Though we'll likely be the last people we know to take the plunge, spitting out a Mini-Budd or two (that one's for you, Bucholz) is still in the not-too-distant future for us. It's no secret that I have my reservations, however, from the alien being kicking around inside me (not to mention the frighteningly large belly that develops), to the sleepless nights (I LOVE my sleep), to a few years down the road when the cute little baby turns into the toddler monster and I want to send him/her/it back to where it came from. Each time I express one of these concerns, Jer responds with a calm, “Don't worry, honey, I'll get up in the middle of the night with it. I'll change all the poopy diapers. I'll....... “ His calm helps dispel some of my fears, and there's never been any doubt that he will make an amazing daddio. However, my confidence in his fatherly abilities has taken a serious nosedive recently. Who knew he would be such a neglectful, murderous father instead??
After solidly denying my half serious, half joking comments about how we need a little kittie or doggo to accompany us in Floyd, we instead settled on a small plant from Ikea. Our newest addition was clearly and undeniably an effeminate French man, and was aptly named Pierre. I have the blackest of black thumbs and am determined to turn my thumbs green. Pierre was the perfect test run for this. If I can keep a plant alive and thriving in a tiny little van, I surely can do it in a house with actual oxygen circling through it. Right?
Yes, I just referred to Pierre in past tense. That is because HIS FATHER chose to leave him out on the curb at the Paris airport. FOR GOOD. We set him out there to soak up a little sun, and while Mommy was napping (okay I guess that doesn't bode exceptionally well for my motherly skills either), Daddy decided to drive away and leave poor little Pierre to fend for himself. For the rest of his undoubtedly short, sun-crisped life.
I was seriously upset and guilt-ridden about how we'd left our one and only son in the sun on a curb at an international airport. In order to recover from our grief, we headed back to Ikea (they are everywhere in Europe) and added Gonzales to our family instead. As you can imagine, he was clearly a sassy little Spanish guy, ready to shake things up. He also thrived under unusual van conditions (clearly due to my greening thumb), until we did a hike in the such and such mountains outside Mogadouro, Portugal. Once again, little Gonzales was transferred outside, this time to the top of Floyd, to catch a tan. My warnings of “Don't neglect your son this time” did no good for poor Gonzales' fate. Sure enough, we landed back at our campsite later that night, as a family of two rather than three. Actually, I mean a family of three, rather than four. Please don't tell Floyd I said that – it would really hurt his feelings.
So, once again we are childless. And sadly enough, I don't have a single picture of either Pierre or Gonzales to commemorate their brief time with us. I guess I didn't realize how short-lived and fleeting it would be. In all seriousness, it was rather surprising and amusing to realize the level of guilt I felt over the fate of these poor, innocent spawn that we so mercilessly left to bake in the sun (without a bit of sunscreen, I might add.) Are we fit to be parents after all? Can I really trust Jeremy to get up in the middle of the night to change poopy diapers while I, pills popped and earplugs inserted, snooze soundly away? Or should we just resign ourselves now to cats and nieces? Oh great, now Nate and Eleissa won't even let us babysit, I'm sure of it.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Running? With the Bulls
The slam of Ricardo and Yolanda's car door next to us woke me up, at 8:00. SHIT!!! The bulls are released at 8:00 and we're at least 20 minutes from getting there, even if we haul ass. I ran over to Jonathan and Courtney's tent - “Dude, it's 8:00!!! I slept through my alarm!!! FUCK!!!” “Uggggg...” was the response I got. Well, back to bed I go. Talk about pissed. And not only pissed, but I was feeling terribly guilty about being the one with the wake up call and sleeping through it. And it was the last day of the festival so it's not like we could just do it tomorrow. Plus, Rick and a few other guys from Holland had left us a note to please wake them up when we got up in the morning to go running. DAMMIT!!! 
I had totally blown it. I can honestly say that this is the one thing that I truly regret on our trip so far. I had the chance to run with the bulls and I chose to party all night long instead. I'm an idiot. I really hated myself that day.
But as pissed as I was, I apparently wasn't going to let it ruin my day. While (my) Courtney laid in the van, hungover, watching The Hangover on the laptop, Jonathan, Kevin and I were at the bar doing tequila shots and drinking beers. I guess it helped to numb the pain a bit. We couldn't let the trip to Pamplona go to waste, so we opted for the next best, most authentic event of the festival – the final night of the bull fights. Honestly, this was not something that either Courtney or I really wanted to see, but we weren't going to judge before we saw it. As it turns out, it was quite gruesome and hard to watch at some points, but at the same time quite graceful and you could see the great tradition of which the sport was born. To the bull fight, we can now say “Been there. Done that.” Don't have to do it again. It actually gives Courtney nightmares sometimes.
