Monday, April 5th "Semana Santa, Semana Santa and more Semana Santa"

You'll find too much about Semana Santa on my home page these days, but if you're in Sevilla there's not much more going on unless you plan to stay inside. The craziness has begun and simply walking out my front door can be difficult. Domingo de Ramos was by all means a success and we managed to see 5 of 9 processions which isn't too bad for the first day. We've seen a number of family members, many of whom will be using our apartment as a spot to rest during the day. This is a plus for them as finding a place to sit down, be it a bar a park bench, is quite difficult during these days. We've crowded into a bar for a beer and a montadito, paid too much for a bag of chips, been pushed around by little old ladies and women with baby strollers, spoken to a few nazarenos and snapped about 200 photos (150 of which are probably going to be deleted). We'd have a difficult time counting the number of fashion crimes that occurred yesterday. While people are dressing their best sometimes their idea of "best" is quite confusing. But one of the comical things to do on Domingo de Ramos is take in the outfits some are wearing.

Our feet hurt from nine hours in the street and I got my first "Semana Santa high", much like runner's high where you hit a wall, thinking you can see no more and then suddenly you feel like you could go all night. "Where's the next paso? On the other side of town? Ok, let's go! And on the way we'll see this one on this street and then walk 20 minutes to wait another hour and see that one." The weather has been perfect and we're getting to see all of the processions that we missed last year due to 3 days of rain. We're also getting better in our preparation - deciding which pasos to see where over the morning coffee. If they can, any store will turn into a sandwich stand during the week to bring in a little extra money. So bocadillos will be prepared ahead of time today to avoid the typical inflation of prices which occurs during the week.