How hard is it to number the floors in a building? First floor, second floor -- keep counting til you run out of floors. Yeah, I wish.
First issue: when you walk in off the street are you on the building's "first floor" or its "zero floor"?
Second issue: what about the "unlucky" floors? American buildings "skip" the thirteenth floor -- well, there's obviously a thirteenth if the building has that many floors, we just don't call it that -- while the Chinese skip the fourth or sixth or some other number they don't like, and I'm sure other cultures have similar phobias.
Third issue: what do you do about the various mezzanines? Count them or no?
Hell, we may as well just randomly number a building's floors for all the logic our current schemes utilize.
All of this is relevant as the niece and I were supposed to watch the bulls from a fifth floor balcony this morning. Yet when we got to the designated apartment, the guy had no idea who we were and no intention of letting us stay.
Skipping to the punchline, when I finally got things sorted with the hotel the clerk tried to explain that while we told to ring the fifth floor apartment, because the ground floor is one, we really needed to ring the bell for the sixth floor (and no, the math doesn't make any sense at all). And as much as the clerk tried to explain the logic, and as much as I tried to explain that I wasn't going to count the floors but just press the little button with the specified number next to it, I'm not sure either one of us was able to make the other understand.
Eventually, we just agreed that I would ignore what was written on the paper, ignore how the floors are numbered, and just ring the bell for #6.
We'll see what happens tomorrow when, once again, I'll have to get up at 4:45 am.
I'm tired of getting up at 4:45 am...
I can be slow, but I get there eventually. Walking around this morning -- more on that later -- I finally realized what San Fermin is:
It's Spring Break.
Why are all the Australians here? Because in Australia it's the dead of winter, so Australian college students are looking for someplace warm with a party going on.
Why all the students, generally? Because there's a party going on, so where else would they be?
Why run with the bulls? Why do any of the dumb-ass things college students do? Why not? You're immortal.
Aside from the cultural flavor added by the bulls, being in Pamplona for San Fermin seems an awful lot like being in Cancun or Ft. Lauderdale in February.
All that's missing is MTV.
I have seen crowds. I've been to concerts held in stadiums. I was at Safeco Field for Game 1 of the Mariners playoff series against the Yankees the year the Mariners won 114 games (and, if I recall correctly, got swept by the Yankees). I'm not unfamiliar with the experience of large groups of people.
But I have never seen a crowd like the crowd following the San Fermin fireworks. It was like someone packed Safeco Field (or the stadium of your choice), locked all but one set of gates, and then pulled the fire alarm.
People were everywhere. Baby carriages, wheel chairs, and, God help me, rolly bags were running people over. A few groups of geniuses decided to use their red sashes to tie everyone in the group together so when you crossed paths with them you had to wait for the entire line to pass before you could get through. Drunks were being dragged by their less drunk friends, couples would suddenly stop to start groping each other, no one seemed capable of moving directly toward any discernible goal.
It was the sort of experience that makes you think carrying a cattle prod wouldn't be a wholly unreasonable option.
Every night San Fermin "ends," insofar as anything here ends, with a fireworks show over the old city walls. The niece and I headed back into the old town for dinner and fireworks at about 8:00.
Out of fear of theft* and convenience, we've been traveling very light during San Fermin, which means Dave has been left behind. I wish we'd him tonight as there were a great many minions working the crowd. It would've been fun to get a photo of Dave with a minion. Maybe tonight.
Neither the niece nor I were quite up for dinner with a hundred of our closest drunk friends, so we started looking for some quieter options and were the recipients of a San Fermin miracle: about a block off the main drag, and a few blocks from the central square, we found Bar Oslo. The sign on the door said open, but the blinds were drawn and everything about it said closed. When we went in, the place was completely empty save for the bartender. But they were open and had food, so we made some random selections and were surprised with some pretty good bar food, and the best octopus I've ever had. Way better than eating a pre-fab sandwich while standing in the square with the drunks.
