La Corrida de Toros

We started of our day with class, just like any other day, then lunch, homework, blogging, Facebook, etc. After class, though, I went with my friends Julia, Katie, and Dottie to do a little shopping!

We've found this really cheap clothing store run by some Asians, and I've been there a ton! I wanted to buy new clothes while I was here, and I've definitely been doing that! I love it! I got 2 new pairs of sandals and one new shirt in this trip, but I've bought more stuff there before. Afterwards, we wanted to buy a traditional Spanish fan (abanico) because we thought it would definitely be part of the experience! I was so excited to get mine! It's beautiful and hand-painted with a matador and a torro on the front. Love it! We met up with the group at the train station around 5 or so, then headed into Madrid.

I love having the train and metro systems here! It's so handy for traveling. All you do is hop and and back off! We literally took the metro right up to the Plaza de Toros. It was great. Ok, anyways! Back to the bull fight... There were TONS of people here, and later my host mom said that it wasn't even completely full. That surprises me, because you literally couldn't move in your seat without touching at least four other people. Yikes! Fire hazard! :) We were at the highest row that you could get to in the stadium in the sunny side, but it turned out being great because we were shaded by the overhanging balcony. The way the stadium works is you buy a seat either in the sun or the shade.

Shade obviously costs a lot more, because they can do that. I also sat in back of a large pole that blocked the sun from blinding me. Lucky! The corrida starts with a procession of all the players in the game. This includes the matadores, the picadores, the bandilleros, and the toreros. I'll explain what all those are as I go along. The procession is very formal and quite beautiful. The suits that each wear are very traditional and I believe that most are handmade. This is the part of the culture that I loved.

Once the procession was over, the fight began. The matadores, or just the matadors, start out alone in the ring and they let the bull loose through one of the side doors. The bull runs out looking a bit enraged, and then he gets to the center and seems confused by what is going on. He spies the matador waving his pink and yellow cape, so he starts to go after him. The matadors goad the bull and get him really riled up. They swing their cape around to get him going, then they run behind a little gate that protects them from any harm. A few times, the bull would run up and hit his horns on the wooden gate trying to get at the matadors. After maybe 10 to 15 minutes of this, a band of trumpets plays which signals the next round. Two men on horses march into the ring, and they're holding these long sticks with spears on the end. The horses are decked out in a sort of armor, and also

blindfolded. These men are called the picadores. If you look at the word and say it in English, you can kind of guess what they do. These were my least favorite of the whole thing. WARNING! This is where my description will start to get a little graphic. The two men guide their horses to opposite sides of the ring, then the matadors that are still goading the bull lead them over to where the picadores are so they'll see them and want to attack. The purpose is to get the bull to ram the horse so the picador can have him in perfect position to pick at his shoulders with the spear to weaken him and make him start to lose some blood. If they don't get some optimal stabs, the matadors continue to chase them over to the picador to make him angry enough to attack again.

One of the times, the bull got going so hard that it lifted the horse off of the ground from underneath and knocked him over on the ground. For a few minutes, we thought the horse had been stabbed by the horn and was dead, but an entire team of men rushed out on the ring, chased the bull away, then picked the horse up off the ground. The poor thing! It wasn't moving for a few minutes, so that's why we thought it had been killed. All of our group kept gasping and having to turn away the first time, because we really weren't expecting all of this to happen! Ok, so after the picador has gotten some good action with the bull, the trumpets play again while the riders go out, and the next group starts their turn. These are called the bandilleros. "Bandera" in Spanish means "flag," so you can start to get an idea of what this round is about.

The bandilleros run out into the middle of the ring holding two bandillos, which are mini hooked flags that they once again stab into the shoulders. However, this time, the flags stick into the shoulders and stay there to further weaken the animal for the torero. During the round with the bandilleros, the matadores are still in the ring to goad the bull and lead him over to the picadores. Once the picadores are stabbed perfectly into the shoulders, the bandillero runs as fast as he can towards the wooden gates, because the bull is usually mad as ever and chases after him.

