Night Time In Valencia

When the show had finished everyone piled into the street and made their way to their own respective places, and me and Cassi and Missy and Paige decided to walk over to the falla that we wanted to see burn so that we would be sure to get front row seats! So we got there around 8:30 or 9 because we were thinking that we would need to be there early to get front row and what not, so we chilled at our falla of choice for a really, really long time. And during this time, we really began to worry about this. I mean, here we are about 20 feet or so away from this big statute thing, which is in the middle of a residential area and tall buildings, and they are going to set it on fire. Who thought that placing a large burnable object in the middle of the city and buildings, placing people close to it, and then lighting it on fire was a good idea?! But good idea or not, we were ready for whatever cam e our way! We thought that we had the prime spot, but then we were moved because they were going to burn another one that was a little ways down the street. So after practically pushing us out of our spot, we walked around and found another group of people from our group who had been waiting on the other side of the falla. So we sat there with them until around 11:30 when once again we were pushed from our spot and into the streets where they were setting up the barriers. The good thing about the spot that we chose, though, is that was where they chose to make the cut off, so we were right in the front row! It was rumored that the burning was going to start at 12, then we would stay till it was about done burning and try to find the bus to head home. So when 12 o’clock came and nothing was happening, everyone started to doubt the validity of our source that told us it started then. The fire fighters were just kinda chillin’ around the falla, talking, walking back and forth pretending that they were doing something, when really if you watched them, they were just walking. Meanwhile there were hundreds if not thousands of us all packed like sardines into the street behind the barrier waiting for something to happen. When 12:15 came around and they had turned the lights on and off once or twice making us think that something was actually going to happen, people started to get restless and start chanting things like “we want fire!” and sometimes other things that were not so encouraging to the people making the fire possible. The little old people next to me even got into it and started yelling things at the fire fighters so that they would know that we were ready to get the show on the road. It was pretty funny! I even joined in a couple of times with a “Madre Mia” or a “Vamos” or something here and there so that I could really experience everything, ya know? That and my feet were killing me from standing there in the same plaza for a good 4 hours and I really was ready for this fire to start. When 1 o’clock in the morning rolled around I was considering just crowd surfing it to the back or something because I could barely stand, but just at this point on of the firefighters walked up to the section where I was standing and said something to the effect that the zone that I (and everyone around me, obviously) was standing in was a really hot zone, and if we got the urge to turn around and run away, don’t! Just bend over so that you are behind the barrier or other people and stay there until you are not so hot anymore. Well that was just the thing that I wanted to hear after standing there for hours to see this. So here I am thinking that I am going to walk out of there without eye lashes now, or I might get trampled by the people who just can’t take the heat! So comforting! I wonder if they have ever had problems with stampeding people before. But on the other hand that at least meant that they were going to start sometime soon! It was a good half an hour later that everything was set up and the gas had been poured on the falla, and all of the firefighters had taken many pictures with it, that Ms. Falla (or something like that) came and set the fuse on fire. It was right then that my camera decided to die, so I missed the one event that the whole day had been leading up to! Sad! (no worries, I got copies of pictures and such from other people) This is one of the coolest things ever! As the fuse continued to burn it went and set the giant lantern on fire that was the top of the falla, and from there the falla was history! And the fireman was right! We were definitely in the hot zone, not to mention the wet zone too! There were firemen standing in front of the buildings, spraying them with water from fire hoses so that the buildings wouldn’t catch on fire, so every once in a while we would get a few drops of water falling on us. We stayed to watch the whole thing burn down, and when we finally left the falla that was once as tall as the surrounding buildings was nothing more than smoldering ashes! It was pretty intense!
After that we were all pretty beat, so we headed over to the train station to use the smelly bathrooms one last time before going back to the bus, and ended us sitting on the floor of the train station for a while, waiting for people to come, and use the bathroom and such. We finally made it back onto the bus around 3 o’clock in the morning and crashed into the seats. The ride home is kind of a big blur of trying to get comfortable on the bus, and waking up, and trying to fall back to sleep, and once again nothing good can come from trying to sleep on the bus! When got back to Alcalá at 7 in the morning, and Paige and I walked like Zombies back to our house, and crashed in bed! We slept till about 3 that afternoon. It was great!

