Monday. Well, again, I didn't sleep that great. So I was tired all day. Which sucked. I wanted to get out and do something throughout the afternoon. But sleep was the only thing that happened. Oh well. At least I picked up some mint ice cream from the best ice cream place in the city on the way back to the house.
As for today...
I wanted to visit the cathedral and this other church, but I found out that for some reason the cathedral was closing early today. Go figure. So plan b was walk a long way in the opposite direction to the basilica of the macarena. And all of this was without coming back to the house to eat because I knew if I did I would have a hard time getting myself back out of my room. So I stopped by a little pastry shop and picked up a yummy bola de chocolate. Which is this yummy doughnut like thing with chocolate in the middle and chocolate drizzled on top of it. Trust me, it's even better than it sounds. I sat and ate it in the plaza nueva which was nice to just sit and soak up some of sevilla. Even if it was a crazy pre semana santa version of sevilla. Yeah, things are already getting crazy.
Then it was off to the macarena. I didn't really remember how to get there, I didn't have a map...I just went with it. I remembered the name of one street that was supposed to lead me to it and just kind of went from there. It's really cool being able to get places without a map. And I really like it when spanish people ask me for directions and not only do I understand what they are asking, but I can respond and actually know how to get to where they're going. It's a good feeling. But anyway, somehow I wound up on the right street, like seriously I don't know that I could repeat the path I took, and I got to the church. The pasos, one with mary and the other with jesus, are up in the church and it's so cool to see. I also got a program that tells me all of the streets and times and brotherhoods that are processing throughout semana santa. I found some online versions but I liked the idea of having one with me. Then I discovered the gift shop and made some purchases before heading on my way again.
I didn't really know how to get back either, just kind of had a general direction in which I wanted to walk. Because going back the way I came wouldn't really have gotten me where I wanted to go. But I walked in what I hoped was the right direction. And eventually I wound up in the area that is about half way between the daycare and my house so I think I did a pretty good job of staying in the right direction. While I was in the area I was hoping that the several churches on those streets would be open at that time of day but no such luck. So I decided to visit one of the churches behind my house, the basilica of jesus del gran poder. There was some sort of service going on, but there's a gift shop...so I gave in to a couple more temptations and I'm now hoping that I'm definitely done with souvenir purchasing. Except maybe a little nazareno statue. The daycare has a really cool incense thing, whatever they're called, that is shaped like a nazareno. And I think the kids might come dressed in nazareno outfits tomorrow...they're supposed to dress up for semana santa. We'll see what that's like.
We've been listening to a lot of semana santa music with the kids and today for breakfast they were supposed to bring traditional semana santa pastries to eat. So I tried some torrija I think it's called which is really really sweet but good, it's kind of like french toast. That was basically the only thing the two year olds brought but I guess in the three year old room some people brought pestiños I believe they're called. That's basically fried dough and it can be covered in honey or sugar. Both sound pretty good to me. I also learned that the nazarenos hand out little candies to kids during semana santa. And the kids have a little rhyme that they say "nazareno, dame un caramelo, si no me lo das, yo voy a enfadar" Basically meaning give me candy because if you don't I'm going to get mad. I'll be interested to see what else I learn as the week goes on.
I owe you some pictures from today...but I'm not feeling the greatest and I was far too tired and really just lazy once I got back to the house to get the pics off my camera. So you'll just have to wait on those I'm afraid. Hopefully it won't be too long.
Here's hoping that maybe just maybe I can get back to that time oh up until about 4 days ago when I fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes and stayed asleep all night long. I really enjoyed that. But I took it for granted and now I am left seriously missing that time.
No comments:
Post a Comment