Day two and three of running with the bulls - time to watch it from above the crowds then watch it from up in the stands in the bull ring!? 
Food - Friday - pastries while waiting for the bulls (and people) to run by, a lovely way to start a day + our dinner at the Convention Centre last nite while watching the fireworks! Saturday - home cooked dinner tonite, potato salad with spanish sausage, mushrooms and onion and some cider, with ‘the team’ before Vic and I split.
Weather - Cold - long pants and t-shirt were not the dress of the day ... that was what I was in till changing into cycling gear and getting a few k’s in. Saturday, HOT and plenty more people in town due to it being a weekend, again this ‘celebration’ goes on and on and on!
Car - Ambulances, there were heaps of them today, carting those poor buggers off to hospital. Sad enough, as I was driving past the hospital today there was someone being ‘released’ with a bandage wrapped around his head, he’ll have a memory for life. More ambulances on Saturday, a guy was in our street getting his heart pumped when we left early this morning ... a guy about midday was also being kept alive by the ambo’s.
Conversation - Friday - Tourist to me in regards to last nights firework display “Those fireworks are the best I’ve ever seen” - I hate to be a fireworks SNOB but they were not as good as the Sydney’s New Years Eve celebrations, kmon! Saturdays conversation, it was with Seb who I was sitting next to in the bull ring this morning, anything he said was a drunken slur ... not bad for a 17 year old, his parents would be so proud ... I just wish that I had a breath mint for him!
Animal - Friday, seeing the bulls run was quite amazing, more on that later, they take the cake but up there with them were ‘the bugs’. On the ride on Friday evening I was riding along with a million of my newest friends, flying nats! Thank goodness for sunglasses!! It was only for a small section but there were enough of them to have a few still swarming around inside my jersey when I got home. Saturday - the five bulls which are let out to play with regular Joe/Joannes in the bull ring. These ones get to live for a few more years that those which ran in the morning. They entertain us in the stands and punish many of the drunkeds that try to be a matador!
What else of note: The running of the bulls, in one word ‘crazy’. I decided not to see the ‘riff-raff’ on Friday, instead I decided to be above them. To do this you need access to a private apartment which overlooks the alley. These people hire out their apartments for the mornings of the festival. People use their lounge rooms to watch the bulls run. I guess you’d get a little passé about it all after a few years. I must also admit that living above these streets during San Fermin would be a little tiresome due to all the ‘partying’ during the night. The city is absolutely mobbed ALL night, people are everywhere, the streets are full and they stay there for the whole night/festival. The days wouldn’t be so bad. Most revelers head to the parks to sleep before waking in the afternoon to start all over again.
Parting thought of the day/blog: to the guy who stripped down to his birthday suit and then proceeded to get recked by the bull. He was pulled away from the danger by good hearted strangers and was visibly bleeding from the head. Once he caught his breath he went straight back in! He got collected again and people saved him ... humanity really is special. Only once that bull was out of the ring did the police come in and take him away! For MORE PICTURES - CLICK HERE
