Fire Festival!

There is a massive festival in Valencia every year called  Las Fallas which celebrates Saint Joseph. This is a crazy festival where each neighborhood builds a giant paper mache statue (called a ninot) that goes along with some theme. And then at the end of the weekend they light them all on fire. Its a festival filled with lots of fireworks, smoke (obviously), mucha gente and lots of noise! Super fun.

Lucky me that Saher has friends who live in Valencia so we didn't have to pay for a hostel. We left Friday after work and got there around 11pm after getting changed we went out to walk around and see El Castillo which is a huge firework display that happens every night. After that we walked around to see some of the ninots and to party in the street (no container laws here!)

The next day we woke up and headed to the Plaça de l'Ajuntament to see (or rather, hear) the mascletà which is another huge firework display in the center of the city that happens every day at 2pm during the festival. After that we continued wandering around looking at the ninots and the rest of the city. We stopped for awhile while we ate lunch to watch the procession where the falleras take flower bouquets to the statue of the Virgin Mary. After that, more walking around until we went home for a bit to eat dinner and relax before heading out to party (in a field this time). 

In the plaza. LOTS of cans

Mucha gente

The statue of Mary before the flowers were added

During the flower procession

hilarious

The boys

My favorite!

One of the main streets, all lit up.

During our field party

The next morning we woke up and went to the Arts and Sciences center to look at the buildings. I learned about these in one of my classes in college so I was really excited to go. They are absolutely beautiful! When we finished there we went back home and ate lunch (delicious Palestinian food called maklouba) and then headed back to Almeria, unfortunately since we all had to work on Monday we couldn't stay to watch them light the statues on fire. Over all it was a crazy awesome weekend. I can't wait until next year! 

We're strange people

Yummy food! (what kind of blog post would it be if I didn't have at least one food picture.....)