“Las Fallas de San Jose is one of the biggest festivals in Spain. It's held every year from March 12th through March 19th, no matter what day of the week those dates are. My padre said that during the day they will parade the huge floats all through the city and then around midnight every year they will burn them. Each barrio competes every year to see who can create the most intricate and satirical wood and paper-mache effigy. These are called ninots or fallas, and there will be around 300 of them. Originally, Las Fallas was a celebration of the arrival of spring and in memory of Saint Joseph. The gigantic bonfire was supposed to be an exorcism of social problems and bring good luck to the farmers in the coming season. The original fires were just from carpenters burning their spare wood. The night of March 19th is called "La nit del foc." It is a time of parades, fire-crackers, fires, music, soccer games, bull fights, and just partying in the street. But make sure you are very careful with your belongings, the city is so packed with people that there is a lot of theft. Valencia is the 3rd largest city in Spain and you might see some of the local dialect, called Valenciano, it is a dialect of Catalan. However, apparently it is mainly used for street signs, maps, etc. and not spoken very much. Valencia is very famous for oranges and paella. Most of the oranges consumed in Spain come from this area. There are lots of fun and interesting things to do in Valencia. Some sites you might want to see are the cathedral, which claims to posses the real holy grail, the Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias, and several art museums. There are also beaches, and the Paseo Maritimo runs along the coast and connect the various beaches. There is a big famous market, famous because is one of the biggest in all of Europe and has one of the widest selection of food. It's called Mercado Central, in the Plaza del Mercado. There is also the Mercado de Colon, in the heart of the city in the middle of Gaudi-inspired buildings. Here there are cafes, food, chocolaterias, flowers shops, souvenirs, crafts, etc. Valencia is famous for pottery, stoneware, and glassware. It is especially famous for azulejos, brightly colored ceramic tiles, and Lladro porcelain. There are also lots of parks and gardens in the city, including the whole river-bed of the Turia River. The main plaza in Valencia is the Plaza Ajuntament (also where the firecrackers go off) and the old part of town is called the Barrio del Carmen (at night this is also the heart of the gay community)”
So we were all psyched. We got there and saw a bunch of cool float type things.
They were really cool. A lot of them were really funny and it was amazing to see how much time and effort had gone into building them. We had a father from the ward showing us around the city and he started taking us down some pretty crowded streets.
Each float we saw was more and more amazing.
There were a bunch and each was very different and individual.
They were really crazy!
We headed over to the Train Station and it was really a very cool building.
Funny story. We were walking by this lady and she was offering something out. And I was all, “No thanks, I’m poor.” “It’s free.” She said. So I took one and it turned out to be some cold coffee thing. Because I grabbed one two other girls also grabbed one and we were disappointed that it wasn’t something we could have.
From there we went and saw some fireworks. We really didn’t because the road was so amazingly crowded.
And it was daytime so I don’t know how well we would have seen them anyways. We all decided to walk around and we started to see the cool stuff of Valencia.
From where we were in town it was still quite a walk from the beach. We thought about taking the bus and foolishly decided against it because we wanted to save money. It ended up taking about an hour to get to the beach but when we did, it was pretty awesome looking.
However, as soon as we changed our clothes, all the clouds came out and the wind started blowing. It was very cold so we decided we’d have to make a mad dash for the water.
Yes, we are very white I know. And here it is, the first time in the ocean in as long as I can remember. OK, maybe that was an overstatement but it’s been a long time.
It was really cold.
I’m swimming!
Ok, so maybe I’m still standing. It was really far out before it was deep enough to actually swim.
There you go. Geepers though, I’m really white. After not too long we decided it was too cold and we made our triumphant exit.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that the last time I went swimming was the day after my birthday in 2005. It was in the Lehi river, jumping off of the Lehi bridge. Kind of a lame way to go, huh? But I started anew in the Mediterranean sea off of the coast of Spain so I’m ok with it. Anyways…Look! It’s a sail boat.
Freedom!!!
I ate at Burger King that night.
Its lame I know but I was really craving it. We then walked back to the city center. It was quite a walk and at the end …I was really tired. When we got to the center there was a huge parade going on but everyone wanted real food so we went in search of it. Andrew stopped for a photo with some parade performers. 
We never found anything good and ended up just eating at Pan and Company. I didn’t eat there because I wasn’t in the mood for a Spanish fast food chain. After dinner we met up with the Shumways and we followed them in search of a Cathedral but Kyte, Suzanna, and I got distracted in a street market. I got a really beautiful tie with matching handkerchief. I love it. We finally called after Andrew and the Shumways and met up with them by the Cathedral but it was closed. Here is a Maria made all of flowers. It was probably 30 feet tall.
We got a good position by the Falla that we were going to watch and were there pretty early so we just had to sit there. 
It was amazingly huge and I was pretty surprised it was going to be burned. At 1 am they started the fireworks show. It was really cool.
And then they started to burn the falla.
There were so many with cameras.
And so the fire began.
Once it started we were able to feel the heat from where we were standing and it was crazy. There were so many people. The fireworks were still going while the thing was burning.
It was really cool. Pictures don’t really catch the awesomeness of the fire because of the smoke and such.
The whole time they were spraying it down with hoses and such and it just made me so nostalgic of the good old days. I hope Michael picked out some good trees this year. And this was all that was left.
Valencia was like 5 hours away from home so we didn’t get to bed till like 7-8 am. It was a pretty AWESOME day though. FIRE! 
