Semana Santa

Hey Peoples!

Well the last blog entry has been deleted because the video was taken down off youtube, so obviously not much point in leaving it! Now i find it's been re-uploaded but i can't be bothered re-writting the post! I'll stick the video up but no comments this time! keep an eye out for it!

Anyways! This post we are going to talk about Semana Santa! Which in English is Saint Week! So a while back now i had 2 weeks of holidays and the first week was saint week! i suppose this co-incides with our Easter Traditions! The whole week is filled with Prosessions which are all very religious! even though they give out lollies! haha XD but basically every day at least once or twice they have prossesions and march around the city carrying crosses or things like that! I went on a Friday morning with my flatemate to see a prosession! At one point some1 (who i was unaware of who, because they all where masks) signals me to come over and grab a massive handful of lollies and i'm just like um ok sure! why not! and then later when i got back to school i realized it was a student of mine who came up to me and told me it was him!

Anyways i think i'll just add a bunch of pics and if there is anything worth while talking about i'll put a caption underneath!

 These are Nazarines!

 They carry crosses as a sort of penitence

 They also go in barefeet

 Horn thingies

 This is a float of the last supper! It is made by Salzillo and there are a bunch of different floats all of the easter story! they are very beautiful!

 This is a band! Lot of them playing rather sad music!

 This is the prayer in the orchid

 This fella is carrying 4 crosses!

 These are typical shoes from ancient orchid workers of the area!

 The kiss of Judas

 This is a manola! as far as i understand they dress in black to mourn the death of Christ

 Jesus recieving a beating

 Very detailed sculptures

 This is Veronica (i think lol)

 The carrying of the Cross

 Incense

 This is the Virgin Marry! kind of a weird thing to have, but the country is very Catholic

 Holding Candles

 At the end they had the military marching! i'm not sure why! XD

Look who it is! hahahaa XD

And now for some videos! Enjoy them and untill next time!

Some Drummers

Ok so these floats are very heavy! you can see by the way they are walking! some1 said 100,000kgs but i can't believe that! that's like 100 tones! haha maybe more like 1,000kgs!

Band playing some music! haha

La Manga

Hey people!

Well lots of things have happened in the past couple of weeks since i wrote my last entry! obviously because i've been on holiday and here in Murcia there are lots of spring festivities going on! more to come on those! today i am writing about an adventure in my first week of holidays! Ok well i can't remember what day it was, my camera tells me it was a tuesday which sounds right, i went with a group of people to Cabo de Palos and La Manga! My friend and fellow English teacher sent me an email monday night asking me if i wanted to go with them to the beach so i said sure! sounds good! Anyways the following day i got picked up by Rosalia (my friend) and then we went and picked up two more of her friends! One was spanish and the other from England! i was quite surprised to learn that the british woman had been living in Spain for 10 years! i picked up her accent straight away and i would've expected her to have better spanish than she did! but that seems fairly typical here in Spain! lots of Brittish people come and live here for half there life without ever learning spanish! seems odd! you see they don't care to emerge themselves in the culture, but rather have everything english, only with the spanish climate, so they form communities etc! anyways more on that later! We then went to Santa Ana to pick up another friend of Rosalia, Ricardo! who seems to be an authority (or for lack of better words a know-it-all) on everything!

Firstly we went to Cabo de Palos! about an hour from Murcia center, which is i suppose literally 'Stick Cape' in english! XD but the word cabo in this case comes from the latin word palus (lagoon)! it was really beautiful and we walked up to a lighthouse to see out to the Mediterranean Sea! huh huh! i feel so exotic saying that! :D Its lighthouse began operating on January 31, 1865. The cape is part of a marine reserve, the Reserva Marina de Cabo de Palos and Islas Hormigas (a group of islands)

 Little beach!

 lighthouse!

 Ok so apparently out here a ship similar to the titanic sank 2 years before the titanic (or after, i can't remember! lol XD)

 tip of Cabo de Palos

 another beach at the tip of the cape!

 Here you can see La Manga! Cabo de Palos marks the beginning of it! i neglected to take any pictures when we were there so will talk about it here!! Basically it is like a massive sandbar (connected spit if you want to be technical) that separates the mediterranean from 'mar menor'! The strip is 22 km long and 100 metres wide (average). It is really nice! reminds me a lot of the cold coast with all it's hotels and such! just about every1 from Murcia goes there for the summer to escape the heat! i heard that there were only 4 land structures like this in the world! another is in Acapulco Mexico! Here is a picture:

Ok! Next up, in Cabo de Palos we went to a nice restaurant next to a little marina! Aaaand for the first time (really quite ridiculous) i tried Paella! the national dish of Spain (if you live outside of Spain, and if you're from Spain it's the regional dish of Valencia!) Also i tried Caldero! like rice done in a very very strong fish broth! The paella was the best! :D

 The people that came along! from left: Ricardo, Rosalia, Linda, Iliana

 Ok so i said before i would talk a little bit more about british communities in Spain! well they seem to bring all things British to spanish weather! i'd heard about them before but never actually come across them! anyways we went to La Manga Club, which was interesting! actually felt like being out of Spain! was def for very very rich English people! we found out it was like 2,000E per night! aaaaaaaah! talk about a waste of money! lol  i felt so awkward walking on in with my beach clothes, snapping up pictures of everything! XD