Life: Idiotropic

These are a small portion of the flowers that will be thrown today.

Every year at the end of the Feria de Julio in Valencia, a flower fight ensues on the Paseo de la Alameda where locals and tourists can pelt the finely dressed fallera princesses sitting properly in large floral floats with heavy headed flowers.  It's perfect for women with a complex.  Let's pelt the fair skinned with flowers and try to mess that perfect hair!

I've known about this parade for over a year.  What I didn't know and hadn't read in any blog or review of the event is that if you actually want to be a part of the flower throwing fight, you have to buy a ticket in advance for one of the private boxes along either side of the street.  There, you have room for 6 people and are provided with two crates of flowers and a bag of snacks.  That would have been perfect.  And I would have paid... if I would have known... but I didn't... so...

I stood on a gazebo just behind the thick crowds who pushed in on each other behind the fence that separated the masses from the privileged box holders.  The gazebo had no ladder nor stairs.  You had to reach up, grab onto the wrought iron fence around it, and pull yourself up.  I pushed up Luci, then Elise.  Strangers helped them in and took my purse for me.  Strangers let Luci and Elise stand in front of them and watch the parade as well.  They are good to children here.

I, armed with several lenses, used only my telephoto as I was much too far to really get the close shots I wanted.  It was painfully disappointing.

All Valencian processions begin with men on horses, so promptly at 2030, two men in uniform with feathered hats rode by on dappled white horses.    The ponchoed men with flower poles were next, then falla couples riding together, then the cars, then the floats.

The parade route is a wide strip of road about 5 city blocks long.  It's covered in the fine sand that is used here for bull runs to give the animals traction on the roads.  The parade begins slowly.  Each car or float passes the judges stand and the announcer tells the audience where they are from.  They pass by, turn at the end, then return creating a long loop with new floats going up one side and ones we've seen returning on the other.  They continue the loop passing by again and this time the announcer hands out prizes to the best floats.  The float of the Ayutamiento - the City Hall with last year's court wins the biggest prize and the Fallera Major sits there all smiles waving to the crowds.


























The neighborhoods of Valencia have recently chosen their 2010-2011 Fallera courts, the court of princesses that will attend many of the events during this year of celebrations leading up to Fallas.  Most of them today are dressed in the traditional silk gowns with the special hair pieces and hair combs put in and big dangle earrings.   Some though are dressed in a theme to match their float - cats, Hawaiian girls, country girls with straw hats, Egyptians... it's fun to see and so far, they are all quite happy.

It's hot and humid.  I can't imagine how uncomfortable they must be sitting packed tightly together in those heavy silk dresses, tennis rackets neatly laid across their laps.

When all the awards have been given out, they sound a blast and the flower fight begins.  Those folks in the boxes are grabbing handfuls of flowers and pelting falleras young and old.  No one is safe. Some of the girls hide behind their rackets shielding their eyes. Some scoop up handfuls of flowers as they fall and throw them right back.

Many of the older girls have a clear plastic sheet across their laps to keep their dresses clean.  A fallera's dress can cost well over 10,000 Euros.

The fight lasts for 30 minutes.  The fallera major hides behind her racket the entire time picking flowers off her skirt as they land.

When the blast sounds again, it is over.  The last of the flowers are thrown as the floats exit the Alameda and dismantle up the street.  The crowds (us included) take to the parade route picking up handfuls of flowers from the ground and pelting each other with them.  I learned that Luci and Elise both have great aim when throwing mums.  The smell is strong.  I could smell it from the gazebo too.  The sweet mum smell is unmistakable.

We walk by a few crowded stands selling grilled corn, something I've only seen in the summer here.  There's a small fireworks display - quite sad really, nothing like the usual Valencian displays that have so impressed me.  We walk around the carnival and see a food vendor selling "Cheek Kebabs,"  then I let the girls play for a few minutes before we go home.

No, this isn't a self-deprecating rant or a plea for compliments.  I am not being negative at all.  However; I am a realist who owns a mirror, a real mirror and not one of those slimming ones you'd find at a carnival fun house.

So, being that mirror-owning realist, I can say with certainty that though I look pretty good for a 35-year old mother of four, I do, in fact, look 35 and my jeans fit me like a mother of at least one if not four.

