Touradas e Hortênsias

In case you might not know, "Touradas" refers to bullfights, but in this case I am talking about the small scale touradas that take place in the street!  In the Azores, cities are broken up into "freguesias".  Freguesias are almost like little neighborhoods- they're made up of a pretty small areas as far as I can tell (they are countless freguesias in Angra) and each freguesia has its own festas, touradas, etc.  Several times a day, you can hear what sounds like fireworks going off- these are the way freguesias announce that they have some type of festivity going on.  A few days ago, my friend Meredith and I happened to hear some extremely loud fireworks coming from the freguesia our residencia is near and/or in.  We ran out into the street to find out that it wasn't a festa with dancing, music and food, but a tourada!  Having never seen a tourada, we were both quite interested and excited, so we ran downt he street to check it out.

In these touradas, the bull is set free in the street, but is connected to a rope hoop in its nose so that four men can hold on to it and keep it from getting too out of control.  People fill the streets around the bull, as well as hang out of their windows to catch some of the action.  To get the bull fired up, brave (or crazy...) people will run past the bull, sometimes shouting, touching it, our waving red things such as umbrellas and blankets in it's face.

The experience was definitely something new, and it was exciting to be able to see more of the Azorean culture.  This was all somewhat amusing for about ten minutes, but after the excitement of running from the bull a few times wore off (don't worry, I was pretty far away, but people seem to run at the bulls every move), I started to pay less attention to the excitement of the crowd, and more attention to the bull himself.

I'm sure no one is surprised, but it didn't take me long to feel extremely bad for the poor little bull.  How can you not feel bad for an animal who should be roaming around in a pasture, but is instead being taunted by rude people, in a crowded street?  I almost wanted the bull to chase everyone right out of the entire neighborhood, but I guess the people holding him by the nostrils would've kept that from happening!

Anyways, after Meredith and I realized how bad we felt for the bull, we left the tourada and went back to our exciting life of lesson planning.  I'm definitely happy I was able to see a tourada, and I'm sure the bull is actually treated fine by his owners and the people really mean no harm... but, given what a sensitive person I am, I'm not surprised I had such a reaction!!  Glad I checked another cultural experience off my list, but I can't say I have too much of a desire to see another tourada!

Now for the second part of my title- Hortênsias! Hortênsias means hydrangeas in Portuguese :) I LOVE hydrangeas, I especially love that they are everywhereeee on this island!  Today a few friends from the internship and I traveled around the island.  Not necessarily to see anything to specific, but just to really get to know the place I've been living these past two weeks.  Terceira is very small, and even with the countless stops we made, it still only took us a few hours to get around the island.  We went around the coast for about half the trip, and then ventured in for a few stops.

Today was by far the best day I've had since I got here, simply because I was able to see the Azores I see in the pictures.  The green checkered landscapes, lined with volcanic rock walls and spotted with cows and hydrangeas.  Words can't even describe how beautiful this island is.  I'm hoping in the next few days I'll find a way to upload pictures, this way I won't have to find the words!  But driving along the coast was so amazing, the ocean stretches out on all sides forever, and I've never seen a place that is so green.  Roads are lined with old rock walls that are covered in hydrangea bushes, and the entire island is covered in endless hills.

We made a stop at a place called "Serra da Cume", which is pretty much a little mountain.  The top of the mountain has huge windmills for wind power, and the view from the top is breath taking.  We made several other stops to take in the beautiful views, as well as a stop to pet an adorable St. Bernard, and to take pictures with some cute cows!  This past week a bought a cow bead for my pandora bracelet, and it was definitely the most appropriate bead to remember the Azores by!

Right before we went back to the residencia, we stopped by a place called Quejo Vacinha, which sells fresh cheese made right there.  I had some "Ilha Terceira" cheese on a bolo levado, and it was deliciousss.

Besides that, the best way to describe today would be through pictures- which hopefully I'll get to soon!  Now, since it is Sunday, I am off to do some lesson planning and going to bed early :)