Friday, April 29, 2011

Semana Santa Part 3.

As I said in Part 1, Emily and I had gone and watched one of the processions for Semana Santa before we left for Edinburgh. When we returned to Motril after our below trip to Scotland we made our way to another procession. For both I took some video, and I edited some of it and posted it below. Enjoy. Sorry if you aren't too entertained by it, but I think it is some interesting stuff...

Things to watch for:
-The tunics worn by those in the procession. Most will see them and think the Klu Klux Klan, but it was actually the KKK who took the idea from the Catholic Church and the processions (ironically the KKK was very anti-Catholic). They wear them as a sign of anonymity as they walk in the processions. Although, you often see the people lifting there hoods to say hello to friends or family in the crowd as they are walking. Each night the tunics are different colors, most notably all black on Thursday and Friday.
-In the second clip, there is a man holding a pole, and he is using that pole to keep a power line above the street lifted above the float as it passes by. You can here me say "cleared it" as it passed under the line (about 2:17)
-The style of the floats. Three of the four floats are carried by men who are underneath the float. The other is carried by men using exterior poles. The underneath style is more typical, and give the float its "floating" feel. Also, look at the exquisite design of the floats--gold, silver and the statues. If you have ever entered a Catholic church in Europe, you have seen something like that.
- The bands. The band members come in all ages and sizes. It is not exactly the most impressive ensemble, but that adds to the effect of the procession.



It is a major part of the Spanish culture and I could not believe the crowds that came out to watch the processions in Motril. They are best known in Seville, but happen throughout Spain. Many of my students participated in them, and as you might hear Emily in part of the video, she saw some of her students in the one we saw the second night.

I really don't know the history behind these processionals, so I will fail you on that part (which usually doesn't happen that often in regards to historical background), but it is definitely a cultural phenomenon that has been part of Spain and the Catholic Church for centuries (and other countries with a strong Catholic connection). I think they are still well known and done throughout Spain because of the political atmosphere around Spain and Franco. Franco, during his dictatorship rule, was a devout Catholic and was close with the Church. In fact, during the Civil War, that is how he gained much of his support--from the Church. Therefore, he might have been a strong believer in sticking to the tradition during his rule, and is why Spain is still so well known for having these processions. That is only my hypothesis though...

You can read more about Motril's Semana Santa processions here (hopefully your browser has a translator), and more about Semana Santa in Spain and the processions here.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Semana Santa Part 2.

One of my favorite movies, as “dumb” as it may be, is “Dumb and Dumber” featuring Jim Carrey and Michigan native Jeff Daniels. There are many quotable scenes from that movie, but one of my favorites is below.



While walking around St. Andrews with Emily this past week, I was reminded of this clip when I saw this:


Classic.
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Well, Emily and I are back from a whirlwind trip to Edinburgh and St. Andrews. It was a fantastic trip and it was refreshing to be in an English speaking country. The Scottish were extremely nice people, including my good friend Laura and her parents, who graciously hosted us for two nights and provided bus schedules, breakfast and tea, and any other needed information about the city. Like I have always done when I travel, here is a summary with pictures of the trip.

We arrived late Tuesday night and Laura’s dad picked us up at the airport. For the first time I was in a car driving on the English side of the road (the “wrong side”), and rode shotgun, which in most other parts of the world is the driver’s side of the car. That was an adventure and honestly felt pretty weird.

The next morning, Laura’s dad brought us into Edinburgh to the bus station where we hopped on a bus to St. Andrews to visit Laura. The bus took longer than expected (we later found out we had gotten on the least direct of the two buses between St. Andrews and Edinburgh, thus it took twice as long because it stopped at twice as many towns). Laura was at the station waiting for us when we arrived and we first checked into the hostel and then went on a walking tour of London. Our first destination, the Old Course of St. Andrews. The girls can attest to the giddiness I had during this part of our tour. Enjoy.





Eventually, the girls pried me away from the course and we headed into town where we went up and down the streets of St. Andrews, and into the older part of town along the shore, where the graveyard and remnants of the old church stand.




We then went and had some drinks and dinner, and watched the Barcelona vs. Real Madrid Copa del Rey final. After the game, we made another trip back to the course. Now, many of you may know that I worked at a private golf course through high school and college. In the clubhouse we have a picture of Jack Nicklaus standing on the iconic bridge on the 18th hole at St. Andrews. Similar to this picture:


I couldn’t resist.



I also walked from the bridge to the 18th green, and snapped this picture.


One of the highlights of my trip.

