good olde tyme
memorial day weekend - colonial williamsburg
so i finally did it! i went to colonial williamsburg after years of talking about it and years of people giving me puzzled looks and saying, "colonial williamsburg? WHY?" for some reason, i am fascinated by people in period costume and butter churners. not to mention a whole town of it! (alas, there is no butter churner in colonial williamsburg but there are lots of other interesting folks.) it was a typical summer day in central virginia - warm, a bit humid, but still bearable. i made the 2.5 hour drive down to williamsburg while battling memorial day weekend traffic on 95 south. quite a long line at the visitor's center to get tickets but no worries i got there earlier than anticipated. after i got my day pass, i head towards the pedestrian bridge into the 18th century where the main mode of transportation is a horse-drawn carriage! weee...this is the closest to time travelling anyone can get. i went and explored the different trades. first off: the foundry; this is where they pour metal into molds and turn them into spoons and saucers and things like that; blacksmiths shape metal. i did not know the difference before this day. moving on to the harness and saddle maker shop where i got into an odd conversation with the saddle maker. he was talking about traffic going towards dulles airport in the manner of a colonial resident. it made me imagine him in a carriage on route 28 towards dulles to catch a plane to somewhere. talk about anachronism. before i got to ask him about saddles and leather, i got distracted by the sheep in the garden beyond. by golly, i ran towards the fence as close to the sheep as possible to take picture. obviously, this girl has not seen a sheep in a loooong time. then it was off to the gardens and nursery. i wanted to buy some seeds for a friend but forgot to take cash out from the atm; and all atm's are back in the 21st century, ie. the visitor's center. oh well...moving on to the mary stith house where i got to watch a short presentation on colonial theatre practices and listened in to a song accompanied by a piano forte. very very interesting. the wig-maker's place was closed that day. big disappointment because i promised another friend that i would try on a wig and have them take a picture. bummer! oh well, off to the blacksmith i go. blacksmithing seems like a very manly job, but not as exciting as i thought it would be. maybe it was because they were making spikes and not forging swords. then the old post office and the printer downstairs. he was really funny and made book printing an exciting career.
then it was time for good ol' lunch. i went to the king's arms tavern because that's the place that serves peanut soupe. (yes, the "e" is supposed to be there. not a typo.) and i was told to have the peanut soupe for if i didn't then my whole trip was a waste. so i did order the peanut soupe. (although i almost chickened out and ordered the oyster chowder. i mean come on! peanut soupe? doesn't it make you think of runny peanut butter? not appealing.) it was surprisingly good. it does not taste like peanut butter...more like creamy soup stock with a hint of peanut. i ordered the ground beef steak. ok, "ground beef steak" is colonial for "hamburger." just so you know. then i got the peppermint stick ice cream - made in house, by the way - for dessert. yummy and refreshing! and it was pink! during my meal, the drum and flute parade came by, and some man acting like a revolutionary came by the dining room and started yelling stuff about the house of burgesses and the boston tea party. in a way, my meal came with a show. i tell you, timing is everything.
the afternoon was filled with visiting more trades. i saw the silversmith, the book binder, the apothecary, the milliner and tailor, and a sheep shearer. man, seeing that sheep sheared was somewhat disturbing. it was kicking the whole time; but not bleating, thank goodness. then in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of the founding of jamestown, there was a huge show on the declaration of the house of burgesses for a day of "fasting, humiliation and prayer" in support of the citizens of massachusetts after the boston tea party. patrick henry made an appearance. lord dunnemoore came in a horse drawn carriage. there was a fight. oooh, the drama! but it didn't end there. the townspeople were debating about what just happened, and visitors like us could stop any local to ask them their opinions. very interactive indeed. however, there was more to see so i left duke of gloucester street to get to the cooper and the brickyard. i wanted to tread on the wet clay but unfortunately i was not ten and under. not even close. darn!
and so i leave colonial williamsburg and head back towards the 21st century by way of the bridge. drive back up north and wrestle with cars on the road.
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c-ville revisted
weekend of june 9 - charlottesville
i finally made it down to charlottesville after months and months of promising ruth and carlton that i would visit them. headed straight to ruth's parents' place, which is about 5 miles from the university. let me tell you. the views from their place are gorgeous! hills everywhere. very serene indeed. when i arrived, ruth and her improv buddies are in the middle of filming a comedy sketch on the right to bear nuclear arms. it was set in a bar with two guys debating over the said topic. i haven't seen amateurs film anything before so this is cool first hand stuff. plus, towards the end they let me hold the boom mic. so if you see a video on youtube with two guys in a bar arguing about a new world order stemming from one nuclear weapon, i helped make that happen. well...in a very small way but i was involved nonetheless. after the filming which took about 2 hours, we went to a late lunch at mel's cafe with carlton. i've never been to mel's cafe, which was a shame because their sweet tea is awesome. we got into conversations about the grilled donut, the "new yoooork city!" hot sauce, and why we say words like "sweet" and "interesting" every so often. yes, we ARE deep.
