Torro!

I try, when visiting other countries, to immerse myself in the culture as much as possible. In Ireland, it meant drinking copious amounts of Guinness. In Amsterdam, it meant mocking sex tourists with my friends as we watched them look over their shoulders on the way into brothels. In Istanbul, it meant eating way too much schwarma and in Greece, gyros. In Rome, it was drinking wine on the Spanish steps after a pizza/pasta dinner and watching the assembly of different nationalities basking in the world's most historic city (I guess Roman culture is touristy).

In Madrid, we knew there was one thing we had to do, irrespective of our beliefs on the issue: we had to watch grown men dress up like 19th century flamboyant clowns and then torture innocent bovines with a slow, bloody death. No trip to Spain would be complete without seeing a bullfight (or at least Hemingway always made it seem that way).

Needless to say, we were rooting for the bulls, a couple of which actually put up a good fight. The fact is, though, that the fights are more fixed than Commodus's gladiatorial escapades in Rome. It was sad to watch, but at the same time mesmerizing; as fixed as it is, the bulls still have a chance to gore the matadors. One just barely missed as he threw his torturer high in the air, and the entrance to the stadium contains a memorial for a bullfighter who died there in the 1980s. It was worth seeing, but hearing one bull cry for his life as blood pours out his mouth is probably enough for me in this lifetime.

Other Madrid highlights: the Prado Museum, which we zipped through on the way to the fight; it wasn't quite the Vatican museums, but...wow. Also, a dinner with my friend James's host mom from his time abroad in Madrid. She spoke no English, but invited us in, cooked for us, and talked up a storm. A homecooked meal in a foreign country: what more could I ask for?

My crew departed back for the states and real life the next morning, and I turned my sights on Sicily.