Finals week - The family comes!!

Monday was a full day for me.  I had grammar final from 9-11 in the morning and then met Grace on my way home to pick up some final grocery items for our Thank You spaghetti lunch we were making for Rosario.  We decided to make spaghetti, garlic bread and caesar salad for Rosario and even picked up a pastry for dessert.  Rosario was so cute when we told her we wanted to do this for her.  Her response was "Sure...but I didn't think you two could cook." :)  HA HA!  I guess that's what happens when she was making all our meals for us.  The meal turned out really well and Rosario liked it!!  Grace and I were a little worried - of course we wanted to impress her and wanted her to like it...and she did!  The salad was probably the most different thing for her because they don't generally use salad dressing in Spain.  We did the whole bit with the salad - caesar dressing and croutons.  We of course did everything including the cleaning and washing of dishes - it was really fun to try to keep Rosario from doing anything!  I know she appreciated it.
After lunch I had to head out right away to walk to school with Lindsey as we had our finals at the same time.  We planned to do a little studying at the school before hand.  This was my history final.  Something that is different for studying for exams that are in Spanish is that not only do you need to know the material, but you need to know the words in Spanish to explain the material.  Thankfully we were allowed to have a dictionary with us for the exam, but you still needed to know most of the words because you didn't always have the time to look up many words.
It felt so good to be done with both my finals in that one day and I believe they went well. :)  That night some of my friends and I went out for tapas -a place that had been on some peoples list.


Tuesday was a beach day for me.  Juanlu, my language partner, has a beach house/apartment as many Sevillianas do to escape the heat during the summer.  We had talked about going for the whole semester and finally found this day that worked for me.  It was a lot of fun - the waves were amazing and the beach he had us go to was a smaller, beautiful beach.  It was near where I had ridden horses along the beach back in March.


Wednesday was quite an exciting day for me.  I woke up in the morning to begin packing up my things (this was not the exciting part - and quite sad/emotional....my shuffle play on iTunes also seemed to reflect this as it kept playing sad songs!)  Late morning I had to leave to go to the school to turn in my cell phone and internet.   After that I headed to the apartment where my family would be staying to get the key and check them in as they were going to be getting in late that night.  I don't think I fully realized that my family was actually going to be in Spain until I finally saw them there! :)


There was more packing and such before the evening when I met my friends for ice cream at another favorite place called Nice Cream.  You can't go wrong with a place called "Nice Cream" :)  After the ice cream we headed to the school for the goodbye partying that the school was hosting.  Sadly I could only stay for the first ten minutes because my family's flight was coming in at that time as well.  Juanlu was kind enough to drive me to the airport so that I could have those ten minutes at the party to say goodbye to friends and then he also helped get my family to the apartment so we only had to take one taxi.  When Juanlu dropped me off at the airport to park, I was walking to the door of the airport and suddenly heard "TERESA!" and my brain hardly had a second to comprehend what was going on as Daniel leaped into my arms with one of his great big hugs!  That was the BEST feeling ever!!  Jessica was next with Eli following close behind - they were here!  I walked over to where Mom and Dad were standing with the luggage - lots of hugs and "Bienviendos a Espana!" :)  It was SOOO fun to see them, Here - with me - in Spain.  Dad, Daniel and I took a taxi and Mom and the girls rode with Juanlu to the apartment.  The apartment was very close to plaza/square place called the Alemeda de Hercules.  It was about 10:30pm when we were settling into the apartment, but none of us had supper yet.  So, we went out for tapas at a place nearby.  It was quite an experience being the "expert" in these things - ordering for everyone.  It seemed to work out well and everyone was happy with the food.


Thursday morning Mom, Dad, Eli and I walked to Rosario's (50 minutes - way to go family!) to pick up my things.  We were going to have a snack and meet/greet with Rosario the next day when her wall was finished being fixed.  Juanlu met us there with his car to help move my very heavy suitcase.  Of course I had told Rosario she didn't need to do anything, that we would just stop by and grab my things...but once we got there she had to pull out of doughnuts and make some coffee.  My parents and Eli were able to meet Grace quickly as well and we made plans to meet up with her later that afternoon since she would be leaving the next morning and wouldn't be able to be there when we came back to see Rosario.  Grace and I were constantly translating between the family and Rosario - it was actually quite fun :)


We did some grocery shopping when we got back, Mom made lunch, and then we headed out to walk around a bit and show off a few things.  I showed the family my school and we also stopped by Juanlu's hostel that he owns because it was right around the corner.  We also did a little shopping for souvenirs/gifts.  We had planned to go to the Cathedral that day but because of a special celebration it closed early.  Right before we were going to meet with Grace it began to downpour.  That was sad because it limited where we were able to go with her.  We met in this one cafeteria and decided to ordered some pastries and ice cream from there.  Sadly we ran into some bad costumer service and weren't able to sit down with the ice cream - so we ended up walking to our school and sitting there.  It turned out to be very nice because we could sit and chat.  I had to say good-bye to Grace after that - not fun, but at least she's only in Illinois and we'll be able to get together.


We headed back to the apartment after that to get ready for supper.  Juanlu came over for supper that night and beforehand we played hide-and-go-seek at Daniel's request.  We had to be quite creative in that small apartment, but it was fun.  The family seemed to be adjusting to the time difference fairly well, but the mornings were a little harder for everyone to get going.  They were all troopers though and I learned a lot about the difference of traveling with 1-2 people and changing to 6 people.


