Where You Going? Barcelona. Oh. - Days 6 & 7

Thoughts on the bullfight last night: Welp, I have to say my feelings are a little mixed here. On the plus side, it was amazing watching this technique of having the matador get as close to the bull as possible and there is a definite art in doing that (centuries of it, actually), but it was also v. v. gruesome. So much so, that I couldn’t take it after the fourth fight and I left forgoing the final two. I ended up cheering more for the bull than the matador sometimes but I still wasn’t able to applaud like the rest of the audience when the bull was put down. There’s a lot of pageantry beforehand, which was nice to experience and before the actual matador comes out there’s plenty of assistants that play with the bull without hurting him and that’s where the art comes into play here (IMO). With waving the material the closer the bull gets to the person, naturally, the harder it is to get away from his horns but each time the bull gets closer, the crowd erupts into a big “Ole!” (Which was fun) and then the guy runs behind a barricade before he gets hurt. Once the stabbing began, I was pretty much over it. I did make a video of the whole ole thing, which you can see here (no bloodshed at all).

After some comfort food for dinner (chicken), I looked up bullfighting on wikipedia and found that there sure was an alternative to violent bullfighting and I think that I would see that but not the ‘real thing’ ever again.



Welp, before all that, Sunday was a day off from the parentals! They went to church and I wandered anywhere I wanted to go, so I ended up at the Plaza D’Espana convention center to a… comic convention! It was a multigenerational affair here in Spain- there were old folks as well as kids and every age in between, which I guess shows the breadth of graphic novels is much more expansive in other parts of the country than the US. The reason I went was because there was an exhibit in honor of a new Asterix book, and I’ve been Asterix-crazy since I was 8, so it was a no-brainer for me. There were a lot of people there, and after about 2 hours I was pretty much done, so I left and walked all the way back to the Plaza Catalunya (about 3 KM) going through many side streets. It was calming and, once I got back to my hotel room after the bullfight, I crashed.




With no need to wake early today, we all slept in (well until 9) and just went to the center of town (Plaza Catalunya and the Ramblas, which is a long promenade of hotels and shoppes and restaurants). Today was also Sant Jordi’s Day (St. George, who is the patron saint of Catalonia), which meant that you were to give your significant other a rose and they are to give you a book in return (it’s also the day of books). Needless to day there were booksellers galore with tables as well as people selling different colored roses.


I was pretty impressed that we walked down the entire length of the Ramblas and Roz didn’t think too much about it, although we did take a few breaks here and there. Along the way, We went to try and tour the Grand Theatre of Liceau (what the Kennedy Center is to DC), but the tours are only in the morning and then I wanted to see more of Gaudi’s work at the Guell Palace (he’s all over the place), but that was closed for reconstruction, so then I parted ways with the parentals and went to go see Danny Boyle’s (28 Days Later, Trainspotting) new movie, Sunshine. I got to the theatre and asked the ticket-taker if the movie was subtitled in Spanish and she told me that it was dubbed, which defeated the purpose (to me) and she basically told me that I had to get used to it, or just not see any movies here at all. How rude!

Well, then I just wandered the city for a bit before heading back to the hotel, because we’ve got an early day tomorrow. We’re going on another day trip- this time to Girona, a coastal town and to nearby Figueres, which is Salvador Dali’s hometown (the one trip I wanted to take while here). I’m looking forward to it!

Oh, and this guy below was sliding into a grate in the park today, as part of the festivities...