El Primer Dia (The First Day for you non-Spanish speakers)

Over the next week I'll be bringing you daily doses of my trip from Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. I would try and condense it into one day's worth of a post, but that would shortchange you and me of so many awesome things that I saw while I was there. And with that, let's do this.

As soon as the plane touched down in Madrid, Deb and I were on the lookout for some food. What better way to travel, right? See a great sight, get some great food, and repeat. Since we were right in the heart of the city on the Gran Villa, we walked down to the Plaza Mayor to get some paella. Basically this is the old center of town - everything super important in the history of Madrid all happened here. Bring it on, Spain.

And though I didn't take a picture of our paella, I do have a picture of me smelling the "apple juice" that the waiter gave us for free after our meal. This was the first of many times that Deb and I were offered free things while in Spain. Too bad we couldn't really take advantage of it though.

And as soon as our bellies were full, we were off to the bullfight. I'm not sure how many bullfighters die in the bullring, but this statue made it seem like there are enough that there needs to be a memorial of some kind. Hmm..

Isn't the Plaza De Toros beautiful??

I should have done some research before going to the bullfight, but I didn't. So really, when three guys with pink capes were running around the ring, I had no idea what was going on - (where is the red cape and why are there three!!?) so I asked Deb to ask the old man sitting next to her if he could explain to us what was going on. No lie - this man was a bullfighter over 50 years ago. What are the odds?? He explained everything to us - even telling us that right after the bull is killed, its meat is sold to restaurants in town, so though it is a strange sport, at least it isn't all in vain, right? He even drew us pictures of the different knives and blades that are used to kill the bull.

If you want to get a closer look at the matador stabbing the bull, click the below picture to enlarge. It's a little bloody, but this isn't when the bull is killed. If you want that, just let me know in the comments and I'll email you the video. Little too much to post for everyone, but I'm not afraid to share it with whoever wants to see.

And although I'm retarded and took the video sideways, I'm still going to post it because no animals are killed and it is an exciting video. I hope that you especially like my narrative.

Coming up next, Toledo & Cordoba.