And this is where the title of this post comes into play because these next two moments to me were just funny and proved that Spanish beer creates the same "goggle" effect as beers from other nations, especially around fallas.

Moment 1 - March 18th:  This young bunch saw my camera and quickly gathered for a picture, smiling, raising their beer, then asking (several times), "Where are you staying?"  He he he.  Uh...  That took me off guard.  Wasn't sure how to respond.  "In Puzol,"  I shouted back and kept walking.  Uh.... I think they were off guard now.  Clearly I'm not a tourist looking for a "good time."

Moment 2 - March 19th:  I'm standing at Almirante watching and waiting for La Crema and talking with Tiara.  There's a cafe table between us and the fence where three "kids" in their early 20's sat smoking and re-ordering tall glasses of beer.  They had American accents.  At one point the guy said something to us and I responded immediately (habitually) in Spanish, then corrected myself and answered in English.  That began a conversation.  He asked where we were traveling from. 
     "We live here," I said. 
     "Oh, where to you go to school?"  Uh...
     "What???" 
     "Where do you go to school?" he asks again.  I am absolutely confused, standing there looking rather stupid because I don't know how to answer this basic question.  But he's looking at me.  It's directed at me.
     "I've been out of school a long time.  I'm a mom with 4 kids."  In their three youthful faces was shock and awe.  I'm quite thankful that beer didn't squirt out their noses.  They all three started talking at once.  "Really?!?!"  "Oh, well you don't have any wrinkles!"  "It's a compliment, really, don't be offended... you look young!"  And on and on.  They'd had a lot of beer and apparently their mothers must have A LOT of wrinkles.

Hmmm... so apparently fallas can be good for the ego if you don't count the empty beer mugs on the table.  ;)
   
    

It's Monday and I don't think I've fully recovered.  Could it be aging?  No.  Tiara's exhausted too.  But, we did it.  We saw the grand finale of Fallas, La Crema, where a year of hard work, a ton of money, and quite extraordinary works of art are burned to ashes.  Sacrifice?  Lent gone wild?  Madness?  May be a bit of each?  It's sad.  Profoundly sad.


Of course, we didn't do everything and we did take a vacation in the middle of it, but I did attend a mascleta, saw the children's parade of ninots,  and saw the Exposition de Ninots at Nuevo Centro.  Sadly, I missed all the night fireworks in person, but saw many of them from the relative safely of my balcony where they kept me up into the wee hours of the morning.  Valencian fireworks often don't begin until 1am.

What is Fallas?  Some say it stems from a medieval tradition when the carpenters would burn wood scraps for spring equinox.  A British ex-pat told me the church got involved in the 1950's to make it coincide more directly with St. Joseph's day.  There are probably as many theories as there are fallas.  So what does it matter?  Now, it's a block party on steroids.

I've read a few blogs and commentaries about this holiday.  A Spanish man told me back in February how emotional this celebration is for him.  The mascletas make him cry.  (Many have that reaction, but mostly because of pain from the noise.)  Others cry at La Crema.  A third of the city can't stand the daily noise and simply move out for the month.  A family in my neighborhood loves it so much, they move IN to the city for the last week.  Outsiders marvel at the sheer insanity of it all.  I mean, fireworks at all hours, and why would you spend a year planning and creating something amazing just to watch it burn???

But.. I love it.

My first reaction was that this is a celebration that is a bit overly hyped.  It is the second largest festival in the world next to Brazil's Carnival as far as the influx of people coming into the city.  The amount of money spent just blows my mind.  Add the fact that it all goes up literally in flames is incomprehensible - especially in this economy which was well documented in the falla sculptures themselves.  Mascletas daily for 19 days, each day getting bigger, longer, louder...  Fireworks at night many times also longer, louder, more impressive until the culmination at the end.  Three parades including the Cabalgata del Fuego - a fire parade where observers are literally showered with sparks from the various spark spouting torches and wands held by locals dressed as jokers and devils. 

We heard a lot of hype about this holiday.  Hype that is hard to live up to for an outsider.  I imagine if you are a beer thirsty college student looking for an insane environment to party in, this might be cool.  For an outsider watching it, it is profoundly interesting, beautiful, strange, but I didn't cry.  I wasn't moved emotionally.  I felt a bit sad though - like I was missing something.

