SEMANA SANTA - Dance Party in Front of the Sacré-Cœur

A spontaneous dance party in front of the Sacré-Cœur is just one of those things you can't plan (thereby making it spontaneous I guess). Anywho, after we came outside the Sacré-Cœur, we noticed some hot guy hanging off a light post juggling a soccer ball with his foot. I thought Well that's different. It's much better than the people in Plaza Mayor with a headless suit outfit expecting me to give them a euro for doing nothing. These guys were really working for their euros. I got some amazing pictures of this guy on a light pole with Paris as his background.

His friend is like "How does he do that?" : )

After the show with the pole, we thought it was over...we were wrong. Speakers came from who knows where and the music started. First up was a spunky blond with a pixie haircut and the ability to shake her groove thang (I'm corny, I know). Then, the light pole guy came to perform some on the ground balancing acts with the soccer ball. Another guy (who I may have a tiny crush on) starts dancing and flipping off of stuff (and therefore will be referred to as the hot French spider monkey). He almost gave me a heart attack at first, but made for some pretty awesome pictures.

Spunky blond

The ball is spinning on a pen, not the other guy's hand : )

Hot French spider monkey almost gave me a heart attack

He flipped off that. Once again, heart attack.

You would think the show was over, not quite.

After this gracious bow, the music started again and the blond was back to dancing. As she danced, a very happy man (who shall hereinafter be referred to as the Brazilian because of his brightly colored outfit) got up and started dancing with her. They had lots of fun and eventually more people began to join them. More people came until there was a whole dance troupe up there. These guys had to be professionals because they were a little too good to be normal people. The Brazilian was leaping and twirling around like a certified ballerina. There was no denying he was a trained dancer.

The "Brazilian"

The rest of his dancing buddies

Michael Jackson time

Eventually, lots more normal people got up to dance. When the Macarena came on everybody joined in.  There was even some random guy, who I would guess was borderline intelligence impaired, in a white track suit who got up and started dancing. Then, the hot French spider monkey/"I like to flip off things and give Chelsea a heart attack" guy takes his shirt off and starts walking up the stairs to the Sacré-Cœur on his hands. I have to admit that by this point I'm in total creep mode and taking pictures of him with my friend's camera because mine wasn't working well enough in the dark. Good times : ) 

Who's this guy?

Hot French spider monkey going up the stairs on his hands

Me being a total creep

Pakistani creeper

Did I mention that this whole time the gorgeous redhead is getting hit on by a Pakistani creeper? He was obviously under the influence of some kind of something and he was getting a little too "hands all over the world" with her. Weird thing is he had the same name (a very unique name might I add) as one of our other friends with us. So weird, right? The blurriness of this of this photo is probably how his vision was that night.

Towards the end, some guy came up and decided he wanted to start rapping. English definitely is not his first language, but for some reason that the language he decided to rap in. When he first started, I thought he said something about the monkey section, but my friend is like, no he said smoking section. I'm thinking Oh, that makes more sense...I think. Then he starts throwing out profanity for no reason. He's like Drop that f*cking beat! Play that sh*t!  Of course I find this super hilarious, and I can't take him seriously at all (not that I took him that seriously before). Then, he definitely said something about monkey music. I was like I knew he said monkey section! He was just foolishness. Not the best way to end an amazing street performance, but whatever. He was probably somebody's brother who just wanted a little stage time.

This was definitely my favorite night of Semana Santa. Fun was had by all and it made me love Paris even more. There's nothing better than a spontaneous dance party in front of an epic cathedral as you watch the sun set over Paris. I only wish I knew who these people were so I can send them pictures of their epic awesomeness. I'm sure they would love to have them.

