Pamplona. A Run-in with the Police, not the Bulls.

Nervous feeling mixed with excitement (am I a freak?) when our car gets pulled over by a squad of five hot looking police officers for doing an illegal (almost) lane change in Pamplona. After handing over our passports, hunky Officer1 chats (or interrogates) Ben (driver). Guapo Officer2 comes to my side of the window.

Lunch in Pamplona

Officer2: De donde eres (where are you from?)
Me: Malaysia
Officer2: How long are you in Spain for?
Me: Quatro semanas (4 weeks)
Actually I’m only in Spain for 2 weeks but “quatro semanas” comes out of my mouth.
I think (I like to think) he is more interested/fascinated in yours truly’s beardy-stachy, brown skin, ISIS-lookalike man in the passenger seat 😋😉

A younger cute colleague Officer3 joins him, smiles at me which I return the smile. He looks at lost of what to make of me. More smiling & nodding.
Then hunky Officer1 askes Ben to get out of the car for separate interrogation? Must be, because I am not allowed to get out. Officer3 comes to the driver’s side of the window.

Officer3: Do you carry drugs?
(Fuck! I don’t know what Ben’s been telling Officer1 since he is being questioned outside of the car. When cornered, act confused and dumb)

Me: Errr…

Officer3: Marijuana?
(Can he sniff weed like a sniffer dog?)

Me: Yes. For my injured wrist
(Showing him my strapped wrist)

At this time I’m hoping he stops looking around in the car. At the same time I am hoping we get booked for the experience of being taken to police station by five hunky funky officers for whatever they are going to charge us.

“FREAK. WEIRDO,” my good self tells me.
“I EFFING AM,” my dark self screams.

I am nervous and excited at the same time while waiting for them to make up their minds, either to search the car thoroughly or to book us or to let us go. They are right in front of our car. I fish out a bottle of moisturizer from my hand-carry bag and start applying all over my skin. They can see clearly what I am doing. I’m nervous, OK. I don’t know what else to do while waiting for their verdict.

I remember watching Kate Winslet on The Graham Norton Show when she talks about the night that fire engulfed Richard Branson’s resort in Necker Island when she was staying there with her family. They were all asleep when the fire broke out. After she was awoken the first thing she did was, “Put on my bra,” before going to rescue Branson’s grandmother and her own children. I can relate, ha ha.

Way, way back in March 2005. At around midnight, I was lying on the sofa in the living room of my apartment on the 11th floor in Kuala Lumpur, reading. Suddenly I felt something but I didn’t know what. Something that I never felt before. I felt as if my heart was beating faster. It was very strange. Then I looked around and the first thing I noticed was that a light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the dining area was swaying. Straight away, “Ah, earthquake!” came to my mind even though I’d never experienced earthquake in my life before. I felt the building was swaying too.

It was the big undersea eartquake that caused giant catastrophic tsunami across the Andaman Sea, Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Strait of Malacca on the boxing day in 2004 made me think that what I was experiencing right now was an earthquake or one of the post-boxing-day earthquake tremors. I was naked on the sofa. I was scared shit. But at the same I was excited because this was my first time ever to feel and experience earthquake, at the age of 36. I was contemplating weather to run down the staircase or just stay. I decided to stay because I thought if the building was going to collapse it would collapse before I reached for safety on the ground. The ground was 12 floors down. I had to run down the staircase, not the elevator unless I jumped down and died instantly. I decided to stay in my apartment.

I put on my Calvin Klein underwear. I was thinking if the rescue people found my dead body under the rubble of the collapsed building, at least I wasn’t naked. I was in white Calvin Klein. Ha ha. So Ms. Winslet, I understood you well when the first thing you did was put on your bra.

Back to Pamplona. Alas….I’m equally disappointed & excited when the police let us go after two or three long minutes of waiting. Adios guapos…..