Andalucian Flamenco Night

This was my last adventure Friday. I had signed up to do this field trip called Andalucian Flamenco night (Andalucian is the area of Spain we are in, I guess like a state) so at the appointed time (19:30) we got on a bus and drove to a bull fighting ring in the middle of almost what looked like nowhere. They greeted us with drinks and then we went to stand and sit around the bull fighting arena. Then a Spaniard on a horse came in and they did a bunch of trotting to the music sideways and backward and in circles. Two Flamenco dancers also came in with the horse and rider and rider and danced with the horse. Then the horse left and just the two dancers danced. Then the dancers left and the horse came back in and danced. Then that horse left and the flamenco dancers and a different horse came in. This horse didn’t have a rider on his back but instead had the Spaniard standing beside the horse holding the reins. (Pictures and video’s that will make this all clear to come later). After the Flamenco dancers and horse finished the announcer tells us that we aren’t actually going to watch a bull fight but a cow fight. So the dramatic music starts playing and they unlatch the door and hold it open and then out ran a small young cow. The bull fighter (dressed in blue jeans and a bright blue polo shirt) holds the cape thing and gets the young cow to run at it. He does this several times and then a young boy (maybe 13 or 14) gets a cape and starts doing the cow fighting. He gets what I think are words of advice (I don’t speak Spanish) from the older bull fighter. It was very entertaining especially when they are through and are ready to get the cow to go back into his pen. They try for a few minutes and have no luck so they send another cow out (maybe it will lead the first back in?). They end up chasing the cows around for 10 minutes or so before they finally got them back in.

We left the arena and went to a tapas bar just right next door. They had a room reserved for our group with tables set up and tapas on the tables. There were little cubes of cheese (that I think was goat), little cubes of what I am going to call quiche, pieces of some sort of pork product that was pretty good, and little tiny bread sticks (like crouton size but in the shape of a loaf of French bread). There was also water, wine, and a pitcher of sangria. We watched different Flamenco dancers dance while we ate. The dancers were really good. It was like watching a tap dance except there is no metal on the bottom of their shoes, they are just stepping that hard and doing really fast intricate steps in time with each other and the beat. One of my friends, Carren, who was also there recorded the whole thing and I hope to get it from her later. After they danced for a while two of the female flamenco dancers got off the stage and started to drag people into the middle of the floor to dance, soon almost everyone (including myself) was dancing. We even started doing some funny sort of dances like the Macarena. Well I am tired now, it is 1:15 am here and I need to go to bed. I just had to get this down before I forgot the details.