Last weekend, my friends and I rented a car and took a road trip through Sevilla to Faro, Portugal. There was a festival in Sevilla called Feria, which pretty much consisted of a bunch of extravagant tents owned by restaurants or families and all of the Spaniards dressed up in flamenco outfits and ate and danced in these tents. It was a beautiful festival to see, with all the flamenco dresses and people being carted around on horse back. We then went to a bull fight in the Plaza de Toros, which was the MOST interesting experience I've had since I've been here. It was slightly disturbing at first, and I was a little shocked when they first started impaling the giant bull with little knives, but overall it was such a beautiful ceremony. It's amazing how humans can possibly battle bulls, and everytime the bull ran at the matador I would scream in terror. The audience would cheer everytime the matador did something cool, and their cheers were comparable to our football cheering. It was awesome, even though I had to close my eyes a few times.
We then drove to Faro, and I have to say that driving to Portugal was the most anticlimatic experience I've ever had. We were so ready with our passports to go through border control and get a stamp, but there was no border control. There was a sign that said "Portugal", not even "Welcome to Portugal" like American states have. Either way, we made it safely to our hotel and then spent all of Saturday at the beach. I got a little sunburned, but it was really relaxing to spend time at a beach instead of sightseeing and touring more cathedrals. We walked around the town of Faro in the evening, which took us all of 20 minutes because it is a very small, old town that we concluded is not much of a tourist trap.
On Sunday we drove back to Granada, once again happy to be back in our temporary home. Sunday was the Dia de los Cruces in Granada, or the Day of the Crosses. It was really weird to see the city flooded with thousands of tourists, but this festival also consisted of flamenco outfits so it was really pretty. Every plaza had a giant cross filled with flowers and lights, and that's about all we got out of the festival. My host mom later complained about the number of tourists in the town, which felt weird because I initially thought of myself as a tourist when I got here but now I was able to sympathize with her on the iritatance of tourism here.
The picture is of my friends and I in the Plaza de Toros right before the bull fight.
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