Friday, March 21, 2014

Too Like the Lightning

quick pre-blog note! Hey guys, I'm safe and sound in Sevilla, and I will probably write another blog very soon, but likely will not post it until Monday or Tuesday, because it necessarily involves pictures, and the internet here is pretty good, but not good enough for me to post a blog with a ton of pictures. That is also why this post will have no pictures. I'm sorry. I saw a lot of really cool things, and I will post another blog with pictures from the last days of Fallas with captions, but for now, have some word-pictures!

And now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

So since this is another train blog and I actually have no clue when it’s going to go up, I’m just going to avoid relative time expressions. But I wrote this Thursday morning on the train to Cordoba. 

So Wednesday morning, the final day of las Fallas, I woke up very late (after 11) and finished up my last blog, before heading to the final mascletà at 12:15. Because it was the final day, I wanted to make sure that I got a good place. The mascletà has been one of my favorite parts of las Fallas, and I’m going to miss it more than anything. It has happened every day for weeks now, and it is going to be strange to not be able to go see it or to hear it everyday.

So I waited for about an hour and a half, I read and eavesdropped and chilled, and watched the preparations. Because they had almost the entire square cleared out for the mascletà, and there were firefighters and police everywhere. Also, here’s your Spanish vocab word of the day: bombero- firefighter. Shockingly, bomberos play a rather large role in the events of the final day of Fallas, and my brain doesn’t like translating that (they’re bomberos, not firefighters) so you get to learn a new word. Unless you knew that word. In which case,  sorry I wasted your time.

Oh, sidenote. In addition to being a train blog, this is a Katie-only-got-3-hours-of-sleep blog. So blame everything on that.


Right, so the bomberos had hoses and were setting up things all around the Falla in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (have we covered that one? It’s main square. The Ayuntamiento is like city hall, but it’s also used to mean “municipal government”. Languages are confusing). And so then, at 2pm, the final masceltà started.

It was incredible and beautiful and breathtaking and wonderful. Of course. And in 5 minutes it was done. It obviously went out with a bang, but even so it was… abrupt. However, the end did bring its own experience.

So the crowd was kept back by these barriers from getting anywhere near the mascletà or the Falla, but as soon as the mascletà was over, the police opened the barriers up, and the whole crowd en masse went forward towards where the mascletà went off, and there was music and a few people, who I assume were the pyrotechnicians (Microsoft Word tells me that isn’t a real word. My heart tells me otherwise) in charge of the mascletà went around the area and we all clapped, because, seriously, it was amazing, and they deserved some credit for what they did. And even if I don’t always understand exactly what is happening, there is something very reassuring to me about being part of a crowd . When you get all these humans acting together and working in concert it is beautiful. And I know that it can be turned to horrible, horrible things; mob mentality and all, but Fallas takes all the power of the crowd, but uses it for joy. So just being with these people as we all went up and cheered and sang was its own fantastic experience.

And then the crowd dissipated, and the fallera mayor waved, and I went back home and ate lunch.

What I really wanted to do was take a nap,  what I should have done is gone out and seen Fallas, however-

Here’s the thing. You may have noticed, but honestly, I only did yesterday. So maybe you are more observant than I am.  But Fallas creates a bubble. It takes you and it wraps you up and you lose track of time and place and the normal sense of how the word operates. It just sort of sweeps you up and carries you through. But the problem is that it doesn’t last. After four or five days of fireworks and parades and bands and flowers and Fallas and parties and wonder, it ends. And the last mascletà Wednesday, that fact hit me. When I got back I remembered that in less than 12 hours all that would be left of the Fallas were ashes. And that was a sobering thought.

And these intrusions of real life reminded me that I leave Thursday morning at 8:15 for a long weekend in Sevilla. Which means I had to pack and get ready and make sure that I didn’t show up in Sevilla with like, nothing but 5 euros and a pañuelo fallero (fallas bandana). So point being, instead of something fun, I did laundry Wednesday afternoon. Because I realized, as I was eating lunch, that all my clothes smelled like Fallas, and that I would barely have enough that was clean for the weekend, much less Monday, when I have to go to class, and I won’t have time for laundry Sunday night, so… Yeah, laundry. Gotta stop smelling like gunpowder.

So basically Wednesday afternoon I chilled and read and did a minimal amount of research on the places I was going, and waited for my laundry to happen.

Then around 6:30, I headed down to the Calle Colón near the train station to see the dramatically named Parade of Fire.

