Folkorama: Croatian Pavilion
On Wednesday, Aug 6 2008, 6:45pm, Diana and I went to the Croatian pavilion for Folkorama. Admission was the usual 10$ for two people. Although though the food line was short it moved slowly, a lot of people had questions about what consisted of for a combo (two meats, mashed potatoes,coleslaw, and bread, so even though there were only about twenty people in line, it moved slower than the Italian line, which is always crammed full (must be the pizza, people can't resist melted cheese). For dessert I really wanted the crepes with jam, but was told they were all out, so I settled for crepes with cheese instead. The crepes were still really good, and was easily the dish of the night. The rest of the food was good as well, though the potatoes seemed too plain, and the 'cabbage roll?' was a little too sour for me.
The show was great, and the kids that were dancing up on stage were adorable. The instruments were extraordinary, sounding as if they were being professionally played, for all I knew they were professionals. The slide show in between dances gave us a little but of the culture, though it took a bit to warm up to it. The presentation, had a nice voice over, though the actual slides seemed very thrown together, using only one slide transition between all the slides, and sometimes the voice over seemed a little off. My favourite dance was easily the instrument free dance, where the only sound was the dancers feet hitting the ground and their singing. Unfortunately without an instrument people didn't know to shut up, and it was hard to hear the feet actually hitting the stage, although the singing was still quite loud, and very beautiful in its chant like harmonics. Finally when an instrument started in, everyone shut up like a bunch of sheep controlled strangely by a stick vibrating across a bunch of strings attached to a hollow wooden block.
All in all Diana and I had a good time, though we were a little annoyed at the people who didn't know when to be quiet, and I was a little disappointed I didn't get my crepes with jam, though I guess it's popularity shows, making me think I must of really missed out. I think for the future, they should have a sign saying what choices you get with the combo, to help speed up the food line. Also when it came time to exit it was hard to tell which way to go, signs pointing to the exit would of been helpful, though there was a boy standing outside to direct everyone to the exit, through the souvenir stands no less, it felt I was being headed off to make them a little bit more money; a feeling I didn't really like so I got out of there right away. I would come back, but mostly just for the crepes and the singing, the rest of the venue didn't really interest me.
