Our last day in spain!

It is now 9am and we are on the train headed back to Barcelona for our last day. There are a few important items left on the list.. but a pair of espadrilles, some wine and some olive oil. Yes we did buy another carry on bag to be able to pack some more stuff since we were out of room.

 Since we did not get to walk the ramblas on our first stop in Barcelona that is also on the agenda for today. Tomorrow we head home.

 We have had an amazing trip! We have met a lot of people from all over the US and from right next door! We have met people from all over the world! We have seen a lot of things, done a lot of things, celebrated our 10th anniversary, and one of us (the crazy one)even ran with the bulls! we had an amazing time!

 Writing this blog is not only a way to share with our friends and family what we are doing but it also allows us to look back at our trip and remember everything we have done in the past two weeks!

 As of this morning we have walked 163,068 steps on this trip and I think we even lost some when my phone was dead on afternoon. We are hoping that balances out all the amazing food we ate!

 We are not looking forward to a long travel day tomorrow we but we know that to travel the world you have to take a long flight..

 I apologize if any of this blog was hard to read due to spelling or other grammar errors.. I was writing most of these on my phone and it was not always the easiest task to spell and grammar check..

 So I am signing off! Vacation 2017 has come to an end ... Thanks for joining us and I hope you enjoyed following us around Spain!

 Time to start planning our next trip!

 WE DO COOL STUFF!
 

Hola Zaragoza!

We started out early again this morning. This time we were headed to the bus station and on to Zaragoza. Zaragoza was a town I picked off the map. I thought we would not need two more nights in Barcelona so decided to stop here for a night.

 We arrived about 1030am and headed to our hotel. We have a small hotel I found on booking.com. We ere able to get into our room so we dropped of our luggage and headed out to explore. I have to say at this point we are getting tired and worn out and we are ready to go home... see the cats.. sleeping in own bed. Eat at home.

 Zaragoza was a beautiful town. There were some roman ruins, an old Muslim temple which was HUGE! Which is now a basilica. We walked through and there was a mass going in when we walked through.

You can also visit one of the towers for an amazing view of the city.

We walked around the sights did some shopping in town and decided it was time for tapas. There are a few small streets in old town lined with tapas places. We stopped at two different ones and had a drink and a few pieces of tapas.. this is the way I like to eat. Just a bite or two of everything!

After a few drinks it was time for a siesta. Today's siesta lasted a little longer than others. We planned to head back into old town for a tapas bar hopping dinner. Most places did not reopen after siesta until 8-830 so we napped until about 630. Our hotel was very close to old town so we walked back in and started our tapas tour.. we stopped at a few places and tried a few different things, everything was done really well! We figured with all of the competition they had to offer great tapas to attract patrons. There were a lot of people out at the tapas bars. The atmosphere was a lot of fun!

We walked over to see the historic building lit up at night which was pretty cool and then off to bed.

Good night Zaragoza!

The bull fight!

Each night in Pamplona during the San Fermin festival there is a bull fight. The bulls that run in the morning are in the bull fights that night. The bull fight consists of three matadors each fighting 2 bulls.

 The bull fight was included with our package and since it is such a tradition in Spain we though we should go to experience it. At the beginning the horseman come out into the arena and then the matadors all come out. The first fight begins almost immediately.

I am not going to go into much detail and I won't say I enjoyed it really but I did get to experience it. We stayed for three fights to see each matador then decided it was time for a cocktail! Which it always is on vacation!

 We had a dinner tonight at the Beluarte restaurant , also with our package. Dinner was at 930 with the rest of our tour group. Surprisingly all from the Philadelphia  area! The 2 couples from Haverford and one guy from Maple Shade! Th dinner was very nice and had a great view of the fireworks that started about 1100pm. There was a table of British guys next to us who were planning to run the next day so of course everyone had advice to offer. We did tell them that the mean bulls all run on Thursday which completely freaked them out.. we will never know if they ran or not. After dinner it was back to catch the shuttle and back to our hotel...