See, this isn't for the outsiders.  It never was.  Fallas is for the Valencians.  Yes, they open up their city and welcome us in.  They welcome the tourists and the revenue that they bring.  But it isn't a party with an open invitation.  It's a private event.  It's actually over 700 private events.  It's a block party like no other.  And I think to really appreciate it, to really know and understand it, you need to be a part of it.

Any time of year when you walk around a town in the Comunidad Valenciana, you will come across a door with a little plaque near it that says, "Falla Something-or-Other" and, if the door is open you may see a few people inside talking, drinking beer, hanging out.   Children run in and out with soccer balls playing.  This is the meeting place, the Casal Faller.  Neighbors meet to discuss next year's fallas.  They are probably meeting now.  They choose a theme.  They find an artist.  They plan.  They have dinners and parties and paella contests with other Casal Fallers.  They have fundraisers.  Everyone donates money.  Local businesses donate money.  A year's worth of planning culminates in this one event, ending with La Crema on Saint Joseph's Day, March 19th.

They elect falleras and falleros majores and menores - the adult and child princes and princesses of the event.  There is pomp and ceremony and tradition and lots and lots of fireworks.  There is a contest to see who has the best ninot.  Everyone gets a vote.  Even me.  One ninot.  Just one small piece of one huge construction will be saved.  There are street light contests.  Amazing ones.  Each street is different.  Calle Cuba usually wins.

Each Casal Faller creates 2 fallas (the statues), one adult falla and one falla infantil.  Just in my small town of Puzol, there are 5 Casal Fallers.  In the city of Valencia, there are over 300 - more than 700 fallas to see.  It's amazing though.  Some are absolutely astounding 5 story tall monstrosities so full of color and detail you cringe at the thought they'll be ashes.  Some are small and simple - something you think you could do yourself at home.  But each are special.  Each represents their neighborhood.  Of course, the more money a Casal Faller has, the bigger and more amazing the falla will be.  But if you're a part of it, then it's your party and it really doesn't matter how fancy it is.  It's neat to zig zag through the city and see so much variety even in the tiniest plaza in the more run down parts of town.

So I spent the last two days of Fallas in Valencia, the busiest, loudest days of all.

On Thursday, Luci and I took the train in with friends.  From the moment we left the station, we could see changes in the city.  A huge churro stand faced us as we walked out the doors and behind that a falla stood near another churro stand.  The streets to our left were lined with pointy white tented booths selling fried food, souveniers, and all sorts of Made-in-China Randomness.  Nothing I couldn't live without.  We saw a giant Charlie Chaplin, then another block over was the first prize winner - the best falla in all of Valencia,  the falla of The Comision De Falla Convento Jerusalen on the street that bore its name.  The crowds around this one were thick, but for 4 Euros, Luci and I got inside the fence to get close and take better pictures.  We each got a traditional scarf to wear as well - blue and white plaid with the name of the Casal Faller on it.  Luci tied it around her neck.  (I later learned that these are fabulous to have when the Crema begins if you are unlucky enough to be standing in the direction that the smoke blows.)

There is a style of dress that is traditional for this celebration.  Of course the falleras and falleros (princesses and princes) wear fancy clothes with traditional hair styles and jewelry, but the regular folks dress up too.  A loose smock-style blouse is worn by men and women with a scarf that often matches.  They are sold in all the shops here close to fallas time and the Casal Fallers usually have certain colors, so you can tell who belongs to who.

From here we wandered, stopping and taking photos of each falla we saw and eventually made it up past the Ayutamiento's towering falla, past the Plaza de la Reina, to the Plaza de la Virgen where there wasn't a falla at all, but a towering Virgen de los Desamparados made of flowers.  On Wednesday at 4, falla groups from all over the Comunidad Valenciana come bearing flowers for "La Ofrenda," the offering.  A tall wooden form is created to act as the virgen's traditional gown.  Each year it changes and the artists who design it tell the falla groups what kind of flowers to bring.  The falleras in their beautiful gowns come from 4pm until 1am both Wednesday and Thursday bringing their offering of flowers which are put onto the wooden frame to create the gown.  They also bring huge bouquets as "offerings" that circle the Turia fountain behind her and people come too.  Normal people.  They come dressed up - even babies dress up.  And they bring flowers too - big bouquets and small to fill two big walls leaning against the church and blanket the ground with piles of blooms.   It's amazing.  On Thursday her cloak wasn't done so it was possible to see the wooden structure beneath.  When I returned on Friday, it was finished, the crowds were thick, and she was stunning. 

