Tourist in Pamplona

Hi there! This weekend was definitely the weekend of exploring Pamplona! A friend came in town from San Sebastian, so we got to play the part of the tourist.

Last night we went out for pinchos down in Casco Viejo, which is the really old/cool part of Pamplona. The streets are just filled with people eating their pinchos (like tapas) and drinking wine, and people move from bar to bar and get a pincho at each one. Today we walked back to Casco Viejo to explore and walked along the "Encierro," which is where the actual running of the bulls happens in July. At the end of the route is the bull-fighting stadium.

We ate lunch at Cafe Iruña, which is one of the cafes that Hemingway mentions in "The Sun Also Rises" and thus basically put Pamplona on the map. It was very cool to think that we were sitting in the same place that Hemingway sat. If you sit down for the meal, you get 3 courses (and each one of them is like a full meal in itself). I got paella, chicken cordon bleu, and then ice cream for dessert. First time trying paella, and I really liked it. Wanted to do flan for dessert but couldn't handle it after eating two meals in one sitting... :)

While we were in there, it was a little creepy because there was this guy, who looked like he had a mental disability of some sort, who kept roaming in between the aisles, despite having been told to leave multiple times. He left and then all of a sudden came back, grabbed this woman's money off the table and started walking out. All of a sudden, the police came in, talked to him and then escorted him out, but it was really weird. Also, I was surprised that the police were so nice...probably because they didn't want to make a scene in the restaurant. And it's really the first time I've ever seen the police in action in Pamplona.

Anyways, that's all for now!