Episode 17: Las Fallas and Mental Valencians

This is what we’d been looking forward to for weeks, Las Fallas, to this day I’m still not entirely sure what they’re celebrating, but hey, alcohol and fireworks. The journey there was a lot simpler than on other weekends, given that Vicent’s family lives in València and he offered me a lift, as he goes down there most weekends, so it was a couple of hundred miles of touring Montsià to avoid the tolls, music and banter, I’m still quite proud of my translation of “Comunidad Valenciana, provincia de Castelló” to “you are now entering Spain” he also explained to me what orxata is, where the name comes from and why we should have some, it’s basically a drink made of water, sugar, and he described the third ingredient as xufes, which neither of us knew in English so he described them as root vegetables similar to potatoes, so I just knew it would either be heavenly or disgusting, although the origin of the name was slightly reassuring. The reason we got onto it was because I finally found out where the hotel actually was and it was in Alboraia, the place where orxata was born – but of course you knew that already. After a bit of research upon getting back I’ve discovered that xufes are tigernuts in English, so no I’m still not entirely sure what they are. But we got there and he dropped me off at the hotel, and then I went straight to the bar with the other guys, didn’t even have time to unpack, which was probably for the best given that I had an obscenely large bag with an abundance of as yet unworn clothes for reasons I’m not sure I will ever understand. We went from the bar to the room to drink even more alcohol then went to a music festival right on the edge of town, and to say it was free it was actually pretty good, even if Telepizza were trying to charge 2,50€ a slice, I think not. Although before going in we decided to absorb some culture by having our own mini botellón on the other side of the stream with what we had left over. Inside we were quite obvious tourists when La Oreja de Van Gogh came on as we were pretty much the only ones who didn’t know the words enough to sing along, but still it was pretty fun, we then hung out on the street for a bit to discover what Vicent had been warning me about: anyone between four and sixty years old were randomly grabbing fireworks (and yes that did say four), lighting them, and throwing them either on the ground or at each other, or at randomers, including but not limited to us, it was like the London riots only with a lot less actual rioting, and it was at something like 3AM as well, you really had to be there, so we went and sought refuge for a bit in an Irish bar, at 4€ a pint we didn’t stop long. And this was all over València and even Alboraia, where we came out of the Metro and were still faced with random bangs going off every 30 seconds, we went back to the hotel and slept at something like 4AM, but not before opening the windows as wide as they’d go because it really was that hot in the room.
Come 8AM we realised that opening the windows was a big mistake, when a group of about 20 kids decided to have a little firework war right in front of the hotel, they were that loud I could have sworn some of them were even in the room, it was like being in a warzone I tell thee. After cursing God for inventing fireworks we decided that closing the windows and sleeping for another 3 hours, still being able to hear the fireworks, might be a good option. Eventually we got up, had breakfast, and went to watch the Mascletà. But not before realising that I'd forgotten the singlemost important thing I'd need this weekend: suncream, I was not amused.
Afterwards we found a bar that Vicent told me about to go and have dinner, and it was bloody cheap, 14 euros each for paella, meat, veg, chips, whatever else we had, beer, wine and some free shots thrown in at the end. We went our separate ways afterwards, the girls heading to the beach and us heading to find an Irish bar to watch the rugby, and as a rule, Irish bars are expensive in València, I went and ordered the mandatory St. paddy’s Day pint of Guiness, and got charged 5,50€, that is 5 euros and 50 cents, there are bars in Amposta where I can have nine, count them, nine beers for that price. Mental. Got back on the lager after and that was a whole 50 cents cheaper, on the plus side, England 30-9 Ireland, so at least there was something to be happy about, also I got talking to this random Italian bloke in some painful mix of English, Spanish and Italian (my Italian has really gone downhill.) We went round the city for a bit before deciding to head back to the hotel, buy more alcohol, drink said alcohol again, and then go out again to La Nit del Foc, where we’d be meeting a load of other foreign people, one of who Ollie knew. So we pretty much spent the night with them, again getting fireworked at by Valencians, and having one of those that lights up then zooms off in any random direction come right in front of my face, this event simply would not pass British Health and Safety. After a load of walking from the bridge where we all met we found ourselves by the main train station and the bullring at a makeshift outdoor club where we spent the next few hours getting drunk and dancing, and the bar system was weird, you had to go to a till to buy a ticket with which you could then go to the bar and swap for a drink, oh well, as long as it doesn’t stop me buying my alcohol I’m cool with it. And the toilets were confusing as well, it took me a good few minutes to figure out that, despite both entrances having the ladies symbol, they were actually unisex, even though there was someone there stopping you going in one entrance, he didn’t really stop a firework being thrown in there though, I know that my mum is reading this now and remembering that my 8-year-old self used to HATE fireworks! And wondering how the hell I coped, let’s just say I think I’m desensitised to them now. The rest of the night was just spent getting more drunk, going back to the hotel, having a laugh at Ollie who was out like a light as soon as we got back, stealing the girls’ lemonade for no apparent reason, although we shared it with Laura so it doesn’t really count as stealing, plus she gave me the key to go get it, and staying up until daylight (read: 7:30) knowing full well we had to be checked out by 12, this is gonna suck.
