Apologies for the cliffhanger. Further apologies for that sarcasm just now. So, I had just finished describing the first half of the Rides of March, that is, Dad's visit, Morocco, and Barcelona. Next up was Cádiz.
In June 2007, I went to Madrid with an exchange program through my high school. There I lived with a wonderful family, Los Moreno, with whom I grew very close. They are goofy and warm, just like my own family, and they immediately welcomed me as their own daughter/sister. Since then, I have stayed in touch with Teresa, the daughter who is my age. When I told her I was coming to Sevilla, we decided we had to figure out a time to meet up.
Los Moreno invited me to their new house in Cádiz during Semana Santa, the Holy Week that a lot of people have off from school and work. I had never been to this house before--when they brought me to Cádiz in 2007, we stayed in their old house in Sancti Petri. We did visit Zahara and the site of their new house--at that point, it was just a white outline on the beach. I was so excited to see the finished and furnished product this time around.
Los Moreno picked me up in Sevilla and made me feel at home instantly by complimenting the improvement in my Spanish and teasing me about my Andaluz accent. Maite (la madre) is originally from Cádiz, so she was thrilled to hear me drop my s's, but Álvaro (el hermano mayor) gave me a hard time for speaking "Andaluz en vez de Castellano" (instead of Spanish). In my family, as in their family, teasing means love, so I welcomed this display. A two-hour drive south later, and we arrived in Zahara. The house is so cool: it is modern, with walls that slide back and reveal stunning panoramic vistas and with circular windows that remind me of portholes--perfect for the beach.
Almost immediately, Teresa and I donned our bathing suits, grabbed our towels, and bolted down to the beach. And WHAT a beach. The sand was soft and white and the water was clear and clean (and cold). There was a lot of trash farther up among the grassy patches, but we ignored this. There were also a few dead dolphins who had washed up because of some crazy storms (apparently Zahara suffered a lot of floods this winter, as did many areas in Spain). These were very sad, so we tried to avoid them as well.
Catching up with Teresa was a lot of fun. We talked a lot about our friends from the exchange, travels over the past few years, and her studies (she is in her first year of a six-year college track-she is becoming a doctor). In Spain, you basically choose what you want to major in before your junior year in high school, and then apply to your appropriate department at various universities. The amount of time you spend in college depends on what career you have chosen. Teresa filled me in on the application process. I knew from before that a huge part of pursuing higher education in Spain was la Selectividad, but I didn't realize just how important this 3-day test was. Apparently, it accounts for 40% of a score (the other 60% being high school grades) that is sent to colleges, along with nothing else. That's it. That's all--the score. No interview, no personal essay, no recommendations, nothing else. This method, while certainly efficient, strikes me as terrifying (talk about test-day stress) and cold. One of the things that I am most looking forward to about college is the texture of a diverse student body: people with a ton of different experiences, passions, personalities, quirks, flaws, hopes, dreams. How can you assemble a group like that just by looking at one score? It seems to me that you'd end up with a lot of similar people: kids who studied really hard and test well. I think that people are worth much more than their ability to memorize and turn out a well-organized essay, and I don't think that the Spanish school system agrees. Oh well. It just makes me appreciate the U.S. system more I guess.
Along with our chats, Teresa and I practiced some of our favorite activities from 3 years ago, those being playing cards (she is an absolute champion) and watching the O.C. (we love quoting it ad nauseam). My 3 days in Cádiz flew by too quickly, and before I knew it, she and Maite were driving me to the train station, singing along to MIKA (they love him) and some recordings of chirigotas (they had to explain the songs to me at intervals because the clever men of Cádiz sang way too quickly for me to catch anything).
After returning from Cádiz, I was on a mission to experience Semana Santa as fully as possible in two short days before leaving for Amsterdam. Semana Santa is a week-long celebration of the life of Jesus Christ, culminating in El Domingo de Resurreccion (The Sunday of the Resurrection, which nobody calls Easter and which does not involve bunnies or eggs). To celebrate, the churches of Sevilla put together processions. These processions can last anywhere from two to thirteen hours. Every procession departs its church, wherever it may be, and makes its way into the city center and down the carerra oficial, the official path. This path runs along some of the biggest and most important streets in Sevilla, eventually going behind City Hall and up Avenida de la Constitución (the biggest street) toward la Catedral.
