Religious Freaks and Snowy Peaks

Hola mis Guapos!

It's been a while and I don't have much time, but I wanted to write about skiing in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, a 20 minute drive from the city of Granada and the highest peaks in Spain, and Holy Week thus far with my father, stepmother and sister Isabella.

So about a month or so ago, a few friends and I went up to go skiing. The local ski resort is Pradollano and the peak we ski is La Veleta, the 2nd highest peak of the range, about 11,000 feet high. This mountain range overshadows the city of Granada and is one of the reasons why Granada is so stunning. After taking the hourlong bus-ride up, the view of Granada and the valley below is equally stunning. While I hadn't been skiing in probably 5 years (the last time I went was Mammoth in highschool), I quickly got it back, not that I had much choice...

My friend Aaron is Canadian and like all Canadians, they have little to do, but ski. He actually almost went professional, but decided to go to university instead. So anyways, his friend, him and I quickly ascended to the top of the peak as they said there would be less people on the other side. I thought well, okay... I don't have much choice and as long as we can stick to a few intermediate runs before hitting anything harder. Well once we got up and started coming down, we came to a crossroads where all roads were difficult, I believe roughly equivalent to black diamonds. And since it was still morning and cold, the mountain was icy. So I spent much of that first ride in this position:

I also spent much of that first steep and icy hill sliding down. I just couldn't stop myself from sliding and twice ended up sliding at least 50 yards each time. Luckily, my friend Aaron was also a ski coach and told me I wasn't putting my weight on the correct foot, so I quickly regained form and fell much less, though I did have plenty of cuts and bruises to prove my many many falls.

And from the top of the hill, the views were awesome.

So we continued to ski the difficult, expert courses and it was a blast. We skied all day and once we got to the bottom

My friend had to do some strange stretches; it must be an odd Canadian thing.

The following weekend, my 93 year old grandmother, father, stepmother and little sister arrived in Granada. So about two weeks ago, after picking up my grandmother from the airport in Malaga, we checked into her hotel. After looking at my grandmother's passport, the receptionist told me that there must be a mistake with her birth date. I said no there isn't and she could not believe it, especially since she appears in such good health (it's true, my grandma Lili is amazing, strong and very healthy). Then, the receptionist told me that their hotel computers wouldn't except her birth year (1915), so that she had to fake my grandmother's age. I thought that was incredible. And later that night, I took Lili to a tapas restaurant near my apartment. After telling the jovial waiter my grandmother's age, he also couldn't believe it and every time he passed, he would tell me to tell my grandmother something, such as tell your grandmother she is amazing. And after we finished our meal, he gave us two free shots of moscatel and told me to tell my grandmother that this will help her digestion. She was received everywhere very very well and we had a great time.

My grandmother stayed only a week, but my dad was here for another week. We took a weekend trip and visited Ronda, Sevilla and Cadiz. While we were in Sevilla, the Holy Week Processions began, which are freaky and fascinating at the same time. The processions in Andalucía are supposed to be if not the biggest, than some of the biggest processions in the Catholic Church.

While we were in Ronda, we ran into a miniature procession, organized by the local primary and secondary schools. It was pretty hysterical.

What's particularly amusing, in my opinion, is their miniature "float" they are carrying. A large part of Holy Week in Spain is penance, while the other of course is the events leading to Jesus' death, his death and of course, his resurrection. So, for the larger processions, which often involve brotherhoods of over 1000 to 1500 brothers, you have 15-25 men carrying a 1-2 ton float. THat's 2000 to 4000 pounds! It's insane. I also heard, from a Spanish friend, that many of the people who carry the float don't volunteer for this task more than twice in their lives, as it can leave a scar on their neck. It's not simply walking down the street, each brotherhood will walk from their church to the cathedral and back. Some churchs are located miles away from the cathedral, so you can only imagine.

This was one of the first processions we saw in Sevilla. This was on Palm Sunday in the Plaza de San Salvador. You can see the beautiful church that this procession left from. What's incredible about this float is that that is an actual palm tree on the float!
As you can see, my dad also happened to make some new friends.
And of course, what would semana santa be without the Virgin Mary.

Well, that's it for now. I will write another update in the coming days about the rest of semana santa (from Granada and my fantastic balcony view of every single procession in Granada) and my recent trip to Firenze (Florence).

I hoep you are all well! TGIF!