I hiked up to an overlook of Barcelona. On my way up I was interested in this homeless couple who had set up a permanent bed (mattress and all) in the shadows of the staircase.
Thursday 7/7 – Sunday 7/10
I began my four-day weekend with my overnight bus ride to Barcelona. It was decently comfortable in all respects but the legroom, and I managed to get a couple hours of sleep. When I arrived around 10 I had to check the Internet café in the bus station to see if my friend in Brussels had given me any updates on his plans for the weekend and whether I could stay with him or he would be leaving. He still didn’t know, so I was still flying by faith.
I grabbed a map of Barcelona, mapped out a route for the more atypical sights that I figured our group would not bother going to see the next weekend (so I wouldn’t be revisiting a bunch of the city when I returned to Barcelona with my friends), and spent the morning walking through various monuments and museums. I had the feeling that there was a beautiful monument worth a snapshot on every corner. Even when there weren’t monuments around, the huge buildings had such fascinating old-fashioned architecture and incredibly majestic designs that you could never get tired of looking at them. I did ton of walking today and feel like I was able to pack a lot into the 8 hours I had to kill between my bus arrival and my flight to Brussels. Again, I will let my pictures and captions do most of the talking.
even the bus station looks cool.
the massive Arc de Triomf
I admired the sweet light fixtures that flanked the whole walkway down to the arc along with the palm trees
This giant thing was in the middle of this park. There were cool winged lions spewing water, a nice waterfall within the flowers and a sculpture of golden horses on the top!
Government building
Chocolate sculpture!
The arc in chocolate!
More chocolate!
St. Mary's Basilica
This isn't even the famous church in Barcelona
Outside the Cathedral where I ate my Kebap lunch and imagined how a dirty thief might want to sneak up behind me and steal my backpack while I eat.
Sweet monument in the middle of a roundabout
Poble Espanyol was this place I went into where there were shops, artisans, and restaurants from all the regions of Spain. The bus driver I caught a ride up the hill with really recommended it along with some website. I like some old-fashioned stuff, but frankly this place was pretty boring. It might be nicer if I was a 60-year-old lady. I still tried my best to appreciate it though and went to every shop. There were some interesting places, but it wasn't really up my alley. Luckily the ticket, like many others, was discounted because I was a student.
two more columns and I would be at Mizzou! Sadly the place called Magic Fountain I'm in front of was not turned on. It woulda been so cool!
I climbed up a ton of stairs to the entrance of this national Catalan art museum. I didn't go in. Instead I flipped through some souvenir book with pictures of all the art at a gift stand. I think I got the gist. The grand staircases and view was well worth it.
I walked by this huge "Harley Days" festival.
Plaza de Espanya. Their bullring is on the left.
Barcelona was certainly a wonderful city with a lot of character. I feel like most cities in the U.S. are so blah compared to all the cities in Europe (Spain specifically). I suppose they do have several hundred years head start. Nowadays it seems the craftsmanship and artistry of urban architecture has devolved into plain modern buildings that use unique designs as a façade to cover their lack of detail and cheap-as-possible construction. To clarify, I mostly observed the “casco antiguo” (old neighborhood) of Barcelona where all the great buildings and monuments are concentrated, so it definitely wasn’t a representative sample of the whole city.
Around 6:00 I caught the express bus from the beautiful Plaza Espanya to the airport to ensure I had plenty of time to catch my flight at 8:25. I got to Brussels just in time to help my friend celebrate her birthday that night. I spent the last 3 days of the weekend hanging with my Mizzou friends, sharing stories of our adventures abroad, meeting more friends in the Mizzou program, visiting the beautiful sights in the capital city of Belgium, and chowing down on all the waffles and chocolate I could handle.
