This week has been more than exciting, with the only down point being my current state: sick. I have the commonest of colds and it's been a bit bothersome, so I've been keeping myself at home reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. I had to download it from the internet and am now reading 500 pdf pages, which almost ruins the fun of holding a book and taking it to the park to read. However, the events of the past few days more than make up for the recent illness.
Thursday began the weekend, since my classes are all on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Lucky, I know! We decided to go out on Thursday night to a bar named La Fabrica, but planned to call it a night after a liter or so. However, deep into a fun new game called Land Mines, we decided to chat up one of the bar tenders. He happened to have an interesting story, starting from his home town in the Dominican Republic and ending up in Salamanca. I don't exactly remember how he arrived in Spain, but we plan to reconvene over drinks soon so I'll get back to you all on that one. Next, he introduced us to the big man on campus, Sebastian, who happens to be the owner of said bar and another named Café Puccini. Considering these two bars are often packed with University students, he seems to be pretty well off. His proof of living the high life was his BMW M6, a high end car that costs 6 figures, American. He promised us some free drinks when he's there and we gladly took him up on his offer the next night. A nice man and hopefully a friend that we'll have so I can start saving some money!
The other highlight of my weekend was the Corrida de Toros, or bullfight, that we saw on Friday afternoon. This wasn't my first bullfight; I attended a bullfight in Puerto Vallarta during Spring Break of this year, but it didn't measure up to the grandeur of this event. Thousands attend the bullfights in Salamanca during the festivals and Friday night's fight was easily a sold out crowd. The first bull raced out and the brave torero watched him carefully as he stampeded around the bull ring. His first moved proved to be the most disastrous, as he got on his knees in an effort to appease the crowd. On his first pass, the bull hit the torero and hooked him through the back of his gold-studded jacket. The bull proceeded to flail him around for 30 seconds before his team was able to free him from the bull's horns. The now shoe-less, jacket-less torero ran to the side more angry and embarrassed than anything. After reality set in and the torero has regained his confidence, he put on the most magnificent display of bullfighting I have ever witnessed. Perfect passes of the bull, the banderillas were on point, and the final kill was flawless. If it weren't for the first incident, this would have merited a the ultimate "trofeo": two ears and the tail of the slain bull. However, thought the crowd tried their hardest to plea for the highest honor, the bullfighter received two ears and was quite proud of his achievements. Most impressive of all was he was the lowest ranked bullfighter of the three, although he outperformed both of them put together.
Each torero has two bulls and we had to sit through 4 bad bullfights until we got to see our favorite torero again. His second fight was just as thrilling as the first fight and he executed his knee-pass perfectly, with the pink and yellow cape spinning around his head as the bull came within inches of him. Two ears once again, though I waved my white hat hoping he would get the tail for his flawless day in the ring. I was in full Spanish mode at the corrida de toros, cheering on the torero and loving the atmosphere. It's so controversial and quite gruesome at time, but it was like watching pure art in motion (for one of the toreros. for the others, it was almost like watching your football team getting pulverized and wanting to get up and leave before the second half started.)
For now, I'm still in recovery mode and will have myself another cup of tea before dinner. Cheers!
-Adam
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