Let the festivities begin..

Today running of the bulls started in Pamplona. Every morning at 8am for the next 7 days, the bulls run through the streets of Pamplona to the bull ring and the people run with (away from) them. It airs live on TV every morning in Spain, and this morning while I ate my breakfast, I watched it with my host parents. A couple people were gored, one was trampled, and the rest did alright. Tonight, we ride an overnight bus to Pamplona for tomorrow's running and festivities. However, I will NOT be running. I'm good with watching. :) There are about 15 of us going, and we ride another overnight bus back to Valencia Friday night. Our bus gets back at 5:30am Saturday and we leave at 9am with our ISA group for Gandia. In Gandia, we will be doing water activities like kayaking, sailing, and windsurfing. Should be an awesome weekend. :)

Yesterday I went to the beach right after class. In Spain, it's completely acceptable to go topless at the beach. That was kind of awkward at first, and you definitely see a lot of nasty people. Some people will walk around with literally just a thong on. Strange. And the people raise their kids like that. There will be girls anywhere between 4 to12 years old walking around without tops on. I don't understand it. Yesterday next to me was what looked like a family (a girl in her late twenties, and a mom and dad in their sixties) and the mom and daughter both didn't have tops on and the dad had a Speedo on. How awkward and downright weird. But anyway, the water and weather were wonderful.

After spending a few hours there, I took the bus back to the university to meet Bre to go shopping at La Plaza Ayuntamiento. We walked through some shops before going into the mall. We think it was the mall, anyways. It was really strange. It was about seven stories, and we first walked in and were in a clothing store. We walked to the right into what looked like another section of the clothing store and we were all of a sudden in a bookstore. So we went upstairs and every floor was a different, but there weren't individual stores. So then we went to another part and it was the same thing. We ended up on a floor where a beach cover-up cost 200 Euro ($300) and then we got out of there. It was really strange. So we Bisied home and ate dinner. I had class again this morning and now I'm working on my powerpoint for my culture class on customs and traditions of Spain. That's all for now.

Besos!