’t. I managed to snap a pic of people lined up waiting to buy fruit, but that was pretty much it in the market department. Nothing like the rows of produce and meat I had been expecting, but maybe I had caught it on an off day.

I’ve discovered that I have a strange addiction to churches. I don’t know what it is about them; they just draw me in magically. Maybe it’s the power of God telling me I should be spending more time in church. Maybe I just like the overpowering architecture. Either way, it somehow gets me in the door. You can say what you want about the Christian conquistadores, but you’ve got to give them credit: they do know how to build an impressive church.

The giant belfry of the Basilica de la Macarena welcomed me into the home of the Virgin de la Esperanza Macarena. The Virgin happens to be a 17th-century statue of the Virgin Mary that is paraded throughout the streets during Semana Santa. Pretty impressive, actually. I found a back passage that takes visitors up behind the altar to see the back of the statue. There was a box for an offering. Not knowing whether the box was soliciting an offering from ardent believers or from casual tourists, I snapped my picture and left. Was God expecting a coin or two in exchange for a picture from my point-and-shoot camera? I hope not. Either way, I haven’t been hit by lightening yet so I’m okay for now.

After stopping to buy a trinket commemorating my visit with the Virgin and dodging past a lady begging for money at the gate, I hit the street again. I toured the old city walls from Muslim times, and then set off to find the next church of the day.

I had already walked past the Iglesia de San Luis de los Franceses five times when a friend was lost looking for his apartment one night. It didn’t really seem any less spooky during the daylight. Now owned by the town council, the church is less of a spiritual place and more of a monument. Still, it was eerily empty when I visited other than a man in the corner playing a movie on his laptop. The most notable thing about this church are the saints. Or, more precisely, what the saints are holding. Rumor has it that the skulls resting in their palms are actual human remains. Pretty creepy, but unavoidably fascinating. This eeriness is added to by other skulls encased in glass on the altars, all surrounded by dark mahogany wood and gilded gold moldings. There is a mirror facing the ceiling in the middle of the church so that visitors can get a closer look at the towering painted dome.

I narrowly avoided a fly-by pooping from one of the church’s resident pigeons by about an inch upon exiting the church. I attempted to snap a picture of the church’s grand exterior, but was only able to get half of it in the lens of my camera, even after I hopped across the street to have a better shot. Alas. My trek back home was fairly uneventful.

According to my guidebook, I have now successfully explored Alameda and Macarena, the two neighborhoods to the west and north of me. I almost like them better than el Centro…much more laid back and “quaint”, one might say.

A Spanish jam (traffic jam, that is)

2009-07-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

A Spanish traffic jam (or any European traffic jam, for that matter) is a curious thing. Returning from seeing Harry Potter for the second time, I found a long line of cars blocking my path back home. All the drivers were in various stages of frustration, some merely shaking their heads while others gestured angrily out the window. It transpired that an unknowing Spanish driver had parked his (or her) car alongside the street, not leaving quite enough room for passing traffic. The owner of the vehicle was nowhere in sight, but a city bus attempting to pass through had gotten caught between the car and the buildings on the other side of the street, holding up traffic for several blocks. Spanish streets being the tight, one-way magical wonders that they are, the bus was stuck unless it could somehow manage to maneuver its way past the car. Various men had jumped out of their cars to shout, wave their hands madly above their heads, and finally, help direct the bus out of its tight spot.

Meanwhile, an ambulance with sirens blaring was stopped a good 10 cars back with no side street down which to escape. Apparently loud, blaring sirens don’t really mean much in a country where drivers rarely pull over for emergency vehicles. The ambulance driver didn’t seem terribly perturbed, as I gathered this standstill was a somewhat common occurrence in the streets of Seville. Who knows: maybe some poor soul’s heart ticked its last while the ambulance was caught in the spidery streets of Seville.

Finally, the bus made it through, followed by several taxis and a few private cars, and then finally the ambulance. As I was leaving the scene, I saw another bus preparing to make a left-hand turn onto the same street. I don’t know how long the next jam lasted.

Siesta: Friend or foe?

2009-07-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

Although many earnest college students in the United States have become astute masters of the Spanish tradition of siesta, there are people leading an existence completely unaware of this ritual.

