Easter in Sevilla and Cordoba... How the Spaniards Celebrate Jesus

Sevilla is known for their celebrations of Semana Santa so it was kind of cool to be there during that week. kind of an awesome experience. Sooo... here comes the break down of the weekend...

Thursday

We woke up kind of early to catch our train... we were on the train for 8 hours...quite the trip. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it was going to be. I got a lot of homework done, watched Dan in Real Life in Spanish... which was good. and slept a little...got out and stretched our legs at random stops. tried to eat a bocadillo (sandwich) Maria Jesus had made them for us this time around....they weren't good. she should probably never make our lunch for us again. Just a thought. Thank goodness for the potato chips and granola bars we bough to snack on... the juice boxes were helpful as well. lol it was an interesting experience.

When we got to Sevilla we found our hostel...the bus couldn't run to where it normally does because of the parades.. therefore we had to ask for directions. I asked several times because all we got were pointings... they said oh it's up there (pointing) and that's all we got...ugh. but we found it without much of a problem...which was good. we were in a dorm with 3 other people (8 people in the dorm... Kelly, Anna, Rhoda and I. and Katie Boyd came down from Barcelona to hang out with us as well... so that only left 3 spaces in the room). I was interested to see how it would go but I wasn't too terribly concerned about it. When we got there a couple (Spanish) was already in the room. they were nice. the guy showed Kelly how to work the lockers and asked us if we need help finding anything on the map - where we were or how to get somewhere) very very pleasant to be around. we were however on totally different schedules- they were the out late people and we were the up early people...they never woke me up when they came in though so I didn't worry about it. :) The 8th person showed up the night after he was a little creepy.. but nice enough. When he got to come into the room he checked to make sure all of us girls were clothed. I appreciated it. Overall not a bad hostel experience...

We tried to get food that night.. emphasis on try. Every day is a Holy day during semana santa in spain... for this reason 90% of things were closed. We ended up with popcorn after dodging several processions...and we were worn out so we went to sleep to prepare for a fun filled Friday...

Friday

We woke up kind of early on Friday and got going.. we were going to visit the cathedral in Sevilla. It is the oldest standing Gothic building in the world and the third largest cathedral in the world.. cool...i know. I took about a zillion pictures of it and I loved every minute of being in that Building! I took so many pictures of it. They are all in a couple of albums. We found a cute little place to eat lunch because none of the stores were open to buy sandwich making materials.. we had pizza. it was good :) but the guy had a speech impediment. so that mixed with his ridiculous andalucian accent caused quite the problem. But we figured it out. After we ate lunch we did some walking around the city. just exploring really they was a fountain we saw while wondering to the bank so a friend could take out money and we stoped to get a starbucks- they are just as good in Spain! lol

That night we left to walk around to find some parades to watch. The parades were essentially men in costumes similar to those of the KKK but with a very different meanings- they are called nazerenos (nazarenes). they carry their crosses or candles or crucifixes around the city as a way to remember the sacrifice Jesus made for the world. It was muy interesante. We saw some parades. Unfortunately we really couldn't get a good view on Friday night. you have to pay to get the chairs that are set up along the street to watch the parade from that close- so we decide to just go early to the cathedral the next night and try to catch some more parades from there with a better view. SO we ate dinner at a little cafe and then headed back to the hostel for showers and sleep :)

Saturday

We woke up pretty early again on Saturday to go see the Alcazar... the oldest standing edifice that still houses royals. Once again.. be jealous. We took a lot of pictures and ended up getting in free because we are students. not a bad deal. It was really good. It was cool to be in the place and think about the fact that someone had lived in this place- this palace was/is a house. that just kills me. i can't imagine living in a place like that.

After the Alcazar we walked to the river in Sevilla to take pictures of the torre del oro and the plaza de toros.. 2 monuments and grabbed some peanut butter and crackers and what not for lunch :) It was good. we rested a little bit in the hostel and headed out at about 5 to get to the cathedral and get our seats for the parades. We had good seats and it was cool to get to watch the parades from that angle.. TONS of people came out for it. i can't even explain it to you. About half way through our time sitting watching parades a family came up and asked if they could sit their two boys up beside us (there was room) so they could see the processions.. we said okay. Adrian was 3 and Javier was 7. Adrian is a little ladies man and quite the outgoing child.. he ended up getting in trouble for pushing our heads (gently) to look at the floats while saying "MIRA MIRA LA VIRGEN" (look look the virgen) it wasn't the virgen mary but we looked anyway and humored him. He had to come down and his older brother moved up and looked so content with himself. He was proud that he was the good one and wasn't in trouble. after a little while Adrian got to come back and javier moved so that i was in the middle of the two of them. They both had their little balls of wax from picking it up off of the streets where the candles from the processions had dropped it- all of the kids do it apparently- so Javier was teaching me how he made he ball of wax and trying to teach me about the parades. He would frequently put his hand on his head in exasperation because I wasn't understanding him. oh the funny 7 year old trying to teach me spanish. He asked our names- I told him mine and he looked at me like I was crazy but repeated it and was content. then he asks- whats the blonde ones name? Meaning kelly of course as she was the only blonde within eyesight (she typically gets called the blonde one)I told him her name and got a similar reaction. They could only understand anna's name.. so they went with it and yelled at her a lot. basically... we were thankful for the entertainment and passage of time.They were funny... it was hysterical to hear them talk during the "quiet moments" the entire crowd would go silent.. except our two little friends of course. they were hysterical.

we headed back and went to sleep to get up the next morning for mass and a train to cordoba.

Sunday

We got up to get breakfast and head to mass at a near by church. it wasn't bad. It was actually really fun. I enjoyed being in a church on Easter it was just nice to have that experience and be reminded how awesome my God is. We went to the train station and headed to cordoba.

We got to cordoba and low and behold our hostel is an apartment... WHAT?!?! it was awesome. we got to watch TV that night and it was really just nice to have a place t ourselves that felt a little more like home that a dorm in a hostel. I was impressed and I would love to go back and stay there again one day... it was cheap and definitely a lot nicer than what we paid for it...but i'm okay with that.

We went to the mezquita..the cathedral of cordoba. It was built by the arabic people (moors) when they came through and conquered and now has some Christian chapels and crucifixes built in. Seeing the combination of the two was amazing. i took so many pictures of it and it was absolutely amazing. Cordoba is the one city in Spain i want to go back to. It was a picture perfect Spanish City and I think i could walk around those streets for days and never get bored.. they were just so beautiful to look at. We passed our one day their quickly in the mezquita and enjoyed dinner before heading back to the apartment for the night.

We got up the next morning to train for 6 hours back to Valencia.. home sweet home...

we went to see Flamenco on Tuesday night in Valencia at a place called Radio City. It was basically amazing.. i loved it. I really just love flamenco though..

We leave tomorrow morning for Madrid and Toledo. Get excited for another blog coming soon.

But for now... Links to the 8 albums of pictures from last weekend...

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=33LU5ZU546YM5DDIXDV6RV

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026635&id=151201713&ref=share


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026636&id=151201713&ref=share




http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=151201713&k=32DX6VWZ4X2M5DDIXDV6RV







<3 and Enjoy!