Welcome to Valencia!

Falles statue, like a Disney float on acid

We arrived in Valencia and caught the metro to the city center to find our hotel, Ding Dong Nuns. This week is Falles de Valencia, a celebration of St. Joseph and we got off the metro just in time for the Mascletas, the afternoon fireworks show. Which actually means we emerged from the subway, fresh off 21 hours of travel and still wearing our packs, into a packed city center. Nothing shakes off the fear of a new city like immediately jumping into a block party with the locals. What a show and what a way to start this trip!

Graffiti

We saw fireworks, toured the city center and had a beer all before finding our hotel. (Jason's justification: agua was 2 euros, cerveza was 1; he was saving us money, duh.) The city center is littered with large statues for Falles. They were gorgeous but a lot of their meaning was lost on us due to our lack of knowledge of local politics.

We are both equally amazed by the graffiti. It's everywhere and it's beautiful. And yet I can't help but think of Dimitri Martin and his take on indifferent graffiti.

Tinto de verano and cheese snacks

Jason leads the menu on this trip, so our late lunch was some sort of cheese plate. In reality, it tasted like a Handi-Snack cheese and cracker pack. Not complaining; just an observation. We also had tinto de verano which came highly recommended to us and did not disappoint.

We wandered the city, which is packed for the festival. Allegedly the population here doubles this time of the year. The streets are flooded with parades of costumes and marching bands. The dresses are the magnificent.

Patas bravas, calamari

Dinner exposed us to another rumor we had heard about Spain: Mayonnaise. And yep, our patas bravas and calamari came with mayo. Lots of it. Just shoveled on.

We rallied until 1 a.m. to see the final fireworks for the night. The city was still flooded with people, including drum lines and parades. The festival continues through Wednesday, then we gave ourselves a day to relax and recover, hopefully while many of the visitors flood out of the city before we depart on Friday morning. Hopefully we don't regret the decision to kick off this trip with a week-long block party, but oh well. You can't resist this city and its wonderful, welcoming spirit.

Viva las Falles!