After what felt like nowhere near enough sleep I heard someone knocking at the door, and was ready to murder whoever was doing the knocking until I opened it and saw Catania there all dressed up and ready to, well, leave, so I toned down my murdering to a “you had better have a good reason for this.” “Um yeah, it’s 11, you guys might wanna get up.” “I see, thank you, but we really don’t want to, we’ll see you in an hour.” So we dragged ourselves out of bed, thankfully there was no World War III outside our window this time, and we went to a bar for breakfast/dinner, avoiding the Mascletà crowds which none of us could be bothered with, we had the traditional patatas bravas and sandwiches, and Fanta, with much-needed hangover-destroying sugar, and made our way to find the Plaza de la Virgen, which was a lot more difficult than we envisaged, eventually we found her still under construction, only to then be set on fire, it really is daft all these fantastic models they build that are the size of houses, to think “you know what we should do with these? Burn them.” Then we made our way back to the town hall at about 4, where Catania, Dom, Erin and Ollie all headed off to the bus station leaving me and Laura with our train at 8 and bus at half 10 respectively, most of this time was spent in the general Burger King area, before failing to find a proper restaurant to have tea, it also involved nipping into the station to leave my bag in the lockers, I really don’t know why I never thought of this before, but oh well, our travels also involved crossing the parade route several times, and finally having some orxata and it was good! Like seriously good, Vicent had warned me we wouldn't like it at first, but he was wrong. And when we were in the train station area at about half 7 the clubs were already starting up, not the thing you want to happen when you discover you don’t actually have work the next day, but couldn’t stay anyway because you’ve no hotel booked, oh well to the train station it is, to get my bag out of the locker and realise you’ve about a minute to sprint a good 400 yards, easy enough without a huge bag or huge hangover, absolute hell with both of these things. Managed it though by the skin of my teeth, leaving only Laura to pass the time in Las Fallas before her bus left, while I’m sat on an absolutely packed train for a couple of hours.
I was lucky enough to have the train stop in L’Aldea as the original plan was to go to Vinaròs and get a bus from there, but at 10PM that is not happening, so instead I arrived in L’Aldea and rung the taxi number on the signpost outside the station, to discover that I’ve woken the guy on the other end of the phone up, I’m pretty sure this is something that could only ever happen in Spain, it was quite clear he didn’t much fancy getting up leaving me with the option of, well, walk it, I could not believe it, until I then saw a car coming towards the station with a taxi light on top, salvation! It took me a minute to explain to the driver that yes, no-one had rung her, because the guy I got on the phone was asleep and incomprehensible. A few miles and 15 euros later I finally found myself at home, with my nice, warm, comfortable, forgiving, cosy bed.

La Mascletà during the day	La Nit del Foc during the night

Episode 16: “Are you naked?” “Yes.” “I need my camera!”

So this weekend started out with an absolute ballache: buying the bus tickets. I found this website called todobus.es that would let me buy my HIFE and Alsa tickets at the same time, quite convenient, until it wouldn’t accept my British bank card, or my British credit card, I must have tried about 5 times before deciding to just do them separately, so I went to HIFE’s website and bought the tickets to Zaragoza no problem, then spent the next 2 hours trying about 20 times to buy the tickets to Bilbao from Alsa’s website. I think this is where the problem was, the woman on the phone even told be their systems can’t really deal with debit cards, or non-Spanish cards, who the hell built their system? I wouldn’t mind, the only reason I was using my British card was because El Ministerio hadn’t paid me on time. Again. Leaving me with very little in my Spanish account, though it was still a debit card so Alsa would probably have still been a bit dodgy, so much for “Hacemos tu viaje más fácil”. Luckily La Caixa came to the rescue, in that you can buy Alsa bus tickets through their cash machines (or most of them at least), I’m not entirely sure there’s anything they can’t do. I went to the mahine with my credit card (it still didn’t work with my debit card) and bought the tickets no problem, this is definitely something to remember for next time.
