It finally happened - some stupid mongrel tried to steal my hat right off my head. Those guys carrying machine guns are never around when you need them…

Was just getting some dinner from a street cafe when a guy grabbed my hat after a few comments about me being Australian. I asked for it back and he did not hand it over. I took a step toward him and he took one back. I took another step and he took another back. Decided to just sprint a couple of metres at him, but he was a little quicker and took off down the street.

I took off after him and ran him down in about 3/4 of a block but then I did not quite know what to do. Tried to just grab the hat but it was held in front of him so I had to quickly think about that dreaded game of AFL football and the best way to tackle someone. After a few seconds (seemed like much longer at the time), I went for the “late tackle” method I used to employ in friendly games of soccer at high school. With the exception that instead of falling on my side and dragging him to his side, I just threw him so he was under me since I did not want to land on cobblestones…

Crashed to the ground and I thought that would be it, but when I got up and grabbed my hat, he was getting up as well. The hat was fine, so I put it back on my head, expressed a few nasty feelings toward him and departed.

Only made it about 10 metres when I heard him right behind me again, clearly going for the hat once more. I turned around just as I estimated he was close enough and stuck both arms in front of me with fists clenched. For the record; this is NOT a good defense tactic, since it bloody near ripped my arms off with the impact…

Stopped him though, and I grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him out into the street. Was not intending to do so but he fell off the gutter and went backward on the ground just - of course - as four police officers came around the corner and saw me do that. Two grabbed me and two grabbed the other guy since they did not really know what was happening but wanted it to stop quickly…

Luckily for me, since they spoke hardly any English, a guy who saw me tackle the thief came to my aid and translated for me. He also was my witness and I have no idea what he said, but it clearly was favourable, since the police let me go with a warning not to do it again, and the other guy got told off as well, but no charges laid.

Pity. It means he has not gotten in trouble with the law now, but hopefully he won’t be targetting the Aussie tourists for a while - probably thinks we really are a nation of Crocodile Dundee’s now…*grin*

I was trying to explain my innocence to the police afterward but the guy who was my witness/translator advised me to just depart quickly before they changed their minds, so I did. Got back to the hotel room and Di asked where I’d been and whether getting dinner had been a challenge…

Why do they always find me???

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We believe there is something weird about to happen since there are army soldiers on the streets with machine guns and they were not around a few days ago. Nobody else seems overly peturbed but it does seem a little odd to us.

They are only hanging around major monuments like the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe as though expecting some sort of attack on symbolic things. Maybe we are just being paranoid - the only nezs in English we can get is CNN in the hotel room and since they are only reporting on the “War On Terror”, it’s a bit hard to find out real news. Not that the US response is not real news, but it would be nice to hear what else is happening in the world other than which countries are being scared and forced into supporting Bush’s War.

In other happenings, I have decided the French keyboards are demented. Most things are in the right place but the A, Q, W, Z, and M are all in the wrong spots. The row of numbers over the top is only accessible with the Shift Key. You even need the Shift Key to put a full stop - the semi-colon gets more use here apparently!

We are not sure if this is a French thing or an EasyEverything Internet Cafe thing to make you spend more money because it takes longer to type. Either way, it is annoying that I have to use the net with this keyboard since the WWW is in the wrong spot! The @ symbol is with the zero numeral, and of course, MooQuack uses a lot of shifted letters and my email address is : trqvis2,ooauqck:co, : according to my touch typing…

Off to Hong Kong tomorrow after Versailles today. The Aussie dollar has gotten to the point where we now need to cut short the travels and go home earlier than desired, but we have gotten to the point also where we *want* to go home. As dumb as it sounds, you *CAN* be on holiday too long…

Combined with the recent world events, it would be best to be back in the global backwaters of Australia where nobody would waste their bombs. Hopefully…

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Bonjour! Here we are in the land of “Fwonce”, after taking the ferry from the white cliffs of Dover to Calais, and then the train to Paris. Weird train carriages - front half would be a smoking section but back half of same carriage would be non smoking! We found a carriage with no smoking at either end, fortunately…

Been to the Eiffel Tower and decided to spend less and go up by steps to the 2nd level instead of taking the lift. To take lift would have meant a long wait anyway whereas steps line was quite short. Good view from the top and not a really strenuous climb compared to Statue of Liberty in NY.

