Feria de Sevilla & a Bullfight

Notes from my journal:

This experience has been nothing short of amazing and Tuesday, May 3rd was nothing short of that and by far one of my favorite days in Sevilla.

Right before lunch, I met one of my friends, Anna, to go buy accessories for Feria (Sevilla's week long festival).  I purchased a shawl, necklace, earrings and a flower to put in my hair.  It was a perfect last minute scramble and each piece ended up working perfectly.  I didn't have a Spanish Flamenco dress, which is tradition for Sevillanas to wear during the week, but I had a dress that was sort of similar.  The accessories helped me to fake it haha.

After shopping I returned to the house to eat lunch.  I was expecting to eat by myself because my housemate was traveling.  However, to my pleasant surprise, my padre's sister was over for lunch and we all ate together.  It was so nice to eat with them and practice speaking Spanish.  For lunch we had this yummy potato salad, a soup with garbanzo beans, chicken and carrots and then strawberries and orange slices with ice cream.  So very good.  After lunch I showered and got myself ready for Feria.

Anna and I headed into the city to meet up with our friends.  We had all decided to go to a bullfight.  I was very uneasy about going because I had seen videos of a bullfight on YouTube and it made me feel very uneasy.  But I decided when else will I be in Spain and in the region where bullfighting began? Anyways, we made it to the bull ring and it was amazing to see how dressed up everyone was.  Because it was Feria, many women were wearing Flamenco dresses with accessories and lots of gentleman were wearing suits and ties.  The bullring itself is huge and it eventually filled up so that there was not one free seat.  And the experience turned out to be incredible.  I mean sure, at the end it was hard to watch the bull die and then watch him get pulled away by horses.  But to see the styles of the bull fighters, and how seriously they took their roles it was beautiful.  Near the end, it was an incredible dance between the bull and the bullfighter, it was so interesting.  And then after we had seen more and more bullfights (6 bulls in all) we noticed that the audience would judge each bullfighter and would whistle (which means boo-ing) or say "Ole" or "Bien" or applaud when they did well.  One bullfighter did especially well and when he finished there was roaring applause and people waved white tissues and he paraded around the arena.  Other bullfighters did not do so well and had a hard time "commanding the bull" or at the end his final stab to the bull didn't end the fight, this was considered bad and the crowd demonstrated their disappointment by not applauding at the end. In all, I loved the bullfight and it was great because there were so many Spaniards, it felt more like I was a part of the Sevillana culture.

After the bullfight we grabbed dinner and then we we met up with our friend Miriam who knew of a caseta we could get into.  There are over 1,000 casetas in Sevilla.  They look like little circus tents lined up next to each other.  You usually have to know someone to get into the private parties.  Otherwise you go to the public parties which can be a little sketchy at times.  So you need some type of connection to get into the tents, and thankfully we did.  In the casetas you drink rebojitos which are drinks with manzanilla mixed with 7-UP.  You can also purchase tapas in the casetas.  And this best and most important part is dancing Sevillana.  In each caseta there is a space to dance Sevillana.  In the caseta we went into, there were 3 singers and a piano player and a dance floor and it was simply the best of times.  I had learned 2 Sevillanas dances when there are really 5 dances in all.  Even if you don't know exactly what you are doing you go with it and enjoy yourself.  Yet, there was a little bit of American culture thrown in there because at one point the band sang songs from the musical "Grease" and I could not have been more excited because that is my absolute favorite musical. It was a funny cultural moment because I was in Spain with Spaniards and Americans and we were in Flamenco dresses just belting out songs from Grease. So great and so much fun.  I was home around 4 AM and then Wednesday I was off to Palma de Mallorca and Berlin, Germany.  That post is to come.

Besos,

Erica

PS Headed home in 12 days. Unreal.