Adrenaline

Walking down a crowded street around 11pm and feel a hand reach in my pocket. I quickly grabbed the wrist of the attempting pick pocket and in a sec he disappears in the tight crowd. Not long after though Eric points him out, and I take off after him. We did not meet a single person during San Fermin that did not personally know someone who was not victimised by theft. I catch him pick him up by the shirt (a smaller guy in his upper 20s) and start to bring him to the police. With the help of two of his friend who show up (much bigger than him, who luckily did not end up putting up to much assistance for there friend), he shakes out of his shirt and begins to run again. This time when I catch him I pick the thief up in a choke hold and begin to carry the fighting man to the police. Again his friends help him get free and he takes off shirtless frantically through the crowd. Eric starts to catch up with him and steer him towards me, while I run to the far side of the crowd. There I meet him in a whirlwind and flipped him upside down slamming him into the ground. Before I could get a good hold on him again, he bounded through people, and after knocking over people disappeared through the crowd. Hopefully the whole encounter will at least slightly discourage his pick pocketing. Opening ceremony

Bull Run and Bull Fights

Running with the Bulls is one of the biggest adrenaline rushes in the world. Thousands of other men running down the road next to you in terror from the sound of hooves getting louder at an enormous pace. You are half in fear of the bulls, half in fear of the panicking crowd pushing and shoving. If you go down in the run, you stay down. If you attempt to get back up, you will be trampled and cause a huge pile up. I ran with two of my friends with down the packed road as fast as we could with pure elation and yet great fear and worry.

We made it "safe" into the bull ring, and now they put away the running bulls, and let the hyped up mass of men have their own bull fights as they release 6 bulls on at a time into the ring. After keeping safe enough distance for the first 2 bulls, I decided that I was not going to let myself regret not going for it. I ran at and swatted at the bull trying to keep enough distance. The bull put his head down and then scooped me up, hitting me in the rear, and threw me high into the air. If the adrenaline and excitement weren't enough to satisfy already, the thousand in the fighting coliseum erupted with cheering and applause.

This picture shows when the next bull would be released into the ring, a group of us would get on our hands and knees, cover your head, and the charging bull would emerge charging out of the dark tunnel and leap over/on us.

Too much was going on the take many pictures this week. The above ones were from the internet just to give perspective. Here is our only one!

It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It FAR exceeded what I expected. Such excitement. Thank the Lord I made it out all safe.





For Eric, he maybe used more wisdom and decided the bad would out weigh the good and did not run.

Now I am in Barcelona with new friends and Eric is riding to see some of the Tour De France with a few guys. We will meet back up in one week in France.