Happy La Kermeese!
I'm watching them set up for the block party right now. We got front row seats to the concert and fireworks and we don't even have to leave to house! Can't get out the front door right now, cause there's a Slush Puppy machine and a hot dog stand in the sidewalk. The radio stations are setting up in front of my bedroom window. Such exicentment going on. I love it.
Wondering: Are any of you guys going to be here tonight?
For Those who don't know, it's a French festival celebrated in Maine. It celebrates the peace between Maine and Quebec and the mixed heritage of everyone that lives in the area. It's headquarters are in Biddeford Maine, which is a predominaty French town, and they close off all of Main Street and the off streets and turn the entire city into a giant carnival.
It looks like the entire population of Quebec is here right now, you should see the traffic!
A green frog is the symbol of the festival, and everyone has got frogs on their shirts and frog hats, and kids are winning stuffed frog prizes at the game stands.
This is our first year living in Biddeford (we used to live in Old Orchard Beach on the other side of the river), so we've never gotting to see it like this before. We've only seen it after it was open. It opens in a half hour, but they started setting up last night, so we've been watching the whole thing.
They have fireworks off the bridg at 9. We are in the first house off the bridge, overlooking the river, so the fireworks are going to be shot off just a few feet from my window. That ought to be interesting.
EDIT:
They just started. Right now they are singing the National Anthem of the US, they'll do the Canadian one next, and the one for Quebec. Everything the announcer says gets said twice, once in Engligh nd than again in French.
EDIT:
Only in Biddeford! There's a guy with a "trash pick up claw" going around picking up the trash that is grewing steadily on the streets. An elderly man with a cane just came walking by, waked the trash-picker-upper with the cane, and now the two men are duelinging, with cane and trash-pick-up-thing, like it was a sword fight.
EDIT:
I'm back again. Had to go out and watch what was going on out there. The fireworks just ended. Oh it was just amazing! The La Kermeese fireworks are the largest fireworks display in Maine... 4th of July has nothing on La Kermeese. The fireworks are so big andthey shoot them up so high that they can be seen over most of Southern York county. So we always see them no matter where we happen to be when they go off each year. But this year we are living in the first house off the bridge, right on the river's edge, so this year we got to see them up close. And boy did we see them up close! OMG! I've never seen fireworks so close before. They were shooting them off about 50 feet from our front door. I went out on the front porch to watch them. OMG! It sounded like there was a canoon in my brain! That thing they shoot fireworks out of is SO LOUD! Even with tens of thousands of people all talking at once and the big band music playing (live band too!) I couldn't hear them, all I could hear was the firework's canon-thing.
But seeing it was amazing! OMG! It was like we were right inside of the fireworks! They were going up straight over our heads. I've always seen fireworks from a distance, far off, away from the crowd; kind of on a hill "looking down" at the fireworks. But this time I was right underneath them!!!! Boy is that ever a change of perspective! Watching them fan out from underneath, was just undescribably amazing! I wish you guys could have seen it! I've never seen anything like that before!
Well, it's all done down, so I cam back in. The fireworks lasted a full half-hour, and ended with a big "atomic bomb" looking mushroom display that just kept going up higher and higher. It was beautiful! Now the band's playing again. It sounds like an old 1800's ciruse out there, they are playing the old carousel/carvial type music. Like what you hear on a merry-go-round, only it's being played live by a real band... and boy is it loud!
I love La Kermeese.
~~EK
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