From here we stopped for the promised churro break.  Churros and bunuelos are both greasy deep-fried foods that taste amazing when dipped in thick Spanish drinking chocolate more the consistency of pudding then hot cocoa.  It clings to the dough as you dip it in coating it completely in a thick layer.  So delicious.  They aren't served all year here, but for fallas, it's a must.  Kind of like eating hot dogs at a baseball game.

It is impossible to be downtown now and now see something amazing.  It's more than just the statues themselves.  Each falla commission has a band.  There are parades of finely dressed people and bands happening at random all throughout the city.  There's dancing and food and fireworks everywhere.  Next to one falla a large pot of stew sat cooking over a wood fire.  No fancy gas grill.  Just wood built on campfire style into a triangle and lit.  A nice orange flame.  A bit pot with steam billowing from under the lid.  A man and a woman in lawn chairs watching it.  It cooks there on the side of the blocked off street just a few feet from the falla, there with tourists and visitors milling around.  But this is one of those special things - one of those things we just can't quite get as outsiders.  We can't join in the meal.  Oh, how I wish I could.  It smelled wonderful.  And just before I began to walk away I heard a band, looked up, and saw two rows of beautifully dressed people walking towards me. They reached the falla and broke into casual groupings while the band played one more song.  A fallero grabbed the hands of two falleras and did a short impromtu dance that made the ladies blush and giggle.

 
We walked on to another falla where members of their commission were just "hanging out."  A fallera in her gown sat on a plastic lawn chair with her feet propped up.  Children ran around.  Men sat at a little table drinking beer, talking.  A little girl, probably 4 years old, held a small rope in one hand, put the end of a firecracker to it, blew until the ember turned red, then threw the firecracker away from her, a trail of sparks following it.  It made a loud pop, she giggled with her friends, then grabbed another firecracker from her dad and started again.  Over and over again.  She captured my attention but she wasn't the only one.  I saw kids of all ages with short yellow or white ropes lighting not only tiny firecrackers, but larger fireworks as well, then throwing them sometimes quite near people (or at my feet), and laughing as they exploded.  It's something you'd never see in the states.  Or in Britain, one lady told me.  But it's everywhere at all hours.  And it's loud.  Several times we jumped.

My favorite falla and the one that I'd return to on Friday was what we called, "the money one," the falla of Almirante.

So these "fallas," the amazing wooden, foam, paper mache, painted statues are created around a theme that is usually satirical, always comical, and generally centers around events within the last year.  Political figures are rampant.  I counted over 8 Obamas.  Celebrities are frequent.  I saw 2 Michael Jackson's, one Charlie Chaplan, and one Ronaldo.  The mayor of Valencia and Zapatero, Spain's President, are easy targets.  And... the Crisis, pronounced Cree-sees, is the dominant theme.  So, my money falla of Almirante was a stack of US coins with a sprawled out tiger on top.  A overstuffed purple chair balanced on top of the tiger with a fat man smoking a cigar sitting in it.  His cufflinks were dollar signs.  Above him towered two slender women - flappers with short hair and long smoking wands, gloves and slinky dresses.  One had pound sign earrings and the other euro earrings.  A sleak car held three over-paid soccer stars and all around this enormous falla sat smaller ninots depicting world leaders.  Zapatero wore a santa suit and drove a sleigh full of presents waving a sign about  increased taxes.  Obama floated in a dollar covered inner tube.  Britain was an arm sticking out of the water holding a pound covered umbrella.  The Greek flag floated on the blue stones depicting water.  A Russian puppeteer held their new president.  And so on.  It was all there.  Angela Merkel singing opera on the Euro covered Titanic as it sunk.  The details were phenomenal.  Little things.  Right down to the gold charm bracelet one flapper wore.  And though most all the signs in and aroung these things are written in the local Valenciano, this one I could understand enough without the signs.  It was funny, beautiful, and made sense.  I took a million pictures.

