The Adventure of a Lifetime...Las Fallas

At the last minute a group of 7 girls decided to go to Valencia to see Las Fallas. Las Fallas is a festival in Valencia, Spain that takes place every year. These ornate statues/floats (they are very hard to describe) are built by different organizations and companies throughout the year. They display them for two weeks in the intersections and plazas all throughout the city and then on the last night they burn them. It is supposed to be symbolic for burning away the old and starting fresh for spring. A lot of the floats also have political or moral themes which is very interesting. We planned the whole trip the night before we left. We rented a van online and booked one of the only hotel rooms we could find. The hotel only had one room so we decided that some of us would make a palette on the floor. The next afternoon we all met at the hotel where our rental van was parked to embark on our journey. We knew that the van was stick shift because all cars here are, but what some of us didn’t know was that the only girl in the group who “knew” how to drive a manual, really didn’t. We had to pull out of the parallel parking spot and immediately go into a traffic circle. I watch as she sits there and starts to panic a little bit and then it hit me that we might be in for a bumpy ride. After a little encouragement, our fearless driver Samantha pulls out and enters the roundabout, but because she is afraid she will stall if she slows or stops she puts her hand up to the window and yells at the other cars to stop. I guess they took to the understood but unofficial rule that the bigger car has the right of way, and since we were in a van they actually stopped. Basically Samantha used this method to get us out of Granada (even with people at crosswalks), but not before turning the wrong way down a one way, one lane street. Luckily there were no oncoming cars in the time it took for us to lurch our way down the street and turn onto the first street we saw. This, however, turned out to be another problem because it just so happened to be the skinniest street in Granada with cars parked on both sides. Samantha didn’t think that the car would fit so we put on our flashers and Jackie gets out to direct her down the street and to turn in other cars’ side view mirrors. Somehow we managed to make it through and eventually made it onto the highway. SUCCESS! We knew that we were good for a while, since we wouldn’t need to change gears for a while. So we took the advantage of our time to get to know each other because I probably have not yet mentioned that it was a RANDOM group of girls who all ended up together. A lot of us didn’t really know each other so we told stories about our lives and talked about boyfriends (obviously). All was well until we needed to stop for a bathroom break. We saw a sign for bathrooms and so we exited the highway, but then there weren’t any more signs. So we drove around for a while in the middle of nowhere until we saw a charter bus. We assumed that it was probably going to the rest stop too so we followed it. It pulls into a gated parking lot with a lot of other buses so we follow it. There was a sign on the gate that said “STOP! Entry Prohibited” but we didn’t think much of it. Samantha pulls into the first space she sees after giving the stop sign to a bus trying to pull out. She gets out of the car without realizing that there are two large dogs beside the van: one chained, one not. All the girls start freaking out about these huge dogs, but I tell them not to worry because making friends with dogs is my specialty. So I get out of the car and start talking to the dogs and decided they weren’t mean. We don’t want to leave the car unattended so Samantha, Jackie, and I set out to find the bathrooms. The buses are unloading and there were a LOT of people filling the parking lot. There are also a lot of people coming out of the big building so we walk towards a trailer-type structure that we think might be a café or something (you never know if Spain). Samantha realizes that she has blocked somebody in so she runs back to the car to move it and Jackie and I walk into this building. I immediately read a sign in Spanish that says, “Respect you coworkers. Clean up your space.” It hit me like a tone of bricks that we were at a factory at midnight and all the people getting on and off the bus were changing shifts. So we take off back towards the car when upon further realization we realize that there are only men in the parking lot and that they are not even Spanish but Latin-American. We were starting to get some stares so I tell Jackie that we need to run. She thinks that it will draw more attention to us, but in that moment all I could think was that we needed to get back to the van FAST. So we run and jump in the van as Samantha is stalling out trying to back up. Somehow we get out of the parking lot and find an actual safe food establishment to use the bathroom. Whew! Just one of the many examples of God’s protection in Spain. While we were driving we passed a city called Benidorm that none of us had heard of. We found this strange since it was so big, but what was even weirder was the skyline. There were tons of skyscrapers, but instead of being clumped together they were all very spread out. This mixed with the fog gave a really eerie effect and just as someone said that it looked like an alien-city we see a huge disk like structure that looks just like a flying saucer has landed beside the highway. Jackie later looked it up and we learned that Benidorm is the only city in Spain that still has a law in effect that mandates a certain amount of green space for every building. We got to Valencia and got lost trying to find our hotel. After driving around for while we decided that we should get gas because running out while lost in a foreign country would be a real disaster. We pull into a gas station and the pump ends up eating my credit card. A few of us go to talk to the man inside but because it is so late he is locked inside and tells us we need to come back tomorrow. I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, but I told him that we would not be leaving without the card and that he was going to have to get it out immediately. Meanwhile one of the girls finds tweezers in her luggage and they extract my card from the machine. Unbelievable! So we ask this guy for directions and he says tells us which direction to head and then tells us to ask somebody else when we get there. Jackie is very good with directions so we decided not to tell the other girls this last bit because we thought we knew the turn that was wrong on our MapQuest directions. We were right and we finally find the hotel, but not before seeing many hookers on the side of the highway. There would be one girl (wearing very little) on each side of the highway and then another group of them would be huddled around a fire that they had built in the median. I had never seen anything like this before. We had talked about all the possible scenarios for getting seven girls into one hotel room, but as soon as we saw the hotel we realized that we had a big problem. It was a very small hotel that locked a gate in front of the door at night so it was going to be very difficult to get seven girls past the desk attendant at 2 am. So two girls go to check in and scope out the situation. They call us and say that if you just walk up to the gate he will open it. So another group of three goes up and makes it in successfully. My friend Shaz and I wait about 15 minutes and then we go in without a problem. We could not believe it when we all made it into the room! Four girls slept sideways on the double bed and the other three of us made a bed on the floor.
