I interrupt this consecutive series of events to bring you an important update: H-DAYS

My trip to the east will have to wait. I must tell about heritage days!

August 1st was the Heritage Day holiday in Alberta, and that whole weekend featured the 36th annual heritage festival at Hawrelak Park

Klausen, Ben, Myself, Dave

I'll rewind a little bit and start from the beginning. The four of us had been trying to get together for weeks and the stars aligned for this to happen. I actually didn't have to work the holiday like normal people! So we had the whole day planned. We were going to start the morning early and head to the park, and then stop home to take the dogs for a quick walk (Dave and Kassie let us leave Aphids at their house for the day so we wouldn't have to go all he way home), and then head to the Art Gallery of Alberta to catch the Andy Warhol exhibit which is ending soon. Things didn't go as planned (as usual) because of this…

Dave wouldn't be impressed that there's legit evidence of him playing this unnamed game

Meanwhile… Kassie and I watched like 2 hours of Drop Dead Diva (have you seen it? SO good. In a cheesy way of course, but it's the sole reason I got the free trial of Netflix)

So yeah. 2 hours later… we get going (at this point we decide to axe the gallery because there just wouldn't be enough time, and also because we walked/took the train there when we were planning on driving there)

Have you noted Ben's man purse? Good. He's really proud of it. 

He keeps his baseball cards and bubble gum in there.

Dave and Kass live approx. 20 minute walk to the nearest train station. 

We had to walk up the biggest hill ever, and through the ledge where Ben got the most AMAZING hot dog from a fat franks vendor (even though we were on our way to gorge ourselves with food from dozens of other countries). So after the LRT it was probably another 20 minute walk, and then we were there. It's hard to know what to do first because there's so much to do and see, you don't want to leave anything out, and you don't want to use all of your tickets, and fill up before you know what else is out there. Like most food festivals it was a ticket system. You buy your tickets and then go to the various "countries" and use them for food items. Most main dish items were 4-12 tickets. 

Dave was really concerned about his posture

We pretty much spent the whole day there, consuming some of the most delicious food known to man. Lets just say that I have an overwhelming desire to go to Israel for mostly the food. If i ate falafel with hummus and pita for the rest of my life, I would die a happy gal.

Israel you are delicious

Besides the amazing food, there were pavilions with people selling little trinkets, 

and teaching about their culture, and stages with dancers!

Dad would have LOVED Scandinavia. There were SO many Charlie Brown Christmas trees 

(which I now know that they are actually traditional for Scandinavian Christmas') 

All in all it was such a fun day. It was the first festival I'd experienced this summer. The Fringe started last night so we'll definitely go there, but i'm super bummed that I missed the street performers. 

Please disregard my unflattering position

Ben was SO excited about his empanada from Ecuador

Ethiopia

Vikings

I felt so sorry for this man in the ship… It was so hot out and it looked like he was getting a sun burn

This picture was taken right before Kassie literally walked into Mike and Alaina!

This next series of photos is quite possibly my favourite… 

Kassie gets a hug from the "Free Hugs!" guy

The group starts to close in on her. Notice her face? She looks scared

Now it's a group hug

FREE HUGS

Cuba you are SO DELICIOUS! This was my biggest investment. It was 11 tickets and so much food I couldn't finish it all. I wish there was a dipping sauce for the fried plantains

This work of art was done at India. The girl was awesome and I wish I got her business card. It was $20 and it went down my arm too! Below is the end result the next morning. I had to sleep with it on.

Dave making crepes. As if we hadn't eaten enough food already.

The night ended with a long journey back to Dave and Kassie's where we hung out a little more, and Dave made crepes! We were going to get crepes at France, but after seeing them made, we decided we could make better (which he did) and for free!