Kris has monday and tuesday of this coming week off. We were dying to go someplace exciting and do something fun, but sometimes that kind of stuff just doesn't fit into the budget. No matter how hard you try to squish and squeeze and stretch things.
So we decided on a "staycation." We decided we'd commit to doing a bunch of fun things and not let anything talk us out of it.
So, to kick off our long staycation weekend we went to Waterfire.
You might be wondering what the heck "Waterfire" is. Well, I'm going to tell you.
It's this weird thing they do in downtown Providence. It's like a publicity/entertaining the public kind of thing. And when we first moved it it was all anybody could talk to us about. Everyone we met, when they heard we'd just moved to Providence, would say, "Oh, have you seen that watahfayah yet? Oh man, you gotta go and see that watahfayah."
We didn't ever do it last year. It just looked like such a pain to park and it was always past Max's bedtime. And if you think I'm wasting a babysitter on watahfayah you are sadly mistaken.
On friday night they were having a special NCAA tourney edition Waterfire. It's because some of the games have been played in the Dunkin' Doughnuts Center downtown, so I guess there are probably some extra tourists. Anyway, in fitting with our Staycation attitude, we thought we'd go down there and check it out. That way we could say we'd been before we moved. Since, evidently, it's so darn important.
So what happens is, you join a bunch of other people. Tons of people. Down by the river somewhere. There's new agey kind of music playing over a bunch of big speakers someplace. And there are some pyre looking things in the river with piles of wood on top. Then some people come down the river in a boat and light the wood piles.
Max thought it was interesting.
So interesting in fact that I kept a tight hold on his hood most of the time we were down there.
We walked over towards another part of the river where there was a big circle of fires already lit. It was pretty cool looking, but the wind kept blowing the smoke around. It was kind of like the campfire smoke problem, but on a much larger scale.
Anyway, there was a weird guy there, shirtless and bald except for a long ponytail. He was swinging fire around at the end of chains. He was pretty much the most exciting thing about the whole night. They put him on one of the boats and he went around the circle, swinging his fire as he went.
We watched him go around the circle and then Max had to go to the bathroom. And I was glad, because really there was nothing else to see! Somehow though, the Waterfire was still going to go on for about 3 more hours.
It's a strange event. Very odd.
But of course, it's great we went. And the weather was so nice. And the city was pretty in the dark.
(the moon over the big mall)
So there you go. That's Waterfire. Done and done.
