San Isidro Weekend

This weekend, my roommate went with another of our friends to San Sebastian, so I had the room to myself. Here´s what I did:

Friday - I met up with two friends to wander around a little bit and go to a store that sells american groceries. It was pretty fun, I bought some vegetable chips (which I have never actually seen in the US, but they did seem american) and a fake capri-sun - it looked like it was from germany or something...we were kind of hungry, so we went to a falafal place! It was completely vegetarian, but still good, and it made me feel super healthy. It was really big too! I couldn´t even finish it. Then I had to go home and register for classes. By that time, my senora had come home with her kids, and the daughter taught me how to make brownies! Although they are spelled "brounis" here. So that was fun, although we did not preheat the oven well enough haha so we ended up with warm brouni batter with a top layer of crunchy brouni...it was still tastey though. Then, the whole family invited me to go with them to the pet shop to buy fish for their fish tank. That was fun since I got to see how a random family outing works in spain haha. It was pretty much the same, although I was surprised that they were able to bring their dog not only into the mall, but into the store too! Anyway, we picked some fish, and then they dropped me off (after being slightly lost trying to find the place) at a metro stop where I was meeting a friend to see the fire show.

The fire show was a part of the many event´s going on to celebrate San Isidro, the patron saint of Madrid. It was pretty neat, although it was more of a display than a show....I´ll try to post pictures soon so you can see what I mean.

Saturday: Because this weekend was celebrating the saint, there were lots of performances and such going on, so I went with a friend to try and find then. This proved much more difficult than we had anticipated. We knew what we wanted to go watch and we knew the metro stop, but when we got to the area, we asked around and no one seemed to know what we were talking about. We walked around for at least half an hour asking people, until someone gave us directions to SOMEWHERE at least...we followed the directions and luckily came upon a sign for what we were looking for, but there was still no sign of the show. We got bounced around a few more times by people who didn´t know what they were talking about when we finally found a stage-looking place, but sadly it had just started to rain and everything was cancelled :( A highlight of that part of the day, though, was that we found an ice cream place with a nice italian man which we plan to go back to.

Since it was raining, we decided to try to find a different place where we could watch something inside - we asked someone before we left this time where the place was, but we still ended up on a wild goose chase in the metro for over an hour. We eventually ended up at the right metro stop (after three or four misses) and got directions to the building we were looking for. It was still raining, however, and after we had walked around for a while and found what looked like a school of the same name as our building, we decided to throw in the towel. Back home we went, after a day of almost nothing.

Sunday: Woke up early to and went to el Rastro, the flea market type place! It was a very productive morning as we both got some necessary shopping done. After that, we went to the main San Isidro event for the afternoon. Our culture teacher had described it to us as kind of like a county fair, and that´s exactly how it was! There were rides, games, food, and a few performances. After we had walked through the whole place, I played a dart throwing game, but did not win :( Then we got some lunch and ate on the grass, and then moved to a different part of the grass where there was a dance performance and some music of some kind. We watched for a while, then took a much needed nap in the sun. When we got up, we decided to try and find the shows we had looked for the day before again, so off we went again to the metro stop "lavapies" This time, we knew exactly where to go, and luckily it wasn´t raining. We had some time before anything started, so we went back to the ice cream place. At the end of the day, we saw three and a half performances, and the half performance that we saw looked like it was going to be the best, but we had to leave for dinner.

Overall, good weekend! Also, I have recently realized that my days in Spain are dwindling fast and I need to start making the most of my days after class! On my to do list are: see a play of some kind, rollerblade in the park, go to the amusement park, go to this arabic bath place, and maybe take a yoga class. Since I may not have any more weekends here, my weekdays will have to be chock full :)

La corrida de toros

Two weekends ago, our program invited us to go to a bullfight, so I went, along with most of the people in my class. Beforehand, we got two lectures about the history and culture and strucutre of bullfighting, and I'm really glad that we did because otherwise I would not have had any idea what anything meant or why they did the things that they did. I wrote a reflection on my experience at the bullfight for my class, so I'll post it here for you to read!


One of the things that is highly associated with Spain is the bullfights and I am glad that I had the opportunity to see one. Although I have mixed feelings about whether or not I support them, I can still appreciate the beauty and the sense of tradition that comes with it. I am a sucker for tradition and I love the thought that something can travel from generation to generation with barely any change. I am also a sucker for things that showcase athleticism, dedication, and art. Combine both of those with my displeasure at the thought of teasing an animal for the entertainment of others, and I have quite a moral dilemma on my hands.

