Semana Santa is Holy Week, the week before Easter. I didn't have classes that week. There are religious processions that go on throughout the week, so it was pretty busy in the city. These processions are practiced for all year long. They are about sacrifice, so they are supposed to be difficult for those participating. They can be 6-8+ hours long, and the women usually wear high heels or no shoes, and some of the men are dressed in heavy clothing with their faces covered. Some of them look like they were members of the KKK...it was interesting. The main part of the processions are the floats, each procession has the Virgin and Jesus Christ either in two separate floats or together on the same one. These floats are extremely heavy and large, and they are carried on the backs of a team who's every step is intricately practiced and planned out. It was really impressive. The atmosphere was awesome. There was a lot of marching band music, people everywhere clapping or silence at times, it smelled of incense everywhere, and a ton of people dressed up.
The kids would go around and collect wax balls from all of the candles as the processions passed by. The streets were covered in wax after the week was over, because everyone in every procession had one lit throughout the week.
This is the people switching out during the procession...it was crazy to watch!! They had everything timed out perfectly.
This is a float inside the cathedral.
This was the end of the Alhambra procession on Saturday night. We walked with it up to the palace. Everything was lit up and there were people everywhere, it was pretty cool to watch.
And into the palace it went.
This was the rain storm coming that I had to walk home from school in...forgot my umbrella.
Our host family isn't really religious, so we didn't do anything for Easter. It was still pretty cool to see what the city did for celebrations throughout the week, however. Definitely a cool experience.
I will be doing another blog shortly..sooo I will talk again in an hour!
Hasta pronto!
Hasta pronto!
Emma
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