we didn't start the fire

This weekend was spent enjoying Spain's biggest pyro-holiday: Las Fallas in Valencia. It is a chance for every fire-loving fellow to meddle with anything and everything fire related until their hearts are content and every desire satisfied. The entire city was rigged with lines and lines of explosives and the constantly exploding fire crackers kept us on our toes. The huge fallas (wood framing covered with paper mache and then painted to resemble Disney's Toony Town architecture) were set up on every corner.

This holiday includes parades of traditional Valencian music and dress, bull fights, delicious sweets sold from booths, millions of people crowding the streets, fire crackers, and more. However, the concluding event trumps them all: the torching of all of"las fallas" at midnight.

Naturally, with this kind of environment we couldn't help but envision ourselves as part of a massive social revolution, and act accordingly all day with the sweet tunes of Billy Joel to accompany us.

The streets literally full of fire crackers.

Delicous bonuelos

traditional dress and dance of Valencia.

the burning of our falla

our "revolution faces"

what a day.

do it for aslan!

This past weekend we went on a whirlwind tour of the North and got to sample a little of what the northern cities of Spain have to offer. They have to offer a lot indeed, and the following pictures are just a sampling of a longer, more detailed post to come...everybody's favorite lion (Aslan) was up in Leon for the weekend and we got to meet him.

verde que te quiero verde!! we were so so happy to see some greenery.

we followed the famous "camino de santiago" the entire way. it is a 400+ mile trail starting from France and ending at the church in Santiago. apparently after you complete it you get 1/3 of your sins absolved. i'm all over that!