A few fears conquered

Fear #1: Being alone.

Instead of continuing to wander the streets of Madrid by my lonesome (like I had the first night), I decided to take advantage of the hostel in which I'm staying; it has a vibrant social atmosphere, and I've made quite a few traveling friends just by sitting on my bed and talking. Although I thought I had myself pinned down as that adventurous-solo-gypsy type — a type that probably doesn't even exist — I've been humbled quite a bit by my initial loneliness, and have realized that all of these new experiences are much, much better when shared.

That said, I have made several friends, from New York, Los Angeles, Korea, Australia, Germany, and France. It's been awesome, to say the least. Even my new Australian friend and I have found fun cultural differences to laugh about. New Aussie slang I learned yesterday: "crash-hot." The American equivalent of "crash-hot" is something like "really cool" or "tight" or "bomb."

Fear #2: Language barrier.

Todo está bien. I spent most of my first three days here with an Argentinian woman who spoke about ten words of English. I can now call her friend. We've exchanged life stories, laughed about mistranslations, and have bridged many gaps in the past few days, including those of language, culture, and age. Qué bonita, ¿no?

I can speak Spanish! I can do it!

Fear #3: Starvation/not using my money wisely.

As it figures, most travelers who stay in hostels are also very interested in simultaneously saving money and experiencing culture (Who'da thunk?) So although I've eaten some very tasty food in the last few days — okay fine, I'll take a moment to describe it (that's for you, Lex):

Meal 1: Scared-touristy cop out meal, as I'd like to think it. I ordered a "cappuccino italiano" and a "panini Italy" from a popular chain here called "Café y Té." It wasn't very exotic, or filling, and I experienced my first tourist blunder by misunderstanding when I was expected to pay, resulting in the waitress tapping the checkbook angrily and repeating "Paga ahora. Ahora paga. Paga ahora." Oops.

Meal 2, 5, 8: Breakfast at the hostel, which consists of instant coffee (Yuck, but now I'm used to it), some toast, and "Cocoa Flakes" (of which I'm still very suspicious...). But I've never been much of an early breakfast person anyway, and I've found myself waking up much earlier here than I do normally.

Meal 3: Delicious espresso from Café y Té. In the States when one orders espresso at Starbucks, one usually receives a "solo" or "doppio" (one shot or two shots). Here, when one orders espresso (only 1.50€, by the way!) one receives 8 oz. of steaming hot espresso (about 4 shots or so). YUM. My new friends who don't even like coffee loved it. Qué rica.

A few moments later, I had pizza from an Italian restaurant that was pretty good, but the real highlight of the meal was the sangria. I had a bit of sangria in the States before I left, and that was pretty strong and tasty, but the sangria here was refreshing, mellow, and had a delicious clean-aftertaste. Mmmmm.

Meal 4: Hopefully my first and last pricey meal of the trip. We went to a tapas bar and for 18€ ordered two cold tapas, two hot tapas, beer or wine, bread, and a seafood appetizer (that we were unable to identify, but tasted delicious!) The hot tapas were AMAZING... a tender cut of pork topped with soft cheese, and a mini hamburger made out of seasoned ham (crazy, right), onions, and red pepper. The cold tapas were... not as pleasant. I think one of them was just blended raw seafood topped with a sliver of salmon. Yep. Overall, though, the meal was amazing!

Later on we went to a small, newly-opened bar in the La Latina neighborhood and I had one of the best mint mojitos I've ever tasted! Amazing!

I'm getting tired, as you probably are, of describing every dish, so the Cliff Notes version of my food diary is as follows: the next two days were filled with some of the best cheap and healthy food I've ever had — unseasoned ham and cheese, grilled chicken breast, salad, Turkish-prepared chicken with barbecue sauce, a flan-cheese dessert covered with raspberry sauce, and a delicious hamburger for only 4.50€! That's what's up.

Like I was saying, although I've eaten very good food recently, I need to take a hint from my Argentinian friend and learn how to eat a lot for a little — eating at the right times is key... more on that later perhaps.

Fear #4: Actually enjoying a bullfight.

If you know me well, you know that I like really bad horror movies, like Saw and Hostel. So I hope you can understand, although I've never ever ever enjoyed the idea of any creature suffering from a slow, torturous death, there is something about those really bad, soft-gore films that is fascinating. That said, I was really hoping I didn't feel the same way about "la corrida de toros" — it sounded horrible to me! But then again, so do Saw and Hostel to most people, right?

So as it turns out, I really do not enjoy bullfights. About 2/3 of the stadium left after the first round (there are six, total); I saw quite a few children who left crying. I'm glad to say that was my first and last bullfight. My opinion is this: bullfights should be made illegal. No creature deserves that sort of death, (if you need details to understand, Google it yourself; I can't bear to describe the process right after writing several paragraphs about food) despite any cultural/traditional importance.

That said (I really need a new transition word), I can certainly see from where the tradition comes, and why some fight to keep it. For example, at the bullfight that we attended, there was one matador who was clearly young, and clearly very entertaining. He made incredibly risky movements, some of which led the bull only a couple inches away from the matador's body. He made lots of passes in front of his body, whereas many of the matadors we observed made passes behind them, hiding the cloth from the bull. The crowd roared with approval when he made one of these passes. The majority of the crowd, mind you, seemed to be tourists. One older man, seated a couple rows behind us, however, did not like this matador. (This man seemed to know a great deal about bullfights, because he kept calling to the matadors to make certain moves throughout the entire fight.) And to this particular matador, the older man kept yelling (in Spanish), "Put your chin down! Respect the bull! Respect the bull!" I began to understand...

In front of the Plaza de Toros there is a statue on which the words are inscribed, "When a bull dies, an angel is made." From what I know about historical Spanish attitudes/culture, the Spaniards were once a people known for their daring, their passion, their tragedy. It's clear in their proverbs, their literature, their philosophy, that much of what it meant (and might still mean) to be Spanish is to have a constant awareness of one's finitude, one's ability to die within the next day, the next hour, the next moment! With this in mind, I can see how there was a time when a good bullfight may have seemed like one of the most beautiful events in the world — perhaps when done well, a bullfight was akin to a dance, a dance between both beast and man, a dance between beast and death, and a dance between man and his looming mortality. Perhaps when done well, a bullfight represented a sort of understanding between man and beast...a sort of all-too-choreographed last hurrah before the bull accepted its death and kneeled, not to man, but to its true master... Death.

But we could continue romanticizing this for a while. When it comes down to it, it really is one of the present day's most well-known and real examples of animal cruelty. Barcelona outlawed bullfights some time ago; I think it's time Madrid does the same.

It's 1:59am here, and I'm ready to crash despite being able to hear voices, street performers, and police sirens from my hostel room (good thing I lived near Bellomy the last two years). Tomorrow, if I find the time, I'll tell you about Toledo. ¡Nos hablemos pronto!