Spain in My Ass

Since leaving France, Kelly and I have spent our remaining days of freedom (aka unemployment) in Spain between San Sebastian, Bilbao and Valencia.  This dwindling time has been spent on sandy beaches, drinking sangria and mostly doing nothing in general.  I was surprised, however, at the varying ideas of what 'Sangria' is, even in Spain.  In one bar you'd simply get fruit filled wine, while at the very next bar the bartender would mix a bottle of Smirnoff Ice, some orange Fanta and top it off with a splash of red wine.  Sick.  I'm not even ashamed to say I drank it.  Certainly it will not be the worst thing I've put in my mouth this year (insert dirty joke here...pervs).  Plus, at the end of a long unemployed year you won't find me throwing away a drink, especially when paying with the Euro.  

All of this inactivity has all been in preparation for the crescendo of this trip: La Tomatina.  Tomatina has been on my bucket list since before I even knew what a bucket list was.  To give you an abreviated description of the festival (you won't be getting any historical facts here), a bunch of drunk assholes (see above picture) put on their best all white outfit (not the flattering number I imagined it would be) and head to Bunol, Spain.  The festivities comence at 9:00 AM where anyone who is brave enough attempts to scratch and claw their way up a very tall and greased pole (apparently there is no official height requirement for this, any old log will do) in hopes of seizing the coveted grand prize topping this slippery log: a ham.  The obvious choice for a tomato festival.  This moment of glory with ham in hand, heralds the start of the biggest food fight in the world.  120 TONS of tomatoes are trucked into the city for this annual, hour long, free-for-all.  The only rule being you are required to crush the tomatoes for safety reasons before hurling them at a fellow festival participants.  Sometimes I forgot.

The following is how Tomatina played out for me.  First off, staying anywhere close to the village is near impossible this time of year.  This means that Kelly and I had to wake up at 6:30 AM to get ready and start drinking.  I don't necessarily recommend boxed wine for breakfast, but that's what happened whether we liked it or not.  We then were whisked away on a bus full of other early risers/boozers/assholes to find the mystical greased pole.  In a town teeming with drunk tourists, asking for directions to the greased pig pole was a bit of a challenge.  Though I was prepared with my trusty translator Kelly, "greased pig pole" even escaped her Spanish vocabulary after living in Mexico for a year.  I guess the Mexicans aren't as versed as the Spaniards when it comes to lubing up swine festooned timber.  When the pig is finally liberated, truck load upon truck load of tomatoes are dumped into the streets of Bunol where the culinary combat kicked off.  It was just as exciting as an adult food fight sounds...times a million.  

I couldn't stop smiling if I wanted to, which was a disadvantage when the tomatoes were being chucked directly into my grill.  At a time like this  it was best not to think about the contents of the produce that had just been scraped off dirty city streets, especially since I too had just relieved myself around the corner.  (Don't judge me, the boxed wine made me do it.)  Tomatoes ended up in every fucking crevasse.  Literally.  I'd be upset about the copious amounts of tomato paste produced in my ass crack that day if I hadn't spent about half the fight strategically shoving tomatoes down other peoples' pants.  Hey, sometimes my throwing arm got tired and things got creative.  

Another fun fact about tomatoes: the acidity will take off any waterproof sunscreen you lathered on your body and face that morning.  Not that Coppertone should have specified that "tomato juice" does not count as water, I just wished I would have taken that into consideration before crisping in the sun for several hours.  Damn.  All that time spent getting rid of  tan lines on that nude beach in San Sebastian was all for naught.  Someone please tell me sports bra tans have come into fashion stateside since we've been gone.  

I even sacrificed my fancy camera for this momentous life event.  Yes, extra money was paid for the shock-proof, water-proof  and all around Krista-proof camera, but I never underestimate my ability to fuck shit up.  So I gambled with my camera's life in order to document this glorious event for you (yes, you Ramey P. Marshall).  My rationale being that should my camera go to Kodak Heaven, then at least it had made it through an epic year-long around the world trip and had seen more things than most cameras do, documenting inconsequential birthday parties and such.  In all my excitement, I did however think to buy a new memory card and leave the precious memories of this year safely in the hotel room (not to toot my own horn, but Beep-Beep!).  I'll risk the camera, but that memory card is pure gold.  Pray to god I like you enough to show you the uncensored slide show when I get home.  Highly unlikely, I don't even want to remind myself about some of my recent shenanigans.

Well a day that starts early, ends early and the nice thing (terrible, awful thing) about starting a drinking bender before 7:00 AM is that the hangover is at full force just before dinnertime.  The trouble is that while I would normally be asleep during the eye of the hangover storm,  I was actually fully awake for the hangover of a lifetime; a pounding headache, being sunburned beyond recognition and after three showers, I was still crusted in tiny bits of tomato shrapnel.  Luckily, the extra recovery hours made sleeping it off a snap and I felt fleet footed and fancy free the next day for the bus ride out of town.  Here's to ending things with a bang...or a SMASH!

The camera lives!!!