Fallas

March 15-19 were five days of non-stop noise, walking and celebration with very little sleep; the reason for that was Fallas.  Fallas is a week long festival that is very ancient in the Valencian history.  Festivals in Spain are very interesting because there are hundreds all over the country to celebrate a part of their history.  But, there are three types of festivals: national, provincial and regional.  There are about twelve national celebrations, most of which are religious.  Regional festivals are very big in the summer because every pueblo has a festival over the summer, but never on the same week.  So Spain is basically in a constant state of celebration.  Fallas is actually a provincial festival, so the province of Valencia celebrated during that week, not just the city.  Not every pueblo has their own Falla because they didn’t have the money for it, but they still celebrate the festival.  Since the week of Fallas is the biggest pride and joy of the city the population doubles during this week.  My professors actually said this was the biggest celebration they had ever seen, with probably at least another million in the city.  With that said, it was packed.  There were many times when we were squished like sardines and had to slowly move out of the area.

Some history about the festival of Fallas.  It started out as a spring cleaning for carpenters, so they would take some of their creations and burn them at the beginning of spring to clear space for the next year.  Now, after a couple centuries, it has evolved into a huge celebration that is more of an excuse for everyone to party in the city.  This explains the different parts of the festival that are still present today.

I mentioned before that some towns don’t have a Falla, and that is probably confusing. Well, in the city there were close to 400 Fallas.  A Falla is, normally, a huge sculpture set up in an intersection of a street.  Each one is unique to that specific community, or couple streets, that normally shows political satire either from Spain or from current events of other countries.  Surprisingly I didn’t see any Donald Trump in any of the Fallas, since he is the only part of American politics anyone knows here.  Well, during Fallas as we walked around I saw maybe 30.  It was easy to find them because all you had to do was walk around the streets and you would run into one.  Many of them were as tall as the buildings, or even taller.  Some were a lot better than others in artistic ability, while others had more satire and were meant more for the Spaniards to look and laugh.  I was lucky enough to have my family here to experience it with me, and they loved it.  Noah especially had a blast because he loved seeing all of the different Fallas.

Now, the schedule of every day shows how crazy the week really is and why no one sleeps.  Every morning is started off with the “Despierta” at 8am, where people from the city walk up and down the streets throwing firecrackers and playing drums.  This is to wake everyone for the day of celebration.  Most Spaniards stay up until at least 4am in a discomóvil, which is a dance party in the street, and then get up with the despierta.  The rest of the day is time to walk around the city and see the Fallas.  That is all you can do during this week and you have to walk because so many streets are blocked off.  Every day at 2pm there is the mascletà.  This was not just during Fallas, but it actually started March 1 and continued until the 18 every day like clockwork at 2pm.  The mascletà is about five minutes straight of noise in the ayuntamiento, town hall square.  They shoot off fire crackers, and although there are small flashes of light, the main purpose is the noise and the smoke.  It gets so loud eventually that the ground and the walls shake and then you can feel the vibrations through your own body too.  It is an incredible experience and even watching a video does not do is justice.

The tradition also includes Falleros and Falleras, who are boys and girls from each community in multiple age groups that represent their community.  It is a great honor to be one, but it is also very expensive because they have to buy handmade dresses for the week and also get their hair and makeup done each day for the ceremonies.  The girls and their dresses were beautiful.  Each dress was different and the patterns so intricate and absolutely gorgeous.  On the 17th and 18th of the week the Falleros and Falleras take both days to walk in a parade to “La plaza de la virgen” for the “Ofrenda de los flores”, the flower offering.  

The hundreds of Falleros and Falleras take those two days to do their part to walk to the plaza with their bouquet of flowers.  They walk with a band from their community and it is a huge processional.  The flowers are brought to fill the large wooden statue of the virgin.  It was not filled until late Friday night, but I still went with one of my friends to see it filled and it was beautiful.  And it smelled amazing.

Every night normally at midnight, the last night was 1:30am, they shoot off fireworks at the castle on “el rio” to tell everyone the day is over and to let the party begin.  They love their pyrotechnics here and I will say their fireworks show was incredible.  I honestly think it was better than any fireworks I have seen at home.

The other part of the tradition that was amazing and I am so glad I didn’t miss is the cremà on the last night, Saturday the 19th.  As incredible as it was, the environmentalist in me had some issues with it.  And that is because the cremà is when they burn every single Falla.  Each Falla is made out of wood, styrofoam and other flammable materials.  The smoke was either grey or black because of the materials used.  To think about the greenhouse gases released just in that night is hard to think of.  However, it was still an amazing part of the night to see.  I’m sure it must have looked like the city was undergoing the Apocalypse from far away though.  Since there were so many Fallas spread about the city, they followed a schedule for the different ones, starting at 10pm.  

There really is not much more to say about it because you have to see it to get the full effect.  When my friends and I went to see one of the bigger ones burn, we got front row and boy did we regret that.  It was so hot once the whole thing was burning.  Something very interesting is that since most of the Fallas are about the size of the buildings next to it and the streets are smaller, firemen continuously spray the sides of the buildings with water to keep them from catching on fire.  That is another reason they have to spread out the burnings, so the firemen can move around the city to make sure the whole city does not go up in flames as well.

Overall, I am so glad I got to experience the week of Fallas and it will forever be a great memory of my time here studying in Valencia.  However, I don’t think I can ever do it again.  The constant noise from the firecrackers the kids from 7 to 17 years old set off in the streets was so annoying by the end and the amount of people in the city for the week was unbearable since I am so used to a very calm and emptier city.  I loved seeing the Fallas and experiencing this unique part of their culture, but it is a one time thing for me.  It is also hard for me to believe they burn these amazing sculptures after working on them for a year, having put in so much time and artistic talent.  It seemed like a waste.  But at the same time, where would they keep them afterwards.