Ugh, it's all travel. Or "travel events," whatever that means.
La Tomatina: Food-fight festival held annually in Bunol, Spai, involving over-ripe tomatoes....I'm perfectly content to allow multitudes of "locals" around the world to have their fun and work out their obsessions and fantasies without having me checking them out.
Devil Dancers of Corpus Christi: Locals dressed as devils dance under the tropical sun in church squares all over Venezuela each summer....
Hounen Matsuri: An annual Japanese fertility festival with a 7ft wooden phallus carried to a Shinto shrine....
Chung Yuan Ghost Month Festival: A celebration of dead spirits in Taiwan features the burning of paper money.
I'll just burn a few dollars here at home.
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careful now, ann's not in a humorous mood.
Before you die is a good time to do things.
Well, college football's on TV and Tannhäuser is on radio, so I'm in a great mood.
But no more "first" comments, I promise.
Before you die is a good time to do things.
Yeah, about all you can do afterwards is vote.
Here in Orlando, locals dressed as mice dance under the tropical sun.
I'm perfectly content to allow multitudes of "locals" around the world to have their fun and work out their obsessions and fantasies without having me checking them out.
I'll just burn a few dollars here at home.
Not very adventurous? You never wanted to travel to Africa, see a village, have your top ripped off and the whole upper half of your body painted so you can dance with the village women?
I don't blame you!
Local festivals and cultural experiences that are outside your own norms are the best experiences in the world, in my experience.
La Tomatina: Food-fight festival held annually in Bunol, Spai, involving over-ripe tomatoes....
Wow, first one quoted, and I've been/done!
Probably 99 to go...
*checks list*
(My grandmother was Austrian, and I had extensive waltz clases for this)
Vienna Opera Ball: Be seen at one of the most important events in Europe's social calendar.
(3 times)
Carnaval: Rio's vibrant street festival marks the beginning of Lent.
(As a wee kid, but I saw the photos)
New Year's Eve in Times Square: Enjoy Hogmanay in Manhattan.
(Everyone dresses in white on Reveillon, to honour the sea/macumba goddess, Iemãja)
Reveillon Rio: New Year's Eve knees-up on Copacabana Beach.
(Hmm, when written out like this, seems my parents loved to take me for special occasions. I wonder if they will have Mardi Gras...)
Venice Carnevale: Revellers don masks to enjoy the Venetian version of the Mardi Gras.
(My other grandmother was Scottish...)
Hogmanay: New Year's Eve knees-up in Scotland.
(I'm running out of grandmas)
Oktoberfest: Sixteen day-long beer festival in Munich every September.
(Here we go. Hi Beth!)
Mardi Gras: The United States' most famous carnival takes place on the streets of New Orleans.
(This is an event you can't miss??)
Chelsea Flower Show: The best of British blooming
(More like it. Punters take money on what colour hat the Queen will wear, on Ladies Day. I usually go with yellow, and I've won good money)
Royal Ascot: The dresses, the millinery, at one of the British social scene's most glamorous occasions
...okay, let me total it up. I'm kinda scared. Cover me!
11. So 89 to go.
Honestly, I've seen some of them and they're just stupid. There's an outside chance of me going to the Monaco Grand Prix or the Calgary Stampede. But Spamarama?
RIP Dave Freeman, but I'll make my own list.
Cheers,
Victoria
"Not very adventurous?"
I'm not interested being the kind of tourist who goes to see what the exotic "others" do.
A relatively local "locals" festival which is on my list of things not to do before I die (no matter how hard a particular co-worker tries to talk me into it each year; she's already started a couple of weeks ago): Turkey Testicle Festival.
Yeah, about all you can do afterwards is vote.
LOL!!
Annual first yellowing of the soybeans, Ohio pic
Fence-line poison ivy will take on color next week. The British were thinking of importing poison ivy for its fall colors. I don't know how this turned out. They already had nettle.
