Day 8: Sangaria Shower, A Bernie Down The Street and Beer Goggles

(sidenote: I decided to add a photo of the day so if you go back over my posts you can see a few pictures of my trip so far)

We awake mid morning to get ready for the opening Ceremonies. A Majority of the campers are all still a bit drunk from the night before. The attire required for the ceremonies is white pants, white shirt, red sash around the waist and a red scarf around the neck. Although its bad luck to wear the scarf around your neck before they commence the event begun, so we wear them around our wrists.

I was unaware of this required out fit. Aside the white shirt and scarf they gave me when I checked in, I don't have white pants and a sash. Also its tradition to spray sangria, champagne and flour at the ceremonies so the outfit you have is going to get pretty dirty. Considering the clothes I have in my bag (which is not many) are all the clothes I have to wear for a month, I choose the ultimatum to wear the handy speedo I bought in Madrid, and just buy pants when I get into Pamplona. What a surprise to you all this must be.....me in a speedo at an event involving thousands of people. I can't help that I'm comfortable with nudity...or at least partial nudity in this case.

I make one exit out of my tent and am immediately greeted with praise for my choice of wardrobe for the day. Let the flash photography begin.

Across from the bar, near the campsite, is a little grocery store stocked with the small town gas station essentials of food, snacks, toiletries and my favorite, of their inventory, 40's, boxes of sangria and 40's of red and white wine all for the wonderful price of 1.20 Euro (that comes out to about $2 American US.) This is the place where everyone gets their alcohol to take into the city. We load up, hop on the charter bus and into Pamplona. (about an hour bus ride)

We get the city and its blocks, upon blocks of white clothes and red sashes. This whole event, or tradition, has been going on since the medieval times.

We reach the meeting point for all the Fanatics. There are groups staying in hostels in San Sebastian, camping in Pamplona and hosteling in Pamplona. They all great me with more praise and photography. I jump into a store and buy some sangria, a "Running of the bulls sangria bladder", and a bottle of champagne.

Lynzy, Nicole and I find a bench so they can take a quick siesta while I stand and drink champagne in my speedo and people watch. (posing for the occasional photograph) A Crowd begins to gather as the ceremonies are about to begin. Theres a big stage with a concert. The announcer rats off something in Spanish, the crowd shouts some traditional chant or song, (then if I remember correctly a cannon my have fired) and the Running of the Bull begins. It is now a shower of sangria and champagne everywhere. The band starts playing and the dancing begins.

Lynzy, Nicole and I walk the streets, complete with drinks in hand. The celebration is amazing. Flowing sangria is everywhere, being consumed and worn by all. We walk the streets through the city of Pamplona. Theres not a corner we don't turn down that isn't filled with people. We get to a certain statue that has a certain significance to it. It's been a long standing tradition for people to climb this statue and dive off into the crowds below, not knowing if they'll catch you or not. A lot of the Aussies were partaking in this tradition. A few of them Fanatics and one in particular who did a back flip off the statue. The crowd didn't catch him and he ended up breaking his collar bone and splitting his head open.

We continue to explore the city when we come across a drum line marching down the street. We, especially me, begin to dance with them down the block. I immediately begin to Bernie my ass off. (for those who don't know what the Bernie is please see this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmVDmar9pkc) The crowd is getting a kick out of it. Just imagine, a drunk white American, Bernieing down the streets of Pamplona, Spain in a speedo....why wouldn't you take a picture!! And then of course I threw in a little "hand in my face" and some crip walk.

After dancing in the street, we stumble upon a break dance team performing in the streets for hundreds of people. Jumping, back flips, windmills and head stands. The crowds were going wild. They pulled five volunteers from the audience to line them up and do running, jump flying front flips over them. The performance ends and I'm all riled up and inspired by all the break dancing. Since I am not skilled in the art of break dancing in any way, I make due with a little trick I can do. A sitting hand stand. Thanks to my liquid strength I was able to go all the way threw with it and held it for a while......thats what she said.

We join all of our other sangria drenched camp mates to catch the buss back to San Sebastian. All the seats in the bus are covered in trash bags. We get back to the campsite and everyone hits the showers and a quick nap. Tomorrow morning we have to get up at 4:30 AM to run with the bulls. Pretty much all the campers stayed in the camp site. A big group of us hung out in the bar. A few Aussies, a couple of Brits, one Irish guy, the Fort Worth nurses, Lynzy, Nicole and I.

We're all teaching each other drinking games from where we all came from. I taught the game of "Bullshit", the Irish guy taught his version of "ring of fire" and the Aussies taught a fun chanting game called "Beer Goggles." I'm not going go into detail on how the game was played. but the fun part was, we all got to shout "FINGERS IN THE MIDDLE, FIDDLE WITH YOUR DIDDLE!" Pretty much the gist of it.

The group moves to the patio where we all chat bout our travels and where we come from. I make friends with a random group of French people camping else where on the grounds. They gave me all kinds of great advice for Paris and asking me questions about the U.S. the night nears an end and everyone heads to their tents for bed. Tomorrow I run with the bulls.