I call the window!

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I have a lot to catch up on, and I´ve recently learned the par of a good story from the Irish, and so there´s no better place to start than with the death of two bulls.

A couple weeks ago Laurel and I went to a bullfight. A traditional Spanish Intelligence versus Strength man versus beast macho elegant bullfight. If that´s what you want to think about Bullfights for the rest of your life, or if you have a weak spot for bulls, stop reading....here. Because heres what really happens.

The Bull comes out into the ring, seeing light for the first time in days and already bleeding, and I´m guessing it´s not because he tripped on his way out or picked a scab or something (gross, sacha.) And there´s not one flamboyantly dressed man out there waiting for him, but 30, some of them on horses. And they chase the bull around the ring for a while with their pink capes (did you think I was kidding when I said flamboyant?) to confuse him. Then the guys on the horses stab him for a while. Then some of the more daring bullies (I´m pretty sure this is actually where that word originates from after seeing this fight) has some huge metal hooks. Sorry, they´re not that morbid. Huge metal hooks decorated with Spanish colored ribbons. And he runs up to the bull and pierces him with the hooks so they stay in, and runs away with the rest of the bullies.

And THEN the bullfighter comes out, when the bull is dizzy, tired, and wounded. The first one I saw was actually vomiting blood. And he kind of walks at the waving cape to humor everyone, and then the bullfighter stabs him between the eyes about 10 times until he falls over with his legs all stiff in the air. Then they play some trumpets and drag him out of the ring and pour sand over the bloodstains.
Apparently this happens to six bulls every match, but I couldn´t confirm that for you, because our stomachs only tolerated 2.

Okay bull lovers you can start reading again! The bull was freed at the end into the countryside, one that had never ending fruit. SPEAKING of countryside, item two of three: IRELAND.

On the 17th of April I went to Ireland (exactly one month too late for St. Patrick´s day.) We got there around dinner time and we´re picked up my Laurel´s family friend Bartley. Bartley is a darling Irish man from Trim who has a million stories and a wonderful Irish accent to tell them in. He wasted no time in starting with them on our countryside ride to his cottage in Trim (a small town about an hour outside of Dublin). When we got to his cottage (I don´t think the word house exists in Irish. They´re all on cottage status, by my standards), we had some dinner and tea and told more stories and went to bed.

The next day we woke up to have oatmeal with irish milk, Irish soda bread with Irish butter, and coffee with Irish cream, and went into Dublin. We saw a house, no, cottage in the city that Bartley is remodeling, the Book of Kells, Grafton Street, a park that I forget the name of, and Temple Bar. At temple bar we went into the actual temple bar and had a pint while we listened to live Irish music. Afterwards we talked to one of the musicians and he told us a story about how he´s a miner in Africa. (I also wasn´t kidding about those Irish story tellers.)

Then we had dinner number one in town and drove back to Trim (along the countryside listening to Irish celtic music, and I called the window, which in this case was on the driver´s side, which was strange), where we had dinner number two, some tea by the fireside, and bed.

The next day we started the same (see above menu or recall recent jealousy drool on keyboard) and then our personal tourguide took us out to Fore, a monastic settlement close to trim. It has a tree that supposedly doesn´t burn and water that supposedly runs uphill. The tree that supposedly doesn´t burn sure does have some dangerous kindle on it...when you visit the tree, you´re supposed to attach a piece of your clothing to it for the grace of good health. Most people chose to attach their socks. As for the water running uphill, well...it was at the very least a very slight slant. Almost completely vertical. Erosion might have taken it´s toll, I don´t know.

In any case, we explored around the place for a while, and I found a heart shaped rock to go in the heart shaped locket I´d bought the previous day (with that Irish Claddagh symbol on it) which matches my heart shaped bracelet and heart shaped ring and earings, none of which were intentionally bought to match the others.

Then we had a picnic in the pigeon tower, watched the cows and sheep and rabbits for a while, took some pictures, and went on our way home again to duck (yes I ate duck) and tea and ice cream and fireside and a bed that forces you to sleep in.


The next morning we went to Church (I have now been to Church in 5 countries, and 5 languages if you count Irish as a language, which it sort of is?), and then to Trim castle right next to it. This is where Braveheart was filmed, which I definetely appreciated, but probably would have appreciated more if I hadn´t fallen asleep when attempting to watch the movie. It was alongside a river, which we walked along afterwards, played with the sheep, and found a 300 year old graveyard and some ponies walking around which we also played with (can you imagine the amount of animal noises we imitated this weekend, seeing as how the natural human reaction when encountering any animal is to attempt to speak their language?). On the walk home, Bartley drove us out to one more ruin, where we climbed around and took more photos, including one out of a tower window, which Laurel took the picture of, because I called that one, too.

Speaking of calling the window again, the third highlighted activity of my last two months was seeing a show called Me Pido La Ventana. It´s a stand up comedy show of a Colombian Comic named Andrés Lopez. It was quite appropriate for many reasons, apart from the obvious that I like to laugh and I like to appreciate that I can laugh in Spanish. Me Pido La Ventana is a saying referring to the craving to see the world from as many views as possible.

Humor and Intellectuality are friends yet again!

p.s. I´ll try to steal some of laurel´s pictures to put on that same webpage I put the other one´s on, so look into it.

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Comments

[chris!]

drunken walrus
1) "Huge metal hooks decorated with Spanish colored ribbons" -oh boy howdy that is rich. metal hooks WOULD be morbid! 2) i do count irish as its own language. WWCS, what would consey say? i stopped watching him after freshman year. matts not there, inspiring me to stay up late. 3) cottages, cottages, barely even huuuuman! 4) i searched online for a solid 20 minutes looking for the ol' monster that you loved so much...but to no avail.