Well. . . it appears that another week has passed and not without a whole load of new life experiences and exciting stories. Last week was fairly uneventful as weekdays rarely are. Went to class, blah blah blah. I did make some peanut butter galletas for the fam. They loved 'em of course. They keep telling me that I´m gonna make 'em all fat. Oh well ;) So this past weekend was Las Fallas in Valencia. . . WOW (I don´t think this word is strong enough, but it´s the best I got)
A little history on the fiesta before I divulge my personal experience with it. It goes like this. . . St. Joseph´s feast day is March 19 and as you might know, pretty much all of Spain´s fiestas pretty much are tied to saints or other holy days. St. Joseph was a carpenter and as such would, apparently, save all his scraps and mess-ups for a year. Then once a year, he would set all these scraps on fire. Kind of an out with the old, in with the new thing. So artisans in Valencia took this to heart and would burn their scraps on Mar 19. This somehow morphed into what is Las Fallas today (in case you were wondering las fallas means the faults/failures). It is a week-long celebrations full of fireworks, food, and of course drinking. Every day they have what is called a mascleta (basically the loudest firework display possible) in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (they have a special cage and everything for them). In addition to the mascleta, pretty much everyone in the city gets in on the firework fun by randomly lighting and dropping firecrackers. You get over the booms pretty quick. The last day of the week-long celebration (Mar 19) is when they do the biggest partying. They light on fire these enormous structures that they have been working on all year (each bario has one at least). Anyways. . . my side of the story
I got to Valencia Friday afternoon with my dear friend Emily in tow. We planned on meeting our other dear friend, Elizabeth, at the fountain in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (it was the most specific location I could come up with that was close to both of us). For starters, people start pickin spots for the mascleta around 1200 (it doesn´t start til 200). Also, it´s not good when cell phones don´t function properly. No worries, we found each other, if a lil later than expected. The mascleta, by the way, was super intense and increíble. No words. We then had the joy of finding our hotel which happened to be in a suberb of Valencia. I had looked up some directions to get there, but silly me, didn´t write them down. This led to 2 hours of adventuring in an industrial wasteland, making 3 new friends who didn´t know what we were talking about, and finally getting good help from some nice men in a cafetería. The hotel was super nice (free hard candies in the lobby, best). We ventured back to Valencia for dinner and the Nit de Foc (night of light). Crowded bar and crowded streets. But the fuegos artificiales were the best I have ever seen. Super close, a ton, so loud, AMAZING! Unfortunately the crowds were so big and so tightly packed that I had my first pick pocket experience (no worries I was gonna get a new phone when I returned anyways). Overall incredible day.
Saturday (the big day!) we slept in (after a 130 fireworks show, I think we deserved it). After about 5 full buses passed us and the nice old couple we made friends with, we finally caught a bus into Valencia. We were meeting up with Jordan (in town for the day with 400 other Alicantinos) so we went for the same meeting place, luckily he got our call and found us just fine. And exciting! Elaine was with him too (another TU kid in Spain right now). So today´s mascleta was even better (I know, hard to believe) but ground shakingly, chest poundingly better. Our day was filled mostly with wandering around town (had my first Döner Kebab for lunch). We met up with Emily´s fam, then chilled in a nice little parque until dinnertime ish. More exciting! we stumbled into Mass at the Catedral. Afterwards, we picked up some paella from a sketch stand (and graciously paid for by Emily´s dad, thanks!). So the crema doesn´t start until 1000 for the lil fallas and not until 1200 for the big ones. This allowed us to sit in another lil parque for a bit and just catch up while watching small children play with fireworks (no adult supervision, mind you). We found the little fallas burning when we began wandering again. Then we hung out in front of a big falla until 1200 and got to see it lit on fire. WOW!!!! It was completely gone in less than 5 min. You have to see the pics to realize the intensity of this. Us girls went back to the hotel after that since we all had to get on trains/buses early in the morn.
Sunday was all travel interspersed with wonderful conversation and a fresh baguette (yum!). Got home and slept very well. This week will be full of actual work, bleh! But that´s what happens when next week is my last week here! (Santander of course, not Europe). Oh ya, I´ll be off to Barcelona in 3 days. . .
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