Las Fallas!!!!

This weekend was a lot of fun. Most of last week we had really nice, warm, sunny weather. On Thursday after school, our group met outside in the plaza to finish up some homework for a class. Thursday night, we decided to experience the infamous Madrid nightlife with our grad student tutors. Monica and I met at the train station, but then she said she forgot any ID. So we ran back to her house so she could get it, even though all of the bars are over 18 and never check ID. We got back to the train and were waiting for the train going to Atocha, and all of a sudden this girl comes up to us and asks us in English if this was the train going to Madrid. We started talking to her, and she is a student from University of Arizona studying here in Alcalá. She was supposed to meet a couple friends to go to Kapital, a club, but then decided she would rather come with us. We got to Moncloa where we were going to meet our grad students (Sarah, Terry, Anna, and Johnny), but the place where we were going to go was closed. So we went somewhere else instead and hung out there for a long time. There was this guy who was probably in his mid-40’s at least dancing by himself, and it was hilarious. The grad students were all going to Tenerife in the Canaries the next day, so they had to be at the airport at 6am and were just going to stay out until then. We decided to take the buo bus and go back to Alcalá and go to Can Can before going home. We left about 3:30 and got a taxi to Avenida de Américas, then got the 4am buo to Alcalá. We got to Can Can about 5am and it sure was hopping for 5 o’clock in the morning! They kicked us out around 5:45 or so, and we got home around 7am, just as it was getting light outside. It was a lot of fun though, and we kind of want to do it again. It was funny how that girl hung out with us the whole time.
Anyways, on Friday, it was St. Patrick’s Day! Unfortunately the Spanish don’t really celebrate St. Patrick’s Day here, but that’s ok. In the afternoon, Dane, Monica and I went to El Corte Inglés in Alcalá to get a present for a friend. After we came back and ate dinner, a bunch of us went out for St. Patty’s Day. We tried to go to the Irish pub but it was packed solid, so we ended up just going to the Amsteleria and hanging out. We stayed out fairly late considering we were out all night the night before, and got home around 3am.
On Saturday, the family came, which was fun. Raul got here late on Friday night, and then Oscar got here on Saturday with Abrán (the 2 year old), and Pilar, his girlfriend. We played with Abrán and he is so cute. Then we ate lunch, and Raul and Oscar were hilarious. Pilar thought it was so funny that she almost spit out her food. For the rest of the day, just hung out with them and watched tv and stuff, it was nice to relax. Saturday night, Dane, Juanito, Monica and I went to the café for a little bit to chat, and make sure we had everything figured out for Las Fallas.
Sunday was el Día del Padre in Spain, in other words Father’s Day here. We went to Valencia for Las Fallas, which is a typical Spanish fiesta that can hardly be described in words. We had to leave early so that we were in the Plaza de Colon by 9 to get our bus. It was a couple hours to Valencia, and by the time we got there with traffic and everything it was about 3 or so. They let us loose, and so we walked around for awhile looking at all the fallas. The purpose of this fiesta is supposed to be that they make statues (but they’re not really statues) that are basically a political satire of things that have gone on during the past year. Then they burn them all, which is supposed to welcome in spring and be a sign that they are forgetting everything that has happened in the past year and moving forward. There were tons and tons of these fallas, every neighborhood makes one, and it is a competition. All of them get burned except for the winner. There were a lot that we didn’t understand, it probably didn’t help that the descriptions were all written in Catalan, and there were some weird ones, but they were cool to look at. The whole day, it sounded almost like a war zone, because everywhere people were setting off fireworks and firecrackers and stuff in the streets. When I say everyone, I mean everyone, from age like 7 to 70. You would walk by and all of the sudden see someone light one, then cover your ears. It was kind of scary, but really cool too. Around 6:30 or 7, we started heading towards the main plaza where all the events were supposed to be later. There were tons and tons of people, and it took us awhile to get there, but we finally found it. We saw some more fallas, and then decided to go eat before all of the stuff started happening. We finally found a restaurant that wasn’t completely packed, and it had paella (which is a typical Spanish dish but Valencia is particularly famous for it), but really only Nicole ended up getting paella. After that, we went and were looking around for a bit. We came upon this one little falla, and they said they were going to burn it at 10, which wasn’t too far away. So we stayed for that and had front row spots. It was probably the most ridiculous thing ever. First they set off some fireworks, which were pretty. Then they lit it on fire, and all of a sudden stuff started shooting out and even hit us. We were really close, and mind you this is all in the street in the middle of buildings. That one was the best one we saw, and we got a good video of it happening. Then, the one right next to it was going to be burned at 12am, which was in an hour and a half. We decided to stick around for that one, so we could have a good spot again. For pretty much the next hour and a half, they got ready to burn this next one. The firemen came and put a sheet over some of the windows of a building, and they tied it up. Then at about midnight, as soon as they lit it on fire, the fireworks shot out, all the while the firemen were spraying the buildings so they wouldn’t go up in flames. Pretty much all the ones that were left except the main one went off at midnight. It was really cool, and we were glad we were so close. The main event was at 1, La Crema, in the main plaza. There was a sea of people so we could barely see anything, but it wasn’t that big of a deal since we saw the other two up close. The fireworks before they burned that one were really pretty though. We had to head back to the bus after it was over, since we were supposed to leave at 2. A bunch of people weren’t back yet though, so we didn’t even leave until after 2:30am. We got back into Madrid about 7:30am, and then home around 8:30. It was so crazy, yet so much fun, and can’t even really be described. I’m so glad we went! After we got home yesterday, the day consisted mainly of sleeping and relaxing, doing absolutely nothing. Yesterday we didn’t have classes because it was a fiesta from Día del Padre. Today I just ran some errands and got ready to go to PARIS tomorrow!!!! I’m so excited, I can barely stand it. I can’t wait, it’s been so long since I’ve been back. I can’t believe there are only like 6 more weeks here, time is going by too quickly. The crazy thing is I’m only going to be home a max of 4 days at a time for the rest of the time since we’re traveling on the weekends and stuff. It will be a lot of fun though. Anyways, that’s about it! Should be a great weekend!!!!!!!