Holy Week, Semana Santa, is one of the biggest celebrations of the year here in Sevilla. It's a pretty big deal all over Spain, especially in the south, but Sevilla takes it to a whole different level. The basic idea of Semana Santa is to celebrate the passion, death, and more or less the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Semana Santa truly is a weeklong celebration, 24 hours a day, that takes place during the week of the 4th full moon every year.
The base of Semana Santa are the hermandades, brotherhoods, of the city. Most of these brotherhoods are associated with neighborhood-based churches throughout the city. These brotherhoods/societies aren't legitimatized until they participate in Semana Santa. Participation here refers to the procession of pasos.
Every hermandad in the city has a procession, called a paso, of members that walks from the home church to the cathedral in the center of the city, and back again on a specified day during Semana Santa. The schedule of these pasos is established well ahead of time and printed out in little booklets that are distributed for free at information centers, bars, and restaurants throughout the city. Because the processions go all the way from the door of the home church to the cathedral and back again, they can take anywhere from 6-14 hours, depending upon how far away the church is. There are many parts to these processions and a huge number of people from the hermandades take part, called nazarenos or penitentes in the procession. The procession begins with the 'cruz de guía' a nazareno who carries a large ornate cross. Hundreds of other nazarenos follow, some penitentes carry black wooden crosses with rosaries to repent their sins, acolytes carry tall candles, priests walk along with the procession spreading incense, many processions have accompanying bands of drums and cornets. But the most important part of these processions are the pasos themselves, large intricately decorated platforms that carry life-size depictions of Jesus, the Virgen Mary, and various scenes from the Passion. Each hermandad has at least two of these pasos: one that carries a depiction of Christ and one that carries a depiction of the Virgen. These depictions are incredibly lifelike and are often displayed in the church all year long but are mounted on the paso only for Holy Week.
The Cristo y Virgen María of each hermandad are very sacred, personal things. The members of certain barrios (neighborhoods) in Sevilla are fiercely loyal to their Cristo/Virgen and there are big rivalries between neighboring hermandades about whose is the best. For the Spanish people these figures embody Christ and the Virgen Mary. When Sevillanos pray, they don't pray directly to God or even to Jesus Christ the biblical figure, frequently they pray to their neighborhood's Cristo or to their Virgen María. It's considered offensive to refer to the paso figures as 'sculptures' or strictly works of art because to the Sevillan people there are so much more. However, there isn't a good translation for this in english so just know that when I talk about the Semana Santa figures that's what I'm talking about.
Anyway, these figures are mounted on these massive, rectangular platforms called pasos that are decorated with lit candles, hundreds of flowers, decorated in intricate silver and gold metalworks, and ornately woven cloth. There isn't really a way to accurately describe these without seeing them for yourself, I'll see if I can throw some pictures on here. Once these pasos have been put together with all the decorations and the figures themselves, they are lifted onto the shoulders of a team of 30 or so men called costeleros who walk underneath the paso, carrying it down the street all the way from their church to the cathedral and back again. The costeleros are completely hidden underneath the paso and a long cloth conceals their legs from view so to the crown it appears as though the figures on top are walking down the street by themselves. These costeleros are absolutely amazing - they carry an incredible amount of weight on their backs and walk blind down the cobblestone streets of Sevilla for hours on end. They get relieved by other costeleros throughout the procession, but it's still an unbelievable feat. It is a great honor to be a costelero and get to carry your Christ or Virgen in the procession. The pasos are set down every couple hundred meters which is part of the reason that the processions take so long, on top of the fact that there are so many people to get through the streets.
The pasos leave more or less in the order in which their particular Passion scene takes place chronilogically. For example, the hermandad that has a paso depicting Christ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey makes its procession on Palm Sunday, and the pasos that depict Christ on the cross go out later in the week. The streets of the city are completely shut down for these processions and people flood the sidewalks and plazas trying to find the ideal place to watch their favorite pasos go by.
Semana Santa appears to be an incredibly religious holiday, but in actuality it is a much stronger cultural celebration. Many members of the hermandades aren't religious followers, and the people who come out to watch the pasos don't necessarily come watch because they are hard core Catholics. People take part in the hermandades for the community, friendships, and family/cultural history that goes with them. They are centered around churches, but they have many functions outside of religion. That is something that is very important to understand when experiencing Semana Santa, people are celebrating their culture and everything that it means to be Sevillano on top of the religious holiday.
