Semana Santa: Madrid: Part 2

At the Royal Palace in Madrid there is changing of the guard on the first Wednesday of every month, which compared to Buckingham Palace in London that has it everyday, is not very much. But we were lucky and just happened to be in Madrid on the first Wednesday of the month.

First we killed a bit of time in the park by the palace and visiting a temple that had been moved there from Egypt.

Then it was time. But, as usual, it started late. Because this is Spain.

First, the guard rode/walked around from the back of the palace.

Then, then went into the plaza in the palace grounds.

We’re not really sure all that was going on. They were announcing it over loudspeaker, but it was in Spanish and we couldn’t see very well anyway.

After the changing of the guard, there was a little concert.

It was very interesting to be able to see the changing of the guard in Madrid, I just wish we knew more of what exactly was going on. 

Semana Santa: Madrid: Part 1

Monday I took the night train so that I arrived in Madrid at 8:00 in the morning. I actually got more sleep than I expected. I headed to the hostel and was able to put my stuff in my room even though it wasn’t time to check in. Then I had about 5 hours before my friend Christi was supposed to show up so I went on a tour of the city through SANDEMANs NEW Europe. It was a ‘free’ tour, meaning you could tip the guide however much you thought was appropriate/what fit in your budget at the end. I really liked my tour. My tour guide was from Ireland and she told us a lot of cool stories about the history of Madrid.

We began in the Plaza Mayor. This was the main square where all the important activities used to be held like bull-fighting and Inquisition executions. There used to be 4-tier seating and people would rent out their balconies.

Then we walked just about a block away and saw the world’s oldest restaurant. They have a certificate to prove it. :)

The bear and tree is the symbol of Madrid. Apparently it used to just be a bear with all four paws on the ground, but at some point in history the city and the church were arguing over who got to cut down the trees and who got to use the land for pasture. So, they asked the king who decided that the city got to cut down the trees and the church could use the land. So, the 2 paws on the tree represent the city and the 2 paws on the ground represent the church. Later in history, a king (I can’t remember which) was deathly ill, but then someone made him a potion out of a particular type of berry and he was cured. So after that, they added berries to the tree in the symbol to represent that.

The Bear and Tree statue found in Plaza del Sol.

This is the cathedral. It is actually pretty new, finished in 1993. But, it took 100 years to build. Thus 3 different architects with 3 different styles. It is very obvious where the changes in style happened.

This is the back.

And this is the front. 

We ended our tour at the Royal Palace where Christi and I saw the changing of the guard the next day.

SANDEMANs NEW Europe operates tours in many different cities in Europe. If you get the chance, I would definitely go on one of their tours!

Semana Santa: Santiago de Compostela

Semana Santa technically means Holy Week, but refers to the week and a half vacation I had starting the Thursday before Easter and lasting through the next week.

For the first Friday through Monday I was in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. The cathedral in Santiago is where the remains of St. James are kept. So, there is a pilgrimage leading to Santiago called El Camino. There are several different routes, the most popular one beginning in France. You can read more about El Camino here. It was really cool to be in the plaza in front of the cathedral and see people arriving after having walked for weeks to get there.

This is the symbol of El Camino.
It's also found in Oviedo because Oviedo is on the route.

Something unique that occurs in Spain during Holy Week are the processions. These oftentimes include what look like KKK uniforms, but these processions have been going on for hundreds of years long before the KKK. I tried to attend a few processions in Santiago, but many were canceled due to rain. I did catch one luckily, but their outfits didn't include the hoods.

I think this one was kind of cheating because it was on wheels, they didn't carry it.

Both men and women participated and you can kind of
see in the picture that some of them were barefoot.

Some of them carried the metal staffs that were used to
prop the float up when they stopped.

Daylight savings time began on Easter in Spain, I believe 3 weeks after in the United States. Which resulted in me missing the main Easter Mass in the cathedral because my little track phone doesn't change time automatically and I forgot the time switched.

Some of the cool things I saw in Santiago included the cathedral, an exhibit of more than 200 varieties of Camelia, the flower of Galicia, and the cathedral museum.

The cathedral

Double organ!

The altar

Camelias

Stay tuned for Part II when I head to Madrid!

Lent in Spain

On Ash Wednesday or Miércoles de ceniza I did attend Mass at night. It seemed basically the same. This wasn’t a children’s Mass like the one I normally attend with my host family, so they didn’t use a powerpoint presentation, which made it a little more difficult for me to understand. What was interesting was that they had 5 priests/deacons there to celebrate Mass and give out ashes.

