Hotter than the sun in the south of Spain

After weekends upon weekends gallivanting all over Spain and it's neighbors, I'm ending the semester back where I belong- in good old Sevilla. And boy does it feel good. No sleeping on buses, no living out of a backpack, no eating PB&J for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Just pure relaxation and soaking up the best of Andalucia. Since Feria, the weather in Sevilla has been literally perfect. Every day I marvel at how impossibly blue the skies are and bask in the intense sunshine until it's almost uncomfortable. In the past week, I've had a heart-to-heart with my senora, worked up the courage to complain to my program director about one particularly horrendous professor, gone for a run through all my favorite parks in the city, studied in the Alcazar like I've been meaning to all semester, and fallen in love with the novel "Kite Runner" all over again, this time in Spanish. A successful week, if I do say so myself. I really think I'm just beginning to fall in love with Sevilla, which is unfortunate because the end is on the horizon (and I'm not sure how successful a long-distance relationship would be in this case). I guess I'll just have to be content with a short but passionate tryst.

In the two weekends since the end of Feria, I've accomplished the two major items remaining on my "to do list" for the semester: one characteristic of southern Spain, and the other classically European.

The bullfight (La corrida de toros)

I had been wanting to go to a bullfight all semester, but I wasn't expecting to like it. In fact, the more I heard about bullfights, the more I was just hoping to make it through the whole thing without throwing up. Before the semester started, I didn't even know the bulls die in a bullfight. Two weeks ago, my Phonetics and Conversation professor told us she took some American students to a bullfight once and they had to leave early because they were on the verge of vomiting. So despite pretty much expecting to hate it, I went because it was one of those typically Spanish (and especially Andalucian) things that I may never have the chance to see again, and because I wanted to experience it for myself before forming an opinion.

Laura, Victoria, and I bought tickets to a bullfight in which the toreros (bullfighters) were apprentices instead of professionals. This means the tickets were cheaper, the toreros were younger (one was a few months younger than me- an unsettling realization!), and the bulls were younger, but the action was the same as in professional bullfights. After ignoring several pestering men selling un-official tickets outside the Plaza de Toros (bullfighting ring), we finally paid our 10 euros for tickets in the "sol alto" section. Although this is technically the "worst" section, the entire stadium is so small that we were closer to the action than I have ever been at a PSU football game. We also agreed that we wouldn't have wanted to be any closer because that would just mean seeing the cuts and blood in more graphic detail.

Outside Sevilla's Plaza de Toros

The poster for the bullfight we attended. Of the three toreros, one was Spanish (from the province of Sevilla!), one was Mexican, and one was French.

Inside the Plaza de Toros

To my surprise, a bullfight doesn't simply involve throwing a bull and a bullfighter into the ring and watching them battle it out. It's rather complicated, with multiple stages involving people with different roles. Below, I'll describe the structure of a bullfight using my pictures. Disclaimer: I will probably oversimplify things and get some details wrong. Google it if you want the technical details; I'm just here to convey the gist of a bullfight as I understood it from watching one.

Part 1: The bull enters the ring and its ferocity is tested by three banderilleros who wield magenta and yellow capes. The bull charges towards the waving cape (because of the movement, not the color- a common misconception) and the banderillero then runs behind a "trap door" to protect himself. The purpose of this stage is to provoke the bull (which is by nature a non-aggressive creature) and ensure that it is responsive enough to be worthy of fighting.

Part 2: The bloodshed begins when two men (picadores) come out on horseback and each takes a turn stabbing the bull in the back of the neck. If the picadores are successful, the bull will hold its head lower during the rest of the fight, making the torero's job easier and safer. During the stabbing, the bull inevitably charges the horse that the picador is sitting on. The horses are blindfolded and wear a mattress-like covering for protection, but it still looks painful and it's a miracle they don't spook and gallop away. Considering the horses are rammed into by an angry bull, can't see what's going on, and can't escape, I almost feel worse for them than for the bull.

Sadly I didn't get a picture of this part, but here you can see the picadores on horseback entering the arena at the start of the bullfight.

Part 3: Next, the three banderilleros reappear (on foot) and each one attempts to stick two banderillas (sharp barbed sticks) into the bull's shoulders. While one tempts the bull into approaching by waving a cape, another simultaneously plants the two banderillas firmly into the bull. The brightly-colored banderillas stay lodged in the bull's now-bloody back for the remainder of the fight. This step further angers and tires the bull, who I'm amazed is still alive at this point. Stab count: 8.