Easter may be all about Jesus, but the Virgen Mary is the star of Semana Santa. In each procession the paso with the Cristo goes first, and Mary follows. The people here love and are so proud of thier Virgen pasos. On the biggest night of Semana Santa (Thursday night to Friday morning) the whole city is awake and out all night long watching the biggest, most prestigious pasos. The two most famous Virgens in Sevilla are from the neighborhoods of Macarena and Triana. La Esperanza de Triana y La Macarena go out on the same night, and there is quite the competition between them. Rumor has it that the hermandad of La Macarena pays the local TV stations to only cover her paso when it re-enters the church, so that it is impossible to watch La Esperanza re-enter her church unless you are in Triana at the time. When these beautiful pasos go by, people watching from balconies above throw down flower petals, everyone on the streets yells out "¡Guapa! ¡Qué guapa!" Roughly translated this means beautiful or attractive and is typically heard on the streets as a piropo or cat call. It might seem a little sacrilegious to be calling the Virgen Mary hot, but once again that is the cultural aspect of Semana Santa. On certain balconies (which are in high demand, people pay a ridiculous amount of money to rent them just for Semana Santa. The same goes for seats that are set up on the street leading up to the Cathedral, it's impossible to get in unless you have an absurd amount of money) singers stand to serenade the pasos as they go by. It's a beautiful thing.
On top of the wonderful sights and sounds, there are also incredible tastes and smells that go along with Semana Santa. All of the flowers have burst into bloom at this point, including the very fragrant orange tree blossoms, and all of the pasos are covered in real flowers. At this time of the year, special pastries and sweets that are only made for Semana Santa go on sale at all of the bakeries and cafes around the city. Small stands and shops materialize in the middle of sidewalks and plazas, selling refreshments and toys for children. The whole city is abuzz with activity all day and all night. It is an incredible transformation to see.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Dublin
A lot has happened since my last blog post, so let me start with a little bit about my trip to the fantastic city of Dublin, Ireland.
There are 3 girls from Beloit studying in my program: me, Jenn and Lori. None of us knew each other before we came on this trip which is kind of hard to believe because our school only has 1300 kids. It's been really great studying with them here, they are both wonderful girls and we will have lots of stories to relive together when we get back to Beloit in the fall.
Anyway, Lori and I found super cheap flights to Dublin a few weeks ago and booked this trip on a whim. We left early Friday morning to fly to Alicante, Spain for an 8 hour layover, and then continue on to Dublin. It was just going to be the 2 of us, but when we arrived at the Sevilla airport we met up with a kid from our program named Nick who happened to be on all of the same flights. Nick goes to Madison and is from Richfield, MN. We all sat together on the plane to Alicante and decided to make the most of our 8 hours there. We took the city bus from the airport to the beach, bringing all of our backpacks, coats, and scarves with. Alicante is a beautiful city on the coast with clear, bright blue Mediterranean water and lovely sand beaches. We spent the day lying in the sun on top of our winter coats which we certaintly didn't need until we reached Ireland, we discovered a plaza where a radio station was giving away free fruit and horchata (delish), explored an old church which is Nick's favorite thing in the entire world, poked around the government building for a while, toured the marina and ate delicious ice cream. We returned to the airport via the same bus, grabbed a bite to eat, had an in-depth discussion of Disney movies and boarded the plane for Dublin. All in all, one of the best layovers I've ever had. While we were boarding the plane we noticed some poor guy dressed up like a stewardess with an eyemask on and an ipod in his ears being led onto the plane by his friends. We're guessing a surprise bachelor, or stag, party? Either way he must have an incredible amount of trust in his friends to get on a plane with no idea where he was going.
Nick was flying to Dublin to spend the weekend with his cousin Chris who lives in Aylesbury, England just outside of London which was where Nick was born. We met up with Chris in the baggage claim at the Dublin airport and took a bus into the city center to find our respective hostels. Our room was really nice, we met some kids studying in London and then headed back out to meet up with Nick and Chris to explore the Temple Bar area of Dublin. The drinks were ridiculously expensive but there was live Irish music everywhere we went, and the streets were full of people having a good time. Everyone I met in Dublin was so nice, and I loved hearing Irish accents everywhere we went. Sometimes the accents were so thick I felt like they were speaking an entirely different language, both the Irish accents and Chris' British accent, but we all got fairly good at translating for each other over the weekend. I had my first (and only) Guinness which I very much enjoyed.
