Beginning of Fallas!

Fallas is amazing! We got back from Granada and in just about every little square all over the city there is a huge Falla! They're these constructed statues that are stories tall and of cartoon like characters (often charicatures of famous people). They're so cool! Luckily I've been here long enough to recognize a lot of these people! And there's so many of them! People are going crazy here. We went to the Mascleta on Monday and there were so many people there. Everyone was drinking beer in the square and the noise was sooo loud. We learned that you can't plug your ears or the force of the fireworks might actually rupture your eardrum. Ouch! It was really cool though. The whole ground rumbles! Later that night we went to fireworks, which were so much better than any I've ever seen in the states. They made us stand so far back because they were so strong and huge! They do this every night and I'll definitely be going. All around us people were just chillin, watching the fireworks and drinking in the streets (botellon). And throughout every day there are so many people with little fireworks (petardos) and noisemakers and things that make loud sounds. It's INSANE! Then we went to check out the "iluminacion", which is a ton of lights along a couple neighborhood's streets. It was so gorgeous. We were surrounded by lights. Amazing. Then, around 2am, we saw a big fire in the park, we went to investigate and saw that a TREE was set on fire!!! So insane!
Today we walked around town some more and saw parades and parades and groups of Falleras and Falleros. They wear traditional clothing and the women wear their hair in a sci-fi like manner that looks wicked sweet. I guess all the neighborhoods have groups and they dress all the kids up and lots of the older people, and each has a band with them and they walk around the city. It's just crazy. We had our first churros and chocolate from a stand and they were AMAZING! Fallas is just going to keep getting better and better. I'm psyched.