BULL FIGHTING: Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain

Today is the first day of the weeklong Feast of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain. The event first made popular by Ernest Hemingway has been celebrated in the province of Navarre in Northern Spain since the mid 19th century. San Fermin is the local patron saint of bakers and wine. So naturally it's a perfect occasion to visit beautiful Spain, watch the bullfights, eat, drink, and be merry. That is, unless you being gored in the ass by the horns of a 1500 pound bull!



The famous running of the bulls takes place along a 1/2 mile path through narrow streets to the entrance of the bullring. Tourists flock to the event and the city's population of 250,000 will swell to 1.5 million during the week-long celebration. The coolest part is that one doesn't need to register or even sign a legal release. That would be the American style. Instead, you just get your drunk self over to Pamplona, find a good spot along the course, and get ready to run like hell at 8:00am when the bulls are released.



This is something I'd like to do myself oneday. It's on my short list of thrills along with skydiving, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the Skip Barber Indy racing school. I'm a Hemingway junkie, afterall. It must be an incredible rush to know that you've outsmarted a dumb cow. And I'm sure the celebration is then second to none.



So that's what I'll be watching for during the next week. What will you be watching? The bulls? The drunks trying gloriously to get out of their way? Or the idiotic PETA protestors who will be running naked in protest wearing only a red scarf and fake horns? What an easy target! My pick: 'da bulls.