We pulled ourselves away to see just a few more before leaving.  We had to see Calle de Cuba and Calle Sueca known as much for their phenomenal street lights that are impressive even in the day as their fallas that are also some of the best in the city.  Big, beautiful.  Calle Sueca's is another one that allowed entrance within the fences for a small fee.  I paid 1 Euro each for Luci and I.  She got a hard boiled egg and I got a shot of caramel Bailey's.  Yum.  Can I go in twice?

The train station parking lot was more crowded when we returned than when we left.  I imagine at night it will be even more packed.  Many will go in for the Nit de Foc - the biggest fireworks display of the season - and one I'll miss because it starts at 1 and I'm just too exhausted already.

So... Friday morning.  Elise had "mother-daughter" time on Wednesday grocery shopping and walking around Puzol.  Luci's day was yesterday - a longer one than we'd originally planned.  Today I had two more daughters to spend "quality time" with and many more fallas to see.

Arianna and I took the train in to town this morning at 0930.  The crowds were already bigger at the station than the day before and there was a marked difference in the city as well.  We walked past the Ayutamieto to the Mercado Central, through plaza Tossal where a giant piggy bank sat with a thermometer in his mouth hooked up to a Euro IV drip.  Saw a sweet falla at Torres de Quart - the only real obvious connection that I saw between the children and adult fallas.  The children's falla showed a young boy and girl bent towards each other about to kiss, a birthday cake with the number 9, and a circle of young chubby angels over their heads.  The adult falla showed an old man and an old woman bent towards each other as well about to kiss, the circle of angels aged as well, and a line of walkers and wheelchairs around them.  It was really sweet.  From there we saw more fallas on our way past the IVAM to the Plaza Na Jordana.  Before we saw this one though, we heard music, a clear sign that something is going on.

At 11 on the Puente de San Jose, the falla queens and their courts came to bring flower offerings to the patron saint of fallas whose statue stood along the bridge near the center.  It was a surprisingly loose, casual gathering.  The falleras talked amongst themselves laughing at private jokes.  Friends helped them fix their hair with the long lace veils streaming behind them.  Mothers told their finely dressed sons to behave.   And a short line formed little by little with each fallera major carefully mounting rickety steps to lay a bouquet of white roses at the feet of the celebration's patriarch, San Jose.  We stood, watched, took pictures, then left before it was over.

The falla behind us was calling.  Wow.  This is the best of the day and Arianna's favorite.  The falla de Na Jordana was an enormous haunted house that you could walk inside through a small passage.  There were butlers, cows, crazy animals on top of a giant lamppost as tall as the surrounding buildings, a crazed man with a crazed cat, and multiple references to Britain, though I couldn't understand them all.  The photos don't even begin to do it justice and sadly, there's no going back.  That just about kills me.  It's Monday and they are all gone with nothing remaining, but photographs and memories.

Arianna wanted to see the Virgen, so we pushed through the crowds a bit, then cut through quieter side streets to get to the plaza where the giant flower cloaked virgin stood.  She was finished now and stunning.  More flowers here than before, a group of pigeons standing in a blocked off area behind her flying away, then returning as if trained somehow.  The crowds were thicker, more suffocating, but we squeezed through, got photos, and marveled at her - the Virgin de los Desamparados - the unprotected.  The original smaller version stands in the nave of the Cathedral next to us.  People go to her to pray for protection.  This is why so many girls are named "Amparo" here.  It means protected.

Churros and chocolate waited for us at a small white tent near the train station.  We grabbed them quickly, then got our place on the train and enjoyed them relaxed there, a sweet reward to a long walk.


A few hours later the babysitter came and it was Tiara's turn for a night out with mom.  Surprisingly, there was someone pulling out just as I arrived at the train station, so we got a great parking spot.  The train was crowded, so there wasn't any place to sit and it seemed incredibly slow.  We didn't have a plan, really.  I hoped to see the Cabalgata de Fuego, but we got there after it had started and the crowds were so thick you could barely see the sparks flying upward past the throngs of people and making progress through the crowd meant pushing and using elbows just a little.  We tried though and we did make ahead of the parade just a little through the people to a place where the crowd was only 4 people deep and I had a small crack between a couple heads to point my camera lens and hope for a couple good shots.  Which didn't happen.  Night, fire, movement, a tiny space.  No luck.  But, we saw enough to know that next year we will get there early enough to get a spot at the end where the fireworks are so that we can get good photos of both and see more than flying sparks and fleeting white painted faces.

