Las Fallas: Valencia, Spain

This was the very first trip that I planned to go on, and was a bit more complicated and crazy than the previous ones—going to Valencia to see their festival called Las Fallas, in which fallas (highly flammable, cartoon-looking sculptures) are all over the city for a week and then on the last night they set off a lot of fireworks and burn them! Kat, Emily and I met at 6:15am Friday morning and walked to the bus stop to catch a bus to the airport. Then we flew (on Ryanair-a very cheap airline, Emily was convinced our plane was going to crash because of how inexpensive the flights were) from Sevilla to Alicante and took a bus from Alicante to Valencia. When we got to Alicante we found out that the original bus we had tickets for had been cancelled and we had to wait an extra hour and a half for a later one, but that was fine because this was the last leg of the trip to get there, so this was much better than if some portion of the middle had been delayed and thrown everything else off. So we went to a little park in Alicante and ate our bocadillos and headed back to the bus station and finally left for Valencia.

We arrived around 3:30pm that afternoon and met Pedro and Amparo—my high school teacher, Mrs. Tomaski’s friends that she had met when she lived in Valencia. They picked us up from the bus station and we went to their house for a little while and got settled. Their house (which really was a house because they live about 15 minutes outside the city in a small pueblo) was so cute and modern. They were so kind and welcoming to us, and made us feel right at home. We spent the afternoon and evening running around and finding as many fallas as we could. There is basically a falla in every plaza and in other random intersections throughout the entire city center. We had a lot of fun fighting the massive crowds of people-sometimes we couldn’t even walk! We browsed the street venders and also got some bunyelos—like churros only small and round! So we were out on the street for about 7 hours because La Crema (the burning of the fallas) didn’t start until 10:30/11pm—and that was only the small ones. We saw a few little ones burn and then waited to see the larger fallas. We finally saw some of the big ones burn around 12am—and they’re crazy! All the firefighters are there to put them out because they literally shoot off the fireworks and light them on fire! We could feel the heat from really far away because some of the fallas are a couple stories tall! One that we were watching burn caught the curtains of an apartment on fire! But firefighters came and put it out, and then everyone clapped! Also, people just set off firecrackers everywhere in the streets. Kat and Emily really disliked all the noise, so we bought bright blue ear plugs, and got stared at a little bit. We got back to Amparo and Pedro’s house late, and the next day took a tour of Valencia!

Amparo and Pedro showed us through the parte antigua and we saw the cathedral and also a large virgin made out of flowers and just wandered around a little bit. Then we went to the modern part and saw all the buildings and bridge designed by Calatrava. It all looks super futuristic and really geometric. Then we concluded our tour and went to the playa and stepped in the Mediterranean Sea! We went back to their house and they made us a huge Valencian paella!! (Pedro cooked it over a fire outside in a huge pan-which is also called a paella). It was delicious-the paella had the typical Valencian yellow rice, chicken, big green beans, artichokes and beans that looked like giant lima beans. Then we just relaxed around their house for the afternoon and Pedro had all his sobrinos (nieces and nephews) over for dinner that night. There were about 14 of us, so we made a new record for “besitos” (the “kisses” you give everyone when you meet and say goodbye). We had a great time and just talked in Spanish with them and told jokes and enjoyed dinner-which lasted until about 12:30/1am because no one came over for dinner until 10pm, since that is dinner time for Spaniards. We got up early the next morning to go back to the bus station and repeat all of our crazy travels—which went nice and smooth on the way back. I loved meeting and connecting with people because, while all cities/places I’m travelling to are all distinct and really interesting, there’s just so much more connection and value when there are people to visit, and it really enriches the experience.