AFRIC-ing out about Morocco!

            One would think that since my Morocco (AHHHHH!) flight isn’t until this afternoon, I should just be relaxing and all ready to go. Let’s look back on all of the previous evidence: I’m all about packing mere hours before I leave. It might have seemed as though I wanted everything done the night before, but the time of day really had nothing to do with it – all of those flights just happened to be early. Conclusion: I have not yet packed, but fear not, I will. To catch you all up:

Weekend: Awesome. We saw Nichols and Julie, tried out a new club (Lemon), saw an awesome view of the city at sunset (from the temple), found that things are actually a lot closer than the metro makes them out to be (by walking to Corte Ingles), got Mexican food (spice up your life?), and saw a bullfight. It was both beautiful and tragic.

I did not expect to be so emotionally invested in the lives of those poor bulls. I also didn’t realize we would be so close (we were basically front row.) It was the last fight of the season – it was a novice fight which means that it was probably more gory than normal because the matadors have less experience. It was crazy because they were around our age (born in ’91, ’89, and ’84). There were six bulls – 2 for each guy. There are three stages to a bullfight. The first was my favorite – the bull runs out and there are about 6 guys in really, really brightly colored tight clothing out in the ring all using their big capes to learn about the bull’s behavior. This was the part most like a dance to me. It was a little unfair because if the bull got mad the matadors all had the opportunity to run behind a wall. Cheap. Where could the bull hide? Anyway, after watching the spandex men, a man on a horse came out. In stage 2 the horse was blindfolded and wearing a protective covering. (I think the only way to get me in the middle of a bull ring would be to blindfold me too.) The spandex men coaxed the bull over to the horse, where the rider jabbed him with a lance. This looks incredibly painful but apparently is just to agitate the bull and doesn’t really hurt it too much (so says Wikipedia. I beg to differ.) This gives the matador the chance to see which side the bull favors. After the horses roll out, those who Perry dubbed the “kebab-ers” came out. The kebab-ers each have two barbed poles that they try to jab the bull with – these are to weaken and disorient it a little. Come on, matadors. How much more help could you possibly need? It’s like they want them to win, haha. Anyway, the final stage is the actual fight. The matador comes out in his classic tight clothes carrying his red cloth. The matadors are pretty impressive. The bull is attracted to the movement of the cloth (it has nothing to do with the red – they’re colorblind) so when the matadors move the cloth they have to make sure to keep the rest of their body very, very still. Finally, once they’ve worn the bull out enough, they go for the final stab with a sword. It’s supposed to go in a specific spot so as to make it as quick and easy as being stabbed with a sword could possibly be. The first one almost made me cry. Seriously – you could see this one’s eyes really clearly and it just looked so sad (understandably.) I felt so disgusting watching it. When you think about it though – being bred to be big and strong might be better than being bred to be fat and meaty and sent to the slaughterhouse, right? I’m not sure. It’s an important tradition here though so I’m glad I went. (I would never go again.)

There were some intense moments where the bull was winning. It was crazy! Matador number 2 got pinned to the ground by the bull – all of his amigos had to come to the middle and distract the bull so he could roll out. I think someone got a video. Yes! Matador number 3 was very pompous (with good reason) – even though his strut was mostly justified, it still made it funnier when the bull picked him up and threw him in the air a couple of times. One of the guys also had to jump over the wall at some point to escape the wrath of the bulls. I’m going to be honest – those were my favorite parts. So, pompous guy number 3 – as mentioned, he was very impressive. After his fight the whole crowd started screaming and waving white objects (literally, anything. Flags, napkins, grocery bags?) Turns out, this means “WE THINK YOU DID REALLY AWESOME AND WANT SOMEONE TO REWARD YOU FOR ITTTTTTTT” (capitals to emphasize the volume of the stadium at this time.) The president of the stadium listened and awarded him with the ear of the bull. Personally, if I did a good job, a body part of a recently deceased animal – and not even an edible one at that, seems sort of like a cheap prize, but he seemed pretty excited about it. Good work, pink lemonade. (Our nickname for him, based on his outfit color choice.)

Monday: Nada exciting, I don’t think. We saw Nichols and Julie to say goodbye! Sad. : ( Impressive that we saw them twice in Europe though, right?

Tuesday: We were out of the house literally from 820AM to 930PM. We had class and normally come home for lunch, but had to practice our group presentation for cooorcooorse. After our last class, we had signed up to go see a play, called Día Estupendos. I wasn’t expecting much, but it was HILARIOUS. Seriously. Other than the unexpected full nudity, this play was amazing. It was basically just talking about the summer and exaggerated funny things that happen. At first I didn’t realize that the 5 players kept changing character so that was a bit confusing. Once I caught on though, I was loving it. It ended with a scene where this woman was leaving from staying over her friends’ house for awhile. They literally put together a song and dance for her, and said dramatic goodbyes. She leaves and then they’re all reflecting about how much they already miss her, when the phone rings. It turns out she forgot her umbrella. The other woman who was still there was like – “I have to go. We already said goodbye. I’m not saying goodbye again and it would be weird to see her. I’m going to hide.” One of the other players agrees and joins her. This leaves two men still on stage. They’re deciding what to do, and realize that they, too, don’t want to go through the sappy goodbye process again. They call her back and tell her the umbrella will be on the floor and hang up before she has a chance to say anything. They hear her coming, throw the umbrella on the floor and leave. It was great. Alright, it doesn’t sound too funny when you write it out, but I swear I wasn’t the only one laughing.

Wednesday: Wednesday was very important because 1. we had our coorcooorse presentation, and 2. it was Mike’s birthday! We think coorcoorse went well. Josh had the crowd laughing pretty hard (and even drew an unexpected diagram for the class)! Mike’s birthday was fun! We went to Orange, because we’re all about clubs that named after fruits. Well, we’re more about clubs that are free/cheap but the two tend to go hand in hand. Also when we got home Angeles thought it was breakfast time and started preparing. We were really confused as it was actually 3 in the morning. She loca. 

Thursday: After class we had signed up to see a Flamenco show. We went with a bunch of our classmates to find something for dinner. We are successful in finding 2 euros half-baguette sized tortilla sandwiches. The show was so cool, but mostly not flamenco. There were three dances and only the last one really had flamenco. The first two were very contemporary – it was intense. I think the first one was a love story. It centered around this guy and this girl who started off slow-dancing together. Then it got real weird for awhile. Then they were at a table shouting gibberish at each other. Then they danced? It was sort of unclear, but the gist was…relationships are hard? I don’t know. I was just trying to look for the Flamenco that wasn’t coming. The second dance was a lot scarier. It was really dark (physically) and I’m pretty sure it was about things that are really dark (emotionally.) There was one guy in a sweatshirt. I think he was trying to expel demons from his body. He was sort of seizing at one point – I always figured demons would come out in the form of dance. Finally, the third act was my favorite. There were Flamenco-ing and Flamenco-ing hard. The coolest part by far was when the brought of these metal squares to dance on. We all figured it was just to amplify the noise, but no! They surprised us and poured water on them! [Oh – I forgot to mention. They (2 guys, 1 girl) were wearing tight, leather, mustard-colored pants, and shirts with ruffles.] When they danced the water would splash all around. Molly made the excellent point that it would have been cool if they used paint! It was still really cool. A modernized Flamenco, one might say. As I always realize after seeing shows like this, I can’t dance. Coming to this realization is always rather difficult. So it goes.

Friday – We’re gooooooooing to Morocco and we’re gooooooooooooooonna ride a ca-a-amellllllllll. (Sung to the tune of “We’re going to the chapel and we’re going to get married.)

I thought this was going to be short. Oops.