Checked out the Arc de Triomphe from the ground level - why pay to go up when you’ve been up the Eiffel Tower?

Went to the Louvre today and saw the Mona Lisa - quite a nice frame around it, I thought, and nowhere near the lines we had been warned about. We just walked straight up to it, same as Venus de Milo (aka “Chick With No Arms Therefore Cannot Hold Up Her Clothes”). Other items in Louvre far more interesting, we felt, especially the underground castle remains that the palace which became the Louvre is sited on.

Saw lots of pictures and sculptures of naked people - seems people throughout history have had problems keeping their clothes on, if the artworks were aything to go by. Either that or “great artists” were just perverts…

Found a flea market where people were selling what seemed to be stolen goods - you have to wonder when a person walks up to you and offers you one gold ring and a mobile phone reeeeally cheap…

Hotels in Paris seem to charge extra for a shower and this is a bad thing since we have smelled much more body odour here than anywhere else (even in really hot coutries!). Seems showering is not a common thing for Parisians which is, er, interesting when all crammed into a train.

We are in a hotel on rue St Denis in the heart of the city. The “Let’s Go” book specifically says to avoid it but does not say why. We know why - there are many sex shops and prostitutes at one end, but lots of restaurants at the other end, so we would have to go there for dinner anyway. Perhaps those with families might wish to avoid it, but not scary to us.

Going to Hong Kong on 26th which should be interesting. Until now, we have usually been able to guess text when in Portugese, Italian, Spanish, and French because pretty similar to English in many cases. Going to Hong Kong will be the first test of our linguistic skills in Asia and a little daunting. However, mime bridges all languages and dancing like a chicken keeps us fit…

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Originally posted from London as a single page, this update was split into multiple parts (see related articles) for the sake of reducing the loading time due to the images involved…

On the music scene, Kylie Minogue has released another song here that is doing well in the charts and is appropriately called “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” because, well, it’s in my bloody head and I can’t get it out. Grr! It does seem to be doing well though, mainly because, and I make no apologies to my UK friends here, the UK music scene (as perceived through our fortnight’s listening on BBC Radio One and the commercial channels) is manure. It’s a mixture of angry noise and talentless hacks attempting to be gainfully employed in the music industry and, sadly, they get airplay. Then again, Destiny’s Child is getting airplay here as well, and they are definitely the ultimate talentless hacks, so perhaps it is just modern music that is bad? Perhaps we’re just getting old and cranky and perceive new music the way our parents do (ie: angry noise)?….*grin*

Off to France tomorrow to dine on frog legs. Well, okay, probably not. I did tuck into snails while in Spain and they were not too bad, to be honest. Frog legs though - not too sure yet. Doubt they will be within the budget of the traveller anyway. One delightfully amusing expense that seems to have just reared it’s head is the fact that my electric shaver has decided to die a mere 10 years after the warranty expired. What sort of deal is that? Sheesh. You’d think it was was old or something…

Now we have to play the fun and games of buying a new one with the appropriate cord since we’re in a foreign land with different shaped power plugs…*sigh* Naturally, the most irritating thing is that I’ve finally gotten used to being clean-shaven after a few years of failed attempts at growing facial hair, so now, just when I can grow it all I want, it irritates me. I blame it all on Diana of course, since, well, I have to blame someone, don’t I?….*grin*

Oh, by the way, the guards at Buckingham Palace are big wimps. We went there today to see the Changing Of The Guard, and there was a light drizzle in the air. More of a fog than a drizzle, since none of us had the hoods of our jackets on, but what did the Beefeaters do? Stayed indoors and didn’t come out to get wet. It’s apparently cancelled in the event of “very bad weather” but really, what we saw today was “English Standard Weather”. So we saw a lot of tourists like us staring at one another, wondering why, if we could all be out there, the Beefeaters could not. In short, dear Queen Lizzie, if you are reading this, get out there with a stick and make ‘em do the ceremony every day so us poor tourists don’t miss out.

