(no subject)
So Spain being a Catholic country, Semana Santa (Holy Week, for the English monolinguals) is extremely important, and widely celebrated. As i have stated, the place of all places to be for it (and potentially most touristy...) is Sevilla. So this weekend, I shipped off to experience Semana Santa firsthand down south.
First- I took the AVE down to Sevilla. High speed trains are my new fascination. It was expensive, probably about 3 times as much as a bus ticket would have been. However I paid for in euros what I usually pay for in time. 2.5 hours Madrid to Sevilla, including a stop in Córdoba. I always claim that I'd marry google if i could, but the AVE is coming in at a close second.
Now that I'm done professing my love for inanimate/intangible objects/concepts, on to Sevilla. Upon arrival I was immediately reminded of the terrible Andaluz accent. I always forget just how much they cut off letters and syllables in words like they don't matter. i went with my friend Elisa from my spanish classes in Nov/Dec, and her roommate María.
Sevilla is gorgeous. The common thread binding my two trips this week has been the smell of orange blossoms. Sevilla is famous for its orange trees, which were a plenty, as they were in Morocco. I saw the Alcazar, the Cathedral, including a trip up the tower of la Giralda. There was a boat tour and renting some bicycle cart thing in the Parque de María Luisa, which rivals Retiro Park not in size, but quite possibly in beauty.
As for the Semana Santa proceedings, that's a whole different story. I had read about processions during Semana Santa. I vaguely remembered learning about it in some Spanish class way back when (well in high school, that was when). I looked some stuff up a few weeks ago, since I wasn't quite sure what the deal was.
First, some links: Official Site in Spanish Excellent Site in English
I suggest the English site's "Semana Santa" vocabulary.
So basically, people from the churches in Sevilla make a brotherhood and have a procession that runs from their church, to the main drag, or carrera oficial (about 3 streets that every brotherhood goes down at some point ). These streets lead to the cathedral. The brotherhood passes through the Cathedral and continues on a path back to their home base church. All while wearing hooded KKK-resembling cloaks. Some carry long torch sized super candles, some bearing wooden crosses, and some carrying the two big pasos, one depicting Christ, the other depicting the Virgen.
It was definitely something to be seen in person in order for me to ever be able to explain it to other people. It was really interesting to see and experience. The most important processions occur in early morning Good Friday. There is one called el Silencio, done in silence, which is the first to reach the cathedral Good Friday.
We got really lucky and managed to figure out that just staking out a place to stand and watch wasn't the way to go. There was a crossroad area right before the Cathedral on the carrera oficial where the processions would be paused to let cross pedestrian traffic through. During the important processions, we would go across and managed to time it to where we were stopped while the pasos passed up by. I believe i have sweet pictures. However the fact that it was 2am threw off photography bit.
Also, since the paths back to the home base churches is different for each procession, sometimes you just kind of happen across one. One was cool because it passed by our hostel, where we were lucky enough to have a balcony. I took a ton of pictures/videos. I actually still had Morocco pics on my memory card, and had to delete a bunch of them because I filled up my memory card. Ridiculous.
But all in all, I'm really glad I went to Sevilla during Semana Santa. I thought it was going to be full of wall to wall Taste of Chicago style crowds on July 3rd. But it wasn't I don't know why, but it just wasn't.
So en fin. No pictures yet, i just loaded them to the computer. Now I have to go through and sift out the terrible blurred nighttime ones. I assume I'll toss about half of them.
Hasta ahora.
First- I took the AVE down to Sevilla. High speed trains are my new fascination. It was expensive, probably about 3 times as much as a bus ticket would have been. However I paid for in euros what I usually pay for in time. 2.5 hours Madrid to Sevilla, including a stop in Córdoba. I always claim that I'd marry google if i could, but the AVE is coming in at a close second.
Now that I'm done professing my love for inanimate/intangible objects/concepts, on to Sevilla. Upon arrival I was immediately reminded of the terrible Andaluz accent. I always forget just how much they cut off letters and syllables in words like they don't matter. i went with my friend Elisa from my spanish classes in Nov/Dec, and her roommate María.
Sevilla is gorgeous. The common thread binding my two trips this week has been the smell of orange blossoms. Sevilla is famous for its orange trees, which were a plenty, as they were in Morocco. I saw the Alcazar, the Cathedral, including a trip up the tower of la Giralda. There was a boat tour and renting some bicycle cart thing in the Parque de María Luisa, which rivals Retiro Park not in size, but quite possibly in beauty.
As for the Semana Santa proceedings, that's a whole different story. I had read about processions during Semana Santa. I vaguely remembered learning about it in some Spanish class way back when (well in high school, that was when). I looked some stuff up a few weeks ago, since I wasn't quite sure what the deal was.
First, some links: Official Site in Spanish Excellent Site in English
I suggest the English site's "Semana Santa" vocabulary.
So basically, people from the churches in Sevilla make a brotherhood and have a procession that runs from their church, to the main drag, or carrera oficial (about 3 streets that every brotherhood goes down at some point ). These streets lead to the cathedral. The brotherhood passes through the Cathedral and continues on a path back to their home base church. All while wearing hooded KKK-resembling cloaks. Some carry long torch sized super candles, some bearing wooden crosses, and some carrying the two big pasos, one depicting Christ, the other depicting the Virgen.
It was definitely something to be seen in person in order for me to ever be able to explain it to other people. It was really interesting to see and experience. The most important processions occur in early morning Good Friday. There is one called el Silencio, done in silence, which is the first to reach the cathedral Good Friday.
We got really lucky and managed to figure out that just staking out a place to stand and watch wasn't the way to go. There was a crossroad area right before the Cathedral on the carrera oficial where the processions would be paused to let cross pedestrian traffic through. During the important processions, we would go across and managed to time it to where we were stopped while the pasos passed up by. I believe i have sweet pictures. However the fact that it was 2am threw off photography bit.
Also, since the paths back to the home base churches is different for each procession, sometimes you just kind of happen across one. One was cool because it passed by our hostel, where we were lucky enough to have a balcony. I took a ton of pictures/videos. I actually still had Morocco pics on my memory card, and had to delete a bunch of them because I filled up my memory card. Ridiculous.
But all in all, I'm really glad I went to Sevilla during Semana Santa. I thought it was going to be full of wall to wall Taste of Chicago style crowds on July 3rd. But it wasn't I don't know why, but it just wasn't.
So en fin. No pictures yet, i just loaded them to the computer. Now I have to go through and sift out the terrible blurred nighttime ones. I assume I'll toss about half of them.
Hasta ahora.