La Feria

Starting on Monday night/Tuesday morning at 12 a.m., feria began in Sevilla! Our semester ended on Friday, so we have all of this week off and all students do because it is a week long holiday for Sevilla. Some people still have work, I know, because my host mom has to work. Everyone had off Monday though, and she took off Tuesday and Wednesday to be able to join in on the feria fun. :)

Feria is the fair that takes place every April in Seville. It is well-known world-wide and the population usually just about more than triples an size for this attraction. This year it is actually in May because of how late Easter was this year. There is one week in between Semana Santa and Feria every year.

We went to the fair on Monday night because at midnight - when feria officially begins - they light all of the lights and the huge entrance to the fair. It was almost like waiting for midnight to turn on New Years Eve.

These pictures aren't very good because the street lights were causing a glare/blurriness. This is the huge entrance to the fair though. It changes every year and is based on a new theme. There are lights covering this entire thing, so it's gorgeous once it's lit up!

Loved it! It was so pretty. Not only did this light up, but all of the lights that lined the streets through the fair grounds lit up. A lot of people were up on top of buildings and stuff so they could see the view of the entire area lighting up.

These little tents are called casetas and they line the streets of feria. They are all mostly privately owned and you have to know the family or friends of the family that own it to be able to enter.

This picture shows a little bit of the inside of the caseta and how all of the people would hang out outside of them as well.

All of the streets were so pretty lined with the lights - I loved it.

Here are more casetas that you can see inside of. They are all very nice and are basically just restaurants with a full kitchen and everything. Once it gets late enough they turn the floor into a dance floor and close the flaps of the tent for a party where everyone dances Sevillanas - a traditional flamenco-type dance.

This is a few of us with Juandi, one of our Spanish friends here. We were at his family friends' caseta for a while. His family actually owns the bar that we go to every morning for our tostadas and cafe con leches. :) We've actually gotten to know the whole family fairly well. Juandi was also one of the tutors that we got to know towards the beginning of the semester.

These are jarras of rebujitos. It is a mixture of manzanilla, a sherry, and sprite. It is a typical sherry drink and is usually served in pitchers like this and drank out of tiny little cups.

This is me and my beautiful host mom, who I'm going to miss SO much, before she went to feria one day. She is wearing a traditional "feria" dress, which is basically just a flamenco dress. I loved it and wish I could have bought one for myself. :) They're all so pretty!

I've finally caught up on posts again! Three in a matter of two days. I'm spending today packing my life for the past four months into two suitcases. I can't believe my time in Sevilla has actually come to an end, but I can't wait to come back one day and reminisce on this amazing chapter of my life. :)

Next stop: Italy and then HOME SWEET HOME!

All my love to Texas,

Paige

Corrida de Toros (Bull Fight)

This post may not be very pleasant for some.

About a week ago, we went to a bull fight in Sevilla. Before the fight, the director of our program gave us a lecture over the tradtions of the bull fight and everything that goes on so we would understand it more and wouldn't be completely lost. Thank goodness he did or else I think we all would have been extremely overwhelmed!

The bull fight is NOT seen as a "sport" here in Spain, and there are only a few cities that still have bull fights similar to this. After the bulls are killed, their meat is sold and all of the proceeds from the sales of the meat are given to charity. This has been a long standing tradition which I think is very interesting. The meat from these bulls is not very good at all, but they do use the meat from the tail bone area of the bull in a popular tapa dish here in Spain.

There are six bulls in every bull fight and all of them die, no matter what. There are three matadors in each fight and they go in order - 1,2,3,1,2,3. The matadors do not know anything about the bull they are going to fight until it is in the bull ring with them. The matadors outfits were INCREDIBLE. They were each completely unique and sequined. Once the it got dark enough and they turned the lights on in the stadium - their uniforms literally sparkled.

There is a strict process that each individual bull/matador go through, but the matador does not do all of the work. The matadors have their fair share of helpers. The whole idea of each fight is to weaken the neck muscle so that they become tired and their head will drop, making it easier for the matador to aim for the chest cavity with his final sword to kill the bull.

This is a good picture of the bull ring. The clay/dirt/sand that is used is special in that it does not become mud when it rains. It simply just gets about an inch worthy of water on top of it, but it is still durable enough to host the bull fight on. It was all open air and we were sitting on brick bleachers, if you will. One of the most uncomfortable things I've ever sat on. I didn't realize that the people standing outside the stadium with red and yellow striped pillows were selling those to SIT on, but now I completely understand. Not only were we sitting on bricks but the "bleachers" are all so close to each other that your knees inevitably dig into the back of the person in front of you. I don't know how the Spaniards stand it with the heat here! I guess that's just their culture and they're so used to it.

Here are some of the matadors and their "helpers" getting ready for the bull to come out. The first cape that they use in the process is fuscia and yellow which was the last thing I expected. The colors actually mean nothing though. The bulls are colorblind and, therefore, just respond to the movement of the fabric in general.

Here is a close up of one of the matador's helpers - their outfits are very similar to the outfits of the matadors but may just not be as flashy.