The next morning, after sharing a hostel dormitory room with 7 others, including one of the loudest snorers I have ever heard, we made our way back to Edinburgh and spent the day exploring the town. In short, the town is split into two parts, Old Town and New Town. Old Town includes the castle and is situated on top of a hill. New Town is at the bottom of the hill and was built in response to the growing city and the lack of space in Old Town. A park now separates the two. Here is a good picture that I took inside Edinburgh Castle that shows the two parts.


We explored mostly the Old Town the first day including St. Giles Cathedral, the home church of John Knox during the Reformation.


Holyrood Palace, the royal palace in Edinburgh, where Mary Queen of Scots lived in during the 16th Century and is today the official residence of the Queen of England when she is in Scotland.



Edinburgh Castle, which contains a building that is over 900 years old, and also contains the Scottish Crown Jewels, War Memorial, and several museums. It also allows for some incredible views of the city.





After dragging Emily around all of the historical sites I told her we could go where she wanted to go, which was a place called Edinburgh Obscura. It contains a camera that allows you to have 360-degree view of the city. It was evidently built in 1853 and there are only a few like it in the world, including one in San Francisco that I saw when I visited my friend Steve there this past summer.


Along with the camera, this building had several floors of optical illusions and other cool things. Emily and I had some fun with the distorted mirrors, the heat camera, the crazy designed size room, and a program that allowed you to take a picture of yourself and then make yourself younger or older, or a different race.





After having some fun here, we continued walking around the town and eventually caught a bus back to Laura’s parents house.

The next morning we packed up and went back into the city to look at one more church I wanted to see, St. Mary’s Cathedral.



After walking through it we went and browsed through the National Gallery of Scotland. We then grabbed some lunch at Pizza Hut (we couldn’t resist) and caught the bus to the airport.


Trip accomplished.

P.S. Check out Emily's post too!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Semana Santa Part 1.

Last year over Semana Santa my good friend Steve Decker came down to Honduras to visit me and our other friend Mike DeWit, who you know from the microfinance posts from earlier this year. Along with Steve, two of Rachel's good friends came down and visited, and along with Laura Beth we took an awesome trip to Copan Ruinas and Tela. Pictures to remember? Sure:




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Semana Santa is here once again and I have this week off from work. I will post a more detailed entry later this weekend, but a quick run down on the happenings so far.

My friend Lauren Maat, who I visited in London back in December, came to visit her sister who is studying in Sevilla. With her in town and wanting to connect, Emily and I took off to Sevilla this past Friday afternoon. We first stopped in Malaga to drop Michael Lynn off at the airport to meet her parents, and then headed up towards Sevilla. We had an awesome weekend visiting with Lauren, her sister Lindsay, my brother and our friend Cristian, who we met in Motril, but is now working in Sevilla. I forgot my camera and have yet to get the pictures from Emily, so look for those in a post this coming weekend.

We got back to Motril Sunday afternoon and have relaxed the last day and a half. Last night Emily and I went to see the processionals that the Catholic Churches perform during Semana Santa here in Spain. We were able to catch last night's just a short walk from our flat. Enjoy some of the pictures. I have video too, but that will have to wait because I want to edit it. Hopefully this weekend I can get that up.





These are nothing like the processionals Rachel and I saw in Chichi, Guatamala last June, but both are unique and very interesting:



It is a major part of Spain's culture and tradition, and I am glad we were able to catch one before we head off to Scotland. We might try and get to Granada to see the ones this coming weekend when we get back, or catch the ones in Motril.

As mentioned, Emily and I are getting ready to head off to Scotland. Our flight leaves at 9:30 tonight and we will be spending Wednesday through Friday visiting Edinburgh and St. Andrews. My friend Laura Collins, who I met in Honduras last year, is graciously hosting us. We are staying with her parents in Edinburgh and visiting with her in St. Andrews, where she goes to college. It is going to be an awesome trip and look for another post this weekend or early next week!

That is all for now, I must go pack...

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Patience is a virtue y mi amor

For a long time, I was a very impatient person. I would find myself getting irritated for little reasons, especially when I had to wait for people. But then I began my training to be a teacher, and found that I had an extreme amount of patience in the classroom, which was an incredible and useful revelation for me. Yet, outside of the classroom, I still found that I struggled with my patience tolerance.

But then I moved to Honduras, and a whole new level of patience, in every aspect, was needed while living there. From the very beginning, when I stood in line with Mr. Rodrigo to open a bank account for 2 hours, and then later standing in line for 3 hours to take out money in Tela with Larua Beth, I was constantly having my patience put to the test.

I then moved to Spain, which much like in Honduras, no one is ever in a hurry. It is easy to get frustrated with the “no pasa nada” (no worries) style of living as you sit there, trying to get the servers attention to bring over the bill.

Overall, I feel that my time in both countries has allowed me to become a much more patient person.