SEMANA SANTA - Paris (Part Two)

Day 2

After the spectabulous day before, I was really looking forward to heading out for another day in Paris. Our first stop for the day was the Louvre. We heard it was gigantic and the lines are super ridiculous, so we wanted to get there early so we would have plenty of time to look around and beat the lines. Not only did we not have to wait in crazy lines, but we also got in free. Because we are European students (at least for this semester) we didn't have to pay. Sweet deal : ) There was no possible way to see everything in one day (unless you literally spend the WHOLE day there), so we decided to see the most well-known, can't come to the Louvre and not see them things. One of the first things we saw the Mona Lisa, where I had to fight my way through because some tall people have no respect for the vertically challenged. Then, on to the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and a few of Michelangelo's masterpieces.

This is me trying  to get a picture of the Mona Lisa

 

Great shot...after fighting my way through the mob

Venus de Milo

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Michelangelo's "Rebel Slave"

Can I have your autograph?

Remember me talking about the gorgeous redhead with us? Well she happened to be a spitting image of Botticelli (and a ton of other Renaissance artists) affection and she looked like a lot of the women in the paintings. At one point she's taking a picture next to a painting and a guy goes OMG it's you!!! Can I have your autograph?!? I thought that was super cute : ) Other random thing. Some guy (with a thick country accent) yells out Tell er we're gonna meet er at the Mona. I thought it was super funny like, do you come here all the time? Is the Mona Lisa your regular everyday meeting place? Random, but funny.

After about 3 hours inside, we go outside and sit next to the giant glass pyramid to have lunch. As we're sitting one of our friends runs up all atwitter thanking God she found us. There were six of us, but we had split up into 2 groups. She went to the bathroom, came back and the other two with her were gone. They had her bag, cell phone, and ID so couldn't get into the Louvre and she couldn't call them to find out where they were. She had just been standing outside wandering for the last few hours. Poor thing. We got called the other two to bring her bag and she finally got to go inside. Then, as we're eating, some guy comes up to us and goes So what's the big deal? What's exactly in the Louvre? Is it worth it? We're like seriously dude? It's the Louvre. How are you in Paris, standing in front of the Louvre, asking if it's worth going inside? Silly man.

View from top floor window

After the Louvre, we headed for the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees. We took an obscene amount of pictures at the Arc de Triomphe then took a stroll down Champs Elysees. It's supposed to be like the ritzy version of Rodeo Drive, but it just seemed like a pretty street to me. Nothing super spectacular. 

 

Champs Elysees

So we decide to head to the Sacré-Cœur (Sacred Heart) cathedral, which we kept hearing was way more interesting than Notre Dame. Randomness: I'm pretty sure I saw Rick Steves as we were walking towards the Sacré-Cœur. Anyway, Sacré-Cœur is on a giant hill and you can take the stairs or take a trolley-like thing. Of course my friends, being fans of sexy calf muscles, decide we should take the stairs. Ugh. But once we got to the top it was well worth it. The view was amazing and the cathedral itself was gorgeous. We happened to meet the other half of our group, who were chilling eating baguettes and drinking wine in the grass. We went inside (where some guy had to keep yelling no photos! because some people just can't respect rules, even in a church) and just sat and admired where we were. After about 10 minutes we go back outside to get a good seat to watch the sunset over Paris. That's when the real fun began. A dance party broke out in front of the Sacré-Cœur! It was just one of those amazing things (that probably happens in Paris all the time) that you just can't plan. They didn't just dance, but they were acrobats as well. It was FANTABULOUS! I enjoyed it so much, I shall dedicate an entirely separate post to it : )

This guy made it up 7 stairs and was already tired.

Sacré-Cœur

AMAZING street performers

Sacré-Cœur at sunset

Preview of dance party

 After the amazing dance party in front of the Sacré-Cœur, we head back down the hill for dinner. We find this cute restaurant and order food sort of late (we're officially on the Spanish  eating schedule by now). I order a salmon quiche that was super delicioso (I can't even think of more adjectives in English so I'm switching to Spanish). After dinner we head back to the hotel. We decide to watch some French TV just because and we turn on this channel that's playing old silent films. The movie had the original words displayed in English, with French subtitles, but it was dubbed in German. We didn't figure the German part out for a while, so we're trying to repeat what we hear thinking they go along with the words at the bottom. Talk about super confused. By that time, we realize we just need to go to sleep and that exactly what we did.

