Bullfight!

I drove to Mouriès today for lunch with Eve and Yves. It's really not that far, only a 40 minute drive, and it's remarkable how different the landscape is. The Baux de Provençe area is in the Alpilles mountains, which aren't really big mountains at all, they're more like granite foothills, but definitely make for very different growing conditions. Eve made a tomato tart for lunch, with pastry crust and cheese and tomato and herbs. I need to try that out when I get home. I picked up the couple of things I had left behind at Luc and Lucienne's house, and some wine to give to Nathalie and Cyril, since Nathalie gave some to Eve the day she dropped me off here.



This weekend was the Green Olive Festival in Mouriès, so I went to the village to check out the party. It's also bullfighting weekend here, and apparently churros are a big thing this time of year or something because every food cart was selling them. There were also street vendors with all sorts of regional products, organic produce, and pretty much anything you can make with olives or olive oil was for sale, proudly marked as having been made with local oil.
There was traditional dancing and costumes, and I don't know if this guy's unibrow was part of the costume or what, but it's nice, right?










There was also bullfighting, and since I knew that they don't kill the bull during the fight around here, I went to check it out. The way it works here is, there are about 15 guys (here at least, I don't know if there are more in bigger arenas.) and their job is to grab 2 strings that are tied, one each at the base of the bull's horns. There are two different jobs it seems; some of the guys are actually trying to grab the strings, others are just trying to get the bull's attention, kind of like rodeo clowns, but no goofy costumes. The arena is all stone and concrete, then about a meter inside the arena there's a fence that goes all the way around the inside, so when the bullfighters are being chased, they run and jump the fence to get away, and of course the closer they come to getting gored in the backside, the more the crowd cheers. They jump really high really fast, and it seems like a really impressive display of agility, but as Cyril pointed out later, having a pair of horns pointed at your ass is pretty good motivation.


It's kind of hard to catch on film, but in the picture here you can see one bullfighter running from the bull, jumping, and almost kicking me in the head, then another comes from the other direction to take a swipe at the ribbon.


Unfortunately even though they don't kill the bull, the thing they use to try and grab the ribbon is metal, it looks a bit like a brush you might use on a horse, and one of the bulls must have caught a scratch above the eye, and as soon as I saw the animal bleeding that sort of spoiled it for me. It was about time to go home anyway. I grabbed some frites at one of the food booths and hit the road.


I got home about 7:30, so when I went to drop off the wine for Cyril and Nathalie I was invited to dinner. We had rabbit, rice, salad, and cheese. It was quite nice. I got to formally meet the children, although they were all on their way to bed. The oldest is Blanche, then comes Eugène, the boy I met last night, then the second daughter, Olympe, all three of whom look like their mother, then the youngest, Achille, who looks just like his father.


Now it's bedtime and I have an upset stomach. Perhaps the unrefrigerated mayonnaise I had with my frites was a bad choice.