Day 2 of this trip began with what sounded like bombs going off outside of out hotel. We would soon find out that Spanish people love fireworks and they don’t even care if they’re pretty as long as they make a LOUD sound. We got ready and left the hotel in shifts once again, but when we were all in the van we saw the maid pointing to our car so we were fairly certain that they were onto us. After taking coffee, we drove into Valencia and tried to find a place to park. We were driving around when my friend Maggie points out a guy crossing the street in front of us wearing a Clemson shirt. So I roll down the window, lean out and yell “YAY, CLEMSON!” He turned around and responded with a “GO TIGERS!” I was so excited to have seen a fellow Tiger in Valencia! Once we had decided that no actual parking spots were left we drove the van onto a sidewalk with part of it in the crosswalk and the other side of the van in the street. Basically it was illegal in three different ways, but I knew that the police had more important things to do than tow our van. We had brought a lot of our food for the trip so we set up a sandwich making station in the van and once we were done we set out to check out Las Fallas. I spent the first part of the day trying to get used to the fact that there were loud fireworks going off constantly, some of them near us. The strange thing was that you could not always identify who was setting them off. I have a theory that in the larger intersections there were machines mounted on the sides of buildings that would set one off every once in a while. After looking at the floats for a while we headed to the city center for what turned out to just be a noisemaker show. After lunch and a Starbucks break (where yet another way to spell my name was invented) we started shopping a little bit. Surprisingly it started to get cold and a few of us did not have jackets so we were looking for something to buy. I found one of the coolest scarves I’ve ever seen and thought that I could use it like a shawl for the night. I went over to the guy who was selling it off the street and picked it up. Right at that time, all the street vendors started grabbing their stuff because they had spotted two police officers. They took off running which was surprising to us since the vendors we’ve seen in Granada and other parts of Spain just pick up their stuff and cross a street or something until the officers leave. So we went in a few more stores, but I REALLY wanted this particular scarf so we decided to go back and see if they had set up again. They had and I walked over and picked up the scarf again and asked how much it cost. He told me and then I tried to bring him down a few Euros. I pulled the money out of my bag and once again the police show up so he grabbed the scarf once again and ran. This time the police chased all the guys and we waited a little while for them to come back but we never saw the one guy again :( Mission scarf-shawl had failed, but I bought some peacock earrings which turned out to be a big hit. We went inside the main cathedral for a little bit, and I was glad for the reprieve from all of the explosions. I thanked God for keeping us safe thus far and asked that he would continue to do so. After the cathedral visit Maureen and I still needed something warm to wear and I didn’t want to hold the group up looking for something. So the next store we saw I walked in picked out a purple shirt, tried it on, and then walked to the register wearing it all in a matter of 30 seconds. I have never spent so little time picking out an article of clothing but it ended up being a great purchase! We headed to see a parade that was supposed to bring “the fire” to the city and boy did it ever! The parade started with bands playing and then girls (presumably royalty) dressed up in traditional attire. They were followed by 300 demons and nothing could have prepared me for this. These demons had hoses that sprayed fire and they would sling them around and then spray them over the crowd! There were also stilt walkers sending off fireworks, not to mention all of the sparklers. I had to kneel down because I didn’t see how it was possible that we weren’t all going to get burned. Finally it ended though without any injuries. We went back to the van (which was luckily still there) and ate dinner. We then set out for dessert of churros and chocolate. Delicious! We tried pumpkin churros and then I got one covered in chocolate which was one of the best desserts I’ve EVER had! Once it got dark they started to burn the smaller fallas, but at midnight they start burning the huge ones. We got in the crowd to see one of these huge fallas burn and waited a long time because apparently it was midnight Spanish time which equaled 1:30 am. This falla was as big as the buildings surrounding it and when they set it on fire the flames rose higher than the buildings and the heat was intense and immediate even though we were behind the barricades. The whole thing burned in about 5 minutes and they say that they are engineered to collapse inward when they burn so that it doesn’t topple while going up in flames. