Sunday, March 28, 2010

Long Time No See?

So, it's been awhile since I've last posted here. A few weeks ago, some things changed in my life, and honestly, I was a little depressed (to say the least.) Basically, I didn't want to be writing a blog with all this depressing stuff in it! So I didn't, and it was a good choice, because now I'm back to my old self! :)

I should explain where I'm at now: I'm in Sevilla, a town in the southwestern part of Spain, in Andalucia, to be specific. Internet was a little hard to come by, but I was able to snag some to post this!

Oh, I should do a quick recap over the last few weeks before I explain Sevilla. Let's see... three weeks ago, I was busy finishing up some things for school. I found out I have to take my engineering classes for a grade, so yikes! I had to start studying really hard for those. Circuits is going okay, and so is Thermodynamics, but of course, they're harder in Spanish. The week after that, I went to visit my friend Jesus in Valencia for the festival Las Fallas.

Actually, holy cow, Las Fallas, where do I even begin?! It was amazing!!! I'm talking fireworks at ALL hours of the day, and not the little wimpy baby kinds, they were like the kinds that are so loud, they sound like bombs going off!! Actually, the streets did sort of look like a warzone with the firework remnants littered everywhere and the booming sounds in the background.

I was there for Thursday night, which apparently was the most insane night of them all. There were at least 100,000 people out on the street at 3 am. Jesus said this was definitely the craziest he'd seen it all month. We bought some fireworks and lit them off in the street (and off the balcony) too, so that was really cool. I don't know if I'd do that in the USA though, haha. Here the cops really didn't care if you were lighting off fireworks or drinking in the street; it was the most bizarre thing. At one point I saw a group of people sitting on cop cars, drinking, and the cops were just chilling nearby.

They had a street that was decorated entirely in lights. Every street had a few light decorations, but Calle Sueca was the most decorated of them all! I took about a million pictures of it; here's one of them. You can kind of see how far back it goes. It was definitely really awe-inspiring. And it sort of reminded me of Disney World or something.

Friday is when all the neighborhoods light off las Mascletas, or their own sets of extremely loud fireworks. Jesus and I went and watched the fireworks for the biggest falla. By the way, a falla is a GIANT paper/cardboard sculpture (but trust me, they don't look like paper or cardboard!) I'm putting a picture here to show you guys...

That's one of the smaller ones, too. Every neighborhood has a falla, and a ninot, or a little falla. Some of these fallas can take up to a year to make and cost hundreds of thousands of euros. And, at the end of the festival...


They burn them!!!!! I watched 3 burn and they were all really impressive. It was a pyromaniac's dream. They also had a huge falla of the Virgin Mary, consecrated with row upon row of roses.


A lot more happened at Las Fallas, but I'd better stop for now since this blog is getting kind of long. The week after, my aunt and uncle came to visit and I took them around Madrid! Finally, this week we're in Sevilla for Semana Santa, or Holy Week. More to come on that, later.

Luego!
Ariel

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