The rest of Pamplona

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Pamplona day 2 y 3: "Just call me Ava"

We woke up at 5:30am after going to bed around 2:30am to head to the encierro/aka running of the actual bulls. We slowly got ready & made the first bus that leaves at 6:30am.
At the bus stop we ran into these American girls...we met them the night before & they had gone out the whole entire night and gotten back one hour before headed back out again. They looked awful & were still drunk ...making for the obnoxious & embarrassing Americans.
When we all got on the bus, I told Rachel and Jillian that we would follow this set of 8 women who were older & looked like they knew what they were doing. The loud obnoxious American girls asked us where they should get off and we said we were following other people. We get off the bus and follow these older women. I think they knew we were following them because they would stop randomly and we would stop about 8 feet away and pretend to chat until they began walking again.
They took us right to the end of the running where the bull pin is! There were TONS of people all very inebriated from the night before. We started walking to where we could see the bulls run after all the people. It was packed.
There are two rows of blockades from the bulls. The first row is where the police are, then the second is where all the spectators gather on this long road. There are people on the balconies, climbing the brick walls, and shoving their way to the front. After attempting to get past creepy, drunk men and maneuvering our way to the blockade, we come up 3 rows short. We are here now about an hour before the running begins. We decide to stay in this spot because it is the best we have gotten to. We end up meeting the people behind us..a girl (who speaks choppy english), and her two friends one girl and one guy. The guy was absolutely hammered and hilarious.
He loved that we were Americans and tried to speak English in his drunken state which was hilarious. He started to make fun of Rachel because she said "yeah" to something and he would just say "ya ya ya ya" in this Canadian-esque accent. It was funny. (all the ya's were in different pitches). We were glad that we met them and were able to talk to people as we waited for the running.
All of a sudden at 8am exactly, a gun shot went off and people started running with the bulls! We could barely see anything..except the heads of the people running or the feet of the people..sadly we did not see any actual bulls. The whole running lasts no more than 10 minutes and they do this every morning.
The people behind us left & we were waiting for people to move so we could see the streets where the bulls just went. This 6ft 5 guy walks up to us and starts talking about where we are from and when he finds out we are American he goes to me "here to see the torros" (bulls) I say yes while he starts yelling to everyone around "Move. Girl here from America to see the torros" He literally pushed his way to the first blockade so we could stand up on it and see everything. It was crazy all the people (especially since everyone is in white and red) as they line up the streets. The police made us get off the blockades so they could continue to clean...the guy asked us to come drink with his friends and him..which of course we declined. To decline these Spanish or simply European men you must just walk away because they keep yelling till you are out of sight. So interesting.
Now, at round 8:45am we are starving. We go to some breakfast to go place and get some food. JILlian wanted some hot chocolate that they were serving..well turns out it was not hot chocolate but literally just melted warm chocolate. Everyone was drinking this..so interesting...She didn't drink it because it is hard to drink just semi melted chocolate. In the meantime a guy came up to us and asked us if had rolling papers. We said no. He asked the guy next to us "do you smoke marijuana" and the guy said "yes" then he asked him "do you have rolling papers" and the guy just opened his fanny pack (yes his fanny pack) and handed him a bunch. This guy proceeded to roll a joint next to us.
Side note: Apparently in Spain you are allowed to grow 3 marijuana plants a year for personal use..my question is..how do they keep track of that?
Granted..as we talked about in class today (Monday the 11), by not spending all the time on drug busts..the police are able to focus more on serious crimes..which may explain some of the relaxed security.??

Anyways..back to Pamplona. After breakfast we went to buy bull fight tickets for that night. As we were headed to the ring..we just see people passed out everyone sleeping. The streets, the parques, the random patches of grass, etc. In the USA this would never be allowed to happen. What has been interesting thus far is how the city supports this & all ages of men and women from little kids to the elderly come and enjoy the festival in their white and red.
THE DAY continues on as we prepare for our first bull-fight.

We discover the 3.5euros liters of SANGria to take with us to the bullfight. When we arrive to the bullfight, our 30 euro tickets in the shade (sombra) got us the last row of the whole place and in a corner. the people must have known when we bought the tickets we were American and just gave us horrible tickets because we didn't really care.
So the bullfight-there were 6 bulls and 3 professional bullfighters (I have no idea what to call them). The whole fight started with a processional of people and the fighters in a sort of ceremony.
the fight: this is how it works...
The bull comes out and there are about 5 amateur bull fighters. They are the lowest level. They get the bull to move around and go through their like blanket things with colors on them. They were pathetic people who would continuously run behind the blockades built for them to get the bull away. After about 5 or 10 minutes of that, two men on horses would appear with long spears. Their goal was to stab the bull in the neck multiple times--yes, this meant the bull would start gushing blood and become weaker. Then two other men on foot would appear with yellow like swords that would go into the bull and stay there. So for the rest of the fight these yellow sword like things would be in the bulls. Then after the bull is hurt and worn down the professional bullfighter would appear with a sword and another colored blanket thingy to have the bull run through. If it wasn't going well, the amateurs would reappear to help move the bull away from the professional. THen eventually they would all surround the bull and wear it out. This happened 6 times. After the first one, I can easily see how people would find this inhumane against animals. I don't even like animals and at times I was pro-torros for hurting the people.
Well, after the first 4 we started talking to the people in front of us. They were two young guys from Ecuador. The one nearest me spoke very good English & is living in France now for a job and his brother had come to visit him for 2 months from Ecuador. Then their friend,a French guy, appeared. He spoke almost no english. The two from Ecuador were very helpful in explaining everything that was going on. Granted we told them we were from Ohio & my name is Ava. Rachel = chloe (which she couldn't even spell to the French guy) & Jillian=Bre (then Lucy). We took a couple pictures with them and they asked how they could get the pictures and we said via facebook...but of course you cant ever find us on facebook with fake names. Oh well.
After all of the fights people rushed the ring. So, we climbed down our tower, and jumped 3 walls to get in the middle of the ring. Yes, we have a wonderful picture :]
It was exciting until the workers kicked us all off the field. When we left everyone was even more intoxicated and everywhere. We went to dinner at like 11:30 where it began to storm, so once it started pouring we headed to the bus station to get back around 1am to the hotel.
We left the next day from Pamplona for a trip to certainly remember. It was an amazing time & we met so many people...so many not even mentioned..so if you want more details about our trip you will have to talk to me in person because it is just way too much to type. We have some of the best stories & it was great to stay in a hotel with HOT showers and more comfortable beds and of course air conditioning. We got to come back semi-relaxed and full of experiences that everyone in our group is jealous of. I would definitely go back and experience it all again.
Overall, I really cant grasp how nice everyone was. We spoke spanish very well when needed & got around great. I am impressed with how well we were able to travel by taking different trains at different stations to a taxi to all sorts of buses and making it i one piece without any flaws. I think this will be a great preparation for Barcelona this next weekend (even though they speak CAtalan- a dialect of Spanish- so we will probably be speaking english).
FINally, I have "backpacked" through Europe. haha. I took a backpack with me and lived out of that for the 2 days (in my awesome hotel room). Take my backpacking as you want, but it was legit .. of course until we saw legitimate backpackers in Spain.

Hasta que el proximo,

Em

PS--there is really too much information to be shared about this trip & Every day we live here all in a blog because so much occurs that is great. But don't worry I have a small notebook (thanks to my sis Leslie) with all of the random notes and happenings so I won't forget anything even if I am unable to type it all in a blog. I hope you're enjoying reading the updates!

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