Until next time, viva le deep fried pizza!

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Originally posted from London as a single page, this update was split into multiple parts (see related articles) for the sake of reducing the loading time due to the images involved…

Currently in Londontown, and specifically, Camberwell - home of Lian - a friend of mine through a mailing list online. We’ve been doing the tourist thing, except with the benefit of a guide around the city and we’ve seen a lot of the stuff we wanted to. In fact, probably way more than we ever would have otherwise, which has been great. There were a few concerns as to whether we were going to meet up or not, given she was in the USA at the time of last week’s attacks, but we stalled our arrival to London and all worked out in the end.

Speaking of last week’s attacks, it was a very surreal experience to hear it all beaming live through the BBC radio in the car. We had just been flicking between stations and there was a very confused presenter saying “um, it seems that a plane has just gone into the World Trade Centre” and then, of course, the whole drama unfolded over the next couple of hours.

In a weird way though, it was at least good for us that we were in an English speaking country and had the benefit of the radio since if it had happened while we were in Spain, we’d have been oblivious to the whole thing. Not that being unaware would have made the attacks any less tragic, but we could at least comprehend what everyone in the street was talking about.

In other airline news, we also found out through the websites of the newspapers back home that Ansett had collapsed. For the benefit of those non-Aussies on the list, Ansett was the second biggest airline in Australia. When we bought the tickets, we could have bought either through the OneWorld Alliance, of which Qantas is a member airline, or through the Star Alliance, of which Ansett is a member airline. Luckily for us, we did not choose the latter, or else we’d be having all manner of fun and games getting home right about now…

Onto less morale-sucking topics, we’ve been around a lot of the UK in the car, clocking up just over 2600 miles in the short time we’ve been here. Since the last update, we went all the way past Loch Ness to Inverness (alas, no monster sightings), and then swung back down the other coast, into Wales where we explored a castle in the pouring rain, and tented in the freezing cold. We went to the town in Wales with the longest town name in the world (abbreviated to Llanfair PG in the atlas) and then back into England, down to the Land’s End area where we checked out pretty impressive prehistoric monuments. We highly recommend going to Lanyon’s Quoit and Men-an-tol which are both free to the public and easily accessible. The latter involved a walk of about 1600m round trip but this was offset by the fact that there were blackberry bushes everywhere and we gorged ourselves on the ripe fruit. Yum! Also recommend going to Chysauster which is the ruins of a 4000 year old Cornish village on a steep mountain. You need a site guidebook though, or else it makes no sense, and even though they are for sale, if you ask nicely, you might be able to get a loan of one for free.

From there to Stonehenge, which was actually much larger than what we thought it would be. Both of us had read countless tales of how people went there and it was really small, and the guidebooks we had were backing up those claims also. When we got there though, and handed over our money, it was really quite interesting to listen to the audio tour (well, except for the bit where they got a little theatrical and had shepherds telling tales) and to look over the site. One thing that seems a little stupid is that the English Heritage group (who run the site) are trying to install a tunnel so that the roads can be removed and people can see it as the ancient people who built it saw it. This seems rather wrong to us, since it is very close to the road at the moment and those that cannot afford the entry fee (£3.90/£3.20 adult/student) can at least drive past and see it from pretty close. By building a tunnel, that opportunity is removed and another historical monument is removed from the public free glimpse, like so much of the rest of the UK.