But to prove we're not completely anti-social, we did get some frozen yogurt with Nutella which we ate in the square.**
Following the crowd we made our way to the old city walls for the fireworks. We got a nice spot with a clear view and had just fifteen minutes to wait. It was a really nice show. Most everything went up in the air, giving pretty good views from most everywhere, and it went on for nearly half an hour. There was one point where it looked like a tree exploded and about a dozen fireworks went off at once, and while I assumed this was not intentional, the show continued. One of the more entertaining moments came when an ambulance, sirens wailing, came down the street and all the people who were sitting in the street watching had to scramble to get out of the way.
And then it was over, and the fun really began.
* I've so far seen one instance of the pickpocket dance which is performed as follows: the dancer shouts, "Fuck!," and then runs toward his friends while patting down all the pockets in his cargo shorts in a panic hoping that he's just not noticing his wallet rather than it having been stolen. The patting continues when the dancer reaches his friends and begins explaining that he's been robbed.
** This seemed to prompt an interaction with the world's dumbest mime. I've got my camera strapped to my left arm, and am holding it against my chest with two fingers of my left hand while holding my yogurt cup with the other three, holding a spoon with my right hand trying to eat the yogurt before it melts and turns into a huge mess. The mine, seeing me, approaches and sticks his hand out for me to shake. Yeah, like that's gonna happen.
So once you've watched the bulls -- and by the way, I'd like to find the Chicago Bulls fan who works for Apple and managed to program the iPad's autocorrect function to always capitalize the word "bulls" and hit them with a stick -- enjoyed a cup of café con leche, and recovered from being dumped on the ground by your chair, it's about 9:15 in the morning.
Now if you're one of those people for whom 9:15 is too early to start drinking, as opposed to one of those for whom it's too late to stop, it's not exactly clear what you're supposed to do next. If you had a hotel room nearby you could go back and take a nap, but that doesn't work as well when you're a decent bus ride from your bed.
In our case, the niece and I decided to wander around to see if we could find our balcony for tomorrow and then possibly the museum devoted to the running of the bulls. We did find the balcony, but not the museum, but in our wandering we found lots of people lining up. The first group was obviously lining up for churros and chocolate -- and I thought Americans had a sweet tooth -- but the second and third lines seemed to be preparing for an imaginary parade.
Not so imaginary it turns out. After killing about an hour with more wandering followed by a lie down in the grass, our two lines had evolved into a mob lining the street near my lie down spot. I sent the niece to find out what was happening, but she wasn't confident enough in her Spanish to start that conversation. So instead we just waited until the mob started making crowd noises at which point I stood up and we wandered over to see what was happening.
It was the shortest, most boring parade ever. A few giant religious characters, a couple of marching bands, a choir, and what was obviously supposed to be San Fermin, and that was it. It had to be hours of waiting for some people followed by, maybe, fifteen minutes of entertainment. Crazy.
But it got us to lunch time, which took us to siesta time, which will take us back to the central city for dinner followed by the nightly fireworks show.
And if reading between the lines you're getting the sense that I'm starting to get bored with San Fermin, well, hey, I'm a better writer than I thought. I am clearly not the target audience for this event.* I'm looking forward to the balcony view of the run tomorrow, and the bull fight that evening, but after that I will be ready to be done with San Fermin.
I don't see how people can entertain themselves for eight days of this. Our three will be more than plenty for my taste.
* It's said that the popularity of San Fermin and the running of the Bulls is largely due to Earnest Hemingway, who was here in the 1920s and included description of San Fermin in The Sun Also Rises. It's also said that Hemingway came back to Pamplona in the late fifties and expressed regret at what he'd done to the festival. One can only wonder what he'd make of it now, post-City Slickers II and YouTube.
5:00am comes very early under the best of circumstances, but to have to get up that early on vacation is just cruel. But if we wanted to experience the running of the bulls we had to be in town by about 6:30. So 5:00 it was.
Of course, the bus didn't really cooperate and we spent about 25 minutes waiting for it to appear, so by the time we got to the bull route it was already jammed with people -- mostly people who either don't read or believe themselves to be very special.
