San Fermin in Pamplona

Well, we weren´t injured running with the bulls in Pamplona. This is probably due to the fact that we didn´t actually run with them. Tuesday afternoon after we arrived in Pamplona, Paul told me that after thinking about it, he didn´t think he wanted to run. Especially since this was at the beginning of the trip where we´d be walking the entire time. Any injury, even a twisted ankle could make quick work of us out there on the road. He thought there was just too much to lose if something were to happen to either of us. He was right, really. He asked me how badly I wanted to run. I thought for a moment. I was both excited and terrified at the prospect of being closed into a tiny street with a mess of people wearing white and red and a dozen angry bulls. I didn´t really want to do it by myself, but if Paul came with me...

We had already bought balcolny seats at an English language school to watch el Encierro, the name for the running of the bulls, from above Calle Estafeta for the following morning. If we watched and decided it was safe enough and we really wanted to run, we could postpone the start of our camino and come back the next morning.

At about 5 minutes to 8 in the morning, the barricaded street in front of our balcolny was slowly flooded with runners getting a head start on the bulls. People stretched and jumped around preparing themselves for the chaos that was about to take place. The air was thick with anticipation. A few minutes later a cannon sounded and the people on the street began to move, some running, the more daring jogging or walking hoping to get a little closer to the charging animals. After about 2 minutes another cannon sounded and the bulls were released. A TV behind our balcolny showed the news coverage of the Encierro so we were able to see the entire path of the bulls as they ran the gauntlet taunted by runners to what would be their final resting place. The folks in the front of the pack probably made it to the bull ring to safety without seeing a bull at all. Others in the back ran along side of the bulls, making a game of touching the bulls massive sides or holding on to their horns. People ran into each other and fell every possible way in the street. One bull decided a runner was in his way and promptly flung him against a wall with his horn. Another guy trying to climb a wall was pulled back into the street and under a bull. Bull testicles in his face, the guy clung to the beast´s legs for dear life. The bull tried to stomp him, but was eventually prodded along by the bull chasers. All of this happened in a matter of minutes.

I really didn´t understand how much I wanted to be down there running until I was not. Some of you will probably think I am crazy after the scene I just described, but I envied those people who stood there in anticipation waiting for everything to get started while I watched from the sidelines. Not so much the guy who got stomped on, but the group in the front we could see from our balcolny, the 3 women who braved it down there in a sea of men, the group of buddies from London who wore matching green shirts and took off awfully quickly when the cannon sounded, the young couple about my age who ventured to the front of the pack. They all found a way to have this experience that they will probably remember for the rest of their lives. They took a risk, but found a way to make it a smarter risk and were rewarded with a story that they will probably tell for the rest of their lives to their children and their grandchildren.

I felt a profound sadness sitting in our room that afternoon in the aftermath of San Fermin. I´m not sure it even had anything to do with the bulls exactly. I just felt I had made a choice that was at odds with the way I want to live my life. Do I really want to watch life go by safely perched on a balcolny from afar? Or do I want to take life by the horns? If I choose the latter, I may get a little bruised and beat up along the way, but at least I will then have battle scars to show off and I think be better for the wear.

Then I began thinking about the Camino and why Paul and I are here in Spain in the first place. To have an adventure, to do something that will challenge us both physically and mentally. I suppose deciding to walk 400 miles on your summer ¨vacation¨carrying an 18 lb. backpack is not exactly sitting on the sidelines.

We didn´t go back the second day to run with the bulls. We did what we set out to do, started our camino. I was really OK with that. If I´ve got something to prove to myself about taking risks to gain great rewards, it doesn't need to be on a street in Spain with wild bulls. There will be other bulls in other towns. Maybe next time someone else will be watching from the balcolny and I will be the one running by.

We´re in Spain

We´re here! After a couple of long days of traveling, we´re in Pamplona ready to start our journey. I have some other stories from the days leading up to today, but I will have to go back and post later.

We had our first encounter with a fellow pilgrim today while waiting to buy bus tickets in San Sebastian. He was a short and stocky Spaniard talking to everyone else in line in Spanish and novice English like he owned the place. While I took off to find an Internet cafe and retrieve some information about where we were headed, Paul stayed to buy the tickets and the guy struck up a conversation with him. The interaction went something like this:

Spaniard: Hey, your wife, she left!
Paul: She went to the Internet cafe.
Spaniard: No, no. She left her bag and she left too. Ha ha
ha. Hey man, I just walked 1,000 km. I am so strong.
Paul: Oh yeah? My wife and I are walking a long way too.
We´re here to walk the Camino de Santiago.