So when I was in my English class last week, Dr. Pennock was making fun of the Falleras (good naturedly, of course) because apparently whenever they are interviewed they are always asked, “and how does this feel? What is this experience like?” to which they inevitably respond “there aren’t words. I can’t describe it.” And Dr. Pennock wanted to know why people kept asking the question if they knew that there weren’t words and why the Falleras kept answering like that.

But the thing is: there aren’t words.

The Parade of Fire was… one of the craziest most wonderful amazing things I have ever seen. It started out very innocently with some dancers and then there was a parade of Falleras, including the fallera mayor and the fallera mayor infantil (child fallera mayor), but they were accompanied by these actually slightly nightmare-inducing people carrying flaming things. They were wearing these red hoods and the light from the sparklers was really red and menacing, and it was really, really cool.

And then the real show started. This is the part that really makes me use the word insane, because this is crazy, and probably illegal in the US. There were… people and they were dressed up as devils (no. I don’t know why. Don’t question it. It was awesome.) and they were carrying pitchforks and other impliments that were sending off these huge showers of sparks, and you could see them coming from way ahead, except it was just this big mass of light and sparks, and then they are there, and all of a sudden you are in it, and there are people walking on stilts and spraying sparks all over the street, or people carrying sticks with something on them that spins and generates sparks, and they come over, and he crowd is just bathed in these falling sparks and everybody is laughing and screaming and making sure their hair doesn’t catch on fire, and it was just… talking about it gives me goosebumps.

And then there were these people, dressed up even more intensely as devils, standing on this massive float, and they were like, juggling fire, and dancing and behind them was this giant dragon thing, that would move and flex its wings, and then behind that was a big evil looking turtle (I know, sounds weird, actually really cool) and people were inside and they would shoot sparks out of the shell, and then came an ambulance (I have to say, they are very well-prepared when they do incredibly dangerous stuff), and then some policemen, and then the rest of the crowd.

That is a thing I love about parades in Spain, is that once all the professionals have passed, you can just sort of join in, and we did. We got behind the policemen and followed them in this huge crush of people down to the end of the parade route, and the police put up barriers, and we watched the parade go around the square once, and then there were fireworks.

They weren’t quite the ones that had been in the río, but they were their own brand of fantastic. There is this arch in the middle of the plaza, and there were sparklers on top of it, and fireworks going off all around it, and we all got caught up in another rain of ashes, and I had to stop smiling, because I accidentally got ash in my mouth from looking up and smiling big. And after a few minutes, it was over, and I went back and had a shockingly normal dinner. Tasty, but normal.

Then I went back to my room and did a few things, and then headed out. They start burning things at 10pm: children’s fallas first. SO I decided to go over to see the falla that won before they torched it, and watch them burn the corresponding children’s falla. I wound up in a sort of new part of town, which is always fun, and the falla was pretty dang cool. I see why it won. Though, apparently that falla hasn’t won for like 15 years, so it was kind of a surprise.

However, what I had not realized is how fast the fallas burn. They are made of wood, papier-mache, and Styrofoam. They are supposed to burn at 10pm. I got there at 10:02 and the thing was a pile of ashes. It was a kids’ falla of course, and the big ones do take longer, but DANG. They don’t waste time!

So then I wandered about the area near the train station, saw some fallas, saw some fireworks, bought a really delicious sausage, looked at the small bonfires and piles of ashes that used to be children’s fallas, marveled at the brevity of life, the usual.

Then I went back to the dorm briefly, just to take a minute. I went up to the roof, and it was… crazy. You know the end of Step in Time from Mary Poppins? How they let off all the fireworks and there are all the colors and noise over the city? That’s kind of what it felt like, but less dangerous. Also, I am pretty sure that the sky was clear, but there was so much smoke in the air that it looked cloudy.

Oh yeah, if you haven’t begun to suspect this: Fallas is actually a really bad idea. Like, on so many levels. For one, the environmental impact is just… I don’t even know how to express it. They burn a lot of Styrofoam. Let’s start there. And then there is the fact that the noise from the mascletà and fireworks is loud enough to probably affect your hearing later in life, and then you are breathing in not only the Styrofoam smoke, but also smoke from the cigarettes of the people who are inevitably smoking next to you in a crowd that means that you cannot escape. And let’s not even start on the kinds of food one eats at Fallas.

But actually, who cares! It’s not like it  happens every day, and it’s so much fun. I just felt like I should acknowledge that I recognize that practically and emprically Fallas is a really terrible idea.