Friday after lunch Dad, Jessica, Eli, and I headed to the center to buy our train tickets for the next day to Malaga (final destination Torremolines - a town close to Malaga).  After buying them we went to visit the Cathedral.  This was special for Jessica because she did a project on Spain before coming and one of the things she researched was the Cathedral.  We returned to the apartment after that visit to pick up Mom and Daniel.  We headed to Plaza de Espana & Parque Maria Luisa because they are two of my favorite places and so beautiful.  Also, a part of Star Wars was filmed in Plaza de Espana so I was sure to show him that clip later and he thought it was pretty cool to walk where the actors from the movie walked.


We took the metro to Rosario's for a "mariendo" or snack in the mid-afternoon.  She had quite a spread and the table set nice.  We somehow manage to all fit around the small table that generally just held Grace, Rosario and myself for so many meals before.  Translating went very well for my still learning Spanish and 6 other people in the room that were all monolingual.  Rosario was her perfect self - keeping up conversation, but interrupting herself to say how beautiful or cute one of my little siblings were.  We were there for a couple hours and near the end we exchanged gifts.  My family had brought a wide variety of things, but what Rosario loved the most was the quilt made by some of the women of our church - she absolutely loved it.  She gave the family a sculpture of a flamenco (Spanish) dancer.  Then it was time for goodbye.  Rosario and I hugged as we both cried - we really cried.  I can't explain the feeling of having her sobbing in my arms...it made my tears flow even faster.  I was saying goodbye to a woman who had been my "Spanish Mom", my guardian, my friend - who had opened her home and heart to me right from the beginning - who didn't miss a beat with helping me enter into this new culture and new place --- she had been a constant for 3 1/2 months and now it was going to be an abrupt change of not seeing her at all.  I must go back to Sevilla for the sole purpose of visiting her.


We met up with Juanlu on her our way back from Rosario's because we were going to walk the river at night - one of my other favorite places in Sevilla.  The view of the Triana Bridge designed by Eiffel at night with the lights of the city and the bridge as they reflect off the water is breathtaking.  We took a few fun pictures, enjoyed the view and walk, and then headed back to the apartment for one more game before heading to bed.

Saturday morning was a packing day and we checked out of our apartment around noon.  We were able to leave our baggage there until we needed to leave for the train station.  We headed to see some Roman ruins that had been discovered at a place where they had began building a structure in Sevilla.  After that we found a restaurant to get some tapas to eat and finished that off with a stop at my favorite ice cream place - Rayas.  The family had to experience the best ice cream before we left Sevilla. :)  After the ice cream we headed back to our apartment to get a luggage and then take two taxis to the train station.  We had a 5:00 train to Malaga and from there we had to take a local train to Torremolinos where our next hotel was.  When we arrived there the woman from our hotel was very kind and met us at the train station so that she could show us how to arrive at the hotel from there (and she also brought her car so that she could take our luggage for us).  We settled in that night and walked near the beach (about a 5 minute walk) where there were restaurants and had supper.  That was about all for that night as it was late and we were tired from the traveling.

Spaghetti Thank-You lunch for Rosario

With my gifts from Rosario - a beautiful shawl and Sevilla mug

Waiting in line for the Cathedral with my beautiful sisters - in SPAIN!

The family at Plaza de Espana!!!!

The Family meets Rosario!

Ice Cream at Rayas! - One last time :)

Last Week of Classes

****So yes, I am in MN as I'm finishing up these blog posts, but I do want to get the rest of my trip up here so you all can get most of the story :) ****


The last week of classes came quickly and went by quickly.  I really believe in the last month of my time Spain everything really seemed to fall into place and we all started to feel more and more settled/comfortable there (which is kind of a bummer since it was just before we all had to leave!).


I had a special birthday dinner with Rosario and Grace Monday night and then Lindsey and her host mother Loli (who is a good friend of Rosario's) came over for cake.  It was SO precious and FUNNY!  We were all laughing so hard...I think Grace, Lindsey and I had smiles on our faces the whole time just watching Loli and Rosario talk and interact - they are such a whoot!  Loli gave me a cute little pouch with a bracelet - she kept saying "Oh, it's a stupid little thing - nothing special."  If you know Loli that just fits with what she would say - of course I kept telling her that it was special to me. :)  Rosario gave me a Spanish cookbook because she knew I was living in apartment with friends this summer and that we have to make all our food.  I told her that I would have to try our some new Spanish recipes with my friends.


These last two weeks there was a lot of rushing to get all the things we wanted to do before we left done.  We were all making our lists and trying to figure out when and how to get them done.  There was a lot of ice cream eating, beautiful place visiting, and picture taking.  One of the things on my list was to get to a soccer game.  I had been trying to go for a long time with my language partner Juanlu because he is a member of the soccer club of his favorite team (Real Betis of Sevilla), but I was always gone on trips when they had games.  Luckily they had a home game the Wednesday of this week and he got us tickets.  WOW - the game and the fans were SOOOOOO much fun!!!  There was so much cheering and singing - you just HAD to get into the spirit!! My kind of game! :)  To top it off - Betis won 3-1 and has now ascended into the first division!  There was a lot of celebrating at the end of the game and a ton of fans rushed the field.  Very fun to watch! :)