This is, what I'm going to call, step one. The matador helpers use their capes to move around and attract the bull so that he will charge the movement. The idea of this entire process - that is carried out throughout the entire fight - is to stay on the inside of the bull's turning range because they are so large that do not have the ability to turn sharp or really fast.

Step two: This little guy is called a "picador." He uses this spear to stab the neck muscle of the bull to help, and really begin, the weakening process. All of the picadors are on horses - there are two in the ring at a time. Usually just one of the picadors gets utilized because one is typically in the shade and one is in the sun and the bull tends to stay in the shade. The fabric around the horse is completely padded to protect them from the charge of the bull, and they are blind folded so they cannot see what is going on and do not get spooked. Our director told us that he feels like the picadors these days "do too much" and I could tell exactly what he meant by that when I went to the bull fight. They are supposed to cleanly stab the bull in the neck two times, but they would stab them more than twice and not in the correct area - they would even stab further down their back which really doesn't benefit the weakening of the neck muscle at all.

Step two in action. I promise - the horse IS okay! :)

Step three: This is when the matador really kind of steps in and starts doing his part. Again, here he is tiring the bull by attracting him with the movement of the cape. He is also trying to distract him from the helpers who are attempting to weaken the neck muscle again - six different times.

You can kind of see in this picture - the red and white things on top of the bull are actually other little spears that they helpers stab into the neck muscle two at a time. Each are decorated with paper in different colors.

This is a good picture of one of the helpers in action with the smaller spears.

Step four: This is when the matador begins to use the tradtional red cape. Again, he uses this cape to attract the bull - making it charge - and to tire it even more.

This is a picture of one of the helpers hiding behind a small section where the bull cannot reach. The helpers reminded me of rodeo clowns in that they would attract the bulls with their capes, causing them to charge, and then would run away from them and hide behind this barrier where the bull could not get to them.

Step five: The matador's toughest job. The matador is supposed to make one last, clean stab, preferably in the chest cavity and right into the heart, so that the bull stumbles a bit and falls to the ground. It is supposed to be an act of pride for the matador in that he has won and beat the bull in their duel.

We did have a fairly rare scenario during the bull fight we saw. One of the bulls was sent back because he was tripping and stumbling the moment he came out into the ring - signifying that he was weak. The "president" throws up a green flag to symbolize his desire for a new bull. There are always two alternate bulls available for each fight. This was our 6th bull that was sent back, so during the very last one we got to see how this was done. They send out all of these cows so that the bull will follow them out of the ring. Sadly, the bulls that are sent back and out of the ring are still killed.

Step six: I guess you could say the clean up crew comes out. Some guys hook the bull from the previous fight to the mules and the mules carry the bull out of the ring. Sometimes, if the matador has had a good fight, this is when they will cut off one or two of the ears from the bull and allow the matador to prance around the bull ring with it...this signifies honor for the matador who gave a good show.

I decided these guys were kind of like zambonies on ice rinks - they came out to clean up the ring before the next bull came out. Their nickname slowly changed to "sandbonies" though. :)

I hope this wasn't too gruesome of a post. It's a huge part of the culture here in Spain, especially in Sevilla, and I felt like it was a large part of my time here that I had to share. It is not viewed as cruel by the Spanish people - more like art - and it really is very artistic and interesting the way it is all done.

Now, with all of that being said, the bull fight we attended was APPARENTLY one of the worst bull fights that some of our teachers had ever seen. The bulls were all weak bulls and didn't put up a big fight or perform well. The picadors tried to do too much with their spears and the matadors were having to take 3-4 shots at the final stab of the bull. One bull even laid down in the middle of his fight, which we heard never happens. Nothing was too bad throughout the fight, I enjoyed it, I guess, and I would like to go again when there is a world famous matador or just in hopes of it being a better show.

I also learned through this process that whistling signifies a bad thing in Spain and clapping/waving white hankerchiefs signify good things. Needless to say, the Spaniards were whistling a lot throughout this bull fight - ha - and it was a hard concept to understand because I am so used to it meaning good things at a sporting event in America.

That's all for my gruesome posts! PROMISE! :)

I should get one more post up about feria some time soon!

Abrazos,

Paige

Semana Santa Adventures

Sorry this is a little delayed! These next couple of days I will probably have a couple posts trying to catch myself up again. The semester of classes is now officially OVER! People have started to leave to travel elsewhere and I have some friends who are already home. While this chapter of our lives is coming to a close, I still have about 2 weeks left, and am still hanging out in Spain until Friday.

My Semana Santa trip consisted of 7 people, 7 days, my 1 backpack and 4 flights. It was quite an experience, ha, but we had the time of our lives! This entire week was full of us doing stereotypical tourist stuff. It was pretty ridiculous, haha, but we had fun while we were at it and we got to visit three different countries that none of us had been to before. :) I'll just start from the beginning...

First, we went to Germany - we flew into Weeze airport and took a van to Dusseldorf which was about an hour away. When we originally booked our flight to "Dusseldorf" through RyanAir, we did not realize that it did not fly directly into Dusseldorf. So this nice man ended up taking us, for fairly cheap, directly to our hotel. There were seven of us, though, and only six available seats. He wanted four of us girls to cram together on the three-seater back portion of the van, but I'm pretty sure it was made for more like two people, so that didn't work. Basically, when it all came down to it, I spent the hour long trip sitting on the floorboard between two captain style seats, and this is how our trip began...talk about our own "Eurotrip." We literally all felt as if we were on Eurotrip, and, as we've said all along, we need a camera following us around throughout our adventures. Ha.