Spaniard: Oh no. I just finished this Camino. You are not strong enough. And those are the
shoes you are wearing?

Paul: Yes, they´re pretty comfortable.

Spaniard: Oh, no. You cannot wear those. The rocks will punch you in your
feet.. You will take an autobus. Or you will die. You have to train for three
months at least before you start, like me. I am so strong. See my muscles? Let
me show you my feet (he proceeds to remove his shoes to show blisters and broken
toes). I am so strong. I am not Superman. I am not Spiderman. I am not Batman.
I am all of them put together.

Paul: (At this point Paul´s face is involuntarily contorting into a look
similar to Gary Coleman´s trademark ^Whatchoo talkin´ about Willis?^) Hmmm. I see. How did you do
that to your toes?

SSB: (The Spaniard will henceforth be known as Spider-Super-Batman - SSB for short). Oh, well I
start the trail at 10am. All of the white people start at 6am and I pass them
all because I am so strong. One day on the mountain, it goes down, down,
down and then up, up, up. I am walking so fast and in front of me there is
this girl, She is walking so slow. I yell at her, -Ày, Ay!- but she does not know
she needs to move and get out of my way and then crunch, poof! My toes run
into her, I fall on a rock and crack my head. Blood, blood
everywhere. But I am strong. I go on. Not you, you will
die. This mountain, Alto Perdon, there are no policia, no hospital, no autobus. You cannot make it.
There are so many white people on the Camino. I am the only black one (mind you,
this man has olive skin, but he is no more black than Tom Cruise with a
suntan.)

Paul: Black?! You are not black.

SSB: Ah, yes I am. (He pinches the skin on his arm and shakes his head as if this stupid American doesn´t have a firm
grasp on the English language) Dark skin. Black.

This goes on for a while before I return. It turns out that Spider-super-batman walked the start (which he made sure Paul knew was NOT in Pamplona where we are beginning) in 21 days. After the bragfest, Paul wanted to ask about SSB´s personal and spiritual growth on the pilgrimage since humility was something he clearly discarded along the way along with his extra socks and shirts. But he thought the `better of it lest he be subjected to yet another Ì´m the King of the World´ story from black Spidey.

As we toasted our homemade Kalimotxos this evening (red wine and coke, sounds gross, but is a Spanish staple and I learned to love it during my time in San Sebastiàn before), maybe we should have toasted: ¨Here´s hoping that we´re not the only 2 normal peregrinos on the road!¨

T-Minus 2 Days

Here it is, Paul's and my last day of work before our Spanish oddessey. Up until this morning the excitement was building and my head was spinning focusing on planning. Today, however, 2 days from our pending departure, my stomach feels a little queasy. Kind of like somebody hid a blender inside of it and keeps hitting pulse every few seconds.

The semester is ending. I have to say goodbye my first class full of International students at UNLV =(. This really shouldn't make me too sad because there is a good chance that I will be teaching most of them in the Fall or sometime again in the future, but what can I say, I'm sentimental. We've become a little International community this summer.

On Monday morning we will touch down in Spain and be immersed in the unknown armed with nothing but our backpacks. There is something half thrilling. but also the equal parts scary and daunting about a trip like this. I really have no idea what it will be like to walk 15 miles a day in the hot sun and or (gasp!) rain. I don't think I have ever walked 15 miles straight in my life and now we're about to do it everyday for 5 weeks. Wow. On the other hand, there's a first time for everything, right? Part of me is just itching to dive right in and see how it goes. Worst case scenario -we decide we've had enough walking for our whole lives after a few weeks and are "stuck" in Europe for 5 1/2 weeks. We can go to Italy and take a cooking class, get some bicycles in Amsterdam and ride all over Europe, take some wine tours in all of the wine regions, anything really. Not such a bad back up plan.

**The picture above contains all of the clothing I am taking for 5 1/2 weeks! I pack more than this
to go to my Mom & Jon's house for the weekend.

