This past weekend was really great. We took our first excursion with API to Tarragona to see Costa Dourada, which was about an hour away by bus, and it is this old Roman town on the coast. It was absolutely beautiful. We took a walking tour with a tour guide who hated us because we wanted to take pictures of everything and he was trying to hurry us along, but about 25 of us and only one of him meant we got our pictures and he just got angry.
Funny little sculpture you got there
that red and yellow flag is the flag of Catalunya
Our tour guide who looks like he's about to throw a punch. He probably wanted to.
But can you blame us? It was so pretty!
API had lunch for us which little did we know was going to be about a 3 hour all you can eat tapas, muscles, clams, bread and olive oil, and paella followed by ice cream and creme brulee extravaganza. Needless to say we were stuffed and then we got to go to the beach for a bit before we all passed out on the bus on the way back.
It has been really hot since and sunny since we got here, which has been great don't get me wrong, but yesterday it rained and finally cooled it down a little bit. My friend Annie and i went to get tapas for lunch and smart one over here didn't bring an umbrella or anything so it was another lunch that lasted 2 hours too long since it was pouring and I had the big bad camera with me (it's safe don't worry mom!). But we finally made it and thennnnnn BULL FIGHT!! Catalunya (the area of Spain that Barcelona is in) recently outlawed bull fights, so last night I saw the second to last bull fight in Barcelona EVER. A big group of us went and we were all excited and all of the fighters costumes or outfits were really cool and when the bull first comes out it was so exciting to watch them with the red capes and then the swords came out... The first one was pretty hard to watch because, the rumors are true everyone, they pretty much torture the bull and kill it while everyone watches. And there were 6! But some of the guys from our group met a local hombre who started telling them all about the bull fights and when they blow the horns and what everything means so that was really neat. A few facts from our friend for ya
1. Kids used to be able to go to bull fights, but now you have to be at least 14 to get in.
2. We were at an amateur bull fight so they are still in bull fighting school. The bull fighters we saw have probably been in bull fighting school for 3 or 4 years (kind of like going to night school, they have day jobs and then bull fighting on the side) and are still only fighting bulls half the size that the pros do. He said these were probably 300 kilos and the professionals go up against 600 kilo bulls. WHAT?!
3. The professional bull fighters are to Spain as rock stars are to the U.S. They can make a ton of money from it and live crazy lavish lives with women and parties, Kid Rock-esque, but a lot of people don't like them too because so many people don't support the bull fighting tradition anymore.
I'm really glad I went because it was definitely an experience, but once was enough.
TOROS TOROS TOROS
winners of the night
This weekend is the festival of La Mercé in Barcelona so I'm really excited for that and I booked flights to Rome and Prague today with 2 friends of mine for later in the semester! See ya summer babysitting money, I've got some Europe to see. ¡Olé!
No comments:
Post a Comment