Valencia Evening

By this time, we had been wandering for a good long while, and by a good long while I mean ever since we had gotten off the bus that morning, so me and Cassi and Missy and Paige decided that we were tired and needed desperately to find a park to siesta, so telling Shumway that we were breaking off from the parade, we went our own way, first to find ice cream for Missy, and next to find the park. After even more walking we found a little store that had some ice cream to satisfy Missy’s sweet tooth, and we sat outside at the tables with our map spread over the top, trying to decide where the park was. Now, Spanish maps are a little bit different than the ones that you normally find in the US, there is nothing telling you which way is North, South, East and West, and the markings on the map, like where the churches are and such vary from map to map, and some maps are distorted to accentuate the better parts of the city, or things that people normally go to see so that they will be easier to find or something, which just makes everything confusing. So there we were, 4 directionally and apparently map challenged girls, trying to figure out where the park is in relation to where we were, and all we wanted to know what how to get us to the big green area on the map that said Parque. It took us a while to find the street that we were on, on the map, and once we did, it took us even longer to figure out which way we would have to walk to go in the right direction of the park, but after much discussion and debate about where we were gonna go, we set out in what we decided was the right direction. We walked in the right way, and after just crossing the street and coming to where the park was supposed to be, and really what the map had shown as a vast green area was in fact a vast brown, dirt area that were soccer fields. We were a little disappointed that we couldn’t go chill there and take a nap, but while we were walking across the bridge that looked down on the park we noticed a little ways farther there were trees and grass and other greenery that looked quite inviting. So we crossed the bridge and headed to the other side of the street to then walk and go to the nice part of the park. Now let me tell you about this park. It’s kinda weird, but because the park is below the rest of the city, kinda like a canal, except for it’s a park. So while we were along the road, trying to find a way into this park, but I think this is one of the LEAST accessible parks that I have ever seen! We walked along the road for a good 20 minutes without even seeing the slightest inkling as to where the entrance is. We passed other parks while trying to get into this one, just because all of a sudden entering this park became some sort of challenge or something that we just had to do! We even stopped and asked a guy that was already in the park, how in the world we were supposed to get in there! He laughed at us and told us that there were stairs a little ways farther. So we walked for a while longer until we finally found the ramp entrance to the park, located right in the middle of the park and nowhere else. How convenient! When we finally got in, made it past the small children throwing fire crackers and underneath another bridge we found a place to sit down and eat the sandwiches that we had made the night before.All of our efforts of getting into the park were kinda lame, because after we were done eating, we sat there for a bit and decided that it was too cold to really lay down and take a nap or something, so we got up and walked back out of the oh so enchanted park and back into the streets of Valencia. We just wandered some more for a while after that, and after finally finding some bathrooms (the porta-potties on the side of the road, these ones are high tech! they had a place for you to wash your hands! Sweet, I know!) we found a place where crowds were gathering so we thought that we would stop and see whats going on. Where there’s a crowd, there has to be something exciting going on, right? Upon further investigation we found that they were going to do a fireworks show in a little bit, so we made camp right next to the seating that was reserved. We figured if it was reserved it would be a good place to see things! This is where we stayed for the next hour or so until it was dark enough for things to happen. But before the fireworks started going off, there was a parade that came through on the street with dancing girls and dragons spitting fireworks, the works! It was pretty intense! So intense, as a matter of fact, that one of the dragon costumes got hit by some of the sparks of the fireworks that it was spitting and started on fire! It was just on the tail, but the parade had to momentarily stall so that the person who was walking behind could stomp on the fire and put it out! But once that was taken care of, things went smoothly! By this time the crowd had collapsed passed the previous barriers and we were now standing right by the street in great anticipation of the fireworks. When the parade ended, we all just stood there for a second, wondering what was going to happen, but once the fireworks started shooting out of the ground around the little building in the center of the plaza area, we knew the show had started!!! It only lasted about 10 minutes or so, but let me tell you what, the Spaniards know how to do fireworks! It was so loud and the sky was lit up for the whole time! One of the funniest things were the German guys that were standing behind us. They were laughing so hard at just about everything that you couldn’t help but laugh too!

Valencia Afternoon

But after somehow surviving the challenge of the horrific bathroom, we found out that there was some kind of fireworks show that was going on at 2 somewhere around the main part of town, so we started to head in the direction that we thought it was in, and soon found out that we were going the right way because every other person that was in the city was headed there too! So we were almost pushed in the right direction, going with the flow of people towards the genie and the center of town. I think I now know just how a sardine feels packed into those little packages because that’s about how close we were with the people around us, waiting for the fireworks to start. We waited, and waited, tried to turn to talk to my friends that were behind me, but there was no movement that could be made without causing a domino effect of people all the way down the street, so I had to be content standing there in the sun packed into the street with thousands of people that I don’t know surrounding me, waiting to see the fireworks in the middle of the day, which seemed a little strange to me, but hey, it was still cool! We had been standing there for a while, waiting for them to start, when we finally decided that the heat of the sun bearing down on us and the body heat from the people we were sandwiched against was too much. So we decided to follow the small parade of people in our group that had formed and were making their way through the masses of people, so I grabbed the arm of the last girl in the line and began to make my way through the rest of the people that had gathered there. As we were making our way out, the fireworks started, and I got distracted and lost the arm of the girl in front of me, and there I stayed. I have found I am not talented in the ways of making my way through a large crowd of people who are standing right next to each other, so once I lost the arm, all hope for leaving the crowd early was lost! So I turned around to face where the fireworks were supposed to be, and I got to see the smoke that was coming from what used to be fireworks, and that was it, accompanied by very loud noises, which normally come with fireworks, claro. Once the festivities of that time were done, we tromped along with the other people until we reached the plaza area where there was more room to roam, and were able to take a breath of fresh air and with for the other people in our group to come. We waited for a bit, and finally a couple more people came, and we decided that a smaller group was better, and made our way out into the middle of the plaza to decide where the market was. The map was not very helpful, seeing as a lot of the streets didn’t really have names on them, and we couldn’t find the plaza del marcado. So we were going to ask someone like we normally do, you know, the people who look like they are natives, but when you are at something that millions of people go to, how are you supposed to know who is a local and who is not? So rather than take time trying to distinguish who knew where to go and who was just wandering and looking like they had a purpose, someone got the idea to ask a police officer! We then were able to kinda find out where to go! We walked down the main street for a while, marveling at the different fallas, passing other tourists. I felt right at home! Haha! I even got offered some cerveza for only 1 Euro, and almost convinced the guys to give it to me for free! What I would have done with it had I gotten it for free, I don’t know. Maybe left it on the curb for a surprise to a passerby or something, but it would have been funny to get it! We kept wandering for a while in the direction that we thought that the market was, and finally found it tucked back off the main street a ways. There were shops on the side of the street selling random things like t-shirts or knitted tops for girls (which would not have covered very much, they were not very well knitted so they had somewhat large holes in them. Maybe that’s the point… but I am just not sure). Apparently the indoor market that they have here is one of the biggest ones in the world, but as we wandered to find the entrance to it, we found that it was closed. Sad day! But I believe that it’s a huge market, the building was pretty monstrous itself!!! But with that loss, we just kept wandering around the market and the city, seeing what there is to see!

