“El Embolado.”

January 29th:
So I'm writing this blog post about a weekend that happened over a month ago, but trust me I remember it like it was yesterday. (Sorry, it's hard to find time to blog. haha)


       So on Thursday, I walked downstairs to see Kati, a really cool girl on staff who always has ideas of what to do if you get bored, and before I got a chance to talk to her Freddie came up to me. He goes,"Jon, lets go to Segorbe this weekend." Naturally I asked why and his response was "they release a flaming bull out into the streets and everyone runs!". At first I thought that he was joking but when I looked at Kati for reassurance, her response was. "No, its actually really cool. You should definitely go." So naturally being the adrenaline junky that I am I said yes.
       The next day Freddie tells me the details of the trip. "Its 7 euros, an hour train ride, and we don't have to pay for a hostel". This sounds awesome. He then mentions, "were just gonna stay up all night and catch the 9 o'clock train in the morning." Once again, awesome. How often do you get to stay up all night in a random spanish town with your friends and reminisce about running away from a bull with flames on it?
       So we set out on our Journey. When we get there we have a little while to kill and we go to a little restaurant and get some calamari and a beer. A little liquid encouragement always helps. We then head towards the main event of the night. We timed it perfectly, however we climbed over a barricade and didn't know where the bull was. Lucky, it hadn't been released yet.
       We soon found the bull. It was in steel box on the back of a truck. They then tied a rope around the bull's horns and pulled the other end out and through a post in the middle of the plaza. Then, people started yelling to grab on.  it looked a little like this.

    You can't see it but there is a lot of people behind me holding on. This bull was not happy. It was the best game of tug of war of my life! They then opened the doors to the steel box and out came the beast. We pull as hard as we can, and eventually the bull's head is right up against the post in the middle of the plaza. The Segorbians, then proceeded to place two flaming balls on the horns of the bull along with a collar of jingle bells. (Don't worry the fire didn't hurt the bull, just scared it a bit to make it run faster). Next two men grab the bulls tail and they cut it loose. Everyone starts sprinting. The two guys holding onto the bull are skiing behind it grinning. It allowed us a little head start. When in the open the bull looked as such.

 This picture doesn't do the bull justice for how big it actually is. 

So we all take off down the street, real fast. The bulls is picking up speed and gaining on us. Me, Paul and a few other see a barricade ahead and climb it in what seemed to be a single jump. The bull rams into the barricade below us, shaking the whole thing and bringing the heat with it. Paul managed to capture this beauty on my phone. 

We stay on the barricade for a little while recounting what just happened. The bull is now in some other part of the city and we want more. The question is, where? Luckily they barricaded the city off in a figure eight so we didn't have to do to much searching. The problem is you never knew if it would be in front of your or behind you. That's where the bells came into handy. So we continue the process of pursuing, running from, and getting on/behind barricades. 

     At one point all the Segorbians were yelling at us in Spanish. I couldn't understand them but one of my friends from miami could. As were running away from this massive bull he shout's at me, "stop looking so American!". This was the least of my concern. But after some nice lady let me into her house and out of the way of the bull, they explained to me that if an american gets hurt during this event they have to put a stop to it. My guess is that pieda and law suits would be involved. This made since, but was a little disheartening because every time I would get within five yards of the bulls someone would yell at me. It was comical to us. 

I still managed a few good pictures with the bull though. 

I couldn't tell where the bull was with my back turned. Hence the half smile. 

Staring the bull in the eyes. 

       After and hour and a half of running around like a chicken with our heads cut off. The bull was corralled and placed back in the steel box on the truck. They then take it back up to the ranch on the top of the mountain and release it out into the pasture. 

       Our night was just beginning. It was now only 1:45 in the morning. We had eight hours to go.The 11 of us split two bottles of champagne and headed to a local bar. There we got a beer and watched a queen concert that they were playing until three am. From there the only place that was open and out of the frigid air was a club called "Eden", ironically. It closed around six and we decided to head back to the train station. We got there just in time to see sunrise. 

       For the next two hours Paul and I explored the land around the train station. We tried to get to what looked like a lake in the distance. But when we got closer we realized it was just the sunlight reflecting off the morning fog. 

       When we got home, everyone went straight to bed. It was one of the most fun nights of my life! 

I will never think of Jingle bells the same...