Las Fallas y mas!

LAS FALLAS Festival! Valencia, Spain

weeks 5 & 6

week 5

These past two weeks have been really exciting and full of adventure. Jess, Adam, and I traveled to Valencia on Friday for Las Fallas Festival. It was a single day trip to experience a once in a lifetime event and it was completely worth it. 100 percent!

Las Fallas is a yearly festival held on the city streets of Valencia, another city located about four hours south of Barcelona. Six months before the festival, the people of Valencia construct HUGE sculptures, some up to 4 stories in height!

Each sculpture represents something important from the previous year. We saw sculptures representing Nationalization, Globalization, monetary crisis, cultural aspects, etc. The real exciting parts of the festival begin late at night when all of the sculptures are burned. "out with the old, in with the new!"

We began our adventure on a four hour bus ride to Valencia filled with other students from all around the world. The bus left early afternoon on Friday and we entered Valencia around 6pm. The bus let us off directly in front of the famous Santiago Calatrava building located near the waterfront coast of the city. The building is an incredible architectural feat and is indescribably beautiful. We took tons of pictures of the building while it was both still light out as well as while the sky darkened and the lights of the building began to turn on.

Star Wars? or Calatrava?

After exploring the Calatrava building we ventured around the city laughing and enjoying our bottles of sangria. Fireworks, fire crackers, laughter and parades filled the streets of the city and every corner we turned led us to another sculpture at an intersection filled with people, food, music, and fireworks!

some really fun girls!

Eventually we made it to the city center which was jam packed with people to the point where once you stood still there was no turning back and no leaving the crowd. It was prime real estate because as the festival truly begins the sculptures are suddenly lit on fire and every intersection of the city is set ablaze as the sculpture begin to burn. People cheered and screamed and sang songs; bands played, people hugged each other and loved each other.

I was in love with the churros stands on every street!

It was an experience that I will never forget and am SO happy to have been a part of! Jess, Adam, and I even walked in the parade around the city! At 3 o'clock in the morning after all the excitement we were back on our four hour bus ride to Barcelona. We got in at 8am and it was straight to bed for me.

week 6

This past week was the week when my parents were supposed to arrive however there was a airline strike with British Airways and my parents flight was cancelled and they were unable to come to visit. :( Not happy but they will be coming in June so all is well. My dad had originally purchased tickets to an FC Barcelona Futbol match here at Camp Nou - the main stadium in Barcelona. Since mom and dad were M.I.A my dad offered to give me the tickets and to take some friends to the game. Jess, Emma, Adam, and I ventured to Camp Nou after work and were thrilled to get to the stadium and....HAVE FRONT ROW SEATS to the game!! We were literally on level with the grass, in perfect view for all the action of the game, and right up close to all the soccer players. The emotion in the stadium was incredible! There is so much passion in Barcelona for futbol and the Barcelona team is one of the best in the world. Everyone in the stands were so excited, and like any sporting event, the stadium was filled with horns, and screaming, flags and noise. Sitting in the front row we were amongst many of the most passionate fans, screaming right behind us and of course we joined with them in the rants and raves! Barcelona won the match 2-0 against Osasuna, of course, and we all had a blast at the game. We ended our night with a celebratory beer at a nearby bar and went back, passion-filled about being part of Barcelona and also very tired.

Work this week has been eventful as well. Ingrid and I completed a model that is being given to a client, and we were praised on our craft which was relieving. We have been working on the model for over a week now and to see and hear our work being appreciated was really nice. I have been moved onto a new project which is a complex of apartment buildings in Punta Cana. I have been put in charge of setting up the masterplan layout and helping design some of the landscape features around the site. The responsibilities I have at DNA keep growing but I'm doing my best work and still learning. Also great to hear my efforts on the new project are being appreciated as well!

Unfortunately the week has been incredibly busy for everyone and we have not had time to get the pictures online from Valencia or the FC Barcelona game but stay tuned! The pictures will be up as soon as possible! Thanks for reading! Keep it up!

BARCA BARCA BARRRCCA! *CLAP CLAP CLAP*