the words "un tocho" represent a colloquial spanish noun meaning a large amount of papers or a big book, which i felt appropriate to title this as seeing that if it were printed, well it would be a huge stack of papers. due to the overdue-ness of some anecdotes, well i'm afraid they won't be quite as detailed. but fear not, a tocho you shall get now that i've knocked out 4 of 5 exams (three of which, mind you, were on the same day. gross!).
may 2nd in spain is the anniversary of madrid fighting off the napoleonic invaders. coincidentally, this happened exactly 200 years ago so lets just say madrid got a little excited. i quasi-accidentally stumbled upon one of the coolest public festivities i've ever seen. this one consisted of hundreds of thousands of people gathering in the plaza de cibeles, where the casa de correos is (its an important building, kind of like a huge public post office, that you can take tours of and looks more like a palace than the white house ever will). when it got dark, the show began embodying the revolution and included people dangling in the air on cranes, a person traversing from one building to another on a tight-rope, and images, lights and fireworks displayed on the casa de correos. with this building they projected live streams of the people in the air and the man on the ground narrating, and had amazing colorful lights all over, it was brilliant. my favorite part was when napoleon showed up. first of all this girl kim from school that i ran into there and i made our way pretty close in the crowd, so when napoleon rolled in in his limo he was like right next to us. he then proceded to do a rap of spanish and english all about how awesome he is and his takeover and, most importantly, changing the language (clearly unsucessful). for a week i had the lines "ecoutez tous le monde, je suis napoleon" and "no se dice rey, se dice roi. la rey no está, la rey se moi" suck in my head. awkward. so in direct consequence of me not writing this all sooner, there's probably a lot more details i've left out. but shall we continue?
so that was a friday. on sunday, may 4th, real madrid clenched first place in la liga, and it's customary that whenever this happens (take note, it's the 31st time) the team comes to directly to cibeles, yes same plaza, to celebrate. and the captain, Raúl, puts a flag, scarf, and panuelo (don't know how to explain it english, look it up) on the statue in the fountain. i heard through the uvavine (haha i'm so cheesy) that in some previous year someone fell in the fountain and broke something, so instead they had a nice little bridge set up for him. for like 4 hours before the team actually got there (which was at 3 am) there were just tonsss of people out celebrating, going nuts, breaking stop lights, climbing on top of street signs and the creepy public bathroom. ridic. so no one would go with me but i had a pretty decent time by myself anyway, and seeing as the last real madrid home game was this past sunday and, you guessed it, i wasn't in attendance, at least i got to see them in person :)
sooo after that, hold on let me check my planner... oh right. went to london. in london resides charlotte lucy pyatt. we became best friends one summer working at camp about... 4 years ago. and i always told her one day i'd visit. so with the desire to see london (when i'm not 8 years old) and a free place to stay with someone rather awesome, i decided to go. now when the summer that we met ended, lottie came to stay with me in falls church for like 5 days. during that time i happened to be dating this kid ariel, so they met of course. but creepily enough they've stayed in better contact than she and i have, sooo, he came down to meet us to. on another side note, ariel and i hadn't seen each other for three years, he stormed off to scotland for school. but it was an amazing trip, and although i walked more than i think i have in any other travelling experience, it was also a lot more relaxing. we watched something like 5 movies while i was there, mtv, and went to a nice dinner in a town called richmond that reminded me a lot of georgetown. i was very pleased, and moreso with how easily it was for lottie and i to reconnect, even though she was freaking out that it would be really weird (especially with ariel haha).
the tuesday after i got back from that (for perspectives sake it was the 13th) i went to my first, and probably last, bull fight. this example of traditional spanish culture was a lot more elaborate than i though, and i shall enlighten you! first, each torero has his own team and there are three teams that come to kill 6 bulls (three each). plaza de ventas, the place we went to, is the most famous and prestigous plaza de toros in the world, so the toreros that come here are supposed to be awesome. the plaza is also known for its music habits. in every other plaza, there's usually music playing. but in this one, it only plays to simbolize the change between each stage of the bull fight. aside from that, all you can hear during the actual fight is the approving or disapproving sounds of the crowd, who are notably critical. now as for teh fight itself:
(1) in the first stage the a man enters the ring, a rather fat man in this case, and holds up a sign for everyone to see how much the bull weighs, where its from, and i guess its name? pretty cruel to name an animal and kill it. whatev. but so he shows that and then as he scurrys back to his lil booth, out comes the bull, running around. cute from afar, i'm sure scary up close. so now, the toreros team comes out with their suits on, which i believe are all individually made and don't match except for the cape things (which are hot pink and yellow... red comes later). they kinda mess with the bull for a bit to get him a little rowdy. then the horns go off to change the stage of the fight.
(2) in the second stage out come the picadores and guys on horses. in the plaza theres a circle drawn on the ground to show where the horses can and can't enter (can't go inside the circle). so the toreros team tries do lure the bull out of the circle and the guys on horses stab it. now that freaked me out a lot cos the bull charges the horses but a, they keep the horses eyes covered so he doesn't freak out, and b, they wear armor, cos in old days they didnt and when the bull stabbed it with its horns the intestines fell out. vom. so they stab the bull with a spear thing from atop a horse. and then the picadores have to get 6 (don't know what they're called but they stab into the bull on its back and stay there like dangling down) spear things in before the next stage. each picador attempts to do two at the same time, and the good ones can accomplish that. but if it takes them forever, the crowd gets angry.
(3) then out comes the torero with his even more elaborate outfit, red cape, and steroid infused ego (they're supposedly really cocky) and does the bull fight. with the 6 things in its back, the torero just messes with it a lot and does the whole move-the-red-cape out of the way *sorry my terminology isn't much better*. so he does that a lot and the key is for him to get the bull to charge him multiple times in a row (well clearly without him getting hit) and for him to get really close to the bull each time. accomplish this and the crowd will yell olé, like you see in the movies. but if he doesn't, well they don't like that. so after he's done messing with the bull comes the task of killing it. theres a little spot on a bulls back where there's no bone and it's very difficult to hit, but the torero gets the bull to charge him and has to try and get the espada (sword, haha hows that for terminology) in this spot and kill it. in only one of the 6 did we see the torero do this on the first try. when it takes forever, it's awful and made my stomach sink. but i could understand on that one instance when it was done properly the grace in it. granted it's not graceful to kill animals that obviously have a disadvantage to swords, horses, and 8 men. but it was a good thing to experience. the guy that got it in on the first try was awarded with the bulls ear. if they do really really well, they get both ears, and the best get the ears and the tail. but thats rare.
i was surprised at how unaffected i was at the time by watching 6 bulls die. thinking back now i'd never wanna go again. but what's spain without bullfights?
so since then, really all i've done is school and study. like i said i had three exams yesterday, one today, and one more tomorrow. then come mom and rox. it's starting to hit me now that tomorrow will be my last day every coming to this school, and tomorrow night is my last night sleeping in my room and all kinds of last-time-ever's (oh i lied i'm coming back for one day between malaga and home). but i'm sooo excited for family and travelling. just have to power through one more exam and i'm set. so i'll wrap this up, despite the fact that i think i have a few more things to explain about spain (hehe), but i'll include those separately and later.
now, a glass of wine with my professors :)
