Why Build Enormous, Intricate Statues, Only to Send Them Up in Flames?

I am not sure, actually! But going to Fallas was cool.

We went to Fallas last week.

Fallas is a big deal in the nearby city of Valencia, so it seemed like something we should go to, even though this is pretty much all we knew about it before we went:

• parades

• big crazy statues or something?

• at the end of the festival, the statues all get lit on FIRE🔥🔥🔥.

Spaniards, from what we can tell (and, as Americans who have lived in Spain for a few months, we are, of course, the definitive subject matter experts on the Spanish people), have a few favorites. These things include orange juice, parades, tuna, walking slowly on the sidewalk, and fire. I am fully on board with the orange juice and fire parts. Last October, Jeff went to a festival in our town where costumed parade workers were basically spraying streams of sparks into the crowd like this.

When we’ve asked people about Fallas, they have said things like, “it’s awesome” or “it’s very loud” (lots of people setting off fireworks), but they don’t talk a lot about the reason for the festival, so here’s a quick rundown. It celebrates Saint Joseph. You know, the guy who raised Jesus.¹

The Valencian neighborhoods spend months creating these big ‘ole wacky sculptures (aka fallas), which are always impressive and often satirical or political. In 2015, for instance, there was a falla Of Putin and Obama dancing together. Edgy! Political commentary! Tutus! This year, we saw one that was a guy holding a marionette, and the logos for different social media platforms were hanging from the marionette. Because social media controls our minds. Which is often TRUE and SAD and this falla was kind of a DOWNER, actually.

What do the statues and burning have to do with St. Joseph? There’s actually no definitive answer, but the simplest one is that the fallas are made of wood, and Joseph was a carpenter, so he also made wood stuff. The perfect tribute. I like to imagine someday people will celebrate my legacy by setting a blog and a tray of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on fire.

Anyway, Fallas happened to fall on a weekend my mom and cousin were already coming to visit, so we decided to all go together.

Shoutout to my mom and cousin for picking up this week’s shift of misadventuring, because, I have to say, my week went mostly smoothly. They, on the other hand, faced obstacles ranging from a broken suitcase to a four-hour wait for a train to food poisoning on the airplane. My mom even ended up needing a surgery on her wrist not long before her scheduled-eons-in-advance trip to see me. Fortunately, the rest of us were there to help her with carrying her luggage and other wrist-adjacent tasks. My mom and cousin are warriors, and I’m so glad they came.

Our two mishaps were both firework-adjacent. While Jeff and I waited for my mom and cousin to arrive, we crowded into the world's biggest crowd to watch colorful powder daytime fireworks, or mascletas. We were so far back from where the fireworks were shot off that I didn’t see any of them, at all.² We still had fun being in the middle of everything though.

us and 5,000 of our closest friends

On Saturday night, we went to see real fireworks. They were at 1 a.m., to kick off the last day of the festival. Which is frankly too late to do fireworks or hold any event, but whatever. We took a cab over, without a super clear plan on how we’d get back to the hotel. A cab? A cab to the metro, then the metro? The fireworks were amazing. But, as with the mascletas, there were so, SO many people that there was no way we would have success calling a cab. We walked to the nearest metro stop (which, I have to say, was not near) and there were so many people crowded around the entrance that there were authorities appeared to be begging people to leave and try another station.

I tried to get an Uber (of course, Jeff’s phone wasn’t working, and my cousin wasn’t getting service either) but it just loaded and loaded forever with no progress. We eventually made it to a less insane metro stop and took that home, getting home—stone cold sober, I might add—sometime after 3 a.m.

Anyway, one reason I write this blog is to highlight (lowlight?) the less glamorous parts of travel, but there were a gazillion wonderful things about our weekend in Valencia, so here’s a breakdown of those too:

• The size of the parades. It was just incredible to see how many people participated in these parades, from little girls in enormous poofy, traditional dresses, to elderly people being pushed in wheelchairs, to teenagers who didn’t even look miserable about being in a costume parade. It really felt like part of the cultural identity, and like something the community came together around.

• Church of San Nicolás. Jeff only knew about this because someone in a hostel told him about it. The front entrance is so unassuming, and then inside looks like this:

  

  And this is just a cellphone pic! What?? Incredible.

• Our hotel breakfast. There were ingredients to make your own mimosas. There were churros and chocolate. There was fresh honeycomb. Truly off the chain.³

• The City of Arts and Sciences. Here, there’s a science museum, an arts center, an oceanography museum, and a 3D cinema. We only went in the science museum and walked around the grounds on Sunday, but it was so neat and futuristic. I felt like we were on the Jetsons or something.

  

  why does this shade of water feel more futuristic than other shades of water?

• The beautiful central market, where we all gaped at the pretty ceiling and bought souvenirs. One of the sellers made me pay for a souvenir twice because he couldn’t find the 5 euro bill I gave him the first time, but it’s fine. I think he was elderly and confused, not evil, though it’s possible he was both. P.S. though: what would you have done?

  • A. paid for souvenir twice (sucker, like me)

  • B. given back souvenir and paid 5 euros for nothing (a different kind of sucker?)

  • C. argued more/caused a scene/called the cops/challenged the man to hand-to-hand combat/etc. (fearless legend?)

IN SUMMARY: Arrive early to firework events, don’t miss the St. Nick’s Cathedral or City of Arts and Sciences, don’t stress if you miss a parade because they are constant and everywhere. And skip the whole thing if you don’t like loud noises.

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Question of the Week: When we went to the City of Arts and Sciences, it felt so “Jeff” to me, like if Jeff were a place, he would be this place. I’d never thought about mapping people to places before, but now it’s got me thinking. If my Grandma were a place, I think she’d be the Tucson Botanical Gardens, or the arboretum at my old college, for instance. If you were a place, what place would you be?

Recommendation of the Week: I watched a film called “What Time Is It There?” last year, and didn’t really like it. But I was reading about it afterward and came across this review, which is so well-written that I enjoyed reading it much more than I enjoyed watching the movie. I still think about it. I love that something so lovely came from a piece of art I didn’t even enjoy that much. I love that someone interpreted it in such a meaningful way, and so differently than I did. There’s an excerpt below, but you should read the whole thing. It might even make you want to watch the movie.

“Many people are sad and sometimes they brush against each other, unknowing, and they spiral off in tangents and the lines they spin off in are never unknown to the ghosts. This obsession with france, the time of france, becomes him, as a way to deal with loss or loneliness or misery or alienation or time. In an effort to dismantle time itself he smashes his watch rhythmically against the railing. It doesn't work, but he knew that coming in. Time is an obsession that doesn't pay, yet all mankind is fascinated with it.”

1. He’s the patron saint of Fathers, Workers and Married People, but, imo, he should also be the patron saint of Standing By Your Girl.

2. I saw the air get hazy with smoke, and heard the loud noises, but that’s it. But it was much worse for the family in front of us. Their three kids went from out-of-their-mind anticipation over the fireworks to all crying or burying their head in their parents because they were so overstimulated/disappointed/miserable/negative emotion of your choice, because it probably applied.

3. Our friend’s dad was the first person to tell us about Fallas, when we were still in the U.S. He described the festival as “off the chain,” and we kept using it to describe things throughout the weekend. Thank you, Mark.