Today is the day!

So by now you all know that Wayne did run and is safe and sound!

Today is the day everyone has been waiting for especially Wayne!

We were up again bright an early to head into town.  We met up with our Philadelphia friends who were all running .. when we got to town Wayne and I were separated.. He went off with the runners and I went to the arena to wait for his arrival with a few others from the group.

The arena was like a baseball game! There was a band playing , then dancers , a kiss cam and even a Tee shirt rocket gun! It is quite the party atmosphere .  The crowd was young, mostly 20 something's still up from the night before.  I had rough the bottle of champagne that The Hotel Claude gave us to celebrate after but it was taken away at the entrance .

I was with Judy from Virginia.  They were in Spain doing the Camino trail.  Her husband was also running so we were counting the minutes to get start of the run then just on the look out to be sure everyone got into the arena safely.

I told Wayne and our new friends that we would be sitting at 3:00 and of course I introduced them to lighthouse!

Wayne was at constitutional square until about 750, at that point the police line opened up and he was able to move down the course to the spot he wanted to start.

At exactly 800 the first rocket is set off meaning the gate is open, then about 10 seconds later the 2nd rocket goes off and the bulls are running.  The arena is going crazy the entire time!

Some runners start coming into the arena.. way too early.. then just a minute later you can tell the runners who have a herd of bulls chasing them.  Their are moving much faster and the fear in their face is clear!

Everyone with our tour company is given a lime green penny to wear .. it definitely helped me find everyone quickly when they entered the arena.  We found everyone in our group and they all made it into the area.  Of course I spotted them right away and lighthouse went into action... they immediately found us in the crowd and gave the signal that all was well..


They then proceed to have what they call run with the cows.. now I am not quite sure I would call these cows.. they are huge and not happy to be running around in a arena with a few hundred people taunting them .  We saw plenty of people get flipped around when they got a little too close .

They had about 5 different cows come into the ring and as each one tired they brought in the next one.

At one point I noticed Jeremy and Lauren being let out of the arena by a paramedic.. through some sign language with Wayne I learned that he hurt his arm and was going to get it checked out.

After the run was all over we headed to the group designated meeting point which was of course a bar.  We met up with Lauren and Christine and learned that Jeremy was headed to the hospital with his brother Ian who is a nurse practitioner so they thought it best for him to accompany him to the hospital.

We sat and everyone traded their war stories.. most frightening and exhilarating thing I have ever done.  There are very few women who run so Lauren and Christine were definitely in the minority .. they had a great run!

Wayne talked about others they met in tbe crowd and how he decided that when everyone else started running he waited a few more seconds until he actually saw a bull running.. and said at that point he could not get his legs moving fast enough quick enough and felt like he was in a pinball machine!

One of the most dangerous parts of the run , besides the huge unpredictable bulls rushing towards you, is other people and falling. A lot of people get hurt while trying to get up.  The rule is is you fall down, stay down.  Cover your head and wait for someone to tap you on the shoulder that it is ok to get up.

After coffee and running stories we headed back to he hotel for breakfast and then Slept a little longer.  We found out that Jeremy was getting an X-ray done.

Tonight we have a bull fight and a late dinner and fireworks so we though it was a good idea to get some rest now.

We found out later that Jeremy had broken his elbow/arm and was  in a cast! He even made the local newspapers where they put all of the days injuries.

Today was crazy, scary, exhilarating and INSANE! I am glad it is over and we got such a great picture of Wayne in action  from the photographer! No doubt he was there and RAN WITH THE BULLS!

Here is a clip from the cbs news!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XR5MgfEoa4g&sns=fb

Day two Pamplona

Today we were up bright and early for our ride into town to take our place on our balcony.  We had a great spot right in the middle of town with an old lady who was very nice but definitely had rules to follow.  We were warned about the rules. Do not try to get your own coffee she will invite you and help you and be sure you pet the dog...lol. Also she will constantly speak to you in Spanish even though she knows you don't understand , another rule is that she does not permit anyone up until 7am.  So we waiting outside in the  madness until 7am.

