Friendly People in Pamplona

A group shot of all the guys in the program with our

guide Dr. Lerga in the suit in their board of trust room.

The people of Pamplona consider their city a really small city where you know a good amount of people in the city even though the city has about 200,000 people. That being said, when a group of American students arrives in the city people take notice. I had a lot of time to interact with the people of Pamplona and almost every experience was great with the people being really friendly and giving us advice to help maximize our experience in Pamplona. The people there really made us feel welcome and there's one afternoon that really sticks out to me. After class one day a group of us spent some time in the old part of the city and went into a pasteleria, a pastry shop, to get a snack. The owner was working in the shop and when we came in she started to tell us how she had seen us around town and was hoping that we would come to her shop. She asked us what activities we had done and told us all these great places to go in Pamplona and things to do. After that she took out this huge box and filled up with every pastry she had in the shop and refused to let us pay for anything. Another example of their hospitality occurred one day after a meeting we had at the Universidad de Navarra on medical research. We had some extra time after the meeting so we decided to explore the university since we had never been there before. We walked into one of the administration buildings and literally bumped into a retired professor who currently works in the administration as he was leaving the building. After realizing that we were engineers from the U.S. he gave us a guided tour of the university with entrance to many rooms that are usually off limit to the public and even students. He also gave us hats and t-shirts from the university. These are just two of many examples of Spanish hospitality. I think that all of these experiences show how friendly the people of Pamplona are especially to international visitors.