Semana Santa/Viajes:

I feel that every time I start writing in my journal the first word that always comes to mind is “wow,” and it really just expresses that feeling I have whenever I think back over the experiences I’ve just recently had, and am still so amazed. I have had so many incredible opportunities to go places and see things I’ve learned about for such a long time, and also to visit places I never imagined I would ever visit. We had the week off of school for Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is a big celebration, especially in Sevilla, of Christ’s death for the whole week leading up to Easter Sunday—in which there ironically isn’t nearly as much celebration of His resurrection and victory over death. During Semana Santa many of the churches, or Hermandades, continue the several hundred year old tradition of participating in processions. My friends and I saw a very small one on the very first night, and we met two older couples from Iowa who asked us what the parade was all about-these are not exactly parades. The churches have large sculptures of Jesus in various stages of His crucifixion which they place on platforms that are then carried by people for hours throughout the city. Also in the processions are nazarenos-penitents-who are dressed in hooded traditional clothing, in colors that represent their Hermandad. There are other nazarenos that carry crosses, and those that are really intense walk barefoot-which can be pretty risky in Sevilla. There are also several other people that walk and carry large candles, incense and crosses and flags, and marching bands that play Semana Santa music. The processions are incredibly long and they will walk their route for hours and hours (typically 6-8 hours, some even longer than that). After the nazarenos and Jesus, another sculpture of the virgin Mary concludes the procession. The tradition is like nothing I’ve ever seen before; and it’s really all just for the sake of tradition, as nearly all of Spain is “culturally catholic” it’s rather hollow and empty.
That Saturday at 1am my friend Andy and I took a bus to Madrid (so we could sleep on the 6 hour ride there) and arrive in Madrid early. We arrived to the bus station in the morning, and with Andy’s direction to the hostel written out we started following the first direction listed. We walked and walked searching for the street we were looking for. After what had been a very long time, we decided to ask an old man walking his dog for help—and he told us that we had basically walked to el campo (the country) (granted the bus station was a short way outside the city center, and the “campo” wasn’t the middle of nowhere). So we turned around and retraced our steps back to the station and then set off in the right direction. We were able to follow the directions much easier from then on—since we were now actually walking toward Madrid…and we walked a long way and finally arrived to our hostel at 10am (so we had walked for a good 2.5-3 hours!). We didn’t really decrease our walking the rest of the trip. We left our stuff at the hostel after a little discussion with the receptionist about the time that we could check in for our reservation (she kept telling us that we had to wait until before 2, which to us, 10am was clearly before 2, so we asked in Spanish if she really meant after 2, but she told us again in Spanish that she meant before, so we gave up and just said we’d be back later to check in). We headed out for the day and our first stop was the Palacio Real. We looked around the outside and then stopped over to a little park to eat our bocadillos before we went inside. The Palacio Real is the epitome of extravagant—the decoration was impressive; paintings, furniture, curtains, chandeliers, everything was so luxurious, and it was so hard to understand that it was really inhabited by the royal family at one time—to think that the king really sat on the throne and used the dressing rooms and everything. We walked from there to the Plaza Mayor-a large square plaza enclosed by red buildings. There is a lot of political history in this plaza, and it now appears to be a very popular place to go hang out. Then we walked through the Puerta del Sol and quickly stopped there. We then went to the Egyptian temple that Kat (my friend from the Acento program) told us that we had to see, and on our way there we stumbled upon the Plaza de España, which has a large structure in the middle with a sculpture of don Quijote and Sancho Panza. We continued on and found the Egyptian temple-which was actually moved from Egypt to Madrid block by block. On our way back from there to the hostel we stopped at a free exhibit of Claude Monet impressionist paintings! We took advantage of “contemplating” the artwork while also resting our feet. We finally got back to the hostel and got checked into our 6-person room, which worked out a lot better than I anticipated. The next day we first went to el Parque del Retiro—an enormous park that was once the private park of the king? (I’m not positive about that). We explored a little and found this really cool Palacio de Cristal, and we also saw the 1st squirrel I’ve seen in Spain. And we also found a part of the park that was full of cats! Then we went to El Prado—for 3 hours! We saw so many famous paintings by Goya, El Greco, Murillo, Velazquez, Rafael, Zurbaran, and lots of others. Then we literally ran over to el Museo de la Reina Sofia to just go in and see Guernica by Picasso.