So we made the best of our last night in town. We still had a few cocktails but managed to tone it down a little. Jonathan and Courtney bombed out of town at around midnight to go meet up with a friend in France and Kev stuck around to “pursue other ventures”. We passed out for a long snooze after two hard days of liver abuse. Other entertainment highlights from Pamplona included touring the beautiful Airstream trailer of Bill the Brit (plusher than plush could be) and sitting, wondering curiously, with beer in hand, why the three guys across the way were going full force into their workout routine that would probably have made me puke on my best day. One armed push ups, upside down push ups, bending steel, lifting cars, knocking over trees... We hung out with the guys later on and they were actually really cool, we just all agreed that nope, not on our holiday.
So now I'll probably end up like Billy Crystal, running with the bulls when I'm 50, coming home with a new a-hole. Overall Pamplona was awesome, but could have been the probable highlight of the entire trip if only I wasn't such a dumb ass. I guess it was especially cool since it wasn't even on the itinerary until a few days before we rolled into town. I'll try hard not to regret too much the things that almost weren't even possible anyways. I'm looking on the bright side.
I had totally blown it. I can honestly say that this is the one thing that I truly regret on our trip so far. I had the chance to run with the bulls and I chose to party all night long instead. I'm an idiot. I really hated myself that day.
But as pissed as I was, I apparently wasn't going to let it ruin my day. While (my) Courtney laid in the van, hungover, watching The Hangover on the laptop, Jonathan, Kevin and I were at the bar doing tequila shots and drinking beers. I guess it helped to numb the pain a bit. We couldn't let the trip to Pamplona go to waste, so we opted for the next best, most authentic event of the festival – the final night of the bull fights. Honestly, this was not something that either Courtney or I really wanted to see, but we weren't going to judge before we saw it. As it turns out, it was quite gruesome and hard to watch at some points, but at the same time quite graceful and you could see the great tradition of which the sport was born. To the bull fight, we can now say “Been there. Done that.” Don't have to do it again. It actually gives Courtney nightmares sometimes.
So we made the best of our last night in town. We still had a few cocktails but managed to tone it down a little. Jonathan and Courtney bombed out of town at around midnight to go meet up with a friend in France and Kev stuck around to “pursue other ventures”. We passed out for a long snooze after two hard days of liver abuse. Other entertainment highlights from Pamplona included touring the beautiful Airstream trailer of Bill the Brit (plusher than plush could be) and sitting, wondering curiously, with beer in hand, why the three guys across the way were going full force into their workout routine that would probably have made me puke on my best day. One armed push ups, upside down push ups, bending steel, lifting cars, knocking over trees... We hung out with the guys later on and they were actually really cool, we just all agreed that nope, not on our holiday.
So now I'll probably end up like Billy Crystal, running with the bulls when I'm 50, coming home with a new a-hole. Overall Pamplona was awesome, but could have been the probable highlight of the entire trip if only I wasn't such a dumb ass. I guess it was especially cool since it wasn't even on the itinerary until a few days before we rolled into town. I'll try hard not to regret too much the things that almost weren't even possible anyways. I'm looking on the bright side.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Bitter Sweet
It's classic Courtney and Jer travel planning. Not until we are on the way to Bilbao do we realize that (say it really fast like you're really excited about it) “Hey, after the concert we can bomb down to Pamplona and catch the end of the San Fermin Festival (aka the Running of the Bulls). Theeeen we can bomb down to Barcelona and catch the Tour de France. We can paint a big Livestrong logo on the side of Floyd since he's the perfect shade of yellow and go kick it with Lance. Sweet!” Knock knock. Who's there? Reality checking in. You already missed the Spanish legs of the Tour. Better luck “next time”. “Next time”... an unfortunate recurrence in this story.
So out of Bilbao we go heading to Pamplona. With the GPS set on “no toll roads” we have a wonderful tour through the Spanish hill towns. It was surely a slower go than taking the highways, but so much more enjoyable. We passed through some of the cutest little villages, often only at 20 km per hour with the steep hills, and by some of the most picturesque sunflower and wheat fields you could imagine.
