March 11

My second midterm of the week went really well, it was five multiple-choice problems and a 200-word essay. After the midterm, we had Culture class. We went over all of the events for Fallas. There are free concerts everyday, fireworks shows, and plenty of entertainment. The population is going to triple (from 1 million to 3 million). It is going to be crazy, and his class got me so excited for it. A lot of the Spanish citizens that live here actually leave for the week sometimes to escape the pandemonium that ensues.

After class, Caroline and I stayed at the building and waited for Diego and Laura so we could head on to an open-air market that is right near the beach. It is only open on Thursdays until 2:00. It was a thirty-minute walk from the building we made it there a little past one. It was so cool; they had hundreds of different vendors that sold everything from silverware to scarves to jackets. Laura got a couple scarves and a really cool pea coat for a total of 20 euros. I got a cactus.

We took a metro bus back to school and went to a Mercadona right near there to get some wine before the night. We made it back to the dorm just in time to grab lunch. I made a buffalo curry chicken and fry sandwich that was absolutely delicious. After lunch we had about forty-five minutes until we had to meet everyone to go to the bullfight. Laura and I were really excited. After we got our tickets, we had about thirty minutes until the fight started so we went to a bar close by and grabbed a beer with everyone.

We got into the arena just in time for the first bull. It was really pretty brutal; there were six bulls on the schedule. The bulls are tortured (stabbed multiple times) and taunted until they are actually killed by the matador. I don’t support what they were actually doing, but it was a great cultural experience. The smell of cigar smoke, traditional dress and the roar of the crowd put me right in the bullfighting scene from the Sun Also Rises. We stayed to watch three bulls meet their demise; each bull was bigger than the last and each matador had better technique than one before.

We went back to the dorm and got ready for the Valencia game. There was a huge group of us that were going. We grabbed dinner quickly at 8:00 then took a cab over to the stadium. The game was crazy; there were 9 yellow cards and a red card. The referees made a terrible call and gave Werder Bremen a free kick. We ended up tieing up the game in the second half and the game ended in a 1-1 draw. It was a blast.

After we got back, Laura took a nap to get ready to go out and I went with Diego and Taylor to O’Haras for a quick drink before she woke up. I met her at 1:45 when she woke up and we went back to O’Haras. Juanjo enjoyed meeting her. We didn’t stay too much longer; we decided to not go to a discotheque because we were both exhausted. Today was definitely one of my favorites of this entire trip.