AND SO BEGINS SAN FERMIN!!!!! When the rockets shot off the Festival OFFICIALLY began at noon and the participants can then put on their red handkerchief around their necks AND THEN toast to the festival.

When the mayor (??) announced the beginning of the festival from the balcony of the city hall building, "Pamplonesas, Pamploneses, ¡Viva San Fermin! Gora San Fermín!", the crowds below went absolutely wild, EVEN I felt very emotional!!!

I'm looking forward to getting up at 7:30am every morning this week to see the 8am running. How very exciting. :jump:

Saludos, MadridMan

It's also interesting watching what kinds of advertisements they have during the festival. They've been showing lots of commercials of White Asparagus from Navarra, Navarra Tourism (of course), Pamplona Chorizo, and Wines of Navarra. How every interesting.

Saludos, MadridMan

They'll be lots of drunk guys for the running !! Australians , New Zealanders , Americans .. Young guys who just want the buzz .. And , of course , they'll be casualties ... But I live the tradition !

Wow! A good-n-fast FIRST running of the bulls this morning of San Fermin - but with a long list of injured persons, including one from California.

TVE, TVE24Horas, and CUATRO (all public/free TV channels) covered the runs but TVE/TVE24Horas had some transmission problems at the beginning of the run and were blacked out. Hope they have better luck tomorrow.

By the way, as far as I can tell, TVE24Horas has stopped broadcasting online.

Saludos, MadridMan

Chaos goes!!! http://www.20minutos.es/galeria/4926/0/0/sanfermines/2008/pamplona/

We stayed up to watch the coverage live on TVE internacional (we are in California) and were just getting into it when the screen went blank 3 or 4 minutes before the run began...you should have seen us yelling at the tv!
Thanks to MM's links in the above post, we watched and then when TVE came back on we had the computer AND the tv on!
It is so cool to be so connected to Spain all the way over here.

BTW, I trip out when I see live coverage in Europe, it's like you in Spain are in the future, because, for example, you all were already up in the morning, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, and we had not even gone to sleep for the night...
I don't know, when you think about that, it kinda trips you out.
Anyway, looks like we will be staying up late every night this week to see the live coverage!!!
Viva San Fermin!

Today's run was a little more exciting than yesterday's very clean run. Today there were at least 2 clear gorings to me and some truly acrobatic moves by some of the runners - in order to avoid getting gored. Today, one of the last bulls got left behind - which is always very dangerous - but didn't get anyone in its sights this time.

While I don't like waking up at 7:30am every morning I always enjoy watching the pre and post-run celebrations and interviews and, of course, the runs are always amazing.

It's interesting that for these few days of the festival Pamplona is on everyone's mind. But the rest of the year very few people talk about it or even visit it.

Until tomorrow! Saludos, MadridMan

I was sippin' a little java at a Starbucks before going to work 2 days ago (7/7/08) when a guy with a San Fermin t-shirt walked in and sat nearby... I could not resist asking if it was a coincidence or
purposely that he wore that t-shirt today... he smiled and told me that he and his family has gone twice and that he's got a son visiting there now!!! (I'm in San Diego, California, by the way.) Apparently they love Spain and San Fermin which is a first for me since "Toros" isn't a popular topic...

Anyway, he proceeded to tell me that it starts on 7/6 and I said that it's supposed to start on 7/7,,, embarrasing enough for me being a Spaniard althouhg I never disclosed to him being one,,, so I told him of a popular song depicting those dates(No, I didn't sing it to him) where the date was mentioned to be on the 7th of July.

It rhymes and goes like this:

Uno de Enero,
Dos de Febrero,
Tres de Marzo,,, Cuatro de Abril!!!
...
Cinco de Mayo,
Seis de Junio,
Siete de Julio,,, San Fermin!!!

So there! July 7th's San Fermin!!! Right?

...maybe that's changed too.... what's next,Los Reyes Magos!?!?!?

But have you seen all the protests . Half naked men and woman lying in the streets covered with (fake ) blood to protest the bulls being killed . Now in France they are calling for a ban on young people going to the fights .
That's been a difficult issue for me . I'm a BIG fan of the bullfights but find it strange that kids are able to watch something where a man could die and where 6 bulls will surely die .
I guess it's a tradition thing but it's surprising .
There's a lot of opposition to the bullfights amongst young Spaniards but it's so well patronised by the rich and famous ( Not least the King himself ) that they'd have a hard time stopping it .
To quote from Ernest Hemingway : "So far , about morals , I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after and judged by those moral standards , which I do not defend , the bullfight is very moral to me because I feel very fine when it is going on and have a feeling of life and death and mortality and immortality , and after it is over I feel very sad but very fine "

Nope. Haven't seen any protests yet but I guess CUATRO and TVE aren't covering that in the mornings.

By the way, 2 Californians (USA) have been gored in 2 consecutive days now. What's up with that?