Pascua

Sunday, 1:47 p.m.

I’m not going to lie to you guys – I’m a little disappointed. Easter Sunday Mass was nothing like I expected. As a matter of fact, Easter in Spain is nothing I expected.

First of all, it was weird to wake up on Easter Sunday and not hunt for the Easter Basket my dad the Easter Bunny hid somewhere in the garage, dishwasher, or kitchen cabinet. I guess it was nice that nothing stood between me and my Cadbury eggs and chocolate bunny (courtesy of my mom and dad), but I missed the hunt all the same.

I left my room this morning and found Ramón, the three-year-old, sprawled out on the floor watching House of Mouse…that didn’t seem very Easter-y to me either. Wasn’t he supposed to be hyped up on sugar already, strewing the contents of his Easter basket around the house, leaving a foil-wrapper path in his wake?

I ventured further outside to go to Mass (yes Mom and Grandma, I went!), and was met with gray skies, chilly wind, and a light drizzle. Obviously I can’t hold the weather against Santander, but it still isn’t what Easter is supposed to be like in my mind (although if I recall correctly, the past few Easters have been pretty rainy, so maybe it is more like home that I thought).

As I walked to the cathedral, I passed lots of people out for a Sunday stroll. I noted that no one was in their “Easter best,” while I shivered in one of my favorite dresses. Everyone seemed to be treating this as any other Sunday, while I was expecting some huge Spanish fanfare and Easter dresses and bows and hats and suits.

[[Me in the cathedral's courtyard after Mass.]]

Mass itself was also not what I expected. For one thing, the cathedral is enormous. So enormous that you can’t actually see the altar if you’re in the back and are left to watch the Mass on a TV screen that strains your eyes (maybe just mine…I was wishing for my glasses the entire time). The cathedral was absolutely packed. People crammed in like sardines, grabbing chairs and setting up makeshift rows, before the latecomers (a steady stream of them came in for almost half the Mass) filled in all the floor space in between.

All the hubbub of chairs being set up and people standing made the cathedral extremely noisy. My cold I’m fighting has settled into my head, so my clogged ears couldn’t pick up anything being said pretty much the entire time. Luckily I know the stories and know the flow of Mass, so I wasn’t lost.

The Mass didn’t seem particularly Easter-y to me either. No one was baptized, there were no bells accompanying the “Glory to God”, there weren’t any happy, “He is risen” songs…it just seemed like any other day.

I am home now, waiting to eat lunch, which will just be like any other lunch today. Nothing fancy, no extra family or friends, no special treats. I know that isn’t the point of the day, but it all just seems off to me. I suppose I wouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t have all these expectations in the first place, but back home Easter has always been a huge deal to my family.

It’s a time to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, of course, but it’s also a time to spend with family. Here it seems like any other day, which makes me miss home and all its comforts even more.

On the other hand, Holy Week receives a lot more emphasis here, so maybe that’s all the Spanish need? Or maybe my experience isn’t the typical Spanish Easter experience. Regardless, it has been a very un-Easter feeling day for me. I’m about to work on a presentation I have tomorrow, and later I’ll go to my friend Kyla’s to finish up and post this. (Doesn’t that seem weird too? You don’t just go over to friends’ houses on Easter!)

I hope you all have a lovely Easter!

♥ abigail

[[Update: 3:27 p.m.]]

Lunch was a little later today (it usually is on Sundays), and there are more people here. Conchi is gone on her excursion, but her daughter Beatriz (she’s been “babysitting” me this weekend) and Bea’s (Bay-uh) husband Roberto were here, along with Christina, Luís, and Ramón, and another one of her niece’s and her niece’s boyfriends. Introductions are few and far between around here, so I don’t know their names.

We had a pretty elaborate feast of paella (pretty good, but a lot fishier than I would like – the dish included shrimp that were still staring at me with their dead little beady eyes, crab, and clams) with bread, followed by a pastry that tasted like burnt graham crackers with a creamy filling (it was tasty). It was a good meal, but I am really missing fruits and veggies right about now!