I am alive!! Sorry I have taken so long to write, Spain has been keeping me real busy, but I have a lot of cool things to catch you up on so here I go. Two weekends ago, March 18-20 was Las Fallas a crazy festival in Valencia, Spain. Las Fallas is an event where all the different districts and neighborhoods work together all year in secret constructing these huge mannequin things that they then display around the city for a week then on the final night set them all on FIRE! It was quite the adventure getting to Las Fallas from Oviedo, it’s located on the southeast coast and it’s impossible to find direct buses or cheap flights. So we left Friday night at 12:30 am, technically Saturday, and bused for five hours to Madrid. Then a group of very tired girls had to navigate their way from the bus station to the train station. I have been spoiled in my travels thus far, both Korea and Italy have simple to navigate train stations with signs everywhere and time boards, Spain has none of this. So after thinking we figured it out, freezing cold in the small waiting room, we boarded a train to take us to our other train outside of the station. Luckily we found some other college kids heading to Las Fallas and we followed them. Our train finally headed out around nine am and we had a six hour trek to Valencia. The trains were fairly comfortable I’ll have to admit, and we spent a lot of time sleeping and watching Spain’s central desert land fly by outside the window. I would have to say the view very much reminded me of old movies of Mexico and South America with ghost looking like towns, sand, and tumbleweeds.
Finally around 2 in the afternoon we rolled into Valencia, and boarded yet another train/metro thing to the center of the city. Las Fallas is such a huge festival it was impossible to get a hostel for one night under 100 euros, thus we decided since our train home left at eight a.m. the following morning we would just stay up all night, easier said than done. Immediately after stepping into the fresh air we heard the load bang of fireworks. The whole weekend all I heard were explosions and it literally sounded like what I image a war zone to sound like, I was jumpy the whole time. We packed really light, everyone with just a purse, and our first stop was a place to freshen up and change out of our travel clothes into jeans etc. We found a small fruit smoothie bar where we borrowed the bathroom and the woman working was really helpful in explaining how to go about seeing all the statues and how the festivities of the day would work.
We set out and spent the afternoon looking at these huge incredible statues and taking pictures of them. They were so detailed it was insane, I have included pictures at the bottom! There were also a ton of shops and places to buy churros and other little snacky Spanish food. I have honestly never seen so many people before in my life, and it took forever just to cross the street. The police had all the roads blocked off to cars and they were jam packed with people. We walked over to the Torro Plaza hoping to maybe see a bull fight, but we got distracted by the many women dressed in traditional clothes trying to win the Miss Las Fallas title. We continued to walk around and found a park in the central of the city with the most amazing half real half fake tree I have ever seen. It was a real tree that they built up with cement and other things to resemble a tree from the lion king. We played around on that, as small children threw fireworks all around us. I’m really surprised we didn’t see anyone get hurt, on the news when we got back some people had died but not as many as I would have thought. Things just got more and more dangerous as the night went on, people were drunk and everyone would just throw bomb like fireworks in the middle of a group of people without warning. I was on my game all night.
We knew we had 17 hours to kill before we could get back on the train home so we really tried to pace ourselves. We saw probably almost every wooden statue and finally allowed ourselves to eat dinner around nine. We are really big on donar Kebaps here and obviously that had to be our dinner. They had huge picnic tables set up in the center of the city with little vendors all around so we got our dinner and sat for about an hour talking and deciding which statue we wanted to watch burn. We decided on the giant man, since he was located in a large plaza and we figured we would be able to find a good place to stand. The burning supposedly began at 12-1230 so around eleven we headed back into the mannequins to stake out a good seat. People were everywhere, more foreigners than Spaniards, and we literally had to fight and push our way through the crowds. People started getting restless around 12 waiting for things to happen, we stood and waited patiently meeting some people from Iowa and Nebraska around us, I met some boys from Creighton prep. People were so jammed packed it was literally like a river current as people pushed and filed through. We watched a few fights break out, watched paramedics fight their way into the crowds. It was crazy.
Finally around one they shut off the lights and it was time to begin, an hour late. We were located behind a fence parameter of the statue and a park; the firefighters had tied up the trees and were continuously spraying them with water. Then from not far in front of us they set off the best firework show I have ever seen, it lasted for about five minutes and was warm, and close, and totally shamed the fourth of July. After the fireworks it was time to burn the huge mannequins along with another firework show right in front of it. The heat wave was crazy and the whole think took about ten minutes to burn down. It was probably one of the top five coolest things I have ever witnessed. I can’t describe to you how many people were they cheering and taking pictures.
After the fire everyone, drunk, is trying to figure out what bar or club they want to go to and the firework throwing increases. We decided we wanted to get away from all the dangers and crowds so we found a café that was open till three am and we played cards and drank hot chocolate. After that we headed to the north side train station, our train station was on the south side, but we sat inside and played slumber party games and talked till six am. Finally we boarded the subway train to our train and I slept for six straight hours on the train ride to Madrid. If you sat by the window you also sat right next to the heater, it was delightful. After an hour in Madrid we were back on the bus and arrived back to Oviedo about 9 pm that night. All in all it was 22 hours of travel for 17 hours in our destination; I’ll have to say it was well worth it to see Las Fallas.
The following week of school was mini courses, so we had a week off of our regular classes to enjoy two cultural classes that involve the different talents of our professors. I took fotoperiodismo or photo journalism and photography. It was pretty fun to just get the time to walk around the sunny city and take pictures. That Friday we had an all school assembly and presented our work and watched performances from the dance and theater groups, I actually had to do more work that week than I typically do.
The next weekend, March 26-27 was my friend Carries 21st birthday so we had to celebrate hard. Saturday night we rented a hostel in Gijon and that afternoon we headed into the coastal city about a half hour away to spend time on the beach. Sadly it was cloudy and slightly rainy so we decided to check into our cheap 20 euro a night hostel. Best decision ever made, lo and behold it was a huge apartment style hostel, with two bedrooms, a private bath, and a huge conference living room. We had 16 chairs in one room. We played cards and hot lava waiting for our other friends to arrive for a birthday dinner. Carrie wanted Italian so we found a great pizza restaurant and everyone was too excited for their meal, after we headed back to the apartment for more games and finally hit up the seaside bar scene later that night. I would say successful birthday, that Sunday was spent with naps, homework, and church.
So there is a quick version of what has been happening in good ole Espana these last two weeks. Yesterday was 80 degrees and absolutely beautiful, yet old people still wore their fur coats.
Pictures of Las Fallas can be found at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=345384&id=563560128&l=66f7f58942
I am leaving for Tenerife later today, part of the Canary Islands I cannot wait to share my stories and pictures with you when I return on Wednesday. Until then I love you and I miss you and here is what I have learned recently.
1. When cars park in Spain they do it in small spots and have no problem hitting other cards to fit in.
2. Flip flops in March will get you many disapproving stairs from older people.
3. Public displays of affection are getting a little disgusting.
4. Bottles of water are as big as my arm.
5. It’s common for people to also own a weekend home in the country.
6. Chickens and rosters run free in the city.
7. The bus station ticket window lady and I have a first name relationship.
8. Little girls dress way too maturely for their age.
9. The tax and tariff office is evil.
10. People of all ages sing the spongebob theme song in Spanish when they are drunk on the weekends.
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