Running with the Bulls!! Buildup...
Hola amigos!!
Since my last post I've been to Spain and France, I love living so close to Europe!!
I went on a tour with my flatmate Brad with http://www.backpacker.co.uk/pamplona8day.htm and had an absolute blast! One again, met many Kiwi's, Australians and South Africans and we all drank way too much, but the memories are fantastic.....
Running with the Bulls is an old tradition held in Pamplona, San Fermin, Spain each year where bulls are let out at one end of the town and chased into the arena, with thousands of mostly guys running with them but ensuring they were out of the bulls way. Most of the guys on my coach did it and a couple of girls, but I was quite happy to watch.
We left London at 1.30pm on a Sunday arvo with what we thought would be a 20 hour coach ride to look forward too... or not as it turned out. Everyone was really friendly on the bus so we were all walking around it (well the best you can on a coach) meeting each other, finding out where everyone was from, figuring out who the clowns were going to be and who had the cold beers. Our tour leader was called Party Pete and that pretty much sums up how the whole 8 days was. 2 hours out of London, we came to Dover where we took the car ferry over to Calais, France. The bar on board was well apprciated for some cold ones before the rest of the trip! Off the boat into France we make our first stop at a service station. I had studied French in school and could still remember how to read a menu so this came in handy. It was then announced that our bus was having some technical difficulty and we would have to wait for a mechanic. About 2 hours later one finally shows up to inform us the coach is not road worth at all. So Party Pete puts in another call for another bus and tells us it will be with us somewhere between 2 and 10 hours - oh my god!!!! We eventually ran out of alcohol and as it was midnight at this point and there were a lot of drunk antipodeans running around a French car park, the tour had no choice but to put us up in hotels for the nite, much better than trying to sleep on a coach! And that was the most sleep we got for the rest of the trip. Our new coach finally arrived about 3pm the next day, we should've arrived in Pamplona at about midday so we were a tad late! We were still in good spirits and Party Pete made sure we were looked after so after driving through France most of the day, we finally made it to Spain and arrived at camp at 4.30am on Monday. I had slept a bit on the coach which was probably a good idea as we had to get up at 7.30am! It was Party Pete's job to wake us up in the morning and we were grumbled our way of bed to get breakfast and then hop on the coach again to take the 2 hour ride to San Sebastian beach. We were all over the coach at this time but at least it was only 2 hours!
San Sebastian reminded me on Bondi Beach in Sydney the way it curves around with cafes and apartments around the top of it, very pretty. And it turned out to be quite overcast which was a shame but we all enjoyed relaxing on the beach.
Back to camp that nite for our first nite with the rest of the tour. There was a total of 1600 of us staying at this campground and fortunately, all the tents were set up for us when we arrived so we just had to store our stuff there. There was a full on nite club as well, some of the best dance music I've heard in awhile! And a great ice-breaker to get to know everyone a bit better. We were bus number 5 and everyone knew our story of how our trip had instead taken 51 hours, so were sympathetic as thats a long time! But we all bonded really well which was great.
On Wed, we were taken into Pamplona itself for a tour of the town. We did a walking tour with a friendly spaniard now living in London called Luis and got our bearings of where the bulls would be running from and where too. It was nice once again just to relax under the sun with a few beers, the next day was going to be a full on one!! As the next day was going to be a massive party (and the Spanish can be sneaky) we had been advised not to take anything valuable with us, just some cash but no digital cameras, mobiles, etc etc. So I bought a disposable camera with 40 shots on it, brilliant idea! I've included some of them on here.
Thursday was the day of the Opening Ceremony, what a day!! We were woken up about 5.30am so that we could get into town in time to be in front of the town hall for the official opening at 10am. This involved buying bottles of bubbles for 3euro ($6NZ) which was meant to be used for spraying around but being the drinkers that we are, we were all drinking them as well! Everyone was dressed in white shirts and pants to stick with tradition and by the end of the day we were all pink from the sangria sprayed around as well, as you can see in the photos!! I tried dodging all the champange and sangria being sprayed around but after awhile, who cares!! So much fun! And the Spanish were great at the chants, I became very good at singing ole, ole, ole, ole, oleeeee, oleee (those of you know who know that one, will now have that stuck in your head!). There was also mustard, ketchup and shaving cream going around, we all stunk something riduculous after being in the sun all day, but at least we were together! After the official opening, we wandered up to a place called Muscle Bar which is this crazy concept Australians and Kiwi's have thought of. There's this big statue you can climb up, about 7 metres high and them make sure there's a crowd down below ready to catch you when you jump off like doing a bungee. Crazy. We were ad
vised not to do it and there was no way I was gona be anywhere near it! I watched from the back and my heart stopped for a few seconds when I saw a guy up there from our bus but he was fine after it. Stupid boy tho.
After this it was up to the White Horse pub which is a massive outdoor bar and was our meeting place for everone, brilliant! By this time we'd all had a few bottles of 3euro bubbles so were quite merry. Spent the rest of the day wandering around the town and I even had a snooze in a square on the grass, I think there were a few of us that needed a siesta by this time!
Here's a link to the photos I took on a disposable camera:
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2103974057
Running with the Bulls in the next one.....