Friday there was a beach day trip that we could go on with our school.  We were in the providence of Huelva in the south of Spain.  First we went to La Rábida which is a Franciscan Monastery where Christopher Columbus had visited and stayed because a friar there had helped with the plans of the journey and helped to get Columbus permission from Isabel.  We also saw the three life-size replicas of the Niña, Pinta, and the Santa Maria.  We were able to climb on board and check them out.  My friends and I decided that we would not enjoy traveling across the ocean in one of these ships...they were actually pretty small.  After these visits we headed to the beach called Mazagón.  Thankfully, for this beach trip we had perfect weather!  The sun was hot and the water was cool.  The waves of the ocean were amazing and a lot of fun to ride - you just have to remember that this water is SALTY!  :)  There really is no feeling like getting really warm on the beach, jumping into the ocean, and then going back to warm up in the sun again - I JUST LOVE IT!  We did have to be more careful with the sun in Spain - it is definitely a lot stronger there...in other words - many applications of sun screen. :) The hours passed quickly on the beach and we headed back to Sevilla and arrived around 7.


The studying for finals began this weekend.  I had two finals left (I took my Sevillanas dance final during this week).  I was able to do a little studying outside on our terrace, but mostly in the morning and in the shade.  It started to get really hot in Sevilla those last couple weeks and it became almost unbearable outside in the afternoon.  Though, it wasn't much better inside as we did not have air conditioning in our house and our room seemed to capture the heat and hold it in late into the evening.  The ceiling fan helped some.


My system for studying was work hard during the day and then go out and relax in the evening.  It worked well.  We met up with some friends for the evenings and one of the nights explored a outside club.  I guess that's how many of them are during the summer in Sevilla because it is so hot.  I studied hard for the weekend and had both of my finals on Monday.......the last week in Spain to come on the next post!


More pictures :)

My b-day cake from Rosario :)

LOVED this b-day party!!

Betis game!
This kind of captures the moment, but you really had to be there!

In the gardens of the monestary

Kristine and I by the Santa Maria

Italia! Rome and Assisi

I made it to Italy!!! A dream come true :)
The weekend of May 5-8 (Thursday-Sunday) I went on a trip to Rome with a day trip from there to Assisi with my roommate, Grace.  It was an amazing trip - just perfect!  We didn´t have much time to plan before we left - such as specifics of what we wanted to do.  This turned out to be okay because we did decide that we didn´t want to be rushed and running around the whole time, trying to get everything done.  We wanted to take our time, enjoy the city, just enjoy being there and soak it all in.  I think we did a good job at seeing things, but also just enjoying it all.  The first day we walked a lot of the city seeing Plaza Navona, the Pantheon, St. Ignazio church, and Templo Adriano.  We tossed our coins in the Trevi Fountain which means we will be coming back :)  It´s amazing how refreshing the fountain was even though there were so many people there - the power of water.  The Spanish Steps were probably one of my favorite places of the day - they were just so beautiful.  We got gelato on the way home (their form of ice cream which is creamy and absolutely delicious!)  Being the ice cream lovers that we are, we decided that we would have gelato every day :)  It´s just a must when you are in Italy.

We very much enjoyed the dining in Italy.  Every meal we tried something new - either pasta or pizza...mostly pasta.  We made sure we tried branching out and usually it was a great success.  Every restaurante felt so special to.  The environment and spirit of Rome is so much fun and fulfilling.  We thought of many words to describe Rome/Italy such as precious, beautiful, classic, has character, and romantic.

The second day we went to Vatican city.  We went to the Vatican museums first - the line was very long, but moved relatively quickly.  The museum were very vast and full of so much to see!  There were many sculptures and painting, a map room, and so much.  It was very interesting.  We also saw the Sistine Chapel!!!  It´s so crazy to say that.  As my mom told me, it does seem smaller then you think it is going to be, but it is still quite amazing when you think about all the work that had to be done to complete it!  After the museums and Sistine chapel we stopped for lunch.  We were able to eat outside (as we did many times) because the weather was great the whole weekend!  After lunch we went to the Bisiclia.  WOW - it was so big, it just kept going in every direction.  We made sure we sent a postcard from the Vatican post office so that we can say we sent something from the post office in the smallest city. :)
Our next stop was the Colosseum.  We had looked up the hours online and it wasn't suppose to close until 7.  We got there at 4:30 and then saw a sign that said "Today, May 6th we will close at 1:00"  SUPER BUMMER!  Of course this was the only day we had time to go....at least we were able to see the outside and we peaked in through openings to see what we could of the inside.  We did check out some of the Roman ruins that were nearby.
We explored Rome a little by night this second night - we returned to Plaza Navona and enjoyed the street performers, the art, and the fountain.  Just walking the streets was fun and beautiful - the character of Rome is wonderful!