Outside our balcony

 

Headed up to the apartment 

 

On the balcony with our friends from Philadelphia!

Looking up at the balcony 

We headed up to our balcony and watched as many others were not provided the instructions we were and were get kicked off the course. Mostly they were in the wrong spot at the wrong time.   The next stage was a walk through of the course by a city official who inspects the course.  At 750 the police line moves aside and people are permitted to spread out down the course to the spot where they would like to begin their run.

 

At exactly 8am  we have heard the only thing on time in Spain) the first rocket is fired which means the gates are open and then a 2nd rocket to tell everyone the bulls are running!  We waited for the bulls to come around the first corner and expected to see the steer first leading the way but three HUGE bulls came barreling onto our street ,  Wayne's first words...HOLY--it! The bulls and steer ran past us in seconds! We saw a few people fall but nothing that looked too serious.  We could also see dead mans corner and there was a guy definitely on the wrong side and got slammed into the gate by a few bulls and quickly slid himself under he fence.

That was a great piece of advice we got which was to go through the slates of the fence or under.  Paramedics are everyone to pull injured people off the course .  It takes to long to go over and by doing that you may draw a bulls attention.  

Once the bulls passed us we went inside the apartment to watch the rest on tv.  The whole run is less than 2 minutes.

We later found out that the bull that was running out in front was the fastest to ever run the course.

After watching the run we headed over to a nice VIP breakfast in a very nice hotel in town where they have the run playing on a big screen .

That was all of our plans for the day so we decided to stay in town  and wander around. There was a market , some amazing views of the surrounding  countryside , of course drinks and snacks!

We came across a parade for children with large statues.  Never found out what they represented. There are quite a few activities for kids and a lot of families with their children at the festival.  

We headed back to the hotel about 3pm for a siesta before dinner that night .  While we were waiting for our ride into town at 6pm we saw a group of children and people outside the hotel .  We found out they were waiting to see oneofthatadprsfoe tonight bull fight.  We first saw three member of the matadors crew and a few minutes later he arrived .. he was so young! Everyone was very excited to see him. He is very  well know in the bull fighting world .

 We headed into the main square and found an Italian place for dinner after dinner we caught a ride back to our hotel at 930 to get a good night sleep for tomorrow big day!

Our first day in Pamplona July 10th

We arrived at the pamplona train station and we were met by a rep of our tour company.  He took us to our hotel..which happens to be an AC by Marriott hotel.  We were able to get checked in and then sat with a another rep and revised all of the information for our few days.

Once we dropped off our stuff we headed into town to explore.  We walked around and the atmosphere was crazy! Everyone of course in their festival attire which looks pretty cool.  We stopped in a Few places and had snacks and drink.

At 330pm we met up with Ryan the owner of Spyns and a few others tour members and headed out on a walking tour and bull runners camp through old town.

Ryan provided lots of great information, where to start, the course, how to stay safe  and lots of other tips.  As we started out tour another group of four that had just arrived met up with us, we chatted and discovered they are also from Philadelphia!  Small world!  We continued our walking tour and ended up at a bar for some drink and snacks.

We headed. Back to our hotel for a little siesta.

We were pretty tired so we ate a quick dinner at a place close to the hotel and off to bed.

Tomorrow we need to be on the shuttle at six am .  We will be on a balcony tomorrow to watch the run!

I want to get caught up so photos to be added later..

On our way to Pamplona!

This morning we headed to the Madrid train station to catch our 735 train to Pamplona .  It is now 1000am and we should be arriving in about 30 minutes ! I am so glad I am not all caught up!

We passed some great scenery in our way.

We will be met at the train station by our tour company and our only plans today are a walking tour for me and a bull run boot camp for Wayne ! There are quite a few people on the train already in their festival attire all white with red neck scarves and dashes! We will change into our when we arrive!