Playing catch-up

I just switched houses a couple days ago and I don't have wireless internet anymore, so I have to make my time online more brief and to the point, but I will add what I can when I can to catch up with the past two weeks and tell you more about what's going on now...

So I went to the Fallas two weeks ago, catching the bus to go there by one minute, literally. It was a nice ride though, only about 4 hours, and we got into Valencia around 10 that night. We stayed at a really nice hotel, very modern (it was a "high-tech hotel" by designation), and we went out exploring the city a bit that night. We also got to see a bit of the big fireworks show they do the second-to-last night of the festival, which was pretty impressive. We woke up pretty early on Thursday for the big day's events, and also to go in search of fireworks stores. We attended the mascleta (fireworks show) on the bridge of San Jose, patron saint of carpenters and the reason they have the Fallas celebration, then walked all over to see the big fallas statues and take pictures. In the afternoon we attended the huge mascleta on one of the big plazas, and we couldn't see everything because it was so packed with people but we did get to hear it and see some of the fireworks and the smoke that resulted from the show. After walking around for a while we did end up finding a fireworks store, and we loaded up a bag with all sorts of different kinds to take to the park for an explosion-fest of our own. It was a lot like the 4th of July, but with bigger fireworks. I mean these things were loud! We hung around for a while, then met up with some friends and did a big show with our best fireworks that we had saved. Yes, we were drinking beer while we were doing this, but no, no one lost any fingers. Great success!

That night was the culmination of the whole week's festivities, and by that I mean they ceremoniously torched all of the fallas in the city in a huge pyro extravaganza. We were pretty lucky in that we actually got to see two of the big ones go up in flames from start to finish, and I got a bunch of good pictures of all of this which I will share when I have more time. We met up with some friends after that and hung out, and all-in-all it was a great time in ol' Valencia. My only regret is that we didn't have more time to explore the city and see the museums, the beach, the aquarium, and everything else it has to offer.

That Saturday we (my friends Aaron, Abram, Carlos, and I) got free tickets to a bullfight in Madrid through Carlos' dad, so we all went to see that and get a taste of Spanish culture. There were four other students there from our program (they go to St. Mary's in Texas, and some school in Dayton, Ohio), and we got to sit with them in the arena, which was cool. Once again I was really glad Carlos' dad was there because he had all sorts of information about the bullfight, so we understood it a lot better than if we had been there on our own. Basically the way it works is there are 3 main matadors, and they each get to fight 3 bulls in succession, then the order repeats for the next three buls, meaning there are actually 6 bullfights per day of bullfighting. In our case we got to see 8 bulls total, because two of them didn't make the cut and had to leave the arena without going through the whole bullfighting process. The others were interesting though.

The matadors that we saw were not yet full professionals, as they were called 'novilleros', stemming from the name for the 4-year old bulls that they were fighting, called 'novillos'. Technically for a bull to be considered a professional fighting bull it has to be 5 years old or more, and in this case it would be called a 'toro', with the matadors who fight them being called 'toreros'. Anyhow the first bull was kind of a bad introduction because it was the goriest one (and I don't mean it gored the matador a lot of times, though I was secretly hoping for this the whole time). The others though were a lot more enjoyable to watch because the matadors got the job done relatively quickly, without as much blood and all that madness. I took quite a few pictures, and still have not had time to go through and edit/select the best ones, but again, I will do this as I can and update/post them when they are ready. In conclusion bullfighting is not something I'm really going to get into, but I think it was a good experience, and a good way to learn about the culture of Spain, especially since it was free.

Unfortunately this is all I can update for now, as I have to get moving on my homework and trip planning, but that at least catches me up with two weekends ago. Next post will update my adventures on the Route of Don Quijote and this past weeks mishaps with housing and moving, and getting ready for my trip. Hasta luego!