We spent 3 nights in Valencia, Spain for Las Fallas. What is Las Fallas you ask? Well, it is only the single most surreal experience I have ever had in my entire life!
We stayed right outside of the city in a town called Gandía. Here we were able to spend time at the beach, swim in the Mediterranean, and eat a huge paella lunch as a group! Every night we took the train into Valencia to walk around and see las fallas. That is, all of the HUGE statues around the city. The city was literally shut down for a week so that all of the statues could be built, celebrated, and parades could occur. Overall, there were about 700 fallas ranging in size from the size of a car to as tall at city buildings! Now that isn't even the crazy part...the crazy thing is that THEY SET THEM ALL ON FIRE IN ONE NIGHT!!!! The city literally burned on Monday night...we were covered in ash and could feel the heat from at least a street away. Not to mention that everywhere you walked you had to watch out for children setting things on fire or setting off fireworks. Literally everyone had explosives and the explosions/party never stopped... not even when you wanted to go to bed. It was quite an experience to say the least, but it was also just a fun atmosphere overall. The people were really friendly and walking around we were able to make so many friends. (People from Valencia are much more friendly than in Granada. Granadinos actually have a reputation for being more serious, etc...kind of like New England!) I mean I guess it helped that everyone in Valencia was drunk for the entire week...soooo needless to say they were willing to talk! But anyway, here are a few pictures to try and describe the experience to you all in a bit more detail:
Here is Brenna and me in front of one of the first fallas we saw. It was one of the ones that was as tall as the buildings surrounding it. Now just try to imagine the size of the flames!
Here is part of one of the traditional parades. All ages and genders participated. Every single person in Valencia participates in some way. It is almost like two different fiestas...one private one that all of the residents participate in and another for those who just watch, but can never participate. (This all started to honor Joseph, the father of Jesus because they used to burn their extra wood, you know Joseph the carpenter, but since then it has just turned into a crazy event...both religious and blasphemous!)
Everyone just hanging out in the streets after a night of seeing las fallas. We met a bunch of Spanish kids our age and they invited us to go see the fireworks with them...unfortunately we had to catch a train, but it was fun getting to talk with them!
La calle de las luces with Melanie, Bev, and Victoria...it was unbelievable when the did a light show!
One of my favorite fallas that I got to see burn! (Many times the statues were of politicians or people in pop culture. A lot of it was criticism on society, but we couldn't understand it because it was all written about in Valencian which is a dialect of Catalan)
My favorite falla! I was able to see this one burn as well...UNREAL It was literally like being in a different world for the weekend.
Another gorgeous falla!
Okay well you get a double picture because I tried deleting this twice and had to start my blog over again...twice (I really am terrible at technology)
The coolest/weirdest/scariest parade I have ever witnesses! People were dressed up as bats and devils, people were on stilts, and all of them were shooting fire at you!
My favorite falla burning! Before they would actually burn they light explosives that set off fireworks, etc. That is how you knew where to go to watch the fallas burn, although you couldn't miss it because there was literally one down every single street!
This was the Cremá, that is to say the finale! The entire night ended with a huge fireworks display and burning of the biggest falla. It was something out of a comic book...I mean look at the photo! There is no way that that was real life! Complete and utter controlled chaos...Spain got it right!
So we had a very full weekend. We even managed to fit in one of the best aquariums in the world! It was really a great experience! We didn't get back until Tuesday morning at 10am however...so much for Monday classes or my 8:30 am midterm on Tuesday... luckily since it was my professor's fault that we missed class (he got the dates wrong) I can make up my test!
Final thought: We got to go to beach, see the world burn, and on the way home we drove through Narnia (aka a blizzard). I have no idea how I managed to experience all of those things, but it was worth it and I would do it again in a heart a beat! ONLY IN SPAIN!
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