tlueke

After thinking a while about my blog, I finally found an interesting topic. Initially I did not want to write about my last vacation (even though it was amazing) – nevertheless I will now give you just a small insight into one major event during my backpacking trip through Europe last summer. Indeed, it really is and was rather an EVENT than a recreational activity.

Anyway, let’s take a step back first. All of you are of course familiar with the American author, novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Ernest Hemingway. Especially those of you who went to high school in the US should be very familiar with him. Generally, when broaching the issue of the 1920’s, first you will read Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby followed by The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway.

Why am I telling you that? Well, the centre event of the book The Sun Also Rises is some fiesta in Pamplona, Spain. Before the main characters (American expatriates) all meet in at the fiesta in Pamplona they pilgrimage through Spain and France. This is where the correlation (maybe a not a too strong one) to my trip this summer sets in. I travelled around Spain, France and Italy with three American friends having in mind one main plan...to do 'the bull run' in Pamplona.



In short: It’s a week long festival (Sanfermines) and a 24 hr per day party. Even the official festival program includes activities covering 24 hrs a day. Each morning they release bulls through the streets (two sets of 5 I believe) and you run to save your life. The run starts at the one side of the city and ends on the other side in a bull fight area. We actually made it into the arena, where they then release 6 smaller and faster bulls one at a time into the ring. Then you see how long you can last.

During the festival, everyone in the entire city is wearing white cloth with a red handkerchief tied around the neck (even this looks spectacular). Marching bands are moving through the town at any time of the day, followed by hundreds of people singing and dancing.

At night, the town turns into an even bigger party. To me it seemed that every house in the old part of the city had a small bar at the lowest floor. You just walk in, have a drink and move on to the next house. Even in the early morning the streets are still filled with people. All this is accompanied by concerts, fireworks etc. What is also is fun is finding an adequate place to sleep. Hotels, hostels and apartments in Pamplona are overbooked years in advance, so we didn’t even bother trying to find one. We planed to stay for 48 hours so we thought that we might be able to find a spot in a park or on bench to lay down for a couple hours. Even this is turned about impossible, simply because Pamplona is way too crowed and we were not the only ones who had this idea. So basically, people are sleeping everywhere ( or, where ever they feel tried or exhausted ;-)). Just like in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, a great deal of drinking is of course part of the festival. …- still to come (drinks, audience, meeting people)

In a nutshell: It’s CRAZY and it’s a once in a life time experience. If you have something like a top 10 list with things to do in your life, make sure you put this on there. It’s amazing and something you won’t experience anywhere else. As I said, we stayed for 2 days. I strongly recommend not to stay any longer, because to me it seemed that this is the maximum of what is physically possible. ;-) Here you can find a video of the actual bull run, which has (in this case) taken place on July 10th, 2007 . This is the day when we participated. The video probably says more than a thousand words. Have fun...

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