Fascinating+Festivals

 FASCINATING FESTIVALS
=The 5 Most Interesting Festivals from Around the World =

No matter the country or culture that you visit around the world, you’ll definitely find a few similarities. It might be a love of food. It might be a rich history of folklore and myth. Or—it might be a love of festivals. Every culture around the world loves a good party. Now, let’s take a look at the top 5 festivals and feasts from around the world.  **1. La Tomatina – Spain ** Spain takes “food fights” to a whole new level. The town of Buñol, in the autonomous community of Valencia in central and south-eastern Spain, hosts La Tomatina every year. Like many festivals around the world, La Tomatina involves food. But the food is being thrown, not eaten. La Tomatina takes places during the last Wednesday in August, right in the middle of the hot Spanish summer. People gather in the Plaza del Pueblo around a pole greased with animal fat. The pole also has a ham on top. While people climb the pole to knock down the ham, revelers celebrate in the square and are showered by water hoses. Once someone knocks the ham from the pole, the real frenzy begins. Trucks spill tomatoes into the square. Celebrants rush to the tomatoes and throw them into the crowd. People crush the tomatoes in their hands before throwing, since no one wants to be hit with a rock-hard tomato. Goggles are also recommended to avoid injury. The tomato fight lasts for exactly one hour. Afterwards, fire trucks hose down the square that had been completely covered in tomato juice.

**2. Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake – England ** This next festival is celebrated on the last Monday in May. It takes place on Cooper’s Hill, near the small village of Brockworth in the hilly Cotswalds of England. The Cheese-Rolling event is celebrated in the exact way that you think it would be, given its name. A large wheel of aged, semi-hard Gloucester cheese is rolled down Cooper’s Hill. The festival is actually a race where competitors run down the hill after the rolling cheese. The first person to cross the finish line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese. The event is over 200 years old, and not without its dangers. Though it might seem harmless, the rolling cheese can reach nearly 70 mph (112 kph). You definitely wouldn’t want to be knocked over by a high-speed cheese wheel.

**3. Burning Man – United States ** The Burning Man festival is unlike any other. It spans a week from the Monday before Labor Day, to Labor Day (which falls on the first Monday in September in America). The festival takes place in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. Essentially, Burning Man is a festival where participants, many of whom are artists, participant radical forms of self-expression and community. The festival is focused on the burning of a large effigy of a man at the end of the festival. The ritual burning symbolizes freedom for the participants. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">The festival follows 10 principals: radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, radical inclusion, decommodification, communal effort, leaving no trace, gift-giving, civic responsibility, immediacy, and participation.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;"> **<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">4. Holi – India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka ** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">Holi is a festival with religious origins, important to Hindu worshippers. The festival likely originated in the Bengal region of the Indian Subcontinent. It is celebrated throughout the world, where there are large populations of Hindus. The main day of the festival takes place on the day of the last full moon in winter—falling on a day either in February or March. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">Holi is a day that is awash in color. Participants gather and throw colored powders and water at each other. The colored powders have traditional significance in Ayurvedic medicine and were historically derived from medicinal plants. Different parts of the subcontinent celebrate Holi in unique ways—with certain songs and dances—but the main theme is the same. Lots of fanfare and a multitude of colors.

**<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">5. The Songkran Festival, Thailand ** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">The Songkran Festival is the celebration of the New Year in Thailand. Rather than a single day, Thailand celebrates the New Year from April 13th to April 15th. Songkran is an important part of Thai identity, and one of the many reasons why foreigners travel to the beautiful land. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">Songkran is celebrated two ways: with water and thanks. One aspect of Songkran is that Thai people chase after each other with water guns or containers of water and douse each other. Or, they might wait in the road with garden hoses to splash passersby. Good thing, too, since this celebration takes place during the hottest time of the year in Thailand. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">During this festival many Thai people visit Buddhist monasteries to pray and give thanks. Traditionally, respect and thanks are also given to elders during this time of the year. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">Henley-on-Todd Regatta, Australia <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">This particular festival is a one-of-a-kind boat race. It’s the world’s only boat race that is held on dry land. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">The Henley-on-Todd Regatta is held on the dry, sandy bed of the Todd River—a river which is only flooded a small percentage of the year—in the Northern Australian town of Alice Springs. The boat race is a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the original British settlers of the country and the excessively formal atmosphere of British river races. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%; text-align: justify;">For the race, fake boats are constructed out of metal frames, or things as varied as cars, bathtubs, and old yachts. Then, costumed rowers race their vessels across the sand. Near the end of the race, organizers bombard racers with flour bombs and water.