My Trip to a Bullfight

The Plaza de Toros in San Lucar de Barrameda


Last night we went to the Plaza de Toros in San Lucar de Barrameda for a bullfight. We took the motorbike so we wouldn´t have to find parking, and we were smart for it. The bullring was smaller than I thought it would be so there really wasn´t a bad seat, if you were sitting in the shade. If not then you would be squinting and fanning yourself for most of the time. Luckily for us, we were in the shade.

There were three matadors and six bulls and they rotated through the evening. When the bull first comes out, he is full of energy and anger. After a minute or two though two guys on armored (and blindfolded) horses with spears come and stab the bull to make it bleed and to get dizzy. After that the bull doesnt really stand a chance. Then the matador or another guy sticks six smaller spears in the back of the bull two at a time. The matador plays to the crowd, often taunting the bull or holding the capote from his knees at this point. A few minutes later when the bull is practically walking dead the matador grabs a slightly curved sword and sticks it in the back of the bull from straight on. Surprisingly the bull still has some fight left in him, but eventually he falls.


The matadors and their assistants warming up

Afterward the three judges award the matador an ear, two ears, or two ears and a tail for his performance, based on the applause from the crowd. The matador walks around the ring in appreciation and people throw things to him which he touches or kisses and throws back.

Its all pretty gruesome and cruel, but interesting at the same time. The experience was fun and I can see why people enjoy it so much.


Morante de la Puebla taunting a toro!

Rota, the Lighthouse in Chipiona, and going to a bullfight!

The other day Rocio and I went to Rota, a town just down the road from Chipiona. It is a lot like Chipiona in some ways, and different in others. First of all there is an American Naval Base on the edge of town so there are a lot of Americans wandering the streets. The city also has a big lighthouse and nice beaches, but they seem a little too sterilized. The city government does a good job of making sure the streets are clean and everything is shiny, but I sort of missed the character and charm that Chipiona has.


Rota

We walked along the beach for a while and then went into town to poke around and finally stopped for tapas at a place called 100 Montaditos (100 sandwiches). The name says it all, the offer 100 different little sandwiches and a checkbox style menu that you take up to the front and they process your order. It was nice but a little corporate, something that doesn´t seem to go well with authentic Spanish food.

Ive been here for a month and I really enjoy some aspects of the culture that just can´t be found in America. Mom and Pop stores of all kinds are everywhere. Just about every business is family owned. It´s nice to know who you are giving your money to, and to know that you are supporting the local economy instead of some huge bank account somewhere.

TV in Spain is great. There are 10 channels that everyone gets through the antenna (nobody has cable) and they are really all you need. One show in particular that I like is called Españoles por el mundo and is about Spanish people living in other countries. Their lives, their jobs, what they do for fun, etc.

Yesterday I went up to the top of the lighthouse in Chipiona with Rocio and took a ton of photos. From up there you can see the whole town and as far away as Rota. It seemed a lot higher from up there than from the ground and it was reallllly windy, so windy that the railing didnt seem high enough! Ill post pictures here soon.

Tomorrow evening Rocio and I have tickets to a bullfight in San Lucar de Barrameda and then we are going to a barbeque afterwards. I am excited about going to see the famous Spanish spectacle for the first time. It will be an interesting experience no matter what I think about the ethics of it all. Pictures to come pronto!

Tourists, Tapas, & The Virgin

There´s nowhere to park. Not that I drive here, but still. The town has probably tripled or more in population since Friday morning from tourists escaping the heat of inland Andalucia. The beach is a popular choice, and why not? It´s free, and there are lots of fun things to do in and around Chipiona.

Last evening Rocio and I went to San Lucar de Barrameda for tapas and to walk around a different city. Around here, you go to Chipiona for the beaches and San Lucar for the sights. There are plenty of great places to grab a bite, a glass of barbadillo, and sit and people watch. This is the sherry producing region of Spain and they do a good job making sure that you know it. Solear, La Gitana, San Leon. These are some of the most abundant ads you´ll see here.


A bullfight poster in San Lucar de Barrameda

One of strange yet charming things about Andalucia is how people decorate their homes. Its so vastly different from America that its hard to explain. For one thing, I´ve been here 2 1/2 weeks and I´ve yet to see carpet anywhere. It´s just not done. Houses here have names as well as addresses. These names can be anything from Casa Antonio to Nuestra Señora del Rosario in honor of the virgin. I´m not exaggerating when I say that the virgin is bigger than Jesus here, she really is that popular. Every town has their own favorite version of the virgin at their church on display. In America, Christians love their Jesus, but in Spain they love his mom. In addition to naming their houses after the virgin, homeowners often put up huge tiled images with accompanying lighting of the virgin on the side or front of their house. They look great, I must admit.



