First night of Spanish Passover

Wow, I am exhausted from today. I met up with Staci in front of the University 2 hours before services started so we could walk to the synagogue together. I'm glad we gave ourselves so much time. There were processions all over the Centro, and it took us almost the entire two hours to walk somewhere that would have normally taken half an hour to get to. We had to navigate around crowds and blocked streets almost the entire way there. We finally made it!

I was surprised to find that almost everybody in the synagogue tonight was American. I think everyone, even the non-Americans, spoke English. There were a few people from Israel, France, Italy, Argentina, and a small handful from Sevilla. Then we had Americans from Florida, New York, California, Maryland, and a couple of other places. It was really wonderful to see Jews from all over the world coming together in one place so far from home. Apparently there are exactly 104 Jews in Sevilla (out of the 1800-2000 people in the city), somewhere between 20 and 25 Jewish families.

The synagogue is pretty tiny. It's on the bottom floor of what seems to be an apartment building. I'll post pictures with my next blog, but it's basically a fairly small room and a large storage closet for food and other things. It's an Orthodox synagogue, so the men and women sat separately. The services started at 8:30pm and lasted until 9:30. The Hebrew sounds very similar to the way it sounds back home, I think the New York accent is more obvious than the Spanish accent. After services, we sat around and talked outside while some people set up the tables for the seder in the synagogue. We started the seder at 10:30pm, and we didn't eat until 12:30am. I know Spanish dinners start late, but this is the latest dinner I've ever eaten.

We had salad and Spanish tortilla, and I thought dinner was over. Then they brought out chicken. Then more chicken. Staci and I got full, and we were starting to get pretty tired. Apparently there was still more food. They had fish, vegetables, and fruit for later, but we were too full to eat and too tired to wait, so we thanked the rabbi and left around 2am. We were definitely not the first ones to leave, we left some time after half the other people had gone home. We were able to take some leftover matzah with us, which I plan on snacking on for the next couple of weeks.

Staci and I parted ways at the University, and I walked the rest of the way home by myself. I considered waiting for the bus, but decided against it, since walking would take me home more quickly. I'm glad I live on a major street, the walk home was brightly lit by streetlights and always accompanied by cars in the road. I didn't feel unsafe at all. I made it back around 2:30am. This might be the latest I've stayed out. Considering Spanish nightlife culture, this is unusual. Some people say that they're getting home early if they're in by 4am. I don't think I could do that...

Pictures:
1) Jesus float at night with candles lit
2) lighting candles on the Virgin Mary float
3) one of the many booths set up specially for Semana Santa, selling candy and cute little toys
4) nazareno-shaped candy!
5-6) blue nazarenos
7-9) black and white nazarenos (KKK?)
10) nazareno marching without shoes
11) Jesus float
12) view of nazarenos from my balcony
13) Virgin Mary float
14) the feet of the people carrying that heavy float
15) incense leading the way for the Mary float