Semana Santa post 12

Semana Santa

is translated literally as the "week of the saints". It is mourning of Christs death and the celebration of his resurrection. It is a very important event for Christain Spain, and is celebrated all over Spain. The tradition is supposedly strongest in Sevilla, and is caractorized by various processions that celebrate various "vocations", or attributes of Christ and Mary the Virgin. The processions consist of the hooded "penitentes" (the american KKK copied these costumes), and others who carry the heavy float depicting christ or the virgen ( some weigh as much as 5000 lbs). Music is played by a sort of marching band (according to David Puente, Miles Davis´s Sketches of Spain is inspired by this music) We stayed the first two nights of our 9 day vacation in Granada viewing the processions. The picture above is taken from google because I forgot my camera both nights. Check out the end of the blog for all the trip technicalities.

Las FallasThis festival in Valencia, Spain happened to coincide with Semana Santa this year. My roomate and I planned this trip last moment, and we could not find a vacant hostel in Valencia. However, we still decided to go. We arrived in Valencia on Tuesday morning via bus from Granada. We gathered from Senora Pilars heavily accented Spanish that the festival´s theme was about fuego(=fire), but beside that, we had no idea what to expect. We stepped out of the bus station to what sounded like a warzone. We strolled into the crowded city center nervously while small unruly children ran through the streets throwing powerful firecrackers in all directions. I decided to buy some.

I asked for some cheap ones, and I was handed these with a smirk from the clerk. Some gradeschool aged kids were having a comptetion with whos firecrackers were the loudest. My firecrackers looked pretty big so I thought I would try my luck. I walked out into the middle of the street where the competition was held, and lit my firecracker. One of the boys gave me a respectful nod after witnessing the explosion my firecracker yielded. My three euros got me six wicked little firecrackers that rivaled what our artillery shells do.

At this point we still had no idea what to think of the situation here, so we walked around some more. We passed a parade of people dressed in mideval garb who were playing various intruments whilst drinking alcohol. The closer we got to the center of town the more it looked like a renniassance festival. We also noticed the large sculpures around. We later learned that the sculptures, which are about 30 feet high, are all burned down to the ground for some reason or another.At 1 a.m. the firework show commenced. It was by far the most impressive and definitely the loudest that I have witnessed. Daniel, my roomate said that It was better than anything he has seen in New York or D.C. During the show we were also showered by individual contributations to the fireworks. There were thousands upon thousands of people in the streets.

Since we had nowhere to stay here in Valencia, the name of the game was to stay awake until our bus departure at 9 am. to Barcelona. We walked down to the Oceanside and took a look at Santiago Calatrava´s (architect) city of science, which is a marvel.

Barcelona

We managed to catch our bus in the morning to Barcelona. Luckilly we found some accomidations in Barc. Barcelona is in a region of Spain called Catalalonia. The main language here is Catalan, which is more similiar to latin than Castillan Spanish. Barcelona is a pretty modern city with much diversity. It is something very different than the rest of Spain. For me, Barcelona was important because of her Archictecture. An architect named Antonio Gaudi is possilby the most popular figure in Catalonia. His work begins in the late 1800´s and culminates with the Sagrada Familia (cathedral) which was his obsession until his death in 1926. Gaudis work is very playful and accessible to everyone. And he is responsible for the four major tourist sites in the city. Guadi was killed by a tram whilst walking around Barcelona presumably pondering his obsession the Sagrada Familia. He had devoted all his money to the Cathedral and was dressed similiar to a transient. Apparently it took a while before the dead "bum" was recognized as Gaudi.

The Sagrada Familia was begun in 1882, and is currently half finished. Work is moving along nicely right now because over 2.5 million pay admission to view the Cathedral. Anyway this building one of the most ambitious building projects ever initiated, and is truely breathtaking. Probably the most amazing manmade creation I have seen. I wont post many pics of it or say much about it because it is something to experience. (below small section of the nave)

Gaudi also turned his hand to landscape architecture. Parc Guill is pretty neat also. (below) Gaudi was passionate about directly incorporating nature into his architecture, he also was very interested in building with shapes that occur naturally, such as the hyperboiloids and caternaries. The only bad thing about the trip was the cold snap, and overcast weather.Trip Planning and Costs

Bus ticket Granada to Valencia- 23 €

Bus ticket Valencia to Barcelona- 35€

Hostel 4 nights in Barcelona- 27 € per night

Ryan air ticket barcelona to Granada- 37€

Bus to get to Ryan air Terminal 12 €

Spending money Val+Barc- 100€ (supermaket food- admissions-drinks-restaurant- metro)

metro Barc- .70€ per journey

All told----------about 320 € for the week

Hostel in Barcelona

We stayed in the nights in a hostel in downtown Barcelona called Creative Youth Alternative Hostel. It is owned by this guy named Al from Iran who is really helpful. He speaks 7 languages! This is the best hostel I have stayed in. Exept one of the nights Danny and I had to share one of the small beds in a room full of spanish and german girls.