Tonight is the 4th of July, I should be getting ready to blow some stuff up, but its just another Saturday here...

La Fiesta de San Juan

Last night we went to the beach for the fiesta de San Juan. Its a yearly tradition tha t welcomes the summer by setting things on fire. Basically they burn a heap of symbolic stuff that they want to go away, like an effigy that says ¨crisis¨ on his chest. People are supposed to write one wish for the coming year and one thing they wish be rid of in the coming year. The wish they want to come true they throw in the ocean, and the other they throw into the fire.



Rocio didn´t explain quite clearly enough for me and I wrote wishes on the same piece of paper and threw them both into the fire. Oh well. Afterwards, we stayed around and sat with friends in the sand for a few hours until people had to go home. One of the chiringuitos on the beach set up a dance floor and lights and music so some people were dancing well into the night. All in all it was a pretty fun night and an interesting tradition.

check out new photos up top!

Going Back To Spain

6/14/09

So I´m going back to Spain today. I´m taking a pretty straight route to Madrid: SFO-Toronto-Madrid. Right before I left the house Rocio spilled coffee on my shirt, an ominous sign of a bad day? we´ll see. Going through security at SFO, the technician was extra interested in the huge bag of corn tortillas I brought in my carryon bag. She was cool though and didn´t give me much trouble. Hopefully I can find some more in Spain, tortillas not trouble.

On my flight from Toronto to Madrid I was fortunate enough to sit next to a Spaniard named Alexandra Mateu. She´s not a celebrity, but a girl my age who has been in America for the last year studying abroad and who is going back to Granada for the summer. Consequently, she worked for the Spanish Ministry of Education in Seattle. She told me that I would probably have no trouble at all finding a job in a private school in Spain with a degree in Kinesiology. They are always looking for native English speakers, and the further from Spain the better.

6/16/09

My first day in Chipiona has come and gone. Basically i spent all day following Rocio around meeting her friends at various places. We woke up around 3, just in time for lunch which was caracoles (little snails). After lunch we went to the beach and came home showered, visited more friends, and went to the new store in Chipiona that Rocio will be working at. Later we went to cafe gloria to meet Sandra and her sister for drinks. Six other people seemed to appear out of nowhere and we stayed until almost 1 in the morning.



6/18/09

Yesterday I was feeling pretty lethargic so I decided to go for a run to the beach. I got there tired, and hung around watching the waves for a while. When I got back to her house, Rocio wouldn´t wake up. Instead of being trapped at her house I decided to try to fix her bike to take it into town. After applying copious amounts of WD40 to all the rusty moving parts and resetting the chain, I was in business. The bike ride from her house to town took 25 minutes and I wandered around Chipiona for a bit before she called me and picked me up to go to the mall and El Corte Ingles in Jerez.

El Corte Ingles is impressive. Think Nordstrom + SuperWalmart with other things like funeral services, travel agency, etc. It´s absolutely massive. We found tortillas! They even had Maseca masa.

I´m starting to feel overwhelmed by the amount of Spanish that is flooding into my ears. Really it takes a lot of mental energy to try to continuosly decode another language. On top of that, the Cadiz pronunciation is so fast and slurred that at times I can´t even tell what words are being said.

6/21/09

The last few days have all been pretty much the same: Wake up, run errands in Chipiona, have lunch, go to the beach and then join some friends for drinks somewhere. I have done some other cool things though. I went with Rosa´s boyfriend Juan to play soccer at a lighted pay-per-hour field. It was awesome because it was appropriately sized for a 7v7 match. That type of thing could really take off in California I think.

Tonight I went with Rocio and her parents to San Lucar de Barrameda for dinner at a steakhouse that is owned by one of Antonio´s friends. We had good food and then went to a couple nice bars in San Lucar.

Findings ingredients for fish tacos is proving a difficult task. We can´t seem to find normal American mayonnaise, all the Spanish stuff has a strong flavor. We have Hellman´s but it also tastes weird. We downloaded salsa recipes and we will probably make our own salsa which will be interesting.

'08 Spain Trip Memories Part 2

8/8/08

Today I had my first taste of the costa de la luz, the beach! Me and Rocio went with her friends Paquita and Rosa during siesta. I can't imagine a much better beach experience. Beautiful sand, warm water, a lovely view of Chipiona from the beach and of course women sunbathing topless! The beach Rocio took me to was called Camaron (shrimp) and we went there because there were less Sevillanos and more open beach. The beaches in Chipiona lots of corrales, which are ancient stone fish traps that the Romans built that still work today. When the time comes in, the fish swim over the rocks and when the tide goes out they are trapped. Brilliant.


