SunFest is Florida's largest music, art and waterfront festival. Held annually the first weekend of May, SunFest 2006 will be May 4 through May 7. With the second annual All Access Party on Wednesday, May 3rd. The festival takes place in downtown West Palm Beach along Florida's Intracoastal Waterway, extending along Flagler Drive from Banyan Boulevard to Lakeview Avenue. Each year, SunFest attracts more than 300,000 people over five days.

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Every year the Randwick cheese roll event takes place, the cheeses - usually three double Gloucester are rolled mystically and anticlockwise around the Church after being blessed and the rolling of the cheeses supposedly wards off evil spirits. The cheeses are then rolled. The rules are quite simple, all participants gather at the top of a very steep hill and attempt to catch a 25 pound bouncing bomb of dairy produce as it is released down the hill. Now, this all sounds very easy, chasing a piece of cheese down a hill, how hard can it be? Very! The hill is so steep that sprinting becomes an impossibility and as you feel your legs give way you find yourself cart wheeling towards the bottom amongst a mass of bodies.

But Randwick doesn't leave the bizarre events at that, the following Saturday boasts the 'Randwick Wap'. The days main highlight is the parade of hundreds of costumed townsfolk and musicians winding their way throughout the town to the 'Mayor's Pool'.

Keep away from the leader of the procession known as the 'Top Man' who waves a wet mop in the faces of anyone who dares get in his way. Also carried above the procession is the local Mayor and the elected Festival Queen, who are escorted along by an entourage of flag boys, a Princess, a sword bearer, a main flag man and a host of 'cheese bearers'- Not something you see every day! When the procession reaches it's final destination, a pond, the Mayor is the unceremoniously dunked. As you may expect, after the procession and the dunking has been completed it's time for the partying to start which can continue in to the early hours.

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Kinetic Sculptures are amphibious, human powered works of art. Each May, Kinetic Sculptures from the eastern United States convene at the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) on Baltimore's Inner Harbor for the East Coast Championship race. In 1999, Baltimore held its first Kinetic Sculpture Race (KSR), sponsored by AVAM.

You can come to AVAM early to see all the sculptures in their original glory, before being sullied by mayhem or mishaps. You will see the Kinetinauts frantically working on last-minute whatnot. But don't disturb them, they're busy!

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The town of Nimbin, nestled in the sub-tropical foothills of the eastern edge of an extinct volcano in the rainbow region of Northern NSW, is known as the 'Alternative Capital of Australia'.

Nimbin provides an example to the world of how communities working together can find creative, sustainable solutions to the many environmental and socio-economic dilemmas facing us all as we plunge into the new millennium.

The Nimbin community comes together for celebration during the first weekend of May. Autumn is a time for harvest of summer produce before the winter chill sets in.

The Mardigrass Festival is a colourful, musical feasting affair. A highlight is the Mardigrass Parade with its gunja fairies, dancing down the main street in their fanciful costumes.

Market stalls selling their wares and many culinary tastes, musicians and performers entertaining and all this with a large dose of humour in the form of the Hemp Olympics.

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Jerba (also spelled Djerba) is an island off the coast of southern Tunisia, the fabled home of the lotos-eaters of classical antiquity. It has an ancient Jewish community, concentrated in two villages known as Hara Kbira and Hara Sgira (the Great Quarter and the Little Quarter) which, until recently, were completely Jewish. The Muslim population of these villages is rising as more Jews join the 80,000 who have left Tunisia since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. However, there is still an active Jewish life on the island with synagogues and schools in operation.

The pride of the community is the Griba ("wonderful") synagogue, located at a short distance from Hara Sgira, which was reputedly built in the time of Ezra (fifth century, B.C.E.) It is reported that Ezra visited the island, and that relics of the Temple in Jerusalem are contained within the synagogue walls. Visitors reverently remove their shoes, and in the antechamber elderly men study Jewish holy books continuously.

