La Cremá (The Burning)

Gabriella, Jordan and I with our falla in the background
right before it burned

My friend Jordan and I with a fallera that belonged
to the falla we helped to construct

My friends and I were in an internship that aided in the construction of the falla behind us.  Upon arriving to the site an hour before it was set to burn, I told the fallero on the right that we had helped to build it and his face lit up.  We were treated to VIP access (actually let inside the big yellow gates surrounding each falla), and were able to get close up pictures with them and our falla in the final moments of it's short but beautiful life.  As you can tell, I am kind of mourning (haha, just jokes).  But really though, I still am surprised that it is all gone and that all of the 800 fallas across the city burned to ashes that night.  I still walk the city and turn a corner expecting to see a giant falla in the middle of an intersection, as it was work the entire week of Fallas

The burning of my falla!  On the left there is a string attached to the top of the sun.  This was rigged about 5 minutes before the fires started, and petardos (firecrackers) were also placed in various places around the figure.

so many hours of work.  bye-bye!  I really do not know how the artists can stand to watch their works of art burn, year after year.  But hey, that's the spirit of fallas!

hasta luego!

that's rough.  On the bottom right you can see the top hat of one of the ninot figurines. 

After watching my infantil falla burn to a crisp, a large group of my friends and I hung out in the large market on the street for a while, then made our way over to the falla Na Jordana (which was one of the few fallas made completely of wood).  We were all having a great time and chatting it up for about an hour before the actual fire began.  Fireworks first went off into the sky above us to warn of the upcoming burning.  Then the fire slowly crept up from the bottom of the beard, lighting up the giant Da Vinci head in front of us.  The fire got so enormous that my face and body could feel the heat, and I was over a street's width away.

This was a few minutes into the burning.  His face was about to fall off and let off a big cloud of smoke and ashes.

Adios face, hello firefighters!  There were numerous firefighters around the base of Na Jordana, spraying water to contain the fire as well as on the buildings and apartments beside the fire to keep them from overheating and catching fire.

La Cremá was such an incredible experience, I wish I had stuck to my original plan of following the bomberos from falla to falla to see as many as I could.  (Many of the fallas are so large that they have to wait for bomberos to arrive in order to start the fire).  However, the Na Jordana falla apparently had a few technical difficulties in the actual starting of the fire, and therefore took much longer than we had been expecting.  This was no problem to us though, as we munched on perros calientes (hot dogs), churros, and chocolate coated cream-filled churro circles.
Almost immediately after the fire of this falla was nearly put out, it started to rain.  It was almost as if the earth knew that Valencia had to be cleansed of all of the filth, ash, urine in the streets, alcohol and broken bottles, and yes, vomit, everywhere.  It started to pour, and my friends Gabriella, Susie and I took off in the direction of La Plaza de Ayuntamiento.  We even made it as far as the Plaza de la Virgin to see the enormous Virgin Mary covered in soaking flowers once again (I am honestly not sure of how we even got there at this point).  After some more running around, random churro buying at stands across the city (we had convinced ourselves that it was a great idea since they would all be gone the next day), and chatting up others unfortunate enough to not have umbrellas (who would bring an umbrella to watch a falla burn?).  I finally made it home around 2 or 3 am, and crashed into my cozy little bed until the afternoon the next day.

Fallas was such an incredible experience I really do not have enough words to explain the non-stop fun of that insane weeklong tradition.  It is honestly an unsustainable event, and I almost feel like there should be a siesta day to break up the week.  My friends and I were all recovering for days afterwards, with our madres' help to recuperate and attempt to wake up at a normal time in the morning again.

However, I didn't worry about recovery time, as 3 days later I left to London to meet up with my cousin and her friend for the weekend!  More about that in the next post

Huelga mañana! (Strike tomorrow!)

Mañana hay una huelga general.  Mi madre española me lo estaba explicando porque yo nunca he visto una cosa así.  Le pregunté por qué iba a pasar ahora y me dijo porque los derechos tienen el poder (jaja), pues dijo que no había ocurrido una huelga por los últimos ocho años porque durante todo ese tiempo los izquierdas han tenido el poder.  Pues llegó un tiempo en que casí hubo una huelga pero no fue total como va haber mañana.  Aparentamente mañana todos los trabajos, servicios, y transporte se van a cerrar por toda España.  Los sindicatos estan en carga de esta huelga, y van haber piquetes por la ciudad.  Mi madre española me explicó que estes piquetes no intentan de resolver las cosas de una manera pacificante, y de otras palabras se pueden pegar a la gente si intentan de ir a los trabajos y hacer que las cosas funcionan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/29/eurozone-crisis-spanish-general-strike?CMP=twt_gu
here is a link to the Guardian's liveblog which provides updates from Spain's general strike

