Sanfermines: The Biggest White Party in Spain

Clad in all white and a little buzzed, I made my way to the bus station feeling a little awkward. Yes, they could all guess where I was off to, but I still felt a little weird wearing white head to toe. It would all be worth it when I made it to Pamplona.

That’s right, I was off to Sanfermines, the Running of the Bulls, the festival made famous in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and the event that has inspired more debauchery across the world. Originally a festival, as I gather, to honor Saint Fermin, a martyr, the weeklong party has evolved into a multinational gathering of people (apparently one million people) who wear white only for it to become soaked in red wine, sangria and calimocho. There also happens to be a bunch of bulls running down the streets at 8 in the morning.

I meet Caitlyn, David and Hillary at the bus station and we start off on the two hour ride to Pamplona. Once at our destination, we start our long night with some food and, of course, a little bit of alcohol. We don our newly obtained red bandanas and sashes and head out into the streets.

The streets are packed with people. Have you ever gone to a costume party with a super sweet costume only to find out that somebody had the same idea as you? Well, imagine that you went to a party with 100,000 people and not just one, but the other 99,999 people decided to wear the same thing as you. Well, that was what this was like, except expected. It was incredible. The atmosphere of everyone, young and old, Spanish and guiris and everyone in between wearing the same outfit, celebrating in the streets with you, it was great.

Add to this the fact that we were greeted with a barrage of fireworks, I couldn’t ask for anything better. I missed the fireworks on the 4th, but four days later worked!

After the firework display we found our Italian friends: Giulia, Simone, Andrea, Margherita and her sister at a concert. The concert featured all the current hits. Excuse me, I mean all the current hits if it were 1987. We jammed out to “Ghostbusters” and “Highway to Hell” and “Smoke on the Water” in a crowd of happy drunk Spaniards.

At one point after the concert I got super sleepy and wanted to take a nap on the ground in the park. This was not a planned break. Take this as you will.

After this break, I was back up wandering the streets. It was probably around 4 or 5 am and things had started to die down. Surprising, as this was Spain and the party doesn’t usually quit until the sun (also) rises, but I guess people had been partying since the afternoon, the morning, or the day before even, and people were on different party schedules. The streets were still very busy though.

Well, all pretty tired, we found a place on some steps near the route of the run and settled in. I talked to some fellow Americans who were teaching in Spain for the summer and waited for the whole goal of the trip.

At around 7:30 am the crowd started moving, getting anxious. The brave men (and one very ballsy woman) started to make their way into the street to get bowled over by bulls. The people with the money and wherewithal of renting a balcony started to emerge from the buildings. You could feel the energy and tension mounting.

At 8 am I heard a firecracker. The bulls had been released. Less than a minute later the people started to run. The bravest stuck around a little longer. Soon we saw the bulls. Seconds later they had passed. Everything was a blur. I’m not too sure I saw all the bulls. All that remained was the aftermath. One guy had been trampled or horned a little before our stretched of road and the police and authorities rushed to him. Other than that, just as soon as it happened, the barriers were taken down and the crowd took to the streets again.

We said goodbye to the Italians as they caught their bus back to Santander and promptly passed out in the grass, awaiting another event of Sanfermines: Cabezudos y Gigantes, a parade of people dressed up with gigantic heads. Our information was wrong though, because after an hour of waiting we still didn’t see any giants parading down the streets. Dang.

More sleeping in the field and we decided to see if we could catch an earlier bus. Nope. Well, we hung out in the bus station a couple of hours and then caught our bus back to Bilbao, happy, tired, hungry, a little hungover and again, happy to have taken part in one of the biggest parties there is.

I look forward to coming back. Next time, I might just run. Not the whole course, but maybe like 20 meters before jumping into the safety of the barriers. Or at the very least renting a balcony. Also, hopefully staying for the fights and seeing the Cabezudos y Gigantes. But either way, I can check that off the bucket list.

One Month

This weekend marks a couple of landmarks for me.

1. It has been one year since I have been home in Wisconsin. The last time I was home it was for the Fourth of July weekend. This was the last time I saw any of my friends from home and one of three time I saw my family in the last 15 months. Don't worry though, Independence Day will be celebrated here in Spain too!

