Ode to Fireworks

The international firework symposium is in town for the week. Awesome. I thought the pirate ship fireworks once a night were heaven, but I had no idea!! On Monday, Jon and I went to the sports field to watch the ¨castillo¨shows. These are rickety structures about 2 stories or taller, made up of sticks with fireworks attached in fabulous ways. They tend to have parts to them that spin, like huge sparker wheels. The trend these days also seems to be to attach a piece at the very top that will fly off at the last minute. The area was taped off when we got there, to keep the crowd at a safe distance. However, the crowd did not want to be at a safe distance. I think my mexican side is where I get my morbid nature, because I highly suspect most of the people that inched past the tape like I did were a little excited to see what could possibly be disastrous. It was a fun festival, because since it followed the insanely busy Easter season, it seemed like the firework symposium was a festival to make it up to the poor locals, now that the messy tourists were gone. So, Jon and I got a seat about 5 feet from one of these castillos, which I thought was the coolest thing in the world. Unfortunately, I am not as ballsy as I think, and when they lit the one we were close to, and the top shot up into the sky, my reaction was to run (without worrying about Jon, I might add...) very quickly in the opposite direction. I can´t be completely sure but I think one of the fireworks had shot debris straight into the crowd across the field from us at an earlier time... Anyway, Jon had a good laugh at my cowardliness.But I do have to point out that his hair was full of ash.  On our way home, there was a typical fireworks in the sky show on the boardwalk. Also incredible. The other nights this week I spared Jon the trek to watch the smaller works every night, and contented myself with watching the sky fireworks from our house. Tonight, they made a HUGE castillo downtown, visible from our house a mile away. The top of it opened up like a flower into an eagle made of fireworks, who then proceeded to flap its wings, and take off into the sky. Oh, pyrotechnics... Tomorrow is the big finale. I cant wait.