So then I went to wait for the big cremà, where all the fallas go up in smoke. The big fallas (are supposed to) go at midnight, the winner at 12:30, and the city’s falla at 1am. So I went to the falla closest to me, the Mercado, which is conveniently also the falla closest to the city falla, so I could go see that burn, and had some fun conversations with people waiting, but then discovered that they had pushed back the time of the burning to 2am, so I decided to go get a good seat for the burning of the city falla at 1. I sat and waited for a while, read and chilled and eavesdropped (seriously, there’s so much to listen to in a giant crowd of people. In so many languages!) and then at 1 it started.

I didn’t have the most stellar view, so there aren’t a ton of photos. But I chose to go because I wanted to be close, even if I couldn’t see as well as some people in the back. And it was so worth it. It started at 1 with a… I can’t tell if it was a fireworks disoplay or a mascletà. Maybe a little bit of both. I think I might call it a mascletà, just because I wanted to have another of those before it ended. So that was incredible, all the noise and lights and, and then they set off these petardos… the appropriate translation for which is not coming to mind, these strings of explosive things, and they went towards the Falla, and then there were these things that just let out a shower of sparks, and there were more fireworks, and then the falla, which was… I think it was wood, but like, balsa wood, and there were spaces in the wood, so you could see through to the interior. I mean, not much, it looked solid in the daylight, but if you lit it up from the inside, it would glow, and they lit it up with red and yellow and orange- like a preview of the flames. And then there were more petardos and fireworks, and then suddenly, the Falla was on fire. It wasn’t slow, they set off some petardos, and then it was burning. I know I’ve mentioned that “falla” comes form the Latin word for torch, and that’s exactly what it looked like: a giant torch against the sky. And it sent off these sparks into the air, and they looked like a sky full of violent stars. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I wanted to laugh and to cry, and, well, there aren’t words. And then it collapsed, and we all cheered, and it burned down and we slowly started to leave the plaza. I was back at the Mercado by 1:20.

I was debating whether or not to stay to watch the burning of that (this would not have been a debate, because, seriously, it was awesome, but I did have a train to catch at 8:15 Thursday morning, and I had to like, pack.) when I saw Elena and the international students. I went over to say hi, and got caught up in a game of word association, which was a lot of fun, and not as difficult in Spanish as I might have thought. They were doing it to pass time until the cremà, but when I found out that it wasn’t going to take place until like 2:15, I headed back to the dorm room, because I wanted at least 3 hours of sleep.

I got back and realized, once again, that I smelled absolutely foul, and so took a nice shower and got into my clean pjs and packed and put away my fallas bandana, and then I hit the hay.

This morning, my alarm went off at 6am, and I got up and finished packing and headed to the train station.

I’m honestly not sure which was more surreal: arriving in Valencia during Fallas, or leaving Valencia after Fallas. Because we’ve been in the bubble: the whole city has, and it has become what we expect, and it’s beautiful and insane, and yet, this morning… it was like it hadn’t happened. There were a few more people out sweeping the street than normal, but after 5 days of intensive partying, there actually wasn’t the mess you’d expect. The Mercado had lights on, the bakeries were opening up. It looked for all the world like we had gone back in time to before it all started. The only way you could tell it had happened at all was a few leftover churro stands that were closing down for the last time, and some stray piles of ashes were the only remnants of the fallas.

Because there’s a thing about Fallas, which I don’t think I understood until last night. I’d been searching for a title for this post, because it was such a spectacular event, and I wasn’t sure how to sum it up, but Wednesday night, watching the city I lived in for 5 days turn to ashes in minutes, I figured it out. And, hold on to your horses, I’m gonna quote Romeo and Juliet here, because even on his bad days, the Bard knew how to say it. Fallas is “too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say ‘it lightens.’” Because Fallas is like a lightningbolt. It comes from nowhere and changes everything for just a moment. It is a cacophony of sounds and smells and sights and experiences, a veritable whirlwind. And it hits you like anything, and then you turn to your friend to say “wasn’t that great?” “wasn’t that crazy?” “can you believe…” And it’s gone before you can finish your sentence. And you’re left with the shock, this idea that it should all be different, that the world should bear some mark of what it has just experienced, but it doesn’t, and all you can see is a split tree or a pile of ashes to be sure that it wasn’t a dream. And in those five days it felt like an eternity: like that was how life was, but on the other side of it, I feel like I went to my first mascletà yesterday. I don’t know how Fallas seems to be able to bend time around it, but however long or short it was I am honored and humbled and grateful and ecstatic to have been there for it. Because, like the lighting, it may have been short and startling, but it was brilliant. 

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