Wow, it has been a BUSY weekend...here's what's been happening lately:

Friday: We didn't end up going to our work event, "La Playa", after all...people were either not feeling well or saving up energy for Pamplona the following day.  Since I hadn't done much with my roommates lately, I went out with them near the Plaza de Sol, it was a little warm, but a good time!  Our poor Finnish roommate is always sweating profusely because she is not used to any temperature past luke warm....haha...needless to say, she went on with the rest of the roommates to a discoteca, while Eva and I headed back around 3:30 since we had stuff going on the next day.

Saturday moving into Sunday: I tried to sleep in as much as possible to save up energy for the all nighter we'd be pulling at the San Fermin event in Pamplona.  I laid in bed til abour 12:30 (SUCCESS!) then Katie came over around 1:30 and we left for the Plaza de España to meet up with the rest of the group, which was about 110 people....AHHHH.  We piled into two buses and were on our way to Pamplona!  We got there around 7:30 in the evening, and the group went there separate ways until we were to meet again in the morning at the bus station  We started off at the Plaza de Castillo, right in the center of the city, and already the city was absolutely INSANE.  It only got worse as the night went on....I have to say, it was cool to be able to see I've seen a very famous Spain event, but the place was a little too crazy if you ask me...the place was jam packed with a bunch of crazy drunk people not watching where they were walking, spilling their drinks on everyone, grabbing you as you walked past them, and basically just causing all around chaos.  Along with that, the city was absolutely disgusting from all the partying, not to mention the mounds of trash everywhere, and there were wayyyy too many people packed into one area.  Fortunately, being there with Katie, Xixi, and Natsuho made it far more enjoyable, because we were all kind of on the same page.  We roamed around the city for a while, got some dinner (twice actually) and then found a much more tranquil area in a park just outside of the city center.  We found tons of people sleeping in the parks, passed out next to trees/musical instruments, and looking generally confused...haha.  We ended up taking some pictures by a really cool fountain and then when we realized we were getting pretty cold, we decided to find some shelter in a kid's playground that was a lot more peaceful than the rest of the city!  So our first attempt at getting some sleep took place in a jungle gym...since it was closed off, we had to climb up the slide to get to the top (this was quite entertaining) and the we laid at the top where no one would be able to find us...we got about an hour of sleep before a guy found us and told us we had to leave...FAIL.  At this point is was about 4 in the morning, so we gave up and went to the same cafe we ate at for our second meal, to eat for a third time.  We hung out there until about 6 am, observed the drunkees, and then went to go line up to watch the bull run.  At this point, the city was even more disgusting, if that's even possible, and people were pushing and shoving everywhere to get to the front of the line. Meanwhile, the police were pushing all of us down the street trying to get everyone who wasn't participating in running with the bulls to get to one confined area. This turned out to be a pretty interesting task for them...its pretty hard to tell 1000's of crazy, ecstatic people to stay in one spot and not expect a few of them to try to make a getaway....which they did.  Not only that, but people had absolutely no regard whatsoever of the other people around them.  They climbed gates, using people's heads as a shelf to get themselves up, kicked people trying to get where they needed to be, and tried crawling under gates even when the cops told them not to. We stayed there, crammed against a gate with hundreds of other gross drunk people pushing there way through the lines and leaning on us, waiting for the bull run to start up at 8 am.  When it did, all we saw was a bunch of people running for their lives, and it finished up in about 30 seconds because everyone was running so fast...haha.  We also saw one guy fall over and get trampled by everyone else until the paramedics pulled him under the gate to get him out of the way, and then another guy got freaked out and also ran under the gate to get away from all the crazy running people/bulls. 

Afterwards, we headed to the bus for our journey back to Madrid....it was soooo unbelievable nice to take a shower when we got back and then get some sleep.   We went back to our places to get a few hours of sleep before the World Cup Final, which Spain WON!!!!  It was literally the craziest thing EVER.  We watched the game from the Plaza de Cibeles, where there were 3 large screens up for people to watch.  I've never seen anything like this even....take tens of thousands of wild Spanish people excited about their country winning and cram them into one plaza, and you've got yourself a very interesting time....the streets were yet again jam packed, and you literally had to squish between people to get anywhere.  The game went on for a while, and by the time they added an additional half to the match, we were ready for someone to just score a point so we would be freed from the warmth and insane crowds.  When Spain did get a goal, the place went crazy.  Not like they didn't expect it or anything, because they were already shooting off fireworks before we even knew if Spain was going to win.  Getting out of the plazza after the game was the hard part, because everyone was excited and jumping up and down, while at the same time they were also pushing people through.  There was also a girl passing out trying to get through the crowd with her friends, but because of the massive crowd, nothing could be done, so her friends ended up dragging her down the street until they could find a place with space :(

It took forever to get to the main road, which was also jam packed with people (no traffic getting through that day!)...and the metro had a ridiculous line that spread out into the street, so we decided to walk back.  The entire walk to the apartment we saw people jumping on cars, jumping on fountains, and basically jumping on anything that was high up where they could celebrate and wave their flags around. 

When we got back to my apartment, the main street, Gran Via, was packed with people with an occasional car trying to get through, which was quite entertaining to watch.  Katie came back with me, since she was unable to make her bus...so we grabbed some batteries for our cameras, and hopped back down to the street to get some video footage of everything.  I have never seen people SO excited about something....I actually feel like Spain really deserved their winning though, just because they are so proud and devoted to their country.    At 6 am, we could still hear the partying going on....I think its safe to say I have officially learned how to sleep through any noise now...including people screaming, things exploding cars honking, and people leaping onto cars....haha.  I'm really glad to have been able to be living in the center of the capital city though to witness Spain's World Cup victory...definitely a once in a lifetime thing!  By some miracle, the city now appears as if nothing even took place last night.  The fact that the whole city looked destroyed last night and remained this way until at least 6 or 7 in the morning, and the city still managed to have everything up and running and clean a couple hours later, is pretty impressive I must say!

San Fermin combined with World Cup victory is a lot of excitement in one weekend for these people....I cant believe they never run out of energy!