madrid madness

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After the fireworks died down, so did the energy. The people from my hostel went for a walk, and I went to make a phone call. As i was coming out of the phone booth, the group from my hostel came running and shouted that a mob was behind them and we had to get the hostel as soon as possible. We thought we weren't far away, but we must have taken a wrong turn. the next thing I knew I was running in a crowd of people, and i couldn't see anyone i knew. I felt a hand grab mine in a death grip i couldn't pull away from, as hard as i tried. then i heard the voice of a guy from my hostel yelling, "don't try to pull away, I'm trying to help you!" he had me by one hand, and another girl by the other hand, and was pulling us down an alley, away from the direction of the crowd. We ran and ran, taking a million turns, trying to lose the crowd, until we had no idea where we were. We could hear police sirens and shouts all around us. A bus came speeding down the back street we were in and the driver stopped and yelled at us in Spanish to get in. We jumped in, and gave him the address of our hostel. He took us right to the door and sped away into the night.

The next day we learned that the celebrations had somehow errupted into clashes with the police. mobs of people had flooded the streets of Madrid that night and we were all grateful to that bus driver.