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Published: July 11th 2006
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hola from the san fermin festival in pamplona, spain! first of all, i need to let anyone reading this that my cell phone and 110 euros was stolen from me our first night here so i have no way of calling or texting anybody...bummer...also, i want to apologize for not getting more pics up and don´t know exactly when the other two posts actually went up on this site...it´s tuesday afternoon here at 1.30pm and i´m typing on an spanish keyboard and the characters are almost the same but the special characters all over the place so i´m just typing without any caps so bear with me...hahaha...i´m having fun but feeling quite bullish!!
i´m in an internet cafe again but this time there are many people here so i can´t upload my pics (they don´t offer any connections here, only computers, so i have been ´redirecting´the ethernet cable to my laptop to upload the pics from my computer to this site, then dropping the money off at the counter and saying thanks..) but today there are too many people here to steal the connection so i will have them up probably tomorrow...all i can say is the are pretty amazing
Nice lady who didn't know I was stealing internet service...
Yes, I paid her for it but she had no idea what I was paying for...I'm honest - but wiley... and i will get them up asap..it´s been a trip full of everthing i was hoping for. we got to the room later in the evening after the bus trip and found our hotel, the harp, met fiona, who was watching the door at the time, and she´s graem´s partner i guess. nice lady, set us up with a key and took us to our room. i´m not one to whine..hahaha...but we were not impressed by any stretch of the imagination...okay - we were pissed! the room, literally, was a large closet, two beds side by side and a sink. nothing to hang our clothes on, no warddrobe, no towels, no hot water, bathroom was nasty and had no shower curtain so there was water everywhere...and the final straw was the door to our room wouldn´t lock. unacceptable even by my own travel standards, not to mention paying 100 bucks a night each! marcus and i were trying not to let it dampen our spirits so we chilled and grabbed an hour or three of sleep because we had been up for 30 hours...we woke up after a fitful few hours and i decided, since i made these reservations in
My favorite plaza in Pamplona...
Gorgeous in daylight and more beautiful at night... the first place, that there was no way were staying in that room so we noticed a much nicer room one floor up and before you can say ole´we just moved our stuff up to the floor...we quickly learned that the whole pomplonaposse group is so disorganized they wouldn´t know if we took up the whole top floor probably...a lackluster operation at best...anyway, we got settled and took the first of many freezing cold showers - today, 4 days into the trip, is the first hot shower i´ve had, the rest have been like a commercial for the glacial water company - take your breath away freezing! happy that we had at least some room to upack and move around...we threw on our party gear and went out to see the town!
the first impression was fantastic...some of the largest crowds i´ve ever seen in my life...plaza after plaza, street after street, filled to the maximum capacity with people from all over the world and basically everyone is in a great mood...the spanish are a mild tempered people and can hold their liquor and beer and love to dance, but, i have to say to keep this blog honest
about the trip, they do not like americans here - at all. they are not violent, picking fights with us, but they generally don´t talk to us, the guys sneer and the girls will simply walk away even when we start a general conversation about weather, anything...almost no communication and several times we would simply be ignored all together...walking down the street we say hello or hola and are simply ignored...hahaha...we laughed about it for a few days but it has been enlightening because we can´t figure out if it´s the overall attitude towards american in general these days, or just the impression of america here in basque country...whatever, we´re still trying to be polite and have been having a blast doing what we came to do - learn about the culture and party and run with the bulls...
the city is beautiful and packed to the brim with party people 24 hours a day, the only time it gets even remotely quite is during the siesta in the afternoon for a few hours...many people, young kids mostly, have no room so they sleep in the streets on cardboard and huddle together in the plazas on whatever grass they
Cafe magician making sandwiches...
Note the leg of serrano ham...yummm!! can find and are generally happy regardless...it´s pretty amazing how they travel here...the spanish party hard, they play their music loud and are a warm and physical people, lots of hugs and kissing among their own people, but don´t see much accepting and generosity towards any other cultures basically...very interesting...anyway, we stayed up all night the first night and came in for our free breakfast at the harp and i had ham and tomatoes which was their incredibly delicious serrano ham, which is air dried like prusciutto, in a thick tomato sauce...not bad...went to sleep for a few hours and woke up with enough time to go on the running of the bulls tour with graem being our guide. we were not dissapointed with the tour and we had a good guide show us how not to get killed but it was no where near the true reality of the event itself. again we stayed up all night and basically did everything every guide book says not to do before running with the bulls in the morning!
at this moment, life is surreal and we are very very far away from home! finally!!
This is where the magic happens...
They just thinly slice off enough to make your mouth water! Delicious piggy!!
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Tek
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Hola
Wow Spain is just like S. Tampa, don't speak the language, ignored by Latinas and trying to get across Howard for a McDinton's drink or drown without getting run down... who woulda thunk it!!! I am truly jealous sounds like you guys are having the time of your lives!!!! FYI - Maybe if Bishop leaves the bullhorn at home the locals will be more receptive...