Midsommar Festival

Feeding my new fascination with street festivals, I headed up to the Midsommar Festival in Andersonville, where I met up with cousins to do the prowl.

Unlike Mayfest, there were a variety of tents pitched to sell all sorts of goodies. It was exciting to see hippie goods available in the City. Being a hippie-at-heart, I miss the ready availability of tie-dye that I enjoyed in Charlottesville. The coolest items were a selection of lamps made from recovered retro trash. And I see a coffee-pot torchier in someone's wedded bliss future...

Last week we were all honorarily German as we drank big plastic steins of HB. This week we became Swedish. But in lieu of a specific ethnic menu, there was the Great Big Stand of Festival Food. Every kind of street fair junk you could possibly want, from meat on a stick to funnel cakes to cheese fries to creamsicle floats. After walking up the tents on Clark, we stopped at the GBSFF. I ended up with a mediocre gyro with great fries. S. had a funnel cake. And N. tried the pina colada in a pineapple. The whole notion of drinking a ridiculous(ly yummy) beverage out of a fruit just tickled me. As did the fact that it was my boy cousin who ordered it.

(mmm, tropical goodness...)

We sat on the curb with our snacks, listening to a U2 cover band, before escaping the festival in favor of a quieter wine bar that played Lily Allen and Michael Jackson. Although none of us ordered wine. I was tempted by a glass of Malbec, which is harder to come by around here, but ended up enjoying the opportunity to order a girly drink with impunity.

on the iPod: "This is Heaven to Me" - Madeleine Peyroux