last week was pretty tame, which was probably a good thing considering the insanity of this weekend. i wrote 3 papers and did a presentation, all in spanish. writing in spanish isn't actually that much harder than writing in english, which i think is a good sign about how much i've learned over here. however, writing 4 and 5 page papers three times a week isn't my idea of a good time in the summer. at least i'm enjoying my classes i guess. last week in culture and civ we learned about festivals of spain and a little about the camino de santiago, which were both cool knowing we were headed to pamplona for san fermín on saturday. also perfect timing to learn about fallas because a few of us headed off to the ciudad fallera on friday afternoon to check out some of the saved fallas from previous years in the museum. each year at fallas the crowd votes on their favorite fallas to be saved from the flames, and most of these fallas go to the museum in valencia or other areas for people to check them out years later. fallas are paper machet and wooden sculptures that are worked on year round by artists who live in la ciudad fallera with their workshops and funded by local patrons. they're lit on fire and burnt during fallas in march in valencia every year and they're usually hilarious or satyrical like caricatures. we got to see lots of hilarious ones and walk around some of the artists workshops a little so that was really neat.

oh wait, i said this week was tame? i left out the spain vs germany game on wednesday. the opposite of tame. we all went back to the bar at the stadium with

the blocked off streets and kids climbing all over statues and insane crowds of rowdy spain fans. it was just as crazy this time and we actually caught on to some more songs and chants to help us blend in a little more, but it is kind of easy to tell we're not from around here when there's 50 of us yelling and giggling and speaking english. this game was even more difficult to pay attention to with everything going on, but luckily the crowd responses helped me keep pace with the game, with "ooooooh" s and "buena!" s and "villa maravilla"s. after germany killed argentina, i was pretty nervous for that game, but the boys came through yet again, that was an insanely sick header too. after the win we decided the safest place to be to avoid getting showered with more beer and sweat and getting shoved around was the top of the statue in the square so we all climbed up. that night we did a lot of walking around getting cars to honk, running around in the streets, yelling "VIVA ESPANA!" and banging on random car windows at stoplights. i'm not really sure what to expect out of tonight's championship game other than the fact that the world's best pyro technicians live in valencia so i imagine there will be a lot of fireworks and other things on fire, and a lot of people climbing city structures. i'm going to be careful not to fall off of anything high. we'll see how it goes, i'll have to give an update after the big win.

speaking of potential danger from celebrating spaniards... PAMPLONA. oh my god. i can't believe that festival lasts for a week, i don't know how anyone could survive a week in that place. our bus took off at 10 friday night and after lots of jokes about which of the boys would get gored and a few pitstops and tiny little bars for bathroom breaks, we arrived in pamplona at 4:01 am. you would think this would be awkward with no body really out and a lot of time to kill, but you'd be so wrong. there were so many people walking around the streets, young and old and even some families with kids, everyone in their white outfits with red sashes and bandanas. we all stopped at the nearest vendor to get our own sashes and bandanas and then stopped at a cafe for some caffeine and drinks. new record for everyone to crack open the first drink at 4:15 am. we realized around 5 that it was a good idea to go ahead early to check out estafeta, especially for the boys who were running. we headed over and set a meeting place and tried to stake out a spot for the girls and chris to watch the run, somewhere safe but exciting.

liz ended up meeting some older guys who asked us all to come up to their terrace for the run; at first this was a sketch idea that we rejected but when we realized there were no good places to see the race left and the idea of having a birds eye view was incredibly appealing. so we all decided to stick together and be extra cautious until we felt it out and they let chris come up to so we figured it couldn't be too sketch. WOW, we got up there and we were literally the highest terrace on the street with a perfect view of about 200 meters of the run right before the bullring, not to mention they had laid out a full breakfast spread and a fully stocked bar. after being fussed at for being hesitant about eating the food, we enjoyed pastries and chorizo and morcilla and endless jamon serrano. these guys must've been loaded the way they were throwing around that jamon. so we hung out and watched the sunrise (another one of those moments mom) over terra-cotta rooftops with birds flying over the mountains. you could feel the intensity mounting as the police cleared the people out of the street to prepare for the race, and then they let the runners onto the road.

it was nerve wracking watching them all stretch and try to get warm, anticipating all the danger they were putting themselves in for the sake of this festival and to say they had run with the bulls. and then the rockets sounded and people took off; it ended up being a pretty mild race, it all happened a little quicker than i had imagined and all the bulls stayed together for the most part. i'm glad because i don't think i want to see someone get torn apart by horns anytime soon.

after the race we stalled meeting the boys for as long as we could so we could be respectful to the group of guys who had been so sweet to us on the terrace, but headed down at around 9:30

to stick together. the rest of the day was a big blur of daytime discotecas, marching bands, drunkards singing about the spanish futbol team, dancing in jamon stores, walking the streets filled with thousands of people in white and red and hanging out in the big central square. we ended up getting separated from one guy for most of the day and one guy got a horn to the face during the run and ended up with a bruise on his cheek (so worth it) but otherwise had no major issues. i got some glass in my feet and got carried piggyback to the redcross tent by some nice spaniards, but

they were only tiny cuts. there were 20 foot tall figures with giant heads and a couple of the boys in our group got in touch with their musical sides and got to borrow some horns and accordions to play. we also learned the effects of bringing a group of 15 girls to pamplona during a festival that is dominated by drunk men. the end of the night was wrapped up by the best fireworks i've ever seen and a bit of a lost trek to find the bus. all in all it was an insane experience and a very long day, but one that i will always remember. i'd love to go back someday.

we got back to valencia at around 6 this morning after a long ride of embarrassing story telling and zombie marched home to our apartments to get some rest before tonight's game. so now i'm off to meet up with friends before the game to stake out a good spot to see the screen, tonight could be the best night of anyone's life in spain, come on boys make it happen.