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It's been a crazy last few days, but we managed to make it out (relatively) unscathed. We decided to head up to Pamplona in order to see the running of the bulls. We stopped in Zaragoza for a night on the way for a bit of cheap camping so that we could break up the long drive. We kept telling ourselves that we'd stop and eat at the next town, and then found ourselves in Zaragoza just before midnight with only a few fries in our bellies from hours before. It's a university city, but I assume school is out because the town was pretty dead. Every place was closed, and we only managed to snack on a little piece of spanish omelette that we found in a bar. The next day we woke up and drove up to Pamplona to a campsite in a small town outside the city that offered shuttles in and out in the mornings. Once again we didn't really eat much except for a terrible burger at an astronomical price that they were selling at the campsite bar. I suppose it was better than buying the 9 euro frozen pizza though... We spent the evening with some beers and cheap port (classy) and talked to people about tips for running with the bulls. With the lack of food over the past few days, the beer went a lot further than we thought, and Tasman decided it would be more fun to wrestle than sleep. Andrew attempted to put him out with a sleeper hold, and he thought he had succeded, but when he let go Tasman was even more ballistic. We did manage to finally get him to calm down, and then it was only a few hours before we had to catch our 6 am shuttle into the city.

Pamplona was a wreck. (So were we...still drunk I'd even say.) I've never seen such a blatant disregard for your surroundings as I did there. The streets were full of broken glass, and there were hundreds of people who obviously had been drinking all night, but were ready to run with some bulls right on their heels. The streets stank of urine and vomit, but I guess that just means that it was a great party? The bull running was absolutely intense. We all decided that we would run, and lined up just before "dead man's corner." Aptly named because it is the only 90 degree turn on the whole run and the bulls often slide out and smash into the wall as they come around. You don't want to get stuck on the outside of that turn. The street was packed and the police were all too willing to kick people out for pissing on the buildings in the daylight. They actually kicked people out for many reasons, some of which included having a backpack or even a camera in your hand. Once you do start running though, the police will bash you with their batons to get back on the street because you decided that you were going to run, and tradition says you sure as hell better do the whole thing. Tradition also says that you have to wear all white with a red scarf and red belt, and almost everybody does this which is a great touch. Some people want to stand out on the videos though, and they kind of ruin the effect by wearing their favorite football jerseys. Another bit of this ol' tradition is that women don't run, but since Spain is part of the EU and there are equal rights laws in place, they can't deny women the chance. The spaniards will merely just spit on the girls and grab their asses as they run by. Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole thing, however, was how everybody was happy and nevervously laughing, but then you see everybody's face change to complete terror.

They shoot rockets into the air to let you know that the bulls have been released, then 6 bulls come tearing down the road with a flood of people in front. One guy fell right in front of me and kept getting knocked back down, then a bull tread about 6 inches from his head. I hadn't started running because of the guy that fell right in front of me, and I was backed up against the building. This is where I lost Tasman and Andrew. I finally started running only to get ripped back by the throat from a cop as they closed the gate at deadman's corner. Then they set off more rockets and the next six bulls came tearing down the streets. I ran around the corner to find Andrew walking around in a daze in the middle of the street. I yelled to him, and as he turned I saw that he had no glasses and that blood was pouring down his face from a mean gash above his eye. I grabbed him and told him to light a fire under his ass because the bulls were right behind us. We ran with them to the stadium, but they had passed us and the cops shut the gates before we could run in. Then they were all too happy to start shoving us again. We went back to see if Andrew's glasses were salvagable, but we only found one arm and one lens. All we can figure is that he got hit by a stray elbow and that they just happened to find the sweetspot.

Apparently the scene in the stadium was chaos. Tas made it in and took some videos of people getting destroyed by bulls. They released a bunch of calves and they just smash people left and right. Then they let in this massive bull who just started picking people off who weren't even aware of its presence; they were all too worried about getting smashed by a calf. If you are about to be hit by a bull though, you have to just let it hit you. If you try and grab the horns and direct the bull away then the spanish people will pick you out and thoroughly beat you. After all these festivities were over people went directly back to the bars to pick up the drinking where they had left off. We hopped back on our bus to our campsite and packed up to head up to San Sebastian. Andrew went to the first aid building and the guy kept telling him "you need hospital!", but a few steri-strips were all he really needed. The gash is healing over quite nicely now, and now Andrew will have a scar to match the other eye which happened during a tv stand incident in a hotel room. I guess his eyes just split easily. Last time he said he was going to sew his eye up with a needle and thread before his friends stopped him, so I think the steri-strip route was probably a good call. We gave a couple aussies a lift into town because they had missed their bus, and then we picked up Taz's friend Ash who he hadn't seen in years.