The route, you see, is lined with two sets of fences. As the guides make clear, no one is allowed in the space between the two fences except media and emergency personnel. It's primary purpose is to be an open area where runners can escape to if needed. Of course, at 6:30 in the morning that area between the fences is full of people convinced they'll watch the run from there. One can dream, I suppose.
But at 6:30, the streets the bulls will run are full of people, too. At about 6:50, that starts to change. First, a line of cops enters the route where the bulls will enter and basically locks arms and pushes all the people on the street either up toward the arena our out past the first line of fences. Following those police are a cleaning crew that walks the route sweeping up all the cups, paper, bottles and other trash that could contribute to someone getting hurt. While that's happening, another group of cops climbs into the area between the fences and starts evicting people. The start out reasonably nice, but as the morning proceeds they get nastier and nastier to people trying to occupy that space. Shortly before the bulls started a guy crawled under the fence and was basically thrown back under by the two policemen who met him on the other side.
Once the route is clear, it's walked by a couple of groups of mucky-mucks, a small marching band and whatnot, while the crowd gets excited.
Next up comes the runners. "Running with the bulls" isn't so much running with the bulls as providing a human parade line for the bulls to run through on their way to the arena. The bulls are way too fast, and there are way too many people, for a human to keep pace with the bulls the entire route. Runners just need to survive the brief period when the bulls are in their vicinity -- and all the other panicked runners.
And us? We're in space that could reasonably hold, say, 300 people that's currently got 400+ in it. The fence in front of us is covered with people, from the drunks who've been sleeping under it, to the families and others who got here early enough to claim a spot, to the American girls who have used the fact that they left their bras at home -- and one keeps smoothing her shirt down so it's clear to everyone what she isn't wearing -- to make their way through the groups of men to the point that they've found a couple of guys sitting on the fence who are willing to "let" the girls cling to them to watch.
We can sort of see the route, if we crouch down and look through the legs on the fence.
And the the firecracker goes off letting us know the first bull is running. The crowd goes wild and the runners in front of us take off. Where are they going? We're about 2/3 of the way down the route and it's going to take even the fastest bull more than half a second to get to us. After maybe ten seconds the second firecracker goes off letting us know all the bulls (and oxen) are running. A few more seconds and the crowd goes wild. What? Where? We look through the human legs and see about five cows quickly run past. Nothing. Nothing. Another cow or two. Nothing. Nothing. Is it over? A guy on one of the balconies points to where the bulls have come from and shouts to someone on the route, "There are two more!" Crouch, look through the legs, yup, two cows go running by. Is that it? I think that's it. Yeah, that must be it. Let's go...
...and the crowd erupts again. Wait! What? What's happening? I can't see anything. Oh well. I guess it's over now.
So we head to the Cafe Iruna for coffee and croissants. And as I'm pulling out my wallet to pay the bill a leg under the chair collapses and dumps me on the ground. I have sustained injury at the running of the bulls.
While we're eating the niece is able to see the run replayed on TV. The final crowd eruption was caused when a bull reversed course and went back toward where we were watching. She also notes that there was at least one serious injury involving lots of blood. We actually hear three ambulances shortly after the run is completed.
Of course we heard more than half a dozen ambulances yesterday when the bulls didn't run so by our tally the current score is bulls 3, alcohol poisoning, heat stroke and general stupidity 8.
Tomorrow we have tickets to watch the run from a balcony over the route so hopefully we'll be better able to see what actually happens.
Not that I had any choice in the matter, but I'm learning some new wrinkles with staying at the HotelBed4U. It appears the hotel markets itself as the "smart, cheap" alternative to other hotels.
So, whose primary objective is a cheap place to stay? Aside from my parents, who took "frugal" to insane limits (and haven't I spent a lot of time trying to forget that indoctrination), people with no money.
And who has no money? Students.
