Holy Week Batman

Holy Week has passed for another year. Its an exciting time of year but I am damn glad it is OVA! The streets are pumping and full of people. I can hear the beats of the drums and music from my house at almost all hours of the day.
There are nazarenos (those types doing penance that wear the KKK looking pointy hats with the eyes cut out.) cover the streets on their way to/from their procession. Its Seville´s busiest time of year and those sevillanos surely love their holy week.

All these photos complements of Jo...my camera is broken...
Tuesday night I couldnt get into my apartment cause a procession was passing right by my door. Had to wait till the giant jesus and virgin passed and then the people scattered on their way to see another jesus or virgin pass by at some other random point in the city.

Last year we were bad, (well we had just moved into a new place) and saw no processions. We hibernated in the house and avoided processions at all costs with out handy little Holy Week daily map book. (Most people use it to follow the processions but we use it to avaoid them) It seems the only time we go out to see any is when we have visitors who have come to see Holy Week and we must take them out to show them whats what, where to go and which virgin is which, clarifications that are very very important. This year we had mystery guests stay. Long story but when I was studying spanish here in 2003, I met a fab Canadian called Kristie Anne, her friend Lia was in Madrid working as an aupair and studying spanish just like us and she came down to Seville many times to hang with us. We also became friends and still keep in contact....anyways, her sister and her sisters boyfriend who live in London, came and stayed with us for Holy Week. I´d never met them before but I know that Lia is lovely and lots of fun so I was positive her sister would be too. I was right, Mia and Mike were lovely and great guests and they thankfully didnt kill us in our sleep!
We also had, although not officially "guests" but still guests to seville, as they stayed in a hotel, friends from London. Mike (2 Mike´s at once!) who met Amanda in London when he saw her at some rugby final drinking beer at 11am and decided he wanted to be friends with her. They became pals and amanda later rented a flat from him, which I, then Marcos later moved into. So officially he was our landlord but we met him at the pub for trivia night and in the park for dinners on the heath, so he was more of a pal that we gave money to once a month. Anyway, so Mike and his lady Jo were also in Seville and we had a great time hanging out and catching up with them. Its so nice to see old friends, freakin fun people!

Here we are having tapas at our favourite tapas place. Note the tiles of the virgin behind me... I am sure this was the virgin that left this church and blocked my way home last Tuesday night! Damn Virgins!