The Cossette Family Sabbatical

This should be a lucky day by the date. Is our luck good enough to run with the bulls? We shall see. Up way before dawn, the 5 of us packed into the car and set off for Pamplona. The route took us over some pretty tall mountains and through several tunnels. It was very foggy at some points so Paul was very much awake by the time we arrived in Pamplona. The sun still was not up, but the town was wide awake. Signs of a huge all night party were everywhere. The streets were filled with drunks and empty bottles and the not so faint odor of all that comes with that. We were to meet a guide to take us to a balcony to watch the festivities at a hotel near the center of town. We parked in the middle of the street behind a bunch of other cars doing the same and ran to the hotel where we amazingly found our guide right away. He was from Seattle, but now lives most of the time in Pamplona. He said it is a much nicer place in about a week.

We then joined a group of about 12 of us to head to our balconies. We were warned to stay close and hold on to our wallets and each other. Luckily there was a TV camera man following our group so we could see his camera above the crowd. Even so, we did get separated and almost squished a couple of times. The idea of being up on a balcony safe above the hoards seemed very attractive. We eventually reached our host apartment and were welcomed by two very nice ladies into a beautiful apartment above the throng. One of the members of our group did get his pocket picked of about $350 Euros on the way.

Our view was perfect. We were right where the first and second turns of the course were and watched the police clear the streets and the clean them before they started the running promptly at 8:00.

There was a police line holding back a throbbing mass of revelers all dressed in white with red scarves and sashes, most covered in wine stains. The firecrackers went off and the crowd was all running to find their spots along the street. A second set of firecrackers and the bulls came running around the first turn. The bulls appeared to be much less dangerous than the crowd of runners. In about 2 minutes it was all over, much like the Kentucky Derby. We then watched the highlights on TV and when the drunks had somewhat dispersed we ventured back onto the street.

We went and got our obligatory T-shirts and red scarves and sashes so we would be ready for next time or maybe just Halloween. Then 5 very sleepy people piled back into the car and headed to Valladalid to drop off Serina. We stopped for lunch in Burgos which was a very pretty town situated along a nice river.

Serina introduced us to her host Mother, who was very gracious and let us use here internet connection to book a hotel in Madrid for that night. John was going to leave early the next morning so we found a hotel near the airport to make things easy and set off for Madrid, about 2 hours away.

We followed our GPS to the hotel once we arrived in Madrid, for about another 2 hours. We circled the same spots, on ramps , off ramps (all of which seemed to be numbered the same) and decided at that point we would turn the car in and take taxis even though we had paid for a couple of more days. The wear and tear on our relationships and the loss of vacation bliss was not worth it. We did finally find the largest hotel in Europe, or at least it seemed that way, filled with tourists. We threw our stuff in our room and took a shuttle bus to the center of the city and had a very nice dinner just off the Plaza Mayor. Mark even thought the “chicken” was pretty good. It was really roast leg of lamb, but who’s telling. We then crashed into bed as the 7th of July had been a very very long day.