PAMPLONA, Spain — Around this same time last year, a colleague gave me a scathing look when I told him about my plan to take part in the Running of the Bulls.
“You could end up getting seriously hurt,” he told me with a scowl on his face.
Yeah, I could.
But the tone of his voice and the expletive that accompanied his advice had a hidden message.
Read: You can get killed by participating.
I smiled at him and countered that left him unable to talk back.
“So be it,” I remember telling him during a break from our editing duties.
One year later, here I am in the middle of a multitude eager to tick another wish on my bucket list.
As I enter the final stage of my European vacation that took me, my wife and daughter to spellbinding spots in Italy and Portugal, this stop is the most awaited, something that has kept me going all these months.
‘You could end up getting seriously hurt.’
So, here I am, dressed in the traditional white shirt and white pants and garbed as well with a bloody red scarf and crimson-colored sash about to fulfill one of my dreams by taking the bull (or bulls) by the horns.
Actually, my presence here is two-fold.
Several weeks ago, I applied for a credential to cover the nine-day spectacle.
Apart from trying to run side by side with fellow lunatics from Spain and elsewhere, I am going to do a story and take pictures and shoot videos using my beat-up phone.
Two weeks ago, while I was about to fly to Rome, the confirmation finally came and I celebrated by getting a six-pack of the finest Italian brew.
I was told that to avoid getting ran over by the bulls, one has to be sober, something that will be hard to be on the first bull run on Thursday morning (early Thursday afternoon in Manila).
With this city crowded with rowdy tourists from all the over the world, the vast majority of them drinking wine and beer all day given the party atmosphere, somebody’s bound to get hurt.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that one of them is not going to be the guy writing this piece.
If that happens — God forbids — I might miss doing this column next week.
Wish me luck.