Pamplona and Running of the Bulls

I have been slack lately writing on here so I want to try and make up for it before I leave Valencia next Thursday. The entire trip I had hoped to make it up to Pamplona for the Festival of San Fermin and to watch a running of the bulls. Our first attempt at planning a trip didn't work but persistence paid off. Five friends and I were able to take an overnight bus to Pamplona, stay for the day and then take another overnight bus back to Valencia in order to avoid paying for a hostel or hotel. The trip was somewhat rushed because we would all be going to Pamplona on a Thursday (July 10) on a weekend excursion with our program and would be leaving at 9 AM on Saturday morning (July 12), only three hours after we return to Valencia. All of our plans worked out great and we got to pick out a decent seat for the running around 6 AM on Friday morning. Only one person in our group ran and we were somewhat worried for him because none of us had ever witnessed the running in person, much less participated, so we didn't quite know what to expect. The running itself was a very short event and the one we saw was somewhat uneventful because the bulls stuck together in a pack but good because only a few people got hurt. The part of the running that we were able to see was even shorter but the atmosphere and everything about the festival was awesome. The rest of the day we walked around town or sat around in areas with shaed that we could find. It was kind of funny because a lot of random events happened while we were in Pamplona, including meeting people from Austria, Slovenia, Valencia, Iowa and other drunk Spaniards who wanted to practice speaking their english with us (a.k.a. sing one line, When a Man Loves a Woman...). Also, a parade of big heads that we couldn't find previously actually headed towards where we were sitting on the edge of town along with the girls who were with us were filmed in an Antartican guarana drink. Among other neat stuff there were a ton of parades through the streets of various bands playing what we thought was the San Fermin theme song. From my pictures you can see how tired we were because we all passed out on a hill in the afternoon because we weren't able to sleep at all on the bus we took. Overall, this was a short but fun trip that was definitely worth being exhausted a couple days for. Pictures from Pamplona: http://picasaweb.google.com/joshfisherncsu/Pamplona. Videos from Pamplona: http://youtube.com/joshfisherncsu.