10 hour drive south to Mecina, Spain

Drove 10 hours into the mountains in the south of Spain. 2 hours just going up a rainy mountain at 9pm in the dark with no map. Were texting our friend in London to mapquest it but many roads in this quaint mountain town not on mapquest. Many roads washed away. Finally got there and it was wonderful albeit cold. Beautiful little vegetarian stucco b&b run by a Frenchman. He made us a great big dinner after eating only a ciabatta bread all day. We screamed when we finally arrived.

Finally arrived at L'Atelier Vegetarian B&B

Jean-Claude (the one man band that ran the B&B seemingly by himself!)

Valencia insanity

It has been popping all night and morning. Just went to a fireworks
displAy during the day.. Couldn't see anything (crowded) but had to
yell to Kevin standing next to me for him to hear me. The bangs were
so consistant one right after another that it just sounded like one
long boom that continued for 5 min. I imagine this is what it is like
when a nuclear bomb goes off- only longer and probably louder. KeV
Just said they were audio fireworks! Ha.

Our hotel is right in the center of town. Such amazing architecture.
Great olives. Surprisingly little English spoken here.
Fireworks set off by kids everywhere. Mostly 7-12 year olds. This
morning I saw a mother handing those little throwing pop ones to her
daughter in the stroller. She must have been 1 year old or so. Didn't
understand. The mom making throwing gestures.

Last night they were smoking in the restaurant. So the waitress opened
the window. But then the smoke from the fireworks (& noise) became bad
so closed the window. Then the cigarettes were overtaking. So opened
again.. This happened over and over.

The creations- the fallas are amazing. 3 breasted women. cartoon
characters. so detailed. So weird and beautiful. Gladiators.. Grandma
cooking with grandkids.. Nasty ones. They look like they're made of
sugar.

Raining out today. Probably helps keep the air pollution down.

Tonight they start burning everything at 10. All fallas infantil
(infants) must be burned by midnight. So we'll try to see as many of
the 750 as we can before. Saw maybe 25 last night when we were lost.
One around every corner.

They're made out of wood and paper mâché.

After the last one burns tonight at 2'AM, all the firemen celebrate
instead of work. The firemen shoot all the people with water and the
people shout, 'you're gay!' at the firemen.