Ranting about the state of the ruins and what the English Heritage group is doing to them aside, it’s been really quite interesting in the last couple of weeks, checking out what the convicts left behind when they were sent to Australia from England. Really reinforces the view that they got the better deal since the weather here is bloody miserable, and the food is horribly lard-soaked. Highlight of the culinary offerings so far has to be the deep-fried half pizza. Basically, get a pizza (a pretty oily sort of food anyway) and cut it in half. Drop one half into batter and then into hot oil for a few moments until you have a lovely greasy oily battered deep-fried pizza. A mere £1.50 with a servings of greasy deep-fried chips thrown in as well. Not willing to try it, we can only boggle at the mind that dreamed this evil meal up…

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Here we are in the land of Travis. It used to just refer to the band, but we’re going to have words to the Scotland Government and they will change things for us. After all, they all obviously think looking pasty and white without a tan is a sexy look. Or, it could just be that there is no sun.

After all the hot weather in Spain and Italy, the UK has come as quite a shock for the temperature difference. Talking to the locals, apparently summer was two weeks ago and this is no longer summer. Really??? So that explains why two weeks ago we could not even bear the idea of wearing more than we had to just to be decent, and now we are wearing all our clothes at once! It is bloody freezing here!

Mind you, the locals are all still in short sleeves and short pants. We stand out as tourists simply because we are wearing polar fleeces under our wind jackets and still shivering…

The flight from Rome was pretty basic, and the jaunt through customs was a breeze. Hired a Fiat Punto (car of choice of the police in Rome), which is a remarkably gutless little rattlebox, with a turning circle about the same as the Ford Econoline in the USA, but hey, that must be the stylish European motor vehicle standards we’re told to drool over…*grin*

Caught up with Jen and Hamish in Milton Keynes for a couple of nights, and in between, zipped over to Oxford to have a look at what appears to be the mother ship for Melbourne Uni. The architecture back home is identical, so there was a clear influence from the old country.

Interesting to see that the students apparently take a lot of pride in their colleges. Then again, ask the officials at University College at Melbourne Uni, and they will say the same thing. Nobody ever mentions the cold cramped rooms in the tourist blurb, do they?

We did a walking tour and there was another Aussie on the tour. He was there because his girlfriend was attending a conference at Oxford and they were taking some personal time (sound familiar?). Anyway, his girlfriend came from Tatura and her sister is married to Tony Kerr, a guy I went to school with in Shepparton. It’s a very small world…

The guide, incidentally, looked like quite an old fellow, but when we went on the walking tour, the group was hard pressed to keep up with him. He was like a rocket, zooming from place to place. Perhaps he had seen it all before, but still, he was not slow at all.

Went to Lincoln and checked out the Joseph Banks Conservatory. For those who came in late, Banks was the botanist on the Endeavour, the boat that Captain Cook discovered Australia on. He collected lots of plants and there is even a plant named after him which is quite common, called the Banksia. Oddly, the Banksia was not growing in the conservatory, and they could only muster pictures on the wall. We wanted to ask why, but there was nobody around to question.

Cruised up the east coast to Whitby, which, in a strange relation to the last point of call, and was not planned, was where the Endeavour was built, and Captain Cook set sail from apparently. A very pretty little town, with lots of tourists and a ruined abbey up on the cliff overlooking the ocean. We could only appreciate this for a short time due to the bitterly cold wind.

Went to York and walked on the old wall that used to go around the town (before the town grew). Very interesting, and the site of the last surviving barbican gate in the UK apparently. Basically, the bad guys would come trying to get in the gate and you would hold them off for a while, then let them think they’d gotten in. Quickly shut the gate behind them and they find another gate in front of them, and you had them pinned. Put a whole stack of your guys around the top and the bad guys are in a lot of trouble. Vicious but effective.

Stayed at a B&B last night due to a howling wind and rain that would have destroyed the tent. Tenting was cheaper, but it would have ripped the tent in two, we feared, so we had to spend the extra cash, alas.

