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!