memories of a festival : bistrita days

so this is what a medieval festival looks like in my town: raise a stage on the central walkway, decorate with a bunch of old insignia and fake suits of armor...

bring in horse-drawn carts in case someone feels like paying money to be driven around town (?)

i tried to make friends with this horse, whose keeper was holding him to get a good pose

here´s the serious business: artisans making pottery on the spot! (also, at about  40 degrees celsius)

 

different brand of pottery

functional wood carving

printing on fancy paper

pretty nice traditional costumes...but the churches! hey, god forbid we leave churches out of anything.

the plastic bag and the cellphone are, of course, part of the traditional costume of the transylvanian peasant

representing, the traditional art of tent-raising

i dunno...does this look safe to you?

looky here! the city gates!

there´s no party without cotton candy! i think that ostrich wants some.

how about some traditional hungarian goodies?

these guys are taking it seriously

...too seriously?

mm maybe her boyfriend´s fighting? (sorry, stranger girl, for catching your one unaware moment. i feel mean)

so we spied these costumed people coming out of this yard, and wanted to take a better look. we go in, and take some photos (not included), to which a nice guy comes and asks us to please not photograph anything made of plastic, cause you know...medieval festival. point taken.

i kind of want that tree in my future room

jewelry: only for connoisseurs. (and for people who know i´ve got a thing for penguins)

i honestly don´t think this photo desrves a caption. people in ridiculous garb at 3 pm and 40 C, suffering for old times´sake.

showing off my new, mum-approved dress...and looking like i´ve got a tiny person perched on top of my head. also, benches in bistrita have a lot of class.

and the BEST EVER picture of Andrei Muresanu, local poet and author of the text of romanian national anthem. guys, say what you want but i´m proud of this one.

a part 2 coming up -c.