Fallas, 2008

Fallas means ¨failures¨in Spanish, but in Valencia, a seaside city on Spain´s northern Mediterrean coast, fallas are huge 30-40 ft cartoonlike sculptures and the reason for a serious citywide party. 2008 was the first year in 190 that the Fallas coincided with Semana Santa (Easter week), arguably Spain´s largest national holiday. The coincidence of these two holidays made Valencia the epicenter of Spring Break madness in Spain. An estimated 1 million domestic tourists flocked to Fallas this year. The drive from Madrid, normally 3 hours, took 7.

We learned about Fallas from our friend Laura. Laura is a planner by nature, a doer, a mama bear type. We first met her on a beat-up, long distance bus in Laos, and were immediately charmed by her go-get-em attitude and warm smile. When we told her we were planning to visit Spain, she invited us not only to stay at her family´s home in Madrid, but also along for the weekend trip she and her 11 single, female friends had planned. Our 3 days exploring the neighborhoods, museums and cafes of downtown Madrid were awesome and nights feasting with her parents were even better, but the real highlight was Fallas.

After a beastly, reddish drive from Madrid to Valencia, we settled into the small apartment Laura had rented and waited for the rest of the crew arrive. Admittedly Travis and I initially felt out of place when the dozen girlfriends rolled in, wheeling mini suitcases and carrying hairdryers and makeup kits. Pre-dinner primping took so long we didn´t eat dinner until 12:30 that first night, late even by Spanish standards. The girls, who initially seemed high maintenance, proved to be really sweet; and once they blew out the water heater by showering twice a day (once before breakast and once before hitting the bars), the primping time was greatly reduced as was Travis and my anxiety.

Valencia is a gorgeous city. It´s historic architecture is more intact than Barcelona or Madrid´s, so it feels more authentic. It lies at the mouth of a dry river. Where the river once ran through the city, a long, pretty park runs instead. The streets are narrow and windy, buildings don´t reach more than 4 stories, and the cafes and restaurants with outdoor patios spill over the sidewalks and into the streets. All this loveliness is pretty typical of Spanish cities. What makes Valenica so unique are the fallas themselves.

Like I said, they´re huge and look very cartoonlike, in that Asian comic-book style. Most fallas have one big structure, like woman´s bust or full body surrounded by human-size figures in comical poses. People in different neighborhoods raise money, design, and have a falla built in their barrio every year. It´s a matter of pride to contribute to your neighborhood´s falla, and every neighborhood tries to outdo the others. The fallas are displayed for a week, and every night there are parties in the street that grow in magnitude and volume until at the end of the week winners are chosen, and at midnight all the fallas are burnt to ground. Though I can post photos to show what the fallas and the burning look like, it´s impossible to get a real sense of what Fallas 2008 was like without the audio component. In addition to typical crowd sounds- laughing, shouting, shuffling, music blaring, street vendors shouting (and making bizarre whistling sounds), imagine explosions all day long. Explosions of all sorts from poppers to petardos to firecrackers, weaponry to fireworks were fired from morning (Spaniard morning starts late, thankfully, at about 11) into well beyond midnight. At 2 pm all weeklong, an especially loud rocket show was put on in Valencia´s central plaza, the magnitude of the show increased every day, and lasted for about 15 minutes. On the last day we squeezed really close to the front of demostration. The sound was so loud and the smoke so thick and brown I felt I was in a bomb raid. My ears hurt for the next 4 hours.

We watched stayed in Valencia to watch the burning, then went to bus station where Laura headed South to Almeria for week of a scuba diving lessons, and Travis and I began a 16-hour journey to Conil de la Frontera. At the station we met some Moroccan dudes who told us algebraic riddles that I tried (but usually failed) to solve.