Sunday, Bloody Sunday

As I walked away from the ticket counter outside of Plaza de Torros last Friday, I couldn’t help but think that I just bought a ticket to see 6 bulls killed in a ring in front of a bunch of people. That was mainly due to the fact that a Corrido de los torros is just that. A bullfight is a bit conflicting. It was a very interesting event that had some performance type things involving cool moves that the Torreros would do to lure in the bulls, most of which got an applause from the audience. But after wounding the bull several times the final thing is that stab an entire knife right into its spine and then the animal slowly dies. It’s a bit odd to be in a stadium and watch a giant animal slowly die, but I did think that it was a worthy event…
The event consisted of 3 torreros and 6 bulls; each one gets 2 bulls. The gate is opened and the bull runs out into the ring where there are multiple guys attracting the bull with these huge pink curtains. After a while, two men come out of the gates on horses to spear the bull, which where the initial bloodshed begins. After this, the Torero takes 2 stickers and attracts the bull to him. While charging at the guy, the torero runs out of the way and sticks the bull mid stride, which is pretty impressive. One of the things I didn’t fully realize is that there is a long process of wounding the bull and, once it is much more bloody and injured, the Torrero begins to do his little performance. One of the guys actually fell backwards during his solo thing, and the bull had him pinned down. It was insane to watch because I immediately thought “this guy is toast.” However, the torero got up, tied a string above the wound on his leg, and went on to deliver probably the best performance of the night that got the audience pretty jazzed up. This is because the bull died immediately after the torero finished the bull with his knife, where as all the other ones involved the bulls taking a long time to die, which is pretty hard to watch, and a little discomforting.
Overall, I am glad that I experienced this part of Spanish culture because it is a very common event, and the toreros do work hard to put on a good show and earn the respect of the crowd. But the killing of the bull is anything but fun to watch, and actually kind of weird to see when it takes a lot longer to go down. My host mom absolutely hates them and has never even been to one, but some of my friends who went said that their host dads like them a lot, so maybe it’s just more a masculine event, not so much a good idea for a first date. I’m off to Munich this weekend for Oktoberfest… until then…. Hasta luego