La tomatina

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La Tomatina
I had a long rough night the night before, but I get back to my hotel and ask for a 6am wake up call, then decide to have a backup wakeup call at 7am (thank god).
I get my 6am wakeup call and know I need another hour so I hang up and go back to sleep. Well I did not put the phone back correctly in my 4 hour sleep stupor, so I get a personal wakeup call from the bellhop banging my door and opening it. Thank goodness for him otherwise I would have missed out on the largest food fight in the world. I throw on my bathing suit, some house shoes and a towel for my shirt (I cut a hole in middle and made it a poncho)
I proceed to take the train to a small little town for a tomato fight. I post up in a small street with thousands of others where no one could move and wait for the 10 plus dump trucks with tomatoes in them to make their way down. Finally after some waiting in the heat, and having the locals spraying us with hoses and dumping buckets of water on us we start throwing tomatoes that looks like a scene from the 1990’s movie “HOOK” when the lost boys start beating up the pirates with messy balls. (

&feature=related) fast forward to 5:50 to see what I am talking about.
I get a couple in the face, head and chest but it was a lot of fun. I think I was target because I am 6’1, I know I targeted other tall guys and girls sitting on guys shoulders. Then a cannon goes off and everyone stops just like that. This is when it became even more fun because in some parts of the street there are shin to knee high puddles (lakes really) of tomato and water. People are doing bellyflops and jumping in, grabbing cups and throwing what has turned into soup at one another. The streets lost about 70% of the crowds by this point so it was a lot of fun.
You have to have a t-shirt and be clean to get on the train back to town. This sounds reasonable I guess for an everyday rule, but not today. I took about 4 showers but had no shirt. So I was somewhat clean (at least more than others) and I am about to get on the train when a security guy tells me about the shirt requirement. I was in line for over 15 mins and have to go and find one now? A guy in line points out a shirt on the ground, I take it and put it on. And show the security guard with a grin on my face, he said fine but now I need to take another shower- I cant win.
Finally I get back to Valencia and head right to the ocean, along with a couple thousand other people with the same idea. Girls have pulp and seeds in their hair. I have it on my legs. I go into the ocean, grab some sand and start giving myself a scrub. For the first time in my life I am not a fan of soft powder sand. I still have some on me, and my shoes are destroyed. Oh well- it was fun and definitely worth it.

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