Corrida en La Maestranza de Sevilla.

Finally, my first bullfight in Spain! My father-in-law was gracious enough to get three tickets "en la sombra" i.e. "in the shade". This is the desirable side of the stadium for obvious reasons. The sunny-side, although cheaper, leaves you baking in the sun, but also with a farther view because the action tends to happen in the shady part of the ring. This is because the President's box and all the rich people with their fancy cigars sit in the shady section, as can be seen from the photo below. Naturally, the matador and his people want to entertain the most people, and the most important people at that.

I went with my mother-in-law Petri and my brother-in-law Paco. My wife could not make it because she contracted a horrible fever from our flight over, to which I would later succumb after the corrida, and which would cut short and eviscerate my vacation.

The seats are basically just sections of cement. You can rent a flimsy cushion at the entrance of the maestranza, but we opted to spend our hard earned euros instead on kikas (sunflower seeds.) The design of the seating contained no design. You had your feet up the ass of the person in front of you and you sat on the feet of the person behind you, with their knees ungraciously digging into your back. Fortunately, we were sort of high up so nobody ended up behind us. The one drawback was that our view was consistently blocked by the columns.

In the photo above, you see the bull has just entered through the toril or the "Gate of Fear" and has chased some banderilleros (also known as peones) behind the "barrera". The matador studies the bull alone while holding the "Capote de brega" the gaudily colored cape used for the primary passes with the bull prior to the picadores and the banderilleros having their way with the toro. One thing I didn't notice but was pointed out to me afterwards was the utter lack of sponsors anywhere as in most sporting events. I would like to think it's because it's not really a sport. It's somewhere inbetween a gladiator event and some blend of pagan animal sacrifice mixed with auto-da-fe overtones. Plus it just wouldn't look right if the matador were decked out in a suit of sponsorship tags like racecar drivers are. Although anything is possible.