Random London Photos

Albert Hall

Harrod´s

Tower of London





I always knew these were evil creatures.

Text later..

What used to be the moat.

 







Yoeman tourguide.



St. Paul´s Cathdral

530 steps later....

It´s nearly impossible to capture it in a photo.

 This time around, I´ll add text later.

Living in the Present

Did you smile? :)

After I visited Oxford, Gannon and Ernst came over to London for the day. Before heading out to the city, I sat down for coffee at the Polish cafe in Ealing and ordered in Polish. For some reason, it felt very good to do so. Like you're not out of place in this huge city, but in a small corner of home. Anyway, first thing and only thing, at this point, on the agenda was Buckingham Palace. When  your guidebook mentions crowds for the changing of the guard, it is not joking. The whole square was packed with people. The changing took quite a while and involved horses and at least two bands. I expected more serious music than "New York, New York." After the ceremony concluded, we strolled through St. James's Park to Parliament Square, complete with a display protesting NATO war crimes. I think.

While we were passing Parliament, we figured a peak inside wouldn't hurt. Instead of taking the tour, we took the (free and educational) student option- watching the House of Commons in action. There are special visitor passes with your photo. Westminster Hall (completed in 1099) is "one of the largest undivided mediaeval spaces in existence." St. Stephen's Hall has beautiful stained glass windows, murals, and a number of statues. The Central Lobby is very pretty as well. The House of Commons Chamber is decorated in green. The debate of the Members of Parliament reminded me so much of debate in high school. The Chamber was actually fairly empty. The MPs are not required to sit in on all of the debates. For voting, a bell is heard all over the building, and they have eight minutes to assemble to vote. Otherwise, they are locked out. After watching for a little while, we crossed the bridge and walked around by the London Eye. For lunch, we stopped at a cafe in the park, the Victoria Embankment Gardens (most likely). Here, the pigeons zoned in on Ernst and his lunch. I always knew they were evil. Across the street, two people were napping on the grass by some statue. In order to fulfill a must do item on the checklist, a double-decker bus took us to the general vicinity of the Tower of London. Not exactly to the Tower, we had to "explore" along the way and take the riverside to the Tower. We found one of the public pianos. Believe it or not, none of us could play. Here you have three Hillsdale students and none of us could make that piano sing. What a shame. The Tower Bridge had the Olympic rings hanging from it. This was the first day of that display. Tower Bridge is so pretty. The blue and gray look very nice together. Actually, the blue is more turquoise and reminds me of Tiffany's. So I may refer to it as the Tiffany Bridge. Either way, I enjoyed the view of the bridge from the cafe along the river, which served the best latte I have ever tasted. Maybe it was the view, maybe it was the company, maybe it was the coffee. Or all of the above. Said coffee was accompanied by very Hillsdale conversations. This is definitely something I miss very much. While we sat sipping the coffee, eating sugar cubes and chocolate candies, and chatting about life, the Tower Bridge was lifted to allow a boat to pass. The Olympic rings are also lifted at that time and tucked underneath the top part of the bridge. Nightfall was fast approaching, so it was off to Piccadilly Circus by bus. We took the mandatory telephone booth photos, and headed off to Paddington Station by tube for a last "goodbye and see you in the fall."

London with Gannon and Ernst

In front of a statue in front of Buckingham.

Tower Bridge

The piano, which none of us could play...

"The Innocents Abroad"



They are odd.

