Where good Banjo Boys and Girls come from

We spent the first weekend of March doing some fun activities at home, too, and we managed to stayed just as busy as our previous weekend at home. This time around, we filled our days and nights with a quirky museum, a spa, a parade, rice, pyrotechnics, porcelain figurines, and horchata (sounds like a lot, but to be fair, our weekends are three days – yes, our life is rough).   Saturday: Spa, playing card museum, and a surprise parade Playing card games are quite possibly an even more popular pastime in Spain than in America, and that’s saying something because we

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Finding Ninot: Exposition of Ninots 2017

Doer and I accidentally stumbled upon the Exposición del Ninot 2017 when we dropped by the City of Arts and Sciences with our friend Wendy at the end of January. Most of the combustible figures are destined to burn the final night of the Fallas festival this Sunday; however, each year one of them is pardoned by popular vote, and it is destined to live in perpetuity in the Museo Fallero, which we visited earlier this year. The entrance to the exposition at the City of Arts and Sciences After the ninot indultado, or pardoned ninot, is announced tonight, the unfortunate remaining figures will

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Finding Ninot: Museo Fallero, Valencia

Last month, Doer and I previewed Valencia’s upcoming, most famous cultural event with a visit to the Fallas Museum. Located in an old convent near the City of Arts and Sciences, the Museo Fallero hosts each year’s pardoned ninots. The museum also has a great brochure on the tradition if you want to read more about it here. The festival dates originated in the mid-18th century, when people gathered on the eve of Saint Joseph’s Day to erect and burn satirical monuments made of wood, cloth, and cardboard. The festival became more complex and artistic around the beginning of the 20th century, becoming

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What’s with all the parades, fancy dresses, and fireworks?

Ever since we moved to the small Spanish city of Burriana, we have been stumbling upon longstanding cultural traditions almost every time we leave our building. Our first week here coincided with an annual festival which includes bulls running through the streets; and while I had promised myself I would never watch any bull spectacles, that resolve quickly disappeared when we needed to go to the city hall, and found bulls running in front of said hall. It was an intense week – even when we stayed home, we could hear cannons, fireworks, music, and general merrymaking from our abode.

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