Flat-Hunting and Bullfighting

Sarah stared at the street sign despairingly. Carrer de Palomar. It didn’t help. She glanced at her watch feeling panicked. 4:15. She was already a quarter of an hour late. She hurried down the street, and then a few more, hoping against hope that she’d somehow find the one she was looking for. At half past she gave up. She’d missed the appointment. The woman on the phone had said people would be visiting all day and 4 – 4:30 had been the only viewing slot left. At least, that’s what Sarah thought she’d said.

A moan of frustration escaped her and Sarah trudged gloomily in the direction she thought she’d come from. Nothing looked familiar. Sarah sighed. She’d almost got used to the feeling of being completely lost over the last fortnight. She always made it back to the hostel somehow. In the distance she spotted an empty bench in a small plaza and dragged herself towards it. She flopped down on the bench and stretched out her aching legs.

Sarah felt the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. It was hopeless. She’d never find an apartment. It was hard enough to arrange appointments on the phone in her faltering Spanish, let alone find the place in the rabbit’s warren that was the Old Town. In the last two weeks she’d been all over the city in her search for somewhere to live for the next year, but to no avail. Everywhere was either too expensive, or too filthy, or snapped up before she could make an offer. The semester was starting next week. She couldn’t live in a hostel for a year!

Disheartened, Sarah wondered if she’d made a huge mistake. How did she ever think she could do this? Her Spanish wasn’t good enough to live in Spain. She could write an essay or read a novel (with the help of a dictionary) but she couldn’t hold a conversation. Why did Spanish people talk so fast? Why did choose a region that had two languages? She shouldn’t have chosen Valencia. Maybe she should have opted for a smaller city like Salamanca? Or a bigger one like Madrid? Would it be harder or easier to find somewhere to live in the capital city?

Deep in the rabbit hole now, Sarah started to question her entire life choices so far. Why did she decide to study Spanish at university? Would it actually be any good to her in the future? Was there any guarantee she would even be able to speak Spanish at the end of it? How would she learn if she couldn’t even have basic conversations to begin with? What would actually happen if she couldn’t find somewhere to live and went home? She should have done maths and science in her last years of high school and studied something like biology at uni. Something practical.

A buzzing sound from deep inside her pocket jolted Sarah out of her reverie. “Was the apartment nice? LOL Mum.” Her mother still didn’t know that you could see the person’s name when a text message came in, or that LOL did not mean ‘lots of love’. Sarah flipped the phone closed and stood up. It might take ages to find her way back so she had better get moving if she wanted to get back at a decent hour.

On her journey back to the hostel in the centre of the city, Sarah came across the plaza de toros. Fluttering red and white flags adorned the square surrounding the bullring. Giant posters hung from its curved sides, with giant matadors in their elaborate finery staring moodily into the camera, their names emblazoned in bold writing along the top. The bullfight was coming to town this week.

Sarah had never been interested in bullfighting. She wasn’t a huge animal rights activist or anything, but it seemed cruel and unusual entertainment to chase a bull around a ring before killing it. But this was a historical tradition and iconic part of Spanish culture, and she didn’t feel it was her place to judge. After all, she hadn’t ever even seen a bullfight, and she couldn’t really pass judgement on something she knew next to nothing about. And if she was going to go home with her tail between her legs after failing to find an apartment, she thought she might as well experience this quintessential Spanish event, especially as there just so happened to be a fight this evening.

Slightly apprehensive, Sarah approached the noticeboard announcing the dates, times and seats available. There was a corrida starting in 30 minutes and there were still some cheap seats up for grabs. A sheet of paper caught her eye that had been pinned on the board. Flats for rent just around the corner from the bullring. Sarah peered at the grainy picture on the poster. It certainly looked nice enough from what she could make out. Sarah tore off a small slip with the phone number and header over to the ticket counter.

Ticket in hand, Sarah made her way to the entrance. The bull ring was beautiful, a stunning neoclassical stone amphitheatre built 150 years ago. Sarah found her staircase and located her seat. She sat down nervously, while families and groups of friends settled in beside her. They looked surprised to see her but pleased that she was there, and several people welcomed her enthusiastically.

At 7 o’clock sharp, two gentlemen in extravagant 16th century costumes with ostentatious plumed hats rode out into the ring on beautifully decorated horses. They approached the president’s box and doffed their caps to him. He returned the gesture, the signal for the corrida to begin, and the band struck up a powerful tune to accompany the procession of the bullfighters into the ring.

