It was Sunday today...and we spent it the perfect way, doing all the things a typical Madrileño would probably do - went to the market, strolled in the park, and of course - saw a bullfight! I'll get to that interesting experience later...
First - after sleeping in plenty, we started the day wandering the El Rastro flea market, which is a huge street market taking up probably half a mile of city blocks. They had lots of handmade crafts, beaded jewelry, touristy stuff, and inappropriate t-shirts. :) The market was just packed with people, so it took us awhile just to navigate through it all! I ended up getting some pretty blue earrings for €3 and a new pair of sunglasses to replace my pair that broke in Monaco.
After the market, we walked through town (everything is so close in downtown Madrid!) to El Retiro park, which is the expansive, Central-park like place which gets really busy on weekend afternoons with families and kids. Today was no exception, since it was so nice and sunny out. We strolled through the park a ways until we found the lake area, which was definitely the place to be. It had rowboats to rent, sidewalk cafés, street vendors, and puppeteers performing puppet shows to audiences of hundreds of enthralled toddlers. :) So cute. We were hungry, so got some lunch at a lakefront cafe. I finally tried the Spanish specialty of tortilla española, which is a potato omelet, served on a baguette. It was amazing, the perfect brunch. :)
Right next to the park was the Prado Museum, where we headed next. The Prado is a HUGE museum, with famous works by Italian, French, and Spanish painters, and much more. Since we were a bit tired of Italian Renaissance paintings, we just stuck to the Spanish painters here: Francisco de Goya, Diego Velázquez, and some others. We really enjoyed seeing Las Meninas in person, which is Velázquez's most famous masterpiece, and what some consider the best piece of art, ever, because of it's visual tricks and use of perspective. (See a picture of it here) We also enjoyed de Goya's, artwork, especially his crazier paintings from his later "dark period". Is it just me, or do a lot of painters go crazy later in life? :)
From the Prado, we left and took the Metro to Las Ventas - the bullring! The subway was packed with tourists, and when we got there, we exited and it was right there. We bought some candy (Peachies, our favorite!) from a vendor outside, and went in to find our seats. The inside was so cool to see in person - one of those "Am I really here?" moments. The bullring is circular, so every seat is a good seat. The only advantage to more expensive tickets is that all the action happens in front of you...but as we saw later I think we were OK with not having that. :)
As we soon learned, the "sport" of bullfighting is very repetitive, done the same way each time. There were 6 bulls (2 bulls per matador), and each bull took around 20 minutes (to kill). Each bullfight has 3 acts: first, the bull runs out, full-steam ahead, and the matador uses his cape to size up the bull and tire him out a bit. Next, a man on a horse comes in, and spears the bull at the muscle at the back of its next. This is the most suspenseful part I thought, since the bull often rams the horse, nearly making it fall over. On the second bull, the man actually fell off the horse! He nearly was gored by the bull, but narrowly escaped... Next, the matadors assistants stab the bull's neck with a total of 6 barbed sticks, which further weaken the bull. Then, the matador steps in, in all his arrogant glory, and showily waves his cape at the bull. If the bull passes successfully close, the crowd cheers Olé. If he sucks, they whistle or do the slow clap. :) Finally, the matador takes a long sword and stabs the bull in the neck...if he's good, it only takes once. If he's bad (like the second bull), you have to sit there and watch him repeatedly try to kill it...not fun to watch. When the bull is dead, mules come in and parade him out...and the next bull comes out a minute later to repeat it all again.
And...that's about it. Gory as it sounds, it wasn't as bloody as you would think...just more surreal to watch and realize what you're seeing. The more that I've thought about it though, since that day, I realize just how wrong and disgusting I think it was. Watching an animal suffer is not my idea of entertainment...but in Spain, it's part their culture I guess, as controversial as it may be.
After the bullfight, we got some dinner at a restaurant we found called "Nebraska". We thought it was fitting. :) However, we did NOT order beef. :) I'm going to stay away from beef for awhile...
Tonight we met some more fun people at our hostel - some local Madrid ex-pats, two guys from Australia (who were kind of jerks though), and our new friend Manny, from Mexico. Meeting other travelers is definitely one of the best parts of the experience...make it memorable.
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