On our first day in Dublin we took a 3 hour walking tour of the city, which was great because we got to cover all of the big tourist attractions and decide which ones we wanted to go back to later. After the tour we took the Dart (Dublin's above ground metro) out to Howth, a small fishing village on the coast. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Howth is incredibly quaint and just quintessentially Irish. We saw a bunch of seals in the harbor begging for fish, climbed to the top of the nearest hill for a spectacular view of the city and found the ruins of an old church and cemetary to explore. I loved the cemetary, though it sounds a bit morbid, but it was so peaceful, ancient and beautiful in the setting sunlight. I wanted to spread my arms out and hold onto the moment forever, soak it up and bring it home with me. We ate dinner at a restaurant called the Bloody Stream (I know, how pleasant) which was named for a nearby stream that literally ran red with blood during one of the many battles for independence that Ireland fought. I had my very first plate of fish and chips, and it was superb. We returned to Dublin and found many more adventures to be had in the Irish pubs before we went to bed.
On Sunday we all signed up for an 8-hour van tour of the Irish countryside. Looking back, this was a great idea (planned by Lori, she should probably just be a professional travel agent at this point) because we got to see a different side of Ireland: green rolling hills, grazing sheep and beautiful mountain scenery. The tour took us to the place where PS I Love You was filmed. For those of you who have seen it, we saw the spot where Hillary Swank and Gerard Butler meet for the very first time in Wicklow Ntl Park next to the bridge. We stopped at a lot of places along the tour, including another old cemetary/church where we took a long hike through the woods to a series of lakes. Ireland is a beautiful country, everywhere I looked could have been a postcard picture. It felt so good to take a hike through the woods and actually experience nature which is something that Sevilla, being a big city, lacks. We returned to Dublin in time to eat dinner at The Celt which was a pub that came highly recommended to us from a variety of sources. We all ended up ordering the same traditional Irish stew and brown bread, very tastey.
The boys left for England on Monday morning so Lori and I had the whole day to ourselves. The weather had been perfect thus far, mild weather and sunshine every day. Monday was the first day of rain, but I suppose it wouldn't really be a trip to Ireland without it. We walked around the city some more, explored St. Patrick's Cathedral, found a bagel shop (very exciting, bagels don't exist in Sevilla) and then took the Dart in the other direction to another coastal town called Bray. Here we took the oceanside/cliff walk and walked up a bit of the mountain for a beautiful and foggy view of the coastline. We came back to Dublin for dinner and one more night on the town before leaving (in the middle of a snow flurry) the next morning.
We flew Ryanair for this trip, which is a bit of a blessing and a curse all rolled into one. The rates are ridiculously cheap, but the planes aren't the highest quality and their luggage restrictions are absolute. Lori and I entertained ourselves in the airport by watching people who clearly had not read the luggage requirements (one carry on, no personal items, all cameras, shopping bags, etc must fit into the carry on and the carry on has to fit into the little sizing bin) try to argue with the people at the gate or frantically try to rearrange enormous suitcases to fit. We arrived back in Sevilla Tuesday afternoon, on day 3 of Semana Santa. The city was absolutely transformed and the celebrations were in full swing. More about that in the next post.
In summary, I absolutely fell head-over-heels in love with Dublin, with Ireland. I would recommend this trip to anyone and everyone. I for one, will definitely going back. I've been so lucky, I've absolutely loved both places I've traveled outside of Spain: Lisbon and Dublin. Maybe I just love traveling?! I guess we shall see in the trips to come.
Miss and love you all!
There are 3 girls from Beloit studying in my program: me, Jenn and Lori. None of us knew each other before we came on this trip which is kind of hard to believe because our school only has 1300 kids. It's been really great studying with them here, they are both wonderful girls and we will have lots of stories to relive together when we get back to Beloit in the fall.
Anyway, Lori and I found super cheap flights to Dublin a few weeks ago and booked this trip on a whim. We left early Friday morning to fly to Alicante, Spain for an 8 hour layover, and then continue on to Dublin. It was just going to be the 2 of us, but when we arrived at the Sevilla airport we met up with a kid from our program named Nick who happened to be on all of the same flights. Nick goes to Madison and is from Richfield, MN. We all sat together on the plane to Alicante and decided to make the most of our 8 hours there. We took the city bus from the airport to the beach, bringing all of our backpacks, coats, and scarves with. Alicante is a beautiful city on the coast with clear, bright blue Mediterranean water and lovely sand beaches. We spent the day lying in the sun on top of our winter coats which we certaintly didn't need until we reached Ireland, we discovered a plaza where a radio station was giving away free fruit and horchata (delish), explored an old church which is Nick's favorite thing in the entire world, poked around the government building for a while, toured the marina and ate delicious ice cream. We returned to the airport via the same bus, grabbed a bite to eat, had an in-depth discussion of Disney movies and boarded the plane for Dublin. All in all, one of the best layovers I've ever had. While we were boarding the plane we noticed some poor guy dressed up like a stewardess with an eyemask on and an ipod in his ears being led onto the plane by his friends. We're guessing a surprise bachelor, or stag, party? Either way he must have an incredible amount of trust in his friends to get on a plane with no idea where he was going.
