Thursday night Nina and I (Mike)experienced another slice of Portuguese culture. In typical Portuguese fashion, the bullfights did not start until 10 PM. We arrived without tickets hoping for some good seats to be available. As you can tell from the pictures, they were not. Last row at the top and surrounded by nervous smokers. I hung my clothes outside when we got home. That was about the only bad part. The pageantry and color of the opening ceremony, the "dancing of the horses" and the pomposity of the matadors was great. The horses are the real stars of the show as they dance sideways just out of the reach of the bull's horns as it charges. They also "charge" the bull and then feint and dodge at the last minute is a sort of animal world game of "chicken". Really fun to watch, but the most fun is when the team of "intellectually challenged" guys in green caps come out to humiliate the bull by making it stand still. In precise single file, they get the bull to charge and the first guy in line tries to jump on the bull's head and cover its eyes. The second guy jumps on to assist and so on until the last one has no place to hold except the tail. They all let go at the same time and run except the the guy with the tail who gets 'chased' by the bull for a bit, lets go, and then, in true macho fashion, walks away with his back to the bull. Cheers all around as the winners parade around the ring basking the adulation of the crowd who applaud and throw flowers and clothing parts to the heroes who, graciously, toss the clothing back and keep only the flowers.

The whole thing is repeated 6 times before closing about 1 AM. We went home tired, smelly, and looking forward new adventures to come. Who knew it would come so soon.

Last night we learned that Spain is not the only place where one can experience "running with the bulls". While visiting friends across the Tagus River (on the non-city side), we discovered that in this smallish town was a 100 plus year old tradition of a week long festival featuring bulls running through the streets. Feeling our environmentally procured Latin blood rising to the macho challenge, we said, "Let's go!". So we did. The crowd was large and we had to strain to see, but see we did. A bull came chasing people into the city square. A couple of quick thoughts came to me right away. One, this is a really big bull! Remember we were quite far from the action at the fight. Two, at the fight the bull's horns are blunted to minimize the damage should they actually make contact with something soft and vulnerable like your body. This bull's horns looked like it had been to the factory where they make spears and knives and know how to sharpen things to a needle-like point. Contemplating these issues and being totally sober, which most of the "runners" clearly were not, took a few minutes which allowed the bull to move on down the street before I could put myself in a place where it could actually chase me. As fate would have it, that was an opportunity forever lost, as that was the last bull of the night. I have been thinking about going back there tonight but it is raining today and I don't want to get wet. Think I'll read some Hemingway instead.

Mike