¡Hola guapos! September 26 marks one month that I've been in Spain, and what a month it's been. I've finally started to do some in-Spain travel and am in the process of planning trips to Manchester, Berlin and Basel. After India, it was nice to be a little more settled and take advantage of all Madrid has to offer, but I'm ready to grab my backpack and head into the abyss again. One of the things I think is really important to share with all of you after a month here is something you will not find in a Spanish guidebook. Oh no, no, while Lonely Planet and Rick Steves are great resources, they won't tell you something that I figured out in a weekend here: that Spaniards really love to mutilate the shit out of farm animals.
One of the places I've visited so far is Segovia. It was just a USAC day trip, where we toured a castle and saw really old Roman aqueducts, while a teeny tiny Spanish tour guide over-enunciated every word she said to us through her microphone. I'm not really one for guided tours and large group activities, but the trip was already paid for and Segovia was quaint and lovely, so I decided to go along. Little did I know what would await me when lunch rolled around. Segovia is famous for its roast suckling pig, or cochinillo. Spain is incredibly diverse in its regions, and each region has a dish that is its specialty. In Madrid it's calamari sandwiches (even though it's at least four hours from here to the closest ocean), in Valencia it's paella, and in Segovia it's roast suckling pig. If you've never seen a roast suckling pig, it looks something like this:
When it comes out to your table its little baby piggy body smells of oil and herbs, and it looks at you with a half-grimace, half-smile like it kind of enjoyed the roasting it just endured (little masochist). It's little baby hooves and little baby tail are toasty and crisp even though the rest of its body is flattened out like roadkill. For me, this was the best part of the day. I totally love weird food and trying new food, so when the waiter set the pig on a tray next to me before cutting it up, I could hardly contain my excitement. What I didn't know, though, is that part of the cochinillo tradition is that you don't carve it with a knife like a turkey. Instead, you take a plate, turn it sideways and start whacking that little baby pig as hard as you can.
Chunks of meat fly like bits of shrapnel as the pig starts looking less like Babe and more like lunch. Finally, when the pig is thoroughly hacked apart, the cutting plate is thrown on the ground and breaks into a billion pieces. Then lunch can be served. If you're me, you're really excited that you get to stare at this while you eat:
Other people in the group were not so stoked on their lunch smiling at them. Eh, to each his own. However, this was not the only farm animal I would watch be hacked apart over the weekend. Oh no, no. On the contrary, there was a day filled with much more blood and gore as I also had the pleasure (if that's what you want to call it) of going to a bull fight.
I'll tell you flat out that I know absolutely nothing about bulls or bull fights. I went because it's part of the culture and a good excuse to do some day drinking. I know it's super controversial and gory and a lot of people are not into it at all, but for me, it's all part of the experience. A Spanish friend and I got onto the topic of bullfights the other day, and he had a really interesting point to make about all of it. In the United States most of the meat we eat is raised in super small cages where it's packed full of hormones and antibiotics for the duration of its pathetic life before eat it. Who's to say if that's better or worse than a bullfight? It certainly happens in much larger quantities than bull fights do. However, in typical American fashion, it all happens behind closed doors. Bull fights, in all of their Spanish essence, happen right in your face. As your stuffing pistachios and beer into your mouth, you're looking at this:
One of the places I've visited so far is Segovia. It was just a USAC day trip, where we toured a castle and saw really old Roman aqueducts, while a teeny tiny Spanish tour guide over-enunciated every word she said to us through her microphone. I'm not really one for guided tours and large group activities, but the trip was already paid for and Segovia was quaint and lovely, so I decided to go along. Little did I know what would await me when lunch rolled around. Segovia is famous for its roast suckling pig, or cochinillo. Spain is incredibly diverse in its regions, and each region has a dish that is its specialty. In Madrid it's calamari sandwiches (even though it's at least four hours from here to the closest ocean), in Valencia it's paella, and in Segovia it's roast suckling pig. If you've never seen a roast suckling pig, it looks something like this:
When it comes out to your table its little baby piggy body smells of oil and herbs, and it looks at you with a half-grimace, half-smile like it kind of enjoyed the roasting it just endured (little masochist). It's little baby hooves and little baby tail are toasty and crisp even though the rest of its body is flattened out like roadkill. For me, this was the best part of the day. I totally love weird food and trying new food, so when the waiter set the pig on a tray next to me before cutting it up, I could hardly contain my excitement. What I didn't know, though, is that part of the cochinillo tradition is that you don't carve it with a knife like a turkey. Instead, you take a plate, turn it sideways and start whacking that little baby pig as hard as you can.
Chunks of meat fly like bits of shrapnel as the pig starts looking less like Babe and more like lunch. Finally, when the pig is thoroughly hacked apart, the cutting plate is thrown on the ground and breaks into a billion pieces. Then lunch can be served. If you're me, you're really excited that you get to stare at this while you eat:
Other people in the group were not so stoked on their lunch smiling at them. Eh, to each his own. However, this was not the only farm animal I would watch be hacked apart over the weekend. Oh no, no. On the contrary, there was a day filled with much more blood and gore as I also had the pleasure (if that's what you want to call it) of going to a bull fight.
(Here's us being toro-like before the fight. Intimidating, no?)
The end of September is not bullfighting season in Madrid. Because of this, tickets were super cheap and the fights were mostly amateur. We got front row seats for 10 euros, which was awesome, but what was even better was that we were lucky enough to sit in front of an old Spanish woman and her husband who have been going to bull fights for twenty years!! WHOA!! They were serious fans and explained the art to us in thorough detail. Both of them were not at all impressed with the fights that night and the amount of suffering the bulls had to endure. It was really sad to watch the decline of the bulls. By the time they're close to death, a constant stream of blood is pouring out of their wildly pumping arteries and their tongues hang out in a pathetic, surrendered manner. When the matador finally does kill the bull, it collapses like a great soldier stricken down in battle, a ton of muscle and force falling to the ground, accepting defeat. Then a horse-drawn cart drags it out of the ring, leaving a pathway of blood behind it as the matador in his very masculine pink socks receives praise from the crowds.
So there you have it. Spaniards hack apart farm animals, people pay to watch it and (human) life goes on. Así es la vida.
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