Thursday, 18 July 2013

Sevilla.

Sevilla was hot. That's mostly all I can remember. Temperature wise, I don't think it was actually as hot as Cordoba, but it felt it.
The day of arriving, we grabbed some groceries, rushed home and did the afternoon walking tour. I've got a list of things we talked about, and I still remember the stories. I'm not going to rant about them here, just list them, if you're interested any further, just ask when I come back and I'll rant specifically to you. The list: Spanish inquisition, Don Fabrico and Pedro the cruel, Spanish armada, vikings in Sevilla, Don Juan, house fire insurance. Actually, I'll go into the fire insurance one. Above a lot of the houses in Sevilla, there are fire insurance tiles. Back in the old days, you had to buy fire insurance. If there was a fire at your house and you had it, the fire men would come and put it out straight away. If you didn't, they would still come, but would haggle with you for a price before putting it out, i.e. you offered them all of your stuff. If you didn't have anything, the fire men wouldn't put it out until they had been offered something, so they would move to next doors house as his would burn down next if nothing was done. I tried to buy one of these tiles but couldn't find them anywhere!
That night we did a pub crawl with the hostel and had a sleep in the next morning. I then had my first caesar salad in 6 months! It came with some sort of cranberry sauce in it too, it was pretty yum. Then we walked along the incredibly hot river, as it was siesta time, and to the alcazar.
That night, we decided to go to a bull fight. I was 50/50 on going, half because I love animals, half because it's a tradition that's dying out and probably won't be around in a few years. They're on every Thursday night (10pm) at the Sevilla bull ring, so we ended up going. It was pretty cheap too (8euros).
There are pretty much 3 rounds before the bull dies. They release the bull into the rings and he runs around all mad, running into walls and stuff. At this point, there are a bunch of toros, maybe 10, who all stand in the rings and wave their pieces of fabric at him. About 5 mins later, round two starts. While those toros are still in the ring, one grabs a set of two knives with colourful things dangling off the end. They then attract the bull and the aim is to stick them directly into the bulls upper neck. This happens 3 times until there are 6 knives in him, to weaken him. Then all of those toros disappear, and just one comes out with a red cape and he looks all pretty and sparkly. He does his thing with the bull for a while, and then pulls out his sword. The aim is to stand directly in front of the bull and get it to run at you and, in one hit, smoothly stick the sword straight down into its nape and through its heart. The first guy took 4 goes to get it. Only two got it first go (there are 3 toros, they each get 2 bulls, so 6 bulls in total). The bull then kind of stands for a while, then falls and dies. A knife is then stuck into its head, to mush it and make sure it's dead. A convoy of horses are then bought on, a rope is tied to the bull, and it's pulled off. It was pretty clean. Not a lot of blood, and happened pretty fast (over 20 minutes perhaps). The whole night went for about 2 and a half hours.
There were a few nasty incidences. For example, one of the bulls became incredibly tired before the toro had stuck his sword in him. The bull fight only ends when the sword is through him. The bull just layed down and wouldn't get back up. To get it up, another toro came out and with a small knife started pricking it in the head to make it angry. It eventually got back up.
At the end of the night, the toros do individual rounds around the rings and people throw things like flowers, etc at them. They then leave the stadium via main doors, so you can see them/have photos taken with them.
I've got videos of a lot of the stuff, if you want to see, ask and I'll give! haha I didn't want to upload anything to facebook as some of it's a little confronting.

DAY ONE

Seville Cathedral

Sevilla cathedral from the Jewish quarters

Fire insurance tile

Walking tour pub stop

Seville Cathedral


Main street
DAY TWO

On the water

Caesar salad

The river

Seville palace

Palace gardens








Outside the bull ring

Waiting toros

Opening ceremony

Bull #1


Dragging him off




You can see the colourful knives sticking out of his back


Nat and I


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