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.