So if you didn't already know, I had to go to this Renaissance festival for my birthday. My mom entered me in this contest, and I won for my region (there were five other winners from other regions). For the contest, you had to describe in three hundred words or less who your hero is. She wrote about how I stood up and read that Touching Spirit Bear totem pole project thing to the class, and apparently they found that worthy of winning. My guess is that we're the only people from my region who entered... The winners would be 'knighted' by the queen of the festival.
It was a pretty long car ride there. Thankfully, I brought my DS and White, Crookedstar's Promise, and a composition book. I ended up trying to sleep half the ride, though. Since I won the contest, we didn't have to pay anything to get in; we were also handed a bunch of vouchers for food, drinks, and rides. At first we walked around a bit, and looked at the different stands and shops. Then we decided to get lunch. Jo and I got giant turkey legs, which we didn't even eat half of. My mom got a shishkabob, and my dad got clam strips. Jo and I both got peach smoothies, and my dad got a strawberry one. After we ate, we headed over to the main stage for the knighting ceremony. I was the only kid... teen, whatever who was being knighted. There was an old lady, and three adult dudes. There was another woman who was supposed to show up, but didn't. I apparently had the 'knightly virtue' of bravery. When the queen was knighting us, she didn't even touch us with the sword.. she just hovered it around our shoulders, and then declared us as knights/ladies. After that was through, we went to watch this jousting thing. At first, it was just kids running around on hobby horses. I was like, wtf. But after like a half hour of that, they brought out the jousters. To be honest, the tournament at Medieval Times in Washington D.C. was better than this one. But in this tournament, the people actually hit each other, since they were wearing armor. After that, we went to get dessert. Jo and my dad got these freaking huge slices of cake, and neither of them finished. I got fried ice cream, which was a much smaller serving than those cake slices, so I did finish. Jo went on a few rides (which were fully operated with manpower alone) before we got ready to go. There was this dragon boat ride thing, and the guy running it claimed to be legally blind, yet he was walking out in front of and under the swinging ride without getting hit. Even if he wasn't blind (which I doubt he was), it was still an impressive feat. It was funny, I decided to take out my DS when Jo was on this other ride, and the guy running it looked at me and yelled, 'Put away that fairy box! The fairies need some rest!' When we ran out of ride vouchers, we went over to this store that was selling these wooden shields and weapons. They all had cool designs of dragons and other mythological creatures and things, and some were painted and some weren't. They also came in a small size and a large size. Painted small shields cost twenty-two dollars, while plain ones cost ten bucks. Painted large shields cost twenty-five dollars, and unpainted ones cost twelve. I decided to buy an unpainted large shield with the design of a dragon sitting on a horde of jewels and treasure with some of my birthday money. I'm going to paint it on my own sometime, but I'm not sure what colors I should use... It's the only real souvenir I got of the place. We left after that.
We stopped at a convenience store and got these huge cans of fruit punch. After a long drive, we went to Toys "R" Us in search of Pokemon plush. They didn't have any, as usual. Then we went to a pet store while my dad was at Radio Shack. My dad's been telling me he wants to get me a pet chinchilla. I don't know why he wants to get me one of them instead of a lizard, because they're freaking expensive, too. But again: my dad hates lizards and most small animals, and I guess he thinks chinchillas aren't creepy. They are really cute... there was a black one at the pet store, and the person who worked there let my mom hold it. I could've held it too, but I was afraid I was going to drop it. I got to pet it, though. If you've never petted a chinchilla, you really need to. They're super soft and fluffy. We asked the pet store worker for a pamphlet about chinchillas, but they didn't have any. So when my dad got back, we went to another pet store down the road and got one. Next we went to the mall... my dad went off on his own again, so we walked around randomly. First we went to a game store. Then we went to Barnes & Noble. I decided to walk down the fantasy aisle, and pick up every book with the word 'dragon' in its name. If it wasn't about dragons (as in, not about dragon riders or people fighting dragons, but actually about dragons themselves) I'd say, 'It's not about dragons' in this weird voice and shove it back in the shelf. I went through at least twenty books before actually finding one about dragons. And my mom bought it for me, even though I didn't even say I wanted it and I didn't get to look through it. That's the second time she's done that recently, the first when she bought me the book 'Tiger's Curse'. I liked that book, so hopefully I'll like this one, too. We went to this toy store, and I found a bin of these plastic glow-in-the-dark critters that cost ten cents each. I got seven of them, but the cashier only charged me for six. He didn't even count how many I had. And I only realized that later, so I never told him... =P
After that we went to Chili's. I got this gross blackberry iced tea thing that didn't even taste like blackberries, so I traded it for my mom's mango tea, which sort of tasted like mangoes. For our appetizer we got chips and salsa, which was boring. My mom and I both got these peppercorn burgers, my dad got an avocado burger, and Jo got pizza. And since it was my birthday, they made the stupid people who sing come out and give us this ice cream covered brownie.
All in all, it was a pretty fair birthday. I can't wait to get my chinchilla... right now, my dad's trying to get a cheap cage off of Craigslist.