Those Crazy Spaniards . . .

Among the words that I will never forget after my year in Spain (which include "¡bandejas!" and "¡vamos chicos!") are the words "¡Valencia en Fallas!" These words belong to Valencia's biggest fiesta and are the beginning of the chorus to a song with the same title. What are "Las Fallas"? Bascially, an excuse to stay up late and light firecrackers and burn things. Yay! A pyromaniac's paradise! Seriously though, las Fallas technically start March 1 although there's preparations for them all year long. A "falla" itself is actually a wood/cardboard/wax/paper construction that can be up to 3-4 stories tall that they burn the night of the 19th. The fallas normally poke fun at different politicians and controversial events. The only person that they can't make fun of is the king. Oh, and there are Fallas Infantiles (little ones normally kid-friendly) and Fallas Mayores (bigger ones that can be x-rated). Every afternoon at 2pm there's a "mascleta," which is a 5-10 minute fireworks show with the objective of making the most noise possible.

It gets so loud towards the end that it's deafening even with your ears plugged and you feel like you're in the middle of WWII.

The school took us to one on March 4 and I took a short video before I couldn't stand not covering my ears anymore. I know it doesn't sound that loud over the computer, but trust me, it was crazy. After that, we went to the Ninot Exposition. This is where each fallero group picks one of their ninots (dolls/statues) from their falla that they think is emblematic of their falla and enter it in a competition. After the competition, the winning Ninot Infantil and the winning Ninot Mayor are kept aside to save in a museum and all the rest are put out with their falla to be burned later. Yep, all that work every year and EVERYTHING gets burned except for two small statues such as these

My next event to experience with las Fallas was a free, outdoor concert in a city park Saturday night the 15th. I'd never heard of the artist before but Cristian and his friends had invited me along, so heck, why not?

The opening acts were crum but the main band, M-CLAN was actually pretty good. My only problem with them was they played "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart and it drove me nuts that they were singing it in Spanish because then I couldn't sing along in Spanish (since I obviously don't know the Spanish lyrics) nor could I sing along in English because the Spanish input was driving all memory of English lyrics out of my head. Great music but just a little bit frustrating, but I still had a great time. After that, was a fireworks show and then we all wandered around the streets meeting up with different random people and looking at fallas.

Cristian, Jennifer (friend of Elias that had been in Spain that summer and now is studying in Italy), and I crashed at Elias and his brother's apartment around 4am and then got up at noon the next day to go into Valencia again for more. After the mascleta, I decided to go back to the school for some much needed rest since I'm not used to the whole Fallas schedule like all the Spaniards.

Tuesday evening I headed back in with Sasha, another ACA student here, and we watched the Ofrenda de Flores and took many pictures of pretty costumes and cute kids and the monument to the Virgen.

I liked the Fallas' Virgen better than the Virgen de Pilar in Zaragoza because the flower-covered structure actually ended up looking like a woman at the end and had the correct dimensions.

Then we went and sat in Starbucks reading (Sasha) and people-watching (me) for a couple hours before it was time to head off to fight our way through the crowds to get a good spot to watch the Nit de Foc (Valenciano for "Noche de Fuego" [castellano] or "Night of Fire" [english]). It all went well until we tried to get around a corner. Then we were squished beyond belief in what I thought was the worst manner possible until I experienced worse the next night. But we made it through and sat ourselves down in the street to wait for the show.

While waiting we alternately chatted with some French girls in Valencia studying Spanish and a middle-aged man that practiced his English with us while we practiced our Spanish with him. Yay for random conversations! And then there were the fireworks. I had already seen one of the fallas' "castellos" (what they call fireworks in Valenciano) the night of the concert and since we had been a ways away (think 3-5 second delay on the sound of the bangs) and it had been so long that I had started to get a little bored, I was a tiny bit skeptical about this show. But it did NOT disappoint.

I have never seen such good fireworks in my life. It's like New Year's Eve, the Fourth of July, and the end of the world all rolled into one. We were just one bridge down from where they were setting them off and it felt like we were directly underneath them.

The show went for about 14 minutes or so and it seemed as if there were four or five different fireworks shows all rolled into one, each with their own finale. And the actual finale itself had to have lasted for 4 minutes solid. Absolutely amazing. I will never be satisfied with another show.

Unless of course I get to come back to Spain for las Fallas sometime. Keeping the fingers crossed. Right after the fireworks show ended, Sasha and I muscled our way back around the corner, got called "chicas agresivas," and ran our way back to the train station to catch the last train back to Sagunto.

Oh, one other fun point to the show. You know how in the States they'll start the fireworks as soon as it's dark so that you can get the kiddies to bed at a decent hour, 10ish or so? Well, the Valencians have a different perspective. The fireworks didn't START until 1:30am. Woohoo! Which is why we were worried about catching our 2:20am train. But we made it just fine. The next day was spent sleeping really late and then we headed back into Valencia at 7pm for "la Crema" or more descriptively put, the pyromaniacs' paradise.

We wandered around the streets looking at fallas and shopping in the street markets until 10pm when we got to see our first falla burn. Even for a little falla, it still made quite the bonfire.

Afterwards there was more wandering during which we sampled "bunyoles" (a donut that's kinda like a churro)

and looked at other fallas, such as the 2nd place one (my favorite),

until around midnight when we watched a falla mayor burn. This one was a little hotter than expected and it was great fun to watch the crowds try to push their way back.

Here's the burning schedule more or less: fallas infantiles: 10pm, first place and the town plaza one: 11pm; fallas mayores: 12am, first place and the town plaza one: 1am. Yay for staying up late! Then it was push and shove and be carried by the crowd as we tried to situate ourselves in a good spot to watch the falla from the town plaza burn.

At one point we stayed in the same spot for a good 10-15 minutes without being able to move. Completely dangerous as you never know who's going to elbow you or throw up near you (yep, that happened to me . . . stupid drunk got a speck of it on my sleeve, too, grrrr). I don't know how the really short ones survived.

After being shoved and pushed for more than 45 minutes and doing some shoving and pushing of our own, Chris, Shaun, Sasha, Brittany, and I landed ourselves in a decent viewing spot where some Basque guys promptly started to hit on Sasha after Chris' yells of exuberance for las Fallas had alerted them to the fact that we were Americans. Quite funny actually to listen to them offer us (and specifically Sasha) a place to stay at their apartment that night. Unfortunately they were smoking pot and second-hand pot is NOT a favorite of mine. But the falla from the plaza did not disappoint and it was great to watch it burn while they set off another mascleta-type fireworks show from the plaza at the same time.

Once again, the Spaniards come up with some crazy ways to have fun but it's amazing!!! And basically I would love to come back to Spain every year after this for las Fallas. And then stay another week down in Andalucia for Semana Santa. Why Andalucia? Because we went there after las Fallas on a 9-day school trip there and it was b-e-a-utiful. Tell you about that next time. Chau chau!