After finishing the first week of school, some of you might feel that summertime fun and spontaneity has started to boil down. Unless, that is, you had the chance to visit the Festival of Nations held at Tower Grove Park this past weekend.

Paulina Gallagher

Festival goers enjoy delicious fried gourd from an Ethiopian food booth. The festival featured food from over 40 different countries, as well as crafts, merchandise and performances.

The festival is the ultimate combination of outdoor live music performances, food vendors and arts and crafts booths, all mixed together and spiced up with themes of cultural diversity and ethnic variety. During the summer, I had been a frequent visitor to Tower Grove Park because of its dynamic surroundings, mainly consisting of Yelp-famous restaurants and hipster coffee shops. Right in the park, food trucks from local restaurants line up to serve food every second Friday of the month over the summer and into the school year; the community farmers’ market greets and welcomes visitors every Saturday morning. Yet this past weekend, the annual Festival of Nations brought a whole new scene to the venue.

Hosted by the International Institute of St. Louis, the event is one of the largest multicultural celebrations in the city. According to its website, an estimate of more than 140,000 visitors attended this year to experience “the finest, most authentic and most diverse” ethnic performances, including Chinese calligraphy, Japanese origami (paper folding art) and Scottish clothing display. The organizer also provided a shuttle service running from a Saint Louis University parking lot through the park to the festival’s east entrance, ensuring convenience for those who do not trust the number 70 MetroBus.

The festival also featured craft and jewelry vendors representing different nations. I was super satisfied going home with my trophies: a pair of wooden Russian earrings, a Tibetan silver bracelet with semiprecious turquoise stones and a chunky gemstone ring from a Maghreb culture. All of these are all handmade, one-of-a-kind and a fraction of the price of the mass-produced “crude” bohemian jewelry you can get at Urban Outfitters. Plus, you learn some unexpected historical tidbits from booth to booth, culture to culture. For instance, the cowrie shell encased on that sterling silver ring was once used as currency in West Africa.

If you missed out on this year’s event, don’t worry—you don’t have to wait a whole year to get the souvenirs or taste the exotic cuisines from around the world. Frankly speaking, the event is of regional capacity and almost all of the vendors are from St. Louis, seeing the festival as a chance to promote their business. But the festival put all those cultural elements together in a simple, fun and exciting way: a medley of busy crowds, reluctant kids and happy dogs, interesting flavors and noises going on in the background.