Saw my second bullfight (two weeks ago now). I knew what was going on a lot more after reading Hemingway’s guide to bullfights, Death in the Afternoon…went with my friends Craig and Mike L. We saw the 16 year old matadors we'd seen fighting two months prior sitting in the row in front of us. I'm maintaining my prior stance on bull fights in general. It's culture! This was a top end novillada (amateur bullfight), with the winner gaining rights to be a full on matador next season in Valencia. Lots of extremely dangerous contact with the bulls. A banderillero had his leg broken after being tossed a solid 7 or 8 feet in the air.
The night before that had been spent with those two friends and 3 other girls (two of whom were full on Spanish). Great night of practicing Spanish and staying up late. Now on to a recap of Sevilla.
Trip to Sevilla was a total success really. Jennifer and the good people at CIEE really put together a great trip for us all. This was a 2 day trip that is included in the study abroad experience. Nice 8 hour bus ride each way and $40 of spending money for four meals. Not great for the students who don’t like bus rides…luckily I am considering joining the endurance driving circuit, so it suited me just fine to be passing the time in my seat as we were making moves back and forth across southern Spain. Upon arrival we very quickly made our way to a private Flamenco performance, the type of dance that Sevilla is very famous for. Very technical and emotional.
We were then free to go out and take in the Sevilla nightlife. One of my favorite nights out since I’ve been in Spain; most everyone in the bar area is hanging out on the street and it takes the form of a giant block party. Pretty awesome scene, and I had several successful and relatively long spanish speaking interactions as the night progressed. Good times.
Large-scale breakfast buffet upon wake-up! Hell yeah. Had a group visit to the Catedral de Sevilla in the morning, the third largest cathedral in the world. Some real cool history lessons to be had about the Muslim-Christian influences in Sevilla and specifically the Cathedral which was formerly a giant mosque and was actually totally modified/changed (but not fully razed and replaced like most mosques were after the Christians retook Spain). The Cathedral was a real center for the conquistadors and mariners of Spain to come and pray before their voyages, and Christopher Columbus’ remains are actually currently in the Cathedral after a journey back and forth across the Atlantic (back to Sevilla due to the Spanish-American war in 1898). I discovered these facts from our tour guide who spoke Spanish for us at the slowest pace imaginable. Nice to know I can comprehend that a bit at least. Also visited the Gardens of Alcazar, the Plaza de España, and an oldtime Jewish barrio?(something about Don Juan having lots of women there? I was becoming less attentive at this point…)
It was a funny scene throughout the weekend with many of us not having gotten our full night’s sleep either night and most struggling with their abilities to embrace the historical/architectural/ cultural aspects of the weekend. There were several groups of us…mostly attentive, partially attentive, and disruptively unattentive!
This should leave Miguelito room to tell the epic tale of his night before the departure to Sevilla in addition to other anecdotes of the past few weeks.
Shout outs to the EHS boys soccer team, tough luck with another semifinals loss, and to everyone back home reading this, miss you all.
Nick
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