Sarah was mesmerised by the entire performance. She’d never witnessed anything like it in her life. The traje de luces that the matadors wore was a sight to behold. They were stunning and completely unique. She’d never seen a man wearing such decorative clothes before. She took in every detail, the bright pink stockings, the unusual silk hat, the short jacket, waistcoat and knee-length trousers so beautifully beaded in bright, rich colours, offset by gorgeous gold embroidery.

The fight itself was just as hypnotic. The picadors leaped and dived around the ring, luring the bull this way and that. The bull raged and panted, tossing its proud head before lowering its magnificent horns and charging at an impossible speed. So many times it seemed that the picadors only just managed to escape those splendid, treacherous horns.

When the matador finally entered in the third act of the corrida, Sarah actually gasped. He planted his feet square in the middle of the ring and stared the bull in the eyes, holding only a small red cape for protection. As the bull sensed the challenge, it once again lowered its head to make full use of those terrifying horns. The matador didn’t blink, didn’t make a sound, didn’t move a muscle. The crowd collectively held their breath, watching the two athletes in the final showdown.

The bull lowered his head, the matador raised his. The bull charged at top speed, and the matador whirled the cape, arching his back and twirling round gracefully to face the bull again, never once taking his eyes off his opponent. The performance was spellbinding. Sarah couldn’t take her eyes off it. For several minutes, the bull roared and hurtled himself at the matador. Each time, the matador spun and twisted, weaved and rotated, always fluid and elegant, always managing to escape by a hair’s breadth, the bull seeming to brush his side as he passed.

The end was approaching. You could feel it. The atmosphere in the stadium was electric. You could cut the tension with a knife. It felt like the thousands of people in the amphitheatre were on the edge of their seats, collectively thrilled and nervous. The bull was tiring, but bravely put all his efforts into one last heroic charge. The matador sprang high into the air, higher than it was humanly possible to jump. Time slowed down as the matador seemed to hang suspended in the night sky for a few moments, his sword raised above his head. As the bull passed underneath him, time sped up again, and the matador landed on the ground, his sword passing cleanly and fluidly through the bull’s heart in one fluid motion. It was over.

The crowd erupted, screaming their admiration and appreciation for the bullfighter. At the end the bull had felt no discomfort, no pain. It was a clean, elegant, perfect kill. The bullring was a sea of waving white handkerchiefs. Sarah’s seat neighbours cheered and brandished their handkerchiefs too. She joined them. She had never expected to feel this way. Pure adrenaline, emotion, respect and awe for all the athletes in the ring tonight. She was enthralled.

When she got back to her hostel, still electrified from the bullfight, she rang the number from the apartment advert and set up a meeting for tomorrow. She had a good feeling about this one.

At 12 the next day, Sarah made her way to the apartment, walking past the bullring on the way. The building was on the other side of the ring, opposite the entrance for the bulls and the fighters. Sarah rang the buzzer, nerves jangling. The door clicked open and revealed a beautiful entrance hall. It was an old building, a classic Spanish city apartment building with an old-fashioned lift. She pulled the doors open, walked inside, pulled them shut behind her again and headed to the third floor.

A friendly red-haired Spanish lady was waiting for her. “¡Bienvenida!” she exclaimed in her warm and inviting voice. She showed Sarah around. Sarah gasped as she saw the room. It was a huge room with a giant double bed and a high ceiling with gorgeous white plastering. The room was bright and airy, with French doors covering one side of the room that had a stunning view out onto the plaza. “I’ll take it!” said Sarah, and her new landlady smiled and led her to the office to sort out the paperwork.

It was lunchtime and there was a quaint little historic restaurant at the bottom of the building. Sarah decided to treat herself to celebrate finally finding somewhere to live, and somewhere amazing at that. The restaurant was run by a cute old married couple who had been there for decades, and the walls were plastered with posters of bullfighters and photos of famous matadors who had graced those very tables. There was no menu, just the daily dishes based on local available produce written on a board on the wall.

Today all the dishes were beef-based, the beef as fresh as it could possibly be. Sarah thought back to that brave and heroic bull she’d seen give the fight of a lifetime yesterday, and ordered the oxtail. It was the tastiest beef she’d ever eaten.