Me on the wall of the corrales


After a while we walked along the beach back towards the crowded part and had a tinto de verano and some jamon flavored Lays. The walk was a bit far, and by the time we got back, Paquita and Rosa were ready to leave. When we got back to Rocio's house I called Ivan, another American guy my age that I met on the plane from Madrid to Jerez who was staying in Rota, to get together. He wanted to stay in Rota and go to some American bars near the naval base with his friends, so we never did meet up. Tomorrow we are going to the beach again!


Chipiona from the beach


8/10/08

Tonight I went with Rocio and her parents to San Lucar de Barrameda to have a drink at an old palace turned hotel on a hill. The palace has a wonderful courtyard where food and drinks are served. I tried Pedro Ximenez sherry, which was a sublimely sweet after dinner drink. Tomorrow we are going to meet Paquita and her boyfriend Jaime while they are in town for a few days.

Its remarkable how different Spain is from America. The social atmosphere doesn't hinge upon money here. Everyone goes to the same places and there is little distinction between good neighborhoods and average ones. I have yet to see what I would call a "bad" neighborhood yet. Money and status have little weight here. There is more of a sense of community and everyone knows everyone.

For my first Saturday here, we went out to a bar called Taboo owned by one of Rocio's friends Curro. There are so many young people out here that there is almost nowhere to park in the city. A motor scooter is easily the best option for going into town. We stayed out all night and ended the night outside a club called Arenas by the faro (lighthouse). After Arenas kicked us out at 6 a.m. Rocio and her friends hung around and danced and sang flamenco until well after the sun came up. On the way home, we drove past Rocio's father heading to work, oops!


Flamenco and friends by the faro

'08 Spain Trip Memories Part 1

Before I go to Spain this summer, I have decided to write here about my thoughts from my trip to Spain last summer. During my three week trip I wrote in a notebook to preserve my reveries.

8/6/08

My Spanair plane from Frankfurt to Madrid reminds me of a Southwest airlines plane: its small, oldish, and doesn't have any amenities like the Lufthansa plane I just got off of. The Frankfurt airport is so busy that we didn't get on the plane at the gate, but took a bus to an overflow plane parking of sorts. We waited thirty minutes on the plane before they even started the engines, and it was uncomfortable with no AC turned on. The flight was only a quarter full and quiet, I'm guessing Madrid is not the place to be in August. I think I have figured out the airline industry trick. They always leave late, but fly faster than they say they will to arrive on time.

I wanted to buy something in Germany, but all i had with me was a few useless American dollars. The Madrid airport is by far the coolest, and probably largest airport that I have ever seen. There are four terminals, and I had to take a six minute bus between T1 and T4. T4 is beautiful! It has a wavy bamboo roof that stretches the (I'm guessing) 1000 yard terminal. Inside I got my first glimpse of tapas, overpriced as they may be. I tried out the Wii Fit at a promotional booth, but I can't see how I'm going to get fitter by standing on a board.


T4 Madrid-Barajas airport

8/7/08

After finally arriving at my destination, Jerez De La Frontera, Rocio, her brother Alberto, and I took off for her house in Albe's VW bus. Once we spent ten minutes trying to get out of the parking lot, we were on our way. Spain isn't very proficient at road signage, by the time you can read the sign, you've gone the wrong way!

At Rocio's house I met her parents and we had a small dinner. Although I was dead tired, we decided to go out in Chipiona. On the way into town I noticed that there were kids out everywhere and it was well after ten at night! The first place we went to after i had successfully withdrawn my first Euros from the ATM was this little bohemian place with outdoor seating and mismatched couches and grass that the kids were playing in. Yeah, kids at a bar, weird.

Next we went to another bar facing the beach called Picoco with overpriced beers and an actual cigarette machine. Not sure of whether or not to tip the bartender I asked one of Albe's friends in broken Spanish, and he motioned for me to take all the change from the bartop and shove it deep into my pocket. Sweet. On the tv they were showing a Barca preseason match against Red Bull NY, which Barca won easily. Rocio's friends all spoke zero English, but they all still tried talking to me, which was nice. After a while at Picoco, we left and walked out onto the beach which still had people on it even though it was three in the morning and the water was warm. I called my parents who were surprised I was up and out at that late of an hour. We finally went back home around five in the morning and I quickly fell into an epic drunken-jetlag-night out coma. What a great first night in Spain!


Picoco, Chipiona