Went to Chester’s Fort this morning, on Hadrian’s Wall. Again, for the benefit of those who came in late, the Romans tried to conquer the Scots but the latter just would not give up, so the Emperor Hadrian ordered a big wall built across the country in 121AD, to stop people going between the two countries.

Chester’s Fort was a fort for the guards on the wall, and a lot of it has been excavated and a lot more is just out in a paddock for people to look at. Really interesting to see such old buildings and foundations, and to think they had running water and latrines and bathhouses way back then. Inventive lot, those Romans…

Crossed from England to Scotland by road (not a boat or ferry in sight!) and immediately saw a guy in a kilt. Of course, he was selling Scottish souvenirs and other stuff, but hey, it’s a guy in a kilt.

As we mentioned, now in Edinburrrrrrgh where it is very cold. Off to see Nessie in the next couple of days and see if we can get a scoop photo that will have the world beating a path to MooQuack dot com.

And then you can say “Oh, I was there so long before everyone else knew about it”…*grin*

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We are now in the city of the Romans - Rome. Upon leaving Spain, we must say that the rain in Spain does really fall on the plane. We sat on the tarmac for over 1.5 hours waiting for the storm to abate so we could all get off. SPOTD went to the guy who, once we took off, raced to the bathrooms to light up his cigarettes. He denied it, of course, but he was betrayed by the fact he stunk of fresh cigarette smoke. No consequences though. Personally, we think he should have been chucked off the moving plane…

Checked out the Colosseum from the outside, the Vatican from the inside, the multiple fountains from the dry side, and the city on the dodgy side. Okay, so it’s been pretty good so far, but there was a gang of young children who tried to take my wallet. Too bad for them that I had a safety pin on the zipper of the pocket. Still, they respond well to threats and left quickly once they realised I was prepared to smack their heads together a little.

We’re actually living the high life at the moment, with air conditioning even (and of course, it’s nowhere near as bloody hot as it was in Spain!). Basically the hostals are all really full and we’ve ended up with a 3-star hotel for about $10 per night more as a last minute deal. TV. Private bathroom. Air conditioning. Much better than the plebs down in the crappy youth hostels…*grin*

We are in walking distance to everything we want to see, but our feet hurt a bit from the uneven cobblestones. Drivers in Rome are pretty mad, but once you get used to the road rules (ie: He Who Has The Motor Vehicle Makes The Rules!), it’s quite easy.

Been eating gelati every day while here since we found a locals-only shop which costs AUD$2.50 for 3 giant flavours of gelati as opposed to AUD$7.00 for one miserably small cup from the gelati shops nearer the tourist traps.

On to the UK tomorrow, and perhaps even get back into a vroom vroom of my very own once more. To hell with this walking rubbish - I want a car!

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Today we reach a milestone. It is Day 201 of the 2001 Odyssey, and it is beginning to feel like we’ve been on holiday for a little while now. Well, we are still thinking of it as a “long weekend”, but when we think about the number of days, it is pretty impressive we’ve made it this far without strangling one another…*grin*

Coming to you again in the wee hours of the morning since the net is at it’s cheapest then. Costs 200Pts ($2 AUD) for 33 minutes during the afternoon and evening, but the same price for 3 hours between 5am - 8am. Of course, there are some perils and this morning walking down La Ramblas, I had to fend off a couple of transexual prostitutes would wanted to know if I’d like to perhaps spend my pesetas some other way. I was awakened this morning, not by the alarm clock, but by some drunk guy screaming like he was being murdered at 4:30am. It’s an interesting city…

Went to La Sagrada Familiar (a really big cathedral) the other day. It is covered in multi-coloured ceramic shards and is a really weird thing to look at. It costs 650Pts for students, but really, not overly worth it, since what you see from the street is what you see inside. It is a work in progress and nowhere near completion. At the time it was started, the designer (Antoni Gaudi) estimated it would take 200 years to complete. They’re not very far through, as it turns out, and the fee you pay is largely just to see scaffolding and climb the towers. Good view of Barcelona though, and it does help you to see the detail up close, so it’s possibly worth it for some people (Di appreciated the closer look), but a pair of binoculars from the street could probably save you

