QUE FIESTA!!!

My head is spinning, Las Fallas is CRAZY!!!  It is totally living up to its hype.  It is an experience that CAN NOT be replicated in the United States, making it the perfect vacation experience.  It truly is a combination of Disneyland, Fourth of July & the end of the world.  Except substitute Mardi Gras times a thousand for Disneyland and make the Fourth of July on crack.  Impressions: 

Wall to wall people.  They must come from all over because it would appear that every single person who lives in Valencia is dressed in traditional clothing and is in the parade.  Women dressed to the nines push their babies in carriages.  The babies are also dressed to the nines.  The band is very lay-back.  Doesn’t bother to march in time.  Hey!  they show up, they play.  Shut up about anything else.  And there are constant parades.  Row and rows and rows of females of all ages in traditional dress just walking along.  Then rows and rows and rows of males of all ages in some kind of traditional garb – mariachi meets pirate, I think – walking along.  Interspersed with these groups are the various bands.

OLIVES!!!  We tasted these olives.  These olives are the best olives in the world.  The guy running the kiosk just smiled at us as we tasted his sample and went “herbal”.  Ooooh yeah, man.  We bought some. They won’t make it back to the States.  Damn they are good olives.

There is a store that sells firecrackers for this event.  We walk in because Gene’s inner child has been unleashed and he MUST HAVE FIRECRACKER!!!!!  As we walk in, some delivery person is wheeling in a dolly with about 6 large boxes, each labeled “Firecracker”.  He does this twice.  It is fun trying to buy firecrackers in Spanish.  We don’t know all the right words, but find that “Big Boom” is always understandable.  By the way, there are firecrackers of varying loudness – and some very very loud going off constantly. 

CHEESE!!!!  We bought a bunch of special cheese made from special goats.  Something like that.  All we know is the sample was superb.  We bought some to eat now and some to bring home.  Guy said it would do okay in the freezer.  Oh mamma, this is good cheese.

The firecrackers go on and on and on and on.  We sit in our room and it sounds like a war zone outside.  Really.  There is a major volley of booms & blasts around midnight -- part of the celebration.  But the rest is totally personal.

Internect connection here is limited, so I may not be able to upload photos until Sunday night, when we are in Seville with better Internet connection.  Besides, it will probably take me that long to decide which of the hundreds of photos I want to post.