Valencia travel log - Day #1 - The good, the bad and the ugly

Me @dragosroua arrived in Valencia, Spain around noon today.

Little did we know that these days there's their biggest festival called Las Fallas. Very briefly put, it's a celebration of spring that involves displaying some huge statues all over the city and then setting them on fire in the last day of the festival.

(I'm gonna show you some pics of these surrealist installations in the next days...)

The good

There are plenty of street representations, drummers, acrobats, human statues and many people enjoying the shows, spending time and money at the cafes and restaurants around town.

The food we had so far at two restaurants was very good and for a decent price.

The Central Market near the place where we stay it's full of fresh veggies, fruits, traditional cheese, fresh herbs and also meat and fish but we don't consume those so we focused on what we do eat.

I love what I've seen from the city so far, the architecture, the narrow, cosy streets and diversity of restaurants, the orange trees that are everywhere and the beautiful park that crosses the middle of the city where there used to be a river.

The bad

The festival Las Fallas also involves something I would have never thought about: making noise through small and medium detonators that everyone and their mother can use randomly, at any given time or place. And if these were not enough for the noise side, there are also fire-works. Anytime, anywhere.

From what I heard the noise is supposed to chase the bad spirits away. But the little children that fire a petard while their mother is taking a picture of them doing this I guess they have no idea about the bad spirits story. They just enjoy making noise and being allowed, even encouraged to do so by the adults in their lives.

For me this is a rather disturbing habit. It reminds me of how we used to celebrate the New Year for almost the whole month of December in Bucharest, where I live. 10-15 years ago there was no regulation regarding the use of petards around the winter holidays. So the kids were firing them so much that many of them and other people got hurt.

Eventually some regulations have been introduced and the use of the noisy little detonators has decreased a lot in the recent years. And so has the number of injuries caused by them. So being here in Valencia today and observing the laissez-faire around the use of detonators during the Festival surprised me big time.

The ugly

As I'm writing this I almost jumped from my bed because 2, now 3 big detonators have been fired on the tiny street of the apartment where we live. This is freaking insane, from my point of view. The noise of these bigger detonators is also amplified by the surrounding buildings and it makes for a scary story.

On top of the random detonators I can hear the loud noise of a group of youngsters that are most probably under the influence of alcohol and are getting crazy. It sounds like they are moving furniture besides talking and occasionally screaming very, very loudly. As we are in a furbished apartments building and the reception is in another building I have no one to complain to. For now. Tomorrow morning I'll surely ask the very nice guy who welcomed us at the reception what can we do about the party-people upstairs.

For a HSP like me (HSP - Highly Sensitive Person) this noise is quite overwhelming. I hope it will be over once the festival is over and that I'll be able to sleep during the night until then.

PS: 3 more big detonators have been fired, again scaring the sh*t out of me, because the noise was so loud. And it's almost midnight. Wait for it, 4 now. And this one was INSIDE the building, I can sense the specific smell coming below the door.
And another one, outside the window. The crazy noise show continues...

Namaste

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Hi, I'm Raluca. Freelance copywriter, certified Hatha Yoga Teacher 200H. I have an educational background in communication and psychology. You can find me mainly on my blog at BeingRaluca where I write about communication, relationships, listening, sexuality and many more. Here on Steemit you can follow me @raluca.