Sarah and a Series of Firsts

There is a first time for everything and it just so happens that a lot of firsts occurred with the visit of our friend and my former roommate Sarah. (She's an adventurous gal, so it makes sense.)

These first times included, but were not limited to, biking through Seville's city center (exhilarating, as we usually stick to the designated bike path); a bullfight (nauseating--or so I hear); driving through Spain (anxiety inducing); and a flamenco show at the renowned Casa Anselma, (fun, if not exactly as described by the guide books, which are becoming more useless every day, perhaps not surprisingly, given all the recent scandal).

Here are pictures, and above a video of said flamenco, which features an extremely sweaty man and a pretty bartender Jay totally would have put the moves on if I wasn't around.

UPDATE: The gauntlet has been thrown: Sarah has posted a whopping 526 photos on Snapfish.

Lunchtime Poll

Aliens (aka upcoming visitors) land on earth (aka Seville) and say they're going to make you (not really) attend a bullfight (aka bullfight), the same day you caught glimpses of a bullfight on TV and decided you couldn't handle it. What do you do?

Seriously. Bullfight season is in full swing and when Jay and I happened upon a televised fight at a bar today, I started tearing up the minute the poor thing pranced into the ring, unawares of what he was walking into. The whole thing is, in fact, worse than I imagined. Horses are involved, as are these spears, which look tiny but produce a nauseating amount of blood from the animal. I had no idea if the poor creature made it (it is, of course, doubtful), because Jay just kept telling me, "Don't look up. Just finish your drink and we'll go. Don't look up."

But the decision isn't the no-brainer it seems. Bullfighting is an incredibly integral part of Spanish culture, and Seville in particular. The stands are packed full of men in three-piece suits and women in their best archaic Sunday attire. If the whole point of this excursion is to immerse oneself in the day to day life of a Sevilliano, how can one not attend a bullfight? It seems so righteously uptight to not attend the spectacle based on principle, especially since I have been a far-from-perfect vegetarian since arriving here.

I await your advice in the comments.