Part 4: The torero finally enters the ring with the famous red cape and a sword. The torero uses the cape to attract the bull in a series of passes that serve to both exhaust the bull and impress the crowd. This phase of cape-waving is the reason bullfighting is considered an "art" and even gets its own name: faena. Indeed, the faena is rather dance-like, with the torero arching his back and placing his steps so precisely they look choreographed. Except instead of a curtsy, this dance ends with the torero maneuvering the bull into the correct position to stab it between the shoulder blades and into the heart. Ideally, the bull should die immediately, but in all of the rounds we watched, the bull stumbled around for a few minutes before finally toppling over. If the torero has performed well, the crowd waves white handkerchiefs to indicate that he should win an award. The awards, in order of increasing prestige: an ear of the bull he has just killed; both ears; both ears and the tail. These prizes are rare, however, and none was awarded at the bullfight we saw.

Part 5: The dead bull is dragged away by a team of horses, and a team of men quickly clean the arena in preparation for the next round.

Repeat six times. And there you have a complete bullfight.

As it turns out, I wasn't as repulsed by the bullfight as I expected to be. While one of my friends left after the third round, I sat through all six and didn't even cover my eyes. Maybe it was the fact that I was expecting it to be unbearably gruesome. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't see any blood for the first two rounds due to the glare of the sun. Maybe it was the fact that I was so preoccupied with trying to understand what was going on that initially I didn't notice the bull's labored, heaving breathing or the way it clung to dear life for several moments before finally toppling over. Maybe it was the fact that it all seemed so surreal, looked so much like the pictures and video clips I'd seen, that it didn't register that it was happening live in front of me. In fact, I had a harder time watching my TA cut off frog heads in physiology lab, where I was mere inches from the action and could hear the crisp "snip" sound.

If anything, I found the bullfight a little boring. I couldn't pin down why, but Laura said it perfectly: unlike other sports that hinge on the suspense of who's going to win, bullfights always end the same way: with the bull dying. I'm sure a true bullfighting connoisseur (who can distinguish between a skilled torero and a poor one based on his faena) will disagree, but for an ordinary viewer like myself, every round is the same sequence of steps with the same predictable ending. To make an analogy, as much as I love PSU and want the Nittany Lions to win every game of the season, part of the thrill is the (slight) possibility that we might lose. That's what makes it exciting when we win... and that's what's lacking in a bullfight. (To be fair, Spaniards don't consider bullfighting a sport, so maybe that's not the right way to evaluate it, but I don't know enough details about faena to view it as an art.)

Still smiling at the end of round six.

I tried to see the art in it, I really did. I didn't want to be just another American who opposes bullfighting because she's squeamish or doesn't see the artistic/cultural value of it. I seriously considered the major arguments in favor of bullfighting, and here are my opinions:

1. "Bullfighting is a part of the Spanish culture and therefore must be respected and preserved. Also, Spain's economy will suffer if bullfights disappear."
True, it's culture, and true, it's good for the economy (by attracting many tourists and employing many people). Guess what? Those were the same arguments used to defend slavery in the United States. Should we have kept slavery around too? Enough said.

2. "The meat of the bull doesn't go to waste, it's eaten. It's hypocritical for anyone who eats meat to oppose bullfighting. What's more, the bulls live extremely well, even better than ordinary livestock, before they are killed."
This argument is slightly better than the first, in my opinion, because it gets to the root of the issue (morality) rather than simply claiming tradition as justification for continuing a questionable practice. In fact, I almost agreed with this theory. It seems to me that a lot of people want to enjoy their hot dogs and hamburgers without knowing (or acknowledging) how they got there. For instance, I'm not opposed to hunting as a sport because that's how meat was obtained in the past (before we figured out how to efficiently raise livestock in mass quantities) and hunters always use the meat of the animals they kill. It's the third part of this statement that I'm not so sure about. While it is true that bullfighting bulls are treated far better than your ordinary cattle (I've even heard that they have virgin cows at their disposal, much like Islam promises its faithful in heaven), this argument assumes that a good life justifies a prolonged, painful death. Maybe it does, but did anyone ask the bulls? How does the prospect of being treated like royalty for the first 20 years of your life but then dying by being stabbed for 20 minutes sound to you?

At the same time, I think a lot of arguments against bullfighting are flawed too:

1. "It's not a fair fight because there are several humans facing one bull."
I don't believe any of the pigs or cows or chicken you had for dinner this week had a fair fight either. In fact, they didn't get to fight at all. They were conceived, born, and raised with the intention of being killed for meat, and there is a multimillion dollar industry dedicated to that end. If you believe animals should only be killed when they get a fair fight, go hunt your own dinner tonight.