Morning of Valencia

That morning was one of the earliest mornings of the whole trip! Someone decided that it would be a good idea to leave at 7 o’clock in the morning, so that’s what we did! But for me that meant a 6 o’clock wake up, or more like a 6 o’clock drag myself out of bed and try to get ready as quietly as possible so that I won’t wake the family up, all while trying, against all of my better judgment, not to crawl back into bed. But we were ready to go at 6:45 leaving once again a little early to get those prime spots on the bus. We snagged them just in time, and I used a technique called “have someone come over and talk to you that is already sitting in another seat technique” so that by the time everyone else is one the bus and has found their seats, and we are getting ready to leave, the person I was talking to will go and sit back in their seat, and I have the whole row to myself to sleep! Alright, so that’s not really what I planned, but that’s how it happened, and it was AMAZING!!! It’s too bad that I am not really able to sleep on busses really well, because conditions were perfect for sleeping! I even brought my little neck pillow thing and my BYU blanket for comforts sake. But alas, I did not sleep the whole way, but I was able to relax somewhat comfortably sprawled out on 2 bus seats listening to my iPod curled up in my blanket, and resting on my neck pillow. Ya, it sounds nice, but it wasn’t really as nice as it sounds. I lost feeling in my leg a couple of times and had to readjust positions and then when we went over bumps my head would smack on the window. Haha! Oh man I love busses!We finally got there around 11:30 in the morning and the bus pulled over to the side of the Plaza de España and we waited for one of the padres of a couple of the girls in our group to show up. So while waiting the logical thing to do was try and make a dent in our rations for the day, so we ate the sandwiches and bananas that originally wouldn’t fit in the backpack, and patiently waited for Juan to show up. Juan is native to Valencia, but lives in Alcalá right now. He was there visiting for Semana Santa because its so famous there, and he agreed to come and show us around for a bit! So when he got there, we all piled out of the bus and into the warm air of Valencia. I always feel weird when the whole group of us is walking around a place because I just feel like we are a bunch of ducklings following their mother. So that’s how it was again as we walked through the city for the first time. We started out just walking from Falla to falla. Fallas are the almost statute like things that each neighborhood makes every year for the festival. They have a competition between all of them. There are lots of different categories, at least as far as I could tell, and each big falla that we went to had several little banners hanging in front of them saying what place that had gotten in the different areas. There were big ones that we just as tall if not taller than the buildings around us, and little ones that were about the size of a small car, and medium sized ones that were about in between the other 2 sizes (hence they are the middle sized ones, haha) , and just about every corner that you turned, you saw another one! We started being able to tell where we were based on what falla we had just seen. At the center of the city was one that looked like the Genie from Aladin, so if we wanted to get there, we would just ask people where the genie was, and then they would tell us how to get there. So we wandered through the city for a while, following Juan from falla to falla, through the streets and between people, and finally ended at the train station. I still wonder why he took us there, I mean, its cool but it was not like we had never been to a train station before. Maybe it was for the girls who needed to use the restrooms, which was all of us. So the 29 girls who were on the trip all paraded over to the bathroom, making the like about 3 times longer than it was before. And I don’t know what was worse, waiting in line, or actually making it into the bathroom itself! This was the worst smelling bathroom that I have ever entered in my life!!! I think I would almost rather hold it then ever enter that bathroom ever again!!! It was so bad that I had a headache when I left, and I was not the only one with these symptoms! There were like 4 other girls who left there with headaches too! It was that bad!