For those people, let me explain.

The Spanish siesta is a practice of Muslim origins. The Muslims used to have a tradition of breaking the day into multiple parts: work in the morning, take a long lunch with time to rest and recuperate, and then return to work late in the afternoon to work until the evening. It is a tradition that many Spaniards, particularly those living in southern Spain where the hottest hours of the day are between 2 and 5 p.m., have centered their daily routines on. In Seville, in particular, it is frankly too hot to be in the streets after 1 p.m. and anytime before 6 in the evening. This time, then, is devoted to sleeping, drinking and consuming lots of Spanish food.

Sound like fun?

It is, to a point. The problem is that even if you do get a hare-brained idea that you would like to go be active and productive during these hours, you can’t. All of the shops and many restaurants close during this time. Fine, okay, maybe I didn’t really need to buy that dress at 3 in the afternoon. Still, I’d like to have the option.

For a Sevillano, this is okay. A day that essentially amounts to a day of complete rest will often culminate in a nightlife that doesn’t even get going until midnight or later. Could explain why the Sevillanos need all day the following day to recover.

For a tourist, however, this can be frustrating and ultimately depressing when you realize you’ll be spending the 3 to 5 most vital sight-seeing hours of the day cooped up inside. It can be a good idea to seek refuge at a local air-conditioned café and camp out there for the rest of the day, but still, the touristy monuments and sights that you crossed an ocean to see in the first place will continue to elude you. You are forced to wait, like a predator eying its prey, until the landmark you desire to clap eyes upon re-opens for a couple of hours after siesta. Then, you make your move.

Still, spending hours in a café or in an apartment each day isn’t exactly my ideal travel situation. But then again, maybe it is. Maybe you learn more about a place by going to a local bar or a local café to sit and listen to local conversation for hours upon end. Maybe you learn more by sitting near a window to see just who will pass by during a given time. Maybe you learn more by reading a menu than reading an informational plaque slapped onto some old monument.

Maybe there's more to sight-seeing than seeing some sights?

Either way, I suppose I shouldn’t be questioning a local tradition that essentially gives me blessing to sleep for an ungodly amount of time. Thank you, siesta.

Exhibit A: Winding, twisting streets

2009-07-03T07:34:00.000-07:00

One of Spain's many winding and twisting streets. This is near Hotel Fernando III, where we stayed for orientation. Interestingly, Fernando III was the Christian king who re-conquered Seville from the dasterdly clutches of the Muslims and was bestowed with sainthood upon expelling the monstrous barbarians and restoring the land to the true and blessed Christians. The Christians then proceeded to carry out the Spanish Inquisition, resulting in the brutal death of thousands of Jews and Muslims.

Los conductores españoles

2009-07-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

Spanish drivers and the narrow, winding, delightfully charming Spanish streets are an interesting combination. Many times cars will zoom past in the streets, grazing elbows and nearly removing bodily appendages from a wayward walker. Oh, that arm? That’s fine, I didn’t really need two of them in the first place. Here, take a leg or a shoulder while you’re at it. I often hear cars actually speeding up as they approach me in the streets…it’s like they’re all playing a game to see how many hapless pedestrians they can hit in one day: Juan, what’s your score for today? Only five? Ha! That’s nothing…I had six by lunchtime! That or they’re just trying to strike a little fear in the hearts of Spanish pedestrians to keep things interesting.

Crossing a street even where there is a crosswalk is akin to taking one’s life in one’s hands. Thanks, but I will in fact take my full 16 seconds allotted for crossing this street. If it takes me only 13, I will lag behind for the last three seconds, savoring each one as slowly as possible in order to further irk you, the Spanish driver who is edging your car’s front bumper inch-by-inch against my heels. That, after all, is my goal in life as a pedestrian, and frankly, as a person.

I feel like these drivers would have an interesting time in Boulder, Colo.....

I'm-a blogging!

2009-07-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

I am falling victim to new media. Yes, folks, I'm giving in and creating a blog of my travels this summer. This blog gets its name from the timezone that Seville, Spain, the epicenter of my studies and travels this summer, is in. Hopefully someone will learn something somewhat interesting and somewhat useful or somehow enlightening in reading bits and pieces of this blog.

Hopefully.