Some town square
Grand Palace?
definitely a waffle
At least that’s how I wished the weekend could’ve turned out. Instead I realized 2 minutes in to my bus ride that I was on the bus to the wrong airport. Not only that, but my airport (Reus) was an hour outside of Barcelona and the airport I was speeding towards (El Prat) was outside Barcelona in the other direction. Both had been under the title of Barcelona on my airline’s website and I got that sickening panicky feeling in my stomach as I frantically scrambled to think up ways to get out of my pickle. The lady next to me was very sweet and gave me some advice on what to do. She even asked the bus driver who said I could not make it to my airport in time. The next thing I tried was asking a taxi how much the fare to Reus would be; 150 Euros made that a no-go. I am pretty sure if I had either taken the regular non-express bus that I could’ve gotten off right when I realized I was wrong or just had 15 more minutes I could have taken the buses all the way to Reus in time, but such is life. When I had resigned myself to the fact that I would not catch my flight I talked to the RyanAir ticket office and they told me I could book another flight to Brussels or pay a 100 Euro missed flight fee to be put on the next flight at 10:15. Neither of those sounded very appealing. I checked the fares on other airlines and my luck was no better. By then I was seriously considering scrapping the whole trip so as I was online at some Internet café checking online fares I was talking to my friend who was the birthday girl in Brussels. She told me the guy I was staying with did decide to go out of town and admitted there would not be enough sights to see in Brussels to fill up three days if I was just going to be there by myself. That was the nail in the coffin that made my decision to cut my losses and head back to Alicante.
I was not in a good mood to say the least as I drug myself on the bus to head back into Barcelona. I felt defeated and my spirit was broken in a sense. I was over taking chances, I was over being independent, I was done going out of my way to see people, and I was definitely done traveling alone.
Luckily the return time on my bus ticket was open, but when I went to authorize it at the ticket office I saw that the next bus didn’t leave for Alicante until 7 am. It was 10:30 pm. I felt like a homeless bum as I sought out a dormant massage chair to curl up in and try to find a couple hours of sleep. To my dismay I woke up to police patrolling through the bus station with a police dog kicking everyone out. I then joined a handful of people as we meandered outside and took up spots on the concrete benches near the platforms. I really felt like a bum then as I laid down and got as comfortable as I could on a concrete bench and tried to sleep some more. Twice during the night I woke up in a panic. The first time I patted my chest and felt my heart sink as I realized my grandpa’s travel pouch with my wallet and passport was not there underneath my shirt. After several seconds I realized it had merely swung around to my back. Then I woke up searching in a frantic haze for my backpack, which I soon realized I had been using as a pillow. I think I was so on edge because of all the horror stories I had heard about Barcelona being the pick pocketing capital of the world. I had been paranoid the whole day, and trying to sleep out in the open around all these shady characters was not helping matters. The whole night was really a surreal experience. It was like I was caught in limbo between being asleep and awake and I never really knew what to do with myself. On the bus ride back I was finally able to get a bit of cramped, but peaceful sleep.
Friday
I was very relieved to get back to Alicante to my own room and my provided meals even though I felt like I had wasted the weekend. Thankfully Quinten and his suitemate Ryan were also in the dorm that weekend (the only two of 43 who had not left to travel). For some reason, as glad as I was to be home, when back at my room I had the urge to start looking up bus tickets to Pamplona where the running of bulls was going on. Quinten, Allan and I had contemplated taking a trip to Madrid and Pamplona this weekend before we decided to go our separate ways. To my surprise tickets there and back were only 67 Euros and left in 3 hours. I posed this impromptu adventure to Quinten and Ryan who quickly agreed and within an hour we were off to Pamplona. This time it was a 10-hour bus ride in a smaller bus with zero legroom, but it was still an overnighter. On the bus we did run into my two Deltasig friends from Wash U., so that was a crazy coincidence. They just happened to be going to Pamplona for the day on their way out of Spain and we decided to join forces.
Saturday
We got to Pamplona at 5:30 am and immediately witnessed the chaos that engulfed the city during the 9-day running-of-the-bulls festival they call “San Fermín.” Side note: it’s actually only English speakers who call it running-of-the-bulls. This makes sense that the Spanish don’t use this term because they call a standard bullfight “corrida de los toros” or “bull run” (which definitely confused me when I went to a bull fight). For the 9-day festival the cities population explodes to 5 times it’s normal 200,000, the streets are full of people 24/7, alcohol is cleared off the shelves as people drink continuously all day, garbage crews work overtime in vain to clear the litter of broken glass and beer cans and mitigate the stench of puke and urine, and the city receives the spotlight of the world.