SEMANA SANTA - Paris (Part One)

Firstly, I must say that 7 AM flights are an abomination against man. Now that that's out, I was super excited for Paris. After being cold and wet for the last 3 days, I was really looking forward to springtime and sunshine. Paris definitely had that to offer.

Day 1

Technically, this day begins in Sevilla, where we had to wake up at 4 AM to catch the 5 AM bus to our 7 AM flight (those times just should not even exist). After a bit of worry that the bus wasn't coming (Spanish style), we finally got on the bus, made our flight, and landed in Paris. This is where the fun begins. We're already a little grumpy due to our lack of sufficient sleep and our extreme lack of knowing how to get where we need to go only made things slightly worse. A well-meaning tries to ask for help in Spanish first (why, who knows), but then switches to French (although she's only had one semester of French class). The rest of us get a little impatient and go to another woman to ask for help in English. She tells us what we need and we end up paying like 40 euros for a 3-day unlimited metro/bus/train pass. We get on the train and finally make it to our hotel, so everything should be okay now, right? Wrong. The hotel canceled our reservations because our friend's card had been frozen by her bank (she's had trouble with them since day 1 in Spain). The worker was super nice though and called another hotel to find us rooms for the same price we would have paid there. The new hotel is a few blocks away, but it's a 2 minute walk from the metro station and it was super cute, so all is well. We drop our things off and head right out again. We walk past a little shop and buy some delicious food stuffs (I got a mini spinach quiche). We headed for the Eiffel Tower, where we sat and ate lunch. It was one of those amazingly surreal moments where you just stop and think I'm eating lunch under the Eiffel Tower right now. The weather was perfect and the quiche was superb, so everything is going as well as it should be right now. A few friends decide to take the stairs so they can go to the middle level, but a friend and I take the elevator so we can go all the way to the top. The lines had to be some of the most ridiculous lines in the history of lines. There were so many I didn't even know which one to stand in, not to mention as soon as I got behind the metal barricade I had to use the bathroom. Ugh. Anyway, we get to the top and the view is AMAZING. Well worth the ticket and the lines. I never realized how big the Eiffel Tower is. There are  whole floors with shops and restaurants inside. And all this time I just thought it was a tiny little metal statue.

 

 

 

After the Eiffel Tower, we headed straight to Notre Dame (which I recently had an epiphany that notre dame means "our lady" in French). We took pictures outside and were about to go in, when a friend realized that we were standing next to Hotel Dieu. She was super excited to say the least. It was one of the first hospitals in Europe (oldest in Paris) and is well known for lots of super innovative discoveries. We sat inside for a while, being respectful as possible seeing as how there are still patients there. By the time we came out Notre Dame had closed and we couldn't go inside. Super bummer, but I was just glad to see it.

We head across the street to get some dinner before planning what we want to do later that night. Directly across from Notre Dame is a cute little restaurant where we sit and eat. I ordered Tandoori chicken (I know, it's not very French) and it was amazingly delicious. We met a super nice old French guy who taught us some French and practiced his English on us. My friend, as usual was hit on by our waiter (I think her bright red hair attracts men of all nationalities) and the old guy taught us some phrase (I can't remember/I would never be able to spell it anyway) that meant "hands all over the world" for men who get too touchy feely with you. We decide that after dinner we're going to go back to the Eiffel Tower to see the lights at night. And before we know it, the whole thing is sparkling like a disco ball. Apparently, it has a light show that none of us knew about so we got super excited and felt pretty special. 

Super deliciousness

 

 

 

 The video doesn't do it justice.

After the spectacular light show, we went back to the hotel to rest up for our next super awesome day.

 

SEMANA SANTA - Sevilla

After my ordeal with the processions, I was really looking forward to getting to Sevilla and enjoying myself. The main (and only reason for me) to go to Sevilla was to see the processions. They are supposed to be some of the oldest and biggest processions in Spain for Semana Santa. If you want to see some amazing processions, Sevilla is the place to be.

