I had always dreamed of traveling, and one day I saw a flyer at my community college for a Study Abroad in Paris. I worked five jobs: dance teacher, accountant (this didn’t go very well–don’t ask, I have blocked it out), movie theater ticket taker, assisting at a law office, and graveyard shifts at Canters Bakery to save enough money to go.
When I finally had saved enough money, I called my Dad to tell him, and though he worried about me and my fearless spirit, he said, “You did it, Kid!”
I wanted to be out exploring so I read all required books before we even left, and that’s how I learned that reading books that take place wherever you are traveling enriches and enhances your experience. The first book I was assigned for my literature class? Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, about a group of disillusioned young ex-patriates who travel from Paris to Pamplona, Spain for the Running of the Bulls.
I was the opposite of disillusioned. I was “illusioned”, enchanted by everything about traveling and living in Paris. I roamed the streets every day, soaking up the art, history, architecture, beauty and romance. I went to mass at Notre Dame, even though I’m not catholic, smelling the incense and listening to the Latin chants. I ate brioche and eclairs for the first time, and splashed in the fountains at night in my clothes. The world seemed marvelous, full of wonder, and I intended to not miss a thing.
Some of the other students and I decided it would be the best form of education if we followed the path of the characters of The Sun Also Rises. We bought tickets and boarded a train to Pamplona, and I watched the french countryside pass by with fascination, with its charming farmhouses and beautiful fields, recording everything in my journal. We arrived in Pamplona and the chaotic cacophony of the city during the Festival of San Fermin. We sat in an outdoor cafe in the sunlight with cold drinks, watching groups of drunken revelers dressed in white, wearing red sashes, their arms around each other, weaving through the streets singing. One would stumble, and they’d all end up on the ground where they’d stay, still singing, not missing a beat of their drunken songs. We made pillows out of our backpacks and slept in the park along with hundreds of other young students, and a group of six Norwegian boys with one guitar, who only knew the chorus of one song and sang it over and over… the song? “Let It Be.” (Trust me when I say, that as beautiful a song as it is, you do not want to hear “Let It Be” on repeat for an entire night.)
The sprinklers came on at dawn and woke us all up, scrambling to get out of the path of the spray. We all dispersed in different directions, and I walked into the lobby of a hotel to find somewhere to brush my teeth and change my clothes. A handsome young man started talking to me in very limited english, and when I explained I needed a place to change in my very limited spanish, he allowed me to use his suite while he was talking to his “handlers.” Turned out he was a matador, so I was truly living out Hemingway’s ideal fantasy: in a hotel room with a matador. I was tempted to take a hot bath and order room service, but instead, I thanked the lovely matador for the use of his suite, and made my way back out into the city. It hadn’t slowed down or stopped partying, even in the morning. I kept asking people what time the bulls were going to run, but they would just put their arms around me and sing louder, so I never got an answer. I figured if I stayed out in the streets with the crowds, I was sure to see the bulls. Hours passed, and it was time to return to the train station back to Paris. I met up with the other students and asked them why the bulls hadn’t run. They said, “They did, first thing in the morning.” I had missed the Running of the Bulls because I was brushing my teeth in a matador’s hotel room.
Oh well. I didn’t get to see a bull, but I did see many drunk men pretending to be bulls, stampeding other men who pretended to be matadors. Does that count? In my book it does. The people-watching was priceless, and so was the experience.