 What do you do when Gannon takes you to "The Last Bookshop" where everything is £2? And this bookstore happens to be in Oxford? Buy a book, of course! This Mark Twain title just happened to catch my eye, and I just couldn't resist. I got to spend a great day with two fellow Hillsdalians (that looks weird but ok..)- Gannon and Ernst- showing me around the place. If I get any of this wrong or confused, let me know! My memory has never been very good. Stop number one: Bodleian, aka the Library. Pass required and motion sensors on some of the shelves. =O  That's why it's a capital L. We passed by the Radcliffe Camera, a circular building with a great study atmosphere. At least, that's what I'm told. The tower of St. Mary's had a nice view of the surrounding area. Oxford is a lot more expansive than I expected. The small streets are a bit similar to Torun, until you hit the colleges. New College was technically closed to visitors, but I guess it all depends on your definition of visitor. ;) The chapel here was very pretty. I'm always amazed by the stone carvings. Got a peak at the dining hall as well. The colleges have fancy quads with perfectly manicured lawns, which are off limits to just about everyone. Except the dog that happened to avoid detection. Not fair. There was a garden with another "no public access" lawn with a very tempting bench right in the middle of it. It also had the stairs to nowhere, completely off limits to everyone. I must say, Oxford has some very odd traditions. Christ Church Meadows are a beautiful piece of English countryside. There were even cows across the fence; a lot of resident ducks too. Punting along the river looked like a lot of fun. I will have to come back to try it.



Christ Church meadows, by the entrance.

 

Back in town, we stopped at "The Eagle and the Child" for lunch. Established in 1650, it hosted meetings of "The Inklings," who included Lewis and Tolkien. I could to be in England without trying fish and chips. Or without having afternoon tea! And so we went over to "The Rose" for tea and scones. I understand the colonists had some issues with tea, but that's in the past. Forgive, forget, and bring tea time back State-side?

We stepped into St. Aloysius' (the Oxford Oratory) and the Ashmolean Museum. Scriptum. A stationary shop with quills, wax seals, fancy cards, leather bound journals, dark-wood library worthy editions of classics. If only I had a mere £40 to spend on Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales.... *sigh*

Final stop: Turf Tavern (est. 1799) for dinner. Finding the place could be a bit difficult because it's down a narrow alley. Ernst was too tall for the door and had to duck inside. People must have been tiny back then, but it adds to the character of the place. This whole day was so surreal. Gannon and I had talked about meeting up this summer, but it was hard to believe it was actually happening. The three of us, in Europe, together.

Turf Tavern

Big Bus

Just a simple listing of all the places we saw on the bus tour.

• Marble Arch: They performed executions at this spot. The arch was actually moved from Buckingham Palace. How they moved is a mystery to me. 
• Harrods: a big fancy department store. It had the first escalator. Those brave enough to ride it received brandy (for the gentlemen) and smelling salts (for the ladies).
• The Knightsbridge and Kensington High Street areas are so pretty. They are definitely higher end London, but the buildings are lovely, especially the ironwork.
• Passed through Nottingham Hill Gate, which comes alive on the weekends and has a great carnival sometime during the year.
• Continuing on past Paddington Station and St. Mary's Hospital, somehow related to the discovery of penicillin.
• Green Park has lawn chairs for rent for those wishing to soak up some sunshine. It is also called Dueling Park because gentlemen would settle their differences here.
• The original Hard Rock cafe.
• Regent Street is the widest 18th century street in London. Some lord did not want his view of Regent's Park obstructed so  the street was made to fit the width of his house..
• Oxford Circus: check.  Btw, circus refers to a roundabout.
• Piccadilly Circus: First place to display electronic advertisements.
• National Gallery and Trafalgar Square
• Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese:
• No. 10 Downing Street: Official seat of the Prime Minister.
• Westminster Abbey and Bridge




Parliament



• Big Ben: The Clock Tower is being renamed Elizabeth Tower, in honor of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
• Houses of Parliament
• Lambeth Bridge and Palace
• St. Thomas Hospital
• Florence Nightingale Museum
• County Hall
• London Eye
• Waterloo Station and Bridge
• Golden Jubilee Bridge
• Cleopatra's Needle
• Royal Courts of Justice
• St. Paul's Cathedral
• The Monument: Tallest 17th century structure in London. A memorial to the Great Fire of London of 1666.
• The Tower of London
• Tower Bridge: Possibly my favorite cite in London. It's so pretty to look at. 

  

  Tower Bridge

  
• HMS Belfast
• London Bridge: not particularly impressive. However, there's a great view of Tower Bridge.
• The Shard: Random pyramid shaped skyscraper.
• City Hall: Modern circular building.
• The Gherkin: kind of like an elongated oval shape. The glass exterior has a really neat pattern to it.
• "The City" or London's financial district has over 500 foreign banks.
• Victoria Station: Some parts of the London underground date back to 1863.
• Wellington Arch: with Europe's largest bronze sculpture.

