When I returned to Valencia Sunday night, one of the first things I heard was the sound of poppers being thrown on the sidewalk, and as I walked out of the train station, I saw the road blocked by a giant mass of people, and what appeared to be a parade. There was lots of loud, spontaneous noise, occasional fireworks, men in dresses, and LOTS AND LOTS of people.
I was absolutely in shock, and a little bit terrifying. Imagine, for a moment, leaving the town where you live, that you think you know, for a weekend and returning to find that it is right in the middle of its biggest street festival, but you didn't know that when you left. That was last weekend for me.
I mean, the street to get back home was almost totally blocked. I was so confused, and I don't really like loud noises, especially when I don't know that they are coming, and it was just completely overwhelming. And that was my baptism by fire into las Fallas.
What is las Fallas? you might ask. Well, that would be a really excellent question. Fortunately, I've spent all week preparing to answer it, so I now know.
So back some unidentified time ago, carpenters may or may not have thrown out their old lumber into the street and then burnt it on March 19, the feast Day of St. Joseph, patron saint of carpenters. Like I said, that's a theory for the origin, but we're not totally sure. The biggest day of Fallas is the 19th of March though. Point being, a couple hundred years ago, this big holiday that involves statues and burning things on March 19th starts appearing in the written record, and it sort of progressed to today.
So basically here's what Fallas is in modern times: there are a bunch of different neighborhoods/districts in Valencia (and then some of the surrounding towns) and each one has a "casal faller" or a group of people that then gets together every year and plans to build a giant sculpture of... something (often a satirical thing or a political figure) that they will construct in the street on March 15th and 16th. And it takes a whole year to plan this, and then they put it up in 2 days. These giant papier-mâché and wood and styrofoam structures are called fallas. AND THEY ARE HUGE! and they go up right in the middle of the city. And they are all financed by the falleros and falleras (members of that committee from earlier) and so they stay up for a few days and get judged and there's a bunch of street food and fireworks and nobody does any work, and the falleros and ESPECIALLY the falleras wear these GORGEOUS handmade traditional costumes and they are insane and do their hair like this
and the city makes a lot of money, and then, on the last night of Fallas, March 19th, they set the fallas on fire, and they're filled with fireworks, and it's insane. Like, this festival involves so many explosives that it would never be allowed in the US.
Because they also do this thing called the mascletà, but I'll get to that later. Point being, the festival is revving up here, and it's AWESOME.
I mean, once you get over the compete and utter shock of it.
So I finally wade through the sea of people and cross a parade route to get back to my dorm and then I go out to dinner for Taste of America Sunday with Alexz and Elena and a bunch of the other girls. We have some tasty Asian Food, and inadvertently watch some of the children's parade, including a whole Disney-themed section. It was really fun, especially since we literally ran into fireworks at the end of it.
Then I came home and went to bed.
So then Monday we had Civilization class and talked about Spanish art and history. Then we had cine class and met our new teacher. He is cool. Not quite as insane and funny as the other guy, but he knows his stuff and he seems like a really cool guy. Just one of those people you really want to like.
I then went to Dr. Pennock's class to actually help out for the first time when I was supposed to be there, and I still really like that class. We have interesting discussions and watched another TED talk. A highlight was when we were talking about meals, and I mentioned that I like to eat "leftovers" to three Spanish girls who are usually very articulate in English, and they all did a simultaneous double take. Apparently that word isn't in the curriculum. So I explained what it meant and in turn they taught me the Spanish word, which is always useful.
Then I came home and chilled and had lunch and then Elena's class, where we learned about Fallas. It is a really interesting festival, and she explained to us all the different parts and events and what happens when. It was nice to get a little overview.
And then I went shopping. Now, shopping is not my favorite pastime even in the US, but in Spain... oh boy. So all I was looking for was a pair of jeans. I only brought two pairs, and they're about all I wear, so they are both wearing out really quickly. You would think that this would not be a complicated task: go out, find jeans, buy them, come home. Well, there were a couple of roadblocks. The first being: I don't really know where to shop. I asked some of the more experienced shoppers, and they directed me to H&M, where I found some jeans that might fit, but seemed a little pricey. Almost 30 euros. SO then I went to a different store, that had almost nothing but skinny jeans, which... I just can't do skinny jeans. My body and my personality are both just not right for them. But I tried some of the less-skinny jeans, and they didn't fit, and then I found it. I found the levis. But they were like 120 euros, and I was like "haha. no." But seriously, the number of jeans I saw in those stores that cost over 75 or over 100 euros was unbelievable. It was terrifying.
