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the arena

Woke up at 4 o’clock a.m. I Listened to a few Andrew W.K. songs to get ready. We all gathered and headed into the city. There were people everywhere from the night before still wasted, still drinking, some passed out in awkward places. Kind of reminded me of that part on Pirates of the Caribbean, the ride at disneyland, where you enter the city and it looks like there are crazy people everywhere. It was hard not to be nervous. I was nervous like I was before every kickboxing match. It was new and I didn’t know what to expect and the energy was so high you could just see everyone was pretty scared. We got into the square and into position about an hour before the first rocket. That was pretty nerve wrecking cause the time was ticking. Everyone was doing chants and getting stoked. At the first rocket everyone starts shoving forward and the street clears out a bit. Our plan was to just be around dead mans corner seconds before the bulls to make sure we didn’t get annihilated. All plans go out the window when you hear people cheering from the balconys and people starting to run full speed. Someone behind me stepped on the back of my shoe and it flew off. I looked back for a second and found myself dog piled by people on my hands and knees looking for my shoe but there was so much chaos I just got up and ran for it. The adrenaline was pumping pretty hard so I just took of. Trying to put my shoe on, if I found it, would have taken too much time and even if I had it, putting it on my foot on dead mans corner is probably the last place on the planet you’d ever want to. Trying to get through is really hard cause people are swinging there arms and elbows and falling over each other. So if you get behind someone slow, or even a group thats slow, the only way around is going into the middle of the street where the bulls are. There is no strategy in that chaos. It goes so fast. I think you get dealt a hand and you have to play it. I saw someone holding one of the first bulls that came through, by the horns and hanging on to it. The locals hate that and they will beat you up. In seconds I saw this guy down with lump on his head the size of a tennis ball. The bulls only hurt a few people, Its the people running that hurt you. This got beat up bad and wasn’t getting up. Lucky for us we are fine with minor injuries but for some of the people we saw get laid out and bloody, god help them. We made it into the arena, but going into the tunnel James had his misfortune. (He will fill you in on that in the next post) The roar of the people is unreal. The kind of thing that I love to hear. So much energy! We were both so thrashed when we found each other it was time to get out of there. We were done. We just sat in the arena and watch them let out steers. People were getting destroyed. The local people get so excited. I was happy for them. It was their holiday and they throw the best party i’ve seen to date. I highly suggest you go to see it at least once. You wont regret it.