We did get our money’s worth playing Di’s favourite game - “Stupid Shoes”. This is a game she likes to play in airports and national parks, and basically it just involves looking at people’s inappropriate shoes and laughing. Hey, when you’re a traveller, you have to get your amusement cheap…

The shoes some people wore to climb 350 steep circular steps inside dark spires were impressive in their stupidity. Stilleto heels. Wooden clog-style scuffs. Plastic strappy sandals that cut through skin. It was hard to pick a definite winner there, to be honest.

The other thing that helped get value out of it was sitting and listening to all the guys (read: stupid prats) that were trying to impress girls by passing themselves off as appreciating architecture in a profoundly intelligent way. One guy from the US was telling two girls in a particularly animated and repetitive way how Gaudi had no formal mathematics training and had just thought of ways to make sure it was self supporting and stood up. Apparently he did this by “thinking out of his head, if you can believe it!”. No! Thinking out of his head, you say? Gosh, and there’s us going around thinking out of our forearms… Our SPOTD of the day, without doubt.

Di went out on a limb last night and decided to eat beef, since she was craving a steak. I declined and went with the pork chops which are probably no better, but at least I’m not going to be going around yelling “Moo! Hahaha! Moo!” like Di in a few years. Her reasoning was that a little bit of beef would not hurt, and by the time she gets to that level of illness, they will have discovered a cure. Ever the optimist…*chuckle*

If you’ve been reading these properly, you would realise we are not supposed to be in Barcelona at the moment, but in Rome by now. We, er, changed our plans. Looks like Rome is even more expensive than here, and we managed to change our flights so that we are now going there tomorrow instead, and then to London on the 3rd September.

Those dates took quite some time to organise since when we rang the airlines here, we were told that every seat on every flight was full and we could not get out of Rome for another two weeks. After dealing with the good folk of Iberia and Qantas in Spain (possible mottos: “Although We Say We Speak English, We Actually Speak It As Well As You Speak Spanish, Which Is To Say, Not Enough To Be Useful”), we ended up coming to the internet cafe, buying a phone link for less than it costs to call Madrid from Barcelona, and called Cliff, our Travelshop.com.au guy at home who just sorted it out in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Yay!

Today, we’re going to go for a bit of a stroll around a section of town we’ve not seen yet. The “Let’s Go Western Europe 2001″ book probably describes it as something completely opposite to what it really is - the area of town we are in now is apparently what Spain is really like, but it is the area of town which could best be described as the ghetto where the Pakistani and Indian populations are located. Very few Spanish people that we can see. Prices are generally about 20-30% inaccurate.

Then again, the book is written by Harvard students on their vacations, so the accuracy of travel adventures written by Uni students is always going to be in question…*wry grin*

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Originally posted from Barcelona, this update was split into multiple parts (see related articles) for the sake of reducing the loading time due to the images involved…

Back in Barcelona now, we´ve been wandering up and down Las Ramblas, which is like a really long pedestrian mall. Lots of people everywhere, watching buskers and people pretending to be statues. You can buy anything from newspapers and paella to parrots and temporary tattoos along that strip.

It is still really hot here, and the pension we are in at the moment comes with a view of a balcony on the other side of the street where four guys stand about all day in their Y-fronts and comment on the girls going past. Why they choose to just stand about in their undies is a little odd, but that´s what they do. Makes for a bizarre view, but then, it´s so hot and the streets are so narrow, that the Spaniards probably lost all modesty centuries ago when it comes down to it.