So after a good, concentrated hour of searching for and trying on jeans to no avail, I gave up, got a buñuelo (fried pumpkin doughnut covered in sugar. Looks like this:
So then Tuesday in lit we talked about the Spanish edad de plata and such, then after class we went to the mascletà, which is... very hard to describe. But here goes. There's this square in Valencia, and every day, starting about two weeks before Fallas proper, they set off... firecrackers? in this square. It's like a fireworks show, but it happens every day at 2pm, so it's not like the color is the main focus. I mean, there is color (though apparently that's new this year), but that's not the point. Because you get right up close to where the firecrackers go off (not too dangerously close, but a couple hundred feet) and you're standing with a whole bunch of people, and then they set them off and it is noise like nothing else, for the first minute or so anyway, because they set off these firecrackers almost continually for about five minutes, and there's something almost musical, because they set them off in a pattern, but after about a minute, you kind of forget the noise, because that is just drowning out everything, and you focus on the way you feel, because you are a couple hundred feet from a massive chain-reaction explosion and you can feel it in your chest and your bones and the ground shakes, and everybody is silent, because you couldn't hear them if you tried to speak, and you just stand there. In Elena's class she was telling us about a woman from Valencia whose favorite part of Fallas was the mascletà, and I totally didn't understand. It's just a bunch of noise and a big crowd, really, not my style, but after going I understood. It should be something I loathe, since it's basically the intersection of large crowds and the loudest noise possible, but I absolutely love the mascletà. It's an incredible, almost transportive or meditative experience. Awe-inspiring.
So afterwards I went back to the dorm, ate lunch, and started on a paper that was due Wednesday. And that's what I did that entire afternoon. Ugh. And then when I was done I just needed to get out, so I went to my cafe and sat at my table in the corner between the window and the door and wrote for fun. I need that after spending concentrated amounts of time writing essays.
Then I came back and we went to dinner and afterwards we went to get ice cream, because it was Mardi Gras, and there hadn't really been much celebration of that. And then we offended the Germans.
So, since learning German, I always get really happy to hear people I don't know speaking German, because I really like German and I don't hear it often. So we're standing at our ice cream place and eating our violet and sky flavored ice cream (except I got berry and coconut, because I'm not that adventurous. And violet ice cream isn't very good. And sky flavor tastes like icing.) So I hear this couple walk up, and they're speaking German and I turn to Alexz, and I say "Deutsch!" in an excited whisper, and Alexz looks at them and lets out this kind of awkward laugh at my excitement at hearing German, but the German people see her, and they come by, and the man imitates Alexz's laugh really aggressively in our direction, and we just stand there shocked for a moment, because I really like German, and Alexz wasn't trying to be mean, and we felt so bad, but it was so funny, and we just laughed. It was awful, and everybody was just staring at us trying to figure out why we were laughing.
So then I went home and went to bed.
Side note, in the original draft of this post I completely skipped Wednesday. Apparently it was so bad that I just blocked it out completely. Except that it wasn't at all. I liked Wednesday. I mean, I did a lot of homework....
ANYWAY.
So Wednesday. I woke up and went to class, where we talked again about las Fallas, and got another history of it. It was really interesting to talk to Juan Miguel, our teacher, who is valenciano, about the experience. He, like many valencianos, tends to go out of the city for fallas, which kind of makes sense. I mean, he's had decades to see this festival, and I totally get not wanting to be in your city when it goes crazy, but he also said, and this is something that my valenciano film teacher agreed with, that he likes it when he has non-valencian visitors during Fallas and he can show them the festival and teach them about it, which I totally get. Experiencing this for the first time is amazing, and I wish that I could share it with all of you. There is so much to see and hear and feel, and that is actually what Juan Miguel said was his favorite part of Fallas, is that it is very... "sensorial" or sensory, I guess. Like, there is so much to see and smell and hear and foods to taste. He also likes that the entire center of town is closed to traffic for a few days.
