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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