Thursday, October 23, 2008

Day 3 - Zaragoza: A Memory, Toros, and an old Friend

On October 8, we ventured out for our first day in Zaragoza, the city I lived in six years ago.

Dear readers, this is the very store window where I first fell in love with my wedding dress. I had to take Hubs there to show him where it all happened:


Then we walked over to one of my favorite parts of the city, The Pilar, Zaragoza's big cathedral, located on the Ebro River:


Don't you love the colorful patterning of the Spanish tile on the roof domes?


These photos were taken from one of the spires. It was a beautiful clear (and windy!) day:


That evening, we did something decidedly Spanish...we went to the Plaza de Toros...


...where we attended a bull fight!


Because there was a week-long festival going on, there were a ton of cultural festivities happening, so after the bull fight, we met up with a friend to watch a performance of "jotas", which are the folkloric song and dance of the region. Yes, those are castanets clicking in their hands:


This is my dear friend Cristina. Six years ago, she took me under her wing and introduced me to her culture. I'll forever be grateful to her for reaching out to me and helping me to learn about and appreciate the Zaragozan way of life. Here we are eating some pintxos, a special kind of tapas from the Basque region of Spain:


9 comments:

canknitian said...

Aww! I'm so glad you were able to go back to the dress shop with your husband! So lovely that things came full circle like that.

I love the painted tiles on the church's roof!

Laura said...

Loving your updates! Estoy muyyyyyyyyyy celosa. I wanna go! :)

Anonymous said...

So neat to re-visit these special places to you :)

J said...

Those tiles on the roofs are indeed beautiful!

I think the bull fight would have made me sad. Such an interesting part of culture, but harsh as well.

Tracy said...

J, I couldn't agree more about the bull fight. I found the cultural aspect of it fascinating, and there is some artistry to bull fighting that I appreciate. But on the whole, it is harsh, and the vast majority of my Spanish friends have no interest in attending bull fights because they find it to be cruel (and I think it is, too).

There is something else called vaquillas, which is a lot more fun and well accepted in the culture, because the animal is not harmed in any way.

Cherry said...

Mmmm tapas!

I think I'd want to go to a bull fight to experience it, but I'd get sad. Growing up you just think they are dancing around with the bull. Funny how innocent we are as kids.

I still love your wedding dress story and I'm so glad you were able to take your hubby there.

Mrs. G. said...

I'm adding Spain to my "must see" list.

Saucy said...

Actually, we would love to hear more about your beautiful wedding dress sometime! Tell us more!

Tracy said...

Saucy,

Click on the link in this post, and it will take you to a previous post I wrote all about the story of my dress. It's a great story!

xoxo,
Starshine