Another thing he said about Fallas that impressed me a lot, was when we were talking about what happened in the case of rain or bad weather, and, except for the dangerous things, Fallas continues. For example, there's this part of Fallas where all the falleras come to offer flowers to the Virgin Mary and they all walk into the plaza in their full big dresses and such. And apparently it's a mark of pride if you walk in the rain, because it shows how devoted you are to being a fallera. And that's really impressive to me, that this festival is so important that it has to continue despite the weather.
So then in film class we watched some clips from movies and talked about Spanish history and such. It was cool.
Then I went to buy some stamps and a bus pass, and then I went to the mascletà again. I stood even closer this time, and the show seems to get bigger every day, so it was even more incredible. Then I had to go take a test for Elena's class, and then we went to the Fallas museum, which was likewise pretty awesome.
So they have this tradition in Fallas, that in addition to a big full-sized thing that they put in the streets, the falleros also build a little version, like around life-sized to show off to people before the big fallas go up. This is called a ninot. The ninots are burned every year in the base of the fallas they depict, all except one. The public has a chance to vote and the ninot with the most votes becomes the "ninot indultat" or "pardoned doll" and gets saved, and they put them all in the Fallas museum. And they are SO COOL.
So then after the museum I went back to my room and wrote a paper for lit class. Writing in Spanish is hard. And then basically I chilled and went to bed.
The next morning we had lit class again and talked about the Spainsh Civil War and how that affected literature. I have learned so much about the Spanish Civil War. And so afterwards I had my tandem again, but I had a couple hours in between class and my tandem, so I went to a park by the university and read some of the book "The Short History of Spain" because seriously, I need some good context on Spanish history to tie everything together. Because I'm getting a lot of disjointed history. And our lit teacher recommended it.
So then I went to my tandem, and Gloria brought a friend, and we had a great time. We talked about the educational system and accents and it was fun.
Then I came home and chilled for a little bit, and then we went to the mirador de Valencia, which is
It was a lot of fun, there were just a few of us, so we all went up in the same car, and it was a bit scary but once I got over the absolute terror I was really glad I did it. And we took some silly pictures
So then afterwards we went down and got some buñuelos and I went back to the University to do this thing called "intergenerational conversations" that the international office was doing. The tagline was "a book, a coffee, and a story" and they got a bunch of older people who spoke Castellano, and Valenciano, and English, and then a bunch of students and we got to choose which group we sat with and we talked about books and such for an hour. It was really fun! I talked to a couple of people about books and publishing and e-readers and got some book recs, and then talked to another woman about opera and everything else. It was a cool way to get out, and a nice way to practice my Spanish.
But as I was walking to the university, as all the Fallas spirit is revving up, and I'd just been on the ferris wheel, and the sun was setting, and I was eating a buñuelo, I just realized how much I love Valencia, and how lucky I am to get to study in such a wonderful, beautiful place. Even having been gone for the last four weekends, I still feel like this is home now. I come back and am relaxed, even if the city has changed so much for Fallas.
And even though the city is different, I'm glad I'm getting to see this side of it. I'm so glad that I am here for Fallas, because once I got over the shock and the loud noises, I realized that I love Fallas too. There's something really beautiful about it. Almost Buddhist in a way. And not just because the mascletà feels like really noisy meditation. Think about it. These people work all year and dedicate their time and money and craftsmanship into building these beautiful structures for people to enjoy and look at, and in some cases, especially in the more satirical floats, to get their feelings out, and then at the end they completely destroy them. These beautifully constructed, much loved things are burned. Every year. Out of a whole year of labor, all that remains are pictures, ashes, and a single ninot. And that's sad, but it's also absolutely remarkable, because they do it again the next year, and they do it because of tradition, and because it is wonderful and it makes them and everybody else happy, and it doesn't have to be permanent.
And so I'm grateful for my two months here so far, and I am grateful to be in Valencia for another month and a half to get to witness the spectacle.
No comments:
Post a Comment