Fallas

The Falla worth 600 000 euros.

Some of the group that went to a "corrida de toros"

Some of our girls imitating the balerinas of one of Denia's fallas.

This past week, all of us had to study for our midterms amidst the loud explosions of firecrackers that were part of the biggest spring festival in the community of Valencia: Las Fallas. The Fallas is one of the most important events where different groups make satirical sculptures made out of cardboard, wood, or styrofoam. These are set in different parts of the city/town and later burnt on the night of March 19th, saving the 1st place at last. Everybody in Denia was in the party mode throughout the entire week. There were also marching bands, people dressed up in their beautiful traditional fallas’ clothes, fireworks waking us up at 7am, and kids throwing firecrackers everywhere you went. On Thursday, after surviving throughout our midterms that lasted for three days, we all went to the city of Valencia, where the biggest Fallas were, with some Germans from our church. There were so many people in Valencia that everybody was just pushing everyone else around (there are 1million tourists coming to see the fallas in Valencia every year!). All of us just walked around looking at the different fallas (the sculptures) and a lot of us also went to watch a bullfight! Watching the bulls die for the first time was just really hard at first, but by the end of the show we were all “ole”ing just like the rest of the crowd. After walking around for hours and watching the fireworks at 2am, most of us went back to Denia, but there were some people like myself who stayed back in Valencia, because we had friends visiting us and we wanted to see the burning of the fallas in Valencia. Watching all those fallas being burnt was just amazingly awesome. Yet, I also kept thinking about the fact that it was all money burning down, as all those fallas were made out of money that is collected by their group members (the most expensive falla in Valencia was that of 600,000 euros). All in all, it was just so impressive and interesting. This week has been one of the most busy, crazy, fun, I-would-so-do-it-again weeks here in Spain.

--Written by Ahn Chan Young