Semana Santa was 2 weeks ago... and it was awesome

Some of you still may have spring break, some have may have already (or long since) delved into the work world which does not cordially provide a week-long hiatus, but as for me, working as a teacher does have its perks! Yes, even though I have graduated from 17 years of organized schooling I still got to enjoy a spring break, although not like any I have had before. In spain it is not called ´spring break´of course, but, it being a dominantly catholic country, ´Semana Santa´, or Holy Week. In Sevilla especially, it is a very big to do.

The week before easter is actaully a bigger event than easter itself. All week long different churches around the city process with relgious ´floats´if you will, depicting different scenes of the passion of christ. And, if the church organization is really fancy, the have the jesus float AND a virgin mary one too. I went out to see many of these porcessions on Palm Sunday which was the most important day and it was quite impressive and unlike anything else I have ever seen. Luckily, my roommate Jennifer went with our native sevilla freind Mati, who has attended around 30 Semana Santa´s in sevilla, and she was more than happy to tell us all of the relative information and history of every procession that we saw. She also knew where to stand and how to get all of the best camera angels. Pays to know people. Monday we all went out with Mati again and hit some of the most popular processions, which meant TONS of people, stacked like sardins, waiting for an hour to watch a Jesús y la Virgín pass by. It was an experience.

By Tuesday I felt that I had absorbed a great deal of culture and history and felt it was time to do as many of the Sevillanos do and get the heck out of town to escape the literally thundering hoards of people that come in to see Semana Santa in Sevilla. So, I caught a bus down to Barbate in Cadiz to see my dear amiga Julia. We had big plans for going to the beach and surfing since she has an AMAZINGLY situated apartment, right on the beach with an amazing veiw. (She can SEE africa from her balcony. no joke.) I arrived late Tuesday afternoon, we can a cerveza byt he beach, some delicious tapas and observed the beach. Unfortunatly, by Wednesday mroning the weather had changed and it RAINED for the remainder of our beach weekend. sigh. we managed to entertain ourselves but we were getting a little stir crazy by the end.

Saturday Julia and Hayley came back up with me to Sevilla to attend Lydia´s going-away party as she had to back to Germany last week, sad!!! We will miss Lydia :(

As usual, photos are better at explaining than words, so here you go:
http://picasaweb.google.es/mclauerman/MiSemanaSanta

Take care!
Beso,
mary claire