Semana Santa and Italia!

These last few weeks have been filled with lots of school work and traveling. The week before Easter is Semana Santa (Saint week) in Spain, which is our spring break. All week long there are processions from every church during the day and night, late into the morning. Many of these were cancelled due to the rain which was a surprise because it rarely rains in Spain, especially in the plain (My Fair Lady anyone?!), and the one time it had to rain was this week. People were devastated because they practice all year long for this! All parts of Spain have different processions. In one part people gather and pound on drums for 26 hours in a plaza. If there's blood stains on their drums it means they did a good job. Here in Granada one of the famous ones that got cancelled is the silent procession. The people march to the beat of a drum, which is extremely slow, for miles. There is not a peep in the crowd, and if someone so happens to say something they are instantly shushed by everyone around them. The people in the procession wear penitents (the pointy hats the Ku Klux Klan uses). For American's it can be uncomfortable to see this, but the uniform has been in use since the Middle Ages designed to let people practice penance publicly without revealing their identity. The penitents may walk the streets barefoot wearing chains or carrying crosses in imitation of Christ's Passion. They are in every procession from Holy Thursday till Saturday, and women in the processions typically dress in all black carrying large candles or rosary beads (or both). When a float of the Virgin Mary goes by people shout "guapa!". The floats weigh a lot, and there can be about 24 men carrying it at the same time, sometimes barefoot. They make their way around narrow streets, up and down mountain sides, and all across the city, without any accidents. They used to use the historic relics from the churches, but now its all copies since there isn't any protection from the rain.
                                                                                           
For the majority of my week I was in Italy with eight other friends. We stayed three nights in Rome and then one other friend and I stayed in Florence for three nights. Rome was absolutely incredible. There are too many things to do in Rome and if I had been there for a month I would still have many things to see. The major things we saw were,  the Colosseum, Palatine, Roman Forum, The Trevi Fountain, Spanish steps, The Vatican, catacombs and much more. It was crazy to see so many things I've only ever seen pictures of. It was the perfect time of the year to go because all the trees and flowers had started to bloom! It was very beautiful. We were  in Rome on Palm Sunday, so we thought it would be a good experience to try and attend Palm Sunday mass in St. Peter's square with the Pope. I wasn't too positive that we would get the tickets because we only applied for them three days before. After waiting in a terribly long line to enter the Basilica, I was greeted by Swiss guards and sent to a room with boxes filled with envelopes. As they searched on a large list for my name, I was starting to get doubtful as I was staring at all the packets, but he found my name and we got the tickets! Mass was very pretty and absolutely packed. Even though I didn't understand the majority of the mass, it was well worth it!
A main reason I was so excited for Italy was the food. Every time I smelt food from a restaurant or pastry shop, my mouth instantly watered from craving real pizza and Italian food for such a long time, and it smelt like that at about every corner. One of the things I had to test were the cannolis. I am a huge fan of them, especially from Mike's Pastry, (who isn't?), but I had to test which ones were better. Of all the cannolis I have ever eaten, I think its safe to say that by far Mike's
 cannolis are much better!

None of my friends speak any Italian, so for the first time since we've been studying in Spain we would be in a country where we didn't know anything about the language. There are some cognates that are the same in Spanish, but on the whole Italian is different, despite that some Spanish people, and Italian, think they are similar/the same. A few times in restaurants or shops, people would ask us where we were from and what languages we speak. After saying English and Spanish, they would say "Oh! I know some English, but my Spanish is better!" and proceed to talk to us in Italian after saying a few words of Spanish, even after we insisted that we did not speak Italian. We did a lot of smiling and nodding that week.

Florence was much more relaxing than Rome. With not nearly as much to do, my friend Sarah and I had lots of down time to just wander. It is definitely a shopping center, with tons of ritzy stores, but we managed to only spend money on the important things, such as food. We climbed the Duomo, which is a large cathedral that has a huge dome with a wrap around balcony at the top. The climb is very claustrophobic and steep with people going up and down at the same time but it's worth every 8E, because the view is incredible. We could see all of Florence! The houses are painted all painted colors of dull yellows, oranges, and reds, which adds a very 'homey' feel to the city, plus  the mountains and hills in the background also add to the beautiful view. The river has several bridges, the Ponte Veccio is the most famous with shops all along it, most of which are jewelry places (picture below). We also climbed up to Michael Angleou's Piazza and were entertained by some street performers who were very charming. It was very enjoyable to sit for an hour and listen and just observe the beautiful landscape. Unlike other cities, you have to pay for everything. We didn't enter some churches, gardens, or museums because we had to pay with no student discounts, which was annoying, but we manged to find ones off the beaten path we could just go into. There are fees in cafe's for simply sitting at a table. Even if you don't order anything, they'll charge you for simply sitting down, so your cappuccino or gelato could be three different prices depending if you sit, stand, or take it to go.
Overall our trip went very smooth. No passports were stolen, no weird incidents, or broken bones! Upon landing in Madrid, Sarah and I had less than an hour from the time we got off the plane to find the metro, take two lines to the bus station, and get on our bus. I was eerily calm the whole time we were on the metro, either because there was a man playing and singing Bob Marley songs on his guitar, or because I knew there was nothing I could do to make the metro go any faster, We  had to sprint through the airport, both metro stations, and then the bus station to catch our bus, but we did make it with less than five minutes to spare. Had we not caught our bus, we would have slept in the metro station over night since no other buses were leaving that night. As appealing as that sounded to us, we could not have been happier, and were very shocked, that everything went smoothly! I could not have been happier to spend my spring break in Italy, and I don't think it hit me half way through the week that I was actually there. I was awe all week of everything around me, and so grateful what I have opportunities to do things like this! Studying abroad is definitely one of the top, if not the best, decisions I've made during my college career!