Sunday, May 8, 2011

Semana Santa

So I have had the privilege to see one of Spain's most famous holidays ever, Semana Santa. I was amazed at all the effort that went into the week, and also shocked at how important it is to the Spanish since they aren't really religious. (They cried when the processions in Sevilla got canceled due to rain) But it was truly an amazing thing to see.
Semana Santa is a week long festival that takes place the week before Easter. The first processions start on El Domingo de Ramas (Palm Sunday) and continue till Pascua (Easter)  The most important procession of the week however takes place on Wednesday, it is the procession of the Virgin Mary. This happened to be the only procession I was able to see, due to some untimely rain (many processions were cancelled due to rain) and 3 proyectos that I had procrastinated shamelessly on ( I wrote in 4 days, two 4 page papers and one 7 page, all in Spanish!). And yes I am very proud of that fact :) Any ways, I travelled to Cartegena, another city in Spain, with my host sister and the girl who used to live with my host family, to visit the sister of my host mom and see the processions of that city.


Before we start though, a little information on Semana Santa. Lasting a week, there are processions every day. The processions consist of penitents (the people with the KKK hats), bands, tronos (floats) that depict a scene from Jesus' final week and depending on the city, military. Every city celebrates Semana Santa in a different way. Some watch the processions in complete silence while others will yell things like "¡Guapa!" at the Virgen Mary. Sevilla is most famous for it's processions during Semana Santa.



In Cartegena, the procession I watched lasted for about 3 hours. I had to miss the Copa del Rey final between Madrid y Barça, but being in Spain, you could ask anyone around you for the score and they could tell you. In fact almost all the men in the processions had earbuds in, listening to the game on radio. (like I said earlier, fútbol is more of a religion here than christianity). So I was able to follow the game and watch the processions at the same time. (I am pretty sure living in Spain has made me a hardcore fútbol fan, Madrid won btw :D) Anyways, the procession was absolutely beautiful. The tronos (floats) were huge and everything on them was real, including the fruit and meat on the trono of the last supper. The most important ones were carried by 50+ men for the 5 hr walk. The procession finished with the trono of the Virgin Mary and then the military. After that, Easter sunday was low key. I made the mistake of going to mass before the Spanish choir wakes up (11:30 am) so it was just readings and the sermon (and I understood a lot of it!! :) Then I made my host family pancakes, because it's an easter tradition for me and because they've never had pancakes before.. Needless to say, they loved them.




Look mom! I'm doing dishes!! ;D

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