If any of these places and names seem interesting, look them up online. There's just too many for me to go through and describe in detail.



Really cool taxi.



Rainy with a chance of sunshine

Welcome to England! I arrived on Saturday. It took me a little while to get to where I needed to be, but now I've got this public transport thing down. Still have to get on one of those cool red buses. There's some time left for that though. It really is mostly overcast here, but I really can't complain too much because I've stayed pretty dry so far. It is so green here, unlike our dried out lawns back home. It's quite a nice view, especially contrasted with the red brick buildings. Or really any building. Me gusta mucho. Getting into the city, you realize this place is truly ethnically diverse. It's an international city like no other. I also hear Polish on the streets, constantly. There's a huge Polish population, with churches, stores, businesses, restaurants. I was reading a sign and halfway through realized it was in Polish....
(Sunday- Windsor, which deserves its own post)
I spent Monday morning in the National Gallery. You could spend all day there.. I wish our museums back home were free.. Anywho, I went to see some Van Gogh and Monet because I have posters and a journal with their art so I wanted to see the originals. The museum has a computer station where you can customize a 'tour' and print it with all the titles and locations. Very useful. "An Experiment on a Bird" and "Christ before the High Priest" both have really striking use of light, at least to my uneducated eye. Especially the latter- it's all about the candle. We learned about "Saint Francis in Meditation" by Zurbaran in our Spanish civ and culture class. Claude had some really pretty sunsets in the background of his paintings. See "Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula." Michelangelo's "Entombment" and "The Manchester Madonna" are unfinished pieces. There was "Ecce Homo" by Rembrandt, as well as "Balshazzar's Feast"- I really liked that one. I won't bore you with the full list of works, but these are just a few I particularly enjoyed.
I walked through Trafalgar Square and got lost on the way to Piccadilly Circus and the Eros statue, took a detour through St. James's Park. Then off to Oxford Street via Soho Square. As part of the jubilee celebrations, there a pianos at random places around the city and you can play them. The square was crowded and there was a young tourist playing. It created a very pleasant atmosphere. I saw the British version of suits and bikes! Here, they use actual bicycles. There are also 'tube musicians.' I wonder if anyone ever stops and dances to the music....
The afternoon was spent on a bus tour around London with Ciocia Danusia. We saw soo much, drove all over London and it took about three hours.
"Who cares about Greece? I'm waiting until Ireland goes on sale."
Yes, that's a real tube advertisement.
Tuesday is Oxford, which also deserves a special post. :-)

Windsor Castle

I finally met some of my mom's cousins who live here in London. They picked me up, and we sped off to Windsor for the day. Mark, Adele, and Connor treated me to a Japanese lunch. The fork and spoon remained unused, and no stain remover was required. Then, it was time for the castle! This place is stunning. I would walk into almost every single room and gasp.

Queen Mary Dollhouse: This would be a little girl's dream, except for the fact that it was never intended for child use. It is an incredible dollhouse made to scale with working plumbing and electricity. It was a birthday gift for Queen Mary. The Drawings Gallery had a Jubilee display, photos of the Queen throughout her reign. I think we would get along. She also likes horses. All of the portraits in the Waterloo Chamber were painted from live sittings. This room also has the world's largest carpet. We learned that from Connor's children's version of the audio guide. The kids learned some really neat stuff. It really should have been included in the adult audio guide. St. George's Hall had the shields of knights displayed on the ceiling and walls. The blank ones represented disgraced knights. There was one room associated with the Order of the Garter that had a beautiful royal blue fabric on the chairs and other decorations. The ceilings in most of the rooms were very decorative. A number of the rooms had hidden doors in the walls. You could make out the outline in the wall. Gold, crystal chandeliers, and mirrors seemed to be common themes, but ones I really don't mind. It must be wonderful to come to the castle for events, as a guest instead of a tourist.

