You’ve seen our Bastille Day party pics, but Advocate photographer Brandy Barham caught some more action at Bastille on Bishop and writes:

I had no idea what Bastille Day was all about before heading out to the festival in Oak Cliff on Sunday. Though I’m still not sure of the true idea behind it, Oak Cliff’s French festival was far from a snooze fest.

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It had been alternating between sprinkling and raining in Dallas all morning, and I was worried the festival would be canceled. To my happy surprise, tents were still raised, wine was poured and good times were had. I brought my husband with me to share in the fun and the first booth we visited was Cigar Art of Oak Cliff with Ariel and Russ.

Ariel was hand rolling long leaf cigars before our very eyes. Though neither of us smokes, we have friends who do so after watching Ariel’s magic hands at work, we bought a few and continued exploring the rest of the festival.

We sampled food from several of the booths, including Eno’s “drunken mussels” and Bolsa’s Country Pate. We eventually ended up at the Crepe booth by Oak Cliff Creperie.  My husband, Ray, got in line and waited for nearly an hour for his crepe! While he waited, I watched a few of the street performers complete their tricks with hula hoops, juggling pins and other items. I also chased down a few balloon girls dressed up for the occasion.

All in all, not a bad outing for our first Bastille Day.  Even though we’re far from French, I never felt out of place, and there was always something new to discover.

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