Happy thought: Festivals!
Yesterday after my job interview in Missouri, I drove straight to Ames to go to Iowa State University for their VEISHEA celebration. It's basically like the Drake Relays, only minus the athletic events, and multiplied by about 8,000. Iowa State pretty much just celebrates itself with a giant week-long festival that people flock to from ALL over the place.
Anyway, I was invited to join some friends from the ISU chapter of APO for the weekend, so I thought I'd go check it out.
Friday night was interesting. We saw some trippy magician guy who did all sorts of mind-blowing card tricks (which is impressive in and of itself, right? I mean, who's impressed by card tricks these days?) and then saw a man called "The Regurgitator" which was appalling and captivating all at the same time. He swallowed live gold fish and then spit them back up, still alive. He swallowed a cup of sugar, drank a glass of water, then brought the sugar back dry. I dunno, the list of weirdness goes on. Check him out on YouTube (Stevie Starr the regurtigator).
We were out until about 3am, but a couple of us had to be up at 5:30 to help set up a booth for Saturday activities. I was spending the night in Derek's apartment, but we convinced ourselves it would be pointless to sleep for only 2.5 hours, and instead stayed up talking. I have no real idea of what we talked about, exactly. We were both kind of out of it and probably half asleep, but we kept the convo going anyway, somehow.
We each got a quick nap, though, when the other person was in the shower. But fifteen minutes doesn't much count.
The day was fun anyway, despite being dead tired. Apparently VEISHEA has these famous baby cherry pies. Like you can't go to VEISHEA and not get one. They sell out super fast and the demand is crazy high. So I ate one (it was tasty - which is saying something because I'm not a huge cherry fan), thus I am able to legitimize my VEISHEA experience.
Derek and I were also able to separate ourselves from the group and go watch the VEISHEA parade (which was a whopping two hours - crazy!). And that was our first date (yes, you may "awww" if you'd like), so that was fun.
Most of the rest of the day was spent with a bunch of other ISU kids visiting booths and checking stuff out and enjoying the gorgeous weather. I really enjoyed myself. It was kind of like a baby Iowa State Fair. And I got to see LOADS of dogs, so that was a bonus.
We had to tear down the booth we were in charge of at 5ish and then I went home shortly after (since I hadn't been home since Thursday) and it was probably incredibly stupid for me to make that drive as tired as I was. It wasn't safe at all. I made it, but I'll never do that again.
So, if you get a chance ever, hit up VEISHEA. If for no other reason than to hang out on a MASSIVE campus that is absolutely gorgeous in the springtime.
No comments:
Post a Comment