Day 1

So we land in Sevilla at about midnight and we are going to drop our stuff off at the hotel and go right back out to see the processions. Due to some sort of miscommunication issues, we had an extra member of our group so we thought we would have to sneak her into the hotel. Fortunately for us, the hotel paid no attention and both of the rooms had an extra bed (we thought she would have to sleep on the floor). We drop our stuff off, grab a city map, and leave. Of course that night it just had to rain. If there is even a little sprinkle the processions won't leave. The pasos are hundreds of years old and they are not going to risk them getting ruined. We wandered around for about three hours in the rain hoping the rain would stop and the processions would leave. Then, it started to rain harder and we found refuge in a Starbucks at about 3AM. We sat and waited for the rain to let up before heading out again. Of course no processions were willing to risk leaving now and we decided to just go back to the hotel and try again tomorrow. We finally step into our hotel around 5 AM and our first night in Sevilla was a major fail (not including the fact that my foot hurt really badly).

This is what the sky looked like that night : (

 Day 2
We woke up the next morning with all the hope in the world of seeing a procession. Until we walked outside and it was STILL raining. Then, it wasn't just rainy, it was cold windy and rainy... the worst possible walking conditions. Somehow, we once again made our way back to Starbucks after hoping a procession would leave. We first visited the main huge cathedral to see if any processions would be leaving. Unfortunately for us, no. Nothing. We decided instead of waiting for the pasos  to come to us, we would go to the pasos. They are housed in their home churches until it's time for the processions to leave, so we decided to visit the churches themselves. We spent the rest of the day visiting  churches to see the pasos in their houses.  We then headed to look for food and ended up at a Chinese buffet. It was sort of cool because you could put the meat and vegetables you wanted on your plate, tell them what kind of sauce you want, and then they will cook the whole plate of food for you. After dinner, we ended up walking along the river taking crazy photos. At one point, we decided to stage a "creep" session where we proceeded to do the creep on one of our friends. Good times.  We visited a cute little market, but I didn't buy anything. We took more pictures on a bridge, then we headed back to the hotel to turn in for the night.

Side of main cathedral

Main door (don't mind my giant pesky finger)

 Day 3
We woke up and KNEW that today would be the day we would be able to see a procession. But first, we decided to head to the Alcazar. It's pretty much a tiny copy of the Alhambra in Granada. Anywho, we waited in a sort of ridiculous line to get in, but we weren't disappointed. Although it's smaller, it seems as though it may have been better preserved. Personally, I liked the gardens here better than the Alhambra too. I think it just may have just been that I visited the Alhambra before the flowers bloomed, but if a place is known for it's gardens I just expected to see something better than what I saw. I took a ridiculous number of pictures here because it was just that gorgeous. After the Alcazar, we went to find food. Near the cathedral was a restaurant that sells calamari sandwiches, so we decided we would have to give them a try. We sat on the stairs of the cathedral and ate our awesome sandwiches and hoped SOMETHING would leave. Then... we heard trumpets. We gobble down the last bites of our sandwiches and rush around the side of the cathedral to the main door. Finally, after all this wishing and hoping, a procession was leaving. And not just any procession, but the one from the main cathedral. Our timing could not have been any more fantabulous. We had a front row view of the only procession that had left since Semana Santa started. Just our luck, as the main paso neared, the rain started again. The paso didn't even make it out of the plaza around the cathedral before it turned and went right back inside. Honestly, I think we're lucky we got to see anything at all, we could have easily been on the other side of the city when this happened. After the paso went back inside, the rain began again. We tried to take shelter under some trees, but it was futile. We were absolutely soaked through and through. At this point, a friend and I leave the group to find somewhere to sit down because my foot is killing me. A while later, we get a call that they're at a TexMex restaurant and we head out to join them. After dinner, a friend and I take a taxi back to the hotel (the hotel was a super long walk from the main city center) and we turn in for the night as the rest of our peoples gallivant around Sevilla til the wee hours of the morning (I'm exaggerating here, but whatever). I wanted to get a good sleep because we had a 7 AM flight the next morning to Paris.

