So yesterday we headed off to the Renaissance Faire. I was so excited when we left the apartment. I got to wear a new costume this year and everything was going to be great right?
Heh! Not this year.

So Berek and I headed over to his dad's house at about 8:30 almost 9. Then Val started dressing me up in the new costume she made for me. Snag #1: Val had left behind one of the arm bands I was wearing to complete my dress. She left them at her apartment in Valencia. She seemed really disappointed. So she had said that she could go back and get it. I said it was okay, but it was clear she was very upset if I didn't have it. So I said, "I'll let you decide." She did, she and Ben went back to Valencia to pick it up. (I did however get to tease Ben since he was a little pissed to go back home)
I'm sure he'd have wished he could stay there had he known how the rest of the day was going to be.

Next, the drive there was pretty uneventful. Snag #2: I had to tune out Berek and his dad after awhile because they were reading from a stupid crossword puzzle which was getting on my nerves. So I listened to the CD's that Jen gave me. (Era is fantastic! I like them a lot, must...buy...more) Then we got to Irwindale which is in Azusa and we stopped! There was a line of cars extending from near the freeway exit to the faire! It was hot to make matters worse and people were getting cranky. We even had some asshole try to cut us off by coming around on our right. We all flipped him and his family off and they were just laughing. But as I said, they "tried" to cut us off. The van in front of us pulled up a bit more and I told Berek to go. The other guy in the truck wasn't paying any attention and we got ahead of him enough to cut him off so he couldn't get in. But, he then attempted to cut off the woman behind us. To which, her response was to actually get out of her car and yell at the guy. Gotta hand it to her, she had guts. She let two other people get around her though. I'm not sure if that was intentional or what.

In any case we were waiting in that line for over 45 minutes. Then we finally turned onto Arrow Highway to head to the faire and people were still cutting others off. We were moving quite slow even then. I think overall, it took us over an hour to get there and park. Hell it could've been an hour and a half.

When we got there, we got our tickets relatively fast because there was a cash only line. That was good. Then we headed in to wait for Ben and Val. It took them forever to get through that headache of a line too. They have the parking system very fucked up and it's horrible.

Finally, we started on our way. Ugh, it was hot. But that's alright it was going to be fun right? Not!

Snag#3: As we were looking at the Ananda Trader kiosk some guy (totally random I might add) saw Berek in a monk's robe. He started talking to Berek asking him if he was dressed as a Franciscan Monk or something else. Berek said, "This was all I had to wear so, I'm wearing it." Then the guy asked if he knew the history of the Franciscan Monks and Berek had said, "No, not really." So the guy proceeded to talk with him about it. (Umm, ookay, who disturbed this looney's rock...?) Berek was trying everything to get this guy to leave him alone. I think Berek had said something like, "Um okay, I'm really not a monk I'm just here with my family." and the guy said, "Well you said you were a monk." and we all said, "Well um, no he didn't." and shooed him on his way. YEEESH! What a moron! Who assumes that someone is a monk because he's dressed as one...AT A RENAISSANCE FAIRE?! Where clearly everyone (or most people) are dressed up?! What an idiot!

So that sort of shaped the rest of our day there. The dust was horrible! I had remembered Jen saying how nice and grassy and undusty it was when they went. Not our experience at all. I wonder if they used a different part of the park. In any case it was worse than the old location because the dust was blowing into the Faire from the parking lot and the top of the dam. *Cough cough* It was also really really hot! Poor Berek was dying in his monks robes. We didn't actually buy much, our budgets were too low, but I got a pewter dragon's egg with baby and also a couple of really cool pewter bookmarks. I picked up a sterling silver dragon necklace and then we also got a cool thing to put on our balcony. It's like a levitating Marble or something like that.

We then were pretty hungry and headed to the food area. I of course was hungry for nothing other than a turkey leg. Now Jen had specifically warned us not to get one, but Val and I were totally jonesing for one. Thankfully, our legs were fine. No problems. I also had some strawberry shortcake and a fruit smoothie. All of which was tasty. We wandered around a bit more, but found that the end of the faire doesn't come about back to the beginning like at the other location. Plus, Berek had a lot more trouble with this location due to having to push the wheelchair and his dad around over huge roots and rocks. The concrete pathways never went where we needed to go. So we finally decided at about 3:30, it was time to go. We didn't get out of the park until almost 4:30. That's how long the line was to get out of the park. We took a detour and went to McDonalds so we could refill our bodies with fluids.

Note to self...do not go to Ren Faire again if it's in this location next year. I have more gunk in my nose and lungs than I had last year. Most of the good vendors weren't there this year, and I don't know what happened, but there was no grass at all. I wish we had gone when Rob and Jen did, because whoo...our experience with the location and the Faire this year was not a good one.

After we got home, we relaxed a bit and watched a show we like on the-n. We then watched some Unwrapped and decided it was time to go swimming (the people had thinned out a bit). Oh, that was good. :D The pool was just right and we needed it so much. We got off our feet and we just floated about endlessly. It was nice. Then we got out of the pool and went to have a shower. After that, I pretty much conked out. I was having the shakes again and Berek made me some food. I ate it, but still wasn't feeling great, just very very tired. So I went to sleep.

This morning was fine, except that no one informed us that guys would be coming down to do the grout for our balcony today at 8:30 in the morning. We had assumed they were done. Heh, leave it to our apartment to do that.