The town of Windsor was pretty as well. The shops have hanging flower baskets outside. It looks very nice. We stopped in an antique shop. I felt very aged when I found a beanie baby there. Yes, a stuffed animal with a TY tag was in the antique shop... so sad.

Darth Vadar corner

(from 6/22) I am super behind. At least this time, it's not me honing my procrastination skills. There's just too much going on! This morning, I tried buying train tickets online for my next adventures. Key word- tried. European websites apparently don't really care for American cards. Or American cards think they're too good to pay for mere European travel. Either way, authorization was declined. =( My card works everywhere else though. It's an online ticket thing. Happened last year as well.
Earlier today, we had finals. I am finally free! The class was very interesting, and the professor was wonderful. As most students, I didn't care too much for the amount of time the homework required. Luckily, I had a little extra time in which to explore Sevilla. Time I probably should have used for a siesta, but who needs sleep anyway?

Something kind of neat- On my way to school, I pass this corner cafe with a window/counter type thing. Sort of like a "walk through" or "walk up" cafe. It seems to be the favorite police morning joe place because I often see a couple of uniforms at the window. Police scooter parked on the street. Hmm what else is there on the way...? There's a hospital, a ton of restaurants and cafes with outdoor seating (just about every place has outdoor seating). There's this decoration on the corner of one of the buildings that looks like a Darth Vadar outline if you just quickly glance at it. I'll get a picture sometime. There's a little "bazar" or market just down the street from the school. It's run by a Chinese family, I believe, and has just about everything. That's our go to for mid-day snacks if we get hungry during break. If you take a left off Zaragoza, there's Plaza Nueva. There's a perpetual adoration chapel there. On Avenida de la Constitucion, there's the cathedral. It has to be one of the most tourist filled streets in the city. Not surprising though. It's big and in the center of Sevilla. There's also the post office just a bit further down from the cathedral. In front of the cathedral, there are gypsies handing out little green branches as "gifts" and trying to read your palm, for which you are supposed to pay them. All along Constitucion, there are street musicians. They are probably my favorite people on the street. Most of them are playing accordions. Sometimes they sing, but that's usually the ones with guitars. Also on the avenue, carriages. And plenty of them. It's kind of fun to go to the post office to send postcards home. I don't know why. Maybe because we don't do that at home. I saw another protest today! This time in front of a bank. Maybe twenty people. Still, the police stood watch.

Last night, we all got tired of studying so we met up by the churros stand and took a walk. Sevilla at night is so pretty. Especially the view from the bridge. Or if you go over to Triana, on Calle Betis, and find a riverside cafe. Particularly, if it happens to have a great view of the Torro del Oro. I could never get tired of it....

"Muy cool"

That phrase credit must go to one of our intercambios. Here they say "que guay" - "how cool/that's so cool."
Speaking of cool. The last two days have been a little "chilly." That basically means not 38 C at 1pm. It was kind of odd to walk down the street and think "oh, it's a cool 36 C." On the way to school (around 8:45), there's a pharmacy sign that displays the temperature. It's been low 20s- that's chilly for here.

