The fight

This does not refer to any type of drama between friends or anything, though tensions rise and fall, that has stayed to a minimum. This refers to my first (and last) experience of a bull fight-watching it that is. It may have been the second or 3rd day in Seville that my friends and I went to see a fight, I'm really not so sure now, because all the days seem to run together a bit. But I do remember that this was the same day as Corpus Christi in Seville. Corpus Christi occurs 40 days after La Semana Santa, and that's pretty much all that anyone (including spaniards) could tell me about it. I think the Spanish just like their wine and parties too much and so make up holidays as an excuse to drink and party in the streets. I missed the brigade of floats going through the streets, but I was woken up by all the bells ringing from it. After eventually making it out for the day, Saimah, some hostel mates, and I wandered around the beautiful city, the scent of Rosemary titillating our senses. I guess one tradition of Corpus Christi is that everyone throws sprigs of Rosemary around because for most of the day the streets were covered with Rosemary. We had a nice and peaceful afternoon walking around, seeing the remnants of what looked like a much classier, but probably just grand, religious version of the Macy's Day parade. We had delicious tapas that were extremely cheap. Four of us split 11 tapas, paying only 9 euros each!! One thing I have discovered: food and drinks are so much cheaper here than in the US, though I must say I am not very partial to all the fried food served at almost every meal. In short we had a wonderful afternoon around the city and lounging in the pool during the brutally hot hours. Then after this wonderful day was the bull fight....

Essentially I found this experience absolutely horrifying and never want to see it again. As we walked up to the gates of the bull ring, I began to get the feeling that I might not like this too much. Across the street were hundreds of protesters shouting "We love the bull" (oddly in English) being held at bay by the police. I was a little unsettled by this but tried to push it from my mind as we proceeded to find our nosebleed seats, which were unpleasantly right in the sun. I paid attention to everyone else around us as we made our way around the rink and noticed that many people were dressed up as if they were going to the kentucky derby or an extremely fancy date night or something of that sort. I found that a bit odd that people would dress up so nicely for an event of pure slaughter. It seemed that killing was the classiest form of entertainment here, but I went with it and tried to keep an open mind about what was about to come, because at that point I really had no idea and didn't even remember if the bulls were actually killed or not. They definitely were. Each fight began with the releasing of the bull into the ring. The bull charged out and usually stopped to look around, obviously dazed and confused, thinking what I only guessed to be, "Wtf am I doing out here? Why are these tiny men dressed like women waving a pink and yellow flag at me?" These confused bulls of course charge at the Michael Jackson-like clad men and are then stabbed repeatedly with what looked like hooked nunchucks. The bulls were then stabbed with spears by men on horses and then by swords carried by more matadors. After the bull eventually collapsed from blood loss and exhaustion, he was stabbed in what I believe to be the jugular. Then his head was pretty much sawed off. This whole process of killing lasted about 20 minutes per bull. After the bulls finally died, they were quickly dragged out of the ring by a line of running donkeys. We saw 7 bulls killed... Though, one was actually spared because his horn broke during the fight and it was considered "unfair" to let an injured bull fight. I kinda thought it was pretty unfair to let a bull fight 6 men with swords and 2 men on horses with spears, but apparently I was in the minority on this one.

After slaughter #1 I was absolutely horrified. I might have condoned the event slightly if the dead bull were eaten or something rather than being pitched but this was not the case. In addition to being horrified at the actual bull fight, I was also horrified at whole event, for after each stab the audience would cheer for the matador. I wanted to cheer for the bull! And eventually I secretly hoped that the bull would kill one of the matadors, and clapped in my head every time it was a close call. Then after each round, the audience would stand up and clap as the matadors bowed. I think my friends were horrified at first too, but then after about round 3 or 4, they started to get into it and clap with the rest of the audience, rooting for the bull. I actually caught myself not paying attention and clapping a few times as well. Ahhh such is the power of group think.