Bull Fights and Palaces

Continuing on our Spain adventure, our next stop was Madrid. Our flight was delayed 45 minutes so we were stuck sitting in the plane on the runway. Eventually we took off, and landed in sunny Madrid. What a change from the previous day's weather!

Streets of Madrid

We checked into our hotel, where we were informed that our friends that we were meeting up with were waiting for us at a nearby restaurant. We then met up with them, and made our way to the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas to catch a bull fight. Going into this, I didn't realize how gory and sad bull fights actually were. I didn't know that they actually killed the bull at the end, until a few days prior to that. There is definitely no way to prepare for what you actually see at the fight.

Las Ventas

The crew

First, let me say that the stadium was so cool! There were rows and rows of stone benches (somewhat like a baseball  stadium). We met a few people in the row in front of us who were from the US (Washington to be exact), who were there to teach English.

The stadium was pretty full

The bull fight began around 7pm with the entrance of all the people involved in the bull fights, such as the matadors, their assistants, and the picadores on their horses. To sum it up, a bullfight begins with a bull being let into the bullring, the assistants executing several moves with their capes to get the bulls going and figure out how they react. Then, a picador enters the ring on a horse and challenges the bull, and when the bull tries to charge at the him, the picador stabs the bull between its shoulder blades with a large sword. After, one of the assistants (or sometimes the matador himself) strategically stabs the bull with 6 barbed sticks between the shoulder blades to further weaken and anger the bull. At the end, the matador performs several more moves with his cape for the bull to charge at, and eventually when he gets the opportunity, he stabs the bull one last time with his sword and kills it. Then donkeys enter the bullring and pull the dead bull out of the ring. The first time I saw it happen from start to finish, I was in shock. It was beyond sad, and was pretty much animal cruelty. I still shudder at the thought of seeing the bull's blood dripping down its body. On a brighter note, one of the matadors reminded me of Antonio Banderas so we named him Antonio and got excited everytime he came into the stadium. He actually ended up getting hit by a bull's horn and got injured! But he ended up being okay (at least so I think...).

Entrance of everyone involved

One of the assistants with the bull

After the bull fight, we went to Plaza Mayor for dinner where I ordered paella. It was definitely not as good as the paella from the restaurant in Barcelona but was still okay. That night, someone had set up a large telescope and was offering free views of the moon with it. We took advantage of that and got to see the surface of the moon, which was pretty cool. After dinner, we headed back to my friends' hotel, where on the way we passed Puerta del Sol, as well as many people hassling us with free shots to go to their bar/club. At my friends' hotel, we sat on their balcony and popped bottles of sparkling wine and had a mini wine tasting. It was so chill, just sitting there listening to music and having glasses of wine. After, my friends went out but I was sick so I just headed back to the hotel and called it an early night.

Karen with the telescope

Plaza Mayor

Puerta del Sol

The next morning we woke up nice and early to go see the Palacio Real de Madrid, but when we got there, we realized it was closed to the public as there was a royal ceremony occuring that day. We watched the procession of soldiers and horses and cars, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone famous. Eventually nothing really great happened so we left, and went to hang out by a nearby cathedral and take in the beautiful weather.

Palacio Real de Madrid

Waiting for something exciting to happen...

In front of the church

After, on the way back to our hotel, we stopped by a few shops and did some shopping. There was a Pull & Bear there (one of my fave stores in Europe) and I found a pair of boots I really liked but they were just too expensive for what they were made of. We then made our way back to our hotel to grab our stuff and head to the airport to fly back to Paris.