Saturday we had a day-trip planned to Assisi - the hometown of St. Francis.  SUCH a precious and beautiful town.  It is a small/old town, but still very intact.  There were flowers perfectly randomly placed on the walls and outsides of buildings, the views were amazing, and the spirit of the village was fresh and alive.  We thoroughly enjoyed just walking around and soaking up the place.  There was some sort of festival going on, but we never found out what it was because the information booth was closed...though many people were dressed up in medieval attire and I think it had something to do with the coming of spring.  We visited the Basilica´s of St. Clare and St. Francis along with their crypes.   Both were very beautiful.  St. Francis´Basilica is unique in the fact that the ceilings are lower than many I´ve seen and the walls are covered in paintings...it had a very homey and comforting feel yet it was still very large.  Assisi treated us well with beautiful sites, good food, energy, and a couple funny stories including that the men in Assisi loved us!  When we stopped to take a picture they offered to take a picture for us and jumped in the picture as well!
The train ride home was fun as we met a women from Italy who sat across from us.  Between her Italian and the little Spanish and English she spoke and our Spanish and English, we were able to have a conversation.  We also had a funny interaction with a man from Peru.  He kept speaking Italian to us and we kept speaking Spanish until he figured out that we couldn´t speak or understand Italian very well, but he couldn´t understand out Spanish...it was very weird.

Saturday night we went out for my birthday (which was Sunday).  We found a cute little restaurante, ordered some yummy pasta, and some white wine.  I´ve always said I was going to have a class of wine served to me on my birthday by some cute Italian waiter...well, the cute Italian waiter didn´t really happen (older gentleman :) ) and when we tried to order half a glass for each of us...we got half a liter :)  Oh well...it still happened and it was in Italy! :)

Sunday morning we woke up early and checked out to leave for a different part of Rome (about an hour bus ride from the center) to a church where a friend of mom, LeeAnn, works with the priest don Carlo.  We attended mass there at 10, visited the mountain town of Frascati, and had a lovely birthday lunch with don Carlo, LeAnn, don Carlo´s sister, another nun, and his fully present/funny mother who is 108 years old!  I had various fun surprises this day for my birthday.  First of all, when I got there don Carlo busted out of his office singing "Happy Birthday" to me in Italian carrying a rose that was bought compliments of my family back home .  Then, at the end of the mass (which was an AMAZING mass by the way...full of singing and participation - something I´ve missed!) during the closing song don Carlo was going around to people with birthdays and we were singing...well LeeAnn pulled Grace and I up to the front and I was introduced and song to :)  Then, at lunch I was sang to two more times...once when I got there and once when they gave me the cake they had for me and the bouquet of chocolate eggs for my gift.  The meal was phenomenal - homemade pasta, chicken, eggplant, and bread sticks.  We laughed and talked and it felt just like the Italian family meals you see in the movies.  The cake they got for me was in the form of a dove and is only available around Easter time.  It was such a pleasant day and a birthday to remember!!  Italy did not let me down at all!

The birthday celebrations didn´t end for me there.  I had to do a little something in Sevilla and well.  There happened to be fireworks that night so I went to those with friends and went out with some of my friends afterwards.  A 21st birthday in two different countries with many fun experiences...nothing can beat that!

Pictures!!

Grace and I in front of the Pantheon

Vatican City

The Colosseum that we couldn't enter

At Assisi - look at that view!

The men just flocked to us! Ha ha ha!

Oh the beauty!

At the church that don Carlo and LeeAnn serve at

My home-made Italian b-day lunch...cake and gifts (and a gift for Grace too!)

The group! (left to right) Back: don Carlo's sister, me, Grace, don Carlo
Front: don Carlo's 108 year-old mother, a nun friend

picture with LeeAnn and my rose from the family back home!

We were very sad to leave Italy - we are going to return!

Portugal and Feria

Well, as you´ve noticed, I´m a little behind on the blog.  It´s been really busy here with all the end of my time here and wanting to fit everything in.  Also the festival Ferria here took up a lot of time - a lot of fun time! :)

The first weekend of May (Saturday-Monday) I went on a trip to the beaches of Portugal - los largos - with the school.  Our weekend was suppose to consist of mostly free days on the beautiful beaches, but sadly it rained every day.  This changed our plans for the trip.  We still had a fun time - making the most of it.  We were able to spend a little time on the beach for part of the first day, with only one time where we had to run into a cave for shelter.  The sun did come out for a little bit.  We also enjoyed our time in the little town where we found a fun restaurant and made a friend with the waiter.  We ate the biggest and best hamburgers we´ve had here and also met two men from London when we went out to sing karoke.  The second day it was raining as well and since we couldn´t be on the beach - we went for a visit to a nearby town that had castle.  The castle was interesting, but pretty small.  We also ate lunch in this town which turned out to be a lot of fun because my group of friends and I found a cute little family owned restaurant.  The family was actually have their Sunday dinner in the restaurant and we were the only other people there.  The food was AMAZING and we found out really cheap as well.  The mother was our waitress and was just so kind.  We had a lot of fun peaking over at the cute family together.  They also gave us a free dessert after we had said we were okay without a dessert - so sweet!  Right before we were going to leave, it began to downpour so we had to wait.  The family then brought us out these little classes of liquor to "warm us in the rain".  It was such a sweet and touching gesture - we definitely experienced some wonderful hospitatlity there and we all left with smiles on our faces and just the special/happy feeling you have after something like that happens.  Our streak of free dessert continued when we were able to convice the waiter we met the night before that we deserved free dessert this second night because we recommended the place to a lot of the other students and almost everyone came the second night - free ice cream sundaes! :)

Monday we headed to another town called Albuferia where we had most of the day free for the beach (or as it turned out eating and shopping because it rained again for most of the time)  We started on the beach, but we were sitting with our umbrellas because it kept sprinkling on and off.  That was a new sight - large groups of people, sitting on their towels on the beach with umbrellas :)  To pass some time a friend and I who are in the dance class learning Sevillianas (the tradiation dance that is danced at the festival Ferria) began teaching some of our friends how to do that dance on the beach.  It was funny because there was a couple people who actually stopped to watch us!  ha ha.  We had to make sure we were prepared for Ferria!

