Emily Winck's Blog

Yesterday, I found out how to pay parking tickets in Denia. My visiting family in their rented car found a parking spot in the city with a lack of parking that actually… wasn’t a parking spot. Ooops. But, in case you ever need to pay a parking ticket, I now know that the police station even has a little automatic-teller thing to pay them. And the NIF number, just in case you ever need to know, you can fill in with a bunch of 0000000s and it works just fine. Thanks, Mr. Policeman.

And today I said “hola” for the first time to a random person on the street that said “hola” to me, but he was a policeman, so I figured it was okay.

In the States, growing up means:
– 16, a driver’s license
– 18, cigarettes and casinos
– 21, drinking and bars

The biggest deal of all those is turning 21, because you can finally drink and get into bars. Getting a driver’s license is no big deal. Being able to smoke is a little bit, because (theoretically) you get IDed whenever you buy cigarettes so you can’t buy them under 18.

In Spain, growing up means:
– 18, drinking and smoking and driving

However, driving is the biggest deal. It costs a lot of money to get your license, because “autoescuela” can cost over 1,000 euros, so it’s a big deal if you have your carnet. Drinking you can really do as young as 15 or so – only once in the whole time I’ve been here have I been IDed, and when we told the waitress we didn’t have IDs on us, she just said okay and gave us drinks anyway. And cigarettes? You can buy them from vending machines in lots of bars and cafes. Gambling is about the same – there are slot machines in lots of cafes that you can just walk up to and play.

That said, I’m turning 21 in 3 weeks, and it’s not really a big deal. =)

For the last week or so, little six year olds have been setting off firecrackers in the streets of Denia. And sometimes older kids too. Or sometimes four year olds. Anyway, they’re really loud, and sometimes they get set off 10 feet in front of me and I jump about 12 feet into the air because they startle me so much. I think I have permanent ear damange, because some are really, really loud.

But thankfully, they’re done. This past weekend was Fallas (I’ll post pictures soon), which is the biggest fiesta in the town (I think). Sunday night they burned the 40-feet-tall wooden/paper mache sculptures that were made over the past year and put in the streets this week. And with the end of Fallas, the firecrackers stopped. Woo hoo. Fallas was way fun though – absolutely nothing like it in the States. Not even close.

And… my photos!