A couple of weekends ago I headed to uptown Charlotte with four of my friends for the 17th annual Indian Festival.  We were blissfully unaware that there was a in-state rivalry college football game going on the same day and with equal ignorance I happened to wear the colors of one of the teams…oops!  The town was painted with gold and purple splashed up against garnet & black, and that was just the tailgaters, we had not even gotten to the Indian Festival yet and the city was awash with color!  I was thankful for the fact that my Baltimore raised house mate was navigating the insane traffic in the city and not me.  I’m sure it would have been funny to watch me trying to get my GPS on my phone to work, Raquelle navigating traffic and trying to avoid hitting any pedestrians, and my friend Sarah calling out directions from the back seat.  We finally found a parking spot, made our way past all of the girls in fancy team-colored dresses balancing 24 packs of beer on their hips, past the man singing blues on the street, to the tent lined street of the Indian Festival.

My friends, being hungry, made a beeline for the food vendors who were quite happy to lure in a bunch of pretty girls.  The man in the polo with the popped collar was one of their salesmen who would go out and wander in the crowd and try to draw you in to order from them.  I loved the fact that I didn’t have to order one of their listed specials, I could just tell him how much I wanted to spend and what I wanted and he would “hook me up with a deal.”

We had to change our money in for tokens in order to purchase anything at the festival.

After the food we wandered around and took in the sights and sounds of the festival.

I love all of the colors and textures in Indian clothing!

There were various cultural performances that were going on while we were there.

These were the Krishna Robot Dancers.

Bollywood Dancers

Look at all that color!!

Welcome to the South y’all.  I loved the contrast between this girl’s outfit and the other people walking by.

These men were doing Indian karaoke reading lyrics off an iPad.  Pretty fun!

My lovely friends who went uptown with me!  Having fun and goofing off dancing to the music!

(L-R) Raquelle, Sarah, & Rachel

Our other friend Lisa – who was visiting from Germany.

Overall it was quite a fun day!  We went on to discover a new coffee shop and eat a laaaate dinner at a favorite pub where we had a real Irish waiter!  What a day of multi-cultural experiences!