3-18-12

  Sunday, March 18, 2012

Right now, we are on break for Las Fallas, a festival that takes place in Valencia. The general gist of this festival is that the residents of Valencia build ginormous monuments and at the end of the festival (tomorrow evening), they burn them. Some of these monuments are about five stories tall, and the people have been working on them since the day after last year's were burned. Why all of this madness? I believe the idea is that when the fallas are burned, it symbolizes a fresh new start... in the middle of March. Maybe it is like the whole Chinese New-Years thing, but maybe due to language barriers, the Spaniards got a little confused. 

I went out to Valencia on Friday with some friends to see these monsters, and I was thoroughly impressed. These aren't just five story blocks of wood and cardboard, these are intriguingly made and painted works of art. We spent all day walking the streets of Valencia looking at the fallas, because there is nearly one in every intersection, with a grand total of almost 300 in all scattered around the city. 

Here in Spain, sexuality is taken with a grain of salt sometimes, and especially this time of year in the festival. There were many female ninots (the smaller human figures that make up the fallas)  that were about 4'10'', but had breasts that are more like beach balls, and of course they were not even halfway covered. If those women were real, I imagine them crawling around town on their hands and knees. 

There were many tasteful ninots as well, but 99% of the ninots were caricatures. In other words, it was either a disproportional nose, disproportional breasts, disproportional feet, and of course, there had to be a few disproportional crotches as well. 

With some friends, I am heading out to Valencia tomorrow again, because tomorrow night is when the fallas are burned. I am not exactly sure how they plan to burn five-story monuments made of wood and cardboard sitting right out in the middle of the street without setting the town on fire, but I guess since they have been doing this for many many years, I am sure they have a system, and I will find out what that system is tomorrow.

Las Fallas is a festival that really stimulates the senses. One of the senses that I haven't discussed yet is the use of hearing at Las Fallas. In many of the streets, there are little shops selling fireworks. Now these fireworks don't actually glitter or sparkle, or shoot out cute little pink sparks. Oh no. These fireworks are used for one purpose, and one purpose only; to make an infinite amount of noise so they can annoy people like me.  Basically, here's how it works; people buy the fireworks, and whenever there is a break in the crowd and a visibly open patch ofsidewalk or street (sometimes even a street with cars), someone will light one, and chuck it onto the open patch of ground. 

 

About five seconds after a firework is thrown, one of three things happens. What happens next depends on what type of firework it is. If it is a tiny cute firework that is about the size of a cigarette, it will make a cute little popping sound, you see a little explosion, you may blink, you may not, and that is it. Next, there is the medium size firework, which is about the size of a roll of pennies. With this one, you hear a bang that you definitely notice, you jump a little bit, you turn in the direction that it came from and give the person who set it off a thumbs up (not necessarily with your thumb), smell a little smoke, and get back to what you were doing. Then... there's the big mama. This firework is about the size of a roll of quarters, and it just looks like it is asking for trouble. 

On Friday, Alfried, one of the ACA students I was with, bought a few. Throughout the day, David and Alfried had been setting off the cigarette butt and penny-roll fireworks at any chance they got. However, just as we were about to leave, Alfried pulled out the big guns. Just as there was a pause in the traffic, he lit it, ran out into the middle of the street (in that order), put it down, and ran back. I knew it would be loud, because even the penny roll bomb was enough to startle me pretty good if I didn't know it was coming. I was standing on the sidewalk, and this is was a six lane street, three lanes each way. I jammed my fingers in my ears, closed my eyes, turned my back to it, bend down into the fetal position while still standing up, and watched my life pass before me eyes. It seemed like an eternity waiting for this firework to go off. For the size of this thing, and it's capability, it doesn't even serve to call it a firework. It is basically a grenade. Finally, after waiting for what seemed an eternity, not only did my ears ring, even with my fingers jammed into them, but I could literally feel a shock wave hit me, and I felt my whole body rumble from head to toe.

Now, I was standing a good 80 feet away from this thing, and I knew it was coming. Most of the people passing by were closer than I was, and had not a clue what had befallen them. What made it even worse (and funnier) was that a parade had just finished with a bunch of little children in it, and there were still tons of little children still hanging around. I think your imagination can do the rest for you. 

Another way to stimulate your sense of hearing at Las Fallas is to listen to the mascleta. The mascleta is basically a big row of the big moma bombs that Alfried bought, except they are lined up to go off in succession, and each bomb is about three times the size as the big momas. The whole mascleta lasts about six minutes. Six minutes of multiple bombs going off in succession, each the size of a used toilet paper roll. The only words I can really use to describe it are...Naval Warfare.

 The mascleta is truly a masterpiece. They have had I am sure hundreds of years to get it right, so I am sure it is about as safe as it can get. Even so, the paramedics and the fire department were standing by. I just couldn't help but wonder what would happen if just one of those bombs malfunctioned. To make it worse, we were practically in the front row. As the mascleta was just about to the grand finale, I could feel my ear drums rumbing. It was truly a unique experience because it wasn't like I had any trouble hearing afterwards, but the whole time the mascleta shook my whole body and hurt my eardrums. For about two minutes after the mascleta had finished, I could legitimately say that my ears hurt. 

In other news, today I was informed by Rachel Tohm, one of my friends from southern California who is now at Walla Walla, that because I mentioned that I saw a woman that looked like her in a previous blog post, when she googled her name, she found the article I wrote. I thought it would be a nice gesture to say her name again, Rachel Tohm, so that if she decides to google her name again, she will stumble upon this article discussing how she googled her name and found the last article. I have a very odd sense of humor. I know. 

Anyways, I am really excited for tomorrow,  and this next quarter. I can't believe that my dad comes in less than a week, and in less than two and a half months, I will be back in the good ole' US! 

Until next time...