SPAIN - La Tomatina Festival....or Disaster?!

The main objective of this Spain trip, other than to see the coast of Spain, was to go to La Tomatina Festival in Bunyol. This is a famous festival that is known world wide consisting of approximately 30,000 people cramming into this tiny town to throw tomatoes at each other for about an hour. Unfortunately we personally were not able to take any pictures of it because there was no way we even considered bringing our cameras to this complete gongshow but we were able to snag other people's; it was quite the adventure. All we remember about the whole experience was how weird and disgusting it was, especially after the fact. We had to ride the train home covered in tomato paste all over our clothes; the stench was unbearable. Needless to say we bought clothes for this specific event and then threw them away afterwards. We didn't get into the thick of things in the fight because it was absolutely crazy.































Not only was it just a tomato disaster, people were throwing sandles and wet shirts and ripping people's shirts off; it was insane and basically...unnecessary. At the beginning of the fight there was a ham placed at the top of a greased pole where people have to try to get it down. So... if anyone went near the pole they would get attacked by other people that were getting the ham; it was pretty lame but hilarious to see people go so crazy over something so stupid!































Another group of practikants went on a similar Spain trip who also went to Tomatina and we actually were able to run into them there after the fight. Luckily they brought their camera and ended up getting some ok pictures. Here is one with all of us that were there for Tomatina and of a couple of our friend during the festival:
















After the tomato fight was over everyone was all literally hosed down to get most of the tomatoes off before leaving the town. It helped people for the most part anyways! After this interesting experience I am having a hard time even smelling tomatoes right now...I can just smell the horrid stench that I did during and after La Tomatina. Hopefully that changes sometime soon so I can have tomatoes in my food once again!

















Meredith's comments and thoughts about La Tomatina:

La Tomatina... Human Sun Dried Tomatoes! This festival was probably the most crazy thing I have done or ever will do in my life! I have been in my share of food fights in my life, but none of them even touch this one! Who seriously thinks of having a massive tomato fight in the street of a town! That person is so wicked! It is so intense that the locals who live on that street have their entire house covered with plastic so it doesn't get destroyed! It's crazy! At first we were a little hesitant to get into all the crazyness but once we did, there was no going back! Haha It was so fun to throw tomato and then watch the person's reaction that you hit! My favorite part was when the big trucks came through and just dumped out loads and loads of crushed tomatoes!! Everyone was just covered! It was actually one of the worst smells that has ever entered my body and at some points I felt like I was going to get sick from the smell. mmm...rotten tomatoes! Looking back at the experience, I think that I would do it over again... as long as we didn't have to take a half hour train ride back to Valencia with dried tomatoes on us! Stinking soo bad! But...the entire trip was a blast! I had such a wicked time with Louise and Brian, going to all those places!! I was starting to miss them, and now that I am home I miss them even more!


The following blog post will be about our last trip with Meredith: Prague, Czech Republic.