Failure is the mother of all success

My fortune cookie today said "Failure is the mother of all success" ....Somehow in the process of making our way to Fribourg, Switzerland from Basel we took a little detour when the lady at the train station misunderstood me and we ended up in Freiburg, Germany....

We walked around for four hours attempting to go to the locations that our cousin spoke of (examples: the river we would be able to swim in ended up being a creek we could sit and splash in, the music festival that was taking place ended up being a guy on the street corner playing his guitar and the Amazing artwork was nowhere to be found) We called our friend we were supposed to be meeting when we arrived at the McDonalds... the other end of the phone grew silent as we explained the landmarks around us...by the time we were finished she said "Are you in Germany?" .... that would explain why nothing was what it was supposed to be and why we kept seeing the German flag everywhere. We had to backtrack 3 hours and then head 4 hours in the correct direction.

We made it just in time to hear the last couple of bands playing at the music festival we were originally supposed to be at. We hung out with our cousin and his wife and I danced on stage with a guy dressed like Mario for his bachelor party. All in all it was a good day. Bad news was we wasted most of our day, Good news was we got to explore a new city in an unexpected country and finally arrived in Switzerland 7 hours later.

We hung out with our family for the next two days. Visiting castles, the Pre Alps, the town of Gruyères. Swimming in the Zürich and hanging out with the locals.It went by fast and sadly it was time to head back to the States. We took a 2:00am train to the Zürich Airport. When we arrived we had about 8 hours before our plan was scheduled to depart, so we did what we do best...Entertain ourselves :D   
We hijacked a luggage cart and toured the airport, talking to all of the random people that we saw along the way. We got bored after a while and ended up Camping out for the night in a set of chairs in a corner near our gate. We built a little fortress of chairs, cart and tables and passed out for the night.

Tents, Trains, Friends & Fireworks

As the sun peeked through the tent window, Andrew and I quickly began getting ready for the long day ahead. We packed up the tent, jumped the graffiti cover wall and booked it to the train station hoping we'd be able to make the 9:00am train to Pamplona. Unfortunately it was full and we could only purchase tickets for the 1:00pm train.

Today, July 6 was opening day! The beginning of The festival of San Fermín (or Sanfermines) festival, a deeply rooted celebration held annually in the city of Pamplona, Spain. Thousands of people accompany a replica of the statue of Saint Fermin along the streets in the old part of city. The celebration begins at noon, when the opening of the fiesta is marked by setting off the pyrotechnic chupinazo and carries on to midnight 14 July, with the singing of the Pobre de Mí.

As much as we wanted to be present for the opening ceremony, it just wasn't going to happen....So we made due with what we had. We stopped in a small internet shop and sent e-mail to the family updating them on our whereabouts, got a few popsicles and hit the streets to continue exploring Barcelona.

We made our way back at the Train station around noon. I ran to the restroom while Andrew stood with our bags in the smoking area. When I came back outside Andrew was talking to a kiwi named Simon who was going in the same direction as us and was trying to get us to return our tickets and rent a car to drive 5 hours.

As much as I love a nice drive with friends, I really wanted to get to Pamplona. We spoke with a few car rental places and they were all out of our price range, so we improvised and snuck him onto the train. We made a pretty good team. After breaching the first security check point we now had to figure out how to pass through the next 2 check point with guards on either side....Simon went outside to the locked glass doors in the lobby area. After Andrew and I made it through I slipped my train ticket under the door. Simon made it through, now for the final security check.... as we got closer we noticed the lady at the desk checking all of the tickets and speaking to each person as they walked through....keeping my composure I handed her our tickets while Andrew stayed to my right Simon continued walking. The lady voice got louder as she tried to getSimon's attention, she looked back at me and I just shrugged my shoulders, she kept speaking to us in spanish asking if he was with me and I just replied inglés, inglés! Luckily the guard that was on our right was assisting someone else so Andrew and I kept walking while she continued talking gibberish, we went down the escalator and onto the train. Found Simon, took his backpack and told him to wait in the bathroom. 30 minutes later after the coast was clear we slipped him a note under the door.....it was smooth sailing from there. Four and a half hours later we arrived at our long awaited destination!

A couple on the bus from the train station overheard us discussing plans for the rest of the day and asked if they could come along. Our motto is the more the merrier!! The 5 of us put our bags in a locker area underneath the bus station and hit the streets of Pamplona listening to all of the live music, looking at all of the booths set up on the sidewalk buying last minute pieces for the traditional outfit to run with the bulls (bandanas, sashes, etc.) dancing with everyone in the street, eating great food and ended the evening with an amazing firework show.