Semana Santa

In Sevilla, Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is a really big deal. Every day, starting on Palm Sunday, there are numerous "pasos," or passes, through different parts of the city. It's a little difficult to explain, but I will try. Basically, it's like a parade, but with religious monuments/art/sculpture/etc. instead of floats. Each "paso" consists of 2 parts: "El Senor" (Jesus), and "La Virgen" (Mary). The paso leaves from its respective church, goes through the city streets (but ALL pass through the Cathedral), and then re-enters its church. All of the pasos leave at varying times of the day; some during the day, and some really late at night. What I didn't realize too, was that each paso is REALLY long. Sometimes, it can last 12 or more hours. That is a LONG time for all of the people to be walking through the city. First, many, many, many (sometimes almost 2,000) "Nazarenos" pass by. These "Nazarenos" are dressed in long robes of their own distinctive color to each "paso." They also wear a long, pointy hat and mask. They are dressed very similar to the KKK. It's a little scary at first, but I was just trying to remember that it is something religious, not racist. After los Nazarenos pass, then a large sculpture of Jesus passes by. Each paso has "El Senor" in a different pose (carrying the cross, on the cross, and more). These extremely heavy sculptures are carried by more than 30 men, so they pass by slowly and have to be put down often. Then, come more Nazarenos, some carrying crosses, others just walking with large candles. When the Nazarenos stop, you can ask, and sometimes they will give you "stampitas," or small pictures of the Virgen or El Senor. And finally, "La Virgen" passes. In my opinion, all of the Virgens look the same, but the Sevillanos definitely know the differences. All of the pasos are VERY pretty, impressive, and intricate. I was gone during the first weekend, but I was excited to see the pasos during the week. We didn't have class all week, so we were able to see as many pasos as we wanted. On Monday, it was raining, so most of the pasos were cancelled for the day. The pasos can't leave if it's raining because the old, valuable sculptures will be ruined. On Tuesday though, the weather was gorgeous, so I was able to see some pasos. My family took me to see La Candelaria and El Dulce Nombre at night. The city was absolutely FILLED with people. Also, because they blocked off many of the roads in the center, it is dfficult to get anywhere. And if you find that you can get there, you may have to go WAY out of the way or it takes you forever to get there. It's kind of annyoing actually. Anyway, we stayed out pretty late to see the pasos (like 3:30 or something). Wednesday, after sleeping in a bit, I hung around the house until nighttime, when my host sister and her boyfriend took me to see more pasos. We manuevered our way through the crowd and hopped a fence in order to get a good view. It was worth it though, because we were literally "in" the paso. So much so that they kept telling me, "Erin, you should just start walking with the Nazarenos!" It was a perfect place to take great photos :-) Thursday, which is the day with the most pasos, was CRAZY!!!!! I was definitely not prepared for what was to come. We didn't even leave the house until around 10:30 pm. When we did, we walked to the city center to try to see the first paso. Yeah, that was a fail. I have seriously never been so squished in my life (meaning that there was a large crowd of people). Everyone was packed together so closely, I could barely move. I mean, I kept lifting my head to try to get some fresh air :-) We finally got out of the crowd and moved to another spot, where we stayed for the rest of the night. We saw 3 or 4 pasos during our time there. When we decided to leave, at about 6 am, we tried to get back to the house, but we found ourselves basically trapped by the various pasos on all sides. So, my Senora is like, "Let's go to a cafe." Goodness gracious!! I passed on ordering coffee (though I could have used the caffeine boost), in the hopes that I would EVENTUALLY be able to sleep. After some time there, we started to make our way home, but again, were stopped by a paso. Yeah. Needless to say, I didn't get back to my house until about 9:15...in the morning!!! I was completely exhausted. Basically, the rest of the weekend passed the same: went to see more pasos on Friday night with my friends, saw 1 or 2 on Saturday night, and went to church on Easter. Easter was a little weird here. People don't celebrate the holiday like I am used to celebrating it. I like my church here, but we didn't even really talk about it being Easter. I mean, Easter is a really important day and they didn't even mention that Jesus rose from the grave that day. Weird. Also, my family here isn't that religious, so we didn't have an Easter dinner or anything. It kind of made me miss home because things were so different. I guess it's just what they are accustomed to, though. I'm sorry if this is confusing, becuase it is really hard to fully understand Semana Santa without seeing it. Oh, and this is completely random, but I was finally brave enough to get my hair cut here. My bangs were so long and were driving me absolutely crazy, so I was like, "I'm going!" So I asked my family, and they recommended a place for me to go that was good and cheap. I was really nervous, becuase I am REALLY picky about my hair and with the whole language thing, I wasn't sure how it would go. I only got my bangs cut, so it went fine. Hahahaha! I'm so dramatic :-) Lesson: Most of the people here walk SOOOOOO slow!!! Like no joke! When walking with my family, I swear it took us twice as long as it normally takes me to get anywhere! Lesson: Basically everyone eats sunflower seeds. I know that people eat them in the States, but during Semana Santa, if you looked around, you would see most of the people around you sitting there eating sunflower seeds. I don't know. For some reason I find that really interesting. I was eating some with my sister and her boyfriend, and they were so appalled that I eat the whole seed, shell and all. My sister was like, "Erin! Don't eat the shell!" I was like, "Don't worry! I always eat the shell" :-) Lesson: They definitely don't check id's for people buying cigarettes here. It's just not possible when people buy them from a vending machine. Yes, I'm serious. There are literally vending machine type things in bars and other public places so that people can buy cigarettes. Lesson: Because I had to wait about an hour at the salon before they cut my hair, I had lots of time to observe the stylists there. I learned that they curl hair completely different than I have ever seen before. In the states, if people want a perm or something similar, the stylists use rollers and then they sit under the big dryer thing for a while. Here, the stylist only uses different sized round brushes and a regular blow dryer. I watched as they used the round brush while drying the hair to curl it, but then they would let the brush hang in the hair for a while to set the curl more. How weird! I mean, people were sitting there with 2 or 3 brushes hanging in their hair. Hahahaha!

Here is a video of El Paso de La O (one of the processions):