No Bull

We're home now, but I can't sleep anymore.



Part of Saturday in Madrid was spent at the bull fighting stadium, Plaza de Toros. Performing in the Madrid arena, for the Matadores, is the grandest stage that can be achieved in Europe we were told by an afficienado (fan) we met on the plane home. Most of the information about ceremony and why things happened are based off of the conversation Jennie and I had with the man on the plane. He was a native English speaker, so if anything is incorrect here it is because we didn't understand his context (or he is wrong). If you are interested, Ernest Hemmingway, wrote a guide book to this event titled: Death in the Afternoon.

A Matadore retains a whole team that helps him in the arena in different ways. This is in addition to his manager, publicist, etc. Based upon his most recent performances the Matadore is given contracts for shows in various places.

The Matadores invited to Madrid are apparently making some good bank. The local afficienados that attend performances here are very discerning and tough on the bulls and the performers when it comes to giving them praise.



Before the beggining of the performances the crowd was instructed to rise and observe a few moments of silence in honor of the bulls who were about to die.




As you can see from the pictures, we sat in the non-shaded section of the arena. Not that it mattered because it was overcast in the evening during the performance. The arena probably holds 17,000-18,000. (The one in Mexico city is supposed to be much larger holding around 50,000!) We did have assigned seats, but they weren’t seats as you would expect in a sporting arena. Apparently most arenas used for bull fighting are built in this style. Very close, concrete seating (tall people have to spread their legs while sitting down to allow the person in front of them to sit without your knees in their back) allows you to get to know your neighbor. Getting into your seat in a moderately filled section is a close encounter with a bunch of strangers. The close seating didn't appear to be an issue though, probably due to the gentle or laid back nature of the Spanish people as a whole. Experiencing the bull fight with the locals was a priviledge we hadn't had before.

Apparently we were treated to a special show for a number of reasons. Two of the three Matadores who performed are up and coming stars. One of those was given an ear of the bull. This is a special honor that is granted upon a Matadore, I believe, by the request of the crowd and a couple of the people in charge of ceremonial duties. The crowd showed their extreme pleasure for the performance of both the Matadore and the bull by waving white hankerchiefs indicating they wanted him to be given an ear. While the ear is actually cut off and presented it is only a symbolic guesture as the ear is not actually kept. It is rare for Matadores to be given an ear, the man we spoke with is a seasoned veteran and he only knows about one Matadore being given two ears in a season (not sure how long or how many performances that usually entails though).

Because the point of the bull fight is not to see a slaughter, if a bull is shown to be weak in any way physically it is not killed in the arena (nor afterward I believe). We were able to see one such instance, to retrieve the bull a herd is introduced into the arena and once they realize the door they entered the arena is open again they all exit. (Not sure why they didn't just open the door for the single bull. I guess this way may speed up the process.)


I also found out if it is deemed that a bull is such a great physical specimen and has show great courage (not sure of how this is defined) that sometimes it is not killed. The bulls that appear in the arena are not domesticated and live out on the open range on someones property. They are tested from time to time in order to gauge their courage and physical aptitude for the arena.

During the course of the fight the Matadore's Picadore, the guy on the horse, would challenge the bull. He would try to use the 'spear' to keep the bull away from himself and his horse. The spear is only placed into the fleshy part of his back where the feathered looking flags are. Not sure what this is about, my guess is to tire the. All the times we saw this happen the bull was able to get to the horse and ram him with his horns (it is more of a duck and lift action than a straight on ramming motion). Many times the bull would lift the front legs of the horse off the ground. The horse would maintain its balance and push back against the bull. The padding appeared to protect the horse. One time though the bull was able to knock the horse and rider to the ground. No serious injuries were sustained to either the rider or the horse.



After a sword had been thrust through the bulls back into his heart (this should assure a quick death) and the bull died. A team of mules was led out to remove the body of the bull from the arena. Traditionaly the meat was given to the poor, not sure if this is still the case.



I can't say I was sicked or repulsed by anything that I saw. It definitely was violent and I don't take pleasure in seeing an animal killed. The animals were respected by the crowd and performers and it seems the meat is not wasted. I'm glad we went, but I don't think we'll be attending another one.

¡Hasta Luego Madrid!

Well, were finally in the airport terminal (Barajas), we made it through customs and are now waiting for our boarding time. Our plane leaves España at 11:25 local time. We should be home around 10:00 PM MST.

I´m entering this post from a phone/internet kiosk, so no chance for pictures.

It has been a great trip, we´ve enjoyed seeing the sites and spending time together. Thanks for going along with us.

See you state-side.

Zac and Jen

A Shout Out To The Newly Weds

This goes out to my good friend Brian Bollig and his bride Sarah.

Congratulations you two!

Looking forward to seeing the pictures, sorry we missed it and hope it wasn´t too cold.

