My Spanish Escapades: Pascua en Castilleja

This past Sunday was the first Easter or Pascua that I haven't received an Easter basket, I would have been missing my yearly chocolate bunny and of course, my family much more than I did it if wasn't for my wonderful Spanish friends. Lucas and Antonio invited me and the Alli(y)sons to spend the weekend in their town Castilleja, which is a ten minute car ride from Sevilla. They told us that Castilleja had a special Easter tradition that was unique to their town, that combined with a desire to escape the Semana Santa crowds sold us, we accepted immediately.

On Saturday Lucas and Antonio drove into Sevilla and picked us up around 7 PM so we could go to the Mercadonia and get groceries for our Easter cook-out before the stores closed. It was so funny to see so many people doing their pre-Easter shopping, it felt just like being home. After buying un monton (lots and lots) of food they took us into their little town, Castilleja.

We only bought a little bread...
(Photo:Allyson)

Castilleja is SO very different from Sevilla. The streets were quiet, the buildings shorter, there are no better words to describe it than picturesque and tranquil. They showed us the palace of Hernan Cortes, and then took us to Lucas' house. Lucas, Antonio and Miguel have been friends ever since they were three years old, isn't that just the cutest? Lucas and Antonio live three houses down from each other to this day. I fell in love with their houses, they were very Florida condo-like but each had a huge patio and rooftop balcony. Lucas' brother was at the beach for the weekend so us girls took over his room and he got demoted to his brothers room. We fit perfectly, although there was a small fight over who got the bed, the trundle bed or the couch. After we got settled in Miguel came over and the six of us went over to Lucas' cousin's house for dinner. She is a teacher and so nice, she just got married a few months ago and her wedding lasted three days! She showed us pictures and it looked like lots of fun. Her and her husband were so kind to us, and were constantly telling us how good our Spanish was.

Miguel rocking out on the guitar, Adara on drums.
(Photo:Allyson)

Miguel was amazing on the harmonica, and apparently Lucas can play the guitar with wine in hand?
(Photo: Allyson)

The only ones who don't play an instrument :(
(Photo: Allyson)

All of the people I meet here seem to be crazily musically talented, I'm not sure what it is about Spain. I however am not, thankfully, none of my American friends are either. So during the few hour long chat/jam session we sang along when we knew the words and at one point I even got to play the bells. It was a great night, they all have a love for older rock type songs so that was fun and gave the evening a homey feel. Antonio and Lucas even attempted to sing some Flamenco for us, they don't know any of the traditional songs so they made up their own, at one point Lucas was singing about a lost dog I believe.

The next morning it was time for the Easter celebrations. The town of Castilleja has an Easter tradition that is unique, there are two brotherhoods in the town Calle Real and La Plaza. My friends are in La Plaza brotherhood, which are based on the churches in the town. On Easter Sunday the two brotherhoods wear blue and red respectively and the women wear flamenco dresses and there is a big party/parade in the streets. Since we don't own flamenco dresses we settled for wearing red, it was drastically different from Easter at home but I loved it.

Part of the plaza procession.

Repping la plaza.

Oxen in the parade, no biggie.

Just like a mini Semana Santa!

Now for a few pictures from the other brotherhood, Calle Real.

Blue confetti everywhere!

So many people on the streets.

Blue confetti flying around.

Red and blue confetti "fighting".

I want a Flamenco dress!

After we had throughly enjoyed the processions we went back to Lucas' house for a BBQ, because nothing says Easter like a BBQ, right? His cousins that we met the night before came over, his brother came back from the beach and about five more of his friends came over, which was good because we never would have eaten all the food otherwise. We had pork, hot dogs, fried fish, a salad that his mom made and a lot of tortilla de patata. Once lunch was over we spent the afternoon sunning ourselves on his rooftop balcony. It was the perfect way to end the weekend.