Las Fallas

Nothing I can say can describe the event that is Las Fallas. However, I will try to give you all a sense of what went on the past few days...basically the biggest party in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people come to Valencia to see over 500 wooden and paper painted creations, called Fallas(fayas) for 4 days and on March 19th (Saint Joseph's day) the people burn the fallas, some of which cost over a million dollars (some are more than 6 stories high), and then the festival ends. However, the festival is so much more than that. Starting on March 1st, the town hall of the city puts on a sort of fireworks display in main square everyday, which is more like hundreds of bombs going off at the same time for 10 minutes. Starting on Thursday, los castillos began, which an enormous fireworks display that happens everynight until the burning of the fallas. No one can sleep during the night because of the amount of fireworks that go off (even children set them off constantly) and likewise during the day you can't go 5 seconds without hearing some sort of explosion. Literally I imagined myself to be in a warzone. Everynight from Thursday on I stayed up way into the morning, and on Sunday night I stayed up until the sunrise, which we saw on the beach. Here is a picture summary of Las Fallas:
This is my favorite picture of los castillos, more to come...

This is the parade of the offering, where hundreds and hundreds of traditionally dressed people (the dresses cost a fortune) walk through the city to give flowers to the Virgin Mary (to be seen later).

This is my friend Jackie and I in front of the falla that won second prize, a huge one that fits into a tiny sqaure. Each falla deals with a theme, mostly vices to be burned, and this one is about two teenagers out on the town being tempted by various things(see the marihuana leaf on the cell-phone) with a large angel shooting an arrow at a devil, respectively representing good and evil.

My friends Josh, Chelsea, and Jackie in front of the largest and most expensive falla (close to a million dollars) which also won first prize. It's hard to believe that they spend so much money on something so beautiful and then burn it, but that's the beauty of the tradition.

This is my madre Lola making a paella for the festivities; we also celebrated my rommate Zach's birthday this night.

Here is a good picture of the castillos on Sunday night, the biggest night. More than 400 tons of fireworks went off in this one show.

This is a picture of me and my friends at a verbena, an outside dance party, the night before the burning of the fallas.

Later that morning we went to see the sunrise on the beach.

This is a picture of me in front of the falla named "I want to be a freak" which depicts an enormous Micheal Jackson.

This is the completed Virgin, with offered flowers covering everything. Very beautiful.

This is the burning of Michael Jackson. All of us Americans decided to see this one burn, of course.

Later we went to the plaza of the town hall, where the last falla is burned with fireworks and such, very exciting and a lot of people.


Then, the fiesta ends and everyone goes home. Many people were sick because of the lack of sleep, etc. I hope you enjoyed what I could say about the fallas!