We are in the middle of midterms right now. Last Thursday we had our anthropology midterm, and this coming Tuesday I have my art history midterm. Therefore, I am in the middle of doing a lot of studying. This morning I woke up, ate breakfast, and then got to work. For art history we will get three slides from each part of the class, slides in class and the Prado, and will have 10 minutes to identify each slide and write as much as we possibly can about it. Thankfully in the slide part from class the professor narrowed it down to only 35, but we have quite a list of paintings we have to know from the Prado.
I met up with Laura and Julia at 1 to study the paintings in person at the Prado which I found really helpful especially in differentiating the different time periods. Then after that we went to the Parque de Bien Retiro which I have run in a lot, but haven't had my camera with me before. It is amazing. Really large with lots of different walking areas and gardens along with cafes and a lake in the middle where people can rent a boat and row around.
Then I went with Laura to the bull fight. The season is March to October, and this is the last bull fight while we are here. There are 3 matadors and each has 2 bulls. It starts with the bull entering the ring, and there are banderilleros who have bright pink and yellow and wave the capes making the bull charge at them and then they run behind little wood walls. The matador also joins in making the bull do a series of passes. A lot of this was done very artfully and with style.
The next stage involves the picadores on horseback who use long lances to stab the bull behind the mass of muscles on its back cause the first loss of blood. It is a combination of stabbing the bull, staying on the horse and directing the horse so it doesn't get trapped between the bull and the wall. It didn't seem good for the horses at all even though they had a lot of padding, and I didn't like that they appeared to be blind folded.
After that the banderilleros take turns each trying to stick two sharp barbed sticks just behind the head of the bull. They are doing this without capes to distract the bull so have to make it charge at them and then stick them in as they jump out of the way. There are a lot of other banderilleros around to distract the bull and make him go in another direction after this happens though.
Then finally it is time for the matador. He first comes in with his red cape and makes the bull do a lot of passes. This is where it gets really tricky and skillful with the matador trying to stay still and have the bull pass as close as possible to him.
Finally after a certain amount of time he switches to a real sword and goes in for the kill. I thought it would be a faster process, but after he sticks the sword all the way in and it stays there, the banderilleros tire out the bull very rapidly by surrounding him and making him very confused trying to charge in all the directions at the same time. After a while he falls over on his side, and one of the banderilleros comes up with a sharp dagger and stabs him just behind the scull three times to finish him off and make sure he is completely dead. Many times the bull will try to respond after the first one, but it is the best way they have to make the rest of the death as fast and a clean as possible.
The first and last bulls of the six weren't as aggressive and not as interesting. The second bull was a lot more aggressive and at one point got the matador on the ground trapped under his head but the banderilleros were there quickly to distract the bull. The third bull was the most exciting and the bull fighter the best. He was very skilled and artful in what he did and the audience really liked it. At one point he ended up on the back of the bull but other than that did a great job. The audience really liked him, and after he killed his bull people from all over the stadium were standing up cheering and waving white handkerchiefs or white pieces of paper in the air. This signaled to the judge (or whoever his is) that the people thought that he did a really good job, and he was awarded the ear of the bull, which is a valuable prize for bull fighters.
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