Semana Santa (Holy Week) is a big holiday in Spain and they celebrate quite uniquely with these processions of cone-hooded men carrying pasos (floats) that retell the story of Christ’s last week. Since Madrid is a working city, not a lot of madridleños are actually from the city, but from the small pueblos outside it. I saw a statistic that some 50% of the city leaves for the week; I can’t think of any holiday or city where that’s the case in the US. There’s even a name for the whole process, Operación Salida (Exit Operation). Back in the States, you may even have heard some celebrity gossip from Antonio Banderas returning to his native Spain to participate in the processions.

I was fortunate that a professor of mine is from a small pueblo, Cuenca, that has beautiful processions during the day (for better pictures) and not too many people, unlike Madrid. He drove a few of us down to see them and hear a Gregorian chant performance (it was for a Music of Spain class) that we ended up not being able to find.

Though we had 4.5 days off and I was planning on getting a lot of work done (including writing a couple of posts I’ve been trying to find some time to do), my dad jinxed me and laugh when I rattled off the list of things I had to do. I didn’t even start to work until Sunday afternoon. Instead, I hung-out with my housemate from Philly and we enjoyed the freedom and quiet of the house without our host-family around (they, too, went back to a pueblo).

Thursday we people watched in a park nearby our house, where we saw a woman wrestle with her bull dog because it kept stealing little kids’ balls and a couple get approached by undercover policeman and (we think) searched for drugs. I guess it’s legal to grow and possess a certain amount of marijuana, but you just can’t smoke it in public without getting fined. In the evening we went to a flamenco concert (no dancing) because she’s a flamenco singer and knew this guy would be good.

Friday was the trip to Cuenca that I already alluded to and I had a bit of an adventure asking for directions to the bus station. I swear I am good with maps, but when there are no street signs and I am not simply un-doing my steps, it’s a bit harder.

Saturday hopped on a bus for half and hour to visit El Escorial, the former monastery built to show Spain’s devotion to Catholicism but is now a mix of art museum and architectural monument. The weekend started to turn really cold and we had to face some snow-ish winds. No, the snow-stuff didn’t stick but it was certainly a shock for much of the country. Since there was snow and hail in southern Spain, too, even the most famous processions had to partly cancel or delay and disappoint quite a few people.

You would think with all the pomp and celebrations during the week that Easter Sunday would be even more amazing, but in fact it’s not that big of a deal. Thursday and Friday are the most important days. My friend and I walked past the cathedral in Madrid where you can find the biggest form of celebration via the loud clanging of the bells. (I think it’s a special occasion thing.) We were actually heading to the Plaza Mayor to hear this traditional drum performance (Tamborrada) and thanks to my excellent map-reading skills we arrived just as they were coming up the street. We listened for a while among a large crowd and it made me all the more thankful that I avoided this in Cuenca for the processions. Bumping around with people to simply see something is not something I look forward to.

Though Sundays are considered holidays in Spain and nearly every business closes, the region we were in stays open for the tourists so we did some shopping. We found this gourmet international food market that carries items like hummus, smoothies, and tortilla shells, as well as PopTarts and Cheerios. I only mention this because while we were there a group of British women were chatting and eating lunch when a man dropped some biscuits. He apologized and in the process of picking up the food, he grabbed one of the women’s unattended handbags and took off. It took them a few seconds to realize it, but by that time he was gone. Since they were going to the airport right after lunch, he took all of her money and her passport. Yikes. We did our best to help them out since they didn’t speak any Spanish, but the woman was pretty much stuck. Kind of freaked us out, but it just shows how we need to be on our guard all the time. Plus, we both now know the emergency numbers of the city and the embassy (which we didn’t have noted before). I have never felt unsafe here, but gentle reminders here and there always come up.

It was a nice weekend and I took some awesome pictures in Cuenca that I am about to submit to a photo contest. It was kind of sad without the Easter bunny hiding eggs and munching on jellybeans (and our family loved hearing about our Easter traditions), but it will be even sadder not being able to buy the leftover candy at 50%-off.

I also have a few pictures from the Tamborrada.