Rolling into the campsite outside of Pamplona that evening we were greeted by crowds of sangria soaked festival goers, bus loads full of travel-Europe-on-a-bus-in-a-drunken-haze ala spring break twenty-somethings and plenty of Euro-pop, oonce'ing its way out of the stereo at the bar. Apparently we arrived at the right time. San Fermin runs for one week, and we got there on day five. We got in a bit late that night so we had some dinner and relaxed before bed.
The next morning we were up bright and early, ready to catch the 7:15 bus into town. We made our way into the bull ring, as opposed to trying to cram our way along the path that the bulls run through town, and got to some empty seats in the upper deck. A bit short on the requisite all white outfits with red belt and bandanna around the neck, we stood out a little in the crowd. Sorry, my white pants were at the dry cleaners. They had a big screen that would scroll through all of the stats for the bulls that were running that day – Vandalico, 550 kg... Oficial, 535 kg... Incapaz, 615 kg... Suenomio, 635 kg!!! Courtney and I had talked the night before about whether or not I would actually run with the bulls. My answer was yes, I would love to be a part of this amazing experience, but knowing absolutely nothing about it, maybe we should watch from the bull ring the first day. Now that we're there and seeing the size of those mothers... holy crap. So aside from the frightening tale of the tape that they had scrolling on the jumbotron, there was a band down in the bull ring entertaining the audience as well as several bands in the crowd that would burst out in song every few minutes. The crowd was always chanting and singing along, so festive and everyone was in such a great mood. No doubt largely enhanced by the vast quantities of sangria that are consumed on a minute-by-minute basis.
To start the events off, there is a traditional chant that all of the runners do, praying to San Fermin for their health and assuredly their hides as well. A giant bottle rocket is shot off to signal that the bulls have been released from their pen and that you need to start movin' your ass. Then another rocket goes off to signal that all of the bulls are actually out of the pen and that you're about to get trampled. They have a flying camera on a wire, akin to those you find in NFL stadiums, that follows the path of the run all the way into the bull ring and that is beamed onto the big screen so everyone in the stadium gets to watch the action. About a minute and a half later the first runners trickle into the ring, then they start to flood in, then the six bulls run into and directly out of the ring, led and followed by the tender-bulls that are used to guide the ornery (ie non-castrated) bulls on their journey to the ring. A third rocket goes off signaling that the bulls have entered the ring and then quickly a fourth and final rocket goes off to signal that all of the bulls are safely out of the bullring. Man that was exciting! Let's go home.
Not quite. Now comes the entertainment for those of us who were sitting patiently in the bullring through all of this running excitement. First off, Juan Madden gets in the control booth and starts going wild with the instant replay. All of the prime gorings and tramplings from the run are reviewed, in slow mo, forward, back, highlighted with a little bubble where each guy took a hoof to the nuts or a horn to the rib cage. This is on par with good old American trash TV. Once they've finally run through all of the good footage, the live entertainment starts. One at a time, while all of the runners are still in the bull ring, they let another bull loose to play with everyone. This guys is smaller, has corked horns but is still feisty. Here's the chance for all of the runners who felt that they didn't get a big enough thrill on the run to see what they've got against a live bull. It's not so much that they do their best matador wannabe moves, rather they run by the bull and smack him on the butt or get in front of him and try and juke him out as he charges. The pros will run and dive over the bulls for a good cheer. After five minutes or so they trot a giant, calm herder-bull into the ring and he rounds up the wild one. This goes on six times and after an hour or so the show is over.
As a new bull is released into the ring, all of the crazy folks will lie down in front of the doorway so that the bull jumps over the pile of people. Usually the pile gets so big that bulls only make it about half way across the pile and have to jump off the people mid-pile. There was one guy who was kind of the all-star of the show this day. An obviously western guy with big blond dreads rolling down his back. He stood out because of the hair, and because he wasn't in uniform, so you would always spot him when he got close to the bulls. One time he got a little too close and the bull ended up with his backpack hanging off of a horn. That brought a big cheer from the crowd. He got it back eventually and continued to test his fate as the bulls kept coming. One time he got kind of tangled up with the bull and kind of had to hold onto its head and horns to keep from getting gored. Now this, if done on purpose, is a big no-no. There is definitely a certain etiquette to interacting with the bulls, and touching their heads is highly frowned upon. But then again, if it's the only thing you can do to not get totally trampled then go for it. But some folks in the ring didn't think that Dreads was playing nice and went after him throwing haymakers. I don't think they landed any, and things got broken up pretty quickly. The most entertaining part of the interaction was when the cops then dragged the angry Spaniard who was ready to fight over the wall and out of the bull ring like a ragdoll. That got the biggest cheer of the day.