¡Estamos en Madrid!

¡Hola from Madrid!

We arrived late on Thursday evening from a short time in Barcelona (We went to a little resort town on the Mediterranean coast outside of the city named Sitges [I think]). We traveled first class from Barcelona, in España we must make seat reservations for every intercity train we travel on. It was fantastic, better than travelling on an airplane. We had a three course meal, real silverware, multiple drinks, and wait til you see the salt and pepper shakers.

We´ve filled our time here rowing a boat in Buen Retiro park, watching an opera on a huge LCD screen outside of the opera house, taking in a bull fight, doing some shopping and relaxing. Its been great, we have yet to go to a museum. Manana for sure though.

Our first room was in a hostel just outside El Plaza Mayor (big famous square in the center of the city) great location, the room and service were poor though so we found a new room at Hotel Paris which is outside of Plaza del Sol.

Can´t post any pictures now because the Internet Cafe we are in lacks accessible USB ports. Sorry.

We´re enjoying the last leg of our trip and look forward to going home and see all of you.

Oh yeah!

Just saw the Broncos record. Go Broncos! Read about last weeks game. Sounds like they are doing okay.

Schweiz

$$$ Hallo from Interlaken, Switzerland $$$

We arrived Sunday morning after a night train from Florence, Italy. The Hotel we're staying in is Hotel Eiger. It is a small locally owned hotel that we found on the hotel information board conveniently located just outside the West Bahnhof (train station) in Interlaken. They provide free internet access (thus the reason for all the updates lately) and free ice. I highly recommend it to you all.

Here are some flowers nearby the hotel.


Yesterday we bought train tickets (had to because they are not covered by our Eurail Pass) up to the Schilthorn. Here's a live webcam if you want a first hand look. The Schilthorn is a building that has been placed way up in the mountains nearby Interlaken it is reachable by Gondolas. The views appear to be stunning when there are no clouds, we decided to go even though there was a cloud cover down here. A live feed from the Schilthorn is broadcast here in Interlaken, it allowed us to see what the views were like before going up. Our destination put us above the clouds for some spectacular views. To give you an idea of the altitude change we experienced Interlaken is around 500 (~1500 feet) meters above sea level and the Schilthorn is around 3000 (~10,000 feet) meters above sea level.

Here are some more pictures.

View on our way up to Schilthorn from the trolley car.



Here's a couple more pictures from the trolley car on our way up to Murren.



View from Murren a stop on our way up. Basically this was ski lodging town.


We ate lunch in the restaurant at the Schilthorn. It has a rotating eating area that lets you see all 360 degrees of the view every 50 minutes.

More pictures:







The Schilthorn was in the James Bond movie released in 1968.

Romà

Rome is a beautiful, old, dirty city with ruins everwhere in the city center. The subways are always very busy as they only have two lines running. Avoiding rush hour is a good idea.

We arrived in Rome around 9am after a night train from Munich. Gone are the convenient English speaking tourist information booths we'd become acustomed to in Germany and Austria. This makes for a frustrating time as we try to figure out where and how to get on the subway and local train to get to the Bed and Breakfast we were staying at.

Abacus (name of my current employer by the way) Rome BnB was our final destination. Its a long story, but let me just leave it at we were thankful to find this place. Here's a photo of the outside of the estate.



This BnB looked fantastic from their website. We were not dissappointed when we arrived, except maybe that the live in maid's english was very, very limited. We were taken out back and given refreshments before being shown down to our room. The house is absolutely huge, it has three stories and a small elevator. It is cylindrical in shape with a very nice plant and rock garden on the main floor that can be seen from the 1st floor (in the US we call it the 2nd floor). The BnB rooms are in the basement and have their own entrance.

So we got changed and dropped off our stuff before heading back into Rome for some proper site seeing. The Colosseum and The Forum were top on our list and that's where we started. We ended up taking a tour from a local company that had rep's gathering people outside the building for a tour. We both enjoyed the tour, it gave us some historical information about the Colosseum from a charismatic and fun speaker. The tour consisted of two parts the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.

More pictures for you:




Here's another picture of us around the Roman Forum.



One thing we learned from the guide (A Brit getting his PHD in roman history, he was very passionate and it was humorous to hear him refer to some of the past Roman emporers as 'brilliant') was that during they heyday of the Roman Empire that vehicles carrying goods were not allowed on the streets in the city during the day. Thus they had to move things at night quitely. Apparently the wagon wheels were covered with animal hide to dull the noise of their metal rims coming in contact with the stone roads. He also stated that light was provided at night by reflecting firelight off of walls that were coated with olive oil. Here's a picture of a ruin that has a hole in the wall where a fire was supposedly lit for this purpose.

