Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Festival of Nations

On Sunday, we (Kenny, Becky and Jenn) attended the Festival of Nations at the St. Paul RiverCentre. I really had a great time. I often have the thought that- In this small sliver of time I'm here on Earth, I'm living life with people who all have one thing in common. We're all here, alive during this time period. Maybe that sounds corny, but it makes me wonder what they're all up to. At the Festival of Nations, they all want to show you. They want to show you how to do their cultural painting, weavings, and egg decoratings. I may never want to own a hand painted egg, but I think it's fascinating that someone enjoys taking time to create such delicate beauty (CLICK THE PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM).

Being at the Festival of Nations was, frankly, just refreshing. I was surrounded by people who were different than me in politics, religion and skin color, and they all wanted to smile at me, share with me, and talk. It was nice.

The photo below if of a Malian musician. Wow, could he play this instrument, which I believe is a traditional Manding repertoire.


Below is a photo of Becky and me.


The doll, in the photo below, was sitting outside of an oriental garment display. It reads, "Tell us if you want get dressed. It's really fun!" It did look fun. Several young girls were trying on traditional wraps. I started to ask if I could try one on, but I wasn't sure if my attempt at facetious humor would be understood.

Below is a photo of the Latvian dancers.

Below are the Irish river dancers.

With his permission, I took this photo of his Chinese Lingnam nature painting.

Below, Jenn became a Scandinavian baker.

The photo below is of Paraguayan Musicians.

With permission, I took these two photos of delicate Czech & Slovak Egg Decorating.



Below, is a photo of Swedish Hand weaving. Becky knew this woman from her a class she took in her Graduate program.

Below is a photo of the banner that's hung in the main auditorium where the dances were performed.

Below, the 1:00 showing began with all of the various ethnic dancers carrying out an American flag. In the center of the stage, they spread it taut while the National Anthem was sung. One side would lift and lower their edge of the flag to create a wave effect.



Below are the Swedish dancers. I tried to get a shot of the little old lady in the yellow and red, but she just swished along so fast, I couldn't get it. She was so cute.

And look at the way the man is looking at her. I think there's something between those two. He looks like he adores her.


Below are the Ecuadorian dancers.



Below are the Armenian dancers.

Below are the Chinese dancers. I have more photos of the Chinese dancers than others because they would move, and then stop as if to pose for photos. The dance was introduced as an exhibition of the beauty of Chinese women in the 19th century.








Below are the Israeli dancers. I thought their dance was very well choreographed.






Okay, I thought this was a turkey. I didn't look at it very closely before asking Jenn to pose in the turkey. Becky and Jenn razzed me so much about thinking it was a turkey that I had to pose.

Below is a photo of Becky and me (similar but different from the one at the top).

Here we are (below) skipping down the path.

Below are the German musicians.

Below, Jenn and I are in traditional American Indian costume (sort of).

There was a ton of food at the Festival of Nations, but it didn't really entice us. It was a lot of fried and breaded foods and things on a stick. There were sausage foods, and there were foods you could get on most oriental buffets. We decided to eat outside of the event and went to a pub around the corner from the RiverCentre.

Here's Jenn, looking mischievous.

We got home around 4:00 pm, and the weather was beautiful, so Becky and I went for a bike ride around Lake Nokomis. I wanted to get a little harder workout, so I biked down into Ft.Snelling. We have wonderful bike trails in Minneapolis.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

A Mid Summer Nights Dream

Last night was a blast. Becky and I had dinner at a restaurant near the Guthrie Theater and then met some friends to see the theater production A Mid Summer Night's Dream.

It was cold and gray and the rain drizzled, but we soldiered on- determined to have a good time anyway.

The restaurant where we wanted to dine was booked, so we decided to try Spill the Wine, an attractive-sounding restaurant just down the street from the Guthrie. I look like a doorman for some bad reality show.

I was disappointed with the atmosphere. It reminded me of a deli with candles on the tables and Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling. Maybe the food will be better?

The menu didn't have much variety, and the prices were higher than Babalu's we visited near by a couple of weeks ago. The night we visited Spill the Wine, the average plate was about $30.00.

I ordered the Salmon, which came with new potatoes. I asked if they would double the vegetables instead of giving me potatoes. So, my Salmon was ordered with cooked spinach and a side of broccolini. I wasn't sure what broccolini was. It looks like baby broccoli, but it's a hybrid of broccoli and kai-lan (chinese broccoli).

The Salmon arrived wrapped in bacon, which turned out to be the best part of it. I enjoyed my meal okay, but it wasn't outstanding like we had at Babalu's the other night. In fact, it wasn't even as good as the Firecracker Tilapia I had last week at Chili's.

Becky had the beef tenderloin with new potatoes and broccolini. She was even more disappointed with her meal. The new potatoes were under cooked. She thought the broccolini tasted like a rubber tire smells, and the center of her tenderloin was a little too rare. On the other hand, she loved the bread. Both of us loved the coffee.

We left a little disappointed with Spill the Wine. The atmosphere was lacking, the prices were high and the food was mediocre. However, the service was good, and our waitress took our photo.

We decided to park in a ramp near the Guthrie. It was $8 parking for the event, and the ramp was packed. We drove up level after level and couldn't find a place to park.

We had been going up and up levels looking for a place to park; when we noticed that the cars were starting to look familiar. "Are we driving in circles?" Becky asked. Oh my god, we had circled the same level like five times. We both laughed so hard.

In our defense, we could see higher levels, it just wasn't obvious when you were supposed to stop turning left.

On the way to the elevator, Becky went to throw her gum into waste container in the corner. She took it out of her mouth, and threw it toward the can. The gum fell about a foot away in front of the can. I thought that was pretty funny. I took out my gum and tried to throw it into the can, and it landed right beside hers. Neither one of us had any wine, but you sure wouldn't know it- as goofy as we were acting.

Inside the Guthrie, we found our friends, Jane and Todd. Becky and Jane are long-time friends and co-workers. I met Todd for the first time that evening. He seems like a really nice guy. I wanted to talk more about his new bike, but the evening distracted us.

Jane took our photo beneath the LCD marquee. She had to time it so that the correct theater production was showing and people weren't walking in front of the camera.

The play was outstanding, but perhaps a little long (3.5 hours). The costumes were incredible (by Paul Tazewell). The lighting by Jane Cox was always interesting. The set design was really cool. It had a huge globe that came out of the floor and opened to reveal characters inside. The set design was by Frank Hallinan Flood. It was directed by Joe Dowling.

At intermission, we went out to the scenic over-look. It was still drizzling rain.

The play had terrific dancing and singing (by people who could actually sing well). Near the end, a cross-dressing actor named Randy Reyes stole the show. He came out in a school girl uniform that had all of us straight guys saying to ourselves, "Remember, he's a guy". He was so funny.

As we shuffled out of the theater, there was a live Jazz band playing on the lower level. I wish we would have stayed to hear them. It had a great sound, and the singer knew her way around a jazz tune.