Something interesting we noticed in both places we visited in Portugal is that we hardly ever if never heard Portuguese.  They are such well known tourist places (expecially for the British) that everyone spoke English.  We even met a waiter for one of the restaurants that was from London and only spoke English - yet he was able to get a job there even though he didn´t know Portuguese.  Something interesting.

La Feria

You can read a good description of this at this website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville_Fair
"Feria" means "Fair" in Spanish and that is what it is for a week here.  They have the rides and attractions like we have at fairs, but the main part of Ferria are the tents that are all set up.  There are public and private tents.  The public tents anyone can enter, but the private tents are owned by families or businesses and you have to know someone of the tent (or sometimes have tickets) to enter.  In the tents there are bars where you can buy food and the drink of Feria is a strong white wine called "manzanilla" that is mixed with 7up and the drink is called "rebujito".  In the tents people sit, eat/drink, talk, and dance Sevillianas.  There is sometimes live music or otherwise it is played over a stereo.  Many of the women are dressed in flamenco dresses where are pretty funky dresses, but are so beautiful at Ferria.  Some of the men dress in a traditional dress as well, but many do not - many will be in suits or collared shirts.  I was able to go to Feria Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night.  Monday I only went to see the lighting of the door of Feria that symbolized the start.  Tuesday and Wednesday night were a lot longer for me, but a lot of fun.  I was lucky that Rosario´s daughter had a dress I could wear, so I got to get all dressed up in the flamenco dress with a flower in my hair.  Many of my friends were able to get dresses too, so we had a lot of fun going out together.  Another luck that I had, is my language partner Juanlu´s family had a private tent (this is not super common) and some of his friends had tents as well.  We were able to hang out with him and his friends so that we were able to go to the private tents which are smaller, but more fun because you can actually sit down and dance and such.  I am so glad that I took the dance class so that I was able to dance a lot!  VERY FUN!  I also got a lot of compliments about my dancing which made me feel good :)  I really did the Spanish thing Tuesday and Wednesday night as I did get home until 3:30am Tuesday night (and had to wake up at 7:30 for class in the morning) and 2.30 on Wednesday night (and Grace and I had to wake up at 4am to leave for our flight to Rome the next day).  I was able to run on the energy of Spain and Rome and of course the little naps I could fit in :)

Pictures!!

Beach weekend....with jeans, jackets, and umbrellas?

Beach in Los Lagos that our hotel was next to

Walking the beach with our umbrellas

The rain has stopped and the sun is coming! We are hopeful :)

Rude Boy burger - it's HUGE

Katies at the castle

The end of the world! :)

Our group - LOVE THESE LADIES!

The lighting of the door at Feria

Dressed in a Flamenco dress for Feria that Rosario made for her daughter some years ago.

At Feria in our flamenco dresses!

Semana Santa (Holy Week)

I was on my London/Slovakia trip for the first part of Holy Week (see the former blog post), but returned Wednesday night to Sevilla.  That night Rosario, Grace (my roommate), and I went to see one of the processions that was going to be in our neighborhood.  Rosario goes and sees this procession every year because it is from the church that we go to.  To explain briefly I’m going to copy and paste a great summary from the internet about Holy Week in Sevilla and add in my own comments.

Holy Week in Seville (Semana Santa de Sevilla) is one of the most important traditional events of the city. It is celebrated in the week leading up to Easter (Holy Week among Christians), and is one of the better known religious events within Spain. This week features the procession of pasos, floats of lifelike wooden sculptures of individual scenes of the events of the Passion, or images of the Virgin Mary showing restrained grief for the torture and killing of her Son. Some of the sculptures are of great antiquity and are considered artistic masterpieces, as well as being culturally and spiritually important to the local Catholic population.  There are processions everyday (around 6-8)

During Holy Week, the city is crowded with residents and visitors, drawn by the spectacle and atmosphere. The impact is particularly strong for the Catholic community.

The processions are organized by hermandades and cofradías, religious brotherhoods. During the processions, members precede the pasos (of which there are up to three in each procession) dressed in penitential robes, and, with few exceptions, hoods. (in the pictures you’ll see that the robes may remind you of the KKK – it is important to remember that they have NOTHING to do with that and the KKK copied this clothing style) They may also be accompanied by brass bands.  The pasos are carried by men that are underneath and supporting the weight on the back of their neck.  The men cannot see anything and are directed by a person’s voice in front of them – it is quite amazing.  You can only see their feet as the paso goes by. 

The processions work along a designated route from their home churches and chapels to the Cathedral, usually via a central viewing area and back. The processions from the suburbanbarrios may take 14 hours to return to their home churches.

As of 2009, a total of 60 processions are scheduled for the week, from Palm Sunday through to Easter Sunday morning. The climax of the week is the night of Holy Thursday, when the most popular processions set out to arrive at the Cathedral on the dawn of Good Friday, known as the madrugá. (Wikipedia) The idea of the procession is that they are going to the Cathedral to ask for penance.