after watching ocean's 13, c-ton and i walked around the downtown mall. there was a huge photography exhibit going on throughout the mall. there were projections on the exterior walls, hanging banners, and lots of artsy looking people poking about. there was also a performance going in the new amphitheater while i was making my mark on the chalk wall right outside it. then we had ice cream! sweet! the line was outside the door. then we met up with ruth at the college inn at the corner for some late night munchies. and then i witnessed it. finally after four years of waiting for it in college. a townie fight! it wasn't a full-blown brawl with tables overturned, but there were lots of yelling and moving around. get this: angry middle schoolers vs. the wait staff on behalf of a lone customer who complained about the noise. when the mob turned their heels towards the exit and passed us, ruth decided it was ok to laugh at that moment. i feared for my life. i don't want to get b-slapped by a middle schooler in charlottesville. that is not in my life to-do list.
by far the best quote of the night came from a girl who obviously had a little too much to drink (i'm thinking open bar at some semi-formal event). she was in the alley next to the satellite ballroom and talking on her cellphone:
heeeeey...i'm in charlottesville right now. i'm standing in that alley were you got shot in the back.oh, the characters in c-ville!
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a night of theater and monuments
july 6 - d.c.
i managed to wrangle a bunch of people to watch the play dead man's cellphone with me that friday. before we headed to the woolly mammoth theater, which, i believe, has a cool lobby area, we had pre-theater dinner at a thai restaurant called kanlaya. service was fast even though i've tasted better thai food. but no matter; i always think, "if the company is good, then the food does not matter." (of course, there are exceptions. you can't expect me to eat something that looks like it came from the sewer and cooked in there, too, now would you?) a short walk to the theater and we're minutes to the start of the play. it was a contemporary comedy that dealt with privacy, death, the afterlife, and the people left behind. the dialogue was quick and sharp-witted. there were some unforgettable lines such as this one:
i dreamt of the letter 'z.' two parallel lines - that's us - connected by a diagonal.i know it's a cheesy pick-up line, but for some reason that stuck with me.
then after the play, we decided to walk towards the mall to check out the washington monument at night. walking around the monument was nice. i kept making jokes about how it felt like a third-date type of activity. but it really was not sketchy at all. so, guys, if you run out of date ideas and you happen to be in the dc area, go ahead and take your lovely date to the monument. just make sure you keep the conversation going.
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folk life festival 2007: northern ireland, mekong river, virginia
july 7 - the mall
the tents were set-up at the mall that night. it was eerie especially because they were all empty, like a ghost town. but the next morning, it was again bustling with life. tents were filled with exhibits and demonstrators. there were tents filled with food and drinks from each region. there were tents shielding the performance stages and cooking demos from the weather. it was definitely a tent attack to all the senses. and a very touristy event indeed.
i went with my friend and we hit up the irish area first. there were mummers performing. mummers are irish folk players. a troupe of actors basically dress up in irish garb and tell folk stories through short plays, music and dancing. very, very interesting. after the mummers we saw an irish elementary school teacher demonstrating how to create your own claymation. it looks extremely simple as long as you have the patience and know how to fashion a discernible figure. then it was off to see the basketweaving and mummery demo, irish linen makers, pottery exhibits. we also caught about 12 seconds of a cooking demo. we totally left after i read the sign that said, "sorry no samples." riiiiight, like i was going to stay after that. then it was off to the huge whiskey display. they actually had a distiller and someone explaining the wonders of whiskey making. however, the best thing was the three barrels used to store the 6, 10 and 16 year old whiskey. when you smell the barrel opening, you can tell there'd been alcohol in there. i swear, if i sniff it long enough, i'm pretty sure i'd end up tipsy. hmmm...not good especially since it's not even lunch time yet. so we move on to the mekong river area.
we saw a good part of a drumming performance by a laotian group. (note: the people participating in the festival actually came from the region they're representing. some of them can't even speak english. some nametags said this, "i'm a participant at the folk life festival. if i seem lost, please contact..." then a phone number is listed.) we walked around to see a silversmith, jewelery maker, wood carver, several textile makers, basket weavers, and the most awesome of all: the boatmakers. it was fascinating to see a boat (more like a kayak) fashioned out of a tree trunk especially if one of the "tribesmen" was smoking a cigarette while planing wood. hilarious! we also stopped by the chinese printmaker. he had samples prints of chinese good luck charms and mythical scenes. since my friend knew how to speak chinese i asked her to ask the guy manning the booth (who, btw, speaks very little english) what some of the characters meant. the guy looked so happy to be able to explain his trade in his native language that he talked in detail about it and even gave us several sample prints and a print from a wood block that was already placed in the museum a couple days back. sweet!
after having lunch at the thai place, we headed straight to virginia. there were bags of virginia peanuts everywhere. seriously, every single table was littered with peanut packages and boxes containing peanut packages. crazy! but then again, i am a sucker for free stuff so i got a handful of bags and brought them home with me. we didn't go through all the exhibits either because we were tired of walking around, or there was nothing else we wanted to see. i did see a virginia quilt with a whole square dedicated to UVA. also, i regretted not having lunch in this part of the festival. i really wanted to eat sweet potato fries and the bbq chicken.
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and that concludes the first part of the summer...stay tuned for the next installment.