Now onto Friday and a good 11 hours spent travelling, as is tradition. I had to get up at 6AM for my bus that left at 7:45, and here came the next hiccup: I hadn’t had chance to print off my HIFE ticket, resulting in having to carry my passport, NIE, and a piece of paper on which I’d scribbled all the details off the PDF on my computer, the driver did look at it a bit dodgy – can’t really say I blame him to be fair – and rung Tortosa bus station, where he told me they’d check my details and what have you. So we got to Tortosa and everything actually went smoothly, there was a 20-minute wait so I got off and went to the desk, handed over all my papers, 2 minutes later I had an actual ticket in my hand for the rest of the journey to Zaragoza, via a whole host of places that not only did I not know existed, but half of them led me to wonder why they existed, and who decided that buses would be suitable for their roads, and then there was a good couple of hours of desert before arriving in Zaragoza. Zaragoza should be good though, go round the city for a bit, see the sights, grab some dinner, or alternatively discover that you’re a good 15 minutes away from the city centre and instead sit outside the station in what is actually quite a nice square (could use a bit more greenery though) next to the water features with a magazine, then the next ticket related hiccup: receipts from La Caixa don’t exactly look like tickets, so I handed it to the driver and he had a list of names, of course La Caixa hadn’t sent over my name, it simply came up as “Caix” luckily I saw this and noticed that it corresponded with my seat number, and he seemed to believe me, so let me on. And then a few annoying hours, only I could end up sat next to the only other English-speaker on the bus who has some of the most bullshit problems that just have to be shared with whoever she’s talking to on the phone, and the rest of the back of the bus, even if only one person could understand her, I couldn’t put my music on because my phone had decided to go from 5 bars of battery when I arrived in Zaragoza to “battery low” warnings 10 minutes later, I still don’t understand that. But anyway I arrived in Bilbao and got off, and straight to the Alsa desk to swap my Caixa receipt for an actual ticket for the return journey, met Laura and Sefo, a Canadian guy, and headed to Eroski, where Laura talked me out of my alcohol-based Lent promise with some Sunday-based logic (yes I know it’s still Friday, don’t ask), I still blame her entirely. After finishing all the alcohol we had we headed out to Laura’s German friend’s leaving do, which was basically drinking, a lot of German food, and some weird ball on a balance board thing where you had to get the ball round some path into the middle of the board using only your feet, no-one succeeded. We just decided to be boring and head home after that given that by that point I’d been up about 20 hours and Laura even more.
Saturday then and we headed to the centre of town again, and Bilbao were playing Real Sociedad that day and that’s basically the Basque derby, cool, what I found out the hard way though is that Real Sociedad have similar colours to Huddersfield Town, it got me some looks. Met Sefo again in the park, still in last night’s clothes, stay classy Canada, and went round eating ice cream and doughnuts, and then the one thing happened that I never thought would happen in Bilbao: I had to take off a layer, now I know this may be hard to believe but it was actually hot and sunny in Bilbao, but I won’t complain. I did that fancy trick where you take off a shirt from under another shirt and got some more looks, but oh well, we basically trekked round the city and the Guggenheim, and took my photo next to a massive spider for some reason, then back to Laura’s to drink more and head out again, and then get back at about 6 in the morning, the only problem being that my bus left at half 9 in the morning, Christ help me. We got back and watched random YouTube crap for about an hour before randomly falling asleep, I had set my alarm to go off every 2 minutes after 8AM so there was no chance I was waking up without it. Until I did. I woke up, looked around, heard no alarm, saw that everyone else was asleep, and panicked, “oh my God, what time is it? What time is it? What time is it? What time is it? What the…it’s 7:55!” I had naturally slept for less than an hour which I don’t think has ever happened before, after having drunk for the first time since my birthday, incredible. This didn’t stop me being groggy as hell though as I collected all my stuff together while filling my coffee cup half with sugar, this still didn’t work and I almost, ALMOST, fell into the ‘fall back asleep’ trap, Sefo woke up at some point to pick up a mattress, fall on it, and go back to sleep. Then I said my goodbyes to anyone who was conscious i.e. no-one, and made my way to the station, got on the bus with my real ticket, and slept, very awkwardly, given that I was right behind the driver in an aisle seat with someone sat next to me, not cool. I’d perked up a bit by the time I reached waiting for a couple of hours in Zaragoza again though and got on the bus to Amposta, thankfully not Barcelona because I fully could not be bothered with another 2 hour train journey and a taxi, the bus went straight to the bus stop in Amposta, or alternatively the bus station in Tortosa where we had to change again, gah! Why?! Just take me home already!
Eventually when I did get home I did what is becoming the done thing, falling on my bed to wake up at 6AM the next morning to go to work.