13 Days

I am currently spending this evening frantically trying to come up with an amazing English lesson for tomorrow. My assignment: teach two lessons about anything...which seems easy right? Cuz I can literally teach the students about ANYTHING...cool, right? Um..yes it is cool, but how am I supposed to decide what to teach. I have narrowed it down to wanting to teach them about American culture, and maybe even do a snippet on Tallahassee. So, I guess that narrows it down some, or does it? I mean what is American culture? I've come up with this list: Football (American...not soccer), Tailgating, House Parties (this is not so common in other parts of the world), Roadtrips, Churches, Rivers, Beaches, Boating, Baby Showers, Weddings, Universities, Parks, Fast Food, Mexican Food (love it!), Various Foods in general...ok so obviously this is not a comprehensive list, like at all...It's hard to do a lesson on American culture though because what should I focus on, how do I want to display our country? Anyway, once I get finished distracting myself with blogging :) I will get back to brainstorming...

So, since I have been getting more busy lately, I haven't been watching the days past as much, and so I looked up the other day and realized that I am leaving soon, yes very soon... 13 days in fact. I am eager to get back that is true, BUT I will miss a good few things here. Here is what I will miss:

The "cafe con leche"...love it.
The students at my school where I have been interning.
My supervisor, Diana-she's made my stay here so much better!
My roommates and the time in the afternoon that we spend eating together
Making coffee at home for myself, and my roomies
Walking in Valencia
The fresh food, and the local workers that have always been so nice
The teachers and their efforts to speak the few words of English they know
The families and random people who have showed me kindness
Speaking Spanish more, and just listening to Spanish everywhere
Have I mentioned the students? I will def. miss them...some of my favorites are the Seniors and the 12 year olds... :) Good times...

I am sure there are plenty more things...but that's all I can think of at the moment.

Well...I better get back to it!

See you all soon :)

The Bullfight.

So, yesterday I went to my first ever bullfight. I was very nervous to see this all happen, because as many of you know, they kill the bull. I didn't know if I could handle seeing that, nor if I necessarily wanted to. So then why did I go right? Well, I went because bullfighting is a tradition in Spain that has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years, and I felt like I should form my own opinion about it, and just see what it's all about. So, I went with my supervising teacher and her husband (they have been incredibly kind to me, and I am so grateful for them). We drove (it was so nice to be in a car!) to a city near to Valencia that is having a similar festival like Fallas in Valencia. So, my supervisor's husband is not an expert or anything about bullfighting, but he does know a good bit, so he was my "tour guide" to some degree through the whole thing. So, we arrived to the Plaza de Toros (The Bull Ring) which is a round, big building that has arched windows on the outside and looks like a stadium in the inside. There is a big circular area at the bottom with white lines going around it, which is where they fight the bulls. So, my "tour guide" explained that there would be six bulls killed (yikes! I was thinking) and that there are 3 toreros (that might not be the correct word, but the man that actually does the final dance/fight/killing of the bull.) With each torero there is a team of people who work with him. So there are three parts of the fight. First, the bull comes into the ring (the bull has never been there before, and there has never been training because before this the bull has lived a very nice life with great food and open fields). The first bull that came in was so disoriented, and this made me really sad because he seemed so confused, and you could tell he just wanted to go back to his pasture...I found out later that other bulls were much more aggresive and came out fighting...but anyway, moving on. Once the bull comes in, the first team of people work with him, with pink blanket-like things, and basically they get him angry, and then these men on horseback come out and poke the bull in the back of the neck, and make him bleed. So I was told that they do this, so that the bull does not lift up his head so far during the fight, and it reduces his strength to some degree. So, the second part is when a separate man comes out and takes two things and pokes it into the bulls back/neck. (So, during the time that the first bull was experiencing this, I saw the bull’s blood, and then I began to wonder if I could in fact handle seeing it) So, they do some more running around, and getting the bull more angry, but then the final part begins. The torero comes out, and it is just him and the bull. At this point the bull is bleeding, but still def. has some strength. So this is when the real dancing/fighting happens. It is pretty intense because the torero could literally die any second, but yet he is so confident, and seriously it is artistic and rather like a dance. It is not as violent as I had thought actually. The body of the torero has to be extremely straight and stiff, and he has to show no fear. As the bull gets more tired and more tired, the torero lets him rest some and then continues again. At this time the torero is not hurting him, the only injuries he has is the ones that were already given to him (One stab, and 2-6 smaller "pokes"). When the bull is energetic the bull will charge the man, and he will use his red cape (now it's red and not pink) and the bull will run through this. Again, this was not rehearsed, and so each bull is different, so depending on the bull, it could be more or less dangerous. So, as the bull gets tired, he doesn't run all the way through the red cape, so he might buck his body up when he is closer to the man, and that is when it is really dangerous. During one of the fights, the torero was struck in the leg (I didn't see any blood, but there was a hole in his clothes). So, then there is a signal, and the whole stadium is quiet, and the torero gets the bull towards the middle of the ring. Then there is a moment when the stadium is silent, and the bull and the man are facing each other, and the torero stabs the bull with a long sword-like thing, and if he does it right, the bull dies immediately. But, that is really hard to do, so it doesn't always happen that way. For the six bulls I saw killed, only one died immediately, so then if the sword actually doesn't go in, the torero has to try again (one of the guys had to try 3 times...which was hard to watch), but after they stab the bull, and if he doesn't die right away, the stab him in the neck and kill him quickly so he doesn't suffer.

After the bull is dead, the crowd cheers and waves their white rags and newspapers if they think the torero did a good job. If he did do a good job and the president of the bullfighting ring thinks so too, then the president will put out a white rag and the torero will have won an ear. The ear of the bull. So literally they go and take an ear of the bull, and the torero has that as a prize. If they do an excellent job, he may get two ears. Only one of the torero's in one of the fights got an ear while I was there.

Ok, so it was such a new experience for me. I wondered if I was going to cry or something because of it all, but what I had to tell myself was that this is a tradition that has gone on for so many years and that to these people, it is very normal. Like, very very normal. So like we go to a football game and scream and hoot for the players, and yell insults to the refs, they do that to the toreros and to the president. I think one of the most interesting things was looking at the people who go. There was a variety of ages, but I would say it is definitely more followed by the older generation. I smelled cigars, and I saw a lot of old, weathered faces...and that was interesting.

Did I really enjoy it? Hmm, I guess I feel undecided. I don't like that they kill them, but what my "tour guide" said was that the bulls live a great life up until then, and if they were just slaughtered in general for a butcher house, they would not have the chance to fight...and also, they do use the meat of the bull to eat afterwards. (I know this is true because I saw the raw meat in a truck as we were leaving, and the actual bulls being butchered in one of the rooms. So...that made me feel a little better. I was surprised that I didn't leave feeling completely disgusted, and maybe that is because of how it was all explained to me. I still don't feel like I would want to go every weekend or anything, but I am glad I went just to understand a little more about it.