While picking Maddie and Taylor up yet again to head to the festival, jokes we made about the little crash from the day before. Today was our big day, however, today was the day were helping perfume the Lion Dance and show other visitors at the festival more about the Chinese culture, from what we have learned in class and from Kwan and Benny. The day didn’t start off well either, while leaving campus for the fairgrounds had only taken us 10 minutes the first day, and then 20 because of the crash the day before, today was a whole different story. While driving there were roadblocks everywhere, so I smart guy I tried to be was to go around to the far side and see of the street was opened up, sadly it wasn’t. the roads around campus were blocked because of the Marathon Race that was happening. So, this didn’t help us to try and get the fairgrounds in a quick manner. The next was the traffic on 38th street while on our way to the festival. To make a long story short, it to us from leaving campus at 11:20 to stepping into the festival at 12:15, for a trip that had only taken us 3 miles and it only took 10-20 mins the days before. This was heartbreaking, because this was out big day and we all felt so bad about the unfortunate incidents that led us to be late. Luckily, our other classmates were there earlier so the IACA had enough for the performance and parade. It was fun to see out fellow classmates enjoying the time of fully stepping into the culture and helping others to learn about the Lion Dance.
Overall, the experience I had was great at the festival, I was able to become closer to our fellow classmates because we were all in together trying to help the IACA and enjoy the festival. If I am in Indy next year during this festival, I will try my best to go back to see all of the vendors and just try to learn and soak up more from all the people that are so knowledgeable about the different cultures.
Until next time,
Patrick