Easter trip - Sevilla and Córdoba

I knew Easter was a big celebration in Spain, but I couldn't quite believe it until I saw it myself. I'm not religious, so Easter for me usually means a holiday when I go to see my family; however seeing religious festivities here this year was a very interesting cultural experience.

In Hungary Easter is practically celebrated on Sunday and Monday: we usually eat a lot of eggs and ham, color eggs and on Mondays men go and throw water (or in cities perfume) on women so that they won't fade. :)

Here is Spain is very different: they celebrate Easter Thursday and Friday as well (they call the entire week Semana Santa - Holy Week) and there are processions all over the country: they take huge statues of saints and virgins and carry them around the village/town/city along sometimes with music or they sing. These statues are accompanied by people dressed up in special cloaks and hats that covers them entirely, except for their eyes. They carry processional candles or sometimes crosses as well. To be honest with their dresses I found them more scary than holy, but this is really my personal opinion on this. :)

I heard these processions are a bit different in each region and as I was traveling those days, I got to see them in Sevilla:

There were a lot of curious people (like us :)) mostly taking photos.

Aside from Easter celebrations these days were very nice, we spent one day in Sevilla and 2 in Córdoba with a very good friend of mine who came for a visit. :) Both cities are amazing and it feels like already summer there.

Since we didn't have much time, we did a free walking tour in both places and then went to visit the most common sights (Alcázar, Cathedral in Sevilla, Mezquita in Córdoba, etc.) and of course ate a lot of extremely delicious food. :)

Here is the trip in pictures:

Sevilla

Plaza de Espana - the most impressive square of Sevilla 

Selfie with Jerick in front of the Cathedral

Inside the Royal Alcázar - a couple of months ago the new season of Game of Thrones was filmed here :)

Amazing tiles and arches.

The beautiful (and huge) gardens of the Alcázar.

View on the city from Torre de Oro.

View from another angle and sunset colors from a viewpoint called "Las Setas" (the mushrooms :)).

Córdoba

Ruins of a Roman temple

Former bullfighter square

Random street selfie in the Jewish quarter

While queuing to see the mosque... Palm and orange trees everywhere, the latter blooming, so there was a wonderful smell all over the city :)

Inside the Mezquita: arches, more arches and in the middle the Christian cathedral "insertion" that feels like entering a different world.

In the gardens of the Alcázar of Córdoba

View on the city and the gardens

Across the bridge by day and by night

Light show at the Alcázar at night

Green courtyards

March activities

Finally spring has arrived! :) And our activities continue as usual. :) 

We had an English event again together with the reading club in the library on Friday 13th which was not as successful as the previous one, yet we had a lot of fun. We talked about superstitions from all over the world and then went to the teahouse together for a drink. :)

Our small but enthusiastic group :)

We also keep doing the English games for kids, though it is also getting challenging - in the first week we had again a nice big group, so we played a "human-sized board game" about favorites and a memory game, but then when we prepared a quiz only 3 kids came... so it's a bit unpredictable. Though last time we had again the whole group so we could play the quiz in the end. :)

Of course we had the usual 2 intercultural chats, the first about famous people (that somehow went into the direction of politics as well at one point :P) and the second about Easter - as it is a big celebration here and quite different from other countries. As usual we had some food too, for the first chat Dilya brought some nice Russian goodies and for the second we prepared some Easter-food from our countries. :)

I made some kaszinótojás ("casino-eggs") and potato salad (and I couldn't miss out piros arany - it's pepper cream, very Hungarian :))

Super delicious sweet potato soufflé by Amber :)

As for non-work activities I had a quite active month too: the first weekend of March was almost like summer, so I spent most of it outside. That Sunday I got invited to a brunch and got to know some new people, it was a lot of fun. :)

11 people from 10 different countries :)

The 11th was a local holiday here in Illescas - as I was sick that week I didn't really participate at any activities, but I went to a concert where a violinist with Armenian origin played together with  Spanish guitarist. Everybody was excited about them so I was curious too - and yes, they were amazing, I'm glad I had the chance to go and see them.

The weekend after I went to a free workshop of natural cosmetics here in Illescas, which was interesting and useful. We made a soap, a body lotion, a hand cream and a lip balm. They were all surprisingly easy to make and we got the recipes too, so from now on I can make my own things. :)

The week after we arranged a trip from Ecocompartimos to Carranque to finally see the Archeological Park and have a guided tour about the Roman ruins and mosaics there. It was very nice, the group we "recruited" and the sights as well. :)

Ruins of a temple

Ruins of a room where we could observe the heating system they had back then

Amazing mosaics made of very small pieces

Speaking of mosaics: I'm done with my second "masterpiece" and now I'm working on a Picasso picture... I think this one will take a lifetime to finish haha, it's quite big and with challenging shapes... but let's see. ;)

My newest piece of art :)

February activities

And here we go again with the summary of the month! :) The highlight of February was definitely the mid-term evaluation in Mollina and then the trip to Málaga, but besides this we had some other things going on too.

First of all we managed to "finish" the YouthPass wall, or well, at least to update it until the end of January and then of course we'll keep on adding the upcoming activities.

We also started with the "English playground" on Wednesdays: we play different games with a group of kids these afternoons. So far it has been quite successful, they seem to enjoy it. Though it is a challenge to make them speak in English. :) Plus they are quite a big group (around 7-8) and quite active, so it also takes a lot of energy to pay attention to them and try to keep them from shouting hehe. :) But it's fun, so far we played for example home-made Scrabble, Twister, Activity.

This month we had again 2 sessions of the intercultural chat series: one about Carnival and the other one officially about arts - practically we spoke more about traveling, but it was still very interesting. And of course at both we had some food - I think it's now kind of a tradition that we always have to eat something while chatting hehe. :)

Enjoying the Russian-style pancakes (typical food for them at Carnival) and some natillas con galletas, which is like an "egg-pudding" with biscuits.

In February we started with the Spanish courses finally. Charo, our "veteran" English student was kind enough to offer organizing conversation classes for us, so with her now we are finally having some classes and learning things. :) I think I haven't written about our struggle with the Spanish course yet... long story short: we subscribed for an official on-line university course that in the end doesn't exist and they refuse to give us our money back so far. The battle is still ongoing, so fingers crossed, I really hope to get our money back in the end, even if it takes long.

And last but not least, we organized our very first EVS preparation session this month! :) (well first since September and first where it's not me who is being prepared) There are 2 girls, Irene and Beatrice who went to Poland for a 10 months long project, so before leaving we tried to give them as much practical advices as we could and also shared our experiences. Of course it was also fun and I hope it was useful for them and they will enjoy their projects. :)