Me, Colombians, Tapas
Tom's Regular Travel Update #1 - Page 3
Spain Zone 1 - Valencia
Then me and Davey arrived in Spain, in Valencia to be precise, where immigration control refused to let me in because I didn't know where I was staying. They let Davey in because he bought a Swiss Passport beforehand with all his drug money. After about 10 minutes of Davey sweet-talking the official they eventually let me in to corrupt their noble country with my money.
Davey's brother Petey lives in Valencia. He lives in this flat with some other Colombians, they were all pretty cool. They have illegal cable TV that runs through this crazy box o' electronics with a twisty knob that you have to fiddle with to get good reception. They show bullfights live and other interesting oddities.
Me, Colombians, Tapas
Enough about the telly, it's time for some background information. Valencia is quite a large city in the South-Eastern sort of region of Spain. It is the home of Paella.
The science centre, in Valencia
Radio Colon. 'Colon' is the actual surname of 'Christopher
Colombus'. Crazy Spain.
Popular Spanish milk brand 'Ram'. Crazy crazy Spain.
Valencia is also home to allegedly the largest fireworks-based festival in the world.
Las Fallas
Las Fallas is a pretty crazy festival. Valencia gets crammed with about another million people, mostly Spanish, for a week. With all these people in such a small place, people resort to blowing each other up with fireworks. They have at least 2 official fireworks demonstrations a day, including a lunchtime one that is so loud that it is amazing the windows of the surrounding buildings don't blow out or something. And on one night, the 'Nit del Foc' or Night Of Fire, they close off a street and everyone runs around throwing fireworks at each other. Apparently, a couple of years ago they had 112 hospitilisations on the 'Nit del Foc' and this was the smallest number for several years. Needless to say, the night rang with the sounds of exploding fireworks and wailing ambulance sirens.
Our 'posse', consisting of Colombians, Italians, Spaniards, French and 1 kiwi.
Thanks Oscar for the photo
Nit del foc
I bought these cool fireworks in Valencia. I asked for the most powerful fireworks they had, and the fireworks vendor asked me if I wanted the ones that blew off your finger or the ones that blew off your whole hand, and I chickened out and got the finger ones. Here are some photos of stuff we blew up -
Petey preparing the aerosol can (bad idea)
Things we blew up - a handy guide
Loo roll? Where? Mwahaha
How everything turned out. The onion is the stain at the far right.
Note that the aerosol can stayed intact, which is perhaps a good thing
But perhaps the craziest thing was that every little neighbourhood in town constructs these enormous sculptures out of wood, paper and polystyrene. They are really elaborate.
Then at the end of the week, the day after the Nit del Foc in fact, they set them all on fire. The burning is super-spectacular - they implant fireworks in the sculptures, so they blow up as well as burn, and there are firemen spraying down the surrounding buildings to stop them catch on fire and everything.
We watched the largest sculpture burn, one that cost around 200 000 euros to make, and which was six stories tall. It took a while, and about halfway through a brass band started playing a really sad song and it was really emotional. For other people but not me cos I am hard.
All that remains. Note the chalk outline of the unfortunate
mobility-impaired civilian
One night we were wandering around Valencia and the best thing happened - we walked past a Smart Car dealership!!! And I saw it first! Man it was cool. I totally wasted poor old Colombian Pete. The other Colombians weren't familiar with the whole Smart Car punching thing and appeared slightly shocked at my savagery until Colombian Dave explained it to them, then they laughed and joined in beating Pete. What a night.
Las Fallas is a huge festival, but strangely the only major company that has noticed this so far seems to be Amstel. They were everywhere. There were giant inflatable Amstel mascots, roller-skating Amstel girls, Amstel netball-style noisemaking sticks (that the Spaniards didn't seem to understand - they would just hit each other with them), and straw hats. Hats, hats, hats. Some lucky hat dealer sure saw Amstel coming.
Boy I sure feel like a refreshing Amstel
Mullets
Of course, fireworks and straw hats aren't the only thing that Valencia does well. Here are some examples of the cutting-edge work Valencia is undertaking to promote general acceptance of the mullet -
Spain Zone 2 - Madrid
Ahh Madrid. It was alright. I think poor Colombian Dave will remember Madrid better than me. All I can remember about Madrid is this -
1. We went to an art museum. It was large, and I learned a lot about art history and related fields. I'm not proud of the whole debarcle, so I'd rather we just move right along.
2. We went to this big park. They had a big statue of a fallen angel, and some big crystal palace that was actually just glass. There were also quite a few grassy areas where you could play traditional Spanish picnic games like bullfighting and flamenco dancing.
3. We had a day trip to a historic nearby town called Segovia or perhaps Sergovia.
Aqueduct, Segovia
Colombian, Castle, Sergovia
4. We had this crazy night in town where Davey picked up a Peruvian girl then got pick-pocketed by a fellow Colombian and I spent most of the night talking to a French guy that hated Americans, strangely enough.
They also had this Pirate-themed pub nearby to where we were staying, but I have to say that it was pretty lame, they didn't have a parrot and no-one spoke like a pirate. Of course, everyone knows that it wasn't the Spaniards that were the pirates so why would they know how to run a pirate pub, so maybe I shouldn't have been so disappointed.
Not piratey enough for me, sorry
Once we had had our fill of Madrid, it was time to leave. We went to the airport, where Davey managed to complete the 'Serious Illness-Pickpocketed-Miss The Flight' holiday triple bill. This was because he was flying to Brazil, but they wouldn't even let him board because he didn't have a flight OUT of Brazil again, and no country wants an overstaying Colombian smack lord. So I had to leave him behind once more. Apparently he managed to leave a few days later, and I don't want to start any more rumours than necessary but I think he BRIBED THE OFFICIALS WITH ILLEGAL DRUGS INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO COCAINE, HEROIN AND HORSE TRANQUILIZERS.