We made our way north towards Almirante and once again pushed through crowds to get around the parade, "La Gran Parada Mora," that their falla commission had staged.  The costumes were beautiful, but after seeing the 9 October parade, it was much of the same thing repeated.  We kept walking, seeing as many fallas as we could, pushed through crowds at Sueca and Cuba just to see the lights.  Hoped to see Cuba's falla close up, but were irritated by the shortness of the lady demanding 4 Euros each and for only 5 minutes to walk around it.    Found churros and chocolate and a tiny fence to sit on and rest our feet a bit near the Grand Via.  We'd already walked a lot.  There were fireworks everywhere.  Not just the noise, but real displays.  Seemed every corner we turned we'd see the impressive colored sparks flying high above the buildings ahead of us.  Sometimes we'd stop and watch.  Eventually, it became too "normal," and we just pressed on.  We saw a falla infantil being wired for burning.  Those would all burn at 10.  And as we walked back to Almirante, we saw one still burning.

We both like the Falla at Almirante and both agreed that if we were to see La Crema, then we should see one that we actually cared about.  I thought Almirante would burn at midnight.  Like Germany's St. Martin's Day horses which must be shared, so must these fallas share firefighters, "Bombers" in Valenciano.   It should have been obvious that there wouldn't be enough firemen in the city to burn 350 fallas at once.  We arrived just after 1030.  Just after 11, a gravelly voiced guard told the crowds it wouldn't begin until 1.  Then just after midnight his younger cohort gave us the update:  0130.  The sushi place nearby closed at 11.  We were out of luck.  So we stood there, in front, watching our favorite falla as workers scurried around her for those couple hours pulling out foam from inside the purple chair and the fat policeman and stuffing something inside.  Circling the falla with wires, playing with fuses, pushing long sticks inside the falla in some places.  Sticks of fireworks?  A plastic container of gasoline sat there.  They set up mini mascletas, a wheel that would later make sparks, a long line of little barrels of fireworks, and horizontal stringed "ladder" that would create of white veil of sparks as the fires were lit. 

Close to midnight they set off fireworks to cheering crowds.  Even young boys stood within the fences with lit sticks lighting the little barrels.  A man ducked between two spouting sparks to set off a third.  It was beautiful, fun, and really quite insane to see the amount of fire, sparks, and the relative closeness people got to it.  The crowds got thicker as it got closer to 1.  We were all squeezed it.   Standing may be 20 feet away from the falla which sat in a relatively small plaza with buildings on all sides.  Just after 1 a part of the crowd began to scream and then we saw the firetrucks.  The bombers readied themselves, stood around the falla with hoses already hooked up and pulsing with water.  They checked them, sprayed a little.  I was glad to be at an angle where we wouldn't get sprayed.  It was beginning to get cold.

0130.  A series of fireworks shot to the air in front.  Lights nestled in the falla went off.   Fountains of sparks shot off from the sides.  The wheel through out sparks next as billowing smoke rose.  The veil of white sparks showered for a couple minutes and I could see for the first time the orange flame behind them.  It went so quickly after that.  I focused on the flapper with the pound earrings and didn't even see the police man fall over and burst into flames.  When I looked at him, he was already a simple wooden scaffold blackened with the edges glowing orange.  The smoke was thick, but seemed to rise, so that where we were there was no odor or smoke to breath in.  The firefighters sprayed the fires from all sides, not to put it out, but to control it.  And it burned on.  My flapper was suddenly a face and an arm, then just an arm that didn't seem to want to go.  It hung on, humorously, with it's long cigarette, then finally toppled over into the heap of embers.  The magician and the cat fell over and just hung there untouched by flames.  Most everything else was gone.  And Tiara and I decided that it was late enough - we had a train to catch - and we didn't need to watch until it was nothing but ashes.

We fought the crowds to leave giving our front row spot to someone else, then walked past the falla a block over, now a circle of black ashes with a random flame here and there.  Left alone.  No one was watching it.  In some areas, trucks had already come to clear away the ashes so that you saw just a shaded circle where a falla had once been.  We saw other trucks working as we walked by.  I was impressed.  They were cleaning up quickly.  By the morning the city would be normal.  It's profoundly sad.

