Las Fallas

This past Wednesday was a huge day here in Espana... LAS FALLAS! We travelled to Valencia where the festival took place. Valencia is the third largest city in Spain, and in my opinion it is more modern than other cities. Of course, there were so many people there because of Las Fallas that it was hard to tell what it would normally be like... I am planning on visiting again before I return to the states.

All of the locals were dressed up in the traditional clothing, even the kids. They paraded through the streets to the beat of some marching bands. It was quite entertaining.

Las Fallas is actually a competition amoung Valencian pyrotecnic; who can create the best firework show. The difference between this firework show and others is that the point is to create the best sound and rhythmn. We heard all the fireworks and their beats, but we saw very few actual lights like normal fireworks. The whole city was covered in smoke, and for about 4 minutes we could not breathe without breathing smoke or see without seeing smoke.

At the same time this competition is going on, there is another victory being fought for.... who can make the best 30 foot tall ceramic structures. These float type objects were HUGE, and all so colorful and weird. At the end of Las Fallas, all the losing entries get burnt to the ground except the winner´s! My friends and I pretty much spent the entire day walking around looking at these off- the- wall structures. The picture of the one I put up on here is actually the winner for this year, so it is the only one that will be saved to display at next years festival. This particular tradition is really similar to a festival in Alicante that takes place the second week of June. In fact, Alicante actually has a museum of a bunch of these weird looking floats things, or at least replicas of them.
I cannot wait to visit Valencia again!... maybe next time I will focus more on its´amazing architecture, art and science museums, F1 tracks, etc etc.