Madrid and my first bullfight (where I decided that I do not want to be a matador when I grow up)

Due to time and budgetary constraints, I made a mistake and skipped the Escorial—it’s a bit of a trip from Madrid—in order to see something of the city.

Additional Photos from the Bullfight

For those mostly interested in history and architecture, Madrid is hardly a top European destination. Madrid is a city of the present, not the past. The Madrid Cathedral is a massive, modern church that roughly combines traditional European and questionable modern elements. The royal palace is a European palace, but hardly exceptional or worth the entrance fee—but perhaps I’m hard to impress.

That aside, however, I must admit that Madrid Park impressed me: the shady paths, fantastic tree formations, and stately fountains and monuments were a pleasant change of pace from the bustling streets. The Madridianites seemed to agree.  I came across one group (one-hundred plus) retirees out performing some type of callisthenic exercises and later in the evening, the park was thronged with runners.

The best and worst part of Madrid, however, was the bull fights. There is something graceful, but barbaric about the ‘sport’—a mixture between a butcher shop and a ballet.

The performance began with a parade of matadors, toreros, picadors, and banderillos marching into the arena. Due to the gentlemen in front of me wanting to stand, I saw little of it. Ah well.

A few seats down, an old man kept up a constant jabber at such a volume that, well, when the old lady in front of him turned around and let loose at him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that his noise level was unacceptable, I could have kissed her. At least, for the moment, she was the best friend I had in Spain.

But then began the festivities:

A bull was released into the arena. First one toreros and then another would walk a few feet out into the arena, flutter his cape to attract the bull, and the then run precipitously back to the safety of a wooden barrier as soon as the bull headed his way. After a few repetitions of these rapid retreats, the matador took the ring, distinguishing himself by not running away from the bull—at least most of the time.

After a few desultory passes of the bull at the matador, neatly sidestepped by the said matador, the trumpets sounded and the picadors entered the arena on heavily padded horses. The idea was to incite the bull to charge the picador and use the bull’s own strength to drive the picador’s lance deep into the bull. This accomplished, the bull would be lured away again, so the feat could be replicated. Sometimes the bull, getting carried away, stuck to his attack. Once he even toppled the horse (it took approximately ten minutes to get the horse on his feet again).

After the second lancing, the trumpets blew again, and the picadors retired from the ring, and the matador resumed his games with the bull, taunting the bull to charge his cape. Sometimes the bull seemed reluctant, but the matador’s annoying antics proved superior to the bull’s utmost self-control. Once, the bull even flipped over his own horns, turning a complete summersault to the amusement of the audience.  After twenty passes or so, the matador would step aside and let the next round of mutilators, the banderilleros, take the ring. After performing a series of stretches to impress the bull, or the audience (I’m not really sure which), they charged the bull and jammed sharp banderillas, barbed sticks, into the tormented beast.

With the bull worn out and now bleeding profusely, the matador resumed the ring, cut a few more capers to the delight of the audience—which puzzled me, because the bull by this time is far gone—called for his killing sword and eventually plunged it into the bull. When the bull didn’t die instantaneously, which rarely happens, it seems, the matador’s understudies come running out to pester the bull until he topples over due to blood loss.

The matador then bows and plumes himself upon a job well done, the crowd goes berserk, and the bull is dragged from the ring. Finis.

Well, not really, because in the intermission before the next fight, you buy your beer, eat your sandwiches*, etc., until the next bull is released into the arena. Then it begins all over again.

*The really loud guy brought two bags of sandwiches and delighted in offering them to the crowd and then tossing them to whoever volunteered to take one. He was a character. He seemed a local fixture, living and breathing to attend these pretty butcherings.