Jesus parades

So, this weekend:
Saturday--

Went to Huelva, which required like an hour-something drive via bus...Checked out the monastery where Columbus hung out while waiting for the dinero to come in...Checked out the replica ships in the little lake thing...Then booked it over to the beach...I, along with my roommate, was not thrilled about this arrangement. I had come along because I wanted to see where Chris Columbus had hung out; I wasn't that thrilled about the beach in the first place--I certainly didn't want it to be the main attraction of our trip...it was...and I got sunburnt...Salud laughed at me because I pretty much got a farmer's "tan"; she asked me why I hadn't rolled up my sleeves...I'm thinking, for heaven's sake, how much worse would it be if my shoulders had gotten burnt too?! But yeah, it's almost done being burnt...and I think I might have been better off NOT going on the trip...as Karla put it, 4 hours at the beach was overkill...BUT, I did have fun chatting with some other girls, we're trying to make some fun plans for next weekend, and I went seashell hunting...

Yesterday--

Went to church, struggled to stay awake during the service and pay attention, something that is 600x harder to do in your second language...then had to go take a nap before lunch...I also discovered the wonderfulness of the Sudoku application on my phone--I really hope it doesn't charge me for that :S

Both days, we witnessed something essentially Spanish; I'm still not quite sure what they were...I think they were parades for saints on the particular saint's "day", but I swear the first one looked like Jesus, so I think it was a Jesus parade. They get a band all decked out and ready to go, they have a giant box thing with the saint (or Jesus) and candles/trees/paintings, have people walk underneath it to carry it, have people all dressed up in religious garb with ornate pole/cane things, and then just have a whole bunch of other people following them around. I think, from what Karla has gathered from one of the professors, that when it's "your" saint's day, you participate in the saint's parade, and they march all around town starting at like 10pm...or later...I don't really get it, but it's fun to see random little parades that like stop all the traffic on major roads for awhile...oh Spain...