I bleed Spanish blood

Sobreviví la Madrugá y ahora soy un Sevillana auténtico!!! (I survived the pasos of the dawn and am now an authentic Sevillana) Ok so let me tell you about my night. Last night (holy Thursday) we went out at midnight to meet our Spanish friends to go and see the pasos. The pasos for holy Thursday are really serious and the most famous and the most beautiful of all the pasos of Semana Santa. You do a lot of waiting around because in some of the confraternities there are over 3000 penitents. We were sitting in the street...literally sitting in the street playing cards waiting for the pasos to come. They don't lie though, they are absolutely BEAUTIFUL and definitely worth the wait. Spaniards stay out through the night until the morning to see the pasos go by. Us Americans were determined to make it to sunrise so as not to disappoint out friends and we were committed to bleeding Spanish blood and WE DID IT!! At around 7:00 AM we decided that it was time to go home. Unfortunately our decision was based on the fact that it was about 45 degrees out and we were all freezing. We were all wide awake because we had planned for this and had slept the whole day earlier so we would be ready for the night but we were frozen popsicles and couldn't handle it anymore so we made our way home. But not without stopping at the churro stand first for our breakfast :) and as we walked home along the river we watched the sunrise in Sevilla. I have to say I never thought I would watch the sunrise in Spain, but I am glad I did. It was gorgeous.
We finally went to bed around 8am and just woke up. Its almost 3pm here. HAHA- my roommates and I are so disoriented and we weren't sure what day it was and we woke up to the smells of lunch cooking...weird. It's definitely a wierd feeling but we are super psyched that we did it. It was quite the experience and we're loving that we're true Sevillanas now, as dubbed by our Spanish friends. And guess what....we're right back at it again today!!! We're going out around 6pm to see the 9 pasos that go out today for good Friday. We are committed to Semana Santa. This is dedication. I haven't missed a day yet and I will live to tell about it.
Before we went on break from school my popular culture teacher was telling us that Semana Santa is more of a test of endurance than anything else. I didn't really know what she was saying at the time but man oh man I am going to have that tattooed on my body when I am done with this haha. Don't worry mom...I'm taking care of myself and I'm being smart.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO YAY Semana Santa!!!!

lots of love!!