We went up through the packed bus station where there were 20X the amount of sleeping people in Barcelona and came out from underground to see a huge grassy field covered with litter and smattered with sleeping (passed out?) bodies. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced with the unrelenting mass of people and the wild nonstop partying and the climax of cheating death each morning as you run through the blocked-off narrow cobblestone streets with a pack of bulls. Since there were people everywhere going every direction, we had a tough time making our way through the crowd and even determining where the running of the bulls (which they called the “encierra”) was going to take place. Along our way we found one of the many people selling the red San Fermín bandanas and sashes and used those to accessorize our uniform of white and feel like legit San Ferminers. Eventually we found a place for Kathyrn, Caitlyn, and Ryan to watch the encierra (and hold our backpacks) as Quinten and I slipped through the opening in the fence and in to the alley where the bulls would soon run. Even though anyone could run who wanted to I felt honored and “special” to be in front of the crowd down in the alley with all the other crazies.
The packed bus station.
The packed streets
The packed grassy field
more people and trash. Fascinating! These people who stay for multiple days really do live in complete squalor. They get their white clothes brown from the bullring dirt and red from the wine they quirt on their faces, sleep (or pass out) outside in the trash, and wake up in their same clothes to do it all again.
If I had to guess I would say the bull run from the pen to the plaza de toros (bullring) was only .75-1.0 miles long. We weren’t at the very front, but we definitely had the majority of the run ahead of us including the sharp Dead Man’s Curve (you need to hug the insides of the turns because the bulls have a tendency to slip when turning and pile up on the outside wall) and the most dangerous entrance to the plaza de toros where the street becomes a funnel. I was getting more anxious as we waited for the start. Police officers were moving through the runners kicking out people with backpacks and cameras. I was really worried they were going to make me leave for wearing my Chacos and not close-toed shoes. I quickly found it was a dumb decision to only bring those shoes not because I couldn’t run in them (I could run great), but because of all the glass on the streets. Luckily this never came back to bite me.
My feet after the encierra and playing with the bulls. When I was standing on the fence looking for my friends two girls actually took a picture with my FEET! Then they offered me a band-aid for my toenail whil the guy they were with tried to pull it off (I slapped his hand, haha).
7:49 and we were talking to fellow rookies from DC to calm the nerves. 7:50 they got thrown out for taking a picture and revealing their camera. 7:58 and the tension was peaking. I jumped around and stretched in anticipation. 8:00 and the rocket exploded to signal the start of the encierra. Some people waited to see the bulls, but Quinten and I started weaving our way through the runners along with several others. At first we were jogging along (I preferred to watch my footing on the recently cleaned slick rocks and ensure that I didn’t create a pileup with the other runners). Then I looked back to see the crowd behind us starting to surge, and my pulse quickened. I shouted to Quinten, “They’re going faster!” He thought I meant the bulls were coming faster so he took off sprinting and we got separated. As the people around me thickened I kept my eyes on the bulls gaining ground on me. I weaved faster and kept my arms up to guard myself against the other runners. All of the sudden I could tell the bulls were behind me and I quickly stepped over to the wall of the alley and watched as 10 or so bulls blazed past with hoof beats like thunder. I was amazed at how quickly they had caught us! Right after they past I started running again and soon made it to the plaza de toros. I quickly ran through the entrance into the ring because there were still two bulls who were separated and running behind me. I joined all the other triumphant runners jumping around with enthusiastic cheers and celebrations.
The pen where the bulls started.
Pretty soon, they started the next less-known phase of the running-of-the-bulls. They let out the first of 5 adolescent bulls with padding on their horns into the ring to play with the runners. When I had read about this I imagined the bulls would jump around and we would get to pet them and play with them like oversized dogs. This was definitely NOT the case! The bulls burst out of their gate into the ring where they charged at the more gutsy people in the crowd who would run at them and try to sneak behind them to slap their rump or even more boldly grab their horns. The whole aim was to antagonize the bull and you got extra balls points if you could touch it. Some people were nuts. During playtime with the very first bull this streaker appeared out of the crowd (prolly totally wasted) and promptly got caught somewhere in his bare groin region flipped by the bulls horns and then trampled a bit. There were also people in Superman costumes, funky wigs, and with cameras on their helmets. Lots of people got taken down by the bull, driven into the ground, and flipped around. Each time someone got smoked or was making the bull particularly frustrated by holding on to its horns or whatnot the crowd that packed the stand would ooh and ahh like it was Sesame Street on Ice. Only one got seriously hurt to my knowledge and his unconscious body was quickly dragged away from danger. There was kinda a weird sense of camaraderie, because each time the bull caught someone too close and started going to town on him the crowd would rush in to distract the bull and get the guy out of trouble. It was really a spectacle. Some of those people were nuts! It prolly didn’t help that a good portion must have been drunk. Really though, if you wanted to play it safe it was very easy to stay on the opposite side of the large ring as the bull and avoid the bubble of space that ebbed and flowed as the bull ran around the ring. But this wasn’t nearly as fun.
