San Fermín - patron saint of all-nighters.

So... Since I'm writing this blog post it's pretty obvious that we all survived the festivities of San Fermín 2013... Honestly though, I would've been more likely to be killed via a drunk 12 year old or utter lack of sleep before a bull. My first mistake (definitely not a mistake) was deciding that, although I'd had to skip out on a day of museum tours with the group in Madrid to drink DayQuil in the hotel all day, it would probably be a good idea to go to Kapital, Madrid's famous 7 floor night club, with my friends on the last night. Let me tell you, 15 euro and hours of walking around talking to sketchy discount ticket sellers was well worth the experience. The first floor was the main dance floor with insanely loud house music and a burst of cold nitrogen every time the beat dropped. We stuck to that one for the most part since pitbull or usher would repeatedly play every time I tried to explore other floors and my body can't resist the sweet sweet sounds of trashy sorority girl beats. The second floor was also pretty sweet though and had karaoke and a lounge. The very top was an outdoor terrace, but we got kind of drowsy and relaxed, and headed down to the main floor again until 5 or 6 in the morning. Needless to say, the late night made checking out of the hotel, catching a bus to Pamplona, as well as my recovery process very difficult indeed. Two friends and I met Luke at the Madrid airport (yay!!) and hopped on our bus decked out in white and red and ready to see the ridiculousness of night two of San Fermín. I dozed off for awhile and awoke around 12:30 at night to see approximately 4 football fields worth of people shouting along to a Spanish band and drinking in a huge public park. We got off the bus, immediately ran to buy more white clothing to look a little less like giant, out of place Americans, and grabbed a couple of overpriced beers to go exploring. The boys wanted to walk the route to raise their chances of survival in the morning run, and I made it until about 5am before needing to take a little grass nap. The streets were insane - covered in people young and old (and really really young), including people who had stepped on sharp objects and proceeded to bleed all over cafe floors were I was trying to enjoy a nice chocolate waffle. It was quite the experience. Watching the bull run from the plaza de toros was incredible. The bulls were HUGE and for some reason not slow and humbly like I had pictured in my head. Apparently the crowd was more intereste in cheering on the bulls than their fellow humans because the bulls got standing applause whenever they bowled another poor tourist over. We watched the little bulls for about an hour, then went to the train station for a lonnng hot sun nap before going back to Madrid. By that point I was insanely tired and ready to lay in a real bed. Our good family friend in android was so nice as to take us in for the night and prepare us an awesome traditional Spanish dinner, AND drive us to the airport in the morning. I definitely owe her some serious thank you post cards and probably a bowl of Cinque Terre pesto when I get the chance!! Overall it was an AWESOME experience that I wouldn't trade for anything, except maybe a hostel bed.

The boys... Not quite powering through the afternoon.