Then Andy and I parted ways as he caught a bus back to Sevilla and I got on the metro to go to the airport and fly to England to meet Kat (flying in from Italy) and Emily (flying in from Sevilla). I’ve never really thought seriously about going to England, and it was such a cool experience. It was such a huge blessing how everything worked out getting there—that I actually found the right terminal and the Ryanair counter so easily and everything went so smooth. The three of us met at the Stansted airport (a city that is a little over an hour outside London) and just barely made our bus from the airport into London. We were so lucky to have had the driver we did—he really saved us, because when we got dropped off in London, everyone got off the bus and started to go to their destinations, and I pulled out the little map I’d printed off, since we’d planned on walking (which might have been one of our only options since it was almost 2am now…). But the driver asked us if we knew where we were going, looked at the address and said that he was driving that way and offered us a ride! (Thank goodness, because as he drove us there I kept thinking that we never would have made it to the hostel). He was a great first impression of English people—we met a lot of really nice and helpful people and a few really rude ones. We got to the hostel, checked in, found our 12-person room and just crashed. We left really early the next morning and headed out to run around London! We started by going to Hyde Park, which was right across from our hostel and wandered around there for a little while and found some huge swans and the Princess Diana Memorial “fountain”—it looked kind of like a lazy river, and no water was shooting in the air or cascading down something as you might typically think of when you think of a fountain. We left the park and went to Buckingham Palace, where we happened to see the changing of the guards! There were huge crowds of people all around the palace, so we didn’t watch very long and couldn’t see a whole lot. Then we stopped for some Cornish pasties for lunch and then continued on to find the random landmarks we had picked out on the map. We saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the parliament buildings, the London Eye, the London Tower, the London Bridge, and also rode on the metro called the “tube” (mind the gap!). Then we left London that afternoon and took a double decker bus to Oxford-where we stayed two of Kat’s friends from Azusa Pacific University both named Katie. They have been studying in Oxford for the semester and actually came to visit Sevilla. I really like Oxford—it was a lot like I pictured England. London was cool, but it was kind of just like another modern city—at least the glance of it that I had. Oxford was just beautiful—and full of old buildings that make up all the colleges. It was funny how confusing it actually was with the cars driving on the opposite side of the road! In London all of the crossings told you which way to look, which I really appreciated! We just hung out and the Katies’ house that night and then went on our grand tour Tuesday. We went to the Oxford Union—which is a really exclusive club, and I think you have to have attended the university to gain membership. Then we went to a covered market—it was so cute; full of little shops and cafes. We ducked in to get out of England’s only type of weather—rain! Fortunately it didn’t rain too much. Then we took a quick look inside the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin and we walked around some more and then stopped and had tea and scones at a tea place called The Rose. I don’t really like tea, but the scone with cream and strawberry jam was the best I’ve ever had. We had a very rude waitress-she would fit in well in Spain; it’s just such a weird concept to me that these people who work in the service industry can be so rude to their customers. Other than that we had a lovely tea time-so British! Then we visited Katie’s college and I saw the room they used for the Great Hall in the Harry Potter movies!!! It looked totally different-they don’t have the ceiling enchanted all the time, but it was still really cool to be where they filmed it! I was really hoping for some Harry Potter related thing in England. Next we went to Christ Church and took a very quick look around. We then went to the other Katie’s college and walked around there a little while-she told me that they filmed some other scenes (especially Quidditch ones) from HP there too. We went out to a bar that night called the Eagle and Child, where C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien and some other writers would get together and discuss their writing. We left the next morning to attempt to accomplish all of our complicated travels to get back to Sevilla…which turned out to be a little tricky and stressful. We took a double decker bus back to London, and then had to take the metro from where that bus dropped us off to the stop for our bus from London to Stansted. We didn’t really give ourselves enough time and ended up missing our bus to the airport, but they come every 20 minutes, however the priority is obviously given to those who have tickets for that scheduled time. So we waited for the next one and weren’t able to get on it, but luckily there was room on the one after that. We got to the airport and we were frantically running around to get checked in and to make it through security and sprinted to our gate—we were cutting it way too close because the screens were telling us that it was already boarding! But we arrived to our gate out of breath to find a huge line of everyone still waiting to get on the plane. So we celebrated our success/relief/luck and used up all the pounds we had left on us and bought chocolate and candy from a Cadbury vending machine! We were so happy when we got on the plane and knew we had made it-we got into Sevilla and took the bus back from the airport into the city center and then had our normal 45 minute walk home. So the rest of Semana Santa I spent in Sevilla, which is really famous for the celebrations. We saw a lot more processions. Andy, Emily and I even accidentally saw the same one twice in one day. We also saw a few during la madrugada (the very early hours of the morning). We literally met at 2:30am and went to the Puente de Triana to watch it—it was the procession La Esperanza de Triana. It came down the street and was really cool to see at night with the candles and at one point they dropped rose petals from the top of one of the buildings. All of the people were shouting, “Esper-aaan-zaa!” and others would respond with “Guapa! Guapa!” And Jess (my roommate) and I also went to see one the next night with Chari and Walter (our host parents). We walked there all linking arms-it was so precious. We watched the whole paso and then got churros from the stand on the Puente de Triana after-it was some fun family bonding time! Easter Sunday was pretty uneventful, and all the celebrations were really over the night before. Andy, Emily, Daniel (who was now back from his trip) and I went to Parque de los Principes and had some chocolate to celebrate.