BOOM!

My parents were supposed to come visit me this week for Holy Week, but i received a call from my mother on thursday (i think) saying that my dad's old intestinal problem, that started with a teen car crash, resurfaced suddenly and my mom had to take him to the E.R.. Intestinal blockage/swelling=extreme pain. Anyhoo, the doctors weren't sure if they're have to do surgery, and they had to keep him in the hospital, so they didn't want him to travel. therefore, i went to Valencia with my best friends! my dad is all better, so i don't feel bad for enjoying my time with my friends. :)

Anyway, every year in Valencia they have a week of where they put fallas (stationary floats) all over the city, closing off the streets and placing the fallas directly in between the apartment building and stores. The floats have some sort of political meaning (my wiser roommate Dawn just informed me), but i have no idea what any of them mean. On top of that, the whole week people are lighting and throwing explosives (not real ones, just firecrackers), constantly, all day. it sounded like a war zone. it was crazy. And at night, there are even more people out on the street, and the youth throw the firecrackers in the crowds of people. great fun, dodging those things, let me tell you.

But a few days into it (this year it was yesterday, wednesday) they light all of the floats on fire! Can you imagine, building-sized things just up in flames, lighting up and heating up everything around them? Too bad some of them cost up to 500,000 euros to make. I wonder how many people we could feed with 500K instead of burning tons of colored plastic. Nevertheless, it was pretty neat. Right before they light the big ones on fire, they shoot off a ton of fireworks. (figures).
anyhoo, here are some pictures.

There's also a beach in Valencia. that was the most fun. :)

I say this a lot, but i love my friends.




Giant Paella. (That's not the man, it's the rice.)





beach, boat, spanish kids having a little fútbol fun.





friends chillin.





this is right below the terrace of the apartment of the friends we were staying with. if you look closely, the guys have little piles of explosives right by their feet, from which they continuously grab and light the little annoying things.





Falla and fireworks.





Falla being burned, everybody taking pictures. Kind of cool.





Right outside the terrace.





Boy. :)





Friends. :-D

Appreciation

I have come to love my facultad here at Madrid's lovely Universidad Complutense. Here are some cool things about the Political Science/Sociology Building: Out of all of the buildings on campus, my facultad (building) is the only one in which, despite the "Prohibido de Fumar" signs every 5 meters, the entire building is hazy with cigarette/hash smoke, as these students don't believe clean air is really that necessary; out of all the people at complutense, the students en my facultad are the ones with the most piercings, the weirdest (don't give a damn) clothes, the most dreadlocks, and the most mullets; my facultad is in the part of campus about a 20 minute bus-ride away from the main, large campus, and this is because during the Franco era the students in my facultad (along with a couple others on this far away campus) were the ones staging the protests against Franco. Therefore he moved them far away so they wouldn't be a bother.

I am proud to call myself an Anthropology student, thus a student in the Ciencias Politicas y Sociología building. :) we rock!

Climbing in the mountains was amazing. It was a beautiful day (as it is today and will continue to be... yay spring!) and Roberto and I were the only non-czechs in the bunch. but we did grab a beer in the pueblo at the bottom of the mountain, and beer lead to conversation which lead to politics and we had some great discussions about our respective countries (Italy, Czech Republic, U.S.). i feel like everyone here, at least that i've met, is really aware of what's going on not only in at their home but also really educated and stay up-to-date on the goings-on EVERYWHERE! it makes for great, opinionated, many-sided discussions.

my czech friends (in that same conversation) told us that the English head over to the Czech Republic on the weekends to binge drink (because the beer is a pint for 1 euro). they just get sloppy drunk and then go home on sunday. HA!... they don't think it's very funny.

my parents are coming to spain on sunday! booyah!

then the week after that i'm going to Italy!! Roberto's going to teach me how to drive his stick shift. :-D

Happy Trails