Blogs from Navarre, Spain, Europe - page 24

My first day in Spain was a rather interesting and surreal experience, perhaps because I was deliriously exhausted from lack of sleep. The trip started well on the flight over. My seat-mate was a man from the Canary Islands named Michael, who spoke very little English. Combined with my lack of Spanish (though to my surprise I remembered quite a lot of helpful words - thanks Nina for all those conversations you had on the phone with your mom, lol) we turned out to have a very interesting conversation, full of many gesticulations to get our points across. It turned out he was a pediatrician visiting some friends in Miami and we talked about where he was from and about Spain. He gave me a heads up on how good the wine is here, which turns ... read more

SAN FERMIN - July 6th till July 10th 2008 Just what is the significance of the color red in the San Fermin Festival other than it being particularly attractive to the eyes of the bull? The truth is, there is clearly no explanation as to why majority of the revelers in the San Fermin festivities wear red clothing or have red fashion accessories worn around their bodies. When you do decide to travel and participate in the Feast of San Fermin, you can bring with you your favorite red colored shawl as a symbol of being one with the festive community. As we have earlier mentioned, red denotes the peak of emotions, one that is clearly evident in the many activities of the feast. Furthermore you will be doing justice to your shawl's overall versatility and ... read more

WOW!! What an adventure in Pamplona! A group of us (9 total) went to the encierro... AKA the running of the bulls. No amount of study, knowledge, understanding of the culture, etc. could have adequately prepared me for the experience. It was absolutely amazing... something I think that every person should see at some point in their life. We left Salamanca on Friday afternoon as soon as classes got out. It was an interesting adventure getting out of town, but eased by the use of a GPS system that one of the girls brought with her. We traveled for about 3.5 hours through the most beautiful countryside I´ve ever seen. It even beat the scenary in Colorado! It was so incredibly green! The mountains were amazing, and we curved in and around them most of the ... read more

Well, well, well. It was finally here. The run of a lifetime and the reason Dave's made the trek to Europe. 'The Greatest Bullfighter' (as he'd been calling himself) was quite nervous to say the least. But before the run was to take place, we went to the opening ceremony where we were drenched in Sangria, water, wine and whatever else people poured on you from the balconies or sprayed at you in the crowd. Hilarious but soooo packed. 30,000 people crammed in to these little streets and main square. It went off though as you'll see from the photos. Anyway, on to the run...Brendan (Zoe's brother) and Dave had plenty of little discussions about tactics for this run especially after watching the first run which ended up being the bloodiest run in 50 years. Apparently ... read more

this link should take you to the video of the run i did. http://esptv.sanfermin.com/index.php?id=838... read more