This would be about 6PM, which is when we normally eat dinner. The Spanish, however, eat late, and dinner at the better restaurants is not served until 9 or 10PM, which is past our
bedtime. It was frustrating.
On our first trip there, we went to Pamplona. As an undergraduate, I majored in English (with a double minor in science and chemistry), and once took a course on the writings of Ernest
Hemingway. We spent a lot of time on one of his most famous works, The Sun Also Rises.
One of the central plots is about bullfighting, and much of the story takes place in Pamplona, site of the famous “running of the bulls”.
If you have not heard of the running of the bulls, I’ll explain:
Each year at the start of the bullfighting season, the bulls are let loose to run through the streets of Pamplona. These streets are quite narrow, with little maneuvering room except
straight ahead. A crowd of young men, in a wacky display of macho and bravado, runs ahead of the bulls, tempting fate not to get trampled under their hooves or gored on their horns.
As you would guess, there have been a number of fatalities in this yearly ritual, but it continues on anyway. To read about the ‘running’
in Hemingway’s book does not really convey the pure danger and craziness of this activity. When you stand on the corner and think about a large group of men being chased by a bull whose horns take
up half the width of the street, you wonder that any of them walks away and lives to tell about their participation in the event.
The outstanding memory from the second trip to Spain is of a cathedral in Toledo. Inside it is an absolutely incomparable altarpiece, made of gold Columbus brought back from the New
World. You get the feeling of closeness to a monumental historical event- almost as if you had sailed with Columbus yourself. Many people we know say they get this same kind of close feeling when they
visit the battlefields of the American Civil War, especially Gettysburg.
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