9-25 # Mérida, España

Today we went to Mérida Spain, about an hour drive from Cáceres, but still in the province of Extremadura. To start off the morning we met with a group of study abroad students from Kalamazoo who are studying in Cáceres for the next 6 months. We all took a bus down to Mérida to begin our Awesome Ancient Architecture Adventure!
The first thing we saw when we entered Mérida were the aquaducts. Where we saw them, they were really high (though depending on the elevation of the parts of the city there are high parts and low parts). The aqueducts bring water from 5 kilometers away, so when you look at this picture just imagine building something like this for that kind of a distance!

Look up "segovia aqueduct" for a REALLY awesome view

After the aqueduct, we separated from the Kalamazoo group so that Alfonzo could show us around. I don't always understand what he's saying (his accent is very thick and he talks a little fast) but I'm pretty sure that half of the places we visited, he'd worked at! So I think our tour guide was definitely the best :-). Whether I understood him or not, he definitely knew his stuff!!
Here he showed us the ancient city center, where the Forum was in the ancient times. There was the center of Religion, Politics, and Government. The city was doing a restoration project on this part of the city, but we got to see the Temple of Diana as we walked by.

El Templo de Diana

The next stop on our tour was the ancient Theater of the city. As Alfonzo said, back then there wasn't Playstation or XBox, so they went to the Theater! The Theater was pretty big, but more interesting was that behind the actual theater was like a small market/entertainment area and bathrooms etc etc. In those times you could have spent your entire day at the Theater (assuming there were shows).

One side of the Theater stage

The group on the stage, doing our number

And, as any good Theater has, right across the way was an Amphitheater (like a Colosseum) where people would fight lions or have naval battles, etc. I got confused on the naval part, but apparently the large depression in the middle would at times be filled with water from the aqueducts and they'd have men fight on little boats, or something like that.

This is the view you would see as you walked into the Ante-theater

We also visited some museums and other locations of interest, and you can see those photos on Facebook  here (I don't want to load this thing up as a photo album).
Finally, one of our groupmates, Kayla, got sick this weekend. She had to sit out the Mérida trip. I'm not sure, but it sounds like she might have a stomach-flu type thing like I did as well, so say a little prayer for her if you can! We hope she's ready for Lisbon next weekend!