We stood on the train again going home.  Feeling exhausted.   Standing was difficult and the ride felt like forever.  Tired.  Sad.

That is it until next year.  It is profoundly sad to think that the opportunity is gone to see some of these again, or ones that I missed.  They aren't on tour, in a warehouse somewhere, or tucked away in a museum.  They are gone, reduced to ashes, and literally swept away.

Going to get some sleep now so that I can get some rest before a packed day of Fallas activities tomorrow... but here are a few photos from today - a walk around town with Luci and friends.  Some amazing things down town.  Sad they'll all burn tomorrow.

Photos 1:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=200423&id=674507268&l=bd11b2f425
Photos 2:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=200433&id=674507268&l=083058b19b
Photos 3:  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5043990&l=6843a83af5&id=674507268

just one last bit of Fallas before leaving for a one week vacation back "home" in Germany.  Will fill you in on all the details later when I'm resting in my Gillrath gasthaus and munching on a broetchen with schinkenwurst. 


TBC... later.

From March first until the end of Fallas on the 19th, there is a mascletá every day at 2pm in front of the Ayuntamiento (city hall).   Every day the Fallera Major and the Fallera Menor (the princesses of this festival) stand on the balcony of the city hall and exactly at two announce that the mascletá should begin.

Begonia and I arrived just after 1.  The streets were already blocked off with iron barriers creating a wide empty space around the large metal caged plaza.  Thick crowds had already gathered.  There was no way to make my way to the front with Begonia with me though I'd really hoped for a few good photos.

We waited over 45 minutes watching a steady stream of humanity gather.  Many had waited longer.  At the 3rd warning blast, people were still streaming in.

A man stood by a plaid shopping cart on wheels - the same sort of cart that I see old ladies using at the Mercado Central.  He had a cigarette hanging out one side of his mouth and held up a torn cardboard sign and a beer together with one hand.  It said "cerveza 1 euro."  A few minutes later another man with a similar cart pushed his way through the crowd selling more euro beer.

The crowd pushed forward.  Spaces filled.  Smokers were everywhere.  I hated that I was going home smelling like cigarette smoke.

The final blast sounded and it began right at 2.  And then it began.  Noise.  Blam blast.  More noise.  Screaming things like - oh - what were those things?  Piper Peats?  A swirling mass of red tipped sirens screaming towards the sky then exploding booms.  Rhythmic.  Loud.  Then louder.  4 minutes of loud and smoke.

Really, the first mascletá that I saw was after the children's ninot parade, but that was at night and had real fireworks with it.  That was intoxicating.  The addicting combination of color and blood stirring sound was intense.  I expected that here too.  May be I wasn't quite close enough, but I was closer than I'd been before and the intensity just wasn't quite the same.

Still, there is something bizarrely alluring about this Valencian custom.    They only happen here in the Valencian community.   Only here where they have a love for all things pyrotechnic and all things noisy.

Four minutes.  That was it.  A culmination of smoke and sound.  It could have been a war zone except for the cheer that went up from the crowd when it was over.

And then the breeze blew away the thick brown smoke and the crowd was gone as quickly.  Waiting over an hour 4 minutes of noise, then rushing to the train station.  I don't get it.

Now I don't smell of cigarette smoke.  I smell like gunpowder.



Lucky for me, there's this local blogger who does great HD videos of these things, so though I don't have a video, you can see and hear the same mascletá that I did here:  http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=valenciablog#p/u/0/ibwnV5Ba8fo

Some times I almost feel like a local.   Moments when quirky cultural things just pass me by and I yawn and think, ya ya, it's just "normal."  Really, there are days when nothing surprises me.

And then, a moment will come along and smack me in the face and say, "YOU ARE AN AMERICAN, START THINKING LIKE ONE, PLEASE," and then I do and then I'm shocked.

Part of it is my fault, really.  The shock, that is.  I mean, as Americans, we tend to over-glorify Europe.  We think that if it's European that it's "tres chic", and "ooh-la-la", and "all that".  That it's older, thus better at just about everything.  Well, not to burst your bubble, but nope.  Not true.  Europeans have greasy, flavorless junk food and really tacky made-in-china junk, bad fashion,  inappropriate humor, and lots of graffiti.

