La Corrida de Toros and a Series of Unfortunate Events

We´ve had some interesting events since our last post! First of all, I´ll finish up Madrid.

Early on Sunday we had planned to see the largest flea market in Europe, El Rastro. We also wanted to see La Vuelta de Espana (the Spanish equivalent of the Tour de France), which was finishing in Madrid that day. Both of them were cool, but not the highlight of the day.

We changed our plans for Sunday afternoon and decided to see a bullfight, La Corrida de Toros, instead of going to Cordoba. It was a fantastic decision. While admittedly the bull was probably in pain, it was a superb insight into Spanish culture and traditions. They still carried out all of the rituals during the bullfight, including the macho posturing of the matador and such. I´ll upload a video to YouTube of one of the fights soon.

There were 6 bulls divided among 3 matadors and their teams. Each fight was divided into 4 sections.
Part 0: They don´t actually define this as a part, but I do. This is where the bull is released from the dark tunnel leading God-knows-where. The matadors had teams of picadores that would taunt the bull and then hide behind wooden partitions to tire it out.
Part 1: Horsemen with pikes come out into the ring. They cannot enter the center, so it´s up to the picadores to lure the bull close to the horsemen. The bull attacks the horse, and the rider jabs the pike into the lump of muscle on the bull´s neck. Nowadays the horse has heavy padding and is not injured. But before the early 20th century, it was not uncommon for 6-12 horses to die in a bullfight.
Part 2: A banderillero comes out with two barbed decorated wooden sticks and jabs them into the bull´s neck in an amazing display of agility and acrobatics. He does this 3 times.
Part 3: The matador comes out with his red cape and sword. He taunts the bull for a while with the cape - exactly as you´d imagine - and eventually plunges the sword into the bull´s neck.

So that was a bullfight. We went with our friends from the hostel, but unfortuantely had to leave early to catch a train to Sevilla. This is where a series of unfortunate events began.

We missed our train. Since we were using Eurail passes, we didn´t think we needed tickets. Normally, you don´t - but apparently, this train required reservations. This was the last train of the night according to our pocket timetables so we were stressed out. However, there was 1 more that wasn´t listed, and we were able to get to Sevilla.

We arrived close to 1 in the morning. After navigating Sevilla´s confusing streets for an hour, we found our hostel - where they didn´t have our reservation. They were able to find us a room in a cheap hostel nearby.

The cheap hostel was crap. End of story.

What I Learned in Sevilla:

> What happens in Sevilla stays in Sevilla. Mostly because nobody else cares what happens in Sevilla.
> Streets change names frequently, and the maps don´t tell you that. So the name on the map rarely matches the street sign.
> Sevilla is entirely composed of back alleys and one-way streets with a foot worth of sidewalk.
> 7-way intersections of one-way streets are not uncommon in Sevilla.
> Do not drive in Sevilla. Ever.
> At 2 in the morning, the only hostels with open rooms are invariably owned by old ladies who don´t speak English.
> There are no grocery stores in Sevilla. I don´t know how the locals get food because we didn´t see any.
> There is a helpful train system in Sevilla. Unfortunately, they only travel in a tight loop around the center of the city.
> Sevilla´s main attraction, El Alcazar, is closed on Mondays. We were there on Monday.
> Anything you do in Sevilla will be cursed. Period.

Now, there were a few good parts of Sevilla that I enjoyed very much. One was riding bikes aimlessly around the city. The other was the flamenco bar. There was only flamenco music - no dancing - but it was entertaining anyways. I tried a sangria (don´t give me that look :P ) and it was good as well. Very fruity.

After Sevilla, we were planning on working on an organic farm for free room and board. But we overslept, causing us to miss our train, which caused us to miss the connecting bus, which caused us to miss the car that would take us to the farm. FML. We went to the town anyways, but we couldn´t find the farm and the payphone didn´t work, so we just went to Granada instead.

And here we are. We´ll be seeing La Alhambra today - watch for it in a later post. Tonight we´re taking a train to Barcelona. Hopefully things look up from here!

< Derek >