Lent with my host family doesn’t seem to be any different than any other time of year. We eat meat on Fridays. Other people have said that their Catholic host families do too. Apparently, the Catholics in Spain are just a lot more casual about Lent and fasting?

This last Sunday was Palm Sunday or Domingo de Ramos. This was really interesting because you don’t just go to church and pick up a palm. Everyone brought their own. And there were many different types. My host mom got us laurel branches. Some people had what looked like lavender mixed in with their laurel. Other people had palms like in the United States, except longer and a whole bunch tied together. Another kind looked like the fancy folding you can do with palms in the United States, except it came like that already. My host mom strung different gummy candies with fishing line on my host sister’s laurel branch like ornaments on a Christmas tree. She told me it was a custom from her town, but they don’t really do it here in Oviedo.

Laurel branch with candies on it. (Source)

A bunch of really tall palms tied together. (Source)

Fancy folded palms. (Source)

Then during Mass, I’m pretty sure the priest said that because the kids probably wouldn’t get to church on Thursday and Friday, so we did the Gospel readings from those days too. The only readings we did were the Gospel from Sunday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Other miscellaneous things I’ve noticed about church in Spain:

•   Blood of Christ is only for the priest.
• When the priest says, "Do this in memory of me," the altar server rings the bell which I remember from when I was younger, but Masses I've attended in the last 10 years don't do that anymore.
• At the church I go to with my host family, there are normally 2 priests celebrating Mass and then a random deacon that shows up just to help with Communion. So, basically, lay people aren’t Eucharistic ministers.
• Only about half of the people get Communion. And going up for Communion isn’t really orderly.
• When the priest gives you Communion, it always seems really rushed like they’re just trying to get through the line as fast as possible.
•  Going along with that, certain parts of Mass seem rushed. During the money collection, we only sing about one verse of a song, then Mass continues while they’re still collecting money in the back.

I’ll be in Santiago de Compostela starting on Friday for Easter weekend, and I’m excited to see some of the Holy Week processions that Spain is known for!

Mumford & Sons!

But then, it was time for the main reason we came to Barcelona: the Mumford & Sons concert!

There were 2 opening acts. The first was Jesse Quin, an English acoustic guitarist and singer. I really liked his music. The second was deap vally which is 2 American girls wearing really short shorts and dress, playing metal-type music. It took me a long time to even figure out what language they were singing because I couldn't understand any of the words.

But, finally, it was time for Mumford & Sons to perform in their first headlining concert in Spain!

Their set list included: Babel, Little Lion Man, Whispers in the Dark, White Blank Page, Holland Road, Timshel, I Will Wait, Lover of the Light, Thistle & Weeds, Ghosts That We Knew, Awake My Soul, Roll Away Your Stone, Dust Bowl Dance, Winter Winds, and The Cave.

I also took some videos:

Clip from I Will Wait.

Clip from Winter Winds

The Cave

Attending concerts in Spain is interesting because there aren't really strict laws about smoking indoors, and it wasn't just tobacco they were smoking...But overall I think it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I'm really glad I got to go!

A Quick Trip to Barcelona

On Wednesday I did something really crazy for me. I skipped classes and took a 26-hour trip to Barcelona for a concert.

I’ve actually been planning on doing this since January. We found out Mumford & Sons would be planning in Barcelona and since plane tickets were 15 Euro each way, why not?

The day began taking the bus to the airport at 6:00 in the morning. This was my first time flying with Ryanair, but it was really easy because all any of us had was a purse.

Upon arriving in Barcelona, we took the train to get into the city and then the Metro to La Sagrada Familia by Gaudi. It is so big! It also isn’t completed yet. It was started in 1882, but won’t be finished until 2026. Whenever it gets finished, I would really like to come back and see it.

After some lunch in McDonald’s (Yes, I know. But it was cheap and we needed wifi.), we headed to Park Güell. I really loved it. Gaudi designed this also. It was just really nice to have a bit of nature in the middle of the city.

Apparently an episode of
America's Next Top Model took place here.

The view of Barcelona from a high point in the park.

It was some sort of cactus-tree! I didn't know that was a thing.

 We also saw this really big vending machine in a metro station:

I’m really excited to be able to return to Barcelona for a longer visit at the end of April!

A Visit to the Aquarium!

A couple of weekends ago, a group of us decided to go to Gijón to see the aquarium. There was a saxophone group performing there that night that we wanted to see, but the tickets were all sold out, so we just visited the aquarium.

These are just some of the fish we saw:

There were also sea turtles, sharks, and river otters (my favorite).