SENEGAL CAN YOU HEAAAAAR ME

So much for an uneventful night. We went to our first Tapas bar, or Pinchos as they call them in the Basque region here in Spain. It was relaxed and actually it turned out to be a famous bar. It is right on the street that the running of the bulls takes place and is located right on the famous corner Estrella. This corner is famous because it is when the first stretch of the run ends and the second begins and has a 72 degree turn that causes many of the bulls to fall down. The walls were littered with the most amazing black and white photos of the festival over the years. Including a picture of Ernest Hemmingway WASTED laughing hysterically with is shirt off holding a man in his arm who had just been gored by a bull and looked more dead than alive. I tried Sangria for the first time here in spain, what a deee-wish-is drink! It tastes like fruit punch and you can literraly feel your self getting slower after each sip because its so potent. After we were finished with our Pinchos and Sangria we headed to the famous Plaza Castillo. It is famous because Ernest Hemmingway wrote the majority of his literature in that very Plaza, stayed in the same hotel every night, drank him self stupid everyday at the same Café Iruna that I was chilling at. There is even a life-size statue of him leaning on the bar inside. We headed inside to this small bar that was playing dance music. We got a taste of a drink from Pamplona called Callimocho or something which is a 50/50 mix of red wine from the Navarra region here in Pamplona and Coca-Cola, so tasty. We stayed for a bit, but this guy who must have been at least 40 would not stop harassing the girls with us and so we decided to leave.

We left and half of us chose to stay out and have a couple more beers. In Pamplona everything closes early except from Thursday to Saturday and we kept asking locals for directions to a bar that was open, finally we found one that was open and we went inside and it was a very different scene. Every single patron of the bar was black, which is so rare because I have yet to see more than 4 black people here in Pamplona. The bar was a little bigger than your average dorm room and had maybe four bar stools. They had a bench in the front which consisted of a piece of wood perched atop 3 kegs. I started chatting with one of the guys there and found out it was a hangout for people from Senegal. Being the curious person that I am I inquired more and it evolved into a full blown conversation in Spanish for well over an hour. He was the first person from Senegal that I have ever talked to and I was the first person from America that he had ever spoken with. So we shared stories of culture, music, women, sports, everything. They are extremely fond of our rap music; Tupac, Nas, DMX, Wutang, Kanye. He spoke 3 languages, French, Spanish, and his native tounge of Apto or something of the sort. It was amazing that I was able to communicate with him so well, my Spanish is getting exponentially better every day here, the improvement is incredible. Just watching TV in Spanish does wonders for your vocabulary. A bunch of the guys were in different hip hop bands, and they rapped for us and I got their numbers because they frequently hold concerts at this Bob Marley bar here in Pamplona. Im pissed that I forgot to take any pictures with them, but I will meet them again and have another opportunity to snap some pictures.