One of the funniest things to watch was when the bulls would clear the wall. Now the runners who are seeking refuge would jump over the wall of the bullring, out of harms way. The walls would often get lined with people who didn't want to look scared and actually jump over the wall, but didn't want to get in the middle of the ring to tangle with the bulls. The bulls would often drop a horn and run along the wall, forcing all of those taking a rest to flee in an instant. It was like a mini wave. Hilarious. After all six bulls had their chance to run around with the guys in the ring, we made our way out to the streets of Pamplona. We wandered the streets for a while, up and down the path that everyone runs and just took in the sights of old town Pamplona. An obvious highlight from our walk was the helping of warm churros and thick, chocolate dipping drink that we munched on. Mmmm... churros... A little shopping and a bit more wandering and we were back to the campsite by mid day. Time to do laundry.
A little while later we got some new neighbors – Jonathan, Courtney and Kevin – travelers from OZ and NZ – coming to Pamplona to see what all of the excitement is about. Well, Kev had been to Pamplona earlier that week but he was back to pursue his aspirations with the pretty bar maid at the campsite. Go Kev! We hung out all day and after several bottles of sangria, several bottles of wine and a few beers we were heading back into town to party. Downtown was so lively and everywhere you went there were people chanting, singing and loving the overall merriment of the evening. Every beer seemed to be at least a litre, so things got fuzzy quickly. What was very clear to all of us now is that the boys were going to run with the bulls tomorrow. The Courtneys weren't quite game, but they were down with grabbing a ringside seat and taking lots of photos of us hopefully not getting a new hole. I was much less apprehensive about running too, since I now had some buddies to do it with. All we had to do was wake up at 5:00 am, IN TWO HOURS, so that we can make it to town on the 5:30 bus and get there in time to get onto the path before the officials lock it down. Let's just say we should have stayed up all night.
So out of Bilbao we go heading to Pamplona. With the GPS set on “no toll roads” we have a wonderful tour through the Spanish hill towns. It was surely a slower go than taking the highways, but so much more enjoyable. We passed through some of the cutest little villages, often only at 20 km per hour with the steep hills, and by some of the most picturesque sunflower and wheat fields you could imagine.
Rolling into the campsite outside of Pamplona that evening we were greeted by crowds of sangria soaked festival goers, bus loads full of travel-Europe-on-a-bus-in-a-drunken-haze ala spring break twenty-somethings and plenty of Euro-pop, oonce'ing its way out of the stereo at the bar. Apparently we arrived at the right time. San Fermin runs for one week, and we got there on day five. We got in a bit late that night so we had some dinner and relaxed before bed.
The next morning we were up bright and early, ready to catch the 7:15 bus into town. We made our way into the bull ring, as opposed to trying to cram our way along the path that the bulls run through town, and got to some empty seats in the upper deck. A bit short on the requisite all white outfits with red belt and bandanna around the neck, we stood out a little in the crowd. Sorry, my white pants were at the dry cleaners. They had a big screen that would scroll through all of the stats for the bulls that were running that day – Vandalico, 550 kg... Oficial, 535 kg... Incapaz, 615 kg... Suenomio, 635 kg!!! Courtney and I had talked the night before about whether or not I would actually run with the bulls. My answer was yes, I would love to be a part of this amazing experience, but knowing absolutely nothing about it, maybe we should watch from the bull ring the first day. Now that we're there and seeing the size of those mothers... holy crap. So aside from the frightening tale of the tape that they had scrolling on the jumbotron, there was a band down in the bull ring entertaining the audience as well as several bands in the crowd that would burst out in song every few minutes. The crowd was always chanting and singing along, so festive and everyone was in such a great mood. No doubt largely enhanced by the vast quantities of sangria that are consumed on a minute-by-minute basis.
To start the events off, there is a traditional chant that all of the runners do, praying to San Fermin for their health and assuredly their hides as well. A giant bottle rocket is shot off to signal that the bulls have been released from their pen and that you need to start movin' your ass. Then another rocket goes off to signal that all of the bulls are actually out of the pen and that you're about to get trampled. They have a flying camera on a wire, akin to those you find in NFL stadiums, that follows the path of the run all the way into the bull ring and that is beamed onto the big screen so everyone in the stadium gets to watch the action. About a minute and a half later the first runners trickle into the ring, then they start to flood in, then the six bulls run into and directly out of the ring, led and followed by the tender-bulls that are used to guide the ornery (ie non-castrated) bulls on their journey to the ring. A third rocket goes off signaling that the bulls have entered the ring and then quickly a fourth and final rocket goes off to signal that all of the bulls are safely out of the bullring. Man that was exciting! Let's go home.
