When you hear “San Fermin Festival” you might be picturing this….

But San Fermin in New Orleans looks a little more like this…

The actual San Fermin Festival is a week-long festival held in Pamplona, Spain in honor of Saint Fermin (the co-patron of Navarre). Its most famous event is encierro, or the running of the bulls, where people literally run for their lives from loose bulls. There are usually quite a few injuries and also a few deaths. Ehh… I think I’ll just watch.

I’m not as afraid of the New Orleans bulls. I mean, I don’t fear for my life, but I do fear for my backside. The San Fermin festival in New Orleans was created to honor Spain’s historic festival while putting a New Orleans twist on it. The Big Easy Roller Girls and other roller derby league girls wear horned helmets and roller blades. These are your bulls. Their job is to chase the runners and hit the ones they can catch with a plastic bat right on the butt. You better run fast, unless you like getting hit with a bat.

The one-mile race starts and ends early in the morning, but the party keeps going. All through the city from 8 a.m. to early the next morning you will see people, regardless if they actually ran or not, dressed in all white and wearing a red bandana. Several bars offer San Fermin drink specials, so keep your eyes peeled for the specials written on chalk boards at the entrance of participating bars.

This year was my first time attending the festival and I had an absolute blast. This was the 10^th year of San Fermin in New Orleans and each year the attendance grows substantially. I was amazed at how packed the bars were at 10 a.m. It seemed like my friends and I couldn’t help but make new friends on that beautiful Saturday. We met people from different areas of Louisiana but also some tourists looking to party like the locals. Pro tip: if you make some really cool friends, you might just get a box of free donuts. Shout out to District Donuts!

Even though I had a great time at the festival, I couldn’t help but keep the recent events that seemed to be dividing the country in the back of my mind. I was initially scared to leave the house due to the shootings and all of the hate that was circulating through media. There were threats surfacing and rumors spreading that the Dallas shooting was going to reoccur in New Orleans the weekend of San Fermin. I was allowing the media to scare me, almost to the point of staying in from the festival. Many people had to remind me that it’s the media that’s new, not the violence. After discussions and thought, I agreed with my friends that we shouldn’t live in fear. And guess what: I went, I laughed and I lived.

It seemed as if the whole city was getting along better than usual that day. I was overjoyed to meet some pretty awesome people of all colors. I saw nothing but smiles, kindness, unity, and friendly people at the festival. In times where the nation is heated, it is OK to have a heightened sense of awareness, but don’t let the fear of what might happen keep you from living your life.