"Ooo, that one would be fun to watch burn!"
In mid March, the city of Valencia turns into a huge block party. Streets in the old center become pedestrian-only as neighborhood-based groups of artists and fundraisers finally mount the Fallas structures they have been working on throughout the year, paellas are cooked in the middle of the street, fire crackers snap left and right and light-bulb-lined churros trucks dot every major plaza and street corner. This is the celebration of San José, patron saint of carpenters, and perhaps of pyromaniacs too. At 14:00 every afternoon from the 15th to the 19th, hundreds of people cram into the square before town hall and overflow into the side streets to watch and hear the mascletá fireworks show…an awesome display of fireworks, moreso because it's in the center of the city than anything else. And at midnight, more fireworks. And then on the 20th, all but one of the cardboard and polystyrene neighborhood Fallas structures are burned right where they stand in plazas, intersections, street corners, and in tiny little alleys, as firefighters constantly spray the surrounding area and buildings with water.
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I don't have a rooster here. Instead, I have my seagulls. In our little port town of Puerto de Mazarrón the fishing boats go in and out twice a day. One shift leaves in the evening and returns with the catch around 7 am; the next shift leaves shortly thereafter and returns in the evening. On many morning as I clean up my breakfast and have my last drink of warm tea before heading downstairs to catch my ride to work, I have a minute to watch the morning catch enter the port. The entry to the small port is situated so that at this time of the year, the rising sun appears on the horizon behind the port it at just about the same time that the morning catch comes in. In the growing and silvery light, we watch hoards of seagulls clash with each other around the fishing boat. They dive for the smell of fish and to catch what they can of entrails dumped into the water by fishermen cleaning the catch. From up high in our apartment, the morning scene is quiet except for the squawks of seagulls, those ocean rats, battling for breakfast.
…and my mama's too. Together we recently road tripped from Toledo to Granada to the Puerto de Mazarrón. |
yes blog is currently 'archived'yes blog started when I moved from the States to Spain in 2012 and documented the results of saying 'yes' - to the people and learning opportunities - that came my way. Archives
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