Pamplona y Gandia!

Thursday night, we ate dinner (mine and Bre’s favorite…a rice dish with meet and vegetables that is so delicious) with Marcos and Maria before meeting up with a bunch of people at ISA and taking a bus down to the charter bus station to leave for Pamplona. Our bus left at 10:50, and we easily took up about half of it. There were probably 25 or 30 of us that went, which was cool because it had originally started out with just the five of us. Maria packed us picnics for Friday, and she gave us extra snacks and drinks for the day. She’s so sweet. So the bus ride was terrible. We had a 45 minute rest stop in the middle of the night, which was annoying because anyone who had been trying to sleep definitely wasn’t after that. I didn’t get any sleep. Maybe like 30 minutes altogether. Also, the farther north we got, the colder it got. I ended up trying to sleep with my arms inside my tshirt. The traditional thing to wear to San Fermin is white with a red bandana around your neck and a red scarf around your waist. Most people wear white pants. Well, most of us girls opted for white shorts and tank tops and sundresses, while some of the guys bought white pants just for Pamplona. But, once we stepped off the bus at 5:20am, we wish we would’ve done the pants. It was freeeezing. Since I’ve been in Spain, I have not once worn pants or a sweatshirt or even a longsleeved shirt. It’s always hot, even late at night. But during the morning in Pamplona, it was probably 40 degrees. The other thing that we saw when we stepped off the bus was people. Tons of bundled up people passed out in the bus station. I guess all the hotels and hostels in Pamplona were full, so people were sleeping everywhere, and the bus station was about as warm as it was gonna get. So we made our way through all the people to get outside, and then started walking towards the bull running course to get a spot to watch the run. We passed a huge field that in the dark, we could see was coveredddd in trash from the parties the night before. When we finally found it, all the good spots along the sides were already taken (at 5:45 in the morning) so we all went and bought bandanas and some people bought sweatshirts too. The only people in our group that were gonna run were Allison and Jenny, and I guess it’s not actually allowed for girls to run, so they had to kind of hide when any cops were around. The course goes through the city and is about a half mile long. A fence lines the course that people sit on and behind to see the run. We stood around near the end of the run where there was a long line to get into the bull ring. The runners and the bulls will eventually end in the bull ring where the bulls will then be taken to pens. The bull ring is also where the bullfights occur later in the day. So eventually the line died down and we decided to see if we could get into the ring, and to our surprise, the ring wasn’t even very full yet. So we all sat down and I’m so glad we did. It was the perfect place to be. The ring did end up packed before the race began, so it was lucky we got spots. At 7am, most people were already drunk. It was crazy. So before the run started, they had a little show going on in the ring with music and stuff. So we just hung out, trying to stay warm and waiting for the sun to get above the ring. They had two big screens to show the run on. In the hour before, they showed all the bulls that would be running and their weights. They also showed footage from previous years. So when the run finally started, a horn blew to signal the first bull being released. The run only lasts a couple minutes, so it was intense in the ring once it started. We watched the run (watched someone get trampled, a couple other people gored) and it was so cool. Once the people and bulls broke through into the ring, everyone went crazy. They had some matadors to get the bulls through the doors, and once they were gone, people started rushing into the center of the ring. I thought it was done, but it wasn’t. After the run is done, one by one, they let the baby bulls (still huge animals) out into the ring to run at the idiot people in the middle. The babies would come out of the doors sprinting and just start goring people. Lol. I don’t really understand the point. But the crowd would go wild and then people would get thrown all over the place and the crowd would go “OH!” together and then cheer some more. But it was actually really sad to me. The people would just taunt the bulls to make them attack people and hit and grab at them as they