Here it comes!!!

And there it goes...right back into the cathedral.

All in all, Sevilla was just a big wet cold mess. I'm sure I would have loved it so much more if I hadn't felt like a stray cat 95% of the time, but what can you do now? I really feel as though I shouldn't judge based on the freezing wet misery that was the weather for those 3 days, but that's kind of all I have to go on. Oh well, maybe later in life when I have some free time I'll give it another try, but that won't be any time soon.

Bin Laden's Death

So, Osama bin Laden died. Who would have ever thought that would happen? After 10 years of searching for this guy, it seems as though he had almost become a mythical creature, like a unicorn (but not quite as benevolent). My Spanish mother told me the morning Obama announced it and at first I thought I mistranslated what she said. I was really surprised to hear this because it sort of seems like it came out of the blue. I guess the President really couldn't announce every step of what he was doing because that would kind of defeat the purpose of a secret operation. Later that day I got an email from the U.S. Consulate telling me to refrain from attending public demonstrations or celebrating publicly. I was like really? Did they expect me to run down the street and rip my shirt off like Mia Hamm after the Women's World Cup? Trust me, that wouldn't have happened. I just thought it was an interesting email to receive. Anywho, I don't really have much else to say about it. What's done is done.

Maybe if I had abs like hers I would rip my shirt off more often : )

SEMANA SANTA - Getting to the Bus Stop

Semana Santa literally translates to "Holy Week" and is the week of celebrations leading up to Easter. For most college students it's the equivalent of Spring Break. 

Before I could even begin to think about enjoying my Semana Santa, I first had to get to the bus stop. The main plaza in Palma is Plaza de España, which in theory should only be a 3 minute walk from my house. Well, not the case on the day I actually had somewhere to go. I'm usually pushing being on time by leaving my house with about 5 minutes before I have to meet anyone in Plaza de España, and that night was not different. Unfortunately, I was not aware that the processions would be going down my street, Calle San Miguel - which is a main street in Palma. For the processions, they block off the entire road and hundreds of people line the streets to watch the pasos (the religious version of a parade float) go by. After about 10 minutes of just fighting my way down the street, I finally get to where I need to turn and I can't because it's on the other side of the street. I'm quite frazzled at this point because 1) I'm already late and I'm making everyone else waiting for me late, 2) I can't figure out how to cross the street, 3) I was smooshed between way too many people for my liking, and 4) I was starting to get hot. These things combined into a great and overwhelming frustration and finally I called one of my friends to tell her why I was running late. After she laughs at me, she then tells me I could have crossed if I went in the complete opposite direction. Just fabulous.

Example of a Semana Santa procession

I was not in the mood to fight through all those people again, so I took a back street parallel to San Miguel. I turned back onto San Miguel, but I was far enough ahead that the processions hadn't made it that far down the street yet. So I scurry across the street and walk back down in the opposite direction. I'm hoping I can find somewhere to turn off before the procession comes, but nope, no such luck. I'm literally walking head on with the processions (drummers, horses, and all) and I feel super terrible. I'm like Oh great, I'm the dumb American ruining a hundreds of years old religious celebration. At one point I felt really bad so I just stopped walking. I can't go anywhere because on one side of me is a couple of horses and the other side is a couple rows of people. But then... there was a voice. She told me Puedes pasar por alla (You can get through over there) and all I saw was a finger pointing to the corner of the building we were standing in front of. I said thank you and was once again fighting my way through people, although it was much easier since I was going away from the procession. I finally made it to Plaza de España and I was only 25 minutes late. A trip that should have taken me 3 minutes ended up taking 25, and my friends only missed 3 buses while they waited. Luckily, the bus to the airport comes frequently and we had plenty of time before our flight left, so all was well. I guess that was just a life lesson: You never know when a sacred procession is coming down your street so always be on time.