Semana Santa => Holy Week

Holy Week is a big deal here in Spain. Starting with Palm Sunday, there are processions and concerts and all kinds of things all week. Most of Spain has vacation that week, but here in Alicante we also have a festival for San Vicente on the 20th, so our vacation goes from Maudy Thursday until the 20th. Which following that we have another break pretty quickly for a saint in San Juan. But I digress.

For Palm Sunday, Elena got in touch with Pep's mother and the other relatives in Elche, about 30 minutes or so south of Alicante so I could go see the parade for Palm Sunday there. Elche has a lot of palm trees and even a park full of palms that has been named a Patrimony of Humanity by the UN. So needless to say, they are quite skilled when it comes to palms. Whether it be giant staffs with everything from baskets of flowers or statues of the Virgin all entirely made of woven palms or brooch like pieces ranging from flowers to leaves to crosses and many other things. Sadly, it started raining and the procession was canceled, so it was good I happened to stumble upon it on my way to meet up with cousin Pablo. The Iaia (grandma) Remy said it's the first time she can ever remember the procession being rained out, so I apologized. haha
We went into the church to see some of the palms and then had lunch and Palbo took me home.

Above and below: photos from the procession for Palm Sunday in Elche.

I really didn't watch any of the processions, but while I was out and about one day, I stumbled upon one and it kinda freaked me out. Here's why:
Yes, they look like the KKK. But the outfit has something to do with sinners and the KKK actually ripped the idea from this. Anyway, the processions last several hours each and they wind through the city center, where the main streets are cut off from traffic after a certain hour of the day.
I also happened to be very lucky this year. We just formed a Rotaract club here in Alicante and thanks to the brother of one of the members, we were offered the chance to be costeleros in a procession. The costeleros carry the statues of Christ or the Virgin in the processions. Here's the one we carried:

In the photo below, you can see me in the back of the third row from the right. I'm the only one not looking straight ahead, but I'm looking at the camera.

It was massively heavy, even with almost 50-60 people carrying it, but luckily we stopped like almost every block. We also had to stop to change: some people to better distribute the burden, but mainly to switch the front and back groups. Depending if we were going uphill or downhill changed where the "short" group and the "tall" group were. Our procession, of the Convent of the Monks of the Holy Blood, started at 9:15 or so and we didn't get back until around midnight. It was crazy. But it was a memorable experience and one that not many people have, so it was worth all the effort and the sore back, side, kidneys, neck, and shoulder the next few days.

Un abrazo,
Erik

Currently listening to:
Song: Jueves
Artist: La Oreja de Van Gogh
Album: A Las Cinco en el Astoria