Not quite. Now comes the entertainment for those of us who were sitting patiently in the bullring through all of this running excitement. First off, Juan Madden gets in the control booth and starts going wild with the instant replay. All of the prime gorings and tramplings from the run are reviewed, in slow mo, forward, back, highlighted with a little bubble where each guy took a hoof to the nuts or a horn to the rib cage. This is on par with good old American trash TV. Once they've finally run through all of the good footage, the live entertainment starts. One at a time, while all of the runners are still in the bull ring, they let another bull loose to play with everyone. This guys is smaller, has corked horns but is still feisty. Here's the chance for all of the runners who felt that they didn't get a big enough thrill on the run to see what they've got against a live bull. It's not so much that they do their best matador wannabe moves, rather they run by the bull and smack him on the butt or get in front of him and try and juke him out as he charges. The pros will run and dive over the bulls for a good cheer. After five minutes or so they trot a giant, calm herder-bull into the ring and he rounds up the wild one. This goes on six times and after an hour or so the show is over.
As a new bull is released into the ring, all of the crazy folks will lie down in front of the doorway so that the bull jumps over the pile of people. Usually the pile gets so big that bulls only make it about half way across the pile and have to jump off the people mid-pile. There was one guy who was kind of the all-star of the show this day. An obviously western guy with big blond dreads rolling down his back. He stood out because of the hair, and because he wasn't in uniform, so you would always spot him when he got close to the bulls. One time he got a little too close and the bull ended up with his backpack hanging off of a horn. That brought a big cheer from the crowd. He got it back eventually and continued to test his fate as the bulls kept coming. One time he got kind of tangled up with the bull and kind of had to hold onto its head and horns to keep from getting gored. Now this, if done on purpose, is a big no-no. There is definitely a certain etiquette to interacting with the bulls, and touching their heads is highly frowned upon. But then again, if it's the only thing you can do to not get totally trampled then go for it. But some folks in the ring didn't think that Dreads was playing nice and went after him throwing haymakers. I don't think they landed any, and things got broken up pretty quickly. The most entertaining part of the interaction was when the cops then dragged the angry Spaniard who was ready to fight over the wall and out of the bull ring like a ragdoll. That got the biggest cheer of the day.
One of the funniest things to watch was when the bulls would clear the wall. Now the runners who are seeking refuge would jump over the wall of the bullring, out of harms way. The walls would often get lined with people who didn't want to look scared and actually jump over the wall, but didn't want to get in the middle of the ring to tangle with the bulls. The bulls would often drop a horn and run along the wall, forcing all of those taking a rest to flee in an instant. It was like a mini wave. Hilarious. After all six bulls had their chance to run around with the guys in the ring, we made our way out to the streets of Pamplona. We wandered the streets for a while, up and down the path that everyone runs and just took in the sights of old town Pamplona. An obvious highlight from our walk was the helping of warm churros and thick, chocolate dipping drink that we munched on. Mmmm... churros... A little shopping and a bit more wandering and we were back to the campsite by mid day. Time to do laundry.
A little while later we got some new neighbors – Jonathan, Courtney and Kevin – travelers from OZ and NZ – coming to Pamplona to see what all of the excitement is about. Well, Kev had been to Pamplona earlier that week but he was back to pursue his aspirations with the pretty bar maid at the campsite. Go Kev! We hung out all day and after several bottles of sangria, several bottles of wine and a few beers we were heading back into town to party. Downtown was so lively and everywhere you went there were people chanting, singing and loving the overall merriment of the evening. Every beer seemed to be at least a litre, so things got fuzzy quickly. What was very clear to all of us now is that the boys were going to run with the bulls tomorrow. The Courtneys weren't quite game, but they were down with grabbing a ringside seat and taking lots of photos of us hopefully not getting a new hole. I was much less apprehensive about running too, since I now had some buddies to do it with. All we had to do was wake up at 5:00 am, IN TWO HOURS, so that we can make it to town on the 5:30 bus and get there in time to get onto the path before the officials lock it down. Let's just say we should have stayed up all night.
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