With that said, thank goodness for my 6 months in Honduras and my 8 months in Spain, because I needed every bit of that patience training when I arrived at the airport last Saturday to pick up Rachel. The last part of her journey took her from Madrid to Malaga, and before I left for the airport the flight’s status online was “on time.” Well, when I arrived in Malaga, I was greeted by flight information informing me that in actuality, her flight had been delayed FOUR HOURS (for the record, it is only a one hour flight…)! All I wanted to do was see my girlfriend, and now I had to sit in the airport for 4 hours for that to happen. I will never mention this 4-hour time period ever again.

Rachel and I shortly after our delayed reunion
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Rachel has come and gone her second time around, but we were again able to enjoy each other’s company and do some traveling. I won’t bore you with all of the sappy details of our journey, but I will provide a quick narrative and pictures of what we did.

She arrived in Malaga and we headed straight towards Ronda, where we were going to spend Saturday night and Sunday. We arrived, found our hotel, and went and saw the famous bridge. We then grabbed a bite to eat at a restaurant around the corner from the hotel.




Sunday morning we woke up and took a walk down into the gorge where you are given the best view of Ronda’s famous Puente Nuevo (New Bridge). Check it:




We then walked around the outskirts of the city and back through the historical center towards the famous bullring, where it is said modern bullfighting was born.



While at the bullring I had my world reduced to the size of a marble. While walking around one of the museums at the bullring I recognized another tourist as someone who worked at my high school in Holland. I could not remember her name, so I finally asked if she was from Holland, Michigan and if she worked at West Ottawa High School. Her immediate facial expression proved my intuition. It was Mrs. Kiekover, one of the athletic trainers from my high school. Here we were, in the middle of Spain, and West Michigan found me. She was there with several other teachers on a spring break trip, and I found out that a few other West Ottawa teachers were with her, including Mrs. Eberly, my senior year Expository Writing teacher. I regret not getting a picture with them, but I was pretty stunned.

After chatting with them for a while, we continued to explore the city, but the poor, rainy and cloudy weather kept us from really enjoying more of the town, so we headed back towards Motril.

Monday, Rachel came to school and academy with me and hung out with my students and watched me “work.” That night we went up to Granada and I surprised Rachel with an hour appointment at some Arab Baths. That. Was. Relaxing. We then met up with Emily and her friend Liz, who was also visiting that week, and some other friends, and had tapas and returned to Motril

Tuesday Rachel went to the beach with Liz while I worked, and then to academy class to watch me with my 6 year olds. She helped me quiz them on the alphabet. It was a lot of fun, and Rachel quickly picked out my favorite student (but really, teachers don’t have favorites…). That night we went to the flamenco store and studio that my bilingual coordinator owns with her husband. We watched one class lesson and then Rachel was able to try on a flamenco dress. I was also able to put on a jacket and hat...



Wednesday our traveling adventures continued as we drove up into Las Alpujarras and visited three towns.

Pampaneira:
I had visited this town with Michael Lynn and her teacher back in December, and really enjoyed walking around the stores and visiting the chocolate factory. I took Rachel on the same tour I was given months ago. I bought a rug for my room and some chocolate.

BubiĆ³n:
I had asked my teachers if they had any recommendations for a good place to eat and my math teacher recommended a restaurant in this town, just up the mountain from Pampaneira (all three of these towns sit on the same side of a valley stacked one on top of the other at different elevations). Rachel owed me a free meal for my victory in the NCAA basketball bracket, so this was my chosen meal. Look at these pictures. Mmmm…


Capileira:
We then went up to Capileira, the highest of these three villages, checked into our hostal, and walked around town and checked out the views of the valley and the Sierra Nevadas.



Thursday morning we took off and took the long and curvy scenic route back to the coast. It took longer than I excepted, and it was a little frustrating at times because the mountain roads were not that well marked. But it was a beautiful drive.


At one point, I thought we were lost in the coastal mountains. We eventually found the major coastal highway and headed up towards Cabo de Gata near Almeria. There were a few more frustrations navigating through the park (poorly marked roads, no roads at all, “Rachel, we have no food…”) but we eventually settled down on one of the beaches there, only to be pelted by sand. Although the views and scenery were incredible, it was not a beach day--the wind was simply to strong. We gave up with sand in our ears and noses and went off to explore the rocks and other beaches.






After grabbing a quick bite of Spanish salad and calamari, we headed back to Motril.

After a few long days of traveling we relaxed on Friday and even went down to the beach for a coffee with my roommates. We then took of for Malaga and relaxed the rest of the night. Saturday morning I took her to the airport, and after standing in line for 45 minutes to print off her boarding pass, I saw her through security and the countdown now starts for my return home in June.

It was an awesome week.