Easter!

First off, Happy Easter to everyone!! I hope that Spring Break was lovely and that you all got lots of rest and enjoyed remembering and reflecting on how much God loves us. We are seriously blessed!

This week was one of the best weeks of my liiiiiiife, because Tyler came to town!! Yes, my handsome and hunky boyf here in Alicante, IN THE FLESH. Praise God. It was much needed and really awesome and being able to sit down and just talk again, face to face, without the weird ambiguity that comes from texting sometimes was SO nice. I also enjoyed holding his hand whenever I had the chance. Ah, the little things.

Anyway, since he was here I basically just gave up on doing anything productive and I don't regret it one little bit! I decided not to do tutoring or class or my internship or anything (I knew the internship one was going to happen and had talked already to Monica about tutoring one of the days, I didn't just straight up ditch, haha) so that I could have more time with Ty since I never get to see him. :) We went out a couple of times with the girls (and Zoe's friend Vincent who was here), hit up the castles, had tea and cupcakes, walked around a lot, and had a good time. Also, since it was Semana Santa (Holy Week) there were a lot of processions, and one of the nights we hit up the Barrio to go see a procession there and OHMYGOSH.

I wish I could describe it in a way that would do it justice.

First off, there are the nazarenos:

(I found this picture on google...it's not mine. Hahaha there were not good chances to take pictures)

At first, that's a little weird, you know? Depending on the church they come from, they have different colors and stuff (I think that's why at least), so there are a lot in black, or white, or burgundy, or purple, or a mixture of colors (like a black antifaz (weird hat thing) over a burgundy robe). From what I've gathered, these people are basically in penitence (is that the correct usage of that word?), confessing their sins and repenting. Which is why they wear the head things -- they can go about this without anybody knowing who they are. At least, that's the traditional reason. Now I think it's just to keep tradition. Also, there are these ladies:

I think they wear that stuff because they're in mourning that Jesus is going to be/has been crucified? Because I didn't see any of them in the videos of the Sunday processions that I've seen.

Anyway, along with those things there are little kids who give you candy (yesss) and some CRAZY float things that take a BUNCH of people to hold them on their shoulders. Like, guys, they're huge.

Look at all the guys carrying it! Anyway, the one we went to was in the barrio so they seriously had BARELY enough room to fit down these roads, and they were walking down hills and down stairs...they had a ton of people under them, carrying them, and then people literally pushing up on the people coming down the stairs in the front, and pulling on the people in the back so that they wouldn't all just go tumbling down the stairs. Because that thing is HEAVY. It was really, really neat actually. I'm glad that we went.

Anyway, besides that, Tyler and I went to Madrid for a couple of days. We cooked ourselves dinner for our 8 month-aversary and it was DELICIOUS and I was proud of us and it was so much funnnn. Then Tyler had to leave and I was sad BUT we only have 9 weeks left!

Guys, I come home in 9 weeks!

That is the most exciting and terrifying thing at the same time. I cannot believe I go home so soon! I have so much to do in these nine weeks left and I'm planning on making the most of it!!! :D

Hope everyone has a blessed Easter! These next couple weeks I have school off, so I'll just be trying to get caught up and hopefully get ahead (!!) in school and classes and stuff. My friends here in Spain are scattered all over the world (or Europe at least) so it'll just be me and my fam, havin some time together and getting stuff DONE. Boooom.

:) Miss you all!! <3