Today was one of those days.  Overpaid for chairs to sit along the parade route in a cloud of smoke.  It's a children's parade.  My American mind believes that there should be minimal to no smoking at children's events.  So here I go thinking like an American as I try to block my girls from the smoke while choking on the cloud wafting from the group of wrinkled adults next to me.  Please wind, please change.  Cough, cough, sputter.

The parade starts.  Beautiful regal horses, a nicely dressed band, and three beautiful floats filled fill falleras menores - the young princesses of this festival dressed in thousand euro dresses, fine jewelry with dangling pearl cluster earrings, large hand pounded gold combs in their hair and three large tightly braided buns pinned to their heads.  They all stop just short of us to get out of their beautiful whimsical floats and watch the parade from the private stands in front of the Ayutamiento (City Hall).  This was beautiful, colorful, interesting...  And then the rest of the parade went by.

I suppose I can blame the Dutch.  Don't get me wrong, I love the Dutch, but boy, those folks know how to put on a parade. And their children's parade is probably the best I've ever seen.  So when a man walked by in a Greek style robe with a badly painted sign proclaiming "tradegy of something-or-other," followed by some extremely simple floats and a few very bad costumes, I was, well disappointed.  After all, this is Europe?  And all of Europe is "tres magnifique!"

Yes, there were some cute costumes, but those were the minority.  Most of the parade consisted of very low-budget "thrown together" looking floats with cooresponding "not-very-impressive" costumes.  Some kids didn't even look like they were wearing costumes and no, holding a sign, isn't the same as wearing a costume.

There was no candy.  Just a lot of advertising leaflets passed around.  A children's parade without candy?  Boo.

And the humor.  Well.  It seems to me (and this is just my little ol' American brain talkin') that if you are calling it a "children's parade," then it is a parade FOR the children and thus should be something that is fun and entertaining FOR the children.  To me, a children's parade is not a parade OF children.  But, I'm not in the states, am I?  So this children's parade is a satirical parade made up OF children.  Each group comes up with a theme, then dresses up kids of all ages (babies to teens) to walk along the route dressed up according to that theme.  One theme was aging.  Began with babies, then showed the aging process.  One scene showed a girl by a sink with tampons and pads stuck all over the place.  Another one showed a girl dressed half like a fallera and half in sweats with a coca cola in her hand.  Another scene showed one kid with a rock, another smoking, and another drinking from a "botellon," an unmarked bottle of alcohol that is a past-time with youth here.  Hmmm.  Most of the signs were in Valenciano, but those that I could make out just didn't quite make sense.  Certainly not in terms of anything fun for children.   Again, let's get some cute smiley animals or cartoon characters in here.

Finally, we had a scene of Wizard of Oz and another of Alice in Wonderland.  The flight theme was nice.  Willy Wonka is always fun.  Sadly, those weren't enough to counter the wierdness that was our first impression. 

Thankfully, the parade ended on a happy note.  Just shortly after the giant blood sausage rolled by, the mascleta began.  The rain had already started then stopped and we'd already made our way to the front gate of the train station - a safe distance for young ears.  And the boom began.  Sort of like those low-rider cars with the windows open and the boom-boom music so loud that you can hear it in your house and your windows shake.  But here it's that times a thousand and you can feel the rhythm of the masleta in the soles of your feet and inside.  It goes through you and your heart feels as if it's beating to the same rhythm and then the fireworks begin.  Wow.  I've never seen nor heard anything like this.  It's powerful, beautiful, and absolutely exhilarating!  Like flying out-of-control down a ski slope, there's an adrenaline rush just standing there from a block away.  This could be addictive.  The girls loved it.

The mascleta is a special Valencian oddity - the firework of sound.  A display for the ears formed around rhythms, like tribal drummers gone mad.  Beginning March 1st, there will be one every day at 2pm at this same place.  No lights, just sound and smoke.  Perhaps this is why people talk so loud here?


MORE PHOTOS:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=192342&id=674507268&l=009778e801


FALLAS:  http://www.cyberspain.com/life/fallas.htm
 
FALLAS:  http://www.holavalencia.net/2009/07/14/what-is-fallas/

FALLAS:  http://www.fallasfromvalencia.com/