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Published: January 15th 2009
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The past few days have been among the craziest of my life. The Running of the Bulls is, by far, the most insane festival I've ever been to!
So, I sat with Dan en route to Pamplona and we drank sangria (as did the whole rest of the bus) and got pumped up for the festivities to begin. Dan and Paul actually got pretty wasted, Paul was a nice shade of green by the time we got there.
We arrived at the huge campsite/hostel, El Molino, around 9pm, and were exhausted and hungry. Dan and I were in the same room, along with a really nice girl named Miranda, who had been in my hostel room at the Andre Gil in Paris. We dropped off our stuff and went down to the "restaurant" to have an awful pizza. We decided to go to bed, but sleep was elusive because our room is right above the crazy bar, where the dj pumps loud techno for 3000 people all night long. So when our Guide came to wake us up at 7am the morning, we were none too impressed.
Dan, Miranda and I took showers in the communal bathroom (cold
and nasty), grabbed a bit of breakfast, and then met Paul and Belinda to grab the shuttle into Pamplona (sporting our white shirts and red bandanas, of course).
I kid you not, Pamplona during this festival has got to be the craziest place on Earth. We grabbed a spot just outside the main square where we wouldn't be totally annihilated by champagne, sangria, flour and various other flying objects. We bought 10 bottles of champagne ourselves and alternated between drinking it and spraying it in the air. For the first two hours of this utter insanity, I wasn't entirely enjoying myself because I couldn't get my stomach to accept champagne so early in the morning. Also, I felt like it was all just a big tourist party, because there were drunken Aussies all around me, totally hammered and insane and not enough actual Spaniards (although the ones that I did see were smokin' hot).
Finally, the Opening Ceremony began at noon and I saw the real fiesta. Dan let me sit on his shouldes for a while so I had an awesome view of the mass of white and red and streamers and bottles and corks flying through
Dead Man's Corner
Look closely ... David is the scared guy right beside the bull! the air as a band played and horns blew. Even on the outskirts of the main square, we got drenched with sangria and champagne, and it was kinda sexy to think of everyone being so dirty, but tasty. People were up on their balconies having parties of their own as they looked down at the people. At that point, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
At about 1pm, the square cleared and we could see the broken glass and garbage everywhere and huge trucks came in to clean it all up. We walked around town a bit, had to use the most horrible port-a-potty ever, stopped at a food court for more sangria, and then caught the bus back to El Molino at 4pm, which we officially dubbed El Diablo (where they make you lie on bare mattresses with no pillows, serve awful food, chinese-water-torture you with blasting music until 5am and then kick you out of bed and force you to function normally).
Belinda and I had a swim in the huge swimming pool to get all of the crap off us. We then decided to walk into the nearby village, Mendigorria, for dinner. We were joined by Jay (a Sri Lankan Aussie), and his friends Buffy and Dominic (both from London), and a few others. All in all, there was 10 of us and we ate outside at a big table with a great view. It was nice to be in a quiet, local restaurant, away from the craziness of Pamplona and the campsite.
I chatted with Dominic for much of the dinner. He's really tiny, has an awful lisp and barely even a proper London accent, but the London factor intrigued me nonetheless. He seemed pretty cool, and when we got back to the El Diablo bar, he and I chatted most of the time. I thought he might be gay, but when he walked me to the door of my dorm room, he planted a big kiss on me. So I decided to spend a little more time with him at the bar, rather than go to sleep, and we had a great time. I decided he'd be a perfectly suitable Pamplona boyfriend.
The next morning, Dominic met us to go to the first bull-run, which takes place at 8am. We found a pretty decent place to watch the run; we were behind a fence, but we could kinda see through it. The whole thing went so fast that I didn't even get a photo, but it was awesome that we actually got to see the bulls! The scariest part of the whole thing, I thought, was all the garbage and broken glass on the grounds. People were diving over and under the fence to get away from the bulls, and I'd be more scared to fall in that cesspit of debris than I would be of the approaching bulls!
When the run ended, we went to the Arena where the run culmintes, then walked around Pamplona a bit and caught the bus back. Everyone went for a nap, but Dominic and I had some breakfast and chatted outside on the lawn.
While there, he got a text message from his friend in London that said: "There are bombs exploding all over London! This is so scary!" We didn't know what was going on, so we found a TV in the bar (which was empty, for a change) and discovered that the tube and a few buses had been bombed. My heart broke for my beautiful, beloved London under attack! It was especially painful because just the day before London had won the 2012 Olympic bid, and now it had to cancel all the celebrations.
At first, we were the only ones watching the TV, but within about a half hour, we could hear whispers and murmurs and phones ringing and the bar eventually filled up with people who have friends in London, or who live in London, and who couldn't believe that they were in the middle of this huge party while a terrorist attack was taking place. People sobered up really fast and the mood changed, if only for a few hours.
Dominic and I considered leaving El Diablo that day, but decided to stay until the next day as planned. We went for short naps, then caught the 3pm bus back into Pamplona. The smell of that city during this festival is enough to make a person want to puke! It was during this excursion that Dominic went from being my boyfriend to being my ex-boyfriend (and possibly turned me off London boys for good). He was so whiny and annoying and talked to no one, and no one talked to him, and he was such a nuissance to one and all that I felt bad for bringing him along. It was kind of an annoying trip in general because we'd all had the souls sucked out of us at El Diablo and couldn't find a restaurant where we wanted to eat, or an Internet cafe. We finally stopped at an outdoor cage and had an okay meal while being harrassed by two guys wanting to sell us watches. We caught the bus back to El Diablo at 7pm and spent a few hours at the bar, figuring we might as well dance rather than try to sleep.
The next morning, Dan and Miranda (now basically an old married couple) and I grabbed the shuttle into Pamplona, had a croissant and an oj, and got the hell out!
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