Life here has been pretty normal. The dogs and I are best friends. You've probably already figured that out. I think I'll talk about food a bit. They have a different idea of meal times than we do in the States. Breakfast basically consists of toast and coffee (or tea or milk). I recently discovered that our morning coffee is decaf. (Insert very sad face.) Maybe that's why I've needed to get my a.m. power jolt down the street during break a few times. The kids drink hot chocolate.
Your next meal is "la comida" or what we would call dinner, but sometime around 2 or 3pm. At our house, we usually have some sort of soup, pasta, or veggies for the first course, along with French loaf slices. Our host mom makes great cold soups- gazpacho, a veggie/broccoli, and a veggie/cauliflower. The second course is usually just the meat or fish. Occasionally, it will be a salad. Sevilla has better access to fresh seafood than Michigan does; therefore, we eat more seafood. Sometimes it's a little weird. I'm getting a little more accustomed to it. One day we had these little fish called "boquerones." I guess they are kind of like sardines. It sort of freaked me out because they were fried, whole. You can eat them whole or take out the little spine. You won't choke on it. I could not get myself to eat the whole thing, head and tail included, so I kinda worked around those.... Another day, we had clams. Well, before eating them, you had to pull them out of the shell. Another popular dish, rice with "gambas," tiny shrimp. So.. yeah. Lots of seafood. Dessert consists of fruit- usually watermelon or apples. After la comida, Spaniards don't really eat until late in the evening. This afternoon, our Spanish professors from back home took us out to eat. They were visiting Sevilla as a family. It was a restaurant at some type of culinary school. They were training waiters and chefs. Maybe something more like a hospitality services training? The food was very good, as was the presentation.
Our "cena," or supper, is usually around 9/9:30pm, but some families eat as late at 10 or 11pm. This is a lighter meal. If we happen to miss "cena" because we go to the watch the soccer game at Las Setas (for example), there are tapas. I think I talked about tapas already, but a quick review- they're super tiny dishes. Just about every street has a place serving tapas in the evening, and there's always plenty of people. Locals or tourists, depending on the location. What's really great about tapas is that you can order a few different things and have some variety without spending a lot (well, depends- local or tourist area). We'll usually order a couple dishes to split, and everyone tries a bite or two of everything. Near the cathedral and in Barrio de Santa Cruz, tapas go for about 4€. On Calle Santa Maria la Blanca, Alfalfa, or near our house, you can find tapas for 2€. Anyway, that's the general overview of Spanish  eating habits.

Sometimes menus get translated kind of funny. Examples:
Jam vs Ham
Breade vs Bread
Espinach vs Spinach

I wonder what sort of errors are in our Spanish menus at home...

Besos!

Chihuahua!

Just because this little dog makes me happy.

Reales Alcazar

The Alcazar in Sevilla was originally built in 712 by the caliphs as a fortress. King Pedro I built the mudejar palace that now stands there in 1248. Just like almost every other place I've been to in Spain, it is beautiful. There are a number of patio gardens with pools. The walls are covered in mosaic patterns, each piece cut and placed individually. The gardens are worth exploring, but our school group did not have time. However, I have every intention of returning with a book!

Photo credit to Markie. Mine mysteriously disappeared....

"There's a reptile on the roof."

"It's a gecko." Ariel knows her reptiles better than I do, and thus, was able to identify the little creature on the roof outside our window.The Spanish love soccer. Just stating the obvious. I really want to go watch one. Haven't had the chance yet. Last night, Spain played Ireland. People crowd plazas and restaurants to watch the games. There's a place with outdoor seating and a TV farther down the street. You could hear the cheers when Spain scored a goal. It was really cool. A lot of people wear jerseys, scarves, flags, etc. My professor said that soccer is a way for people to forget about their troubles, especially the economic crisis here in Spain. The same way boxing was an escape for the people of the Great Depression in "Cinderella Man."We've seen three demonstrations during our time in Sevilla. One was some hospital workers. I couldn't figure out if they were doctors or nurses. The second was a demonstration in front of the town hall by the firefighters, I believe. At first, we thought it was some kind of party because there was music playing, but then we got closer and realized it wasn't a party. =( The third was a bunch of dudes in tents in Jardines de Cristina. They had a banner, but I didn't understand it.The other day, we made our own sangria! It was super fun. We went to the grocery store and bought wine, pineapple juice, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, apples, and oranges.  We didn't actually follow a recipe, but it turned out really well. You just kinda mix everything together to taste. It ends up being mostly juice and fruit. The house Senora said that sangria didn't come onto the scene until relatively recently, within the last fifty years or so. Odd, you'd think someone would've come up with it earlier. Anyway, great time. Oh, can't forget about the chocolate and brownie! Sangria and chocolate. Yes, life is good.Last night, we met up with some of the intercambios to go to La Carboneria. It´s definitely a tourist destination, but it doesn´t have a touristy feel. There are nightly flamenco/traditional dance performances. It's a really neat, laid back atmosphere. Classes are going well. It's a lot of work, but manageable. I can't believe we already had a midterm and finals are this Friday! Drafting an email to your chem professor in your head in Spanish before realizing it should be in English is a good sign, right..?Our literature class took a field trip to see a play- "El Barbero de Sevilla." It was held outdoors in the patio of a palacio. They tend to do that here- hold performances of various kinds in outdoor settings. I like it.Besos!