Burg Eltz

On our way down to Vienna we stopped for a night in Koblenz, Germany so we could journey to the nearby town of Moselkern. Burg (castle) Eltz can be reached by a moderate 45 minute hike from the train station up a valley. Zac visited this last time he was in Europe and thought it was so special he wanted Jennie to experience it too.

Burg Eltz boasts some of the most well preserved, authentic artifacts and furnishings to be found in a castle. Most of the castle is open to tourists willing to pay a modest fee for a tour. There were only 5 of us in our group so we were blessed with a guide willing to explain and answer questions in English. Normally all tours are only in English unless a large group is present. So, in addition to the English pamphlet explaining the rooms we toured the guide interacted with us.

The family Eltz has owned this estate for 33 generations. They still inhabit the castle for part of the year. The wife of Mr. Eltz has a hobby of creating arrangements of flowers for each room on the tour. This is a nice touch.

The reason the castle is intact and contains many old furnishings is not due to its remote location from the Mosel river. Instead the family used its excellent political connections to insure against attacks. The castle was put under siege once until the Eltz family sued for peace.

Is that Smart?

Not sure how many of you have seen the Smart car. They are tiny beyond belief, to see them next to a bus on the road is humorous. Definitely a commuter vehicle. This picture was taken near our Bed and Breakfast in Rome.

Oktoberfest Picture

Here we are at the fest sitting outside one of the beer tents.

Night Trains

Last time I was here we did not make reservations to sleep on a train when travelling between cities at night. We ended up sleeping in couchettes. These are 5' x 7' compartments have a door for privacy (no curtains though) and two three seat couches facing one another whose seats will fold out and make a kind of bed. Not too comfortable, but a great way to go on the cheap.

This time I made reservations on four night trains. Two of the three we've been on so far have been first class (at least I think they have, Jen disagrees about the first one). Things are cosy, no tight is probably a better word for us tall people. We had a private room, a door we could lock, two bunks, and a wash stand (not drinkable water, but a sealed cup of water was provided for brushing teeth). The conductor would come by to get our reservations and tickets very shortly after the train left the station. We've had to surrender our passports, Eurrail pass, and our reservation ticket to the conductor for the duration of the trip. It was hard to let those valuable and important documents go the first time, but we haven't had an issue getting all of them back yet.

Here are some pictures of two of our 'rooms' we've had so far.

These two are of our train from Frankfurt to Vienna.


This one is of our train from Munich to Rome.

Being 'Over ђЭ®Є'

Travelling

Since the last time I was here there have been a few minor changes affecting what it is like to travel.

The one change that is most notable is easy to guess. It's related to most of the countries 'on the continent' (as some of the brits say) using the same currency, the Euro. Moving between countries no longer means having to figure out the approximate exchange rate. Also, worrying about having a bunch of one currency that isn't valid in the next country is a thing of the past. When speaking about the currency we've found that euro = dollar and that cents is used in the same way we do in the states. The restaurant below our apartment in Wien (Vienna, Austria) had a neat poster that explained that each country has minted its own version of the coin money. This is a similar concept to the special quarters that have been minted recently in the states. The coin money comes in 1,2,5,10,20,50 cent pieces. There are also 1 and 2 euro coins.

The other change that has affected us as travellers is the absence of border guards on the trains when we cross country borders.


Language

Starting out in England definitely minimized the culture shock. Since we've moved over to the continent we've found that most people working in the tourist industry speak some English. Because of this it has not been too trying to find where we are going or get a question answered. We did purchase an english-german phrase book, this helped us in a few instances. I was able to tell a teller at a bank in Wien that I wanted to convert my English pound notes into euros. Most of the time we used 'Sprechen zee English' and 'Ich sprecha kien deustche' or 'Do you speak English' and 'I don't speak german'.


Weather

For the most part, the weather has been very nice. Warm, sunny days and no moisture have been a blessing. Coming from Colorado we are very sensitive to places with more humidity. In Italy I always seemed to be sweating, even if it wasn't that hot. The leaves have just started to turn colors and fall off the trees. The country side in Austria, Germany, and Italy that we've seen from the trains have still been very green and lush. Doesn't appear that the summer here was too harsh.

The past few days have been cooler in Italy and today in Switzerland.


Misc

I really enjoy experiencing and seeing the little differences between the states and each country we visit. Here's a couple of things I think are interesting:

* The keyboard I'm typing on is not from the US locale, this means there are different characters and letters are mixed up (for instance there is no dollar sign and the z and y keys are swapped) All the internet cafe's have either a program installed or a feature enabled in M.S. Windows that allows them to simulate a keyboard from any number of locals.
* Traffic signals are different. In Italy, on the stop lights, the green light starts blinking before it turns to yellow.
* Chain restaurants are a rarity. Besides McDonald's and B.K. we haven't seen many local varities. Instead there are cafe's everywhere.