2. "It's wrong to get entertainment out of the death of an animal."
Yes, it would be wrong with human executions (I'm not suggesting we bring back public hangings), but the bull isn't conscious of the fact that it's being used as a source of entertainment. So I say, if you're going to kill it anyway, why not obtain as many benefits from it's death as possible? That's just being resourceful, like the Native Americans using every part of the animals they killed, from the hide to the bones. In fact, if there are people who enjoy watching livestock killed in slaughterhouses, I say charge them a few bucks and let them have a good time too. The viewers will be happy, the rest of society will be happy because the economy will be better, and the animals won't know the difference- their fate is your plate anyway. (Upon re-reading this paragraph, I realize it sounds pretty radical to the point of being considered satirical, so I'd like to state that it's not- I'm completely serious about all this. I'm a big believer in killing as many birds as possible with one stone.)

So after all this shooting down arguments, where do I actually stand on the issue? I'm still not 100% sure, but I think I'm opposed, but solely because the killing is such a long and drawn-out process. If the majority of the time was spent waving around a red cape with the actual killing happening in one fell swoop (as I expected it to be), I wouldn't have a problem with it. The fact that the bull suffers for so long (about twenty minutes) unnecessarily (we have the means to kill it within seconds) seems immoral to me.

In any case, I'm glad I went to the bullfight for the cliched "cultural experience." I'll probably never see another one, but at least now I can say I've "been there, done that."

The soccer game (el partido de futbol)

Sevilla has two futbol teams: Sevilla Futbol Club and Real Betis. Sevilla F.C. is in the first division, and Betis now plays in the second division after being relegated last year. Despite this difference and the fact that Betis hasn't been doing too well lately, the population of Sevilla seems to be split fairly evenly between hardcore Betis supporters and loyal Sevilla fans. It makes for a pretty intense intra-city rivalry. Anyway, since I haven't been following the teams, I didn't have a preference, but I chose to attend a Betis game because Sevilla was playing Barcelona that weekend, which meant ticket prices were way out of my range. Betis was playing Murcia, another Spanish team. The day before the game, I went to the stadium and bought a ticket for a seat above the northern goalpost.

In terms of the sport itself, I think futbol is a thousand times more exciting to watch than American football. It doesn't stop every two seconds, and even a sports dummy like myself can follow what's happening. I was actually on the edge of my seat several times, waiting for the goal-scoring kick, whereas at football games I'm usually either asking the person next to me what's going on or waiting for the wave to come around. However, as a show, European futbol ain't got nothing on PSU football. To be fair, I doubt anything in the world can compare to the spectacle that 110,000 PSU fans can put on. There was singing (primarily coming from the section above the southern goal, which I presume was something like our "student section" for loyal fans) but I couldn't join in because I didn't know the words, and tapping your foot along simply isn't as exciting. Instead, I let my mind translate the sounds into the familiar "Ohhh, oh oh oh ohhh, oh!" that reverberates through Beaver Stadium after a first-down. It felt strange sitting the entire time and actually watching the game. The stadium was far from packed, and I almost missed the pushing and shoving and standing for hours at a time. And I admit, during intermission, I got so nostalgic for PSU football that I listened to "Don't Stop Believing," "Sweet Caroline," and "Zombie Nation" on my iPod. I know I should have been living in the moment, listening to the sounds around me instead of trying to escape to Beaver Stadium, but what can I say? It was the closest thing to a Beaver Stadium experience I'll get for several months, so I couldn't help but recreate the experience in my own pathetic way.

Okay, enough nostalgia. A few interesting observations from the Betis game:

• Before the game started, after the players were announced and came out onto the field, everyone stood up. I thought it was for the national anthem, but instead I think it was a prayer. I'm not completely positive because it was in Spanish and hard to hear the voice on the loudspeaker clearly, but I thought I heard something along the lines of "forgive us... give us... bless us..." I suppose it's not that surprising, since Spain is, for all practical purposes, a Catholic country, but it was still unexpected for me.
  
• Spaniards curse like sailors in general, but for futbol games I think they leave the rest of their vocabulary at home. I have never heard the words "cono" and "cabron" so much in my life, and I'm pretty sure one of their fight songs has the phrase "puta madre" in it. What's even more interesting is that most of these foul words were directed at their own players for not playing well. Talk about team spirit.
• Instead of wearing team jerseys and eating soft pretzels, fans at futbol games here sport team scarves and eat sunflower seeds, the shells of which they litter all over the ground.

The match ended in a 1-1 tie. (We scored in the first half; they scored in the second.) As a result, everyone left the stands pretty dejectedly. I have a feeling the experience would have been even more fun if Betis had won, but I still had a really good time watching an exciting sport and bringing back memories of the good old days in Beaver Stadium. Now if only you combined the sport and spring season (everything's better when you're in a t-shirt instead of bundled up in a winter jacket) of futbol with the spirit of PSU football, I think you'd have the perfect sporting event.


And now I'm down to the last five days. My last five days as a Sevillana and my last five days as an undergraduate. The forecast predicts rain on all five, and I'm glad because that should make it a little easier to say goodbye.