Running with the bulls

Sanjoaninas Fest - running of bulls

Today we went down to the big city, Angra, for the children's version of running with the bulls. Angra has been having their big Sanjoaninas Festas and there are daily events to celebrate. They call it the running of the bulls for kids because it is young bulls out there running, so the kids who are brave enough can go out there and run with them and taunt them. It's all pretty mean in my opinion. I just don't get the whole bullfighting thing. At least here they don't actually kill the bull at the end of the bullfight. Anyway we made our way to the street and watched the bulls run up and down and the young boys out there with red umbrellas taunting them and pretending to be bull fighting legends. The streets are all decorated up beautifully for the festival, and this street was done up as well. At the bull run they had young boys working and handing out free ice cream to anyone that wanted it. I was rather amused that the ice cream boys all had to wear bright red T shirts as they paraded up and down the road giving away their ice cream bars. So at all times the poor kids are watching their backs trying to keep track of where the half dozen bulls that are loose in the street are. They have to be very aware so that the bull doesn't surprise them from behind. Once we'd had our fill of animal cruelty we wandered around the old streets of Angra taking note of the shops we might find useful later on, and restaurants we should try. We did a little sightseeing and picture taking and then decided on a small cafe place for lunch. The menu was totally in Portuguese and I didn't know what anything was aside from batatas (which are potatoes) and bifana (a grilled meat sandwich on a roll), so we ordered some of those, a soup that the waitress said was good, and then some kind of sausage thing to try. The potatoes were cooked with some sausage, peppercorns, garlic and onions and were pretty tasty, and the soup was also very good. The sausage stuff, well Colin had to ask if it was poop or food, so I can't really tell you how that tasted. I have to agree with Colin, it did look like poop and there was no way I was going to taste it. Shelby did and said "it tastes kind of like a stink bug smells." Mmmmmmmm, cut me some! LOL After lunch we hopped in the car and had Colin take a nap and then we drove around the last third of the island that we had not seen yet. We traveled the western side of the island, some very pretty sights and now we can say we've been around the entire island.