Bull Fights and the Aquarium

Dolphin Show

The Planetarium (foreground) and the Opera House (background)

About to stab the bull for the kill...didn't work out

Recently, I have had the pleasure to enjoy some of the fun activities right here in Valencia when I cannot travel or don't have any other plans. Two of those highlights include my trip the Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias and the novice bull fight. The Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias (CAC) is the very aesthetically pleasing and futuristic complex devoted to the advancement of, like the name suggests, the arts and sciences. I went the first weekend in March. We had no classes on Friday, so I originally planned to go to Paris that weekend but the plans fell through. I also was going to go on a day trip hike with some other students who didn't travel that weekend on Friday, but my alarm was off by an hour for some reason so I also didn't go on that as well. I woke up around 10 am, decided I couldn't find the hiking group and realized I had yet to visit the CAC. The buildings were completed around 1997-1998 by the world renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrave who also is from Valencia. They remind me of the Sidney Opera house and something out of a science fiction movie. The complex is made up of a Opera house, science museum, planetarium, green house and, Europe's largest aquarium. I only wanted to visit the science museum and the aquarium. It was a kind of dreary/overcast day but I still decided to take the 45 minute walk down El Rio (dried out riverbed, now a park) that leads directly into the CAC. My priority was the Océanografic (aquarium) so I went there first. The ticket price was a little expensive (21 euros) but after I made my way in I definitely thought it was worth it. It is designed so some exhibits are above ground and others are below. Mostly animals that require some land like penguins, birds, sea lions and, dolphins have outside exhibits. The large fish tanks are all located under ground. Visitors make there way up and down throughout the aquarium to see all the animals. There are about seven distinct areas that include the Mediterranean, the red sea, arctic, aviary, tropical and, the dolphinarium. Going by myself was nice because I could spend the time I wanted to on the things that interested me the most. I think my favorites was the dolphin show and the sea lions. Both were sufficiently entertaining. Also the architecture was very interesting, along with the rest of CAC. After I wandered around the aquarium and decided I had seen all there was, I made my way across the street to the science museum. According to the wikipedia article, it is supposed to resemble a whale's skeleton which I kinda sort of noticed but it would not be my first comparison. Then again, that fact came from a wikipedia article so it could be wrong. The museum was significantly cheaper than the aquarium (7 euros) and it was the typical interactive science museum. It had all the standards like outer space, physics, electricity, human anatomy, aviation, history and, animals. Still fun and entertaining on a rainy afternoon. After I finished the science museum, it began to rain and I brought my new, very compact, umbrella with me. It was a nice stroll through the rio, in the rain back up to the dorm. I stopped and got McDonald's for the first time since being in Europe. It was good. That Friday was a nice "me day." Later that night, I went out with the few of us who didn't travel. Definitely a great but slow weekend.

Another recent activity I participated in was my first Spanish bull fight. Every week UGA en España organizes cultural activities to do around the city in the afternoons. Two weeks ago, one of them was a novice bull fight for young matadores to hone their skills with an audience. It cost only 9 euros and you got to see at least 6 bulls be "fought." Even though it was more like a slaughter. The fight started out, a little unfair to me, with 7 matadores running around the bull with pink blanket like objects used to distract the bull. After they pissed off the bull to a sufficient level, one of the matadores would take over and continue the fight. Before that, men on horses covered in special armor to protect the horses from the bull's horns, would come out and stab the back of the bull with a lance-like weapon. I think they are called picadores, but I'm not sure. After that, the lead matador assigned to that bull would take these short, spike like sticks and try to pierce the bull's skin on its spine and get them to stay. The weapons were festively decorated with bright colors but they all turned a dark red from the bull's blood. After several pairs of them were stuck in the bull, the matador would take out the infamous red blanket-thing and begin a series of dance-like moves to dodge the bull. Some included kneeling on the ground and getting up as the bull approached. Other would be the matador twirling around the bull using the red blanket to distract it so the bull would just barely brush up against him. It was quite an interesting choreography. When I was there, I felt I was getting a truly quintessential Spanish cultural experience. Some of the girls that went had to leave as soon as it started because of the violence. All I kept thinking was, you knew they were going to die, so why even pay to get in. After the matador was done with their little routine, they would take out a saber and try to kill it. They aimed to stab them in between the shoulder blades and I'm assuming get at their heart. This is where it was easy to tell that these were novices. All of them had to attempt that stab at least three of four times before the bull would go down. Even after they were speared with sword, another matador would run up when the bull was on the ground and start to hack away at its neck until the animal was really dead. This part was a little hard to watch. It looked like they were just sawing away at the neck until they cut through the spinal cord. I don't think they were familiar enough with a bull's anatomy to know where to stab it so it would die in a somewhat quick manner. I did enjoy the fight and I think it is something everyone should try to see if they travel to Spain.

36 hours in Barcelona...

