Sevilla (Seville), Spain – 06/03 – 06/05

(Michelle)
After we checked into the Oasis, we went on the hunt for bull fighting tickets. We successfully found some by a somewhat shady ticket stand (the tickets were legit though and in the shade as he said). At the Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza, shade is the way to go (it is almost 100 degrees here). It is so important here that they label the doors by sun, shade or sun and shade (sun in the beginning and shade later). The shade section was packed, but the sun section had about 20 people who were frantically fanning themselves. OK animal lovers, stop reading. It is pretty gross, but I was however impressed by the dance of it. The moves they do before the killing are very ballet-ish… they even wear what looked to me like ballet slippers. We had 3 fighters to watch (they each went twice, so unfortunately 6 bulls didn’t make it out that night). The first fighter (oldest at 27) was not so good. His bull did not go down well. The second fighter (age 20) was much more egotistical and entertaining. Several times after he did some good move or something he would run his fingers through his hair violently. His face was very expressive and he was often impressed with himself. While I was very entertained by Johnny Drama, my favorite was the third. Ismael was a mere 17, he looked like Leo D and he cruised and swung successfully in his tight bull fighting slacks. He did all the work himself (unlike the first two where the initially stabbings were done by their pit crew) and he was definitely the most skilled. The funniest thing though was the commentary by the two middle aged British woman during the first hour of the fight. It was clearly their first time as well and they thoroughly analyzed every part of it. “Well, that guy was a bit of a Nancy at first but he seems to have redeemed himself now”. “I don’t know why they have to use the horses, they are such gentle creatures”.

After the fight we attempted to find some local flamenco, but we were unsuccessful, so we headed back to the hostel bar. I will say that for 11:00 on a Sunday night, Sevilla was hopping. All the street cafes were full and there were people walking around even in the tiniest streets (there are many tiny streets here). In the hostel bar we made many friends. They were all very friendly and the shots were flowing. Pretty soon, Lourdes (bartender’s girlfriend) and I were belting out Roy Orbison tunes at the top of our lungs, much to the shock and dismay of most of the other bar patrons (and TJ) who had probably never heard Roy before. Good times.

The next day we went out for tapas of course, and then to the free Museum which was the home to many artifacts relating to Chris Columbus’ discovery of the Americas. There were loads of maps of cities, mostly in South America, that look like they were drawn by 5 year olds, but I guess that was city planning back in those days. This museum was totally in Spanish and it looked like it wasn’t completely open to the public yet, so we were done in there in about 15 minutes. We were tired and it was HOT, so we went back to the hostel to hang out at the pool. That night, the hunt for Flamenco commenced again and this time we found some. I was expecting to see the dancing, but the dancers were allegedly sick. We were lucky though because some girls in the crowd knew how to dance Flamenco so they got up on the stage randomly for the last song. Since it wasn’t planned, they were just wearing jeans, not the cool Flamenco dresses. It is very expressive and had we understood the words, I’m sure they would have been very moving. Or perhaps it is something about how his wife left him and his dog died (or insert other bad lyrics from country songs), but it sounded good.

Croquetas… I love them. I always ordered them in the tapas restaurants in Chicago and they really do eat them here.

Sevilla was a very pretty city to walk through. Every night they have loads of people whose job is to hose down all the sidewalks to clean them. That is the most clean obsessed I’ve seen so far.

(TJ)

Seville is Hot! Carrying my back pack for a mile is not fun in 100 degree heat. At least the Hostel was worth the trek.

EH TORO!!

The bullfight was interesting tradition to see once. However it’s the same thing over and over again, bull charges gets stabbed, gets stabbed by man on horse, gets impaled with sword thru the spine and collapses hopefully, x6. I was hoping they would liven it up maybe bring three bulls in the ring vs. one Matador in cage match, now there is some action I want to see. Or they could have just thrown a Christian to Lions, I’m sure all would be very entertaining. I kept hoping that I would see a bull smart enough to at least gore one of the Matadors. I know I probably won’t be going again but I’m pretty sure that Michelle will want to go again just because she likes the tight pants and the animal cruelty.

I guess I was not as impressed with Flamenco as Michelle. I think we may have just gone on an off night since it was a older man and another one playing guitar. To me it just sounded like shouting in different pitches accompanied by a guitar that had nothing to do with the vocals. I think that I may be able to do this if I had about five shots of tequila and knew some one who could play anything on a guitar.