Tomorrow there is a general strike all across Spain.  My Spanish madre was explaining the concept to me because I have never experienced anything like this.  I asked her why this was going to happen and she told me because the rights now have the power haha.  She mentioned that a strike such as this hasn't happened for the past eight years because the lefts had power during that time.  There was a time when there was a semi-strike, but never a total one such as the one scheduled to occur tomorrow.
The one she was referring to was during September 2010 during the socialist administration of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
So apparently tomorrow all of the jobs, services, and transportation are going to stop all throughout Spain.
The labor unions are in charge of coordinating the strike, and tomorrow there will be picketers all around. My madre explained to me that these picketers do not try to resolve matters in a peaceful way, and in other words have been known to hit people that try to go to their jobs and make things go smoothly.
Then she told me to buy everything I had to buy today and left it at that.
I'm just glad that I'm living with a Spanish family that can explain basic things like this to me.
My school has sent us a warning email, but I have never experienced anything such as this, so it will be interesting.  Also, most of the university students don't have school either, so apparently there are a lot of parties tonight.  My school, however, will stay open and classes will continue for me.
I am interested to find out how this is going to be!
But in the mean time, I still have some overdue posts about fallas
and I'm going out to study with my friend Susie in the rio because it's such a sunny day so I'll get to all that later.
Ciao!!

Cabalgata del Fuego

The Cabalgata del Fuego means "Fire Parade", which was AWESOME

We had to get to the area almost an hour before to get front row standing spots.  But little did we know that we chose the area where all the falleros would be standing.  This gave me the opportunity to chat one of them up, and she even let me get some close up pictures of her traditional dress and hair

It was on the last night of Las Fallas, and is basically a parade in which dancers emit fire and sparks in every possible way they can.  There were chariots with people dressed as soldiers throwing fire balls into the air, some with spinning machines that threw off flames, and even someone dressed as the devil with a flame thrower.  The involvement of fire is incorporated with the entire purpose of Las Fallas, which is to burn away the troubles and worries of the previous year and to begin a new.  However, I personally think they took it to a whole new level with this one, but it was much more entertaining!  (see for yourself below)

After about 20 minutes of this, the parade ended with yet another incredible display of fireworks (every single firework show during Fallas was the best I have ever seen... the 4th of July in the US will never be the same)

some of my favorite fallas

This falla was right outside my apartment.  The wooden structure in the middle is meant to imitate the traditional fallas that were originally only made of wood (not all of the styrofoam and paint that is used today)

This falla is critiquing our treatment of the ocean.  Atop is the sea god screaming at us among the floating fish

This is the infantil falla that was in the same intersection as the one above

I really don't know how this was balancing, but the large top figure was only supported by his magic wand connected
to the side of the rabbit

This one was in front of the Nord Estación de Tren (Train Station)

This falla refers to the great spending of money without sufficient funds or purpose.
Hence the reason for Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, below is a close up

Heading down the street to approach the falla pictured below.  This street was so packed it took us 10 minutes to reach the falla.  There was a market on both sides selling everything from jewelry and scarves to churros and cotton candy

Definitely one of my favorites.  This falla depicts the female and male views of love.  The feminine side was constructed in a fairytale-like manner, while on the male side it's pretty much the opposite.. see below

This is directly below the large boy, the head sticking out of the window is drunk, and on the right of this there is an arm sticking out of the window holding an actual bra, creative!

This scene was on the ground level of the falla (on the male side, of course).  Notice the red leather boots sticking out of the window.  This falla was filled with so much detail you could circle it 5 times and still see new things.

Each falla had signs posted around it to explain the satire, however they were all in valenciano, so I didn't truly understand everything until I went around with some native valencians who translated the text to castellano.

...creative..  actually feces were a very popular topic among many of the fallas. Negative feelings toward politicians and others responsible for the downfall of the economy were clearly displayed all throughout the city.

Na Jordana, the falla which many of my friends and I chose to watch burn on the last night of fallas.
The people I worked for on my infantil falla (my internship) had a part in constructing this one as well and it was right down the street from the placement of my falla, so this also aided in my decision to watch this one burn out of all of the 384 other large fallas around the city.

all made out of wood

This was my professor Jesús' falla.  All of the scissors refer to the cuts the government has made on schools, healthcare, and other necessities

this is the falla I worked on

La Ofrendá (part deux)