It's not about exotic others. That's a very loaded way to put it.
It's about experiencing things that you don't normally experience. Hence, an Alabama home football game, Festival Guanajuato in Mexico, and a bris have been some neat things for me.
I do strongly agree, though, that it's crass to standardize this kind of thing in a book. The currency of the whole idea is cheapened that way.
Remember a dream from start to finish and understand it!
I expect the list to contain 100 things to aspire to -- that is, to reach beyond our present selves.
Hell, anyone can travel.
The Ghost Month (Hungry Ghost Festival) isn't limited to Taiwan, by the way, if you ever intended to see such. In Singapore, for example, it takes to the extent of elaborate Chinese opera shows and getai (Wikipedia it) performances held at night for the ghosts (the paper burning part of the month is quite a bit more boring).
In any case, such lists aren't meant for everyone. Just people who care (i.e. those who love traveling). For example, dancing devils under the tropical sun is a tad more interesting than dancing mice.
Stop after the fifth potato chip.
As I said to my boss when the matter came up long ago, ``No travel.''
This is a simple matter of proper dog care, if nothing else.
Victoria, I am jealous.
Don't we all have our own list that we carry through life? Sailing the Agean, snorkling in the Caribbean, skiing the Alps, taking a riverboat down the Mississippi, a barge up the Nile, a donkey to Petra.... I shall add watching the Monarch butterflies to my list.
Victoria, I am jealous.
Christy, don't be!
My parents, like most Europeans, didn't own fancy cars or have their own big beautiful house like Americans do.
Travel is not seen as something exotic or worth saving up a lifetime for, but almost a birthright to an European. In Britian, we have "packages" to Spain that cost a few dollars, especially with coupons clipped out of the Sunday papers, and travel discounts by agencies.
My parents were young kids when I was being taken to all these places, also at the mercy of my dad's research profession. But when they got a little money, they still continued going all over the place...with no house in sight.
So though it sounds glamourous, and yes, sometimes it was (the Vienna Ball was, I admit), remember a wee little girl was yanked to-and-fro by her parents' travel mania, and sometimes she really just wanted a nice big house to come to.
Grass is always greener, yes? :)
Thanks for reminding me Ann. I haven't kissed anyone yet today.
Seven Machos said... "It's not about exotic others. That's a very loaded way to put it."
My daily list includes:
1. Put something in a very loaded way that riles somebody up.
When I was a young paratrooper, I wanted to go to Bangkok, Thailand. Since I fulfilled my wants and dreams, when I die, I have to go to Pergatory for a while.
1. Take the bait from Althouse.
See a re enactment of Custer's Last Stand. Custer got to cross that off his list.
Annual first yellowing of the soybeans, Ohio pic
Done that. Reminds me of my youth, growing up next to a soybean field in NEO.
Giant plastic pixi stix straws, clipped on both ends and emptied of contents, make the best soybean shooters.
LOL, William. You always say the canniest things.
"... whatever that means."
"Travel events" = any happenings that ain't where you is.
lol@Anne
Wait, do you REALLY have that on your "daily list"? Oh, man, that kills all the spontanaity....
Traveling someplace just for the purpose of checking it off a list of things to do and so you can tell other people "I was there, man" is pretty lame.
Things for Ann to do before dying:
1. Look up the word neutrality and try to understand it.
2. Take an entire day and do something for others.
3. Record one of those bloggingheads things without trying to imitate Annie Hall.
Things for Victoria to do before she dies:
1. Eat a Twinkie
2. Throw herself into a mosh pit
3. Get to read Althouse without a troll slagging off the hostess
100. Read Finnegan's Wake all the way to the end, and then blog about it
Some people have checklists. Others have lives.
Wait, I know the answer to this one.
You won't need a cab to find a priest
Maybe you should find a place to stay
Some place where they never change the sheets
And you just roll around Denver all day
No, wait, that's "Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead".
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