Chocolate covered Oreos!

Here are some pics from the churros outing (Friday) and Plaza de Espana (Saturday). I heard there was a scene from Star Wars filmed here. Any fans out there to confirm? It was built for the Iberoamerican exposition in 1929. We'll come back for some better photos because there was a NBA event going on. Yeah, I don't understand that either.

Churros

Plaza de Espana from afar.

Friday evening, I met my intercambio. She took Ariel and I to this place called Capote, by the river. Saturday night was super fun! We hung out with some of the intercambios. There was a lot of Spanglish, but I think in the end everyone understood each other more or less.
Sunday was super hot, so we went to Aquopolis- Sevilla's water park. Relaxed, soaked up the sun, and enjoyed the water. Ariel and I found a pretty little church that evening for Mass. Don't know what it was called, but it had a very beautiful statue of Mary.

Oh, and we bought chocolate covered oreos- heaven on earth!

Besos!

"¡Mamá mira!"

Just a pleasant 40 C sunny day in Cordoba.
Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos: The word "alcazar" is of Arabic origin. It was ordered in 1328. Over time, it was home to the Umayyad caliphs and Isabella and Ferdinand. The only thing left of the original palace are some ruins, but the gorgeous gardens still reflect the Arabic style- lots of pools and fountains. There is a display of some original mosaics, dating back to reign of Emperor Augustus. Interesting fact: Though the mosaics are currently displayed on the wall, they were never used to decorate walls but always floors.

The Synagogue: It was built  in 1315 and is one of the few pre-Inquisition synagogues left in Spain. The synagogue was converted into a hospital and a chapel for some time before being restored as a synagogue/museum. I expected it to be a little bigger. The walls are decorated in mozarabe patterns and Hebrew writing.

Mezquita-Catedral de Cordoba: The building of the mosque began in 785. However, before the Great Mosque, there was a Roman temple and the Visigothic basilica of San Vincente on the spot. The orientation of the mosque should have been toward Meca, but this one was turned towards Damascus. 856 of the 900 pillars continue to stand in the mosque turned cathedral. The Maksura has thousands of tiny pieces of colored glass forming beautiful mosaic patterns along the walls and ceilings. The Cathedral was consecrated in 1236. The mosque was incorporated into the gothic, renaissance, and baroque structures of the cathedral. On the way out, there was a painting of Our Lady of Czestochowa. Funny, all the different places we find her. She was in a church in Mexico as well.

The main chapel and choir are stunning. From this comes the title of this post- a little boy called out to his mom to look at something he found in the choir. For some reason, it really stood out to me. Maybe it has something to do with how all mankind is drawn to beauty in one way or another.

From the Cathedral pamphlet:

"The visit to the Cathedral of Cordoba may awake the demand and the quest for a greater Beauty that will not wither with time. Because beauty, as truth and righteousness, are an antidote for pessimism, and an invitation to take pleasure in life, a shaking of the soul that provokes the longing for God."

Get lost...

