A bull fight & some ears // July 24, 2008

It is thursday morning, and i am waiting for class to start. I have
about 30 minutes to write something. So I decided to write about my day
yesterday!

I woke up with an exciting day ahead of me. I would have
class, then a trip to the post office (Correos) and then a night at one
of the famous Spanish Bull Fight!

My experience at the post office
was interesting… i walked in hands full and walked out still with
hands full…i took a number and sat down waiting for my turn. my number
gets called, i go to the window with everything i need to send and the
woman at the counter just looks at me. i inform her that i need to send a
bunch of things to the US A, how she said it, and she asked me what i
needed. I was expecting there to be boxes, packages, bubble wrap,
bubbles, newspaper and everything else i could possibly need to send
fragil items across the sea, but this is NOT the case. I told her i had a
plate to send and when i took it out of the bag, she said it would
break in the mail without packaging… well obviously it would, and that
is why i am here trying to buy the materials to keep it secure. They
had nothing. she informed me it would be best to wrap it in toliet paper
or tissue paper or newspaper, and bring it back with other items to
keep it secure in a box Awesome… I felt so stupid becuase i have never
had so much difficulty trying to send something. Let me also say that
sending things across the ocean are difficult and expensive. I was able
to send out the objects and souveigners that are not fragile…sweet. it
still cost me 40 euros…remind me never to buy furniture in europe and
try to send it home…

After this I got back to the house to
get ready for the BULL FIGHT! What an awesome experience. It takes place
in this colessuem type of building with tons of fans. In the beginning
there is an introduction of all torores and the main 3 matadors. Along
with these men are the two horse riders that come out with thier
armoured horses. Everyone in the center of the ring clears out, except
for about 3 or 4 toroeros, and then a bull is released. Here comes the
first bull and he is livid…pissed off.. He charges everyone and
everything, sometimes wiping out, or flipping over himself. He is fast.
Supposedly the bigger balls a bull has, the more aggressive and agile he
is. Interesting. The Toreoros wear him out and then the horse man comes
out. The bull charges the horse, and i mean CHARGES… good thing that
horse is padded. the man ontop the horse stabs the bull with a spear,
about 2 x… and then there are three toreoros, all with 2 knife looking
things and then stab the bull as well. At this point, the bull is
really mad, has 6 knife things hanging on him back, and also 2 wounds
from the spear. Then everyone clears teh ring except one of the 3 main
matadors. He comes out with his red cape and the bull basically goes in
circles around him. Then as the bull gets really tired, the matador
takes a sword and puts it through the back of the neck of the bull… he
is successfull if the blade goes all the way through the bull, only
showing the handle of the sword on the back of the neck. Then the other
toreores come out and basically wait until the bull finally falls to the
ground. He does and the crowd goes wild.
Five more times this same
sequence happens. Over the course of 2.5 hours, 6 bulls are killed, 3
matadors are successful, and depending on how well the matadors do, they
may or may not get to keep an ear or two of the bull. This is
determined by the crowd. The crowd, when the bull dies, will wave white
bandanas or anything white if they think that the matador should get an
ear… they yell “corta, corta” meaning cut cut… and the head chief
will make the decision whether or not he deserves one ear or two… and
then the ear(s) are cut off and given to the matador. He does a walk
around the ring, crowd going wild.