We got on the highway up to San Seb, but this time we were determined to eat seeing as we hadn't had a real meal in three days. We picked a random little mountain town that had one restaurant, then managed to muddle our way through ordering. The waitress spoke no English, so she got another woman who spoke a few words to come help. Andrew and I could pick up some of Spanish, such as salad or ham, but we had no idea what we were really ordering. I finally just asked what her favorite was, and that we'd all have that. She said it was "cow. Moo moo". The meal was good, not too expensive, and then we headed off to beautiful San Sebastian on the northern coast of Spain.

The weather has been absolutlely gorgeous, and Taz and I have spent the last three days on the beach. Andrew only spent time on the beach today because his head-wound if finally healed enough for him to go into the water. Between these three days I've seen more breasts than you could shake a stick at, and I'm fairly certain that you could shake a stick at an astronomical number of breasts. We've been camping up on a mountain top just outside the city that has beautiful ocean views. It gets a little chilly at night, but I can't complain. I sleep better in the cold anyway. Last night we went out in the city and I had a rather strange night. It didn't help that I was thoroughly smashed, but I did find out that my Spanish skills are decent enough when necessary. We had met some English girls at the campsite the night before and one of them turned 20 last night and was out of her mind drunk. It got to the point where she was puking, unable to walk or sit up, and was generally unresponsive. Her friends were too drunk to take care of her, and she very likely had alcohol poisoning. They phoned up an ambulance and thats where my Spanish skills came into play. I had to tell the medics that she couldn't walk, that it was her birthday and she drank way too much, and that she hadn't taken any drugs. I also told them that one of her friends would ride in the ambulance with her. Then her friend got out of the ambulence and I had to go in and talk to the medics again. They just said that she needed to sleep and to get a taxi, and that we should just carry her to a cab. We did that and I was able to tell the people in the cab lines that she needed a cab now and to just let her go home, only to discover that I was speaking spanish to a bunch of aussies who didn't know what the hell I was saying to them. I hardly knew this girl, but it's such an awful feeling to have to see anybody get set into an ambulence, regardless of who they are. Andrew asked why I even bothered to deal with the situation to begin with (because i got a big stiff drink afterwards and then turned into a broken record about the whole thing the rest of the night), but I'm not going to just ignore a situtation where somebody needs help, and the people around her are unable to do it. Indifference is something I find way too many are guilty of because it's so easy to do, but I think it also happens to be one of the most disgusting flaws of society. I'm not saying Andrew was indifferent either; he actually had no idea I was outside dealing with all this stuff while he and our friends were in the bar.

But enough of the preachiness. We ended up walking home from the bars last night and we discovered just how long our 15 minute busride up the mountain actually takes on foot. We all went home at different times because Taz and I wanted to go to the beach, and Andrew wanted to sleep, so he started hoofing it up the mountain. Taz and I found a large group of American kids drinking some sort of awful liquor which ended up making me absolutely blind drunk. I think this kids were about 16 and were over here for some sort of soccer tournament. I guess the girls did all right and lost in the semi-finals, but the guys lost every game in an epic fashion. Something around 8-0 on average I'd say. Taz then decided to walk home while I was still chatting (rambling), but he got a cab halfway up the mountain I guess. This is where it gets rather fuzzy for me, but I believe I slept on the beach for a bit (this was the initial plan so that I could catch the first bus), but then I realized I had no money left. I then marched up the mountain at 7 am which took me a good hour and a half and finally made it off to sweet, sweet sleep.

Tomorrow we head back down to Barcelona to do the last repairs on our car. We're probably going to need to replace the cb joint on the front tires, and we need to get a new key made since we lost the spare. The rally begins in 7 days, and I'm itchin' to start. So once again, thanks for keeping up with the crazy adventures, and keep checking back to see what other strange messes we've gotten ourselves into. We also finally got our pictures linked up to our website, so you can now see for yourselves some of these excellent places we've made it to. We should be uploading more in the next few days, so be sure and come back.

---Team Flatlanders---