Would you drive for three hours to see people burn things? Do you even need to ask if we would? Even after the “can’t miss” all-night parade in Sitges, we decided that we could not ignore the hype surrounding Las Fallas. Las Fallas is a festival held in Valencia every year to celebrate something religious. From the looks of the city, you could have convinced us that we were honoring the patron saint of Traffic and British Tourists, whoever that is. St. Faneuil Hall?

A Falla, we think, is a big statue that could be made out of papier-mache. If not, it’s at least made out of something flammable. The city of Valencia splits into teams somehow, then spends all year building their statues. They look like huge trombones, or court jesters, or political figures. Then they spend that week with all the Fat Tuesdays and Holy Wednesdays looking at them and crowning Fallas Queens and dealing with tourists. Then, to make everyone go home, they set them on fire.

We were all set to take the train, except for knowing which station it was leaving from and having tickets, when our friend Philippe realized he had vacation days. Since his girlfriend, Arancha, is sort of between two jobs, that meant they were free and would drive with us. After a small mix-up involving the translation of “en frente de” (To us: “right in front”; to Spanish-speakers: “across the street from.” This can cause more problems that you would think if the street in question is big enough.) we picked up Leah from work and hit the road.

Three hours to the city of Valencia from Barcelona, then one more driving real slow through all the blocked-off streets to get to the hotel later, we were officially at Las Fallas. We pretty much killed time until midnight, when the burning started, then packed it in. I suppose there is a reason why, despite having grown up 20 miles away, I’ve never been to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. We are hoping to make our next excursion a beach vacation.

In the spirit of fun-without-crowds, we decided to host a dinner party. Even though we only have four plates and four chairs, we invited eleven people. Three of them cancelled the day of the dinner, which helped a little insofar as it reminded us that we needed some chairs. As usual, Gloria came up big in the giving-us-things department – namely, a bigger table, a box of wine glasses, a tablecloth, and a bunch of folding chairs.

Then we swiped a salmon recipe from Bobby Flay, the idea for making dumplings from Josh, and we were all set. There was also turkey scallopine, since some people just won’t eat fish. If we do say so ourselves, the food was good enough to provoke a small crime wave, at least among the roasted potatoes that went with the salmon. And Leah added a killer dessert.

The real key, though, as we see it, is that we had a lot of people around who speak Spanish. We are a little self-conscious that if we only invite, say, one couple over, we could be subjecting them to an experience not unlike babysitting for a five-year old. Not exactly constant responsibility, but they need to be considerate about using too many big words, and they don’t always know what we’re talking about. Everyone has always been very nice about our linguistic klutziness, but we are currently trying to embrace the principle that listening is more than half of the conversation. This means we keep quiet more, like so:

Guest: You know, once when I was about twelve, I fell off my bike into a well.

Old us: Yes? Well, that’s fun, because when I am twelve, uh, was twelve, I am…no, no, pardon me. You are. You were. I was. I had a bicycle? Bicycle. Yes. I have a bicycle. I have had a bicycle. I had bicycle. What’s “well”?

Guest: What are you talking about?

See, now we’re in trouble, because we’re going to need to explain something. With all the waiting, people get bored. You need a whole bunch of tenses just to tell a simple story with a few details, especially if there’s going to be “If I hadn’t….then I might have…” type things in there. The new us focuses on getting people to say more and letting them make all the points they want.

Guest: You know, once when I was about twelve, I fell off my bike into a well.

New us: Oh! Tell us about it! Did you have wounds?

Guest: [Long story about bike and well, interrupted only by sporadic vocabulary questions.]

Not only are we learning new words and practicing our comprehension, but we’re polite, too! Maybe we’ll let you get a word in edgewise when we get home. Anyhow, with 6 people fluent in Spanish, all we had to do was keep the snacks coming and stay tuned in to the conversation. We could chip in a little something about how to make dumplings (“Con aciete muy, muy caliente. Y como se dice ‘water chestnuts’? Ten cuidado con tu ropa.”) now and then and take it all in in a more relaxing manner. Just like that, we had transformed conversation from a sort of exam into a fun activity. And with only a little violence. Who knew?