stephiemcnally: Fallas Festival

This weekend was the Fallas festival in Valencia and the erasmus office organsied a day trip into Valencia for it. This is a festival that’s on every year from the 17^th til the 20^th of march. Thousands of people come from all over the world for it. Most of the streets are closed down and there´s people everywhere. Loads of food stalls are set up all over the city and there´s a great atmosphere around the place. Everyone can walk around drinking in the streets. The Fallas is a competition where people build massive statues representing something and they are displayed in different locations all over the city. On the Thursday the winner of fallas is announced and then on the Saturday all the ones who didn’t win are set on fire so you have these massive fires happening throughout the city. On the Thursday they also build the “Virgin”. This is a massive statue of a woman made from wood and flowers. There are constantly parades happening and each person in the parade brings the flowers to the virgin to she can be built.

Every morning of Fallas there is a marching band walking through the streets at 8 in the morning and fireworks been thrown to wake everybody up. There is a firework show at 2 o´clock everyday. You can´t see them because is it bright but they are there just to make noise. All day long for the whole weekend people are constantly throwing fireworks so it gets very loud. There is also a proper firework display at night. It was amazing to experience this and was a welcome change from Paddy´s day. But at about 10 o´clock on the Paddy´s we had to give in and go to an Irish bar. There was so many people there and we got talking to loads of Irish people so we really ended the night on a high. During Fallas the trains go back to Gandia all night so you can stay out in Valencia for as long as you like.

During the day on the 17th the trip the erasmus office arranged was a bit of a disaster. We got a bus in at half 11 (we wer told to be there pormptly at 11 or we would miss the bus) We ddint get into Valencia until around one o´clock because the traffic was so bad. We got off the bus and walked t the train station and hung around there for a while (for no reason). We were then told to go do what we like until 3 o´clock when we would meet back at the train station to go to and aquariam. We decided to go for something to eat and then to see the fireworks which were happening at two o´clock. after this we didn´t know what to do so we just walkd around looking at some of the fallas statues. when we met back at the train station it was half three before everyone got there. We were then brought to the see the winner of fallas and given five minutes to see it and take pictures. After this we met back at the train station whoch was around 4 o´clock. We then had to walk to the aqiuariam. We were told this takes 20 minutes. It actaully took an hour. I was wearing very uncomfortable boots for walking as we were not warned to be prepared for walking. We paid 11.20 ro go to the aquariam and we wer promised a dolphin show at half 4. We didn´t get there until five so we missed the show and the aquariam closes at 6 so we paid that money to look around for an hour. And by the time I got there I wasn´t even in the mood for it after all the walking, my feer were in soooo much pain.

So 6 o´clock came and we then had to walk back to the main square (also another hour away). I refused to do this and myself and four others decided to get a taxi. In the long run thia was a bad idea because we lost the rest of the group. But I physically couldn´t have walked. We were texting and ringing the organiser but he would´t give us a sraight answer as to where they where. We ended up jus going to see the virgin ourselves. We eventually bumped into them on the street and they were just hanging around doing nothing. I was in such bad form as this is what I had been doin all day. We wer also told we were goin to a medieval market which didn´t happen. Myslef and one of the other girls got so fed up we just left to go to the Irish bar, this was 10 o´clock at night after walking around doing nothing all day. The rest of the eramsus gang stayed and went to an erasmus concert which we heard was a big dissappointment. So we were glad we didn´t stay.

All in all the day was a disaster they were very unorganised. No one would tell us what we were doing and we were just told to follow. I was very excited about the day beforehand and it ended in a big dissappointment..thank god for the irish bar in the end!!

Some pictures of the Fallas statues and the burning of them..