FIESTAS SAN JUAN!

Hey Guys! First off, sorry for not posting! I have no internet in my house right now so communication has been a bit difficult, but I am alive and well!
I don’t know where to start! June and July have been amazing! The end of June started the fiestas in Soria, which I have been hearing about since I arrived in January. The city filled up with tourists. In the past there were twelve neighborhoods that would participate (and still do) by buying a bull for the fights and celebrating in each area with its members. The fiesta is five days long, each day has different events and the neighborhoods and peñas participate. Groups of friends have shirts made to match and everyone wears these overall things, because whatever you wear is going to get covered in wine, so you wear things that are for San Juan or old clothes. There is a traditional bottle, made of leather, with a string to hang around the neck that is filled with a sweet red wine that everyone carries and shares with everyone else by squirting it directly into your mouth (check out my pics to see it).
It started on a Wednesday night with the Pregon, or kick off of it all in the Plaza Mayor. There are different organizations that take part in the fiestas called peñas that play music, the bands play drums, horns, and the dulcena (sounds like a bagpipe with out the bag) and more. Wednesday night there were stages set up throughout the city with bands playing everything from traditional music to pop music, these stages stayed all through the fiestas and there were Verbenas (concerts) every night. During the fiestas they allow open containers in the streets so you can grab a beer, calimocho (red wine and coke a cola) or whatever you want and just walk.
Thursday the entire city goes to the natural reserve area outside the city where the bulls are and they let the bulls out to run around with the people. This was the second or third time they let the bulls out for fiestas and there were no serious injuries or deaths, but I have some friends that took some pretty serious hits! Thursday evening they run the bulls into the city to the bullring. Thursday night was more of the concerts and more of the peñas and their music. The Verbenas (concerts) last until around 3 am or so and then the bars fill up afterwards (I took some pics to show everyone what the area of bars looks like at 8:00 am, full of people). At 8:30 every morning the peñas and bands would start to play a sort of “wake up call”. It never stopped! I loved it!
Friday was Viernes de Torros and there were the bullfights. I went for the first 10 mins or so of one, when the tire the bull out, before they start to hurt it. I am defiantly not a fan of it! Outside the bullring was great! For the rest of the time Kim and I hung out outside the bullring, which is surrounded by bars and was packed with people. The people dress in costumes, there were a ton of men in dresses everywhere (again you have to see the pics!)! It was really hot so everyone had squirt guns and hoses and again you ended up soaked and covered in wine.
Sunday Spain played for the Euro cup against Germany. There was a big stage set up in the middle of the plaza mayor and the whole city turned up to watch the match. When Spain won the entire city went crazy singing and cheering! It was great all the bars were full, everyone was wearing red and yellow with their faces painted with the flag (again in the pics) and there were more concerts all night.
Monday was on of my favorite days. There is a parade down to the river and the entire city walks to the river down these narrow old streets and the people in the apartments above dump buckets of water out the windows on to the people below, it was a blast! Again people had filled huge plastic bottles with wine and random strangers would just pour wine in your mouth as you walked down to the river. At the river there were bars set up and tons of food vendors and people everywhere. Then it was back to the city for another parade and more fireworks in the park in the center of the city.
San Juan was absolutely amazing, I have never seen anything like it and I will definitely be returning for it again! I was really surprised by how smoothly everything went. There were kids out all the time, dancing at the concerts until 2 or 3 am. There were families celebrating in the midst of everything with no problems. There were drunk people out and about at literally all hours of the day and I never saw one fight or any problems at all. The people were just happy and celebrating and there were no problems in bars or in the streets. We met so many people and made a ton of new friends during fiestas here in Soria. There is a link to my pictures from fiestas below and there are a few websites that post pictures from fiestas that really give you a good feel for what goes on. I hope all is well back home, I will continue to try and update as often as possible.
BESOS Y ABRAZOS!!!!

MY PICS: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/robisodl

***Check out this site for photos and some videos of San Juan this year:
http://www.fiestasdesanjuan.org/SANJUANEANDO/sanjuanes2008/fotossanjuan.htm

Also here are some youtube videos of the fiestas:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=San+Juan+Soria&search_type=&aq=f