The other thing that is weird is that we are dealing with everything in Spanish, except the music. We figured that we´d hear lots of Spanish music, but what we´ve heard more of is American pop music, and frankly, it´s a little surreal to be strolling down Las Ramblas listening to some car go past with “Destiny´s Child” blaring from the stereo. Okay, not just surreal. Painful. But then, that´s just the music - the country you hear it in is irrelevant when it comes to that group of three female talentless hacks…

Off to Rome tomorrow…

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Originally posted from Barcelona, this update was split into multiple parts (see related articles) for the sake of reducing the loading time due to the images involved…

Checking in from the city that never sleeps, or at least the people outside in our street, it´s another MooQuack. Actually, the people last night were pretty quiet, but my sunburn kept me awake most of the night. It´s not too bad as long as I don´t breathe in or out, or move or lie still…

We went to a bullfight in Valencia the other night, and it was great! Just as we hoped, it was not always the bullfighters winning, and a couple of bulls hurled the matadors into the ground and started pummelling them which made everyone cheer in a sadistic fashion.

It was all very ceremonial. First a couple of blokes with funny hats on horses came out, and they seemed to be the masters of ceremony or something. Next, the people against the bull came out in their sexy outfits. Nothing like the sight of 20 guys in spandex to enrage a bull.

Basically, they would release a bull, and then it would run around for a bit, charging at some guys who would run away and hide behind the walls when it came near them. Eventually, it began to slow down a little due to running fast, and then the guys got braver, beginning to wave the cape a little and trick the bull into charging the cape.

After about 10 minutes of that, a trumpet would sound and a couple of people on horses came in. The horses were really well padded with some thick material, and were blindfolded, presumably to make them not just run away from the angry bull. The bull then attacked the side of the horse while the rider sat safely on top, sticking a lance into the bull to weaken it a bit more. Given the bulls all came out with a ribbon stuck into them with a big pin, they were already irritated for good reason, and this did not make them any more happy.

After the mounted guys had stabbed the bull a bit, they retreated, and the next step was infinitely more bizarre. Armed with nothing more than a couple of stakes covered in material, a guy would charge toward the bull charging him. At the last second, he would leap to one side and stab the stakes into the neck of the bull and jump out of the road. The timing in this was impeccable, and really impressive.

Six stakes into the bull, and it was beginning to really get angry, but also was weakening a bit, so that is when the bullfighter came out to do all the cape-twirling which is the typical scene of bullfighting. The first bullfighter was dressed in an aqua green spandex bodysuit covered in sequins, and thus I dubbed him “Pretty Boy”. Man, was I cheering for the bull!

He waved his cape and the bull ran past. He did it again and the bull went past again. He got down on one knee and then waved the cape and the bull again went for the cape. He then got a little too cocky and put the cape behind his back, and stepped toward the bull inch by inch.

The idea was that he would dance up to the bull, wave the cape to one side and then the bull would run toward the cape, missing his body. The bull came up with a better plan and simply ran at him. He was dancing up to it, a mere foot from the horns when it bowled him over and began ramming him into the ground. Support staff came from all directions, waving capes to distract it, while the crowd began to cheer “Go Toro!”. Since the crowd was mainly tourists, we were all there for the bull, and we imagine a local crowd would have been more sympathetic.

“Pretty Boy” escaped, having just lot a little bit of material on his cheeks of his bottom, and he recovered himself quickly enough to get back out there and finish the bull off a few minutes later.

The bullfighter has a sword that they stick into the neck of the bull, and the bull drops about 8-12 seconds later. A support staff member runs in with a sharp knife, and with one blow, kills the bull properly by stabbing the brain. At least that is the theory…

It worked properly the first time, but the other five bulls were not so lucky because they were not professional bullfighters. In some cases, the sword did not go in far enough, and the bull would shake it out, and they´d have to stick it in again. In one case, the aim was so bad, the sword stuck out the side of the bull and it looked awful. People were booing greatly at that one, especially the locals.

Also, the support staff of one of the three bullfighters seemed to be novices. One bull took nine stabs to the brain to kill it, because the guy with the knife kept missing the vital spot. It was truly a gruesome death, but we´re glad we went along anyway. Probably the only “sport” in the world where you can buy a Coke and watch a guy sharpen a dagger in between plays.

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