La Corrida de Toros

(pic: last kill of the bullfight/last paragraph of blog)

So updating my blog isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Each day I am tired from the day/night before. I take long siestas during the day, when I should write my blogs. So I am going to blog about a few events each time I blog, rather than just making a list and telling myself I will get to it… sometime. So now I will finally talk about the bullfight. I bet this is much anticipated, well assuming y’all still read this.

First off, I must say that the bull fight was gruesome. Secondly, it was an amazing experience. We arrived at the Plaza de Toros and it was scorching hot. We didn’t know if our seats would be in the sun or the shade, so we decided to buy some fairly overpriced beers to cool us off. We arrived only a few minutes before the fights which seemed to be a little late because the stands were full.

The standard bullfight consists of 6 bulls, who will ultimately perish, and 3 bullfighters, who hopefully will not. Each bull fighter, or toreros, gets two bulls. There is a standard procedure of how each bull will be fought. First a horn is played and the bull comes flying into the ring. Then there are multiple people with capes of a larger size, and not red, who mess around with the bull. I have heard it is to test the bull and a way for the bullfighter, who isn’t there yet, to watch and see the behavior of the bull.

Then once the bull is tested, two men on horseback ride into the ring. The people with capes are there to distract the bull from charging the horses. The horses are covered in armor, but it looks like padding. The horses are also blindfolded for obvious reasons. The men on horseback each have a lance. They then allow the bull to go up to the horse which he usually attacks. The padding is enough to protect the horse, but the horses are still in danger. The man on horseback then proceeds to stab the bull right behind the bull’s neck, drawing a lot of blood and weakening the bull. The amount of times the bull is stabbed depends on how much the bull is fighting the horse and whether or not the crowd whistles. If the crowd whistles during this time, the man on horseback will not stab the bull anymore.

After the horses leave the ring, three men go into the ring without capes. They are accompanied, however, with people that were testing the bull earlier. They have two flags that have sharp ends to them and their goal is to place them in the bull’s back, or shoulders, close to the neck. Then they will get the bull’s attention by making noise or yelling “toro!” which means bull in Spanish. The bull will charge at them and they will be running sideways, making the bull change directions. They then run towards it at the same time, reaching over the horns of the upset, bleeding bull and stabbing them with two flag like objects. They have to be very swift, and possibly insane to do this.

After the bull has been approached by 3 different men and stabbed 6 consecutive times, it is time for the matador to fight the bull. He enters the ring with applause and a head held high. He will then have his red cape and do strange maneuvers with the bull. The bull will keep charging the red cape while the matador attempts to make the bull do it consecutive times, which is very cool to see. The bull fighters literally are inches away from being knocked down, or stabbed.

After the bull fighter has “fought” with the bull, it is time for the kill. The bull fighter then walks to the edge of the ring and handed a longer sword. The sword is curved and not very sharp along the sides, only the tip. If someone were to try to just force that into a bull, it would not happen. The sword is designed to be forced into the bull by the bulls force against the sword while he is running. The matador holds the sword in an interesting way, too. He places the palm of his hand at the bottom of the sword’s handle. He then makes a fist around the base of the handle and holds it like so, waiting for the bull. He will then shake the cape, instigating the bull once again. As the bull is running, he drops the cape, and gets up high and forces the sword downward through the bull’s back into the heart, if all goes well. The force from the bull running is what gets the long sword all the way into the chest cavity.

Okay so now my experiences. The bullfight was very gruesome. Each fight ends with horses dragging the dead body around the ring and then out of the ring. The kill would be hard to watch at first. The first two fights I didn’t know what to think. But after that I began to appreciate it, in some weird way. It got exciting once you get over the fact that the bull is in pain and suffering literally until it dies. Then again when I type sentences like that, I feel like taking a stance against bullfighting. But I have better things to do I guess.

One of the bullfighters was actually a woman. Well, hardly. She was 18 years old. It was ridiculous to imagine her out there. At one point throughout the fight she dropped her cape, and dropped to her knees, face to face with the bull. Literally. She then opened up her outer jacket, waving her chest at the bull. The crowd, including myself, went absolutely nuts. It was when I realized that bullfighting is meant to be entertainment. They are entertainers. And I was certainly entertained by all three of the fighters.

My favorite was also the crowd’s favorite. I have no idea what his name is, but he was, well, a badass. That’s pretty blunt. But he was so entertaining. He did so many twirls with the bull and was in total control of the beast at all times. It was very intense. He is said to become one of the greatest, but I don’t know much about that topic.

There were a few bull deaths that were hard to watch. One bull took at least a minute to finally go down. After being stabbed into the chest through the back, it stayed standing. Fighting to the very end. It wasn’t fighting the fighter anymore, but it was obvious the bull knew not to give up. It tried for a long time to not go down, but eventually it was too much.

