2008 Fira Alternativa
Written by mpowell
Hey there, Hippie! Where are you headed to, on your wacky Hippiebike?
Of course, the Hippie festival! That makes sense.
This past weekend, scarves, dreadlocks, nose rings, body odor, and the people who love such things convened in the Turia riverbed for Valencia’s 21st Alternative Festival. We ventured down, and were happy to discover a really fun collection of stands, products and entertainment.
Organic chocolates, beers, breads… Valencian tomatoes… clothing, bags, jewelry… anything your inner alternative child could possibly want. We met a German bread-maker who had traveled to Valencia to sell her baked goods, and sampled some of the organic beer on hand.
It was a lot of fun — more for the people-watching than anything else. A note, though, to the dreadlocked white dude wearing a Jamaican stocking cap and practicing capoeira from Brazil — keep your cultures straight! Does simply embracing the stereotypical symbols of well-known countries make a person “alternative”? Would a Spanish woman dressed in a sari, doing a Polka dance be as cool & hip as the capoeira Jamaica dude?
And a note to the girl who yelled at us for taking a picture of her stand… Fine! No mention on HolaValencia.net for your stupid clothes. Who’s crying now?!
Link to the Festival’s Official Page
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J wrote,
That stallholder had every right to ask you to stop taking pictures of her and her goods. Not everyone wants pictures of themselves taken by strangers and put up on the internet. And as for a missed marketing opportunity, who are you kidding?
Link | June 14th, 2008 at 8:46 am
mpowell wrote,
Thanks for the comment, J! It’s a fair enough point… our problem wasn’t that she asked us not to take pictures, but the way in which she yelled at us (as though we were thiefs looking to steal her designs or something).
And that about the missed marketing opportunity was tongue-in-cheek… we don’t really imagine that she’s crying over the fact about not appearing on our blog! Haha, but then again, free marketing is free marketing (after all, you read this post), and we would’ve linked to her site…
Link | June 14th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
headbang8 wrote,
Hey, Mike.
“Japanese sari”?
That makes the Jamaican capoeira dude seem relatively well-adjusted!
Cheers to you and Jürgen, HB8
Link | June 15th, 2008 at 10:16 am
mpowell wrote,
Whoops! Turns out I could use some culture training myself! Thanks for catching that… I’ve removed “Japanese” from the text, so that I don’t seem so stupid (until people read these comments
Link | June 15th, 2008 at 12:07 pm