As I promised, here is the first of hopefully many stories I will remember. Remember that crazy festival where people were sleeping out on the streets and drunken people ran in front of bulls and tried to slap them? Remember it was called San Fermín? Well, that was Pamplona. It was my first stop on the three weeks after my program and we were going on to France from there.
All the people I talked to before going to Spain told me the bus system was wonderful. So when I was planning my trip with my friend Christina, we thought, good bus system, its cheap, let's do it! So we booked a bus ticket from Pamplona to Paris. We printed out extra copies and everything. We didn't even lose those papers after about two months of craziness.
Our bus to Paris leaves at 11:06pm. At 8pm we decide to start mosying over to the bus station, we get out luggage that we checked into the left luggage room and grab a bite to eat. No need to rush, we have plenty of time.
10:15 - We start looking at the screen, all dressed and ready for a long bus ride to Paris. We're no longer dressed in white and red like all the other San Fermin fiesta goers. There's a bus that leaves at 11:03 and none after that. We decide to wait a little bit more, maybe the bus isn't on the screen yet.
10:30 - Still no mention of the bus to Paris on the screen. We start asking bus drivers. Christina gives me custody of her luggage and she starts running to 30+ drivers. Most of them won't give us the time of day because its San Fermin and most everybody is drunk. Any answers we did get was I don't know that bus company and try over there. We asked some police officers and they were slightly more helpful. As we get closer to 11:06 we get more and more frantic. The bus station is in the shape of a horseshoe and we ran back and forth several times. Guys started yelling at me because I had two backpacks (one in back and one in front) and two rolly suitcases. He was making fun of me. Thanks, drunk spaniard.
11:04 - Christina got behind a restricted area and started talking to the person who directs the buses in the bus station (this person tells them where to park and let the passengers off). We find out that that particular bus picks up on the street. The person asked Christina when the bus leaves and she said now. The person laughed at her. We did not appreciate that.
11:06 - Christina comes running to me and tells me breathlessly that the bus is on the street. We are in an underground bus station. We have to go up a flight or two of stairs. In the hurry, Christina forgot to grab her backpack from me, so I go running after her, lugging not only my backpack and luggage but her backpack too. 3/4 of the way up the stairs I thought my heart was going to explode.
There was an explosion, but it wasn't my heart. (Thank god) Remember that festival that was going on with all the drunk people? Well, they have a fireworks show at 11pm. And, apparenlty, the best place to have this show is at the bus station. Why? Maybe because it was a large open field, maybe because the bus Gods wanted to have fun with Christina and me.
We get up the stairs, I force Christina to take back her backpack (which I would have died if I had kept carrying it). Now we start forcing our way out to the street. There are easily 10,000 people there, all watching the fireworks and making some lovely PDA.
We take off in the direction of the street, searching for a bus. All the while, we're thinking that this was the stupidest place to have a bus pick up.
There's an old lady in our way. I yelled at her.
We get about 100 yards from the exit and there's not bus. Its 11:08. Even if we found the bus, it probably wouldn't let us on.
We stare at the street for a bit. We don't even notice that there are still fireworks going off.
We turn around and head back to the bus station. Maybe the bus is down there for some reason?
We're still in a hurry and very stressed at this point. We start pushing our way back to the station. There's a couple kissing. They're in my way. I yell at them. I think they we're more startled than upset that I interrupted their smooching.
We get to the escalator and there's an old man standing in the middle of it. Christina tell him to move. He doesn't move. She pushes on. She rolls her luggage over his foot. He yells at her. We don't care. He didn't move.
We get down the stairs. We look for the bus ticket station. Maybe there's another bus? The next bus for Paris leaves at 11:06pm the next day. We have no hostel. We need to leave tonight.
There's a bus that leaves for Madrid at 1am. We decide to buy it. Christina's credit card doesn't work. Her debit card doesn't work. My credit card doesn't work. My debit card doesn't work. The machine doesn't take cash.
There's another machine. Luckily this one takes Christina's credit card. We buy the tickets. We have to transfer buses. That's ok.
11:30 - We're sitting at the bus station, trying to get on the internet and look up cheap flight to Paris from Madrid. Our plan? Get in at Madrid. Get a taxi to the airport. Buy a plane ticket to Paris. Land in Paris that day and continue with our plans. We find a cheap flight that leaves at 7:45am and we pull into Madrid at 6:45am. We're going for it.
12:15 - The lights start going off in the bus station. It looks like its closing. I start getting worried again. We need to get our bus to Madrid.
12:30 - A securtiy guard comes and tells us that the bus station is closed. BUT WE HAVE A BUS AT 1AM. It picks up on the street.
Now there are two reasons we're are upset about this. 1) We couldn't find the street before. 2) We were told that this bus station never closes.
12:35 - We begrudgingly get up and start towards the street. We clearly can't stay here. We start asking people where this bus picks up. A woman overhears us talking and says Oh, its probably the annex!
Annex?
She leads us out of the bus station and over to this other entrance. We find a guy who is also going to Madrid and follow him. We take an elevator down to the -2 floor and dognabbit, there's a freakin' bus station here.
Lots of buses. They all say the destination we want to go.
We start looking for our bus. Our bus driver ends up being the same guy who didn't know where the Paris bus picked up. Uhm, hey bus driver, maybe in this annex????
*** to be continued tomorrow ***
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