which country should we go to tonight?

This was our question for two weeks straight.  In Winnipeg there's a fabulous two week event called Folklorama.  During these two weeks there are various "pavilions" to visit, each representing the history, culture, food & dance of a particular country or region.  We went to as many as week as we could squeee into our busy schedule (this was also the two weeks that Dan & Jenn went home to BC, so we were also ripping our their leaky shower and trying to fix it, and put everything back together before they got home and to give credit where credit is due, the only thing I helped with was the painting, Michael did it all).

The reason we were determined to make the most of it is because Michael won passes!  Normally it's a $5 entrance fee per person.  Michael had been listening to the radio and the station was giving away passes every morning.  So he listened everyday on the way to work and called in to answer the impossible question.  One day he got through and had the right answer!  There were a few other things included in the package (to follow in other posts).  These passes gave us unlimited access to all the pavilions for the entire two weeks.

We went to the Korean pavilion to experience something that would be totally unfamiliar to us.  They had very cute little kids do some dancing for us.   And some drumming, it was crazy loud, but also really neat to see how much fun they had and witness such precision and speed. I can't remember exactly what these dancers were called, but it was fascinating to watch the fans twirl around and make amazing shapes and configurations.   Some of which were recongnizable, like this one of some mountains.   After hearing that the Brazil pavilion was a must see, we went.  It was a very warm evening in a building that is a curling rink in the winter, so it was very hot & humid in there.  There was a native martial arts/dance troupe who did some amazing stuff (can you see that guy in the air?) and came in all the way from Brazil. Another local group that did some dancing for us.   The name of the instrument escapes me, but it made a pretty interesting sound (something kind of like a warbly guitar)

This is Michael and I at the Alpine pavilion (Bavaria, Switzerland & Austria).  Cute couple, eh? Have you heard of handbells?  Well, this was a set of tuned cow bells, used to play a song in the same fashion as hand bells.  This was pretty cool to watch.   The famous horn.  These sounded absolutely amazing! In the dances they did for us, the men were definitely center stage.  It was pretty lively, and even humorous.  At one point the pulled the bench out from each other as they tried to sit down and were "slapping" each other across the face in drunken craziness.   One evening I went to Scotland with Malann and Sofia.  I didn't really manage to take any more pictures than this one of me holding Sofia (which I didn't even take).  She's wearing the top I made her, isn't it cute!

This was Paraguay, the bottle dance.  I know the picture is crappy, but those are bottles on her head and they had so many on there, the guy was standing on a ladder to put the last few on (I think the total was a dozen).  This pavilion had tons of familiar stuff, from yerba to the lama fur floor mats and so on, and other things that I've seen all my life at my grandparent's house.

This was the menu at the Ukraine pavilion.  These were also foods that were familiar, at least some of them.  The dancing at the pavilion was pretty amazing.

We also went to the following countries but were too lazy to take pictures or they just did not turn out.  The Greek Pavilion, where we felt like we were surrounded by the family from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and could smell amazing food.  The Argentina "Tango" pavilion (which Michael almost didn't make it to, because he dropped one of our passes at the previous pavilion, thankfully Winnipeg is full of honest people and someone had turned it in).  We also went to the Pearl of the Orient pavilion, which had some pretty interesting dancing that involved long poles on the ground that were being moved as the dancers stepped in between and then out of them.  The  India pavilion, which again had incredible smelling food, a huge amount of advertising and some I think pretty famous Bollywood dancers, it was very loud and I was so done by the time it was over.   The Africa pavilion was our last pavilion of the whole two weeks and because I was so tired, I really can't tell you much, except there was dances representing various countries within Africa, and I felt like a minority because my skin was white, it felt very weird to stand out like that.  

PS:  Colleen, if you were at all serious about making a trip to MB next summer, you should so come during Folklorama, you guys would love it!