We were in Dusseldorf for two nights. We flew in late one night, had a full day and then another half of a day before our next flight. We got to Dusseldorf the first night...walked around a bit only to find most likely the ONLY Mexican restaurant in town, and of course we had to stop there. So, we spent our first night in Germany drinking margaritas - is that Texan enough for ya? The next day we woke up fairly early and went exploring. We found the shopping district (of course) and saw the river and parks. We also went up into the Rhine Tower which gave some gorgeous views of the city and distant countryside.

This is the German car we found that we felt like was very stereotypical and so cute!

This is the river/park area that runs through the shopping district in Dusseldorf. There were all kinds of upscale shops throughout Dusseldorf...it was actually a really nice town, and definitely somewhere I never would have gone if RyanAir didn't fly there - ha. This is probably the case with most of the places I visited this trip. 

Honky Tonk Hugo cracked us up and gave us a little "hometown" feel. He also asked us if we "Sprechen sie Deutsch," so apparently he mistook us for Germans, and, like I've said before, it's always a compliment if someone doesn't immediately know that we're from America.

This is along another river/canal right before we went up into the Rhine Tower.

View from the Rhine Tower

A typical German meal - bratwurst and a beer. :)

I had to find something with my name on it since I was in my native country! Haha...this was the closest I could find.

Next stop: Edinburgh, Scotland, and oh boy did we fall in love! We were in Edinburgh for the same amount of time, but we got there a little earlier on our first night in town. I never would have imagined that I would like Scotland, much less Edinburgh, as much as I did. It was not only, by far, my favorite city on this trip, but one of my favorites throughout the entire semester!

:)

This is the GrassMarket area that we stayed in. I would recommend it to anyone! It was the perfect location with all kinds of cute pubs and restaurants and was close to the Edinburgh Castle.

This was our first night in Edinburgh in a small pub by our hostel. We danced with the locals at a Scottish pub - it doesn't get more authentic than that! I think this was one of the reasons we liked Scotland so much...we definitely started off on the right foot.

Just me holding up the Edinburgh Castle

Our group of seven - five girls and two guys (poor guys, but they put up with us pretty well for 7 days!)

This was the beginning of the Royal Mile. A mile of shops, restaurants and pubs in Edinburgh.

This is a view looking down the Royal Mile

Like I said...stereotypical tourist stuff - haha. :)

The Edinburgh Palace - this marks the end of the Royal Mile

This was at the bottom of the hike before Arthur's Seat. We literally sat on these hills and just hung out for a while - it's the little things like these that I'm going to miss so much. It was so relaxing and something we would never do in the States. It was GORGEOUS! It kind of reminded me of the Sound of Music.

After our hike to the top of Arthur's Seat - loved the view.

This was the beginning of our ghost tour that we took one night through Edinburgh. It was too funny and creepy as well. We went down into the vaults underground and everything, but this is just the beginning when our tour guide was giving a demonstration of how they used to torture the citizens of Edinburgh back in the day - and used one of our friends as an example, of course.

The Scott Memorial

At the top of Calton Hill

Wreck 'em Tech!

This is Arthur's Seat that we climbed - the view of the acutal hill/mountain from a distance.

Next stop: Dublin, Ireland. We stayed in Dublin for three nights so we had a little extra time there.

This is the Dublin Castle

I loved the inside of the chapel at the Dublin Castle - it was so pretty and quaint.

St. Patrick's Cathedral...

and the gorgeous tulips in front of it. :)

We went to the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin! It was actually really interesting and cool. We learned all about how Guinness is made and a lot about its history. I loved the way the storehouse is set up.

We also got to each pour our own "Perfect Pint" :)

We went on a day trip through the Irish countryside. Our first stop was on an authentic Irish farm that an Irish family still keeps in service.

This was our tour guide on the farm. It was actually his family's farm that is still in business. He is telling us about this tree that people tie a piece of themselves to (usually fabric of some sort) as a way to leave their worries in Ireland.

This is Granny's cottage that was on the farm. We got to eat some of her homemade apple pie - it was to die for. :)

These are the little baby lambs that we got to feed...they were precious!

Cliffs of Moher on the coast of Ireland

 They were actually in one of the Harry Potter movies and the Princess Bride.

I love this photo of the tulips and the little barn in the background. We took this trip at the PERFECT time of year! All of the flowers were blooming and we had gorgeous weather - not a drop of rain, which apparently is very unusual for Ireland.

Okay...that's about all for my Semana Santa trip. I loved it all and had a blast - we all did! It was so much fun, but it was also exhausting. We saw a lot of sites, though, and enjoyed ourselves. :) I should have another blog or two up today or tomorrow. Then I head to Italy to start my journey home!

I'll be in Texas in less than two weeks - counting down the days. :)

Abrazos,

Paige