Julie and Julia

Nothing like a little last minute reading that I want to finish before my trip to Spain... less than a week to go by the way. I'm not in freak out mode yet, but the nerves are starting to creep in. To combat my fears that the world will end if I forget something, I am making lists. And lists of lists that I need to make, and cleaning everything like a maniac. When I get tired of that, I am reading like a maniac. I decided last week that if I was going to start Julie and Julia before my trip, I was also going to have to finish it. After all my copy is a hard back and besides my general dislike of hardcover books, it would add way too much weight in my backpack. On the bright side, I weighed my pile of clothes for trip last night and they only weigh 4 lbs! I might make it under 15 lbs. total after all.

So, about the book- despite my mixed feelings at different points during the book, when all was said and done, I was sad to see it end. The basic premise of my latest read, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen is this: Julie Powell is about to turn 30. She is working a string of temp jobs and feeling dismal about the prospects for her life. Then one day while visiting her mother, she picks up an old copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The seed is planted. Soon after that, the Julie/Julia project is born. Julie decides that she will cook every one of the recipes in a year's time and at the suggestion of her infinitely patient husband Eric, write a blog about it.

The result is an irreverent culinary and emotional roller coaster ride, an often funny, and at the end very poignant account of that year and how it gradually changed Julie's life. I have to confess, there was a point in the book about halfway through, right around the aspics (jelly made from boiling calves's hooves, I am pretty certain I could die a happy woman never having consumed and aspic.) that I was a little bored and wanted to fast forward to the meaty parts already. Enough marrow extracting and botching gellees and hissy fits in the kitchen for me. But I pushed through and I am very glad I did. Looking back I guess I was expecting a neat little plot line that would all tie up at the end, but this was an account of someone's real life and like real life, it had its ups and downs. Like life, there are some boring parts, some fights where you say unkind things to your spouse, some failures, some sludge that builds up in your kitchen drain and spits out of your bathtub. But there are also those delicious dinners and friends and family to stand by you through the whole process and of course those elusive shining moments when it all makes sense.

Seeing that Elizabeth Gilbert recommended this book and thought highly enough of Julie Powell's writing to help her find an agent I had high expectations. I realize this is a little unfair to Julie going in. Elizabeth Gilbert is a lot to live up to. I liken it to going to see a movie that everyone I have ever known has said "You have to see this! It is the best movie ever." There's Something About Mary, for instance. There was so much hype surrounding this movie that when I watched it, I was incredibly critical. I thought there were some funny parts, but mostly I just though, ehh and shrugged my shoulders, not too impressed. Luckily, after my initial skepticism in the early chapters, Julie lived up to the hype. All though the book I was looking for the heart, the meaning of it all. The last chapter sealed the deal. There was one sentence in particular that summed it up. **Warning - spoiler alert** please look away now if you don't want to be spoiled. ** Foul-mouthed, irreverent Julie saying while reflecting on Julia Child's death "I have no claim over this woman at all, unless it's the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her from the ocean." I finished the book last night with a tear in my eye.

Please excuse the crappy book picture. Apparently Amazon has stopped letting you copy their images for your own personal use. How rude.

Two More Weeks and We'll Be in Spain

Well, it took 14 weeks and some help I enlisted from my new friend Paulette at Senator Ensign's office, but I FINALLY got my passport with my married name back in the mail.

Now I just have to get in shape, brush up on my Spanish and to figure out how to stuff all of my belongings for 5 1/2 weeks into a backpack weighing no more than 15 pounds. No problem!

I Have the Best Husband Ever

The girls and I had originally planned to start our Book and Booze club (very sophisticated, I know, but I thought we could taste beers as well as wines) on the Sunday after Ashley and I got back from San Jose. However, after checking in with everyone only a few in the group had actually finished Eat, Pray, Love so I decided the best thing would be to postpone it, but I hadn't mentioned to Paul that we were changing the date.

I called him from the airport, and while I'd been away having fun he had bought 5 different kinds of wine and some cherries and other snacks for us and was about to clean the house. For all of the times I complain about different things in my life, times like these make me remember and appreciate that I really have it pretty darn good.

