Bay Area Renaissance Festival

Our plan today was to drive back down to Tarpon Springs and spend a bit more time birding, but the best-laid plans of mice and men...
Our friend Leslie messaged me that they had discovered that there was going to be a Belly Dancing Competition at the Renaissance Festival in Tampa at 3 o'clock this afternoon, and did we want to join them? (Bill and Forry had both complained that there was no belly-dancing at the Greek restaurant we went to last week...) The Faire was about an hour's drive for us and we arrived about the same time as Bill and Leslie.

Leslie has been working on her Renaissance/Steampunk costume for some time now. We had seen pieces of it, but this is the first time we've seen it all put together --

I really like the hat she found for it --

The Faire is held every year over about a two month period in February and March. It is an interesting mixture of costumed and uncostumed people with many takes on what costumes might have been appropriate for a medieval era. These folks were part of the "Queen's Court" dining.

We listened to some troubadours --

And a harpist --

And a fairy fiddler --

 All before we got to the competition that we had come to see --

There was a competition for Juniors. Some of whom were REALLY good!

Of course, the young ones were really limber and agile --

The Senior competition featured some incredible costumes --

A couple even complete with swords --

There was lots of shimmying and shaking going on --

This lady was described as a "Goddess" dancer. I think that meant she was older...

There was a troupe of competitors from a dance school --

And even a pair of "Goth" belly dancers -- who were actually very good.

This is another of the dancing pairs --

And as you can see, all were carefully watched by the man in my life --

At the end of the show, we were treated to a couple of the "professional" gypsy dancers who have their own stage and show at the Festival --

The Festival had horses and jousting competitions, though we didn't have a chance to watch any.

This lady had been giving rides to little kids earlier --

I liked the way she (or someone) had braided her horse's tail --

There was a wandering knight and his lady --

And a Saracen?

Before we left, we went to the "Washing Wenches" show --

You really didn't want to be sitting too close to the front as these two washer women shared a bit of their wash water with the crowd --

Don't you just love the hairdo? to say nothing of the blacked out teeth...

Our dear friend Bill added to the hilarity by bringing them a beer -- after they had teased him about bringing one to Forry.

And  then there was this long-eared fellow with the strange helmet --

We had never been to a Renaissance Faire before and it was an interesting experience. In the four hours or so that we were there, we only saw maybe a quarter of it. It's sprawled out over quite a large wooded area with at least five different stage areas. There are lines of tents and vendors of all kinds of costumes, jewelry and art as well as lots of food. There were magicians and jugglers, mud wrestlers, singers, and I don't know what else. There are people who make the faires their hobby and spend their time following them similarly to the Native American PowWow circuit.

Tarpon Springs

We met our friends Bill and Leslie in Tarpon Springs today and spent the afternoon exploring this interesting very Greek seaport. We met at Mykoros, a Greek restaurant, where we had some great Greek lemon chicken soup, spanokopita, gyros, and calamari.

From there we strolled down Dodecanese Boulevard which is the "main drag," full of really neat shops. We stopped at The Spice and Tea Exchange where I bought some wonderful varieties of sea salts and seasonings (bought some jalapeno salt for Brother Pat!). We found a shop that had Hawaiian shirts on sale and bought a couple more for Forry; stopped at a some soap shops and bought a few smelly things; bought Forry a frozen slice of Key Lime pie; and enjoyed watching the crowds of tourists.

Towards the end of the Boulevard we found the Tarpon Springs Aquarium and spent a few fun hours checking out their exhibits and watching the interaction with some of their critters. They have a rather large salt water aquarium stocked with local fish like this tarpon --

Or this brightly colored small tropical one --

Or this spiny rock lobster --

They also had five LARGE pythons and a boa constrictor, all of whom had either been someone's pet or had been found in the area around Tarpon Springs. (Neither of these kind of snakes are native to Florida. They are all pets or the off-spring of pets who have either gotten away or been turned loose.) The young man brought this Burmese python out to play with those us who were there. He lifted her head and part of her body over to the ledge of the tank behind him and she crawled the rest of the way out --

Everyone got a chance to pet or touch her as she made her way out --

I was surprised at how you could feel the movements of her muscles as she crawled along the ledge. (That is a big moray eel in the tank behind her.)

Another one of the staff brought this five-year old alligator out to be petted --

This fellow -- so ugly he's cute -- with the small shell and big head is an Alligator Turtle. He's estimated to be 25 or 30 years old and weighs about twenty pounds --

After watching all of those critters, we needed some sustenance, so stopped at one of several Greek bakeries for some treats. One really must have some baklava when you are hanging around the Greeks!

Tarpon Springs is famous for its sponge industry. Divers from Greece settled here to hunt the sponges in the Gulf of Mexico. They use diving suits with helmets to go after the deep ones, so Forry had to pose in this oversized one --

We visited the small museum that was part of the Tarpon Springs Sponge Factory and watched a rather old movie about how the sponges were harvested, then cleaned and prepared for sale like the ones below --

You can't be on the coast without checking out the sunset. We drove out to Howard Park to see it, but it wasn't very good tonight. There are still too many clouds left around from yesterday's storm.

But even when it's not spectacular, sunset on the beach is always nice. We waded in the warm water a bit, then headed back into town for more Greek food.

Leslie and I had some very tender lamb shanks for dinner at a restaurant called Mr. Souvlaki, while Forry had some Greek sausage with peppers and onions and Bill had an interesting dish the restaurant called Greek chow mein.