What the what?
May 3rd, 2009 by Matt BrattinI have accepted the fact that I was never able to get a grip, much less a firm grip on time throughout most of the MBA, and this was especially true during the final term. I knew time was going to fly, but seriously, is this a joke? I began writing this post months ago and know it’s a little silly to post it now, but what the heck, why not? I’ve got free time now so I can actually try to provide all the updates I feel are necessary before officially signing off, so here goes.
I was sitting in class last week, watching final presentations and I had to give a double take when I saw the date at the bottom of someone’s slideshow – March is almost over!!! I graduate in *gulp* four days! What the what?! Ok, so at the very least I can give a re-cap of things and stuff I’ve been up to, so let’s get on with that, shall we?
Las Fallas – Valencia
What started off as a day when local Valencian carpenters would drag all their scrap wood into the streets of Valencia and make bonfires has morphed into quite possibly one of the most incredible festivals I’ve ever experienced first-hand. We took the train from Barcelona to Valencia on March 18 and had the privilege of witnessing the final two days of the Las Fallas festivities and boy what a show it was.
The present day festival has the many, many little neighborhoods all over town spending a good part of the year creating what I can only describe as works of art. They create these massive sculptures (and by massive I mean about 3-4 story buildings high) depicting, often, controversial current events topics and have them on display throughout the week in the middle of intersections. Come the last evening of the festival, they certainly go out with a bang, or thousands of bangs, and flames as they torch the sculptures right there for everyone to see. As you can imagine, the resulting infernos are quite possibly the only thing more spectacular than the sculptures themselves.
In addition to the Fallas, there were many parades with locals dressed in amazing, traditional clothing walking from one end of town to the other. The women all bring bouquets of flowers to a large wooden statue of the Virgin Mary in one of the main plazas in town. They bring these flowers, tens of thousands of them, over a two day period from about four in the afternoon until around midnight. The brilliantly colorful flowers are quickly applied to the statue, bringing to life this massive wooden structure. This was an emotional event for many people involved and was quite amazing to witness as well.
Aside from these things, I will make brief mention that in our effort to witness the final Falla burning in the main square downtown, Blanca and I unfortunately had to endure one of the most frightening things either of us had ever encountered. We had arrived to the square at a reasonable time before the burning was to take place and had decent views from where we were. There was really no crowd control to speak of and, after about forty-five minutes of waiting, we soon realized that we were smack dab in the middle of thousands and thousands of people. No big deal at the moment, just an observation we had made.
It wasn’t long before all the wide-eyed newcomers filtering into the plaza began basically being swept away in the sea of people without much control over where they were going, because with this many people packed in like sardines in such a large area you just can’t help but go with the flow, and the flow was always toward the path of least resistance.
Well, it soon became nearly impossible to stand in one place, as the people simply kept coming, and then it finally happened – a girl quite nearby to us actually passed out from the pressure created by everyone around her. Someone nearby picked her up and began the arduous task of carrying her through the massive crowd of people, and I believe it was at this point people began to panic and herd mentality started taking over.
Soon, I felt like I was stumbling at every step as we were being pressed from all sides in no particular direction and people began screaming and yelling to moooooooove!!! It seemed as though we were at the front of this senseless effort to moooooooove, and every large, male person we came up against didn’t seem to understand it wasn’t just me pushing them, it was the thousands behind us and when they tried pushing back against me, despite my pleading to stop, they were soon also swept away in the tide of people with us and finally, after a borderline traumatizing experience we found relief and some space began to open up and we pulled out of the crowd as quickly as we could manage and never even made an effort to return.
*whew* While it was not my intention to have such a large part of my description be about this particular event, I would like to restate that it was, overall, an awesome festival and we had an amazing time – I’ll just be thinking twice before ever walking amongst so many other people ever again.
After all was burned and our eardrums had withstood the punishment of a seemingly constant, two-day wave of firecracker attacks we decided it was time for a little relaxation – to Alicante!
Alicante
We arrived in Alicante on the afternoon of the 20th via train and took a bus to our hotel after seeing how apparently far it was from the train station on a map. A few short minutes later we arrived at our hotel and we suddenly realized just how tiny this town really is. We checked in and found the hotel to be quite reasonable and in a good central location. That evening we took it easy and only headed out for dinner and turned in early so we would be well rested for our frenzy of a day planned next.
We got up at a reasonable hour the next day and headed out to grab a bite to eat and check out the city. This was all just part of our warming up for a visit to the castle, which is really the primary focal point of the town considering its location atop a moderately sized hill overlooking everything. We began to realize very quickly that there really isn’t too much to see in town, so we opted to seek out a path to the castle sooner than planned – why not?
We headed up the beach looking for a route up the hill toward the castle, and after maybe fifteen minutes of walking we seemed to have lost our bearings and pulled out the map to hopefully show us how much further we needed to go. As it turned out, we had once again completely over-estimated the size of the town and for probably the previous ten minutes had been walking well beyond our turning point. So, we had to back-track a short bit and then navigate some narrow streets to figure out how to reach our destination. We had initially intended to find an alleged elevator depicted on our map, but considering the nice weather and our inability to crack the code of the mystical elevator we were soon on our way up the hill toward the castle on foot.
It was a respectable hike, certainly made easier with the paved pathway zig-zagging along the hillside. When we finally made it we took in the amazing view while enjoying a cool breeze which complemented the sunshine rather well. I then went on my typical photo-taking rampage and snapped up as many pictures as I could manage.
I think we could have stayed up in the castle all day, but finally after a couple hours decided we had best begin the trek back down toward the hotel so we could shower before heading back out for dinner. The first night our dinner left much to be desired, so for the second evening we wanted to spend a little more time scouting potential spots. We eventually came across a wonderful little Indian restaurant just around the corner from our hotel and I enjoyed some fantastic, spicy food I had been craving for some time.
The next morning we had to head back to the train station to make our return to Barcelona and this time we opted just to make the walk and, even with luggage, it wasn’t bad. Only problem was that apparently even in the train station nothing is open at 7am and we had to head back into town, luggage and all, just to find a little café where we could get a quick croissant and coffee before departing on our journey home. We made it back to the train station with only a couple minutes to spare and before we knew it we were on our way back to Barcelona.
Overall, it was a great trip and the Las Fallas festival is highly recommended, as is Alicante for anyone with an extra day to check it out.
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