In what can only be described as a sea of white and red we managed to find our way in the dark to the small alleyway that was soon to be transformed into havoc and chaos in a few short hours.

While this may be the opening to a horror movie, it was just the adventure of a group of friends making their way around Pamplona to get ready for the annual running of the bulls.  This festival is like no other in the world, a daily occasion of street parties, fireworks and bull fighting.   A festival not for the faint of heart, for hotels are virtually non exsistent leaving all the partiers to find a accomodations on the streets of pamplona.  Every imaginable place has been turned into a sleeping area.

Despite being with a close group of friends from my study abroad program with Florida State University, it still was a incredibly freightening experience to be in a locked corridor with 13 bulls set on destruction.  Running on only 3 hours of sleep and standing in the streets for the run, it can only be described as a prisoner going to jail for the first time.  You are put on the streets while police and volunteers begin to erect large walls around the streets effectively locking you in (and keeping others safe).  The mood has been set for the run, strangers become friends and crowds form around those who have completed the run as amateurs begin look for information for what they have just gotten themselves into.

The run itself is over within a blink of an eye, the rush of people, and like moses with the red sea, the bulls seem to part through a sea of white and red as they race to the arena.  Despite the fear of death, mutilation and injury...I wouldn't hesitate to go back and relive the experience.  To be able to read the stories and watch it on the news and be able to go back and relive my own experience at San Fermin 2007 was worth every second.......