"Eat, Books, Ikea and Bonding" or my 18 hour trip to San Francisco with Ashley to Meet Elizabeth Gilbert

This week my wanderings lead me to San Jose and San Francisco to meet my new favorite author, Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote the the deeply personal memoir of her travels and inner transformation across Italy, India and Indonesia, Eat, Pray, Love. I picked up this book at Borders because of the cover, so simple and beautiful. As a former marketing student, I like to reward the geniuses behind good packaging and cover art by doing exactly what all moms tell their kids not to- judging books by their covers. To be fair though, even books with lovely covers have to pass the 2 page test with me. I was a little hesitant to read it because it was the story of a woman on the heels of her divorce. As a newlywed, this wouldn't normally be my subject of choice, but something drew me to the book. Maybe because I'd love to take off for a year and travel the world. Maybe I just love stories about personal transformation. Whatever it was, I'm glad I picked it up beause I fell in love with Elizabeth Gilbert's writing. She has a way of letting the reader behind the curtain, revealing the truth about her lonliness, joy and triumphs in a way that shows that she is just so...human. It was one of those books that feels like visiting an old friend their and remembering all over again why you loved them so much in the first place. I didn't want it to end, so when it finally did in my book withdrawls I went searching on Liz's website and happened to see that she was going to be at a Book Group Expo in San Jose, CA...only an hour and a cheap plane ticket away from me.

The wheels started turning and before you know it I had found the cheapest flight and a $75 off flight coupon on eBay. It was only a week away, but I called my friend Ashley to see if she wanted to make a girls outing of it. She was game, so at 4:30(am!) last Saturday we headed out to the airport for a quick trip full of books, authors, wine, chocolate, seafood and shopping.

The Book Group Expo was a pretty neat set-up. Each hour they hosted themed Literary Salons with a group of 3-4 authors on a mini-stage full of the kind of worn comfy couches and chairs you might settle into with your favorite book. Here are some highlights from the trip:

1. What a Long Strange Trip Its Been..
This was the title of the first literary salon with Elizbeth Gilbert(that's her in the center of the photo above with Ashley and I), Sara Davidson (author of "Loose Change" and "Leap!") and Po Bronson (journalist and writer of "Why Do I Love These People?" and "What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life?"). Like the proud book loving geek that I am, I had thought about some questions I wanted to ask Liz. I got a little nervous, but I ended up on the mike anyway asking the whole panel about the mentors they had had in their lives and whether or not they spent time mentoring aspiring writers. All of the authors gave answers that were positive and encouraging to me about liking to spend time reading manuscripts and helping other authors connect with agents. Liz said she didn't really have a writing mentor, but her mom had been her biggest source of encouragement, even encouraging her to send her work to Newsweek and the New York Post when she was 18. She also talked about having worked with Julie Powell, author or Julie and Julia.


2. Did I Mention Elizabeth Gilbert??
Well, we got to meet her at the book signing and she was just as friendly and gracious and easy-going as you might expect after reading Eat, Pray, Love. She told me that I have a beautiful smile! I told her that I really enjoyed her book and determined to get through at least one more of my questions for her, I asked if she had written most of the book while she was away in Italy, India and Indonesia or when she came back home. She said she wrote the bulk of it while she was there, journaling and such.

I wonder if it is weird for her after writing such a personal memoir that so many people who she has never met think that they are her kindred spirits.

3. Ikea
It was my first time. I was amazed at the size of the place. Ginormous. And everything was so cheap! I resisted most of the temptations because we were limited to the small bags we were carrying as carry ons, but I did get a cute $.99 spoon rest.

2. Checking Out San Francisco and the Environs

When the clock struck 2, we had had our fill of book nerd heaven and our eyes were drooping from only 4 hours of sleep, so we decided to hop in our rental car and head back to explore San Francisco. Neither of us had any specific plan in mind, so we headed for the Embarcadero and stopped when a little arts and crafts street market caught our eye.

We don't have a lot of stuff like that in Vegas. There was a guy with the most beautiful photographs of brilliant blue and red doors. And then there were the ugly jewelery vendors and the pretty jewelery vendors. We both picked up a little something from the pretty jewelery vendors tables. Then we explored the market across the street on the pier and reveled in the less than 100 degree weather and the fresh sea ocean air. We went to Pier 39 and stopped at Swiss Louis's overlooking the sea lions for dinner and some wine.

3. Good Old Fashioned Girls Bonding Time
Sometimes this is just what the doctor ordered. For me, having real conversations and spending time with girlfriends is nourshing to the soul. Definitely one of the biggest highlights of the trip was getting to spend it with one of my best friends.