La Pamplonada - There was madness in any direction

San Fermin, Pamplona, Spain. Lots of people dressed in white with some red cloth here an there, several bulls galloping through the narrow alleys of a Spanish town and some drunk Australians getting killed by them. That was basicly my idea of this happening so supposively tipically spanish.

(the alley where the run takes place)

Since I'm neither a great supporter of activities connected to huge animals such as fighting with or running from bulls, nor do I have the intention to get killed at this age, nor do I need to run from a bull to ashure myself of my manhood, this happening was not really on first place on my wish list of things to do and see in Spain. Well, different people - different wish lists. "This is pure Spanish culture" I was told by a Spanish colleague. "Oh, thank you very much!", I thought - now I had to go...

(on the road to Pamplona)

Arriving there, all human beings were truly dressed in red and white, no matter if tourist or local. No false stereotype for that part. This went so far that arriving at a huge crowded plaza stuffed with a few thousand people maybe, it was impossible losing my friends: they wore green and yellow t-shirts. At one point this festivity doesn't differ from any other in Spain. You go on the street, talk to people and drink alcohol. The difference is that this rather small town is so crowded with peolpe that every appartment would have to be a hotel to host all the visitors during those days. The next mourning walking through town a quite fitting quote from a movie was gradually emerging from my mind: "There was madness in any direction"(Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas).

(madness)

It was some kind of a huge orgy of red, white and alcohol. On every bit of green people were sleeping. The people that were not sleeping were completely drunk. And the people that were neither sleeping nor drunk, were intenting to get there by drinking - what an incredible mess.

(no comment)

With this scenery in the city at 7:30 in the mouring, my friends wanted me to put myself into a narrow street to wait for some huge and aggressive bulls to arrive to spike my ass like a piece of meat on a barbecue stick. I did not quite agree with this idea.

(playing games with the police)

Finally we encoutered an open door to one of the houses in the alley thinking we might ask some gentle peolpe there to watch the bulls from one of the balconies. The old "lady" though was quite convincing on throwing us out again by yelling constantly like a machine gun in a very high and loud voice "Out! Out! Out! Out of the house!". At last I was nearly more afraid of the human dragon than of the bulls. But getting out we encountered hell. The police took and pushed us into a group of people that was being penned up at the wall by policemen. There we were: pressed to wall without the slightest space and right at the end of the group so that the bulls would kill us in first place when they would arrive. Ten minutes of pure inner panic until the policemen pushed our entire group slowly but not very gently out of the running lane and closing the gates behind us. Well, I survived that day but I did not see one single bull, not even a glimpse. What a disappointment!

(modern architecture in Pamplona)

Walking through the same alley ten minutes afterwards it was full of bars that had reopened and were showing the run on TV. My friend - one of those who had not had any prior concerns whatsoever about the run - was staring at the screen with opened mouth shaking his head not believing what he was watching and becoming slightly pale in the face. "Dangerous, man! Very dangerous! Very very dangerous! Very dangerous, man!" This moments was better than any bull I could ever see running in a street - I still get a rather huge grin thinking about this moment.

(after the run in the bull stadium)

In the end we decided that we wouldn't want to stay sober for another day only to try to run with the bulls the next day. So we joined the rest of the people to anticipate in typical Spanish cultural activities. Our Finish friend emphasized his disagreement with our intention with the following statement: "Yo quiero correr con torro, joder!" (I want to fucking run with bull!)

(bull stadium)