York is currently finishing its annual Viking Festival. Essentially, it's an extravaganza whereby tons of booths selling international food are set up, and then a whole bunch of actors dressed up as Vikings walk through the streets and pretend to fight one another with heavy swords.
Jen and I and Tyler walked into the city centre today to explore more of it, and what most fascinated our son was not the Vikings--although he did get to hold one of the heavy metal swords, which he immediately termed The Sword in the Stone--but a purple man.
After strolling side streets and saying hello to people, Tyler asked repeatedly to see the purple man again.
The Purple Man.
He sits on a bike in the middle of a shop-laden street, frozen mid-motion and covered in purple paint. His shoelaces are painted as thoguh fluing backwards from the wind--as is his tie, strings from his hat, and the lapels of his coat.
The only thing that isn't purple on the Purple Man are his eyes.
Tyler stood (and then sat) transfixed by the Purple Man, and all he could ay was, "Purple Man! Purple Man!" When thew Purple Man gave Tyler a high-five, we had thought every uptruck in the vicinity had come to do a choreographed dance.
Such was the excitement, wonder, and awe on Tyler's face.
A man. And some color.
The day also held some baklava, an apple cream-filled turnover, and a grande coffee with cream from Starbucks. It even held a visit to the library bookfair and a trip to the Yorkshire Musuem (where Tyler was more fascinated by the leaves he could see through the window than historical dates)--but of it all, the Purple Man was hands-down the coolest thing we saw.
