Valencia

So, I've decided that rather than trying to write about everything I've done in the past few months, I'm going to show you.  I'll try to give some details with all of the photos, but if there are any questions about specifics, don't hesitate to ask!

Virgen with flower cape

Since I had this written already for the blog, I'll include this information about Valencia.  On a Saturday morning in mid-March when students from my program were bused to Valencia for the day to see the penultimate day of Las Fallas.  Las Fallas is the biggest city holiday in Valencia and celebrates the city's patron saint, San José.  The festival starts at the beginning of March, and each neighborhood in town pays an artist to construct a large paper and cardboard sculpture.  Please note that just because they're made of paper does NOT mean that they are or look cheap.  Millions of euros are spent each year in their construction, and they are extremely elaborate.  At the end of Las Fallas, they are all burned and most of them are filled with firecrackers, so it really is quite a show.  Although I could see the burning, I was able to see the mascleta, an event which can only really be described as a symphony of explosions.  Each day of Las Fallas at 2 p.m. exactly, there in a huge firecracker display in front of the government building.  This display isn't really pretty or anything like that, but rather just really loud.  All of the explosions are timed precisely however, so there is a sort of great and terrible music which accompanies the clouds of smoke.  According to my madre, we actually saw one of the best shows.  The designers of each mascletá compete for the honor to design the final one, and we got to see a fairly famous pyrotechnician at work.  Afterwards, we went to see some of the sculptures around town, including the one which won the grand prize for the year.  Most of them are political or mock some part of culture; the two most popular countries to make fun of were Spain and the United States.

The crowd in the plaza prior to the firecrackers

Smaller sculpture

Let the show begin!

The smoke at the end

This is the city-funded sculpture

Young women from Alicante in traditional dress

This sculpture was voted to be the best of the entire Fallas festival 

The theme of the winning sculpture was animal-human role reversal

Although none of us speak valenciano, I think you all get the point

Many young women and girls compete for the titles of Fallera Mayor and Fallera Infantil. This is one of the younger contestants in a parade that brought flowers to complete the Virgen's cape.