Pamplona: San Fermin (Running of the Bulls)

I didn't consider getting to this at first, it was about 10 hours out of the way, but I thought when the hell am i ever going to be in Spain when the running of the bulls is on again.

So, I left Nice at 11am, sunbaked at Cannes for an hour then took off for Pamplona. After a few stops and a winding drive through the Pyranees. I arrived in Pamplona about midnight.

The party was just getting going by then so I wandered around for a few hours soaking it up and bought my outfit etc before trying to get some sleep in the car. The parking station i picked was basically an extention of the party with music pumping all night with about half the cars also had people staying in them. (not much accomodation, lot's of people).
I bought the local paper, which pretty much just commits the middle 12 pages to the run from the day before, with a full blow by blow on which bull managed to hit people and where on the course it happened, with lot's of photo's of course. (probably not the best idea to look at the photo's the day before you run, but I couldn't help myself.) 

So at 6am i got dressed in my nice white pants and red scarf and headed for the start.

Firstly I wouldn´t call it fun. It´s a hell of a rush but you don't see a lot of smiles.
It's funny watching how people get ready for it though. Some are just standing around joking with their mates about how unafraid they are, others are doing stretches and some are just frantically asking people around them what to do.
At 8am though, the look of uncertainty on everyones face turns to fear as the firework goes off for the release, this it's followed by panic when you can see the bulls cut a path through the sea of people.
Everyone bolts. At least a quarter of the people fall over trying to run away and everyone just pushes each other out of the way.
When you start hearing the screams behind you, you know its time to get out of the way. I never even heard the bells around the bulls necks, just the yelling and running.
Unlucky for me by the time the bulls got to me, i was halfway up the section with only buildings, so there's nowhere to go if one fancies the look of you. You just wait and see.
I followed advice from some Aussies i met the night before and stuck to the right (not sure if there's any purpose behind the advice and they were pretty drunk) and the bulls screamed on past up the middle. A guy right behind me got hit clean straight on, had about 4 bulls go straight over him and never got up (or move), another guy had blood pouring out of his head where he got slammed into a wall, most others just got bumped over and rolled out of the way.

So, as quickly as it started it was over. Hell of a rush though.