Week 3 by Lindsey Balamut

Week 3 

The third week was a pretty good week overall. We visited Merida and the palace of the Golfines. Merida was a beautiful city that had many historic monuments. We first visited a monument where pipes had brought water from the river, which was five kilometers away, into the town. On this monument you can see many storks, which were in danger of going extinct twenty-five years ago. Than we went to the Roman Bridge, which is one kilometer long and the second longest bridge, after Italy. The fortress came next in which the Muslims built, but the foundation of it was Roman. It was built by the water for siege and to fight off Christians. In the center of the fortress was the tabernae, which was where the Romans had shops that they sold wine and bread at.  

The next two places we saw in Merida were my favorite. They were the arena and the Roman Theatre. The Romans would go to the arena when they had free time and there would be fights among gladiators. There would be gladiators versus gladiators, gladiators versus beasts, and gladiators versus Christians. They kept the animals located in the middle of the arena, underneath. The Roman Theatre was absolutely amazing. It was reopened in 1933 after being buried for centuries, which is why it is in such good shape. The theatre is shaped like a cone so that people in the upper level and far from the stage could hear. Going to the theatre was free for everyone, but lower class would sit up higher and the upper class would sit close to the stage. I was shocked to learn that there were no females on stage, but only men who had different masks that they changed into.  

This week I grew accustomed to the way they live in Spain, but I was missing home a little bit. I enjoy the food here in Spain, but I was really missing the food back home. Some of the students and I hiked the mountain to the top and walked around the little stands that were set up for La Feria.