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| Nerja kicks off Semana Santa with a parade from Iglesia El Salvador at the Balcon. Here, Kate and I had been waiting about 20 minutes for ?The Main Event.? |
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| We showed up to the Balcon de Europa around nine excited to see what was going on. The dusky blue sky and yellow street lights gave the event a very cool lighting backdrop. |
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| There was a pretty big crowd of mostly non Spanish onlookers. Later we figured out that all of the locals who were not in the parade were in bars watching the FC Barcelona football match. |
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| We had a few minutes to goof off waiting the show to start. |
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| Yes, that is me in the same brown jacket that I wear in all of our pictures. I don’t have that many choices here so lay off! |
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| The moon was almost full. |
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| OK, finally under way! Believe it or not, this is not Alabama in 1968. It is hard to believe that something so deeply religious for Spanish Catholics has such an evil reputation in the U.S. |
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| Seriously, if you didn’t know what was going on, this could be a pretty scarry sight. |
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| Kate is pimping her cute new pink Euro-scarf. |
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| Hey Honey! |
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| Finally, The Man, The Myth, The Legend made an appearance. The crowd wooped it up. |
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| The traffic jam was to severe not even for God himself could get the tourists out of the way and J.C. was stalled out for a good 10 minutes. |
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| Considering the size of Nerja, there were actually a ton of participants in the parade. Forgetting all of the Klan’s Men and children carrying crosses, they had to convince a heck of a lot of teenage boys that it would be cool to carry Jesus around all night. That certainly must have been a miracle. |
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| Finally, Jesus is on the march. |
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| I left this shot in to show the rest of the crow at the opposite end of the Balcon square. Kate is a big fan of Geraniums on the white arched wall in the background. |
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| Jesus’ ride had quite a posse of cherubs. |
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| Since I was raised Presbyterian, I’m used to seeing Jesus depicted with half a doze adoring children a couple of baby lambs and a big smile on his face. This is no Easter Bunny celebration! |
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| A protestant just doesn’t know what to make of all this Catholic idolatry. |
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| I should look up the symbolism of the different waves, but a group of blue hats streamd out of the church next. |
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| The parade was an impressive show of religious conviction. Unfortunately the pace of the parade didn’t match the participant’s entheusiam and about this time Kate and I decide to have a look around for a new tapas joint. |
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| I couldn’t resist taking this picture of Kate becuase the scene so accurately sums up the Spanish tapas bar experience. Hams hanging in the background, tapas in the cold case with queso rounds on top, vino tinto de la casa and boogerie olives on the bar. This little place had some killer mushrooms. Two tapas, olives, a glass of wine, and a coke for three Euros. Awesome. |
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Wow… Easter is no joke in Spain. Interesting/Scary about the white hats and the blue hats.