Scary Horns & Bruises

After an all night drinking session with no sleep, running down some narrow streets along with hundreds of people being chased by 6 bulls is probably not the safest. In fact i'm quite sure it it's extremely dangerous. But it sounded like fun, so all the lads headed down at 7am to get on track for the 8am start. By the time the bells ring signalling the release of the bulls, the adrenaline has got you well and truly sober and its one big mad rush of people trying to get to the end and inside the stadium without the horns of a herd of 700kg bulls up your backside.

Once inside the stadium the madness continues, with the individual release of a further 6 smaller bulls to further the bucking mayhem. The bravest and not smartest in the crowd would kneel in front of the gate where the bulls enter the stadium, and sit and watch as the bulls rushed towards them, hoping to hell that they would jump over them. With a little of the liquid courage still circulating, Dibbo, Buldge & myself signed up for the task. Watching the gates open to see this massive, angry bull come charging at you was the second scariest thing i've seen all tour, (coming a close second to the big black scary man thing that offered buldge and I sexual favours on a dodgy corner in Florence). Thankfully the bull chose to jump over rather than through us, unfortunately, it fell a few feet short and the three of us collected some decent bruises.

We crashed for the rest of the afternoon before heading back into town for the evening bull fight. Whilst it was quite an awkward thing to watch we thought it was a cultural experience we needed to digest. After two extremely poor fights with numberous stuff ups by the matadores, the crowd lost interest in the bull fighting, and as tradition dictates, starting throwing any items of food and drink at people throughout the stadium. This was a game I was quite good at and found highly enjoyable.

Perhaps the best thing about the night was the Spanish crowd. The crowd throughout the show were amazingly friendly, generous and fun, creating a fantastic partying atmosphere, whilst all along the poor old bulls were carking it in the background. When the locals were not throwing food at you, they would seemingly be competing with one another to see who could give us the most food, and would often come up to try chat with you. No matter how many blank stares you would give them, they would still just keep chatting away to you. Was great. Michael 'the Italian Stalian from Seville' Cardillo even had a bunch of sisters trying to set him up with the youngest of the siblings. Hows that for generosity.

The bullring and our drinking crew minus hammo.

PS. I wish i had some photos of the running to show, however photos were the last thing on my mind at that particular moment of my life. All photos are thanks to Lisa.