Viva el toro

As you will understand after reading this entry, there are no pictures for the bullfight, but there are some of the tour of the Alhambra that we took today (Kristin will probably talk about that later).

Well, last night we went to the Plaza de Toros to watch a bullfight. Neither Kristin or myself were "excited" to go because we kind of knew what to expect. As it turns out, we learned about something very valuable, life.

As we said before, there is this 6 day festival happening here in Granada-each night there is a bullfight with, I think, three Matadors (again, I appologize for any wrong spellings) and six bulls, two for each matador (interesting side note: matadors are now referred to as "torreros." Kristin tells me that matador means "killer.").

We sat in the cheap seats way up top in del sol (the sun). Suprisingly, the stadium was pretty full. Moreover, many of the spectators were women and children.

#Disclaimer: we are not pachoulli loving vegan hippies#

I won´get into all of the details, but it goes a little something like this: the matadores parade out and a bull is released, one at a time. For the first part of the match, the matador busies himself wtih "bull-dodging." Another thing to note here is that the audience will cheer the more the bull charges (or so we thought). This is what they then call a brave bull. However, anyone who knows anything about animals knows that the bull is probably just scared (the only time that it charges is when the matador comes at it quickly).
During the next phase, another man comes out on an amoured horse with blinders on. The matador lures the bull over to the man on the horse and then he stabs it behind the head with a big spear.
Next come the picadores (about 3 more guys) who stick 2 darts each into the bulls neck.
The final phase, and again, many details are being ommitted, is when the bull is killed. When it is done properly, a sword is stuck through the bulls neck were it pierces its heart. All in all, it takes about 30 seconds for the bull to die (which if you think about it, is probably the same amount of time it would take in a kosher or halal butcher shop). Kristin and I both felt horrible during this part, but what really got me was when the torreo patted the bull on the head (or saluted it...each one did something different) as it was dying.
If the match went well, the officiant awards the torreo the bull´s ear.
What do we make of all this? We agreed that the most disturbing part of the whole ordeal was how numb people were to the violence of it all-cheering and applauding every move. In fact, we found ourselves becoming numb towards the end of the night! Maybe, at some point, it is good for someone to learn about death, but I don´t think they should learn about it by killing for sport. (PS I´m not talking about hunting and we are not becoming vegitarians)
Is it right for 10 trained men to make a game out of the death of an animal? You can decide. I´m sure that many people disagree with us, and that´s perfectly ok.
We talked a lot afterwards about how this would impact us and we decided that we really need to be aware (when we eat meat) of how important the "sacrifice" of that animal was. Its life was taken in order to sustain ours.
(I would love to talk more about this, especially philosphically, but someone is waiting to use this computer. maybe i´ll post more later.)

We have decided that life is more valuable than death, especially if it is only for enjoyment.

Viva el toro.