La Semana Santa

Semana Santa was an absolutely unbelievable experience. I, unfortunately, was only there for two days, but even that was enough to see how amazing the whole week is. Technically, it's a religious holiday, but in practice, tradition and culture are equally important. The story I heard was that Semana Santa started originally after a plague a really long time ago (oops don't remember the year) wiped out a large percentage of the population, so people started to lose faith in God/the church. As a result, the church began La Semana Santa as a way to regain popularity. So obviously, it was a religious thing. It's also something that's celebrated all over the world, mostly in Spanish speaking countries. I think in Latin-American countries it's a little different, but all over Spain it's roughly the same, in format at least: all week long, there are different "cofradías" or "hermandades" ("brotherhoods", which are the religious organizations that belong to the churches) that bring their "pasos" (kind of like big parade floats but with statues of Jesus or Mary or other religious figures) around the city. These pasos are carried by a group of men called "costaleros". Most cofradías have a paso of Jesus, followed by a paso of Mary, which is usually the more important one. One whole cofradía can take hours to pass one spot because there are anywhere from hundreds to thousands of "nazarenos", which are the scary looking people in white hoods in the pictures, as well as "penitentes", which are the cross-carrying people without the pointy hood, and a band that follows the paso. The pasos usually start after lunch (3 or 4) and go until 3 or 4 the next morning-- so people who are in the cofradía as nazarenos or penitentes or costaleros are walking for 12 to 14 hour usually. CRAZY. Some of the cofradías are stricter and you're not allowed to eat or drink or talk or anything when you're marching, but the majority unofficially allow people to eat/drink/leave if they need to go to the bathroom or something. A lot of kids march as nazarenos so they obviously don't usually go for all 14 hours. And so all of the pasos leave from their churches and go to the official section of their march, which is in the center by the Giralda and what not, and then they head back to their church. Some take longer because they live farther; some are closer. Ok so that's the basic idea. My favorite paso to see was La Estrella, one that comes from a church in Triana, because we saw it on its "recogida" (on its way back into the church) at night while it was crossing the Triana Bridge. La recogida is usually the best time to see the cofradía because they're not on a time frame (like they are in the official section) so they do all kinds of cool stuff and the costaleros do cool things to make the pasos move in different ways. It was so impressive to see the paso, lit up with candles and shining and beautiful, surrounded by thousands of people, crossing the equally beautiful Triana bridge at night. It was one of those things that's just indescribable but gives you goose bumps and you sort of forget to breath for a second. We also saw a "saeta" with La Estrella, which is person who sings this specific kind of flamenco called saeta. Some of them are official and paid and some are spontaneous. The one we saw was spontaneous and it was so cool cause he was just standing in the crowd looking up at the paso and singing and AH so cool. Ok, now for pictures. 

On Sunday (called "Domingo de Ramos"), Elvira, Lucía and I went out to lunch before all the festivities. It was SO good.

I did Lucía's hair and it turned out pretty well, I think :))

El Domingo de Ramos is a really big day for La Semana Santa and everyone gets SUPER dressed up. Great example of that here. Makes very little sense: lots and lots of walking, and yet heels that aren't even comfortable to stand in. Help me understand, Spain.

NOT the KKK. Really shocking at first but these are the nazarenos. The building behind them is the parliament.

It was that hot.. The candle was sad. So was I.

More nazarenos. They walk in these two lines the whole time.

This is the first paso I saw and this is one of La Virgen (The Virgin, aka Mary). The pasos that have Mary on them are different in that they have the canopy thing above them, called a palio, that moves as the costaleros walk and it's SO pretty. 

These are the flowers that are on the side of this particular paso. All of the pasos have flowers but they can be of all different colors and kinds and what not. The funky looking ones above the regular ones are actually made of wax.

Most of the palos are wooden and painted with silver or gold paint, but some of them are actually solid silver or gold. This wasn't one of them, but I did see some that were like that. Those ones are obviously much heavier, which makes the movement of the paso really graceful and beautiful (although the costaleros probably don't love it too much).

La Gerald looking spiffy for Semana Santa

These are the seats that line the official section of the "parade".

These are some kids on their way to their cofradía. They're probably not nazarenos because they're too young, but there's another role that kids often take in the cofradía.

So cute

Hello

This is La Cena (which means dinner) because it's a depiction of the Last Supper.

Pretty palio going through a narrow Sevilla street

Pretty pretty

Lots of matching children

So cute

Killin' it.

Working real hard.

 

A paso of El Cristo (Christ)

Just a couple of people.

This paso is called El Amor

My camera very sadly died after this, so I don't have pictures of the night on the bridge.

San Jacinto during La Semana Santa is wild.

Crazy

More San Jacinto (thx to Eli for inviting me over to her casa to see Semana Santa from her balcony)

La Virgen with flower petals on the palio (the shade thing on the top); people throw the petals from balconies onto the paso when it first comes out of the church, so then it goes through the city with petals on the top. So pretty.

Another one of the traditions of Semana Santa is that the little kids go around and when the nazarenos stop (which they do when the costaleros need a break), they ask them for wax. So by the end of the week they make balls of wax, and they save them, and over the years the ball gets bigger and bigger. It's pretty cool. Lucía has a huge one in her room from when she was little.

This is the nazareno that basically keeps the other nazarenos in line (head honcho nazareno) and he has to walk up and down in the middle of the two lines so he gets wax dripped all over him. I thought it looked kind of cool.

These are penitentes, which are like nazarenos that just carry the cross and don't have a pointy hood on.

Mini nazareno

More than anything, I can't thank Lucia enough for giving me the experience that I had. Although Semana Santa would be super impressive to anyone, it's best when you get to follow someone around who knows where to go, when to go, and how to explain all that's happening.

OK cool so that's Semana Santa. Thx for making it through with me. While writing this post over the last couple days I've managed to edit the Ireland pictures, but still working on Budapest. So that will be coming up soon. Xo