ran by and it was sad. The bulls would get pissed obviously, but mostly they were just confused and scared and didn’t know what to do. I was always happy when someone would get a horn in the stomach. No one got seriously hurt; people would just end up on their backs and then scramble away. But sometimes the bulls would hit the same person repeatedly while they were on the ground. Some people ended up with bloody noses and there had to have been some concussions, but nothing too bad. The baby bulls’ horns are very sharp, so they covered the tips so the horns didn’t stab people. Once they were ready for the next bull, they would bring the enormous momma bull out and the baby would instantly run to its mom and get out of there. L That went on for probably an hour before they were done. But the ring was definitely the best place to be. Some of my friends got tickets to the bullfight, but there was no way I was about to watch that. I understand it’s tradition for Spain and all that, but in my eyes, there is nothing okay about that. I would probably end up vomiting and crying my eyes out if I watched that. So after the events in the ring were done, we started walking around the city. Literally everyone wears white and red, so it’s really cool to see. We found Jenny and Allison, and this is what happened to them during the race: so they started kind of near the end and they were mostly jogging at the beginning and they couldn’t see anything and then eventually people were telling them to run, so they did. They started running and they were looking forward, and some guys in front of them were jumping up to see if they could see the bulls and then their eyes got really big and they started sprinting, so Jenny and Allison did too. Then I guess Jenny was in front of Allison, and toward the end, the course kind of bottlenecks into the ring, so it was starting to back up and she looked back and could see a bull. So Jenny decided to dive out of the course between the planks of the fence. So Allison tried to do the same thing, but got elbowed by someone and fell and hit her face on the side of the fence. So she saw the bull coming at her and she was trying to scramble out of the course and she couldn’t get out fast enough and then a paramedic on the other side of the fence grabbed her and pulled her through the fence right before the bull would’ve trampled her. Oh. My. Gosh. I would’ve peed myself. So thankfully, the girls were fine, but they said no one could pay them enough to ever do that again. So, it ended up okay, but almost not. So after that, Jenny, Allison, Mallory, Bre, Caitlin and I walked around and the city is actually very pretty. Pamplona is in the mountains so there’s a lot of very pretty views through it. After wandering around for some hours, we met up with some of our other friends in the park to eat lunch and nap. So after resting for a while, we walked around some more. We got ice cream and souvenir shopped. In Spain, most of the guys will stare when a group of American girls walks past. But for the most part, they don’t say anything. At least in Valencia they usually don’t. But in Pamplona, oh my goodness. It was probably because almost everyone was drunk, but every group of guys we walked past would cat call and whistle at us and try to talk to us. We just ignored it, but after a while, it got pretty annoying. We walked around the bars and stuff, and clubs would just have people dancing outside. So we hung out at one club for a while, and all the guys just love American girls. But they were respectful, so that was good. A few times they started chanting “USA.” Haha. After we left there, we went to get dinner at a place called Hemingway Doner Kabobs and Pizza. Ernest Hemingway is very famous in that city. I don’t know a whole lot about it, but he visited Pamplona for San Fermin and then loved it so much he wrote a book about it which is why San Fermin is so famous now. So they have Heminway restaurants and statues and it’s pretty cool. So I didn’t know what a kabob was, but they were sandwich things (kind of like gyros) with beef and lettuce and dressing. And they were soooo good. I could eat those every day. After we ate, we went to another park where we met three Spanish guys. We chatted with them for a while until it was time to head back to the bus station to leave at 11pm to go back to Valencia. Overall, we had an awesome day. It was a ton of fun and we got to experience one of the great traditions of Spain. Really, how many can say they visited Pamplona for the running of the bulls? J

