Photo: Fallas 2011

Taken during Fallas 2011, here in Valencia, near Plaza del Ayuntamianto. Fallas is a weeks-long celebration that has been growing in popularity for years. The streets, as you can see, are packed with people.

Never Lived in a War Zone (Fallas Week)

...but if I had to guess, I would say that Fallas week here in Valencia is very similar to what living in a war zone is like.

For those of you that don't know, Fallas is a week-long celebration/holiday of the Valencia region. It actually goes on for longer than that, and people actually prepare for it for the whole year, but there is one key week in March where the whole city grinds to a halt and stops functioning. It culminates on March 19th, when everything ends.

During that week, stores operate under different hours, roads are closed, public transportation barely works, trash accumulates in the street, and there's people literally everywhere. And that's without even mentioning the fireworks. It gets so bad that some long-time residents just up and leave to another city during that week.

You can hear the fireworks throughout the whole day. There are organized ones every day at 2 PM for almost a whole month, and the week before, there's an extra set at 1 AM (yes, AM) every night. And the people participate too. It's nigh-impossible to go to any of the local parks without running into a group of kids throwing fire crackers, or walking down the street without hearing explosions in the distance. At night, sleeping can become a real challenge, with loud booms echoing in the distance. We are actually pretty lucky because we don't live close to a Casal Fallero, which is where people concentrate to celebrate. Around those, the parties and fireworks usually last through the whole night, and sleeping soundly would not be an option at all. 

Despite how horrible I make it sound, it can be entertaining. On Friday, me and my wife went to see the monuments that people build for this celebration. They are wonderful and humonguous sculptures (photos coming soon) that are peppered throughout the city. You just have to be patient if you want to, you know, go outside at all during Fallas week.

Pollution

For the past week or, a strange set of climatological circumstances has settled on top of Spain. High humidity with no rain, almost no wind, and clear skies with mild temperatures (and I believe low pressure, but don't quote me on that). However, this has brought about a curious side effect, one that has been on the news quite a lot the last couple of days. 

You see, because of the weather conditions, the pollution caused by cars, factories and all other type of urban sources has NOT been dissipating. Quite the contrary, it has been accumulating for over a week, and in cities like Barcelona and, more importantly, Madrid, the situation has been pretty extreme. Video footage from outside the cities show a clear cover of smog all around and through them. Warnings were issued for people with health conditions, and all that. 

I live in Valencia, which is a much smaller city by comparison (population around 1 and a half million), and I thought it wouldn't affect me much. However, just the other day when I went to walk my dog at night, I started to notice it. There was a very thick fog that wouldn't let you see very far, more so than normal, and a distinctive ashy smell in the air. At least here and in Barcelona, the cities are right next to the sea, which I can imagine plays a role in dissipating all this, but I can imagine it's much worse in Madrid.

In the end, though, this smog cloud has a silver lining. It seems that some of the bigger cities are going to start implementing some restrictions to curb down the pollution. Still too early for any results, but in the long run this is probably going to raise awareness and public perception towards the issue.

Bike Patrol

For all the bad stuff I say about living where I do, there's something that I am thoroughly impressed about. The city of Valencia, where I live, has a public system of bicycles.

Yes, you read that right. Public transportation bikes.

You pay a minimal yearly fee (18 euros), and you can use public bicycles to get around the city. There are stations peppered throughout the whole city where you can park and take them out, and when you are done, you leave them at any other station. The whole thing, aside from the yearly fee, is FREE for people to use as many times as you want. The only catch is that you have limited time of 30 minutes to make your trip. If you run over that, they charge you 50 cents, or an extra euro if you go over the hour. This is easily avoidable because 1)Valencia is pretty small and you can get halfway across with those 30 minutes and 2) You can park the bicycle and take it out again for an extra 30 minutes as many times as you want.

The system was implemented earlier last year, and it was a HUGE success. The public bikes have become another common part of the urban landscape. I have been using it almost since the beginning, and I looked like a weirdo at first (people would stop me and ask me about the service while I was riding it) because no one else was using it. As the weeks and months passed, more and more people started joining up, and they are easy to spot because the bikes have a distinctive dark purple cover. Now, it is a common sight for me, when I ride a public bike, to see every person around me is also riding one.

It's a relatively cheap, alternative transportation system. It's not without its faults (sometimes it's hard to find a bike or where to park it), but it has worked out incredibly well for this city. I know for a fact that more cities are beginning to implement it (when I visited London in September, I saw that they had them too), and I hope the idea really takes off. If you want to read more about the system here in Valencia, you can go to their website.

Just like the Movies

Movies in Spain are sometimes released much more later than in the rest of the international markets. Sometimes it's a couple of days, weeks, and in the worst case scenario, months. Such is the case with Red, the comic book adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer.

The film is going to be released here this past week, January 18th. In the international markets, it was released back in October. What this means is that, this week, January 25th the DVD for it will be released in the UK. (Remember that the European Union has all the same coding, so that film would definitely work in my player).

Therefore, I have two choices: I could either spend twenty bucks, go to the movie theater, where I can only experience the movie once AND I have to listen to it in Spanish. Yes, with dubbed voices, I don't even get to hear the original voice acting (for some stupid reason, they won't release here with the original voice acting and subtitles, it's all dubbed). When you have people like Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, and Morgan Freeman, their voices are a key part of the movie. The other choice is to wait an extra week, order it online, have it delivered to my door, and watch it at my leisure as many times as I want it.

Which choice would you make?