Las Fallas, Valencia

This is the large Falla in the city hall plaza burning down. The pictures are out of order, but it's easy to get the general idea.

It may have felt like a world war, but it definitely didn't look like one.

This is a photo of a small Falla burning. They literally burned them in between buildings and there were always firefighters spraying water on the buildings surrounding the burning art.

A lot of people were dressed up for the event.

Churros and more delicious food was everywhere.

Bella, Sam and I by the tourist Falla. Very fitting.

We saw a very homemade carousel ride.

Isabella, Sam and I in front of one of the Fallas. Around the city, there are hundreds of large Fallas and smaller ones. On the last day (Friday) of Las Fallas, they always burn all of them down but one. It was pretty sad to see such beautiful pieces of art burn down.

This Falla was in the city hall plaza. They burned this one down at 1am after all the others had been burning since 10PM and had a fireworks show. MILLIONS of people were in this plaza to watch the show.

Chris, Bella and I after the Mesclata in the city hall plaza.

This picture is during the mesclata. Very intense. It almost felt like being in a world war, except no one was running, people were drinking, laughing and clapping.

This is another one of the large Fallas.

Las Fallas, first test and spring break

This past weekend, the group of international students studying in Murcia took a day trip to Valencia to celebrate Las Fallas. We left from Murcia that Friday at 8am and made it back Saturday morning at 6:30. Nonetheless, it was an incredibly long day but well worth it. It was unbelievable the number of people and the amount of noise going on in the city. Writing about it doesn't do the event justice and pictures hardly do it justice either. Because it happened last weekend and there are no words to describe the event, the post after this will be made up of all pictures.

For the past two weeks, two other American girls and I have been studying for our first test/quiz in political history in Latin America. The test was this Monday and we studied from 1:30pm to the last minute before taking our test at 7:30. The test was seven short answer questions and then there was one question the three of us answered differently. I thought it was multiple choice, one girl thought it was answering each letter option and the other girl used those three questions in consideration when answering the main question. Overall, the first test here was fairly similar to what I would take in the states, except that it had to be written in Spanish. The teacher (Ismael Crespo Martinez) has written a few books and I guess is fairly known outside the university. It's nice having teachers who are passionate about what they teach.

Spring break starts on Friday and goes until April 11. On Thursday, I'll be traveling to Marseille with a friend from Murcia. We'll be taking a train from Murcia to Montpellier and then to Marseille. Spend the night in Marseille, visit Marseille the next day and travel to Nice, Monaco, Lyon, spend two hours in Paris and then I'm meeting three other girl friends in Munich. In Munich, we'll be spending two days and then taking a train to Bamberg and couchsurfing with an old lady who lives on a farm with horses. After Bamberg, we'll visit Dresden and then finally spend four days in Berlin. In Berlin, we're going to be staying in a hostel and visiting most of the tourist attractions and finally make our way to a concentration camp if all goes well.

Since I'll be spending a good chunk of time on a train, our political history teacher assigned us the book "La Fiesta del Chivo/The Feast of the Goat" and the week after spring break, we will have to hand in a review of the book.

Overall, it's hard to believe we've already been in Murcia for two months and have only taken one test. As most people know, the US is in the news a lot these days and when I went to my landlord's apartment to pay my rent, she put CNN on to watch the health care news. Since we never watch TV here, it was nice to see what is going on back in the states.

Only stress

After a hectic week of finalizing schedules and credit between the Universidad de Murcia and South Dakota State University, I think things are finally set. On Thursday, I went to the Spanish version of "registering" and signed up for my final four classes: Photo journalism (Tuesdays, 3 hours), Graphic Design (Thursdays, 3 hours), Latin American Literature (Monday (1 hour), Tuesday (1 hour) and Wednesday (2 hours) and Political History of Latin America (Monday (2 hours) and Tuesday (1 hour). Overall, I'm fairly satisfied with the schedule and the classes I chose. Because I'm relieved everything is finally cleared up, I decided to post a popular song that's been playing everywhere here. Most of the exchange students are still stressing because our stipend, that was supposed to come in at the end of February, hasn't come in yet and we've all been living out of our own pockets for the past month.
Tomorrow, I'll write about each one of my classes and the strange university celebration that happened in the Student Union type thing Wednesday night. Let's just say the educational system and rules are very different than those of SDSU or any school in the states.

Buenas Noches