Sevilla and el pasion de jesucristo!! OR Benś FOURTH UPDATE

Back in Sevilla, the city is on crack. Theyŕe setting up long, cordoned-off rows of seating for those lucky folks who reserved spots on the street. Buildings are renting out balconies - just street-view balconies, not even the rooms attached - for outrageous prices. Hostel and hotel prices alike are shooting upward minute by minute. Space is extremely limited - in fact, Stacy and I had to stay one night at one hostel (the Sevilla Inn Backpackers) and then shlep across town to get a couple of spare beds in a dorm at the Oasis Backpackers just to have three nights here. So whatś the time? Semana Santa time, people. The last full day of our stay here weĺl be packed in among crowds of tens, at times hundreds, of thousands of spectators spread all over the old part of the city. All down the Calle Sierpes (in a little casa somewhere on this street in the early 1500s, Cervantes began work on "Don Quixote"), a kilometers-long red carpet is spread through plazas and between narrow alleys, culminating in the huge square dominated by a truly immense and schizophrenic-looking Spanish Gothic cathedral.
Returning to Seville, a buzzing and bustling, fairly spread out city, after our stay in relatively small and laid-back Granada is quite a wrenching change (plus, as I mentioned, we didnt want to leave Granada). Luckily our first night was at the Sevilla Inn Backpackers, a quite strange and friendly little place located in the shadow of the Cathedral. When we arrived, a group of people were taking a Sevillan dance class on the roof near our room. A shaggy-looking English guy was parked, permanently by all evidence, on his Apple laptop in the kitchen, engaging all passers-by (including Stacy and I) in long, in depth conversations at any opportunity.
Stacy still being sick, we couldnt do anything too crazy, but we caught some more free flamenco at the Carboneira and ate a fair amount of tapas. For those not in the know, tapas are a long-standing and cool tradition in Spain whereby hordes of savvy local diners (trailed by several confused-looking tourists who dont know what the hell is happening) jump quickly from bar to bar, ordering a beer and one small sampler plate of specialty appetizers for each location. By dawn, everyone in the party has tried each and every dish currently prepared in the city (only a slight exaggeration!) Honestly, Stacy and I never really caught on to this tradition, for the simple reason that if we had, our entire trip budget would have been gone within three nights and we would have had to fly sadly home.
Since Stacy is probably going to write about the whole parade/KKK uniform thing (the KKK actually copied this uniform design from the Semana Santa worshippers under the delusion that they, the KKK, were following time-honored Christian traditions) I'll just leave you with the following advice - if you come for Semana Santa, seriously, all you need is probably one or two days of processions and crowds. If you can (and you don't yet have heat stroke from the day processions) DEFINITELY come out for the night processions, because they bring out thick candles that they use as walking sticks and light them all in rows. Furthermore, they festoon roses and candles all over huge golden floats illustrating scenes from the Passion in the Bible, that they then hoist on their shoulders above the crowd and move through the narrow streets. If this doesn't sound all that impressive, remember that some of these floats are hundreds of years old and actually weigh several tons.
I love Seville, and I would like to come back sometime when it's not on crack. It's an extremely proud city, but in a good way. Every once in a while during the following days of our trip we´ll catch a snippet of live coverage of various processions on Spanish T.V. (during the midnight Good Friday parade, a MILLION people were lined up along Calle Sierpes) and miss the city, but also sort of be glad we're not there right at that moment. If you can understand that. More later from Tarragona, Ripoll, and the Costa Brava! Stay tuned peoples.