World Village Festival

On June 11th, there was a big World Village Festival in Capitol Park, a park over by the state capitol building. Since I heard admission was free, I decided to bike over during the afternoon to check it out.

In retrospect, this photo looks like a glamour shot of a trash can

For someone who came without much in the way of spending money, the smells of the vendors selling food from countries all over the world was downright cruel

No, I am not sure why The Oracle from Delphi would advertise with rainbow tie-dye, but I guess styles have changed since Ancient Greece

Apparently in big outdoor events like this in Boise, they will have a fenced off area called the "Beer Garden" for those who choose to drink alcohol. It seems like a win-win, they have somewhere nice to sit down and feel cool, and the rest of us don't have to sit next to drunk people

There was some really neat stuff for sale here

The Boise Capitol Building. The outside is very pretty; one of these days I'm going to take the tour of the inside.

Apparently the painted fabric is part of some sort of moving art exhibit and the artist wants lots of people to take photos of them in various locations, so I'm assuming she'd be pleased to see them here

I probably would've had a more exciting time if I'd come in the evening, when the big headliner performances were happening. Even so, there were some cute kids doing Irish dancing, a group from BSU doing flamenco dancing, and a guy who played the accordion and the harmonica at the same time, so I had fun.

I looked over my budget before going and decided that I could treat myself to something sold by a vendor with the lavish sum of... $2. There wasn't actually anything I wanted that was only two dollars though, and I really didn't have any money to go over, so I ended up donating the money to an Ecuador earthquake relief fund. I still managed to get a few souvenirs, though. First off, there was a Chinese Christian group that was writing people's names in Chinese characters:

Shh, don't tell him that he spelled my name wrong in English

Also, I totally waited in line for an hour with some four-year-olds at the children's activity tent so I could get my face painted.

African face paint or oddly mathematical measles? You decide!

I stink at selfies but the girl doing the paint did a very nice job

After that I ended up biking around the area for the afternoon. I got some comments from random people on my face-paint so I guess I did the festival some free advertising.

All in all, it was a fun little event and I'll probably go again if they do it next year.