Nick was flying to Dublin to spend the weekend with his cousin Chris who lives in Aylesbury, England just outside of London which was where Nick was born. We met up with Chris in the baggage claim at the Dublin airport and took a bus into the city center to find our respective hostels. Our room was really nice, we met some kids studying in London and then headed back out to meet up with Nick and Chris to explore the Temple Bar area of Dublin. The drinks were ridiculously expensive but there was live Irish music everywhere we went, and the streets were full of people having a good time. Everyone I met in Dublin was so nice, and I loved hearing Irish accents everywhere we went. Sometimes the accents were so thick I felt like they were speaking an entirely different language, both the Irish accents and Chris' British accent, but we all got fairly good at translating for each other over the weekend. I had my first (and only) Guinness which I very much enjoyed.
On our first day in Dublin we took a 3 hour walking tour of the city, which was great because we got to cover all of the big tourist attractions and decide which ones we wanted to go back to later. After the tour we took the Dart (Dublin's above ground metro) out to Howth, a small fishing village on the coast. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Howth is incredibly quaint and just quintessentially Irish. We saw a bunch of seals in the harbor begging for fish, climbed to the top of the nearest hill for a spectacular view of the city and found the ruins of an old church and cemetary to explore. I loved the cemetary, though it sounds a bit morbid, but it was so peaceful, ancient and beautiful in the setting sunlight. I wanted to spread my arms out and hold onto the moment forever, soak it up and bring it home with me. We ate dinner at a restaurant called the Bloody Stream (I know, how pleasant) which was named for a nearby stream that literally ran red with blood during one of the many battles for independence that Ireland fought. I had my very first plate of fish and chips, and it was superb. We returned to Dublin and found many more adventures to be had in the Irish pubs before we went to bed.
On Sunday we all signed up for an 8-hour van tour of the Irish countryside. Looking back, this was a great idea (planned by Lori, she should probably just be a professional travel agent at this point) because we got to see a different side of Ireland: green rolling hills, grazing sheep and beautiful mountain scenery. The tour took us to the place where PS I Love You was filmed. For those of you who have seen it, we saw the spot where Hillary Swank and Gerard Butler meet for the very first time in Wicklow Ntl Park next to the bridge. We stopped at a lot of places along the tour, including another old cemetary/church where we took a long hike through the woods to a series of lakes. Ireland is a beautiful country, everywhere I looked could have been a postcard picture. It felt so good to take a hike through the woods and actually experience nature which is something that Sevilla, being a big city, lacks. We returned to Dublin in time to eat dinner at The Celt which was a pub that came highly recommended to us from a variety of sources. We all ended up ordering the same traditional Irish stew and brown bread, very tastey.
The boys left for England on Monday morning so Lori and I had the whole day to ourselves. The weather had been perfect thus far, mild weather and sunshine every day. Monday was the first day of rain, but I suppose it wouldn't really be a trip to Ireland without it. We walked around the city some more, explored St. Patrick's Cathedral, found a bagel shop (very exciting, bagels don't exist in Sevilla) and then took the Dart in the other direction to another coastal town called Bray. Here we took the oceanside/cliff walk and walked up a bit of the mountain for a beautiful and foggy view of the coastline. We came back to Dublin for dinner and one more night on the town before leaving (in the middle of a snow flurry) the next morning.
We flew Ryanair for this trip, which is a bit of a blessing and a curse all rolled into one. The rates are ridiculously cheap, but the planes aren't the highest quality and their luggage restrictions are absolute. Lori and I entertained ourselves in the airport by watching people who clearly had not read the luggage requirements (one carry on, no personal items, all cameras, shopping bags, etc must fit into the carry on and the carry on has to fit into the little sizing bin) try to argue with the people at the gate or frantically try to rearrange enormous suitcases to fit. We arrived back in Sevilla Tuesday afternoon, on day 3 of Semana Santa. The city was absolutely transformed and the celebrations were in full swing. More about that in the next post.
In summary, I absolutely fell head-over-heels in love with Dublin, with Ireland. I would recommend this trip to anyone and everyone. I for one, will definitely going back. I've been so lucky, I've absolutely loved both places I've traveled outside of Spain: Lisbon and Dublin. Maybe I just love traveling?! I guess we shall see in the trips to come.
Miss and love you all!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
