Gizzy and I went to the annual festival held at Long Beach, California for the first time this year! The festival was a small event, but everything I basically expected-- the same crowd who attends the Renaissance Faire dressed as pirates, booths after booths of useless pirate merch, and in general, just kitschy, nerdy fun.



While we were there, the better entertainment was a band on stage. The band was pirate themed, of course, providing the audience with some fun, pirate rock music. Gizzy definitely appreciated the physiques of the members; and their music wasn't bad at all! Although, I didn't care enough to actually try and remember the band's name... Oops. Either way, I totally appreciated their tribute to They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard-- who knew I'd hear this song performed live? Ha!



We also tried the food there and was greatly disappointed at the meal we ended up purchasing. There was a booth serving all kinds of birds– chicken, quail, turkey... the quail wasn't bad, though it was pretty dry. The chicken leg we had was definitely dry without much taste. The sides of spanish-artichoke dip and rice were pretty bland as well. I wished I had tried the crepe booth instead! The festival's website promised BBQ type food, but there was none. We did try the funnel cake and that wasn't half-bad, though how can you really go wrong with fried desserts?

The food choices were definitely disappointing overall, which puts a damper on any event for me!



We were there for a couple of hours and on the way out, we stopped by the campsite for the Port Royal Privateers. These pirates were more hardcore, setting up an overnight camp on the beach and creating their own pirate-y characters. I thought they were really cool and we considered joining this camp party one day. It'll be fun to be overnight pirates at least once!

To wrap this event report up, let's not forget... the obligatory photo with Jack Sparrow (there were at least five of them at the festival that day).





For more photos, visit my flickr set!!!

Labels: event, pirate festival, pirates