Back to the procession that we saw Wednesday – I was a little surprised by it.  I guess I had imagined something more formal and serious in how it was done, but there were people walking through the processions and the people of the procession would stop and talk or lean on their candles.  I’m not sure if it’s because the processions are so long and they had been walking for a while so they were less formal.  Also we weren’t in the center of the city so I don’t know if they are more formal there – but it still thought it was interesting.  Though when the paso of Christ or the Virgin Mary came – people seemed to pay attention more.  The pasos are quite beautiful and amazing to see especially as they go by.

Even though I was really tired Wednesday night I am very glad I went to see that procession (we left at about 11:30pm to see it and didn’t get home until after 12:30am) because the rest of the week it was raining!  We had some very bad luck this Holy Week because if it rains, the processions do not happen because the pasos are very old and valuable (some are made with gold) and cannot get wet.  Therefore no processions occurred the rest of the week except for one on Saturday and the Resurrection one on Sunday.  VERY SAD!!!  It wasn’t a light rain either – a down pour!  So, we had to spend most of our vacation in our room…quite sad.  It is sadder for all the people of the processions though because they prepare all year for this and then they didn’t even get to do their processions.  I guess many people were crying about this because it’s such a strong tradition here.

Friday night I went to worship with Rosario and Grace.  It was a longer worship service (about 2 hours) where there were longer readings and longer prayers.  Also there was a part of the service where a man walked up the center of the church holding up the cross with two people on either side of him with large candles.  They all stood at the front of the church and then everyone came up to the cross, bowed and kissed it.  I sadly missed what the priest said before this happened, so I don’t know the full meaning behind it besides what I can think of on my own.

Saturday we did see the one procession that happened – it was a small one, but still nice to see.  It began to rain while they were going by which meant they started to move VERY quickly!  It was almost comical how quickly the Virgin Mary booked it past us!  Sunday morning some of us went to Easter mass in the Cathedral.  We got there early because we wanted to make sure we would have seats – little did we know that it we didn’t have to be there that early.  We found out that Easter is not as big of a deal here.  There is a stronger concentration on the Passion of Christ than the Resurrection for the people.  The mass seemed like any other mass except that there were many flowers and of course the readings and message were the Easter message.  Many of my friends and I talked about how it really didn’t feel like Easter – we had to keep reminding ourselves.  I have to say I missed the traditions and celebrations of home for Holy Week, but I also think it didn’t help that many of the traditions here did not happen because of the weather.

Well, now I’m back in classes.  There are only three weeks left of classes counting this week and then we have finals week.  Though next week we only have two days of classes (Tuesday and Wednesday) because Monday is a holiday and the whole week is a festival here called Feria (I’ll explain more in the blog for that week).  Most schools in Spain do not have school all week, but we have it for two days.  I can’t believe the semester is almost over!

Here are a few pictures from this week!

Paso of the Virgin Mary at the first procession

Little drummer boys from the second procession

Paso of Christ

Flamenco show with Lindsey and her family

Night out with friends (Juanlu my language partner, Grace my roomamte, and Alicia)

Easter Sunday mass at the Cathedral

London and Martin, Slovakia! AMAZING TRIP!

I had an extended trip planned for the beginning part of our spring/Easter break here.  I left on Thursday, April 14^th after classes with my friend Chelsia to fly to London.  I think it took until we were landed and driving to our hostel that it finally sunk in for both of us that we were in London!  We had a little bit of culture shock when we got there as London is much more fast paced than Sevilla – we felt like the slow walkers there where in Sevilla we always seem to be the ones walking fast.  It is a bustling city, but so beautiful as well.  We weren’t settled into our hostel which was in Piccadilly Circus (highly recommend this location) until around 7:30-8:00pm and we had to find internet to make some plans and print some things so that first evening we didn’t get to do much.  Thankfully we had a great roommate in the hostel named Jason who was actually from London and he gave us a bunch of tips.  Also, I had a bunch of information from Cousin Suzanne from her many trips to London which was super helpful as well.  We were left with two full days (Friday and Saturday) and then Chelsia would leave for Paris in the morning on Sunday and I would have part of the day for myself until I left for the airport around 2:30.  In those two days we packed in a lot, but also found out that it was not nearly enough time to get everything done that we wanted.

We started out Friday by going to Leicester square to the booth called “tkts” where you can buy discounted, same-day tickets to the theatre.  We were told that they would for sure be open by 10, but we wanted to get there a little earlier just in case they opened earlier so we could make it to our free walking tour at 11 that was a little walking distance away.  We were there at about 9:30 and they weren’t opened yet.  A little before 10 they put out the list of shows they had tickets for and how much they would cost.  We immediately saw Billy Elliot (a musical I have wanted to see) and it was on a good discount too!  It was about quarter after 10 and we were wondering why they weren’t open.  Another older couple had come by this time and were waiting with us.  When one of the workers came out Chelsia asked him if they were going to open (because we had to leave really soon to make it to our tour on time).  He gave us kind of a weird look and said “yes, at 10:00.”  Just then it hit me – we hadn’t changed our watches back!  So really it was only 9:15!!  We were so embarrassed!  We realized that now when we thought our plane was late and we weren’t going to make it for our bus to the city within an hour of our scheduled time (we were running in the airport) and we’d have to pay for another ticket – we were actually exactly on time for our bus.  We also realized that we could have slept another hour (which would have been nice because we hadn’t had much sleep the night before and went to bed kind of late that evening)!  So many things began to make sense!  Oh funny!  It turned out to be a good thing in the long run though because we were first in line for the tickets and a long line formed fairly quickly before 10:00.  We also met some nice people at the front of the line.  We went to get our tickets for Billy Elliot thinking that the seats might not be good and then we’d have to decide if they were worth the cost.  I asked the man “We’d like two tickets to Billy Elliot, but how are the seats?”  His response: “How does third row sound?”  WHY YES!!!  THANK YOU!! :)  We were VERY excited after this!!  I think anything could have happened after that and it wouldn’t have been able to ruin my day :)  Live theatre will do that to me.

