So I’ve wiped the virtual dust off the virtual desk and taken it upon myself to post another entry into this blog. This past weekend I went to Valencia with my roommate Antonio and some of his friends for a massive festival called Las Fallas. Wikipedia can define it better than me:
“The name of the festival is thus the plural of falla. The word's derivation is as follows:
falla ← Vulgar Latin *facla ← Latin facula (diminutive) ← Latin fax, "torch".”
The night before we left for Valencia, I stayed in Antonio’s apartment with his family. Being very excited, I asked the family how the festival works, specifically, I asked, “Can anyone bring a Falla to the festival?”
The short silence was followed by laughter, and then to make me feel really smart Antonio got up, ran down the hall to tell his older sister and 10 year old brother about the gem that just came out my mouth, but hey, it’s all in good fun. When he comes to Vancouver I hope he asks, “Hey, can we bring our own fireworks to the Celebration of Light?”
Anyways, a Falla is basically a large structure built to celebrate San Jose, who I am assuming is the patron Saint of Valencia. These constructions are extravagantly built and highly stylized and portray whatever the designers wish. For example, I saw one with world dictators on a roller coaster, and another had Spanish politicians and stuff related to the economic crisis here. They stand anywhere from 2 metres to 30 metres tall, depending which type of Falla it is. For the city-wide competition, there are a few categories. So what happens is The Fallas are put in Valencia for about 5 or 6 days of the 20 day festival, smack dab in the city centre basically stopping all traffic. They are admired by eager foreigners such as myself and treated with a “been there done that” attitude by some Spanish people such as Tony and his friends. And at the end of the festival, they are set ablaze right then and there in the streets of Valencia.
The crazy fires are one of the reasons one goes to the Fallas, it had the same feeling as the Olympics in Vancouver, everyone was in the street, in some spots a person honestly couldn’t move and you were straight up stuck, hoping no one had Mexican (or Curry) for lunch. Also, every night for 5 nights before and up until the end of the festival, there is a massive fireworks display at 1:30 in the morning. Also, for every god damn day and on every god damn street there is a five year old with a lighter and a bag full of mighty mites, bottle rockets and no joke, airbombs (types of firecrackers). In Spanish they say “petardos”, for firecrackers, well, I say those little rats who light them 2 feet away from me are “retardos”. They also had these horrendous air bombs that didn’t fly, and made a god awful blast by one’s feet. It was like the Olympics in the sense that instead of hearing stupid amounts of 'Oh Canada' we heard were made partially deaf by stupid amounts of fireworks. Simply put, there were fireworks absolutely everywhere.
The nightly shows were amazing, I saw two of them. The fireworks were so loud that the grand finale my body shook, such a cool feeling. I think it’s because the streets are so narrow and the buildings were tall, so the combination forced the sound waves down the avenues, as opposed to the Celebration of Light which is out on English Bay. They weren’t super extravagant; it was just about the noise, really.
The daytime fireworks were really unique because you go to the city centre, wait for an hour and a bit, then at 2 pm the sky just starts going BOOM BOOM POW BOOM BOOM, oh wait; that was just the toddler beside me lighting his own stash off. At 2 pm the sky erupts with explosions of fireworks, but all you can see is the smoky aftermath. A restless blue sky, you might say.
So Saturday night for the grand finale, thousands of people gather around the various Fallas scattered throughout the Valencian streets, and wait on those very narrow streets for the La Crema (Valencian for the burning). People light off a long chain of firecrackers that's connected to the base of the gasoline soaked Falla, and at midnight two fireworks sound to announce the start of La Crema, then minutes later there is a fire 40 metres tall on a random street in Valencia. Pretty amazing. I could feel the heat on my face from probably 60 metres away. Ashes softly drop to the streets; somehow, few (or no) people get burnt. What someone worked on for ages is all of the sudden ashes and a few stubborn pieces of wood standing in the air. The air smells of smoke and exploded fireworks, firefighters are dousing nearby buildings to prevent an unexpected Falla burning, and in front of you all you can see are the LCD screens of what seems to be a thousand digital cameras held high. The fire grows taller and taller, and the smoke burns blacker and blacker into the night. And eventually, the once massive Falla is reduced to a pile of ashes.
I’ve tried to describe how the Fallas are burned but really, the pictures will do all the justice. It was very unique. After it’s just madness in the streets with people partying and drinking into the night.
SIDE NOTE: The guys I went with are an awesome group from Antonio’s hometown called Totana. The guys included me from start to finish and made we feel so welcome and comfortable. Living a whole weekend in your second language can be tough!
They’re all close and have been close for a while, so there were endless laughs and good times. The Spanish guys don’t take much too seriously, and definitely live in the moment.
Something funny about the guys I live with is that they speak horrific Spanish, and are the butt of many jokes in other parts of Spain. Not only did I learn tons of slang this weekend, I heard the difference between the proper Valencian accent versus their “panocho” accent. They tell me panocho is the dialect spoken in Murcia, their dialect. I’m assuming it’s similar to us making fun of southern accents from the states or something.
But yesterday Antonio’s friend Juan (everyone, including Antonio’s mom, calls him Capao, Spanish for “castrated”) was stopped by group in Valencia asking where the port was. He answered with a phrase that made Antonio cry laughing and rendered him speechless for like three minutes at the busy Valencian beach. I don’t quite get it but it was something along the lines of “Well.... It’s at God's ass.” He meant to say it was really really far away. Apparently it’s a phrase unique to their town, and it’s about as poorly spoken as a person can be. I’d be surprised if anyone found that anecdote funny but it was hysterical. One, for Tony’s fit of laughter, and two, for the posh-looking woman having no clue what “hanca Dios” even meant, and probably thinking Capao had something wrong with his brain.
Anyways, I hope everyone is well at home and if you took the time to read this, thank you!
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