Valencia, Ghandia y Calpe

The week of exams and fallas turned out to be an amazing week. After the pressure of exams was over, we all felt so much better. I know I did at least. I had three exams, one on monday, one on tuesday, and one on wednesday. After the exams on Wednesday, most of us explored the city of Denia in search of different fallas, which are huge sculptures made out of plaster designed to satirize or criticize different (usually political) public figures. Thursday we went to Valencia to see the mascleta and the fallas there. I haven't been in a crowd that big since new year's in NYC at the end of 2008. The mascleta was a huge fireworks display during the afternoon. The Valencianos really love their fireworks; they were so powerful that we could feel them, not just hear them. It was really impressive. The fireworks were about 50 yards away and the show lasted 10 minutes; ten minutes during which you couldn't hear yourself even if you were yelling. The biggest falla in Valencia was 27 meters tall, according to what the newspapers said. I believe it. Absolutely crazy how much money they spent on it too, about 600,000 euros! The winning falla only cost half that. After we got back from Valencia at five in the morning on the bus, I slept for about four hours and then got up to go to Ghandia to hike with some people from the Iglesia Bautista and three other Calvin students. The hike was great; we saw some rural shepherds herding goats in the mountains and saw some great waterfalls. We met lots of nice people; mostly Ecuadorians and Colombians. One lady, Elva, invited us to eat with her in two days, on Sunday. We all were pumped about our new connection. On saturday a group of Calvin students and the boyfriend and brother of Mieke, one of our group, drove down to Calpe from Denia. Calpe is an enormous rock (332 meters tall and 1 km long) that juts out of the ocean and overlooks the town. It was an amazing view from the top, and the wildlife and flowers that grow up there were beautiful. I would go again for sure. So that was all day saturday. Sunday after church Clara, Kaylee, Courtney and I went to eat with Elva and her friends. I felt like I was in South America, not Spain; all of the people were Ecuadorians and Columbians. We all met at an abandoned house, which sounds weird. They had a few huge pots with this soup (chicken, bananas, yams, potatoes and rice) that they were preparing for everyone. We got to know the people and learned how to play dominoes. Great times. I had no idea how long we were taking until I realized it was 4:30 and we got out of church at 1:00. Then we went to have "coffee" at Elva's house, which turned out to be a code word for "Johnny Walker" (whisky) and learning how to dance salsa. By 7:30 I was all danced out and needed to go home to do homework. I don't think I slept at all this weekend, but it was a really great one. One more week until spring break; I'm really excited for that as well!

Exams and Fallas

This week we have been studying all week, every week. Art history is going to be a tough exam for most of us. 60 works of art to memorize, and dozens of new spanish words we need to describe the works of art. We also have to know when the work of art was created, where it is, and who did it, if the information is available. On top of that this coming week is the week of Las Fallas, the biggest festival in La Comunidad Valenciana. It will be quite a distraction for us. Fortunately, we are done with exams by wednesday, and thursday we are heading to Valencia to see more fallas and a bullfight, which should be pretty great. We just have to make it through this coming week.

Benimaurell

This weekend we heading off on our Esteve bus to the small mountain village of Benimaurell, about an hour inland from Denia. We stayed in an old hostel that, along with the rest of the village, was old and quaint; far from the noise of the city. From our hostel we could see the castle of Denia and the mountain Montgo that towers over the city of Denia. On saturday we went hiking through the canyons to the north of the town and ended up at a fantastic waterfall. Sunday we went to what was the first Catholic mass for many of us; Catholics don't do long services apparently. We were out in half an hour. Then some of us climbed the "horse's saddle", which are two mountains that overlook the entire valley and the dozen or so villages that are spread throughout it. It was more of a serious climb than Saturday; we had to climb through a crevice that went through the entire mountain and we also had to use climbing rope left there to get up a particularly steep part of the mountain. The view was worth it though. The whole area around Benimaurell is covered in terraces which have almond trees planted everywhere, and they only blossom for about a week, which is when we happened to be there. It was a good weekend to get away from it all. This wednesday we head out for Andalucia; we are going to La Alhambra and La Mezquita de Cordoba. It will be amazing for sure.