The thread for weird regional holidays

I think it was Robin Walker's plan all along.

I am with secretary . Shrove Tuesday is fasnacht day, and it makes me glad I grew up a little bit Pennsylvania Dutch. This year, we had a new local bakery (not a chain!) open up, and when secretary drove by, they had a big sign out advertising real fasnachts (like you see in the picture in the wiki link). She brought home a big box, and they were fantastic. Because they use potato flour, they are a little denser than a regular doughnut, but not as dry and crumbly as a cake doughnut.

Here are all my photos from yesterday's parade and celebrations.

Some highlights:

Yesterday was Uzgavenes, they burned Morė and baked pancakes at school and everything! I didn't get to do anything because we were supposed to be writing an essay in class, though -.-
Here's someone's photos of the event I found on tumblr.
Also, we have fasnacht too then - though of the Polish variety. It's called a 'spurga' here! Considering fried cured fat is called spirgučiai, I think we just call everything fried similar names.

I had to Google that, and now I want them. On a related note: I didn't think reading this thread while hungry would be so bad. I was wrong.

I googled them too, and they seem to look kind of like žagarėliai o.o
They apparently translate to this, although I meant ones that look more like this rather than the ones in the wikipedia entry...

I think we can all agree Valentine's Day is both weird and stupid.

but not necessarily regional.

I'm sure there are parts in the world that don't do Valentine's Day, so it's regional enough to bitch about.

Valentines day here just means schoolchildren get to stick heart stickers one everyone they know.
In other news, today is our independence day~! Woo :D
There are flags everywhere

In Italy people celebrated St Valentine and Halloween because it's cool.

Carnival instead has historical roots has a form of protests, but every region has its own version and celebrates it in different weekends. Basically it's about having parades and fun.
And dressing up, unless you are the kind who has fun by throwing eggs and shaving foam at each other/buildings/cars/random people.
(It's Carnival, so everyone gets a free pass!)

In the North we celebrate St Fermin in October. Originally was about senior students signing first-years students and doing pranks or worse, now it's just about anyone signing everyone/everything - after asking, unless they're assholes.
I have no idea about why this happened. But it was fun!

This thread is great. I'm going to Europa later in the year- is there any holiday I need to plan my trip around? I mean, I wouldn't want to get back and realise I've missed out on something like this:

Depends on where in Europe you're going - there's a reason the thread is about weird REGIONAL holidays. We don't share most of them.
And most here in the more civilized boring part of Western Europe are celebrated by going home and getting drunk with family.

Holidays on Europa are somewhat eccentric thanks to its synchronous rotation period due to its tidal lock with Jupiter. Still, every other day people enjoy watching Io streak across the Jovian surface and of course no trip to Europa would be complete without taking in the annual Callanish Crater Heritage Days (annual meaning it happens every three and a half days) or the Taste of Europa celebration at the Sidon Flexus. Make sure to take in some subsurface oceanic ice fishing at the Conamara Chaos, though I wouldn't eat any of the local game as it's all gross and toxic and may not exist. Of course all of your major Jovian holidays are celebrated but given that the calendar is just over eleven Earth years long, you probably won't be there for any of them. Well, actually Jovian Flag Day is coming up in 2014.

Yes, it is a moon. My family is from Serbia and at home we like to poke fun at ourselves by speaking Serblish, or Englian. But to everyone else we probably sound like dickheads, ha.

Clearly I will have to find a family! I am visiting friends in London and family in Serbia and Russia, but I'm really keen to travel around a bit, too, so if there is some wonderful thing happening in any small place I'm interested!

London has no notable holidays of note. But if you're around in July-September, the BBC Proms (classical concert series) at the Royal Albert Hall can be enjoyed for as little as £5 per ticket if you don't mind the fact that you don't have a seat. There's usually heaps of stuff going on at the South Bank Centre in the summer as well. www.timeout.com/london has good listings of what's on.