On Thursday I took a bus to the famed Spanish festival in Valencia known as Fallas. The bus left at 9 am from Universidad de Compultense campus, and it dropped us off there again the next morning at 10 am. The bus ride was 6 hours long. The trip there was quite bearable when taking into account the 45 minute rest stop (yea..i know a 45 minute rest stop, TIS, This is Spain, in the US, rest stops are max 10 minutes, and they will leave you if you don't make it back in time (shout out to Blair last year, deep south Georgia Dairy Queen) and the stunning scenery that enveloped our bus as we descended southeast to the coast for my first date with the Mediterranean Sea. Fallas is heaven for a pyromaniac. Each year the people of Valencia build these massive paper mache structures, and then burn them all to the ground in a massive ceremony. The festival celebrates the beginning of spring. Some highlights from the trip included:
- the glaring absence of rules and regulations regarding fireworks and any other fire like mechanisms that release smoke and absurd amounts of noise, police walked the streets while 5 year old kids would set off the equivalent of M-80s or bottle rockets just feet from where I would be walking, the whole environment had a distinct war zone type feel to it, Baghdad with a Beach kinda deal, minus blazing heat, armed soldiers, tanks plus lots of churro stands, outdoor cafes and majestic parks
- a couple encounters to recount
1) while dining on a relatively late lunch Nick and I met a guy from San Diego, Cali in an outdoor cafe. Ok so this man defines the term "dude." He's been in Europe for two years just traveling. He has a van, and you know what he does. He's got 4 boards, and he just loves to catch waves. When he started talking about "offshore wind and 3 to 4 foot swells" I knew I had a story for the blog.
2) a Hungarian woman near the Aquarium, with her Spanish boyfriend, she recounted to us how she didn't like the Spanish lifestyle, though she'd lived here for 6 years, how she speaks 6 languages. She also criticized the fact that I was wearing a sleeveless shirt, and asked if I had anything else to wear in case I was going to a restaurant later on.
Favorite spot of the trip: a bar right off the boardwalk that looked out on the beach, Valencia has a beautiful beach. I put my feet in the water at dusk, but since I forgot a towel, I didn't try to force a swim. The water was significantly warmer than the Atlantic, and definitely swimmable during the day.
Well, all for now, I'm off to get some studying done. Oh, and yea, Respect for the season the Terps put together, they maxed out and made the first weekend of the tournament fun.
Hasta luego.
- the glaring absence of rules and regulations regarding fireworks and any other fire like mechanisms that release smoke and absurd amounts of noise, police walked the streets while 5 year old kids would set off the equivalent of M-80s or bottle rockets just feet from where I would be walking, the whole environment had a distinct war zone type feel to it, Baghdad with a Beach kinda deal, minus blazing heat, armed soldiers, tanks plus lots of churro stands, outdoor cafes and majestic parks
- a couple encounters to recount
1) while dining on a relatively late lunch Nick and I met a guy from San Diego, Cali in an outdoor cafe. Ok so this man defines the term "dude." He's been in Europe for two years just traveling. He has a van, and you know what he does. He's got 4 boards, and he just loves to catch waves. When he started talking about "offshore wind and 3 to 4 foot swells" I knew I had a story for the blog.
2) a Hungarian woman near the Aquarium, with her Spanish boyfriend, she recounted to us how she didn't like the Spanish lifestyle, though she'd lived here for 6 years, how she speaks 6 languages. She also criticized the fact that I was wearing a sleeveless shirt, and asked if I had anything else to wear in case I was going to a restaurant later on.
Favorite spot of the trip: a bar right off the boardwalk that looked out on the beach, Valencia has a beautiful beach. I put my feet in the water at dusk, but since I forgot a towel, I didn't try to force a swim. The water was significantly warmer than the Atlantic, and definitely swimmable during the day.
Well, all for now, I'm off to get some studying done. Oh, and yea, Respect for the season the Terps put together, they maxed out and made the first weekend of the tournament fun.
Hasta luego.
nice basketball jersey pic. good to see you have not allowed the spanish to influence your fashion.
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