Another kill that was fairly brutal was the last, most exciting, kill of the night. It was the young lady (woman?) who had the honors. The bull, like the previous, would not go down. The sword was in the bull still, allowing blood to come out. But apparently the matador (matadora?) missed the heart, so the bull was not dying like it should. Stupid bull. Then they handed the girl-bullfighter something shaped like a sword except it was like a cross on a handle. The cross part at the end was to reach and pull the sword out of the bull so it would bleed. Instead of just doing that, she took the ‘t’ shaped object and approached the bull. She then jammed it into the back of the neck in one fluid motion, dropping the bull instantly. It was definitely the most exciting, and brutal, kill of the night.

Alcazar, Granada, and the Al-Hambra

One day, I am not sure which day as it has taken me so long to write my blogs, we went to the Real Alcazar de Sevilla, or Alcazares Reales de Sevilla. It is basically a royal palace that is actually still in use today. If the royal family comes south to Sevilla, they will stay at the Real Alcazar.

It is an amazing palace complete with amazing gardens. The gardens are like the ones you see in movies. They are so intricate and beautiful. Again I would recommend checking out the pictures I have posted online. I will post more of the gardens on my Facebook. I lack the vocabulary in order to describe that amount of vegetation in such a beautiful manner.

On Friday, not yesterday, we went to Granada. We woke up early and took a bus which took at least a few hours. I don’t remember exactly how long it took, as I fell asleep many times.

Once we arrived, we were dropped off just outside the town center. We then walked five or ten minutes to the Cathedral of Granada. The cathedral was not as amazing as the cathedral in Sevilla, but it was certainly breathtaking.

Instead of the dark, gray, stone structure from the inside, it was all painted white. There was a substantial amount of gold throughout the cathedral. There were gold sculptures and relics of sorts which were very cool to see, but the gold flake paint was pretty mesmerizing. At first I assumed that there was way too much of it to be real golden paint, but it was in fact all gold. The gold and the white stones and wood look very nice together.

We also got the chance to see the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabela. It goes underground and you can literally see their caskets through a large glass window. Quick history lesson. The Royal Duo won Spain back from the Moorish, or Muslim, rule which lasted from the 8^th-15^th century. They were involved with the Spanish Inquisition as well. So to be blunt, they are very prominent figures in Spain.

It wasn’t necessarily surreal to be there, but it certainly created ‘a moment’ when we were in there. That’s the thing about Spain: there are so many breathtaking structures or pieces of art that you just have to really sit back and reflect on the experience and imagine how much work and time was put into each of these masterpieces or amazing structures. I have had so many of these moments while I have been in Spain.

One of those moments occurred shortly after our visit to the Cathedral in Granada. We took our bus to the AlHambra.

The AlHambra is an amazing large palace, which I posted many pictures of. There are actually 3 palaces, and it used to be basically its’ own city as it was very self sufficient. The AlHambra is significant because it was the last Muslim palace to be taken over when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabela took over Spain. It was such a terrible loss for the Muslims, as they would be now forced out of Spain. It is said that the mother of Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler in Spain, said to him, “Don’t weep like a woman, for what you could not hold onto as a man” referring to losing Granada to the Christians. As you can see, it was a total blow to the Muslim population in Spain at that time.

It was built by the Muslims and was a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony for literally hundreds of years. The palaces are ridiculously detailed. Every single part of every wall has some kind of oscillating design, carvings, script, or some other mind blowing designs. I truly cannot explain how intense it was to walk into each room. The pictures, again, do no justice.

It was the most moving place I have ever been to. At first I thought the Cathedral in Sevilla was the most amazing place, but it changed when I went to the AlHambra. However, the Cathedral in Sevilla is still a very close second, but the AlHambra took the prize with all of the detail and such.

There were beautiful views off into the mountains where white houses are built into the side of said mountains. It was like those pictures people show you, and the mentality you get when you think ‘Europe.’

We were in the room where Christopher Columbus first asked Queen Isabela for funding to sail to the Americas. That room was the most moving room I have ever been in, and not because of that little piece of history. The detail everywhere was incredible. The expression “7^th Heaven” literally comes from the ceiling in this same room. I would love to share the reason for this with y’all, but I forgot. It’s a shame. It’s because I waited so long to write in my blog, I apologize.

Anyway, I recommend the Wikipedia article on the AlHambra if you want to learn more about it. I Just wish I could share the sights we saw with y’all.

Visit to the Cathedral

So I have been very busy this last week and I think the best approach is to sum up certain parts of my trip in each blog, rather than a day by day entry. A day by day entry might get boring anyways, as each day I have school, I don’t go out the night before or do something during the day because I am usually too tired. However, last week I did make myself go to a few places throughout Sevilla.