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in this engineering but it turned out to be legit. After we watched it burn we walked to the next block to see the next one burn. This one was more volatile and kept catching a tree on fire. There are firemen and a fire truck at each of the burnings but this one was so close to one of the buildings and tree that they had to work to keep it under control. This one also had a lot of burning embers that the wind was blowing everywhere but it finally conceded and burned to the ground like the other one. The fallas are built of Styrofoam, wood and covered with wax and paint so the smell was very strong and toxic and I was surprised that they are allowed to burn these materials. Then again I’m surprised by a lot of things in Spain! I’m not sure if I mentioned that I really don’t like fireworks, loud sounds, or uncontrolled fire so the fact that I ended up in Valencia on this particular day is quite ironic. We were exhausted and so we found the car and headed back to the hotel. We decided to just go in two shifts to get into the hotel this time so the first group went and made it in. We waited and then four of us tried to go up. The other girls darted up the stairs but he was following us and asked us what room we were staying in. I legitimately didn’t remember the room number though and so I call to the girls who have run up the stairs and after some confusion this guy tells us that we cannot all 7 stay in the same room. Busted! He let us go upstairs for an hour though which was good because in that time 4 of us took showers and we packed up all the blankets and warm clothes we could find. We come up with a game plan to leave before 8 in the morning and drive to the beach. An hour later 5 of us walked out to the car to endure our fate: sleeping in the van. I really wasn’t worried about it since there were five of us and Shaz had brought a sharp knife for some reason so we had a weapon. We spent an hour talking and laughing about our situation before somehow falling asleep.
Day 3
The two girls that got to sleep in the hotel woke up and came down to the van while we were still sleeping and got pictures of us all asleep in the van. Hilarious! We drove to a beach near Alicante and when we got there I had to brush my teeth so I used a foot wash that explicitly said “do not drink.” Clearly my brain wasn’t functioning very well due to my restful night of sleep. We had coffee at a café where we took turns using the bathroom to change clothes. We needed to find a grocery store to buy lunch and snacks for the day but we couldn’t find it. So we see a buy walking down the sidewalk and decide to try and flag him down to give us directions. He, however, thinks that this van full of American girls is just hollering at him so he keeps walking with an added pep in his step and smile on his face. How ridiculous! We eventually found the Mercadona though (without help from the kid we now refer to as “Mercadona boy”). We found some great things: guacamole and chips, smoked salmon and cream cheese for sandwiches, carrots, etc. and then found a good beach spot for the day. The beach was beautiful and the water was so clear and blue. We had the best time snacking on guacamole and chatting. In the car on the way there I had boldly proclaimed that I would be going in the water so that I could check it off my ‘bucket list.’ However, once I put one toe in that water and realized how frigid it was I wasn’t so sure if it was going to happen. Somehow though we all talked one another into going in together; so all 7 of us held hands as we walked out into the Mediterranean and after a lot of shrieking we all went under at the same time. It was freezing but a fun experience nonetheless! Some teenage boys came and sat near us and tried so hard all day to get out attention so right before we left we were taking pictures and Samantha asked them to take our picture but they thought we wanted a picture with them! Haha! So we took a picture with them and it definitely made their day. We got back on the road when I had another ingenious idea: we should all learn how to drive stick while we have the rental car. So we found an empty parking lot behind a supermarket and spent at least an hour teaching three girls how to drive while doing a lot of lurching  I was worried that I was going to break the van and since we were several hours from home, I decided not to try. I definitely want to learn soon though. We talked all the way home and when we got back to Granada the streets were PACKED with people for the Spring Fiesta. We managed to pull into a gas station though without hitting any pedestrians and I departed for my apartment. Reflecting back on this trip, it is something that I NEVER would have done if I had known all of the craziness that was to come. However, I’m glad that I didn’t have any prior knowledge because I had the most amazing time with six amazing ladies and although I wouldn’t choose to do it again I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I think that it is very representative of life because we never know what is to come and nothing ever works out perfectly, but we have a choice on how to respond to everything that is thrown our way. If we choose to embrace life with a determination to find the joy in every situation, we will. Praise God for the joy he has brought to my life and the wisdom to recognize it!

<3 Ashton