Merida

Brett Kessler

The first field trip of the program was to a city called Mérida, Spain. This city contained some of the main architecture that drew me in to the program in the first place. We spent a day in Mérida and while I was there I honestly forgot I was in Spain. The ancient Roman architecture is everywhere in the city and it is the closest I have ever felt to real history in my life. The experience is both very fun and educational. You learn about the rich history of the city and all the groups that have influenced its architecture and design today. You get to see many ruins like a portion of an old aqueduct. The second largest Roman bridge in their empire. An old roman theater which we learned has great acoustics when a student from our class sang for a crowd in the ancient stone bleachers. After we experienced the theater we went to see the smaller coliseum that was in Mérida which was personally my favorite site to visit. I have always been interested in the gladiator fights of ancient Rome so it was a wonderful experience to see the area in person. A very interesting fact about Mérida is that they are constantly finding old Roman ruins buried under the earth and modern day houses. It is an amazing thought that an entire gladiator coliseum was once under the earth and was one day found by people that happened to be digging in that specific area. This experience alone was well worth the trip and doesn’t begin the scratch the surface of things I have experienced so far in Spain.