On the holiday of the thirty-third day of the Omer, about a month after Passover, there is a great pilgrimage to the Griba in honor of Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai, the Talmudic sage to whom the mystical book the Zohar is ascribed. This pilgrimage is still made. Hotels on the island make kosher food available, and a charter flight from Paris brings expatriates to the island airport.

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It's the Super Bowl of Swine. The College of Pig Knowledge. The Granddaddy of Grills. The Largest Pork Barbecue Cooking Contest on the Planet.

The sweetest smelling cloud hovers over Memphis Hickory, pork, tomato, mustard, vinegar, more pork ... Three stuffed days of smoked heaven where contestants eat, sleep, and live pig. All oink wildly, trying to win more than $61,050 in prizes.

Grillmasters and goodtimers will descend on Tom Lee Park in downtown Memphis for serious competition that's seriously fun. Even the grills dress up for this party like fire trucks, airplanes, piggy banks, pot bellied stoves; you name it, it's probably here.

More than 90,000 pork lovers from around the globe Australia, Russia, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Estonia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand, Thailand and the United Kingdom gather together to testify about their special sauces, rubs, ribs, and whatnot in Pig-dom.

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The Amazing, true story of this famous fowl dates back to September 10, 1945 when Mike, a young Wyandotte rooster, was about to become the dinner of Fruita, Colorado, farmer Lloyd Olsen.

With a sharp ax in hand, Mr. Olsen firmly held Mike, preparing to make the bird ready for his wife Clara's cooking pot. Mr. Olsen swung the implement, thereby lopping off poor Mike's head. Mike shook off the event, then continued trying to peck for food.

In the 18 MONTHS that Mike lived as "The Headless Wonder Chicken" he grew from a mere 2 1/2 lbs. to nearly 8 lbs. In a Gayle Meyer interview Olsen said Mike was a "robust chicken - a fine specimen of a chicken except for not having a head." Some longtime Fruita residents, gathered at the Monument Cafe for coffee, also remember Mike - "he was a big fat chicken who didn't know he didn't have a head" - "he seemed as happy as any other chicken." Mike's excellent state of health made it difficult for animal-rights activists to garner much of a following. Even now the town of Fruita celebrates Mike's impressive will to live, not the nature of his handicap. Miracle Mike took on a manager, and with the Olsens in tow, set out on a national tour. Curious sideshow patrons in New York , Atlantic City , Los Angeles , and San Diego lined up to pay 25 cents to see Mike. The "Wonder Chicken" was valued at $10,000.00 and insured for the same. His fame and fortune would earn him recognition in Life and Time Magazines. It goes without saying there was a Guinness World Record in all this.

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Every year, barefoot villagers of Ayia Eleni near Serres, and of Langada near Thessaloniki, get themselves worked up into a trance before walking over hot coals. It's all in honour of Saints Helen and Constantine, although the tradition of Anastenaria dates back to pagan times.

Those celebrating the Anastenaria are descendants of refugees from Eastern Thrace who arrived in Greece in the 1920s. Each village community of Anastenarides is headed by a "group of twelve" (largely women) who gather in the konaki, which houses the special icons of Saints Constantine and Helen. These are draped with large red kerchiefs (simadia), which are believed to possess the power of the icons.

On the eve of the feast of Saints Constantine and Helen the Anastenarides gather in the konaki, and work themselves into a trance-like state through hours of devotional dancing. They believe that during the dance they are "seized" by the saints. The next day, a ritualistic sacrifice of animals takes place.

After lunch the Anastenarides gather again and resume their dancing. A candle is lit from one of the oil lamps in front of the icons, and is used to light a bonfire. When the wood burns, coal is spread down. Initially the Anastenarides dance barefoot around the hot ashes, but when the saints moves them, individuals run across the burning coals. Sometimes devotees kneel down beside the fire and pound the ashes with the palms of their hands. This continues until the ashes are cool.

During the next two days, the Anastenarides process around the village visiting each house in a counter-clockwise direction. On 23 May they conclude with a second dance over the fire, although this one is in private and not for tourists to gawp at.

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