This is also where the other matadores come in. They distract the bull away from the bandillero so he can run to safety. If the bandillero takes too much time or doesn't stab the bandillos in right and has one fall out, he will lose points and also be "booed" by the crowd. The bull fight is critiqued as an art form, not really as a sport. Finally, the trumpets play again and it's now time for the torero. This is the main event. For maybe another 10-15 minutes, the torero plays with the bull and has a red cape this time. He swings it at the bull and moves it around his body as the bull charges. The point here is for the torero to have the most beautiful form that he can manage. This is where he racks up his own points (ok, I don't really know if real points exist, but this is what makes sense to me!)and makes his name in the bull-fighting world.

After swinging his cape around and practicing his form, it's time for the kill. He's not only holding his cape, but also a long silver sword. As soon as he can find the best shot, he goes for the stab and digs it far into the animal's shoulders. I forgot to mention earlier that the bull has a set of ribbons tagged onto the small of his back as a guide for the torero. This is the best place to stab the sword that will bring him down and end his life quickly. If the torero is good, he will get it straight in and will finish the toro quickly, ending its suffering in a more "humane" manner. If the torero is bad, he has back up. A few times, the bull would just get so exhausted from running around so much and the loss of blood, so he'd decide he can't go on anymore and would collapse on the ground for a break. At this time, if the torero hadn't done his job right, the rest of the matadores still in the ring would surround the animal, usually in a corner, and one of the matadors would brandish a small knife and stick it through the forehead to debilitate the brain and the spinal cord.

I absolutely couldn't stand to watch this part. After the first time of watching this, I literally had tears come to my eyes and I had to force them away. That surprised me. I really thought I could handle it, but seeing a life end like that, so up close and personal, was really hard. Oh, I keep saying "after the first time" and phrases like this. That's because we didn't just watch one bull die, but 6 in total. They repeated this six different times with different toreros as the main show. I was a little disgusted when I found that out. I found that it wasn't as hard to watch as the show went on, though.

I think we all became a little desensitized to the whole thing, which is sad. I was really excited and in a good mood when we first got there, but as the first event unfolded, I lost all of that and was pretty somber through the rest of the show. Ah, I forgot to finish the description up til the end. After the bull was killed thoroughly, a team of two or three strong horses were led out into the ring, and the bull was hooked up in back by it's horns, then dragged around the arena and back into the gates. A clean up crew would then run out and pour new sand over the blood to make it look fresh for the next event. Pretty crazy. After the last bull was finished, the toreros exited the ring in another sort of procession. As the first torero left, tons of people started throwing their rented seat cushions at him because he had been so bad! A couple hit him in the head! Serves him right, though. He took so long to kill his bull and didn't even do it in the end. He had to have one of his helpers come out and finish it the hard way. Well, I can't say that I absolutely loved the bull fight, but I'm definitely glad that I went. I would have regretted it if I hadn't, because this is such a big part of their culture. We also learned that there are many people fighting to have the bull fight taken out of Spanish culture, but also many more fighting to preserve it and make it a bigger part of the culture. There was a man who wrote an article saying that they should let children into the corrida in order to instill the culture at a younger age and to keep it alive.

I don't necessarily agree with that one, but I guess I think a different way. It was all very interesting! Well, on a happier note, after the bull fight was over, we met up with some people from the group and headed over to the Parque de Retiro for another night of fireworks. Apparently, each of the three nights that they had fireworks was different in their show, so we wanted to see the last one. On our way, we saw many street performers, including a man who was playing a song on crystal glasses, like in "Miss Congeniality!" That one was definitely my favorite. I didn't think that the firework show this night was as spectacular as the night before, but it was still really fun to be there and to celebrate. After the show, we rushed over to the Atocha train station, then made it on the train right before the station stopped running. I ate a very late dinner, talked to Gloria a bit, then hit the sack. It was a long day!