Crossing the Pond: L A S F A L L A S

Absolutely amazing.

Last Tuesday, I went to Las Fallas celebration in Valencia, which is the capital city of the region where I am living. This fiesta was unlike any celebration I have ever been to. It began in medieval times. It started from the Spanish Father's Day, which was also known as Carpenter's Day, since Joseph (from the Bible) was a carpenter. Every year in the spring, all the Valencian carpenters would throw out all their scrap wood and unwanted furniture into the streets, creating huge piles that they would burn. Over time, it became a festival where people from each street in the city build a huge figure out of wood, paper, cardboard and plaster (called a falla). These huge figures convey a satirical message about society and often portray different stereotypes of people from society. The people from each street of the city spend a good part of the year working on their falla and on the weekend of the festival, they display them on their street corner to be judged for first, second, and third place.

All weekend long, people come from all over to walk around the city and look at the stories-high paper and wood sculptures. However, the most amazing part does not come until Tuesday night. Before midnight on Tuesday, every sculpture is rigged with fireworks inside of it, and when the clock strikes 12, the fireworks go off inside the fallas! The beautiful works of art are blown to pieces and instantly begin blazing with fire! The crowd watches as the huge sculptures (as tall as buildings) completely burn down! For the Valencians, it is a symbolic representation of getting rid of the old and bringing in the new.This tradition is distinctly Valencian. No other region or city in Spain does it. It has always been a working class tradition, and to this day, the people of the upper class leave town when Las Fallas rolls around. It was a very proud weekend for the people of Valencia. Valencian flags were hanging everywhere, and we heard them playing the Valencian anthem quite a few times. Many people in the streets were wearing traditional Valencian working class clothing-- a big baggy shirt, a bandana around their neck, and a straw hat. So, being the tourists that we are, we bought some clothes like that and wore them around!The city of Valencia was also beautiful. It was fun to see the capital of the region where we have been living! There was so much going on this weekend! When we got there, we walked past the plaza de toros and saw that a bull fight was going on!

To summarize the whole thing- this celebration is all about blowing things up and setting things on fire. Besides the burning of the fallas, we also experienced Las Mascletas. This was crazy- and a little scary. This is a tradition where they set off fireworks and firecrackers in a rhythm that is meant to almost sound like music. They started out with small explosions, but as it went on, the firecrackers they used got louder and much more intense- finally to the point when all noise canceled out and I could hear nothing. The vibrations penetrated my body and I could see everyone around my screaming and shouting and cheering, but I could hear none of it! It was the loudest thing I have ever experienced in my life. I was so afraid that I would touch my ears and see blood on my hands, but luckily that didn't happen! For several minutes, everything around us was engulfed in smoke and I could hardly see the street in front of us! It was INTENSE! It was probably one of my favorite things from that weekend, but I don't think I ever want to do it again!

I took a video from Las Mascletas, and if my wifi will cooperate, I will put insert it in here later, and also put in on facebook. Here is what happens:
In the beginning, you hear the mayor giving the men permission to start the Mascletas. She is standing on a balcony above us with all the young girls and women who were in a big traditional beauty pageant that is part of the weekend. They are all dressed in traditional Valencian dress. Then begin the explosions. After they are over, I love how all the people rush into the street and the Valencian anthem begins playing. We also laughed at all the little girls on the balcony- they were all crying! I am not sure it they were scared from all the explosions or happy to have to honor to be up there! Probably both! I also thought it was pretty crazy when a big group of people started protesting and holding up signs against the mayor. When they started yelling, we decided we should probably leave and go get some lunch.

Throughout the whole day, we walked around the city, ate delicious traditional Valencian bunuelos and also churros con chocolate, and dodged kids blowing up firecrackers in the street. Things were exploding everywhere. Throughout the whole day, we heard BOOMS in the distance or coming from nearby streets! When night fell, we went to go see the streets that had been decorated with lights. At 11:00, the streets that had one first and second place for decoration with lights had a big light show with music. Then at midnight, we chose a falla to watch burn. This was another scary instance (something that would NEVER take place in America!) About a thousand people gathered around the falla that we chose to watch burn. The thing was probably several stories high and I was surprised at how close they let us get to it! At midnight, they set off the fireworks, and immediately the thing burst into flames! After only a few seconds, the heat and flames got so intense that the whole crowd had to move back away from it! About a thousand people all scrambled at once to get farther away from the fire, which was crazy! We were also a little worried about the tall burning object falling into the crowd, but luckily that did not happen either. I just kept thinking about how there was NO possible way any of this would fly in America! The huge falla was burning right there in the middle of a city, sandwiched on a street corner between two big buildings! Super scary but super awesome.
At 3 am, we boarded our bus and made the two hour drive back to Alicante. That was one long night, but definitely the craziest festival I have ever been to in my life.

This was the falla before it burned. It was huge and beautiful! I can't believe they just burned it!