well i've just returned from my last vacation here in france. that's right, i have to endure a whole two weeks without vacation before i return home. honestly sometimes i don't know how i'm going to handle 40 hour work weeks and american vacation time. it's going to be a struggle. at any rate, i thoroughly enjoyed my last vacation, traveling through southern spain and even a bit into portugal.
i flew into madrid where i met my good friend kelly (of almost 10 years, we realized). she somehow managed to get herself 3 weeks vacation, and from the coast guard no less. we spent a pleasant afternoon in madrid (found a free fauvism exhibition) catching up before hopping on a bus to sevilla. we had wanted to witness the madness of semana santa for ourselves and additionally visit my friend annie. we arrived that evening in the midst of the craziness. i think craziness might even be an understatement. from the bus station things appeared normal. so we walked on blindly, into the heart of the insanity. the streets began to get more crowded as people assembled for the processions. as we continued on we found the path to our hostel blocked at almost every turn. naturally, it was located right in the middle of the festivities. at various times we were stuck in the crowd, between the marching brothers (or floats, see above) and the crowds of onlookers. we even had to walk through the procession once or twice. and all this dragging our suitcases around as well. if we heard the word 'maletas' one more time, we might have lost it. in short, we arrived and hour and 20 minutes later at our hostel that should have been a 10-minute walk.
perhaps i should take a moment to explain what semana santa is. as best i can understand it's the celebration of holy week whereby each brotherhood marches through the street carrying giant candles, crosses or a giant float. the floats are invariably filled with flowers, covered in silver or gold and adorned with a shiny plastic jesus or mary or any other various gaudy (pardon my judging) decorations. the brothers wear the large pointy hoods (jarring for most americans) and walk slowly for hours often in bare feet - a bold move in any european city.
the weird thing was, nobody seemed to care. sure there were people everywhere, crammed into every corner of the old downtown. families got together, dressed up the kids, and saved seats near the front for hours. but when it came to the actual spectacle, nobody actually seemed to pay any attention. people were eating, drinking and generally socializing into all hours of the night but very few people seemed to take the process seriously, much less piously. maybe this is because the celebration in sevilla is so popular but for whatever reason it didn't seem like a very serious occasion. one fun tradition, which i imagine was invented to entertain the children through these hours-long processions, was the collecting of the wax. little spanish children would roam the streets, looking for friendly brothers to give them some wax from their giant candles. i'm told this is a big deal and the kids keep the wax balls for years to come.
kelly and i watched the processions for quite a while (as we couldn't get more than 50 meters from our hostel without a struggle) which turned out to be much more pleasant without our suitcases. still, after one night of processions we figured we had seen all we needed to of semana santa. (they carry the same floats every night.) i was glad we had experienced it, but after realizing it tacked on an extra mile to get to virtually any destination in the city, we were over the excitement.
i flew into madrid where i met my good friend kelly (of almost 10 years, we realized). she somehow managed to get herself 3 weeks vacation, and from the coast guard no less. we spent a pleasant afternoon in madrid (found a free fauvism exhibition) catching up before hopping on a bus to sevilla. we had wanted to witness the madness of semana santa for ourselves and additionally visit my friend annie. we arrived that evening in the midst of the craziness. i think craziness might even be an understatement. from the bus station things appeared normal. so we walked on blindly, into the heart of the insanity. the streets began to get more crowded as people assembled for the processions. as we continued on we found the path to our hostel blocked at almost every turn. naturally, it was located right in the middle of the festivities. at various times we were stuck in the crowd, between the marching brothers (or floats, see above) and the crowds of onlookers. we even had to walk through the procession once or twice. and all this dragging our suitcases around as well. if we heard the word 'maletas' one more time, we might have lost it. in short, we arrived and hour and 20 minutes later at our hostel that should have been a 10-minute walk.
perhaps i should take a moment to explain what semana santa is. as best i can understand it's the celebration of holy week whereby each brotherhood marches through the street carrying giant candles, crosses or a giant float. the floats are invariably filled with flowers, covered in silver or gold and adorned with a shiny plastic jesus or mary or any other various gaudy (pardon my judging) decorations. the brothers wear the large pointy hoods (jarring for most americans) and walk slowly for hours often in bare feet - a bold move in any european city.
the weird thing was, nobody seemed to care. sure there were people everywhere, crammed into every corner of the old downtown. families got together, dressed up the kids, and saved seats near the front for hours. but when it came to the actual spectacle, nobody actually seemed to pay any attention. people were eating, drinking and generally socializing into all hours of the night but very few people seemed to take the process seriously, much less piously. maybe this is because the celebration in sevilla is so popular but for whatever reason it didn't seem like a very serious occasion. one fun tradition, which i imagine was invented to entertain the children through these hours-long processions, was the collecting of the wax. little spanish children would roam the streets, looking for friendly brothers to give them some wax from their giant candles. i'm told this is a big deal and the kids keep the wax balls for years to come.kelly and i watched the processions for quite a while (as we couldn't get more than 50 meters from our hostel without a struggle) which turned out to be much more pleasant without our suitcases. still, after one night of processions we figured we had seen all we needed to of semana santa. (they carry the same floats every night.) i was glad we had experienced it, but after realizing it tacked on an extra mile to get to virtually any destination in the city, we were over the excitement.
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