7 . Top Music Festivals

Summer festival season is just kicking off, and there is a lot to look forward to in the upcoming months.

Pitchfork Music Festival

Anyone who likes indie(独立的) music and up-and-coming artists will have an amazing time at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park. This is an indie rock haven that explores more underground and lesser-known bands than the other big Chicago summer festival, Lollapalooza.

Date: July 14-16

Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Music Type: Indie rock

Price: $126—$2,700

Essence Music Festival

No matter what time of the year it is, New Orleans is an incredible place if you love live music. The Essence Music Festival is a celebration of legendary(大名鼎鼎的) artists like Diana Ross, Chaka Khan and Mary J. Blige.

Date: June 29-July 2

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Music Type: R&B, soul, rock

Price: $75—$365

Sziget Festival

Budapest know show to hold a party, and Sziget is one of the biggest celebrations of music and culture in all of Europe. You can expect to find favorite artists like Bad Religion and Mac DeMarco taking the stages here during this three-day festival.

Date: August 9-11

Location: Budapest, Hungary

Music Type: Indie rock

Price: $70—$296

Flow Festival

The Flow Festival is a great excuse to explore the city of Helsinki. Artists including Lana Del Rey and The XX will be playing, among many others. Come to this festival to enjoy a relaxing atmosphere with an earth-friendly belief.

Date: August 11-13

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Music Type: Rock, soul, jazz

Price: $106—$199

9 . A group of sweaty kids ran around a field last week at Total Soccer Arena in Landover, Maryland. They talked not only in English, but also in Pashto, Arabic and other languages.

What made them different is that all of the kids are refugees(难民). They were playing as part of a camp that gives them a chance to develop their soccer skills and to meet other kids who had to start over their lives in the United States. The camp is run by an organisation called L.A.C.E.S., which stands for Life And Change Experienced thru Sports. The group uses soccer to help bring together communities that have experienced hardships.

Seren Fryatt got the idea for L.A.C.E.S. while playing on a women’s soccer team in Liberia, an African country that had been at war with itself for 14 years. Fryatt, who’s from Muncie, Indiana, saw that soccer brought joy to the Liberian women on her team, even though their lives off the field were very difficult. After starting a soccer programme for kids in Liberia, she decided to start a similar camp in Maryland, where she moved in 2015. Coaches volunteer their time, and the costs are paid mostly by donations. This year, 95 kids signed up.

The camp, for ages 9 to 14, is split(分开) between training that helps kids develop skills, such as passing and ball control, and meeting where they discuss life skills. One of the coaches, Louisa Pitney, said she likes seeing how the kids grow just from being together.

At the end of the camp’s last day, all the kids gathered in the middle of the field. Fryatt asked them to raise their hands and say what they had learned that week. Some kids talked about soccer skills—one girl said she’d learned not to use her hands; a boy said he'd learned how to score a goal.

When a coach called one shy girl, she smiled before answering in a soft voice.

“Celebrate each other,” she said.

10 . New Year’s Day is meant for food. As the new year arrives around the world, there could be special cakes and breads, for example, long noodles representing long life, field peas representing coins, and pigs representing good luck. The particulars vary, but the general theme is the same: Enjoy food and drink to bring in a year of prosperity. Here are some of the New Year’s food traditions around the world.

Hoppin’ John, American South

A major New Year’s food tradition in the American South, Hoppin’ John is a dish of pork-flavored field peas or black-eyed peas—symbolizing coins—and rice, frequently served with cooked greens—as they’re the color of money and cornbread—the color of gold. The dish is said to bring good luck in the new year.

Twelve grapes, Spain

The people of Spain traditionally watch a broadcast from Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where people gather in front of the square’s clock tower to ring in the New Year. Those out in the square and those watching at home take part in an unusual annual tradition: At the stroke of midnight, they eat one grape for every toll of the clock bell. Some even get their grapes ready—peeling and seeding the—to make sure they will be as efficient as possible when mid-night comes.

Tamales, Mexico

Tamales, corn dough filled with meat, cheese and other delicious additions and wrapped in a banana leaf or a corn husk, make appearances at pretty much every special occasion in Mexico. In many families, groups of women gather together to make hundreds of the little packets to hand out to friends, family and neighbors.

Soba noodles, Japan

In Japanese households, families eat buckwheat soba noodles, or toshikoshi soba, at mid-night on New Year’s Eve to say goodbye to the year gone by and welcome the year to come. The tradition dates back to the 17th century, and the long noodles symbolize longevity and prosperity.