...in Sevilla. I'm a little tired of relating my outings to you. Instead, I think I'll just think, or type.
You know that moment when you realize life is really, really good. I had that moment yesterday and today. After a guided walk through Barrio de Santa Cruz, a group of us went to get some ice cream. The strawberry ice cream is just how strawberry ice cream should be. I won't describe it. Come to Sevilla and find out. I decided to take a little walk with my strawberry and, of course, chocolate goodness. Going directly home to finish reading "La Casa de Bernarda Alba" seemed like such a waste of good ice cream. Instead, I began wandering through the streets of Sevilla. I don't know exactly where I was, but I made it home with pulling out a map. I live a little off the most popular tourist streets and neighborhoods. The streets I found were quiet, some were narrow, and rather empty, except for the residents of the buildings and a few businesses. I passed a really nice eatery and a small barbershop. The barber was laughing and joking with his client. I passed moms with their kids and a lady walking her dog. It was so calm, in the middle of the city. In Sevilla, you don't feel the rush and stress of a city. Maybe it's Sevilla; maybe it's Spain. I don't know.
Though I'm not really a night owl, I love the variety of the nightlife. Or even just the fact that there is a nightlife! Seeing people out on the streets at midnight and thinking nothing of it. Feel like a quiet evening? You've got the riverbank. Feel like going out to have some tapas? Check any street, there's bound to be a tapas bar somewhere nearby. Feel like talking over some coffee? Plenty of bars. (Note: a bar here is the equivalent of a cafe back home) Feel like going out and dancing? There's clubs and discotecas for that too. Just pick your style- from popular music to salsa. I love that people go out and have places to go out to.
This morning I walked to school listening to my ipod. I'm not sure why it felt different, but it did. I just got this feeling that I could probably live in Sevilla. I'm quite comfortable here. I generally don't care too much for cities, but Sevilla is unique, special. I love the architecture, the river, the parks. There are so many trees lining the streets. Especially, the orange trees and the trees with lavender flowers. I'm becoming accustomed to the heat and the odd schedule.  Now all I need to do is find myself is a nice Spanish boy. ;P
Besos!

¡Ole!

Yup, I went to a bull fight. Technically it was called a "Novillada de Toros." This basically means that the six bulls were three years old and the bullfighters were less experienced.
The Plaza de Toros is spectacular! It's all white (I almost spelled that "wight"...) with gold detailing. A rich red fence surrounded the arena. The band was a nice touch and played fanfare music during various parts.

At the beginning, there is a parade, "paseillo," of the bullfighters and the horses.

Out comes the bull. They kind of play around with it and have it run after the main bullfighter and the assistant bullfighters, holding hot pink "capotes."

Then, the picadores come out on the horses, which wear protective gear. They cut the neck muscles of the bull with a  lance, "pica," to weaken it.  As they do it, the bull is usually ramming into the horse's protected belly. I was amazed at the horses. I can't imagine the time and effort that must go into training a horse to stand calmly as a bull is trying to plow it down.

After that, the bullfighters have the bull run around again. Then, they do this funny pose and stab the "barderillas" into the bull's shoulders. These are barbed darts with colorful shafts.

At this point, the main bullfighter remains in the ring by himself with a red cloth and a sword. Here, the goal is to completely insert the sword into the bull's back. Sometimes they fail. They have the bull run around some more until it gives up and collapses on the ground. A bullfighter uses a knife, called a "puntilla," to kill the bull.

They procede to drag the bull out of the arena in a very festive manner:

Other interesting notes from this outing:
-Outside the Plaza, there were protesters with megaphones and posters. There's a lot of people in Spain who oppose bullfights and consider it animal cruelty, which it is in a lot of ways. Some of the girls that went left early, or almost immediately.
-If the audience waves white handkerchiefs before the bull dies, they are petitioning the judges to save the bull because it has "proven itself."
-If the audience waves the handkerchiefs after the bull dies, they are petitioning the judges to award the main bullfighter a "trophy," usually the ear of the bull.
-The first bull of the novillada was saved. I don't remember any white handkerchiefs though, maybe it got "drafted" to the big leagues. To bring the bull back into the pen, a herd is released into the ring and the bull joins them as they exit.

-Two of the bullfighters were treated to a ride on the bulls' heads. They were fine, but it was a little scary to watch.
-Not all the bulls die smoothly. One of them was vomiting blood. After it laid down, it got up again and started walking until it collapsed. That was really hard to watch.  

Overall, it was definitely an interesting cultural experience. I had heard about it before but actually watching it was a lot more shocking. You feel bad for the bull. The first two or three are very difficult to sit through, but then, you sort of get used to it. That part is a little concerning, especially when you think about how this "adaption" could occur in other ethically questionable situations. I don't think I could go again, but I wouldn't go out and protest it either.