Bunny and the Bull

Ok, post number dos.
Classes have been going well. There is no such thing as homework really. It's assumed that you'll do the readings and follow along in class as the professor speaks. It's said that there is no interaction between the teachers and the students in classes here, but that's not true. It's certainly less of an engaged session than your average Gettysburg class, but the teachers do interact with the students and have them participate a bit.
I'm taking all my classes at the university, minus Spanish grammar, but some of my less fortunate friends are taking classes taught by the IES program (that's the program through which I am here). Those classes are more Americanized, and the program forces the teachers (professors from the university) to change their curriculum a bit and give the Americans a lot of homework, written assignments and even midterms! Those are unheard of here. So those kids have exams this week. Ha!

As for me, I'm having a blast. I haven't traveled very much (funds are tight), so I'm mostly saving that for spring break and my time after the semester ends. But what little I've done has been enjoyable. Last weekend was the opening of the Carnaval season. There were amazing festivals in places like Seville and Cadiz, and very impressive though somewhat smaller versions in places like Salamanca. So last Saturday my friend Justina and I headed for Ciudad Rodrigo, a small city about an hour from here. It's pretty well known in the region for its Carnaval parades, costumes and the traditional running of the bulls. So we had fun watching people be dumb and run from bulls, which is a very dangerous sport even if you're a professional, which most them are not. We dressed up too. It's like Halloween here (also very big actually) and you can wear whatever you want. I was a pilot/sailor and Juste was an Eskimo. The only thing really pilot-like about me was the hat. The rest of me was more sailor than anything (thanks for the peacoat Dad).
The most interesting part of the day was the bull fight. We scored some free tickets from a friend who couldn't go. The fight is held in a little temporary stadium that's erected in the Plaza Mayor of the city. It's tight, uncomfortable and cold if you were on our shady side. The bull fight was not exactly what I was expecting.

Actually I'm not even sure what I was expecting, or if I was expecting anything at all. It was pretty brutal. I had had a lot of discussions with Spaniards about the controversy in the EU and in Spain itself about the bull fights, and I had decided that I wouldn't form an opinion about them until after I had been to see one in person. Well, I still can't really form an opinion. There are a lot of solid arguments on both sides of the debate as to whether they should be banned or not. I tend to lean towards the side of those in favor of keeping them. The thing is, up until the few minutes when the bull is brutally tortured and killed, it lives an incredible life. It's treated like a king, allowed to roam free in the pastures, eats naturally, no hormones or medication of any kind. The bulls serve only one other function besides the running, and that's to impregnate the cows. But it doesn't take too many bulls to impregnate a cow, so most of them are killed anyway for meat, etc. And a lot of natural untouched pasture land around here is set aside for these bulls. If there weren't fights, there'd be no reason to keep the bulls, and no reason to leave thousands of square kilometers of pasture land untouched. Another argument is that if your against the bulls, then you should be against meat in general. The conditions in which most animals live in meat processing plants are horrible, way worse than any these bulls will ever see. The same goes for leather products and dairy farms. But generally Spaniards are meat eaters so if they are against the bulls, they are (in one argument) being hypocritical.
Whatever, I still can't make up my mind.

Well, March should be a fun month. My birthday is part of it, of course, but the program also has lots of free invents for us too. Last night they got us tickets to a concert of Fito & Fitipaldi, a pretty big band here in Spain. It was awesome! But my hearing won't be back up to spec for about a week.

Th-th-th-th-thth-that's all, folks! (Had to throw Porky in there; Spaniards love pork.)