We got back into Valencia at 5am, and I slept a little better on the bus ride home. I think that I was just too exhausted to not sleep some. We took a taxi home from the bus station, and we were in bed by 5:30. Unfortunately, we only slept two hours before we had to get up to go meet our ISA group for an excursion to Lake Albufera and then to Gandia. Lake Albufera is a wildlife reserve in Valencia, and we rode in these really cool boats through the channels. The houses there are little single-room houses that are very cute and beachy. Paella is a very popular Spanish dish, and it actually started in Valencia at Albufera. We saw lots of rice plants and they showed us a painting on a building of people harvesting the rice and then cooking paella in a big pot outside by the lake. It was really cool.

After Albufera, we drove 45 minutes to Gandia. I knew we would be doing water sports, but for some reason (that isn’t really logical seeing as we’re on the Mediterranean) I assumed we would be doing these activities on some lake in Gandia. But no. Gandia is a very pretty coastal town on the Mediterranean just a little south of Valencia. Along the coast, it is actually pretty touristy with a lot of condos and hotels, but past that, where we were at, it’s just open beach. And the pretty part about Gandia is that there are mountains lining the beach, so it’s absolutely gorgeous. We had some free time to swim and eat and lay in the sun before we started our activities. We made four groups of 11 and we had teachers for all the sports that we would be doing. The first thing we did was windsurfing, then kayaking, then sailing, then surfing. We had about an hour at each station, and it was soooo much fun.

The windsurfing was very challenging, but it was great. I didn’t have too much trouble standing and getting the sail up to me, but then I didn’t know how to move. There wasn’t a ton of wind, but once I’d start moving, I didn’t know how to turn. We kept trying to ask our teacher how to turn but we never really found out. Lol. So I windsurfed down probably 50 feet, then tried flipping the sail to go back and I actually started moving the way I wanted. But then I lost the wind and couldn’t steer and just ended up swimming the boat back over. Haha. The crappy part was the when you’d fall, you’d get a mouth/nose full of salt water. My head was just throbbing from all the salt inside my face. The whole thing was kind of a mess because we were all so close together. We were three to a boat, and once the sail starts falling or you’re falling off, you really can’t control where it lands. So I was surfing towards these young girls and I kept yelling at them and they just stood there and watched me. So I abandoned ship and my sail fell and almost hit them. Then Caitlin was going and she was cruising toward this couple trying to windsurf and they weren’t paying any attention and she tries to get their attention but she couldn’t react fast enough in Spanish so she just starts yelling “Ay ay ay ay!” and they didn’t even turn and she nailed the girl in the back of the head. She just sailed right into her. Lol. It was terrible. We did not know what we were doing. But it was fun!!! Nice to try something new like that.

Then we went kayaking and everyone except Peter was in a double kayak. So I was with Bre and our teacher took us out a long ways from the beach. It was just beautiful looking at the mountains. I thought it would be boring because kayaking can only be fun for so long, but she kept playing games with us. Like at first she said for one person in every boat to sit on their knees and no one really knew what was going on or what the point was, but then she told us to stand up. Lol. So we’re standing and falling off and capsizing our kayaks and we were all just dying laughing. Then she tells us to stand and paddle, so I’m standing in the back of our kayak paddling Amazon/Italy style. Haha. Then we paddled some more and she told us to fight each other off our boats so we’re tipping each other’s boats and throwing our partners off and it was just a blast. And all the while, it was just so cool to be doing all of this in the Mediterranean Sea. In Spain. With the mountains and the beach and, ah. It’s beautiful. It still hits me kind of strangely at times that I’m in Spain. It still doesn’t seem real. So I’m swimming and the teacher girl says something to me about there being a lot of tiberones (sharks) in the water and I quick scrambled onto my kayak and she started laughing and I was like very funny. But twice after that, I swear I felt something touch my feet and it freaked me out. Lol. Then she had us race kayaks and of course Caitlin and Mallory won because Caitlin does rowing in college. Haha. But it was a lot of fun.  

After that, we went sailing with this hilarious Spanish guy. He was really cool and I asked him about the tiberones and he said the Mediterranean doesn’t have sharks because sharks like cold water and the Mediterranean is too warm for them. He said there are a ton of jellyfish though, but they’re his friends. Lol. We had to go on the catamaran in shifts so when we went, it was me, Mallory, Caitlin, and Bre and he has us control the small sail and eventually we were really good at it and he kept calling us his sailing team. Lol. So that was awesome too.