Well first, let me tell you about my typical day to day life. I wake up at 7:30 – 7:45 to take a quick, 5 minute shower. That’s about as long as I am allowed as they are big on conservation here. I then eat a full, balanced breakfast at around 8 a.m. This usually consists of cereal, toast with marmalade and butter, coffee, juice, and something sweet.

The cereal is the same good ole’ stuff as we have back home, with a different brand name. The milk is different. The milk comes in a cardboard crate and is dehydrated. When they want milk they put the water in the container, shake it up, and put it in the fridge upon request. Normally, the Spaniards would leave the milk out, and drink it room temperature. However, our host-mother has had kids from the US before so she knew we liked cold milk. The toast is toast and the marmalade is marmalade. The coffee is very strong. I couldn’t drink it black if I wanted to. Here they don’t put coffee and a little bit of creamer or milk, they put a little bit of coffee and a lot of heated milk. It’s very different. Then we usually have some kind of pastry or something with chocolate before we head out to school.

We get to the school about 5 minutes after leaving our house. For those who don’t know, I live on campus at Texas Tech back in Lubbock. Back home, it can take me up to 10 minutes to walk to my class. I got very lucky with my host family with the location and the members of the family.

We then learn Statics (Mecanics I) from 9 a.m. until 11:45 a.m. with a 5-10 minute break at around 10:30. Class usually flies by with ease, as I am very interested in this class. It is basically like an in depth Physics class, except there is no acceleration. We use vectors a lot, and it is very visual. That’s enough about that.

After that we come home to lunch at around 2 p.m. which is fairly later than we were used to. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, and also usually the best. After lunch is over, there is a break in the day where many shops close from around 2-5. I have mentioned this already, but it couldn’t hurt repeating. I usually nap during siesta, but I am unsure if Spaniards actually nap during siesta or if they just take a break. I like to think they all nap, I don’t know why; I just think it’s neat.

After siesta we basically just hang around until around 10 p.m. when we are served dinner. It is usually smaller than lunch, but still very big. The real Spaniards don’t eat dinner until 11 or sometimes later.

After dinner finishes, our host mom asks us if we will be going out tonight. Usually we say know, but when we do say yes, she gets excited for us. She is very sweet.

And here’s where I start with the fun stuff. La Catedral de Sevilla is the third largest cathedral in world, and the largest in land area. It is also the largest Gothic style cathedral. We walked and paid our expensive toll of 2 Euros, and entered the main entrance. There were many paintings, which I took the time to take pictures of. The paintings were 400-plus years old. I loved looking at the paintings. After that I didn’t know what to expect. There was a tiny entrance into the main part of the cathedral, which was like a small tunnel. There was quite a bit of cool air blowing at us as we went through it. Then we almost literally had our minds explode.

Okay, so not literally. But it was the most amazing sight I have ever seen. It was one giant room. The inside is the same color as the stone on the outside which is like a light-grey, but there is less light in the cathedral. The ceiling rises to an amazing 137.8 feet tall. It was the biggest room I have ever been in. I can’t even compare this to anything I have experienced before. The building seemed endless.

It was so moving to see that humans, hundreds of years ago, made this amazing structure. “Let us build a church so big that those who see it will think us mad,” was the quote used when they decided to build the structure over 600 years ago. I think that quote fits very well. The cathedral was the most amazing manmade structure I had ever seen.

As you would walk in, there would be what seemed exhibits throughout the perimeter of the inside of the cathedral. In each ‘exhibit,’ for lack of a better word, would be amazing paintings, sculptures, gold, or anything else that is so ridiculous with the amount of detail put into each piece of art. It was like being in a museum. There was gold everywhere. It was on statues, paintings, relics, everywhere.

Christopher Columbus is rested there and he has a monument which you can see in the photos I added the other day to my Facebook account.

Writing a paragraph for everything I saw would take at least 10 pages, so I will stop here. I will let the photos I posted do the talking. But to wrap it all up, it was the most breathtaking sight I had ever seen in my entire life. And I know I am fairly young, but I am not sure I will ever see something more breathtaking than that was. But please, look at the pictures I posted. But even those will not do it justice.

Did anyone without a Facebook see the pictures?

Pictures!!! Finally...

Pictures from my first 2 weeks in Spain are now on Facebook!

1) La Corrida de Toros (Bull fight)

WARNING: Some Images are Gruesome

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=12423675&id=838825206&fbid=10150187231110207#!/album.php?aid=228678&id=578826507&ref=mf

2) Everything NOT Gruesome

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=12423675&id=838825206&fbid=10150187231110207#!/album.php?aid=228646&id=578826507

Let me know if y'all can't view them. I may have to edit my Facebook Account settings.