Valencia and visitors

This weekend I did not have class on Friday and debated for a long time where I wanted to travel: Granada, Morocco, Portugal, Nice. The problem was that I had quite a few friends visiting Barcelona. Eventually I discovered that Thursday night was the famous Las Fallas Festival in Valencia- the end of the long ceremony/week of parades. This provided the perfect opportunity to both travel and see my friends.

Thursday morning I woke up around 7am and headed to the train station. Coincidentally I saw Lori Allen, studying in Madrid this semester, there; small world, huh? I bought my ticket and waited for Ben and his friend Lindsay to arrive before boarding our 9AM train. The three hours down the coast went by quickly and provided a gorgeous view of the Costa Brava.

We arrived in Valencia around noon and wandered around the city before grabbing lunch. It was packed with both people and incredible floats. These floats were anywhere from 10 feet to 3 stories tall and made of wood, plaster and other sturdy (yet flammable) materials. They were incredible. I felt bad for the people who had devoted the last year of their lives to these pieces of art, only to watch them go up in flames.

After a quick lunch we headed to the world famous Oceanographic (Aquarium), home to the largest collection of aquatic species in the world. We spent about 3 hours in the aquarium, seeing everything from Sharks to Jellyfish to huge crabs to a dolphin show, which was definitely the best part. The physical design of the building was incredible and it was cool to see many of the different species and tanks. However, since I've started SCUBA diving looking at sea life through glass just doesn't inspire the same sense of awe that it used to.

We left the Aquarium as it closed around 6:00 and walked down for a quick stop at the beach, which should be a given since I was traveling with Ben. While the weather wasn't ideal the beach itself was great- probably the widest sand beach I have ever seen. We laid down and relaxed for a few minutes while listening to a group of Spanish girls unsuccessfully try to sing American music.

The night before going to Valencia I had been told that the Granada people (Lee, Kathy, etc.) had just planned to go see Las Fallas, as well. Lee called me to tell me they had arrived and we went to meet up with them for dinner. I asked how they got all they way from Granada to Valencia, which was probably a bad question. Lee, sporting a yellow pedestrian suit, told me that they had rented a stick-shift van. He watched a 7 minute youtube video the night before to learn how to drive stick, picked up the car the next day and, after stalling about 35 times, made it to Valencia. Definitely impressive.

Some of the group went to get bocadillos (sandwiches) for dinner but I wanted to try the world famous Paella of Valencia. Ben, Lee, Lindsay and I found a table outside among the masses of people and each got chicken paella-it was okay. Afterward it was time to see all of the floats.

Walking around felt like being in a war zone. People were exploding firecrackers, lighting fireworks and throwing noise poppers all over, sometimes trying to hit innocent passerbys. So far Las Fallas had lived up to its infamy. At around 11:20 we settled in front of the 3rd place float (they don't burn 1st place) to get a good spot to see it burn-it was suppossed to start at 12:00.

It took about 15 fireman and a bunch more people setting up the fireworks about an hour to get the incredibly massive float ready to light, or should I say explode. They fenced off people about 20 feet back from the float. Lee, with his security-like vest was right in front while the rest of us were 5 or 6 people back. At one point we, along with everyone else around us, almost got in a fight with a couple guys trying to push there way through. Lee just had to yell once and point his finger and they left, ha. As the float began to burn I realized it was a good thing we were further back, though. In a matter of seconds my face became soo hot. And then, as the surrounding building started to catch fire and the electric lines and speakers in the street started to melt, the fireman began hosing everything down. Everything, including anyone in the way. I got a little wet, but Lee looked like he had jumped in a pool in his clothes.

The 'Falla' burned for about 15 minutes before the crowd started heading out. We caught the end of a couple other burnings and wandered around the city only to be chased by fireman spraying people with hoses. Apparently they didn't like the crowd chanting "bomberos maricon" (look it up).

I was actually surprised at how quickly the incredible crowd filtered out of the city and the cleaning began. I expected this to be like Cádiz- people up going crazy all night, but by around 2:30 the city was almost dead and street cleaners were out in full force. We found a small night club to go to and spend a couple hours. At 4:30 it was time to go back and catch our train. The Granada people were spending the night. Unfortunately I could not get a ticket onto Ben and Lindsay's 5:15 train and had to wait for the 6:30- strangely they both arrived in Barcelona at the same time. The hour of quiet and solitude was peaceful; I grabbed a crossiant and walked around the city watching the incredible cleaning crew work as the sun came up.

Around 9:30AM I arrived back in Barcelona. I let Marc Kovarsky and Josh Keller (whom I had visited in Florence a few weeks ago and were now visiting me in Barcelona) know that I was back and planned to sleep the whole day. Sleep I did. Around 6:00PM they called me asking what I was up to. "Good Morning" was my response. After staying in a hostel the night before the two of them and a roommate were going to stay with me for the rest of the weekend. They dropped their stuff off and we all got ready and headed to dinner. We went to a nice area on the beach near Park de la Ciutadella that I had not yet been to and ordered a Paella for the 5 of us (3 of them, me and Ben). I've never seen a pan so big in my life; it took 2 people to carry it out. Needless to say we did not finish the entire thing, but it was verry good.

After dinner we went to a nearby bar with live music. There Jon Levy and Lisa Weitzman met up with us. Lisa is part of the 'Granada crew' but did not come to Barcelona with them and Jon had come to spend spring break with her. I find it weird everytime I see a friend from home in Europe, but until then all of them had been studying abroad, as well. Seeing Jon was great, but it was especially weird hanging out with someone that was going to school at Illinois and in the same routine as every other semester. We showed our visitors a little of what the crazy Barcelona nightlife was like before heading back relatively early.

Saturday we slept in a little and walked around the city. Saturday evening we ate ate at a bar and hung out their for a while before going to Razzmattazz, the biggest club in Barcelona. I had never been there before, but had heard that it was one of the top 10 clubs in the world-I can now see why. The place was enormous, with 5 large rooms, 3 levels, oustide hallways, inside hallways, stages, etc. I could not draw a picture of it if I had to and it took about 45 minutes just to walk around and see the entire thing. Saturday night was not such an early night.

Sunday we toured Park Guell and walked around Gracia before the four of them had to catch their flight- Marc and Keller were heading to Granada with Jon and Lisa as part of their Spring break. They left and I slept- it had been quite an action packed weekend.