5 UNUSUAL CUSTOMS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

When you travel around the world you will encounter several cultures or rituals that seem odd, crazy, strange or even bizarre to you. Sometimes you will find it hard to understand them, whereas those rituals seem perfectly fine to the followers of that specific culture. However there is one thing you should keep in mind when observing these traditions. That is that all those rituals all over the world have always one thing in common: each ritual perfectly expresses the local culture.

To give you some insight into this subject we created a list of 8 strange traditions in the world:

1. La Tomatina in Spain

Always dreamed of a real-life food fight? Well your dream might come true at this tradition in Spain. La Tomatine is the biggest tomato fight in the world, annually held in the Valencian town of Buñol in Spain on the last Wednesday of August. Everyone on the streets throws tomatoes to each other, just for fun. You need to buy a ticket in advance to join the tomato fight.

2. Cheese-rolling in England

This tradition is already held for 200 years in Gloucester. Each year on the last Monday in May, participants stand on top of the Coopers Hill waiting for an enourmous wheel to roll a Double Gloucester Cheese off the hill. When the cheese starts rolling, everyone tries to chase it while slipping, tripping and tumbling down the way. The first one who catches the cheese can keep it!

3. Throwing cinnamon at single people in Denmark

When you turn 25 years old, are unmarried and celebrating it in Denmark we advice you not to wear your best cloths. In Denmark it is a tradition that your friends ambush you on your birthday with a cinnamon shower all day. If that isn’t already bad enough, you should see what happens 5 years later when you turn 30 and you still haven’t been married. The spice is upgrated to pepper!

4. Sweet Coins in Bolivia

If you like pie and sweet desserts you should celebrate New Year’s Eve in Bolivia. All the pastry shops and bakeries prepare delicious cakes and desserts for this evening. However these cakes are not all normal cakes. In some of them you will find a coin. They believe that whoever finds a coin in their pastry will have endless good luck in the new year. So prepare yourself to taste many cakes this evening.

5. Krampus night in Austria

Merry – or not so merry – Christmas, you decide when traveling to Austria or Hungary with Christmas. There you will meet Krampus, the Bad Santa. It is a half-goat, half-demon who scares children into being nice and not naughty. According to the folklore, Krampus shows up in towns the night before December 6 which is known as Krampusnacht. During this night people get dressed as Krampus, as scary as possible, and celebrate the festival at the streets. So maybe the Christmas Carol “Santa Claus is coming to town” was right… “You better watch out”.

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