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.