From my conversations with friends, it seems like for most people, the biggest problem they have with bullfights is the fact that they kill the bull at the end. To me, the biggest problem is the fact that we make a spectacle of killing the bull. It reminds me of how hundreds of years ago, people would gather to watch other humans be tortured and executed. It bothers me that people, myself included, can enjoy what ultimately is a prolonged and staged execution of another living being for almost no reason. I understand that the entire bull is used for meat afterwards, but I still have trouble justifying the show that people have made out of the ordeal. Normally, this is where my love of tradition would come and save the day, but the more I think about the origins of bullfighting, the harder it is to rationalize. As we learned in class, the matadors were originally wealthy and fought the bulls on horseback. I may be mistaken, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like bullfights started out simply as amusement for bored wealthy men rather than something that evolved from anything more meaningful.

Something that soothes me a little bit though, is that the die-hard spectators do seem to care about the dignity and respect for the bull. They did not hesitate to express their displeasure if they felt the bull was being treated unfairly. True bullfight aficionados have great respect for the bull, but maybe it is a different type of respect than what I am accustomed to. It seems that whereas I consider the mental and psychological welfare when I think about respect, bullfight aficionados think more about the power and brute force that a bull can exert. This probably all boils down to simply a difference in the way we think about animals – maybe to them, bulls are animals and animals do not have thoughts like we do – therefore, we do not need to worry about whether he feels embarrassed, tricked, frustrated, or any other human emotion.


Also during that weekend, I went on another program trip to a pharmacy museum that they had set up with UC Davis alumni who are in Spain. That turned out to be more interesting than I expected, but I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I could have if I hadn't been so tired. I also ended up going to the zoo that weekend with some friends, which was fun. It's pretty much the same as all other zoos, although I did notice that nobody seemed to pay attention to the signs that said "Do not feed the animals" and "Do not tap the glass" ...there was way too much animal feeding and glass touching...it was still fun though! My three favorite parts where playing on a big spinning teeter-totter type thing, playing in a giant plastic ball that floated on water, and feeding the flamingoes (we were actually allowed to feed them - there was special food and everything!)

Overall fun weekend :))

The weekend

Two weekends ago, I went to a bullfight, but since I'm writing a reflection on that for my class, I'll post about it later. This most recent weekend was pretty fun two though!

My Saturday during the day ended up being somewhat disappointing, but I had a good time wandering around a little anyway. I had planned to go with some friends to a museum for the blind where all the exhibits are tactile somehow, and it's supposed to be interesting even if you're not blind. When we got there, however, it was closed....So we got something to eat at one of the many kebab places. They are kind of fast-foody, but they are not all the same chain so it's not too bad....but I've learned to love the food there. I normally get a durum (as do most of my friends) which is a wrap with chicken, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and some kind of sauce. Soo good, especially when it comes with fries and a coke.

Saturday night, my senora and her boyfriend invited my roommate and me to go out with them after dinner. They took us to a flamenco bar where we watched everyone dancing. It was neat because it wasn't like a performace, it was just a regular bar with a regular dance floor with regular people dancing flamenco. There were even a few people wearing traditional flamenco clothes. Watching all those people made me want to learn flamenco haha, maybe I'll look for classes once I get back to Davis haha...If I had decided earlier, I might have tried to look for classes here, but I think it's too late now. Anyway, after we went there, we went next door just to check it out, and it was really cool! Inside, they had made it look like you're inside a ship, so it was all wooden everywhere with an upper deck, and ground floor, and a lower deck, and in the lower deck, there were little windows around the edges with fish in them that looked like portholes. My roommate's favorite part was the chandelier that was perpetually swinging so it seemed like the boat was actually rocking. My favorite part of that place, though, is that it seemed like an actual spanish club as opposed to a club in spain where mostly tourists and students go. We want to go back so we can take pictures.

Sunday was a pretty fun day too! We went to Aranjuez which is a city about an hour south of Madrid by train. The three main points about Aranjuez are: The Palace, the garden, and the strawberries. The palace was really interesting - each room was decorated differently and they were all ornate somehow, but in a different way...unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but we weren't allowed to take pictures in there anyway. The garden may have been the highlight of the trip, but only because it was the most mischievous. Right near there entrance, there was a fountain that didn't have water, and there were big huge rocks near the edge. Naturally, my friend and I climbed on them to take pictures. After we had gotten down and were moving on, a very serious guard came walking up to us. "Teneis que salir. Esto no es un parque de atracciones. Es un jardin real" "You have to leave. This is not an amusement park. This is a royal garden" The man was not happy and he escorted us out haha. Eventually, my friend and I decided to go back in to try to find the rest of out group, and we made it in ok, although we were wary of the guard who may have recognized us. After we had found our group, we noticed the guard again, and then again a few minutes later...ahh it seemed like he was following us, so we decided to leave for good. At the end, we decided to get some strawberries, since we had heard that they're supposed to be good from there. A waiter at a restaurant told us we should get the small ugly ones, we chose those from the stand/store, and it was 8 euros for one little box that was maybe 20 square inches....they tasted pretty normal, and when we told our senora about it later, she said we got gyped haha and that all strawberries come from there. Haha, ohh well, at least they were tastey.

So that's pretty much the weekend! Now I have to write 1000 words about a painting.