So your scored the tickets and made your way to the festival. A few friends had shown interest in joining up but when the time came, they all bailed.

All this matters little because the sun is shining, Santigold is on stage, the ecstasy (that you were supposed to be splitting among pals) is kicking in hard and to be honest, you may have some mental dissorders.

You're dancing your ass off when some guy starts gettin' down with his bad self right next door. He's a pretty cool looking dude and chances are, he's just here to mock you but at this point nothing short of a horde of evil space-chupacabras is going to harsh your buzz.

Oh who's joined the party? Is that a hairy John Belushi I see? Nice to see you laying out some solid funk, Mr. hairy-Belushi.

Party of five to join in? Oh, let me see if I've got a table. Oh yes, please proceed to get down.

Now what's this? Just nothing but a FULL ON EPIC DANCE PARTY.

Dance on, Sasquatch Music Festival Guy, dance fucking on.

Valencia, Spain
La Despertà the beginning of Fallas 2009 -The last Sunday in February boasts one amazingly loud display making this one of the most dramatic festivals in the world. Firecrackers in the hands of thousands of people 7:30 am on a Sunday morning. The aftermath is a cloud of smoke and ringing ears.

“The last Sunday in February is a huge, busy day in the city. Not all Sundays are like this. And in Valencia, the last Sunday in February manages to achieve the polar opposite. It’s 7:30 in the morning, and you’re on the streets, in the middle of World War III.

The Despertà is Valencia’s annual wake-up call for Fallas — the region’s most important festival and one of the biggest in the world. At 7am, thousands of people belonging to organized groups (Fallas Commissions) gather at Parterre Park (location) to collect their ammunition bags for an assault on the city’s sleeping populace. And at 7:30am sharp, all hell breaks loose.”

“These freaks just start throwing firecrackers everywhere.
And I’m not talking cute
cherry bombs. This is the real shit. 15 seconds into the “parade”, a piece of shrapnel caught me just under the eye. An ugly, fat kid laughed at me before throwing a mini-grenade under my feet. A zombie-eyed homeless guy snuck up behind me, then offered me a firecracker. I think I screamed, I’m not sure, my ears were reverberating, reality seemed skewed.”source link

Ivrea Carnival

The Battle of the Oranges, Ivrea, Italy
Italy stages its biggest food fight each  February in the Piedmont town of Ivrea, where thousands gather each year before Lent to re-enact a medieval battle by hurling oranges at each other. By the end of it the entire town is awash with Vitamin C.

Orange fetishists are well advised to visit the northern Italian town of Ivrea, 35 kilometers from Turin, on the Sunday before Lent when the townsfolk stage their annual Battle of the Oranges, the country’s largest fruit fight.

It involves around 3,000 revellers on foot and in carts drawn by decorated horses and lasts for three days, after which everyone is covered in pulp and orange juice, and the streets are slippery with squashed orange peel.
The ceremony, part of the town’s historic carnival, marks the rebellion of the people against tyrannical lords who ruled the town in the Middle Ages. Each year a carnival mascot is chosen from the town’s school children to play “Violetta”, a beautiful girl who in medieval times refused the advances of a lord and came to represent the victory of freedom over tyranny.

More at Spiegel-source.



Ivrea Carnival

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