Las Fallas

This weekend I went on a trip to Valencia. There was a bus trip offered to ERASMUS (inter-European exchange program) and us to go to the fesitval of Las Fallas, so I hopped on it, since it was about the only way to go to Las Fallas unless you booked hostel rooms like 3 months ago. It's ridiculous. So Friday night at 1:30 am (Saturday morning) we left Caceres. After 9 hours, 2 rests, and unrestful sleep, we arrived in Valencia at 11 am. We walked around the city for awhile seeing some of the random fallas , or large structures. They were spread out around the city. Some were kind of small, and then some were basically the size of buildings. The fallas are made out of wood, glue, and "paste," although I think that's an example of something lost in translation, and I'm pretty sure it's like paper-mache. They were all crazy, and I don't really understand them, but I think they were supposed to be like criticisms about the culture or something. I don't really know. Las Fallas started out as a pagan fire ritual, and eventually melded its way into the celebration for the Patron Saint of Valencia, so that doesn't really help explain what the Fallas are either. I was confused, but it was cool.

At about 2 we went to the main plaza to watch a cannon fire. Or, at least we tried to. We ended up in a huge crowd in a street off the plaza, but we could hear so it was okay. The cannon sounded for about 5 minutes, just continuously shooting. It was pretty awesome, and the ground was shaking and it was really fun. I enjoyed it.

After that, we decided to go to the beach, because one of our friends hadn't yet been in the mediterranean. We hung out, dipped our feet in, and chilled for awhile. Then we got Valencian paella, which they are famous for. Although being right along the sea, this has no seafood in it, just chicken. It was really good though. Much better than what I had had in my house. After that, we made our way back into the city for the burning of the fallas at midnight. On our bus trip back in, we were inexplicably stopped at a bus stop for 20 minutes while these drunk men shot firecrackers/baby flame thrower things at the bus. It was weird. When we made it back to the city, we found a falla to watch. It wasn't the big one in the central plaza, but we knew if we went there we could not get close, and if we stayed there we could be front row. Some people wanted to go see the big one, though, so they headed off to the plaza while we waited for about an hour and a half next to the Falla.

A little before midnight they strung this rope with weird firecracker-esque things on it all around the structure. Then they splashed lighter fluid around it, too. At midnight, the lit the rope on fire, sending the flame down the rope and setting off the firecrackers. They ignited and shot off colorful sparks as they lit, which caught fire on the lighter-fluid soaked paper-mache. It was crazy. The whole thing started to burn, working its way around the structure, and up the biggest parts of it. When one of the two biggest characters caught fire, the flame was so huge and so hot we had to back up. As the falla burned, there was a time when the only thing left standing were the wooden support structures in the middle. Then those too fell, and everything just burned and smoldered out. It was incredible and crazy.

After that, we headed to the main plaza to meet our friends again, and potentially see the main falla burn from a distance. When we got there, it was already almost completely gone, but we were not upset about it. We made our way through the absolutely giant crowd, trying to find our friends. As the falla stopped burning, the crowd started to move. We knew where our friends were (in a Burger King across the plaza), but the crowd had a different idea. The four of us held hands so as not to lose anyone, and shoved and pushed our way. As we were shoving and pushing, the whole crowd shoved and pushed back. Thank god no one fell, because I don't know what would have happened if they did. The crowd basically moved as one unit, and you could do nothing about it. At one point a mans elbow was infront of my face, so I could not go forward, but my friend in front of my had my hand, and my arm was totally bending in the wrong direction until I ducked under his arm and lived. It was an epic journey across the plaza.

When we got to BK we waited out the hurricane of people outside, then went to get churros. Then we met up with the rest of the group, and hung out for awhile. Basically at this point we just wanted to leave, but our bus didn't head out till 5:30, so we couldn't. At about 4 we just called it quits and headed to the bus station. On the way, we found a girl passed out, and her friends being the rudest, most unhelpful, inconsiderate assholes ever. We got her water and food, made sure she was okay, and made sure she had a taxi home. That wasn't the funnest way to end the trip. We made our way to bus station after that, and at 5:30 headed out to Caceres. I slept the entire way. All in all, it was a really good weekend.