Since my last post I've been to Spain and France, I love living so close to Europe!!
I went on a tour with my flatmate Brad with http://www.backpacker.co.uk/pamplona8day.htm and had an absolute blast! One again, met many Kiwi's, Australians and South Africans and we all drank way too much, but the memories are fantastic.....
Running with the Bulls is an old tradition held in Pamplona, San Fermin, Spain each year where bulls are let out at one end of the town and chased into the arena, with thousands of mostly guys running with them but ensuring they were out of the bulls way. Most of the guys on my coach did it and a couple of girls, but I was quite happy to watch.
We left London at 1.30pm on a Sunday arvo with what we thought would be a 20 hour coach ride to look forward too... or not as it turned out. Everyone was really friendly on the bus so we were all walking around it (well the best you can on a coach) meeting each other, finding out where everyone was from, figuring out who the clowns were going to be and who had the cold beers. Our tour leader was called Party Pete and that pretty much sums up how the whole 8 days was. 2 hours out of London, we came to Dover where we took the car ferry over to Calais, France. The bar on board was well apprciated for some cold ones before the rest of the trip! Off the boat into France we make our first stop at a service station. I had studied French in school and could still remember how to read a menu so this came in handy. It was then announced that our bus was having some technical difficulty and we would have to wait for a mechanic. About 2 hours later one finally shows up to inform us the coach is not road worth at all. So Party Pete puts in another call for another bus and tells us it will be with us somewhere between 2 and 10 hours - oh my god!!!! We eventually ran out of alcohol and as it was midnight at this point and there were a lot of drunk antipodeans running around a French car park, the tour had no choice but to put us up in hotels for the nite, much better than trying to sleep on a coach! And that was the most sleep we got for the rest of the trip. Our new coach finally arrived about 3pm the next day, we should've arrived in Pamplona at about midday so we were a tad late! We were still in good spirits and Party Pete made sure we were looked after so after driving through France most of the day, we finally made it to Spain and arrived at camp at 4.30am on Monday. I had slept a bit on the coach which was probably a good idea as we had to get up at 7.30am! It was Party Pete's job to wake us up in the morning and we were grumbled our way of bed to get breakfast and then hop on the coach again to take the 2 hour ride to San Sebastian beach. We were all over the coach at this time but at least it was only 2 hours!
San Sebastian reminded me on Bondi Beach in Sydney the way it curves around with cafes and apartments around the top of it, very pretty. And it turned out to be quite overcast which was a shame but we all enjoyed relaxing on the beach.
Back to camp that nite for our first nite with the rest of the tour. There was a total of 1600 of us staying at this campground and fortunately, all the tents were set up for us when we arrived so we just had to store our stuff there. There was a full on nite club as well, some of the best dance music I've heard in awhile! And a great ice-breaker to get to know everyone a bit better. We were bus number 5 and everyone knew our story of how our trip had instead taken 51 hours, so were sympathetic as thats a long time! But we all bonded really well which was great.
On Wed, we were taken into Pamplona itself for a tour of the town. We did a walking tour with a friendly spaniard now living in London called Luis and got our bearings of where the bulls would be running from and where too. It was nice once again just to relax under the sun with a few beers, the next day was going to be a full on one!! As the next day was going to be a massive party (and the Spanish can be sneaky) we had been advised not to take anything valuable with us, just some cash but no digital cameras, mobiles, etc etc. So I bought a disposable camera with 40 shots on it, brilliant idea! I've included some of them on here.
Thursday was the day of the Opening Ceremony, what a day!! We were woken up about 5.30am so that we could get into town in time to be in front of the town hall for the official opening at 10am. This involved buying bottles of bubbles for 3euro ($6NZ) which was meant to be used for spraying around but being the drinkers that we are, we were all drinking them as well! Everyone was dressed in white shirts and pants to stick with tradition and by the end of the day we were all pink from the sangria sprayed around as well, as you can see in the photos!! I tried dodging all the champange and sangria being sprayed around but after awhile, who cares!! So much fun! And the Spanish were great at the chants, I became very good at singing ole, ole, ole, ole, oleeeee, oleee (those of you know who know that one, will now have that stuck in your head!). There was also mustard, ketchup and shaving cream going around, we all stunk something riduculous after being in the sun all day, but at least we were together! After the official opening, we wandered up to a place called Muscle Bar which is this crazy concept Australians and Kiwi's have thought of. There's this big statue you can climb up, about 7 metres high and them make sure there's a crowd down below ready to catch you when you jump off like doing a bungee. Crazy. We were ad
vised not to do it and there was no way I was gona be anywhere near it! I watched from the back and my heart stopped for a few seconds when I saw a guy up there from our bus but he was fine after it. Stupid boy tho.After this it was up to the White Horse pub which is a massive outdoor bar and was our meeting place for everone, brilliant! By this time we'd all had a few bottles of 3euro bubbles so were quite merry. Spent the rest of the day wandering around the town and I even had a snooze in a square on the grass, I think there were a few of us that needed a siesta by this time!
Here's a link to the photos I took on a disposable camera:
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2103974057
Running with the Bulls in the next one.....
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