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Hola mis amigos y familia,
Yesterday I had a cultural experience of a lifetime, I saw my first bull fight. I went with 3 girls and we had pretty good seat to see the entire bloody event. If I ever get my pictures up you will have to check out the stadium. I felt like I was in the movie the gladiator because the stadium was so historic and beautiful. Lucky the point of my show was for the bulls to die not for the men. The first toreo we watched was one on horse. He had about 10 different horses he used which were well trained to taunt the bull and please the crowd at the same time. It was a quite a show and spectical to watch him spear sword after sword into the bull. However, little did we know this would be the bulliest bull fight of the night.
When the bull was just about done for and was already weak from loss of blood the toreo put the last sword straight through the bull and must have hit something very important because blood immediatly started pouring out the bulls mouth and the fell over dead. As the crowd cheered and applauded 3 stuned Americans sat in awe....luckly all the bull fights weren´t that grusome otherwise we wouldn´t have been able to sit through 6 of them.
After the intial shock of the cruelty to the bulls and getting over the fact that yes the bull was going to lose we managed to enjoy our cultural experience. (Besides the fact that the man in front of us decided to smoke a huge cigar the entire time.) Another interesting things about the corrida de los torros was the fact that ppl brought in their own food and drinks. Some ppl really had dinner right in front of us during intermission.
The next couple of bull fights we watched were with the matidors on foot. It was a great specticle with men in tight funny pants with their strange postures they were using to keep from being hit by the bull. We enjoyed ourselves commenting on the techniques and outfits. And we soon learned that it is not alway so easy to put the final sword into the bull as we watch a few of the matidors fail on their first attempt.
One of the last fighters was know because he was young and good looking and we found it comical that no one cheered his name. They only shouted guapo guapo! even the men were shouting guapo...guapisimo! However soon we found ourselves shouting this as well. Guapo and the toreo on the horse each won an oreja.
After the crowd went crazy and started waving white flags at the judges they were awarded orejas, which is litterly the ear cut off of the bull. This is an honor to receive in the bull fighting world I was later explained.
The bull fight was one of the most bloodiest but yet interesting experiences in my life. I some how found myself enjoying learning about the rules and the culture however, I´m still pretty sure I would rather spend my 18€ on buying myself an new dress.
Anyway the festivals are continuing tonight and I´m thinking it will be another night of not going to bed until 7 a.m. espcially since there will be music in the streets all night so I wouldn´t be able to go to bed if I wanted to. The only annoying thing is then I spend all day sleeping when there is such beautiful weather outside...my only solution to this problem would be to quite sleeping....hm.... However, the fact that my teachers have decided to give us an insane amount of homework and my first graded exam in a week has also got me a little worried...
hasta la proxima vez
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