Every procession includes Nazarenos, members of the church who dress in long tunics and wear tall pointed hoods which cover their faces except for two eye holes. The colors of the outfit depend on the church. To many Americans, the uniform of the Nazarenos is reminiscent of a terrifying and hateful group in our country, but actually, the Nazarenos dressed like this long before the KKK even existed.
Nazarenos bearing La Cruz de Guía, the cross that opens every procession.
The people carrying and surrounding the cross are usually important members of the church.
Other important players in the processions are the costaleros, strong burly men (they are always men, unlike Nazarenos, who are often women and children as well) who carry the pasos, or large altars, through the streets. These pasos are very heavy: every costalero ends up carrying about 50 kg (110 lbs). Every brotherhood, that is, every church, presents two pasos: one depicting a scene from the life of Jesus, and another of the Virgin. On Palm Sunday, all the pasos depicting Jesus show his entry into Jerusalem. On Thursday night--during which the processions last until the early hours of the morning and people are accustomed to staying out all night--the images are all of his death. To mourn, women dress in black dresses and don La Mantilla, a lace scarf that hangs from a stiff comb worn in the hair. The following Sunday, the day of the Resurrection...well, you can guess what the image on that day is. Other than that, the scenes from Jesus's life appear un-chronologically.
A paso from the life of Jesus--I was too far away to figure out what this scene is though.
This Paso was going down the Carerra Oficial: it is behind City Hall at this point.
Happily, it did not rain in Sevilla during my two-day stint. When it rains, the pasos do not go out: they are too fragile. Since the Nazarenos and Costaleros practice for the procession for the entire year (many times this winter I saw men carrying scaffolding with bags of bricks placed atop to practice bearing the weight of the paso) it is very, very sad when the processions are cancelled.
A customary treat served in Sevilla during Semana Santa is torrija: bread soaked in milk and egg that has been fried and then doused in honey and sugar. So, french toast, but worse for you. It is served in cafés and bakeries for the weeks surrounding Semana Santa, but the best torrija is home-made, and happily, my family fried up a delicious batch while I was in town. I enjoyed it immensely.
After seeing as many pasos as I possibly could during two short days (I think I saw 7, not including the many that I walked by on my way to watch others), I flew to Amsterdam with a group of friends. Due to the legality of many vices in Amsterdam, a lot of people assume that a visit to the city would involve little more than partying. But partying did not really interest me: I was most excited to visit the Anne Frank museum. This girl's story, warm and tragic at the same time, has always been interesting and captivating to me. As a symbol of hope through adversity, she is my hero. As an example of tragic injustice, she is somebody I will always carry in my heart. And as a writer, she is a role model. Expressive and descriptive, her diary is at once intimate and for the public; it is not just a detailed account of the Holocaust, but also a story about growing up. We waited in line for over an hour and a half as it rained, and the wait was well worth it.
The Anne Frank House was a well-balanced mixture of historical and emotional material. The annex in which they lived is preserved though unfurnished (when the Nazis raided the home, they took all the furniture. Otto Frank, the only surviving member of the Frank family, wanted the annex to be left that way). Personal--and moving--touches remain: pencil marks on the wall in the parents' bedroom, indicating the children's growth, and Anne's movie star collection still pasted on her wall. Especially moving for me was the attic. Visitors are not allowed up; they may only look inside. While I would have loved to have seen the attic, I thought preserving this space, keeping it tourist-free, was a good choice. As we reached the base of the attic ladder, the sun came out and the room--a place I viewed as Anne's refuge, her childish domain, when I read the diary--was filled with warm light.
While the Anne Frank House was unequivocally the highlight of the Amsterdam trip for me, I also enjoyed the Rijks Museum and the Keukenhof Tulip Festival. I desperately wanted to visit the Van Gogh Museum, but I only spent 2 days in Amsterdam, so I didn't have time to get there (Keukenhof, which is about an hour away from Amsterdam by bus, was a whole-day affair). Here are some photos from those other two adventures:
And that concludes my chronicles of the Rides of March. Next up: Feria de Abril!
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