Semana Santa, or when I was actually in Spain (maybe)

I did quite a bit of traveling between April 4 and April 19th. I started out that first weekend going to Iruñea in Nafarroa for what I would describe as a small folk festival, wherein there were various Basque dance groups in the streets and in plazas, traditional sports that the kids participated in, a Catalan dance group, and an Irish dance group, as well as finally getting to see some joaldunak, which are described in the blog about crossing the French border. The next day we went to Gasteiz, where there was to be the termination of the Korrika, which is a week and a half long relay race around Euskal Herria to raise money for education in Euskara. However, we slept too late in Iruñea and missed the Korrika, but were still able to see the concert and the parties afterwards. I had first planned to take a train from Gasteiz to Granada, but the last left at 6pm which was too early, so I decided to take the morning one the next day from Donostia. However, I managed to turn off four alarms without being conscious and wake up just about an hour after the train left, and the next one wasnt until 5, which meant I had to take that to Madrid, sleep there, then take the morning train from Madrid to Granada, which also meant using two days of my rail pass rather than one. The only thing notable from this trip to Madrid was eating in a Kurdish nationalist Kebap joint that I found near the hostel. Finally arriving in Granada, I had to find my hostel which I had heard was difficult to find. I had good directions though and made it fairly easily. The hostel was a beautiful old Spanish house with an open air parlor in the middle. Granada was great, although I wish I had talked to more people, which is partly my fault, but I think also partly the fault of it being Semana Santa and having so many (english speaking) tourists in town (that I didn´t want to talk to) that it was difficult to just run into Granadinos and talk to them. I walked around the Generalife Gardens, about which I know nothing of the history, but were brilliant. From the top of this mountain or hill of the garden I could see almost all of Granada as well as the mountains around it, some still snow covered, and look down on this garden of trees and fountains and flowers and people. I tried to go to the Alhambra but it was sold out of tickets for the afternoon, and I was thinking of returning that night for the night tour which was still open, but decided to try and catch some Flamenco instead, which I also didnt do. I ended up just doing another night of wandering around drinking beer and eating the free tapas that come with it and watching the processions, which is really the thing to be doing in Semana Santa anyways. These processions are of figures of Jesus and Mary that the groups take out from their various churches and parade around the street with marching bands and people wearing outfits that to all citizens of the U.S. can only remind us of the KKK (google semana santa pics). The next day I wandered all over Albaycin, one of the old neighborhoods on the hill, half looking for the part of the hill in which the gypsies live in caves, but thinking that I only wanted to find it if it was by accident or by wandering around aimlessly, so I didn´t find it. But I did find some great views, crazy streets, a street market in a plaza behind a church that is bordered by 20ft ledge in which you can buy things from street people and look over the city and the mountains. I did hear some cool looking street people (that wouldn´t have been out of place at a dc punk show...) talking about seeing each other back at the cave, though.

Ok, thats installation one of Semana Santa, next up is meeting Joshua in Barcelona and the escape from Italy. (Sorry for the writing quality so far, but with a trip of this magnitude I have to let some things go in order to get it down at all. Maybe I´ll edit things later.)