Day 29 - Madrid

Since we had a hotel with super cold air and were able to basically black it out, we decided to go ahead and sleep in again.  Actually, I don't know if it was so much a decision as it just happened.  Either way, it was at least 11am before we woke up.  We joked that we are acting like traveling recluses, which really serves no purpose.  Can you imagine one though?  A person that pays thousands of dollars to go to another place and then just stays in 24 hours a day?  That would be a little weird, huh?

Anyway, after a breakfast of peanut butter & bread, trail mix, and melba toast, we headed out to get a few things done.  First things first, get bull fighting tickets!  So, we grabbed a quick metro (and by quick I mean 3 transfers and 30 minutes) to the other side of town.  We were pretty sure that tickets were going to be cheap, and sure enough, they were 5 Euro a piece.  I was thinking like an American sports fan and assuming that we were going to have nose bleed tickets, but later we found out that they were really, really good.

After grabbing the tickets, we headed to the train station so we could go ahead and book our travels for the next few days.  A quick update... at this point Josh and I are headed to Barcelona and then on to Italy.  Blake is headed to Barcelona with us for a few days, and then back to Madrid to fly home.  So, we had to get various train tickets to and from Madrid, Barcelona, and Milan for the three of us.  After 2 hours of waiting (yes I said 2 hours) we finally got the tickets we needed.  At this point, though, we missed the free walking tour that we planned on going on.  It's actually the same free walking tour company that we used in Amsterdam.  Anyway, we missed that because of the psycho train station line, so we decided to go take a look at the botanical gardens.  

The price for admission was 1 Euro which was way to steep for me.  Josh and Blake payed up though, and I walked around town trying to find a phone card.  An hour later we met up and headed back over to the sandwich place.  I am sure at this point you are realizing that once we find a place, we stick with it.  Not super adventurous, but very reliable.  Anyway, we headed over and were happy to see that the beers were 50 cents.  We each had a hand full of those, a few sandos, and headed out around 7pm.  The bull fight was at 8pm...

...Oh the bull fight.  Quite possibly the coolest and most horrible, bloody thing I have ever witnessed.  I will quickly describe the process without getting too graphic.  Just keep in mind that there is A LOT of blood...

  

1. 2 dudes come out on horses in goofy clothes and start the process formally

2. The matadors all strut around and act like they are the next big thing

3. A bull runs out and the matador and his 3 helpers all dodge it with their pink cape things.

4. Two dudes on horses come out and the bull charges one of them.  At this point the dude on the horse has a huge spear and stabs the bull in the back.  This happens twice.

5. The horses take off and then the matadors helpers (who are dressed similarly to the matador) stab the bulls in the back with these smaller spears.  

6. The matador grabs his sword and a big red cape and puts on a show, dodging the bull and getting really close to being gored.  All this time the matador is just strutting around, acting like he is the most bad ass thing in the world.

7. The matador faces the bull and stabs the bull right in the back of the neck.  If all goes well, he kills it with one stab.  If not, it's pretty gross, but they just keep stabbing it until it dies.

8. One of the helpers stabs it in the face to make sure it's dead.  The bull twitches and dies.

9. 3 horses come out and hook up to the bull and drag it out of the ring while the grounds crew covers up the bloody sand like nothing ever happened.

10. Repeat steps 1 through 9 five more times.

After this we were hungry for some ice cream, so we grabbed some at McDonalds and headed back to the hotel for a night of gory bull dreams.