The land of the fireworks

I’m spending the last week of my holidays in my hometown, Novelda. Like every summer, I got fascinated with different demonstrations of fireworks in Elche’s festivals (a neighbour city, where some of my cousins live). I can assert without doubts “this is the land of unbeatable fireworks”. I went 2 nights to watch these fireworks, and it’s quite impossible to explain. I’ll try to do it, although:

-“La nit de l’Albà” (the night of the dawn)- Imagine a city with a population of 200,000 hab. Imagine every person buying a lot of fireworks and firing them the same night, between 21:00 and 00:00. Also imagine the city council paying for more than 350 palm tree shaped fireworks, 9,000 dozens of rockets, 1,800 thunder-sounding fireworks, 500 whistle rockets, and more… and firing them in only 1 hour (between 23 and 00). The result is an astounding explosion of the senses, the whole sky full of light (and smoke from the rockets), thunder-like sounds everywhere. Next, at midnight, everything stops, the city goes dark, and from the Basilica’s tower, they launch the “imperial palm tree”, 900 rockets which fill the sky with light, covering the center of the city. Unbeatable! Every year I promise myself to come back, again, next summer. And I should record it on video!

-“Castillo final” (end fireworks’ castle)- The end event is also a demostration of fireworks, fired from a bridge. But in this case, it’s not so important the quantity, but the quality and innovation. Normally the city council hires a famous fireworks-builder family, who put the strongest effort in creating the most surprising fireworks. This year the result was amazing! Comets like fireworks, which slowly move in the sky, showing their big tail. Classical golden palm tree fireworks. A waterfall made with light sparks. Delicious to see!

Also on my holidays, I’ve had the pleasure to read some interesting texts. For example “Sock Sorting“, which explains some different sorting algorithms applied to this mundane task. Or a new idea to obtain “Power From the People“, which speaks about the way to get energy from usual actions made by the people, like crossing the subway gate.