2. I now have a full month left in Spain. I have begun to realize that these weeks are passing much more rapidly than they have, but it hasn't really hit me that my time is coming to an end. Probably when I move out of Bilbao or board my plane in Barcelona it will actually sink in that my year abroad is finally over, but until then I guess I will just try to enjoy it all.

3. The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona is less than a week away. There were two events I have wanted to participate in while in Spain. One, the Tomatina, a large tomato fight in the streets of a tiny town in southern Spain, I will not make it to. I have been in Spain for almost a full year, but the three weeks that I will miss in August are when this fiesta falls. The second is the Running of the Bulls. Way back when I thought I would run in it too. Well, I have since wizened up and will be going just to party and soak in the culture. Looks like I will have to go out and buy some white clothes!

Late Nights in Spain

I had a few late nights last weekend.

Last week Friday I returned to Santander. It was Luca’s, a friend from near Rome, last few days in Santander and I wanted to say goodbye. So after work I caught a bus to Santander.

Luca was out to dinner with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend, so I met up with Giulia and Margherita first. Luca is usually the one to cook while Giu and Margherita are just there to look good, or something like that. Well, this time I was treated to a dinner made by the girls. Despite their being Italian, they are not like the Italian grandmother everyone wishes they had. Instead we had jarred pesto and pasta. We had some great homemade bruschetta though, so I will have to give them that one.

After dinner and some drinks we headed out for a night of dancing, drinking, and talking. Ten months into my stint in Spain and I am still not used to 6 am being the earliest you can go home, but I stuck it out.

Saturday we went to Somo Beach, the same one that I learned to surf at. Some of the group went surfing while the rest of us tried to relax on the beach. I say tried to relax because it was so windy out that sand kept on pelting us. It was difficult to look towards the direction the wind was coming and there was sand all up in our food.

Soon I had to meet up with my land lord so I said my goodbyes and bussed it back to Bilbao to move into my new apartment. My new apartment is… underwhelming. I like my room, it is decent sized and has a lot of space. Yet, it has a window that opens onto the balcony that we all share and my blind is hardly opaque. I feel like everybody can see me.

After moving into my new place I caught the metro to Erandio where a friend from class lives. The girls and I met David and had a drink before we headed to the fiesta Erandio was hosting up on the other side of the mountain. Apparently during the summer every pueblo has a fiesta. This one was kind of like a really small fair. It had cheap drinks, food, and like one carnival game. It also had live music and later, a DJ.

Since I am in Basque Country, this fiesta had a band playing traditional Euskara music. Euskara music is kind of like Celtic music. Everyone was dancing along to the music. It was quite incredible to see a really small town show off their pride of their culture. We tried to follow along in some of the dances, but apparently these people have been learning these dances since they were little, so they all knew what was going on.

I said I had a few late nights. Friday we stayed out until 6:30 the next morning. Saturday, we got to the fiesta at around midnight and the bus back wasn’t until 8:00 the next morning. I ended up getting home, exhausted, at around 9:00 a.m. I was so tired, but had to work on a paper I still have due for my Prehistoric Art class. Ah, well. Only five more weeks of living like this. It is going to be bittersweet.

Last Days in Norway (and a Little Bit of London) Pics

Last Days in Norway (and a Little Bit of London)

It’s getting to the end of Norway, the end of probably one of my most favorite trips in Europe. Sad! But we still have a little bit left!

Late into the morning of day 4 we woke up to the sun shining into our tent. I walked outside and was greeted with probably the best view I will ever have in a morning, Bearded Valley’s fjord, and the sound of a waterfall a few meters down the trail. We slowly packed up our things and started our trek back to the cars. Only 4 miles this time, nothing too extreme.

Once on the road we headed towards Odda, the small village that we had been frequenting for food. Odda is really quaint, sitting right on a beautiful fjord. The Norwegians said it was an ugly town. I hope they never visit Gary, Indiana or Detroit. If Odda is one of their ugly towns, I think I could live with that.

Well, we stopped for some Chinese food for lunch and then had some dessert at Langfoss. We said our goodbyes to Cecilie and Trygve and headed back to Kristine’s. Once back we showered and cleaned up because we were eating dinner at Kristine’s parents’. Let me tell you, a good home cooked meal after climbing mountains for the past three days is one of the best things you can experience. Her parents were delightful and the food was perfect. It was traditional and comforting, exactly what I wanted as it was actually raining. Did I mention we lucked out with no rain during the backpacking? Well, the food, like I said was traditional Norwegian. We ate these balls made out of potatoes that Kristine assured us we wouldn’t like (but did) and a bunch of meat. Top that off with some ice cream and I was in heaven.