Our last station was surfing. I have never surfed before, but I’ve always wanted to and I was so excited to learn. Our teacher was around our age and he was soooo cute. We were all drooling over him. Lol. I asked him if he was from Gandia and he said no, he’s from Madrid but he’s in Gandia studying English for the summer. And he and his two brothers are teaching surfing. So he would hold the board for us while we got up and got our balance and then when a wave would come he would give us a push and we’d ride it in. We fell a lot, but eventually I got to the point where I was consistently riding the waves all the way in. It was so much fun! We just couldn’t believe we were surfing in Spain. It was awesome. So after that, we all changed out of our suits and got back on the bus to ride back to Valencia. It was an awesome, busy couple of days. Once we got back, we ate dinner and showered and went to the beach at midnight to watch fireworks.

Sunday we slept in (finally!) and worked on homework until lunch time. We ate with Marcos before leaving for the Plaza de la Reina to meet up with Allison, Jenny, and Mallory. When we got there, we got ice cream and started walking toward the bull arena to go to the museum and tour the stadium. But when we got there, the museum was closed. It is normally open on Sundays, but for some reason it wasn’t today. So we walked around some more and then Antonio, our intercambio friend, met up with us to show us around. We’d looked around the plaza plenty, but Antonio was able to tell us what all the buildings were and the history behind them. So that was cool. Plus it was good for us to hang out with a local and speak Spanish with him. He showed us the skinniest house in Valencia, and it took me a while before I actually saw it. The house is about five stories, and it is squashed between two apartment buildings so that you almost don’t even notice it. It’s only about four feet wide. Lol. Antonio said he thought the house opened up beyond what we could see..because who could actually live in a house that skinny? After we walked around a while more and Allison, Jenny, and Mallory went home, we decided to go grab a pop at an outdoor restaurant near the Cathedral. Antonio bought our drinks for us (he’s so nice) and then Bre went home and Antonio and I met up with Sarah and Gab to go to the Cathedral for mass. I don’t practice Catholicism or anything, but we were all going for the experience of a Spanish mass in that gorgeous church. So the church was beautiful and I was glad I went, but I didn’t really understand what was going on at all. Haha. After that, Sarah and I Bisied home together. I made it back about 10 minutes before dinner, finished my homework, and went to bed.

Today, I went to class then spent the afternoon at the beach with Caitlin. 

I really like Valencia, but living here has definitely made me realize how much I hate big cities. When I was applying to vet schools, I was wondering if maybe I’d like to live in a big city for a few years just to experience it. The idea of a big city kind of appealed to me after living in Vicksburg my whole life. Now, I am sure I never want to live in one. Valencia is definitely smaller and less crowded than Madrid, but it is still the third largest city in Spain. And I hate that aspect about it. I hate public transportation...the buses, the metro, the taxis, all the stupid crosswalks and cars and roundabouts. And I hate all the waiting that goes along with all of that. A lot of Valencia is very similar to a big city in the U.S., except with prettier buildings and more trees. At the three centros of the city, that’s where you get old beautiful buildings and the Spanish feel. So I really like that part of Valencia, as well as the Arts and Sciences, but to be honest, I would prefer to live in Toledo, which is much smaller. Of course, one of the reasons I picked Valencia was because of the beaches (which Toledo lacks), and those definitely are beautiful. So I guess it’s a tossup. Still, I’m having a great time here and this has all been such a great experience. But it has really made me appreciate even more the place I grew up. I really am a small-town girl. 

Coming to Spain by myself was something that was very scary for me. I was afraid of the language barrier, the different culture, of not knowing anyone, of being homesick, everything. But I’m here and I’m happy and I’m so glad I came. This trip has really taught me a lot about myself. It’s been great. 

That's all for now. Sorry this was so long! 

Besos!