My Birthday

I'm not a very "Yay! it's my birthday person" I'm nearly always " Argh! I'm a year older and I have accomplished nothing that I wanted to." Needless to say that this day nearly never goes well. Last year was good but this year was better. I was in Barcelona this year (previously described as my dream city). I spent the day walking, staring in awe, rambling, looking curiously and just being happy to see this beautiful city. I tried to figure out the sculptures at Sagrada Familia, I happily tramped around Guell park and generally up and down Las Ramblas. I felt truly happy. So I think this is what I'm gonna do every birthday. Go someplace I have always dreamed of going but never been!

I also had a great surprise! Some of my friends and family under duress by a certain person (you know who you are :D)made videos for me. They sang and wished me happy birthday and said funny things and I was just so happy to see them that it made all the bad crap go away. So Thanks everyone! It was the sweetest thing ever!

PS: thats me eating my fancy cake in a tapas bar somewhere in Barcelona! :)

Semana Santa

Semana Santa i.e holy week is a huge deal in Spain and I didn't really understand till I unknowingly landed there bang in the middle of it. It was nothing like holy week in India. In India, it's subdued. Granted there aren't that many catholics in India but I thought we were big enough in number. But, when you see the extravagance of Semana Santa, you can only be awestruck.

The basis of what happens: For a whole week that is the week of Easter, a bunch of brotherhoods take to the streets carrying their patron saints on their shoulders. This might not sound very grand. The patron saints are on floats which are carried by the brothers. These floats are huge and accordingly VERY heavy! Most of the floats were carried by at least 60-70 men. I was pretty much in awe the whole time. (jaw on the road and everything).


You also cannot fail to notice the big pointy Ku Klux Klan like hats but these are colourful. Everyone colour you can imagine. I asked someone why the hats and he said the person under that is repenting for things he has done and therefore hides his face. The fact the KKK used the same kind of hats is totally unrelated (phew) but it still is quite something to look at!
The kids with the pointy hats were the cutest! Running around (ok, walking) in their pointy little hats not looking dangerous at all ( some of the older ones looked like pointy hatted hanumans!)
There were some other kids who were not part of the procession but who i'm sure came to see it everyhere and had wax balls which they had made with wax collected from processions every year. I guess it would be something I would do too if I got to see it every year!

Overall I was awed, creeped out a bit but mostly in awe that I got to see such a solemn and beautiful tradition in person. We got to see it in action in Malaga and in Madrid!

Changing it up!

It's been about two months since I wrote something. I think I've been in a rut: blog wise and life wise. I just get lazy sometimes and it's difficult to unlaze me. But I have decided Again to push my ever growing butt out of this self-created ditch and get myself on the happy road again. I did pretty much nothing for the month of March including no blogging. So I decided to change that in April. The holidays were great! Will blog about that soon. I also changed the template! Tell me what you think about it! Thought I'd change it up a bit!