Sunday was the first day of the week long festival Semana Santa here in Sevilla. On Sunday, the whole city was out, dressed in their very best clothes. This could be classy or tacky, depending on which side of the tracks you live on I guess. The bars and restaurants were packed, and for the first time since we got here I saw a few scam artists. All the streets were filled with wooden chairs to view the processions. We tried to get close to some of the processions but unless you had a ticket for one of the seats it was pretty hard. Also you are trying to get close with about 500,000 other people.

Besides religion and hanging out in the bars with your friends, this festival seems to be a time for young people to “hook up.” So, for the girls get a boyfriend, and for the boys, to try to get as close to sex as possible for an unmarried Catholic. I can group the festival goers into several groups.

Married Couples with Young Children Dressed up Like Dolls
Young People Who Have Been Hooked Up for a While (Holding hands.)
Young People Who Have Just Hooked Up (Swallowing each others tongue, butt grope-age)
Young People Looking to Hook Up (They travel in packs)
Old People (Also travel in packs, but mostly sit at cafe tables.)

Sunday was a big day. By 11 PM we were exhausted but I could hear the festival going until very early in the morning.

Yesterday (Monday) was a big quieter. We wandered all over and there were not many people out. (Recovering?) By the late afternoon though we could see hundreds of people coming in for the processions. I’ll try to explain the processions – there is something like a float, but guys are under it and lifting it. You cannot see the guys underneath. These are practically structures with life-like figures on them, candles, fresh flowers. When the men underneath walk it looks like the figures are walking, too. In front and back there are little kids and adults with the cone like hats in white, black, purple. There is a lot of incense and sometimes people carrying crosses. Behind each float there is a marching band. We saw one come straight out of the door of the big Cathedral here and that was pretty remarkable. Then I decided I wanted Albondigas from this bar I like (henceforth known as that fateful meatball.) So we started over and got caught up in a big crowd. We saw one float come towards us with Christ on the Cross. Then we got a bit further down the tiny street and could move no more. Then a procession went right by us on the tiny street. It was a Mary float. Totally wild. We then made it to the bar but the bar was too crowded and we could not get in to get my fateful meatball. In fact all the bars and cafes were totally packed and both Sunday and Monday we had to eat in touristy places in our neighborhood. But, they both had excellent food…

well I had better go because we are going to Cordoba and Mom will kill me if we don’t get to the train early. More from Cordoba…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2004 at 12:57 am and is filed under What's Happenin' in Spain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.