La Corrida del Toros

(La Plaza de Las Ventas in Madrid, Spain)

This morning I dragged myself out of bed because I wanted to go to mass in a different church (seeing as Madrid has over 200). I picked La Parroquia de San Pedro, which is the second oldest church in Madrid and near El Palacio Royal and El Rastro (so if I couldn't find it, there was always shopping as a back-up plan). The mass times weren't listed on the internet, so I got there by 10:30, and turns out they had only one mass at noon. So I explored. I walked around for a while before I realized that I had been there before (on the first day's bus tour). I walked through the winding streets of the surrounding neighborhood and stopped at a bakery, La Iglesia Catedral de Las Fuerzas Armas de España (another pretty church), and the gardens near El Palacio Real. I got back to San Pedro in time for the 25-minute mass (they really whip right through them here) and despite understanding hardly anything besides, "La Paz," it was nice to have a change of scenery.

I then walked back to the metro and headed back to Julia's. I had time to finish my homework before lunch, so I was pleased, although Julia came in and asked me why I needed to use my light if the window was already open ("Because it is too dark with just the window," I responded - I refuse to sit in the dark). We then sat down for lunch (chicken and rice) and she called me a barbarian. Not even kidding. Apparently, to a super-traditional Spaniard like Julia, it is barbaric to eat with your fork in your right hand and put down your knife when you're not cutting something (Europeans eat with the fork in the left and the knife in the right, never putting either down). Although I will admit that I was struggling with my chicken a bit, it was nowhere near grounds for calling me a barbarian. Hmpf! She then said that I must be tired because I wasn't understanding her Spanish well. We had to resort to looking up a word in my dictionary. Turns out it wasn't even there - so I didn't feel so bad about not knowing it.

Then I had to leave for the bullfight. Ugh. All the BC kids are given tickets, and our advisor recommends we go, so at least we have an informed opinion of La Corrida Del Toros. There were a lot of people there and I will say that there is a lot of tradition involved. The plaza was pretty and I really liked the matadors' outfits (rumored to be designed by Armani). They were very sparkly and glittered in the lights. How it worked: there were three matadors (who each had a team of three helpers who would also flag down the bulls) who each had two turns in the ring. I believe that they get points for the various moves they do and each bullfight lasts for about 20 minutes. Altogether, La Corrida is about 2 hours and they go through 6 bulls. It was awful. Awful. The first poor bull didn't even want to fight. It just stood in the corner and they all had to gang up on it to make it move. Then they just stab it full of swords and daggers and who knows what else. When the bull started to turn on them, they would just hide behind these wooden slats until the bull ran away again. I watched the first bullfight for experience, started to cry, and then just read my book for the rest of it. My informed opinion is that La Corrida del Toros is a chance for a bunch of machismo men with Napoleonic complexes to show off and kill poor innocent baby bulls that don't really have a chance at all. It is horrid and antiquated and awful. I don't even have that many pictures because I felt guilty taking pictures of such an atrocity.

Beside John Grisham, the only thing that got me through La Corrida was the thought that Lizzie and I were going out for Korean food afterwards. We found a restaurant in our neighborhood and it was fantastic. At first we were the only ones there, but I don't see why, because the food was great. Lizzie got a sort of spicy tofu and cabbage soup and I got a rice, vegetable, and chicken dish. The soup was really good and I really liked my rice dish, although Lizzie said it wasn't the right Korean spices. My dish came in a "hot-pot" that changes the texture of the rice, which is stickier than Chinese rice to begin with. There were all sorts of tasty vegetables that I couldn't identify, and seaweed, too, and boy, was it good. Lizzie then ordered another dish that she was craving - they were thick noodles (think gnocchi) made of rice. Real tasty. The restaurant also gave us a tofu and seaweed dish on the house, as well as two shots of hot sake (I had a sip - tasted like white wine). I liked the rice noodles better. We ate a lot (especially with all the free food they kept bringing us) but it was so nice to have a change of flavors from the traditional Spanish cuisine. We got the bill and it was 20 euros each - it wasn't until later I realized that I spent over $30 on dinner - oops. But so worth it.

Tomorrow is a festival day in Spain - so no classes! There is a big parade that goes down Paseo de Castellana. I've seen commercials on TV all week and it looks pretty intense - I'll have to get there pretty early if I want to see anything. Right now, I'm watching a documentary about all these different dancing styles in Spain, and I'm actually half understanding it. I might even turn on The Holiday in Spanish.