We had our free walking tour of many of the royal buildings in London.  Our tour guy was Irish – I thought that was kind of funny…getting a London tour by an Irish man.  We saw Hyde Park corner, Buckingham palace, Clarence house (where the Prince of Whales lives), St. Jame’s Palace (home of Henry VIII), Trafalgar Square, Horse Carriage Parade (and saw 10 Downy Street), Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the House of Parliament.  We didn’t enter any of these buildings of course, but we saw them all and learned a little about them.  After the tour we headed to the London Eye where we had tickets to go on at 3:00.  If you don’t know, the London Eye is a huge ferris wheel looking thing that you can go on and it’s the highest point in London – so you can see a lot of the city.  It was quite amazing to see.  After that we slowly walked back to the hostel, stopping to watch some street performers, get some sandwiches from a supermarket, and sit in Covent Gardens (an area with markets and street performers) to eat.  We stopped at our hostel briefly to get ready to head to the theatre for the 7:30 performance.  Billy Elliot was showing at Victoria Palace theatre which was near Buckingham palace and a little over half an hour walk from our hostel.  The show was three hours long and yet did not seem long enough :) It was AMAZING!!!  The choreography, singing, dancing, actors, story – all good!!  I wanted to watch over again right away! :)  We decided we wanted to try to go to another musical the next night – why not?  We are in London! :)

We woke up the next morning to get tickets for another musical.  We decided on Grease because we knew where the theatre was and we couldn’t get tickets for Wicked from this place (our first choice).  After getting tickets (9^th row center – perfect!) we headed to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard.  If you ever plan to do this – get there early!  We were lucky and were there at 10:30 because we thought it started at 11:00 (but it actually didn’t start until 11:30).  This was a good thing though because at 10:30 there were already a good amount of people and they came quickly after that.  We wouldn’t have been able to see anything had we come five minutes later.  The changing of the guard was interesting to see – very ceremonial and I think it would have been even more interesting if I knew the significance behind some of the things they were doing.  The actual changing of the guard is very easy to miss as it is done kind of behind the scenes while a band is performing and other things are going on.  I just happen to look back as the changing was going on – otherwise I’m sure I would have missed it! :)

After the changing of the guard we headed back to Westminster Abbey because we thought we might like to go inside, but the line was VERY long and the price was pretty expensive.  So we took some more time to see the outside before heading back to our hostel to move to our second hostel for the last night.  Our second hostel was in the northern part of London and a lot farther away from everything.  Thankfully I had become a master at the metro system and the map – so we were fine getting there.  After checking into our hostel we had a meal at a little local café and then were figuring out our plans.  We wanted to go to one of the open markets, but the one we were planning on going to was much farther away than I thought and we didn’t have time.  So, we just headed straight to the London Tower and the Tower Bridge.  Many probably know this (but we did not) that the London Tower is actually a castle – not just a tower. :)  Also the Tower Bridge is beautiful with some fun blue accents.  We were able to go on the Tower Bridge and from there we could see the London bridge – nothing special to see about this bridge, but we of course had to sing “London bridge is falling down” while we were looking at it.

We passed through Covent Gardens again on our way to the theatre for Grease.  Our seats for Grease were amazing – probably even better than Billy Elliot.  Though I think it was hard to have Grease follow Billy Elliot because Billy Elliot was so good.  Grease was very good too – live theatre, amazing voices, but it was a little on the cheesy side on how they did some of the acting.  Still live theatre -- I could go to a theatre performance every night!!  The next morning we had to wake up early so that we could leave the hostel before 8 as Chelsia had to be at the train station before 9 for her train to Paris and we wanted to stop and see Platform 9 ¾ from Harry Potter that was at the King’s Cross Station.  After Chelsia left I had some time where I tried to go to the British Library, but it wasn’t open until 11 and I already had plans to go to the Palm Sunday service at St. Paul’s Cathedral at 11.  I took my time getting there and then looked inside before the service.  The service began in the square next to the Cathedral where we all had crosses made from palms and there was a procession with the pastors, boys/men’s choir, two donkeys and many children with palms.  I respectfully did not take pictures as was asked in the bulletin, but many people did.  I had an great view from a monument in the center of the square and it was interesting to think about how it would be if Jesus entered this city in this present time – I think it would be like I saw with many hands raised up with cameras and video cameras trying to capture what was going on, everyone moving to try to get a look.  I have to say it was kind of refreshing to have a service again in English and with a bulletin so I could participate.  The choir was phenomenal!  I also had a great seat in the Cathedral and during the sharing of the peace I’m pretty sure everyone I shook hands with was from a different country or had a different ethnic background – it was an amazing feeling!  I had a smile on my face and such a peaceful feeling after that…wonderful.  So much to reflect on after that service, but this blog post is getting pretty long so I’ll leave it at that for here.

