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This weekend is the 78th annual Festival of Nations in St. Paul, so we decided we would check it out on Saturday and report back before the the event closes on Sunday evening.

Although it’s one of the longest-running ethnic festivals in the country, strangely neither Janey or I had even been. When I was growing up our school used to take groups there, but for some reason I always chose to skip.

So the four of us headed to St. Paul to check it out.

The Festival takes place at RiverCentre, so there was plenty of parking in the RiverCentre ramp. For some reason I thought we had parked just a few levels down from the skyway, and suggested it might be fun to walk up the ramps instead of taking the elevator. Our oldest was way into it and started bounding up the ramps. It didn’t take long for us to realize we were, in fact, about 7 floors down, so the day started with a bit of exercise. (Which turned out to be a good thing once we started checking out the food area later on.)

As we arrived, a bagpipe group started playing in the main performance area at the bottom of the escalator. I’m personally a fan of the pipes, but 4-year-old Vincent covered his ears the whole time! Adjacent to the performance area was an information booth staffed by some folks who didn’t smile much but were very helpful.

Just beyond the performance area is the food area, chock full of “Ethnic Cafes” representing foods from all over the world. Let’s be honest though, this area is far and away the least authentic of anything at the festival. It’s a sort of Epcot Center meets State Fair take on world cuisine. A world where most things are fried, almost everything is incredibly delicious, and no one cares whether any of it is good for you in any way. Which is to say it was awesome! Again, if you don’t take it too seriously its really great and we were actually surprised at how inexpensive the food was from some of these booths.

In the next area over was the Bazaar and Demonstrations area. For the most part, the places selling stuff were near the center, while the booths along the wall were giving various craft demonstrations.

For the kids, the demonstrations were the most interesting part. Dominic learned all about weaving, Vinny was dazzled by Origami and we saw a bunch of other stuff from paper-cut art to wood carving.

The Bazaar was selling a predictable mix of total junk and pretty cool stuff. A couple of the ones that I found funny and/or awesome:

The Malaysia booth, which was clearly going for a more modern take on the country’s fashions – selling graphic T-shirts and other pop-culture stuff.

The Finland booth where not one single item strayed from the traditional blue and white color scheme!

The was a secondary stage in back with more rotating music. As we walked by it was a couple playing duets on Didgeridoos.

Upstairs from the bazaar were the more earnest Cultural Exhibits and an area for Dance performances.

All-in-all we had an awesome time. Sunday is the last day, and I believe the Festival closes earlier that day – around 6. I think its worth the time if you haven’t been yet.