Hello from the 1350's!

 Last Saturday, on September 16th, 2017, we dressed up in our Renaissance finery and drove out to Hollister for one of California's biggest Renaissance Faire! Our cousins met us there too. The oldest cousin dressed up as a huntress, and me and my sister as medieval maidens, my brother as a knight, and my mom as a peasant. My dad does not like to dress up at all. But his experience was heightened just as much as ours was. It took a while for the vendors to set up their booths, just as we had to wait for a long while for the gates to open. Soon a band was leading the crowds inside the Faire gates. Everywhere, there was vendors that were dressed as the Renaissance peasants, selling medieval clothing, baskets, glass mushroom lamps lit up with an LED light, turkey drumsticks, Gelato iced cream, real live swords and wooden shields and swords, and much, much, more!

The Queen of England was there also, but she was an imposter, just like everybody else who was pretending to be someone. She was very realistic, in all her gold and red splendor, and me and my sister were pleased to meet "her majesty" and take a pic with her.

We never purchased anything, but we did watch 2 plays and jousting tournament. The plays were "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Romeo and Juliet", both by William Shakespeare. The jousting was direly lively and with three pairs of man and horse, one Spanish, one French, and one Scottish. While the pairs were preparing themselves behind the immense gates of the jousting ring, two women on giant black horses bounded out of nowhere. The horse's names were Bo and Blue, and they were lovely to watch as they paraded the women around the ring. The women had wooden swords, and as they rode faster and swifter, a man held out metal rings and the women caught them on their swords. It was quite an impressive task, but the best was yet to come. After the women rode out of the ring, a lady and a unicorn walked into the ring. The unicorn was suspiciously unreal; for its horn was bouncing around like a balloon as it reared and ran at the lady's command. Then she awed the crowds as she jumped onto the unicorn and let it rear as she rode bareback and with no reigns. Soon, the unicorn and the lady rushed out of the ring as three burly men on horseback rode into the jousting ring. One man rode out of the ring, for he had not been chosen as the second contestant to fight.
              The two men then jousted away, cracking each other's jousting poles. As the men stabbed and cracked and clanged with sword and jousting pole, the game progressed on, and as soon as it started, it ended. Scotland won, of course.
           After, we watched a professional glass blower blow glass, and make a beautiful curvy glass plate. But sadly, right after  he finished, it cracked into a million pieces. We've never been to any sort of medieval festival, or anything Renaissance, but tis was our first, and our experience was like stepping into a Renaissance Castle. And the queen was there to heighten it.