Semana Santa

I have been bad about leaving posts. A lot has happened in the last few weeks and I did not even finish talking about my spring break in March so I think I'll start there and move forward.

I wanted to write a bit one of Spain's most famous events, Semana Santa starring the Jesús, everyones favorite virgin, María and the KKK. I had heard and seen pictures of what exactly goes on during Semana Santa so I had an idea of what it would be like so there was no surprise when I saw swarms of people dressed up as something that most Americans would deem tabu. I am not exactly sure why the dress up like this but I do know they have been doing it forever so it was actually the KKK that stole the idea from the Spaniards, or at least that is what I think. How unoriginal of them. At least in Spain you can fin a variety of colors as you'll see below.

During Semana Santa every day there are processions during the day and during the night. Some of them last hours depending on the city and the route of the procession. The basics of the procession are the KKK dressed people march along and I believe they wear colors according to their brotherhood but I could just be making that up. There are different types of instruments/bands throughout out the procession. After being bored watching the same type of people pass by, the crowd is elated by the appearance of Jesús who is on a float being carried by people who care about him more than the lazy people watching the processions. They have to stop quite a bit because the floats are heavy and elaborate. Sometimes the people carrying the float are completely under it and all you can see is there feet and sometimes they are on the outside of it (pictures above). After Jesús passes it's only a matter of time before María will pass and everyone will get excited and push to get a look at the vigin. So really in a nut shell that is Semana Santa. I saw processions in Cartagena, Sevilla, Carmona ,and Granada and I have to give an A + to Cartagena. Sevilla is supposed to be famous for Semana Santa but I was much more impressed by what I saw in Cartagena. It was really organized and I like how everyone marched in sequence where as in the cities people just kind of wandered.

Not the KKK