Medieval Times

Sean decided to surprise me with an adventure on Presidents Day.  He didn't tell me what we were doing and even as we got close he had me put on a blindfold so I couldn't see.  When I finally took off my blindfold I saw that we were at Medieval Times.

Sean's been twice before but I've never been.  It's a cool experience where you get to participate as a guest of the kings court and watch knights joust and fight.  They have you arrive an hour early so you can get your crown, take pictures with the King and get drunk.  Of course we opted for our Shirley Temples.  After perusing their "castle" looking at the horses and merchandise, they finally called us into the court.

We sat at our table and I observed that there were no utensils.  When in medieval times, do as the medieval timers do.  We were served by wenches (I sort of wish they gave us attitude like real wenches) and the meal was a lot of meat.  They make it not so heavy in the protein by serving you extremely hot tomato bisque (which was really good).  After the garlic bread came a half a chicken (that's right, I said HALF a chicken) and spare ribs.  It took a long time picking away at the meat with my fingers but I left very full.

The entertainment happened in between our eating.  There was a super cheesy soundtrack and a story line I couldn't understand but the showmanship of the horses and the riding of the knights were quite impressive.  Our knight was the Green Knight and he was quite good with the tricks.  He was a bit cocky though, smiling too much at the ladies.  Alas, I didn't flirt back enough because after each trick he would throw flowers to the maidens and I didn't get one of them.  I was excited when the jousting happened because it was all real . . . until they "fell" off their horses in defeat.  It was more like lifting-my-leg-over-the-horse-and-jumping but I guess you got to do it safely.  We had a few laughs at the apparent lack of stuntmanship (yes I made that word up).  But that soon was forgiven when I saw them sword fight.  I was quite impressed at how real that was.  The swords were clanking and sparks were flying (how come I've never seen sparks fly during sword fights in movies?) and it was for the most part pretty legit.

Alas our Green Knight was defeated but the ultimate victor was the kingdom next to ours so I'll count it as a win for us.  It was a lot more entertaining than I expected and I'm really glad Sean surprised me and took me to it.  But next time we want to bring kids.

Go Slytherin . . . I mean Green Knight! 

You can't tell but this horse has its hair braided.

I was princess for the day.

Our Shirley Temples came in these.

Our meager place setting.

The arena!

Our knight was the only one wearing mail.

Sean and his HALF a chicken.