The Ritterfest

22nd May 2005-29th May 2005
A crazy week!

I must apologise for not updating my blog for so long…or for that matter, for not writing back home for ages too! It suddenly seems as though my stay in Germany is getting shorter and shorter everyday, and it seems really fast that I will be going home in a month. ONE month! There’s simply not enough time for me to explore more of this country, nor achieve the level of proficiency for the language that I want to have. Well.

Anyway, in this past hectic week, I have been hosted, did some hosting, lots of work and lots of traveling too=) Let me start with the Ritterfest. May take up some space!

The Ritterfest (or a visit to Gaul=))
On Saturday, 21st May, I went with Manni (Manfred, but we all call him Manni) and his really cute and funny family to the Ritterfest (knights’ festival). We traveled to Kersbach, a very small place with a Festung (fort) that was over 300 years old. So it all looked a little bit run down, like the ruins of Athens: you could see majestic old walls stretching into the sky. (I took an interesting photo of these “ruins” with a building crane in the background, it was really an ironic pic.) Manni’s children, Johannes, Emily and Samuel (6,4 and 2 years old) are really cute. Johannes and Emily were dressed as a knight and as a princess respectively, and Samuel was just terrorising all of us with his demands to be carried, refusal to let his elder sis share his pram and all. But that is beside the point.

At this Ritterfest, most of the people were dressed in quasi-middle ages style, ie with long flowy skirt, or for the men, in tunics. It was held in this open space within the old fort, where you could get a v clear view of the land miles around. All around us, large tents of cloth were set up, where “real” knights and princesses were staying in, and they were surprisingly good at imitating the olden times! They cooked using those old large pots that the Druid in “Asterix and Obelix” uses, over a real fire and firewood. The stalls were selling lots of “middle ages” accessories, swords, Indian jewellery they tried to pass off as middle ages stuff, bows and arrows, dresses that would be wonderful costumes at the Fasching (an absolutely crazy festival in Germany), interesting food (haha they had this asian fried rice, and instead of wrapping it in banana leaves, they wrapped it in cabbage leaves!) There was also an entire pig on roast. There was even a “Waffenschmied” or a blacksmith, who used a real leather air bag to blow on the fire, and a stall that allowed kids to sift through some sand in the water to get real gold. The stall-owners bought 100euros of real gold pieces and mixed them into the sand! Talk about throwing money into water.

Oh btw the security there was surprisingly very good, I tried to get a good pic of the land around, so I climbed up the castle wall and sat on it. Then this man in dark glasses and leather trousers said to me in German, “You might want to come down.” He was just standing there the entire time, and earlier on my wallet was retrieved by another person who was similarly dressed. It was the Sicherheitsdienst (or safety service?) and they were really observant.

The atmosphere was wonderful. They had a performance with knights fighting in their armours and a fake announcer speaking in middle ages German…(he was just talking in this funny accent, and I couldn’t understand it. So when Manni asked jokingly if I understood the “mitteralterliche Deutsch”, I was told him no, and that was rather unfortunate.) Then a juggler (Jonglierer) performed, followed by bagpipe performers (or Dudelsack, man am I proud I remembered it! *wink) who had really very long hair. They looked like Orlando Bloom.

After a picnic lunch, we went to visit one of our colleagues, Joerg, who was a “real” Ritter, or hobby Ritter. We played some “ritterliche” games, like the Rope game, and the “Knock-down-the-King” game. I would love to describe them, but that would take you ages to read. You can ask me when I go back home=) If you want to. After which, Joerg decided to “knight” me, or turn me into an asian Chinese Ritter. So he took out his 21 KG armor (Ruestung), let me put it on, and lent me a sword to complement it all as well! Everything was INCREDIBLY HEAVY. It was a long-sleeved metal mail thingy, together with something for the head. The only thing that spoiled the effect was my hair, which has grown too long now. Then we had some mini-battles with the swords, though I could hardly move. Joerg then decided to amuse himself, and told me that he did not know how to get me out of the mail, and that I had to get out of the armor by myself. I tried pulling it off over my head, as that seems to be the only way in and out of it, but I could not lift it off my shoulders. So I tried bending over to let it slide out, but I couldn’t lift the part of the armour that was over my bottom. That was the most unfortunate scene, I wince right now even as I try to picture how I must have looked like: a snail who was trying to get out of its shell, but found that somehow its bottom was stuck in the door or something. We all had a good laugh, and Ute (Manni’s wife) took many pics of me with my camera. Wie peinlich! (how embarrassing!)

Following that, Joerg treated us to a most amazing performance of fire-swallowing and fire-spitting. It was almost unbelievable, he spat out so much fire that the fumes were almost twice that of his height. He said that he learned that all by himself, as a hobby. I never ceased to be impressed…apparently he made the entire armour/metal mail ring by ring, all by himself as well! As well as chairs and beds…everything is DIY.)

We went back to Manni’s place, where I had some wonderful cake and then was showed some photos of Manni’s and Ute’s trip to Jerusalem, and to Beijing. Thoroughly enjoyed myself then, and I wasn’t even tired, despite having only slept for 4 hours the night before. =)

(The song “When You Say Nothing At All” is playing suddenly on my laptop. That reminds me of school previously. Am happy thinking about the great memories and experience, I don’t think I regretted anything I did back then. I don’t think I have regretted things I have done, but only things that I did not do. This might change, though. What do you all think? Do you regret more what you have done, or what you haven’t? What is worse? Feel free to drop me a comment.)