Hey everyone!
Sorry it's been a while since I wrote! This week of school was good, I like all of my classes. Literature is my least favorite, but only because at the moment we are learning about like 15th and 16th century Spanish Literature. I'm more of a 19th-20th century literature girl I guess you could say. It's weird only having 2 classes a day, and only Monday through Thursday. But, I'm not complaining :)
On Friday, since we have the day off, ISA usually schedules a trip somewhere around Valencia unless we are going on an excursion. Next weekend we go to Barcelona, but today (Friday) we went to the Museo Fallero. The Museo Fallero is a collection of "statues" from Las Fallas, the third biggest festival in the world which is in Valencia in March. After hearing about it and seeing the museum, I wish we were going to be able to see it, it sounds amazing! It pretty much starts March 1st and the last day is March 19th. The biggest week is the 12th-19th, where the streets are blocked off from cars, people are up all day and all night, celebrating St. Joseph. Throughout Valencia, there are like 700 "Fallas" in the streets. The Fallas are paper-mache (but now, they are made from styrofoam) structures. Some are small, but most are very big. The city works the entire year preparing for this festival and the artists who create the structures tend to make a lot of money. During the day, there is a noise contest using fireworks...although you can't see them, the point is to make the most noise while still keeping a beat. At night, there are more fireworks, which are obviously visible. Our ISA director said people from all over the world come to Las Fallas to see how a "real" fireworks display happens. An important feature of Las Fallas is "los luces" (the lights). The entire city is lit up at night, whether from fireworks or from strings of lights lining the streets. The most important structure in the festival is the Virgin Mary. At the beginning of the festival, she is created with only a head and a has a frame with the shape of a dress with a design pattern. Each day, people bring carnation flowers of all colors and the team of artists puts the flowers in respective places on her body to make her dress. Each year, the pattern is different. At the end of the week, before the burning of the Fallas, the artists of each specific structure, take a piece from their structure and bring it to a warehouse type thing where the city votes on their favorite small and big structure. The two favorites from each year are then brought to the Museo Fallero where they are kept on display. After the two are chosen, the rest of the structures are burned (another lighting ceremony). Apparently, it is beautiful. I'm so jealous we won't be there for this. At the museum, though, they have structures from 1930 on, I'm almost positive. So, we got to see the collection of them up until last years'. It was so cool, it is incredible the talent it takes to make these. We all thought at least half of them were real people, painted in costume, about to jump out at us. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside because it can ruin the art, but just look up Las Fallas online and you can see tons of pictures from the festival. I did, however, take some more pictures of the city as we were walking to the museum, so I'll post those later!
Tonight, I think we are bar hopping, but I'm not exactly sure. We will see!
Buenos noches!