I never put myself very close to harms way, but I did enjoy a good view from time to time as I shuffled around running backwards and forwards. Once I felt this hairy thing brush my shoulder and I looked around to see it was one of the adult bulls walking by me being corralled over to its gate by a trainer. After each baby bull had had 10ish minutes of play they brought it’s coinciding big bull into the ring to accompany it to the gate. I found out sometimes the bells on these big bulls don’t really work and they end up sneaking up on you while you are watching the baby! During playtime with the last bull I finally had worked up the courage and developed a strategy to go in for my first bull slap. Basically, I waited until the bull was rushing away from me, got on the inside of the bubble and ran up to give it a nice love tap as it was busy pounding some other guy into the ground.
One of the craziest parts of this ridiculous event was when the baby bull entered the ring. I noticed everybody would huddle up behind the gate where it was about to come out. It wasn’t until the third bull that I realized people where crouching down in a group so that when the bull charged out of its pen into the ring it would jump over them. Unfortunately for these gutsy guys only one bull jumped that day and the rest just plowed through the huddled bunch.
Although this was prolly my favorite part of the morning I was not sad when they opened the gates and allowed all the runners to exit the ring. Quinten had not made it into the ring, so I eventually was able to meet up with all the others and we started to explore the town.
It's like a giant "Where's Waldo" with everyone in red and white!
Without San Fermín Pamplona would definitely just be a mediocre place to visit. It had the standard old-fashioned buildings and cute little streets, but the quaint effect was definitely diminished by the raucous partying in every street. After the encierra was over people were back in the bars and clubs by 8:50 am to continue the party. At one point we bought ingredients to make the traditional San Fermín drink of Coke and red wine and sipped on that during our picnic. It was ok. I enjoyed my purchases of unbelievably rich oozing chocolate-filled mini croissants, chocolate chip muffin, and chocolate-coated orange gummies much more. If you didn’t already discern this from my visit to the Chocolate Museum in Barcelona I love chocolate.
I'm eyeing my heavenly chocolate croissant from the hole-in-the-wall Beatriz cafe recommended by one of the Wash U. girls' friends who studied here.
By the time we left to catch our bus around 9 the streets were packed again, the street performers were out in full force, the concerts were starting, and everyone was getting ready for another night of raging.
Unfortunately I had to get ready for another night of bus riding. I spent all 4 nights of the 4-day weekend on a bus or in a bus station without a bed. This 10-hour bus ride back to Alicante was literally the most uncomfortable ride of my life. We got stuck in the last row which doesn’t recline so when the people in front of me reclined I physically could not fit my knees out in front of me. For the first time in my life I felt a little claustrophobic as I was trapped in the corner of that bus. When were finally delivered from that wretched bus and made our way back home to pass out in a real bed it seemed like we had been gone much longer than 36 hours.
San Fermín was worth every minute. I always thought it would be really cool to run with the bulls, but I never thought I would actually do it. It was a true once-in-a-lifetime experience that I will never forget.
Sunday
Today was quite the recuperation day. I slept late, did laundry, walked around town, and did who knows what else. In the end my weekend turned out to be a great success despite its abysmal start. My only regret is that I didn’t plan to go to Pamplona from the beginning. Tomorrow I finally start classes at the University. I’m looking forward to pumping some knowledge into this noggin, but mostly I’m excited to meet all the international students and start using my Spanish again.
A random parade of huge wooden royalty figures
This is the same field we saw in the morning... where did all the trash go?
There it is! We found you.
A nice view of the city outskirts
We ran into this cool competition of strongest-man type events. Here the guy had to yank this weight to the top of this tripod as many times as possible in a certain amount of time.
most intense tug-o-war I've ever seen. They also had log cutting races with two-person saws
dinner for the fam
a cool drawbridge entrance to the city.
I'm glad I finally got this monster post off my chest. I'm only backed up by 3 days now! This has kept me up way too late though, so you better have enjoyed it!
Hasta Luego,
Cóle
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