The Mid-Fallas Post

It is now Wednesday morning, 4:17 am, and I finally have a chance for a quick update.

What is Las Fallas? Las Fallas literally means "The Fires" in Valencian. The five-day festival is centered around each neighborhood or plaza creating its own ninots, together which make over 350 statues constructed with paper mache and plaster. Each day of the week has its own purpose to either set up, commemorate, celebrate, or burn the building-sized creations. Also, every day processes in a similar schedule:

08:00 - La Despertà: The Wake-Up Call. A parade of fireworks accompany a brass band while marching through the city, creating incredibly noise to rouse the city.

14:00 - La Mascletà: Sound Fireworks, aka Deafening Explosions. Each day since March 1st, there is a daily ritual of a sound fireworks show in the Plaza Ayuntamiento. Instead of it being a display of color, it is a display the sound. The fireworks are set off rhythmically to sound like "music" and reach incredible earth-shaking volume. Every day shows the work of a different pyrotecnic while thousands of people gather to see and hear it, often offering roaring applause to the best and the loudest.

01:00 - Castillo de Fuegos Artificiales, the Castle of Fireworks. Every day of the week, a firework show is performed after midnight in the riverbed Turia.

Among this daily routine, the days lead up to the eventual peak: La Cremà. On Friday, March 19th, every falles except for the best one will be filled with explosives and lit on fire. The streets will then become open-air nightclubs, as all of the residents of Valencia pour outside to celebrate the cremation of the statues.

So far, there are explosions everywhere. Firecrackers are handed to small children like candy, and massive booms have nearly become normal. As part of Spanish cultural exploration, we saw a bullfight at the Plaza del Toros, ate churros con chocolat while sipping horchata, and threw a couple fireworks ourselved. At night before the firework shows, we walk around the city centro through avenues adorned with hundreds of thousands of lights. The entire city shuts down; people don't work, students don't have class, everybody is just happy throwing firecrackers at each other and enjoying the crazy festival. To say the least, Las Fallas is a shitshow. After going hard for the past week already, my night is relatively early (before sunrise) and trying to rest up for the few crazy days to come.