La Bella Vida: Semana Santa/Spring Break

As some of you know Semana Santa is one of the biggest holidays, if not the biggest, in Spain. The entire week before Easter Sunday is celebrated with religious processionals throughout different areas in Spain, the most popular being in Andalucia (where Granada is) and Castilla-Leon (where Valladolid is). Well I was going to miss most of the processionals since I planned on going to Lagos, Portugal from Monday until Friday night so I went with some friends to see two of the processionals on the first Sunday of Semana Santa. The two processionals I saw were for the children. In the processional, the children were dressed up as priests, altar boys/girls, peasants (from Christ's time), the traditional andalucian attire and nazarenos (which are the tunic and hood outfits).

The specific day I saw the processionals was on Palm Sunday so you will see some children carrying dried palm leaves that were blessed by a priest before leaving the church. Now each church has its separate processional and for each processional the nazarenos wear different colors for their outfits. The nazarenos usually carry crosses or processional candles. Also, in each processional there is an "image" (imagen which is basically a statue of Mary, Jesus or a Saint that is at the altar of the church) from the church that is carried throughout the entire processional. Now processionals can last to about 2 hours (not that you watch it the whole time), but it takes a long time to go through because people from the church volunteer to carry the "image" during the processional. The image is so heavy and large there are at least 20 people underneath it carrying it and each person carries at least 25 kilos on one shoulder (about 50 pounds). They walk very slowly so that they don't trip on the streets or get too tired carrying the image. They do stop to rest as well. Hmmm....I'm not sure what else is important to know. Well, enjoy the pictures and if you have questions post them here or email me! :)

Here you can see the two altar girls in front carrying a basket of flowers with the rest of the processional behind them.

Here are some of the children dressed as peasants carrying the blessed palm leaves.

Here are children dressed as "nazarenos". Yes, this looks like what you think it looks like, but definitely not what you are thinking of. (You like how I went around that?)

More altar kids and some Spaniards watching the processional.

Adult "nazarenos" carrying a large cross.

The image of the first processional of Jesus on a bull with, I think, Saint John the Baptist (forgive me if I'm wrong).

The girl in front is wearing a traditional Andalucian outfit.

At the end of each processional there is a band. The bands play music called "senatas" that are specifically played during Semana Santa and there are no words that accompany the music.

This is the second processional. The image is of the Virgin of Peace.

For Spring Break, I decided to go to Lagos in southern Portugal with the 3 other girls in my group. It is a small town with beautiful beaches. There were some tourists there besides us. The town was beautiful, and the Portuguese were extremely friendly and kind. Four out of the five days that we were there, we spent at the beach reading, napping and enjoying the beautiful sun. It was a very calm and relaxing trip, which is really what I wanted. We didn't travel or do the tourist thing; we just hung out the whole time. One of the days, Katie and I roamed the streets of Lagos and visited the different small shops in the town. It was fun because a lot of the shops sold hand made crafts and they had really unique items for sale. I bought a pair of some really pretty glass earrings and a decorative hairpiece...hard to explain. Our hostel was really nice and a 10-15 minute walk to the beach, which was perfect. I got some really amazing pictures because the water was just an amazing shade of blue and sea green. Besides, Lagos was an incredible place to take pictures....so enjoy.