At the Parque Guell

Over looking the City on our tour

Getting Ready to go out on the first night

What an eventful 36 hours we had in Spain's most famous city on the Mediterranean! The group left on Friday afternoon at 1 pm from La Lonja (old gothic building near our dorm). The bus trip took 6 hours to make its way up the cost to Catalonia,the province where Barcelona is located. The road trip wasn't all that interesting. We stopped at a Spanish truck stop and they are almost universal in how similar and ordinary they are to the ones in the states. Right before we got into the city, the bus broke down briefly on the road into the city and the air conditioner also seemed to crap out on us as we approached the hotel. We all started to suffer on the bus right as we arrived at the Hotel Catalonia Ramblas. UGA en España must have had some extra cash lying around because this hotel was a major upgrade from the Hotel Tryp Gran Vía in Madrid. The room had a waterfall shower and very comfortable beds. Scott (roommate) and I got our key and rested a little bit before we went out to dinner. I decided to call my friend Alice Lee, who is studying in Barcelona, with the University of Chicago. We met up in the lobby, she was coincidentally staying in the hotel next door to mine. I had about 45 minutes before I had to go to dinner with the group, so she showed me around the Las Ramblas neighborhood. It was nice to catch up with her and chat for a little while. Unfortunately, we were not able to meet up later in the weekend but it was still nice to visit for a while. After, I ate dinner with the group at a very good pizza and salad buffet chain in Spain called Fres Co. It was refreshing change from the dorm food. The vegetables and pizza were really fresh and they had a wide variety of dishes including desserts too. They had a self-serve pizza and salad bar which I enjoyed. After dinner we all headed back to the hotel and started to get ready to go out. Around 11:30 or midnight, a small group of us (Scott, Maryella, Rebecca, Diego and me) left the hotel to find a bar or discotecha that had been recommended to us from other students/try to find some other people in the group. This didn't really work out too well in hindsight. We asked around or directions and started to make our way down Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas avenue is the main commercial/touristy area in Barcelona right in the center of the city. The street in filled with sketchy characters at night. During the day its a perfectly nice attraction for tourists but at night its infested with regualr hookers and transvestite hookers. Our little group had a run in with the ladder. As we were walking, we soon noticed that we were surrounded by very scary and ugly transvestite hookers. They seemed to want to stop and converse with us, but we kept moving quickly and tried to put some distance between us and them. We then arrived at the port of Barcelona, which was cool to see how big it was and filled with very expensive yachts and tall ship sail boats. At this point we didn't know where anyone else was at so we decided our night at been significantly sketch so we called it quits and took a taxi back to the hotel because we didn't want another run in with the crazy street folk of Barcelona.

The morning of the second day we had a group tour that lasted from 10 am to 2 pm. The best part of the morning was the breakfast at the hotel. It reminded me of Waffle house because it had all the comforts of home plus the usual Spanish food at breakfast. Everyone took a little longer to savor the breakfast than they normally would because it was so good and filling. The tour included a knowledgeable local tour guide who told us a lot of interesting facts about some of the historical and interesting places in Barcelona. Many of us were very tired and/or hungover from the previous nights festivities but I was more tired just because we had to get up early. We saw the Sagrada Familia, the port of Barcelona, Park Gruell, some other architecture by Antoní Gaudi, the Olympic complex, a viewing site that overlooked the city and other cool places around Barcelona. The Park Gruel feels like you stepped into a Doctor Suess book because all of the architecture is very surreal and has an almost fantasy appearance. We stopped and spent an hour or so wandering around the park and enjoyed the sites and the street performers. After the tour we ate lunch at Fres Co again which was still good the second time around and then we had the afternoon free to do whatever we wanted to. The options included the Picasso museum, the Sagrada Familia, buying footbal tickets to the Barcalona game or go to the hotel. I was really tired and I knew I was coming back to Barcelona before I leave for the states again, so I choose to nap at the hotel before dinner. I figure I will be able to enjoy the city the second time around when Emily and Scott come at the end of this trip to visit and travel with me. That night, everyone was responsible for getting dinner on their own so Rebecca, Scott and I went out to dinner at a Pizza place on Las Ramblas. We got 2 pizzas and a pitcher of Sangria for under 25 euros so it was pretty cheap by Barcelona standards. After that we went to the hotel to decide were we wanted to go out for the night. Some of the group went to a discotecha/club called Razzmatazz the previous night so those of us who didn't go last night decided it would be fun to go there. We had to take the metro to get there which was a little worrisome because at this point I already thought Barcelona was sketchy at nighttime, but I survived and we made it to our destination quickly. From the station it was a short 10 minutes walk to the club. All I saw was a huge line to get in that had formed around the block. The line moved surprisingly fast and while I waited I talked with a group of guys from New Zealand. They explained to me the difference between an Australian accent and a New Zealand accent. I still couldn't tell you the difference. The inside of this club seemed to be a converted warehouse, the place was at least 3 or 4 floors tall and had about 6 gigantic rooms filled with people and music. The music and lights drowned out any ability to speak or communicate with anyone around you. We went in together with a group of about 10 of us then we quickly separated into smaller groups because it was nearly impossible to stay together. It was fun for a while but at one point Diego and I split up from the rest of the group and could not manage to find anyone, so we shared a cab back to the hotel with some students from Wisconsin studying abroad somewhere in the Netherlands but I can't really remember. Barcelona is a great city with a lot of stuff to do, see and, experience but I definitely prefer Valencia. Its much smaller and not as intimidating. I don't feel like I'm constantly going to be robbed every time I leave the dorm. But hopefully I can do more and explore the city when Emily and Scott come to visit me. And also I really want to go to a Barcelona game!