What a weekend!

So, it was quite the weekend that I had...

On Friday night, there was this cool thing where all the museums in Sevilla were open to the public for FREE! So, we definitely had to take them up on that one. The NWC 4 headed up to the Museo de Carruajes (Carriage Museum) because it was close and we actually kind of knew where it was...Plus, they had something on the line up that was called "Danza del Vientre"; I had commented to Karla earlier that "dance of the womb" sounded quite odd, to which she replied that it was belly dancing...made sense...So I thought that could be interesting to see...I ended up staying there with some of the other girls from Acento while the other Ndubbers headed to a different museo; the other girls we there to see the Flamenco; I asked if they meant the bellydancing; they said no, the Arabic Flamenco. It should be noted that in the description under "Danza del vientre" there was something to the effect of "flamenco árabe", so i could see where they had gotten that idea, but I was like, no, Karla said that meant bellydancing...and they were pretty sure it was flamenco...So, when it was time to start, there was definitely a bellydancer up on stage...Yeah...pretty interesting...she had muscles that I didn't know could exist, and she moved them in ways I didn't think possible!

Yesterday was also quite interesting...not only did we get lots of talking with our señora in, but we went to a bullfight...It was really fun! Until they killed the first bull...yes, first...there were 6 in total...by the sixth one, I couldn't stomach it any longer and decided to leave with the other girls who wanted to make it back to their apartment for supper...There is supposed to be some "art" to how the bullfight is conducted, and while there indeed was some, since they were like intermediate-experience bullfighters, it just wasn't that great...and then the first bull made these really sad and pitiful noises... :( I guess the one bright spot of the bullfight was the sweet outfits that the toreros wore... Unfortunately, the bulls kept coming, and they kept dying...they really just don't stand a chance! We all almost felt kind of happy for the bulls whenever they picked up one of the toreros (no one got hurt visibly, so I think it's alright) Also, I felt very bad for the horses...the guys would right out on the horses, announced by trumpets of course, and they were among the first to stab each bull...but the bull would take out all his aggression on the poor blindfolded horse (which was wearing some sort of horsey armor, but still)...I couldn't help but seriously wonder what these things implied about the undercurrents of the Spanish mentality...animal cruelty, anyone?? I also kind of feel like I would have gotten more out of the experience had I had a Spaniard there to comment on the happenings...

Well, at present I am slacking off on researching the Shi'ite Muslim culture and distinguishing marks...(los chiítas, en español) I am not looking forward to the presentation on such...it is, however, quite interesting to learn about; in the States, especially in the Christian circles, we know very little about Muslims and are ok with that, but it seems kind of naive to me to leave it at that and then judge them for what we think they are/do/believe instead of what they actually are/do/believe...idk, just a little opinion tangent, no offense meant toward anyone...

Feel free to leave comments! I love reading them and feel a little bit more like I'm actually part of the real world instead of this strange pseudo-world of study-abroad...

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

(or, if we want to go real Andalucían here...¡Que Dios os bendiga!)