fallas -petardos

What, you ask, are petardos?
Firecrackers, but in an entirely unfamiliar culture. Here, it's totally chill for little kids to throw petardos, although there are age limits on buying the largest ones. I saw a precious little girl throwing cherrybombs? from her stroller, so young that she couldnt give them the velocity to pop. I saw kids, no older than 4 years old, lighting petardos with their parents.
As children ourselves, we obviously had some fun. Yours truly did not herself throw petardos, but did experience the explosion of a watermelon and various other fruits.
as someone told us, you can tell the americans because they jump. As hard as we tried not to jump, it was basically impossible.
The most dangerous petardos were the borrachos (literally: drunks), which would go off, spin around and fly around a bit, then go off again, spin around and travel, and go off again, all the while spraying sparks. They were kind of scary, but we're all safe now.

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fallas - the castillo

The castillo was the nightly fireworks display. Initially 15 minutes long, on the last night it was an amazing 30 minute show. It was held in the Rio, an old riverbed turned park - and we were lucky enough to watch from one of the bridges crossing the Rio.
After the castillo, everyone turns out to the streets for a night of debauchery. For ninos, it meant just throwing petardos. For teenagers, it meant drinking and street parties (verbenas- dancing party in the street). (Each Falla also had their own private tent and party going.) For senior citizens, it meant wandering around and looking at the fallas and street lights. And all this at the same time!

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fallas - la mascleta

From march 1 to march 18, a mascleta is held in la plaza de la ayuntamiento (think main square) at 2pm. During Fallas (the last four days before march 18, when the real party happens), many of the fallas will also have their own mascletas.
The mascleta (pronounced mas-kle-TA) is a celebration of fireworks, mostly enjoyed for its sonic boom qualities. Five minutes of ear popping petardos (firecrackers), sparkling mortars and sometimes colorful smoke. Its quite a sight- but during Fallas you'd have to get to the plaza at least 45 minutes early in order to be close enough to see it!

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fallas - las fallas

fallas, the monuments, are pretty spectacular. They're not just large paper-mache statues; they're characterized by a fallas style, and they all carry themes of social and political criticism. The writing on them is, unfortunately for me, all in valenciano, the traditional language de Valencia, which is a sort of bridge between Spanish and French, but it renders the fallas difficult to understand.
Luckily, our friend Gerson showed us around the most important fallas and translated bits and pieces.
One of my favorite fallas was that of the Plaza de Polar. It's main figure was a VirginVlike maternal figure with child, and its themes centered around the family - respect, the role of grandparents, birth control (did you know that speaking french is a form of contraception :P ).
Another of my favorites was about the effects of global warming. It included a figure with huge boobs, saying 'at least all the chemicals are making boobs bigger'.
There was even one about Americans - featuring a giant donut, the Simpsons and an overweight David (the classical structure). (shown above)

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falleras

If I cant be a Nasrid princess when I grow up, I want to be a fallera. These traditional, gorgeous girls are a key element of Fallas. Not only are they beautiful, the falleras offer "la ofrenda" - flowers which grow to cover a huge statue of the Virgin Mary- in a parade so regal and pretty it takes two days to complete. The Fallera Mayor also leads many important ceremonies. Falleras range from babies not yet out of the stroller to their mothers, but the standard age is teenagers.
(P.s. there are some fallerOs too - but the boys are just not as impressive!)

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fallas (part 1)

Even two days before fallas, we still had no idea what we were getting into. We werent sure what we were supposed to see or do, and nobody could really explain to us what fallas *was*.
I still cant quite explain. The closest it gets is "the fourth of july on crack", but that can't explain the artistic elements blended with the cultural, political and general debauchery-ical elements.
Key elements and definitions:
Mascleta: A daily fireworks display emphasizing sound.
Falla: a: the celebration of Fallas; b: the neighborhood organization that funds and organizes their own celebration; c: the monument/statue/structure of artistic merit whose burning characterizes Fallas.
Castillo: The nightly fireworks display emphasizing the visual.
Bunnuelos/churros/chocolate- Fallas treats! Bunyuelos are like donuts with pumpkin added. Churros are like donut sticks, but they come covered sugar, dunked in chocolate and filled with creme (or any combination of the above). Both treats are customary to be dunked in hot chocolate - which is rich and thick like pudding.
Lights- Big lights decorations are part of Fallas as well. Think Christmas lights on crack, albeit on the neighborhood scale.

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Gandia

Gandia was pretty tame. We went to see the ducal palace, where San Francesco de Borja lived. It was pretty.
Afterwards, we had time to wander the town, but it was raining so we found a nice yogurt place to eat lunch in and that was that.

Coming up next: ¡Fallas!