Festival Italiano
Today was the Festival Italiano in Guelph. The crowd went wild as Italy beat France to win the World Cup in soccer. Then went wild again as the greased pole climbers struggled up to the big cheese.
Here one of the women's teams eye the prize - maybe it's just my imagination but one of those prizes looks suspect - don't recall seeing a similar item on the men's pole.
Greased pole climbing seems to be a tradition throughout the world but I can't find anything on the net about its origins. Let me know if you know.
Guelph
4 comments:
given that greased pole-climbing is a worldwide tradition, I'm astounded i never ran into it before. And I'm wondering about those objects---they all look suspiciously phallic. Or is that the point?
The point seems to be that whoever gets up the pole wins a prize and the glory. The prizes vary - here they seem to be Italian meats and cheeses.
I'd never heard of it before either till I saw it here - then checked the net and found references on all continents except Antarctica (where the grease probably just gets sticky and makes climbing a breeze).
Have you ever seen a cheese rolling contest? I think they did that as well - I know that they have that tradition in England too.
Just like being there!
I blogged this on Blog Guelph today.
haha. Where was Planet Bean? I looked the whole scene over for a coffee - only found a closed cappuccino trailer (gone to watch the game no doubt)- had to settle for beer.
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