COMING SOON HOUSE ADVERTISING ads_leader
Scandalous!
Jamie and I were a bit scandalized by the scantily-clad statues within the museum. Also, we had to get used to all of the headless statues, since apparently changes in power led to the beheading of statues in ancient Rome.Today I ventured out into the cold, dark morning to board a bus bound for Extremadura, the western Spanish province that borders Portugal. I had not gotten to bed as early as I had hoped on Thursday night, so after some issues with my alarm clock and the snooze button I managed to get ready and be out the door at 6:45am. UA has three organized trips this semester - one was a day trip to Toledo a few weeks ago, this one to Extremadura, and another one to Andalucía in a few weeks. We have almost twenty students in the UA group and we travel with students from St. Mary’s in San Antonio, so they add another ten or so. Due to these small numbers most people are able to get two seats on the bus to themselves, so I was able to (somewhat) comfortably lay over two seats and get a couple more hours of sleep. The drive to our first stop - Mérida - took about five hours, but that included an unnecessarily long 45 minute break at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. I was sort of annoyed since this was just an interruption of
my nap, but soon enough we were able to board the bus again and I squeezed in another quick nap before we arrived in Mérida around noon. Mérida was founded as Augusta Emerita in 26 BC when Augustus Caesar rewarded a heroic group of soldiers with this province within the Roman Empire. So, essentially this town became a mini-Rome, complete with an aqueduct, Roman baths, a theater and an amphitheater. The name might sound familiar because it was Russell Crowe’s character’s homeland in the movie Gladiator, so multiple times throughout the trip we were reminded not only of this fact but also of the sheer impossibility of Maximus returning home on horseback from the war in Germany in only three days. So all of you diehard Gladiator fans (I am talking to one person in particular here) sorry you have been so deceived. Anyway, our first activity in Mérida was a visit to the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano (National Museum of Roman Art), a museum containing Roman relics of everything from salvaged arches and colossal mosaics to marble statues and ancient coins. We spent a couple hours here as our guide (he came with our group and would be
We Don't Travel Light
Here is our group waiting for the tour to reconvene after lunch. Obviously you can't really miss us when we are all walking together. our guide for the complete trip - the man knows pretty much everything there is to know about Spain) gave us a tour and the history of the Roman Empire in Spain. After the museum we had our lunch break; most of us brought picnic lunches so we sat on a sidewalk and ate our sandwiches. Mérida is a small town of only 60,000 residents and the weather was rather cloudy and gloomy so there wasn’t too much activity as we wandered around the city for the rest of our lunch break. We met up once again at 4pm and continued our tour through the Anfiteatro Romano and the Teatro Romano (the Roman Amphitheater and Theater). The Anfiteatro, built in 8 BC, was used for gladiator battles between man and beast. We wandered around the seating area of the amphitheater then made our way down to the main floor where the gladiators once fought. Our group of girls decided when in Rome (or, rather, in what was once part of the Roman Empire), do as the Romans. So, we had our own gladiator battle, which was amusing because it was Jamie H, Tatum, Kris, Daniela, Lily and me essentially running
around trying to tackle each other. Meanwhile the rest of our group was watching us, probably a little puzzled or dismayed by our antics, and snapping photos of our battle. After we earned our gladiator status we went to the Teatro Romano which was built in 16 BC and used for various theatrical and musical performances. We were really into the role playing by this point so we practiced our theatrical skills (since most of us are in the theater class) on the grand stage. We continued to walk around the grounds and saw the Casa del Anfiteatro and Casa del Mitreo, the remains of two Roman houses that display the elaborate paintings on the walls and the mosaic tiled floors of traditional Roman houses. Around 7pm we returned to our bus and had a bus tour of the rest of Mérida, including the remains of the Acueducto de San Lázaro and the Puente Romano, the largest bridge in Lusitania. We drove for about an hour to our next destination - Cáceres - where we would be spending the night. It was a beautiful drive from Mérida to Cáceres because Extremadura is generally farm country, with cows and sheep dotting
The Women In Black
Here we are at one of the entrances to the bottom level of the amphitheater. the rolling green hills in every direction. The large bus windows lent themselves well to simply relaxing and watching the scenery. We arrived in Cáceres a little after 8pm and took our things to our hotel. Usually on my weekend trips I have to carry all of my belongings for long periods of time, however for this trip I knew that I could either leave my stuff on the bus or in our hotel room. Simply for the sheer reason that I could, I splurged and brought two pairs of pants and more than one pair of shoes. I felt rather spoiled having clothes to actually change in to (instead of essentially the same outfit for three days) so that was a highlight of the trip. We checked into our hotel, which was a bit of a funky eccentric place that looked more like a museum than a hotel. Each floor had a different color theme - ours was a dark red while the floor above us was blue - and there were various quaint sitting rooms (some that were roped off, giving it a strange museum-like feel). Kris roomed with me and Jamie and Tatum were right next door.
So Tough
We are demonstrating our bulging muscles and athletic prowess before the beginning of our gladiator battle. Apparently the hotel did not know that they were housing about thirty American college exchange students so they were not thrilled to say the least about learning this small fact, but I did not see too many other guests so they should have been grateful for our business. It was fun because it was a relatively small hotel so we were all within close proximity to each other. Our room was very nice - two twin beds, a nice view of the main plaza and the street, and a bathroom with impressive shower water pressure. Every room’s shape, layout and decoration was different so it was fun to check out everyone’s different rooms. We had about an hour to get settled and ready before meeting to walk down the street to a restaurant for dinner around 9:30pm. This was one of the four group meals we would have - dinner tonight, breakfast Saturday and Sunday, and lunch on Saturday. At dinner were all seated in the upper level and had a typical three course meal that included bread, wine, a dish of artichoke hearts for the first course, a delicious chicken dish for the main course, and a rather tacky
Gladiators!
This is after we all spread out in a circle then started to run and knock into each other in the center. We have very organized gladiator battles. dessert that came within its packaging (it looked like we picked it up at the grocery store). It was tasty so I guess we couldn’t complain too much, but we couldn’t help but laugh at how it sort of degraded the rest of what had been a delicious, formal meal. After dinner we returned to our rooms to get ready for the rest of our evening. We met up with a couple of Spanish students and they showed us around a few places with the best nightlife in Cáceres. We ventured into the historical center of the city, which is like stepping back into medieval times. First we went to a bar called Aldana, which had a live band that played salsa music there regularly. It was awesome because the bar is within one of the stone buildings that has been there for hundreds of years, so we were definitely mixing the old with the new. While the bar was cool, it definitely catered to an older crowd, so after the band was done with their set we left to go to a discoteca called Cameron that was a bit farther away. Since we arrived at the early hour of
midnight it was still pretty empty, but our massive group of UA and St. Mary’s students started dancing and eventually the place started to fill up. We met some more Spaniards and had a good time till we all left around 2:30am. This is still early in Spain, however we had a 9:30am breakfast time so we decided we should be rested for our day of touring the city in the daylight. We returned to our hotel and hung out for a little bit before falling asleep. It was nice to recharge after a long day of driving, touring, battling, and dancing!
COMING SOON HOUSE ADVERTISING ads_leader_blog_bottom
Tot: 0.061s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 28; dbt: 0.027s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