After dinner we just relaxed at home and fell asleep early. The next day we woke up late, ate breakfast, saw a mini Statue of Liberty where the French got all the copper to make the statue and went to the airport for our flight to London.

Once at Stansted, Caitlyn and I headed into London while Hillary went to a friend’s house. We didn’t do too much in London honestly. We just studied for our last final, Foundations, over a pint outside and then had some delicious burgers at another pub. I fell asleep really early (9 maybe).

The next day I woke up really early. I felt like I should at least sightsee a little, since after all, this was only my second time in London, so I left Caitlyn to her studying and walked around to Big Ben, the Globe Theater, Saint Paul’s Cathedral and a few other notable sights. We then headed back to Stansted and caught our flight home to Santander.

Norway: Third Backpacking Day Pics

Norway: Third Backpacking Day

Day three could be described by numbers.

We hiked close to 20 miles for 14 hours.

We climbed over 600 vertical feet.

We followed the sky ladder for 200 meters

We ate 1 piece of bread for lunch.

We saw 0 lemmings.

There were 99 bottles of beer on the wall.

Day three could be described in numbers, but that wouldn’t tell nearly the whole story. No, it wouldn’t even begin to describe the awe I felt at the summit, the sweat that was dripping down my face 100 meters into the sky ladder, the hunger I felt at hour 13, the frustration I felt at mile 14. Numbers cannot even begin to capture the beauty I experienced at the edge of Trolltunga, the sense of accomplishment that filled me as I got into my sleeping bag at 3 in the morning, or the wonder that flowed through me as I looked down into the Bearded Valley.

That’s right, I was in Bearded Valley (Skjeggedal for those of you who understand Norwegian). That is where the story begins.

We wake up and start the 4 mile hike to the base of our ascent. This was probably the easiest 4 miles of the entire trip. It was actually a flat path! In Norway? No way! Way. So 4 miles in we drop off some of the weight from our packs. We had to decide between ascending with full packs and camping at the top, or getting rid of weight at the bottom and coming back down to sleep. Thankfully we dropped off most of our weight at the bottom. Climbing so much with full packs would have been extremely exhausting.

Then some of the fun part comes. We have to hike up along the dry river bed to reach the base of the Sky Ladder. This sounds easier than it turned out to be. First, there were no marked paths, so we were kind of just hopping from boulder to boulder, approximating our path by just heading toward where we thought our goal point was. Second, after the dry river bed there were the extremely high grade slopes that were covered in snow. While some of the girls thought the climb was scary, I was not looking forward to our climb down those slopes. That climb down could very easily turn into a short tumble down. By short, I mean many, many meters long tumble down the side of a mountain.

No paths and steep slopes aside, we made it to the base of where the actual climb began. Trygve gave us a short lesson on how to use the carabineers and harnesses to secure ourselves to the ladder and we were off. Let me tell you, this was one of the greatest experiences I have had in my life. I was climbing up a ladder bolted into a sheer cliff face hundreds of meters above the base of the mountain. The largest cave I have ever seen, easily over a hundred meters tall (probably inhabited by trolls), waterfalls pouring over the cliffs, and the fjord down below were easily the most beautiful natural views I will probably experience in Europe while harnessed into something… okay, or ever.

After a good hour or so of straight up I climbed over the last leg of the Sky Ladder and was greeted with triumphant and relieved faces, and of course, a view. But this isn’t where we were going to stop. Although the views from here were absolutely breathtaking, Trygve had another place in mind to blow us all away, so we started trekking off into the snow blanketed landscape.

A few kilometers later and I realized that we had reached our goal: Trolltunga (or Troll’s Toungue). Interesting name right? Well, if you imagined the mountain was a troll, you would think that it would have a pretty big tongue. Now, if the mountain/troll stuck out his tongue, it would be a giant stone jutting out over the fjord. That is exactly what this was. Imagine a Norwegian version of Pride Rock from The Lion King but taller and without the supporting rock. Well, I got to stand on the end of that. It was incredible. Absolutely incredible. Check out the pictures if you don’t believe me.

