Opening Ceremony, Fanatics Day 2

In Pamplona, during San Fermin (the festival where they give thanks to Saint Fermin, run the bulls through the streets and celebrate with copius amounts of Sangria) everyone wears all white, except for sashes or scarves of red. The scarves are NOT to be worn around your neck until AFTER the Opening Ceremony - - to do so is considered very bad luck. In our Fanatics gear - - our white shirts, red headbands, red scarves and yellow Fanatic sunglasses - - we blended into the sea of white. Luckily we all had Fanatics logos on our shirts to help us find each other through the crowds and mosh pits. We made our way to Dead Man's corner, named because of the sharp corner where the bulls have difficulty turning and often gore or trample the runners. We could not stay for long because it quickly turned into a mosh pit, where people are picked up off their feet and carried through the crowd. Unfortunately we did not leave until we were all soaked with Sangria and doused with cooking flour...Yes, there went our white clothes.

After removing ourselves from Dead Man's corner, we went to a square where we had a mini-siesta on the bench (this is around 10 am) and then started back out into the crazy streets. We went to see the fountain where people climb to the top and jump into the crowd (many people have died here too) and watched people make some insane leaps of faith. Honestly, I could not trust a crowd of drunks to catch me from 40 feet in the air. We later learned one guy had fallen head-first, cracked open his head and broke his collar bone. He was a Fanatic and was lucky to not be paralyzed - - He also ran with the bulls the next morning!! Those crazy Aussies. This area also became a mosh pit, most likely another source of my bruises, so we headed up the street where we saw an incredible percussion line. Taylor (in a speedo and his white shirt) danced the Bernie, the most hysterical dance in the world, based of the movie Weekend at Bernie's, when the dead guy Bernie's head is back and his arms are loose and flailing. Taylor would teach this dance to hundreds of people in Pamps and so many people wanted their picture taken with him. We did not take our cameras into town this day because we knew we would end up covered in sticky Sangria and couldn't risk it destroying them. Opening Ceremony is considered the craziest part of the entire festival and is the biggest party with the most people that I've ever seen.

We all slept on the bus back to camp because not a soul there was sober or had energy. Somehow, though, when we were back at camp, everyone was ready to keep going. This would set the pace for our next 3-4 days of surviving on an hour to two hours of sleep at a time. We ended up playing Kings (like the American King's Cup card, drinking game), but with Aussie rules. This is where we met the most insane of Aussies, and of course, my darling Barry. The best part was the Chicken Goggles game, although I made that name up on my own. So if you get a card (I believe a 6, but now it seems fuzzy), you sing "Fingers in the middle, fiddle with your diddle, goggles on" and basically put your fingers around your eyes like a set of goggles. Then everyone goes around making chicken noises and changing directions of the circles - - similar to the "Drive" part of the American version, but so much more fun.

This would be the night, I'd meet Barry and spend much of my night sitting outside talking and smoking cigarettes (ouch) with him. We hit it off pretty well and I will leave the story at that. We have several funny stories, which I will leave to the imagination. Basically though, he is a gorgeous guy with a super sexy Australian accent. He seemed to think (as most Aussies did) that us Americans had sexy accents. I thought to myself We aren't the ones with accents! They are. But it has become apparent that that is not how languages and accents work at all. Finally over with Day 2 - - we went to bed at 2:30am to wake up at 3:45am to catch our bus into pamps - - it doesn't slow down one bit from here.