After the service I looked around for a little bit, and then headed to Hyde Park which was near where I would be taking a bus to the airport at 2:30 to leave for Slovakia to visit a family that I got to know my first summer working at Mount Carmel.  I bought a picnic lunch at a supermarket to eat in the park and spent some time near a fountain eating my lunch and writing in my journal.  It was very relaxing after the other two very busy days.

I arrived in Bratislava, Slovakia at around 9:30pm and Adrian was waiting for me at the airport.  We had a little bit of a drive to Martin, Slovakia where they live and didn’t get there until around midnight.  Of course we went to bed right away.  Monday morning I had breakfast with Natalia and Timko (the son) and then had a tour of the apartment, Bible School, and part of the city of Martin.  I was able to see other friends from Slovakia that were at Mount Carmel last summer as well – Gabika who worked with us and Jozef, Mlada and their children who were a family that came for a couple weeks.  That was a lot of fun because they didn’t know I was coming so it was quite a surprise for them when I ran into them!  The Bible school and city of Martin is so beautiful, peaceful, and welcoming.  I really liked it.  We walked around the city a little bit with Natalia’s friend Viviana and her baby and stopped at a restaurant that had an outdoor jungle gym for Timko and I could try the Slovak equivalent of coke called Kafola.  It was pretty good for a coke type drink as I don’t usually drink that.  It was great just to sit, relax, and talk.  Natalia made us lunch of chicken and this delicious rice and Viviana brought a yummy cake for dessert.  I was also able to go see their houses that they are building together in the village near by – what fun!  Also, that afternoon there was an Easter concert with the children of the Bible school and Terezka had a solo – so of course we went to that.  SOO adorable and it brought me back to memories of camp with the guitars and the singing.  Terezka sang the second verse of “Jesus Loves Me” adorably and had a huge smile on her face when she saw me.  The last song was “Lord I Lift your Name on High” sung in Slovak—absolutely amazing. :)  After the concert I had Terezka on my arm for the rest of my visit and I loved it.  We played together with her friend (I was a horse named Buttercup) and colored/drew many pictures to share with each other.  We ended the night with a bedtime story and nighttime prayers before the little ones headed off to bed.  Then that evening Viviana and her husband Bohdan came over for a little bit.  We talked and ate – it was fun.  Bohdan made the comment that he felt bad that here I was sitting with 4 “old people” for any evening – “how boring.”  I assured him that I actually really liked it! :)

Tuesday we went on a little trip together.  We left around 10:30 to see the castle Bojnice which was about an hour away.  The ride over was a lot of fun because I was in the back between the two car seats and the songs they played for the kids were the songs I listened to as a child (My Brother Eats Bugs, There’s a Cow Parked in my Driveway, etc.) that they got when they were in the US.  We were clapping and singing the whole way there! :)  The castle we visited is done in the French style and has many things in it from the 16^th century.  The tour was in Slovak, but Adrian translated for me.  I think I ended up getting a more fun tour with his translations as a little comedy was added in ;)  A funny/sad story about the castle is the last owner was in love with a French woman which is why he had it redone in the French style and it took 20 years.  By the time it was completed, she was already married to someone else!  After the castle we had lunch at a nearby restaurant and I had the Slovak National meal called bryndzové halušky which is potato dumplings noodles with sheep cheese.  It was very good – it kind of reminded me of a very fancy mac and cheese but a little different.  We headed to the zoo that was right next to the castle.  That was a lot of fun for Timko and Terezka.  You would have thought that it was their first time there with how excited they were, but they have actually been there several times (which you could also tell because they knew that place like the back of their hands.)  We came at a great time because there was really no one else there, which I guess is unusual because usually there are so many people there that you can’t even see all the animals.  On the way home Timko and Terezka fell asleep quite quickly so I had a quiet trip home to think.  It was in that car ride that I officially made my concrete plan on how to get back here in the nearish future.  I have been thinking about how I have to get back, but after this trip and visit with the Kacian’s, I KNOW I have to get back.  So, the saving will begin once I get back to the U.S.

There was more coloring and playing to be done that evening and just a few tears from Terezka when she thought about how I was leaving the next day.  It’s hard to explain to a 7 year old why you have to leave when you also want to stay.  That was the end of my trip with them as I had to leave at 6am to get to the airport in time for my flight that left at 10.  This is the first trip where I wasn’t ready to come back to Sevilla – of course I’m happy to be back here and all, but most other trips I was ready to get back “home”, but I could have stayed on this one a little longer. :)  I traveled all day Wednesday as I flew from Bratislava to Málaga and then had to get a train from Málaga to Sevilla.

So many pictures to choose from!! Enjoy :)

A London Night - near Picadilly

Buckingham Palace and the blue royal guards of the queen

London Eye

In the London Eye with the House of Parliment and Big Ben in the background

Billy Elliot!!! Such a great musical!

Changing of the guard - the band

Westminster Abbey

We had to get our pictures with the telephone booths!

With the London Tower - which is a castle :)

The Tower Bridge (a little fun with my camera)

Second musical - Grease!

Palm Sunday worship at St. Paul´s Cathedral - the plams we had were made into crosses

Martin, Slovakia!  The church and to the right is the Bible School

Bojnice castle

With the Kacian´s on "our trip"! :)

At the zoo with the castle in the background