Friday Night Lights

The start of week three is the start of our second half of the trip. Our weekend was packed with sights and travels through the Michoacan countryside and yet another bull fight.

On Friday we ventured with our family to a professional bull fight, but only after we went to their grandkids school fundraiser. It was a fun event that was organized by one of the daughters of our Mexican parents here. There were lots of kids running around and food for sale that was difficult for tall foreigners to order. I stuck to what I know and ran around with the kids, impressing them easily with my height alone. It works out pretty well, but those little rugrats still speak better Spanish than me, so full conversations didn't happen. If they asked me something, I usually just distracted them by bouncing a balloon off their head and we were on to something else. Each kid here consumes about as much sugar as the country of Luxumbourg. I know it is not a big country, but imagine packing that much energy into a 6 year old. Now get 150 kids together. Top with a cherry and you can imagine the destruction. It was lots of fun and we really enjoyed it.

We left with Alejandra to go the bull fight and spent the whole evening in the family box seats. It dropped into the 40s and we were a bit chilled outside, so we stayed where it was warm and close to the cocktails. The toreros (matadors) were much better this time, getting the much larger bulls quite a bit quicker and more dramatically than last time. There was one that had a bit of trouble, and the crowd picked up on that and booed him as he left.

The most impressive torereo was a relative of our host family. Turns out he didn't pay his taxes and the police were wating for him before the show. I guess they figured out a deal and was able to perform, and he was amazing. He studied in Spain for 3 years and I think it was there he learned his dramatic presentation. Most of the other toreros we a little jumpy (rightly so), but each of Fernando's steps were calculated and fluent. He was within inches of the bulls head, sometimes placing his hand on the bulls nose without the bull reacting to him. He appeared to have total control of the bull and directed just how he wanted. He won the coveted Two Ears (cut from the bull he killed) from the Master of Ceremonies (meaning he did very impressive work).