Emily's Journal

Dressed in pure white I stood on the outside streets of Pamplona’s city, motionless from awe as I stared up at a giant illusion of a heavenly gate which was formed by two classically European buildings. As a young Australian girl I felt dwarfed through its grandeur. The gate divided to allow a narrow street twisting around a corner leading to thousands of individual cheers which muffled into a dull, haunting moan.

I felt my chest revive me from my trance as it pulsated and, in an instant, let go of a million tiny little butterflies dispersing throughout my body fluttering through my throat to catch my breath. With a gasp I let go to the pure thrill of what was about to meet me around that corner.

My fellow travellers and I chased down these streets with the pure elation of curiosity. Letting go of who we were at home we pierced into a childlike ecstasy, splashing and pouring Sangria over each other as we laughed wildly and let excitement take the place of maturity and rationality.

The reddish purple alcohol stained my pure white costume and let a cold air gently run its fingers down the sides of my body on a warm summer’s day in Basque, north of Spain.

Without warning, the corner bombarded us with hordes of people rushing by our sides racing into the spilling crowd of bodies, held up against each other in the town square, facing and screaming at a clock placed high above them all.

We were torn between a claustrophobic fear and a yearning to immerse ourselves into the crowd. Fighting our instincts to run away, our bodies defied nature and gave in to the mass of cheers and screams.

In the midst of this jungle of people, it felt more like a danger zone the further we got in.

Trampling glass between our toes, dripping sweat from the human humidity and tasting Sangria falling from the skies, all I could see was other people’s heads; but peering over them a bright blue summer sky like a dome over this Pamplona city.

As the clock edged closer to twelve, Lisa, a vivacious brunette from the Gold Coast of Australia and a friend through our journey to San Fermin, grabbed my attention and directed it to her ballet flat sloshing with blood.

The siren went off and red scarves were waving in the air as I seized Lisa’s hand and began pushing through the swarm of drunken revellers.

Following the ‘ambulancia’ signs we turned to a laneway where the thousands were now making their way out, mimicking a river flowing slowly downstream.

Lisa’s olive skin was turning pale as more blood was spilling from her shoe, so we took a nervous breath and gently waded into the crowd as it took us to help and seven sketchy stitches.

Left overwhelmed and breathless we wandered, “If this is the ‘Running of the Bulls’ opening ceremony, then what awaits us at the Bull Run?”