We've come downstairs to more oddball conversations at the reception desk. There were the two guys, with their backpacks and skateboards, trying to check in using one of their "friend's mom's credit card number" to pay for the room. Then there was the girl, upset about something she was "overcharged" for who, for awhile there seemed to be talking to somebody else at reception every time we came down.
At forty-seven, there's a reason I don't generally travel like a student. Being forced into that environment has been educational, er, shocking? disappointing?
Last story: as we we wandering around Pamplona we fell in behind a group of guys of varying nationalities, most of whom sounded like refugees from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. One conversation that emerged from the din was an American kid explaining to a Spanish kid that the school he'd just graduated from cost $60k a year. All I could think was, I hope his parents feel they made a good investment. The niece was kinder. She thought he might not actually be an idiot, but just choosing to present as one given the audience.
I'm turning into such a geezer...
Pamplona's running of the bulls is part of their San Fermin celebration which runs from July 6 to July. 14. More specifically, from noon on July 6 to, well, I don't know when exactly it ends because I won't be here for that part so it doesn't really matter to me.
The noon start on the first day means there are no bulls on day one. Instead, it's just a big party. Everyone gathers in the central old town, filling the streets, the squares, and the parks, there's a countdown to noon, and then bells ring, fireworks go off, and everyone goes nuts. It's sort of like New Years, except that instead of drinking from cocktail glasses everyone's drinking from liter bottles and when the count gets to zero everyone stops drinking and starts throwing their drink in the air -- or, if you're on a balcony overlooking a street, dumping your drink on the people below.
And since the preferred drink is off the shelf sangria, pretty soon the sea of red and white becomes a sea of pink and red.
Eventually people stop throwing their drinks and go back to drinking them, and generally having a good time. There are numerous marching bands and drum corps and others groups singing songs at the top of their lungs.
But there are also streets full of vendors, and some very good temporary restaurants set up under tents. All you need for a good time...
...and to make a huge mess. This many people do not tread lightly on the planet. But by 3:00 there were crews of people and trucks crawling through the city cleaning up the mess, at times with a well aimed fire hose. It was impressive how quickly they were able to clean things up.
The bulls start tomorrow, promptly at 8:00 am, which means getting up at 5:00 to have time for the niece to get ready and to get to the city center before the streets are closed at 7:00.
It should be interesting...
I'm sitting in our hotel lobby/cafe waiting for the niece -- the room is such that unless you're very close (or one person is still in bed with the covers over their head), one person has to vacate while the other gets ready -- watching the people go by.
San Fermin officially kinks off in two hours, and the first bull run is tomorrow morning, but these people are ready. At least half -- and closer to 80% of the twenty-somethings -- are dressed in the traditional white with a red sash. Of course, I say "traditional," but it's clearly not the tradition of the people dressed that way, many of whom speak less Spanish than I do.
Any excuse for a party I guess, even if it means dressing like a member of the kitchen staff.*
But I can't complain too much. Even Dave is getting into the spirit of things...
* Actually, that's not quite fair. If you were dressed like kitchen staff you'd be wearing heavy duty whites designed to offer protection from burns and whatnot. Most of the whites I'm seeing were clearly bought at one of the many (many, many) souvenir tables that have sprung up all over town. For €10 to €20 you can get a complete set of whites constructed from some of the cheapest fabric possible. I'm not sure the people wearing them realize just how see through their outfit is. Of course, they're twenty, so maybe they do.
Wikipedia claims Pamplona was named for the Roman general that founded the city however many millennia ago. But observational evidence suggests that "Pamplona" is the Spanish word for "land of twenty-something-year-old Australian girls."
Train car coming here? Full of young women from Australia...
Hotel lobby? Again, Australian women...
Bars in the city (which spill out into the streets)? Lots and lots and lots of young women, and lots and lots and lots of Australian accents. I'm assuming the sets overlapped, but the crowds were such that it's hard to say for sure.
In any case, if you want to find a young woman from Australia -- or, now that I think about it, possibly New Zealand -- come to Pamplona. Most of them seem to be here.
