Once a year the city of Valencia does its best to blow itself up to celebrate the arrival of spring. The festival is called Las Fallas and includes a week of fireworks barrages, parades, and parties all leading up up to St. Joseph’s day on March 19th.

There are two approaches to throwing a party to get through the darkest and coldest part of winter: embrace the freeze with ice sculptures, ice castles, etc., or beat back the cold with brute force by burning as many things as possible.