Again, we had a little photo shoot, some lunch of just one slice of bread and some bacon cheese and headed off back down the mountain. Again, we had to make a decision. Do we go back down the way we came or the longer route which is milder in its descent? It was getting late and we didn’t want to navigate the boulder hopping in the dark (nor did I want to deal with sliding off a cliff due to the steep snow covered slopes) so we headed down the longer way.

I cannot say with certitude if it was the best choice. At least an hour after we started our descent, we were still higher than when we had started. I realize Norway doesn’t really understand downhill, but this was getting ridiculous.

Several hours later (and admittedly, many more breathtaking views of glaciers in the distance or fjords down below) we started to make some progress downward. It was almost dark when we reached the steep downhill similar to that of Langfoss from before. To deal with our frustration of ours of hiking and seemingly no progress, we started to sing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and, incredibly, finished it just after reaching the road we were camping on.

We drove into Odda for some food to celebrate what we had just accomplished, but still had the 4 mile trek that we did in the morning to get back to our site. Trygve and Cecilie, the champs that they are, ran ahead again to set up camp so we could get to sleep as early as possible.

It was after 3 a.m. when we finally made it to camp, tents already set up and pads inflated. It felt so good to go to sleep after a day like that. I slept like a rock, not even a troll could have woken me.

Norway: Second Backpacking Day Pics

Norway: Second Backpacking Day

I though the first day of backpacking couldn’t be topped. Well, what was in store for me on day two was incredible.

After a filling breakfast of cinnamon oatmeal and a little bit of cleaning up, we were welcomed into the fresh, Norwegian mountain air by some welcome sun. The day before our views were somewhat obscured by fog, but not today. No! We had blue skies and it was warming up considerably. Good thing too, because our hike took us further up and there was snow everywhere. It was kind of funny seeing us in shorts and tee shirts hiking through the snow, up mountains and across snow fed rivers, but it was also incredibly gorgeous.

Every so often we would have to fill up our water bottles. If you have been backpacking before, you might know about these little things called iodine tablets. Iodine tablets are what make water potable when you are in the middle of nowhere and can’t boil it. Well, for those of you know what iodine tablets taste like (essentially you are drinking pool water), you will be very jealous to know that the water is so fresh in Norway that you don’t have to use these. Nope! We just filled our water up from streams. It was cold and fresh, the best I have probably ever had.

Well, after a few hours of trekking through some of the most indescribably beautiful scenery we made it to our second cabin. This cabin was the cabin a famous Norwegian actor would build. It was huge! Room for thirty people to sleep, a gigantic kitchen, leather couches, fire places, a drying room, a dining room with several long tables for family style dinners. Seriously, nice. Well, we weren’t staying here, but we did enjoy some bacon cheese from a tube on bread and cookies in the company of some other Norwegians and their dogs before heading to our day’s goal, Langfoss, or Long Falls for all of you who can’t read Norwegian.

It was sometime between the morning and our hike to the falls that I realized, there are mountains stacked on these mountains. Day one was full of uphill hiking and I thought we reached the peak. Day two was more uphill hiking. What? Where did that mountain on top of the mountain I just hiked up come from? Did I mention that Trygve said that we would be going downhill after lunch. This is when the second realization of the trip hit me, the downhill is Norwegian for more uphill, and then some downhill, but mainly uphill. Tricky bastards.

Well, the Norwegian downhill was well worth it. After many hours of tough hiking, we finally made it to the top of Langfoss. Let me tell you, it was the best view of the trip by far, and probably my life. I was looking down upon a sun-filled fjord nestled between two mountain ridges. Waterfalls and streams poured down the sides of the mountains. It was perfect. Picturesque is too weak of a word to describe it.

A photoshoot later we headed down along the side of the falls. I thought downhill (the real kind) was supposed to be easy, but this was one of the hardest parts of the day. We had to descend 600 meters of essentially near vertical terrain. I was trying my best not to fall or slip on the rocks, but also take in the views. Sometimes, while I was staring at my feet trying not to misstep I would look up and be reminded of what surrounded me. It was a bit of a pity I had to pay so much attention to not dying.

At the foot of the falls we took in the surroundings some more while Trygve and Cecilie hitchhiked back to the cars that we left on the other side of the mountain. We enjoyed some kebap in the town of Odda for dinner and then set up camp near the point of our next adventure. If you like the pictures from this day, you won’t believe the ones from day three.

Norway: First Backpacking Day Pics