We had not expected our bus to take very long from Zaragoza to Pamplona, as they are most likely 1 ½- 2 hours distance from each other. However, we were not on the direct bus and stopped at every city in between and sadly took about 3 hours.
We arrived at a bus station full of people in white with red sashes around their necks and waists. We were met there by Cheny, the guy we were renting a room from. He is originally from Ghana but has lived in Spain since he was 14. He just got married and is set to move to Ohio in August. He had sold his car already and luckily had kind enough neighbors that one of them willingly drove him to the bus station for us. Which is where the festivities began. The neighbor decided to take us directly to an area with a bunch of horses, and these horses were all shapes and sizes. Literally I saw horses that I didn’t know existed they were so big and awkward (of which, we sadly did not get pictures of).
After this we got to the apartment and settle all our stuff into the room we were staying in. We got dressed in our white clothes and prepared for going out into the center of downtown to watch Spain Vs. Germany in the Semi-Finals and meet up with some of Cheny’s friends.
This was unbelievable! A huge screen was set up downtown for the people to watch the game, and the area around it was packed by the time we got there. So instead we began to look for a bar to watch the game in, and just our luck we found another Aussie bar to watch the game in (we spent a lot of time in an Aussie Bar in Denia). The bar was packed with Spaniards and at least a few Germans, all dressed in white and red mind you (though I heard a group of people speaking German only one girl had German colors on).
Almost the entire game the people were chanting various songs in honor of players and their country “Villa, Villa Villa. Villa, Maravilla” or “Yo soy Espanola, Espanola, Espanola. Yo soy Espanola, Espanola, Espanola.” (David Villa is a player for Spain, maravilla means marvelous, and the other is I am Spanish.
For those of you unfortunate enough not to catch the game I will recap for you. Spain dominated the ball against Germany. Appeared to control the tempo of the game and executed passes very efficiently. While they had multiple good attempts on goal, the Germans only had one and not until the 79th minute of a 90 minute match did Spain score. It was an excellent corner kick by Xabi and Puyol, a defender, came charging in to head the ball past the goalie and send Spain into the Finals for the first time ever!!!!
We waited an agonizing long time, 10 minutes regular time and 3 minutes additional time(for injuries, etc) for the game to end! Once it did the bar and all of Spain erupted. There was even more yelling and jumping up and down, drinks be thrown in the air, traffic laws being ignored, people running all around, and simply sheer bliss!
For the festival there are fireworks each night at 11pm. Tonight they were going to be extra special since Spain just won and the Bull Run festivities. This was great to see as we obviously didn’t get to see any for the 4th of July.
We grab a bite to eat and stayed around a little long in the downtown area before heading home since we had an early morning ahead of us to catch the running of the bulls.
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