Castles and Conquerors

Trip 1: Merida, Caceres, Trujillo

We left early Friday morning on a bus. It took about three, four hours to get to Merida.

Merida is in the autonomous community of Extremadura. I think they call it Extremadura because the heat was Extreme... haha just kidding. It's on the southwestish side of Spain, next to Portugal.

Merida is home to the best Roman ruins in all of Spain. It was the coolest place I have ever been. (besides the heat, of course...) All those years of looking at pictures of Roman temples and columns and stadiums, well, now I've stood in one. It was amazing. Really amazing.

Remains of the Roman Forum in Merida - the forum is where they would gather to share ideas, have debates, cultural and political discussions, etc. Check out those columns. They're Corinthian Columns. Ha. I've learned something in these classes of mine :)

The temple of Diana - basically temples were for worshiping, and then in the outer area they would throw festivals and that sort of thing.

The "backdrop" of the stage in the theater at Merida - Probably at one time you would have been able to access the second story, I'm not sure. This photo is taken from the top of the seating area.

Me on the stage of the Theater in Merida - Note the HUGENESS of it! It was built in a semicircle formation, and it had surprisingly good acoustics!

Me with the Amphitheater in Merida - the amphitheater is where they would have gladiator fights. It is an oval shape, with large doorways at either end for the gladiators, etc, to enter. The indented part in the middle used to be an underground chamber, filled with animal pens, rooms for gladiators to prepare in, etc. It would have been completely underground with the arena smooth overtop of it (meaning it would have been excavated much deeper than it currently is, as well. )

Here's a better picture of the layout of the amphitheater.

Caceres:

We spent the night here. We also did a night tour of the old part of the city. See my Picasa album for some excellent architecture shots :) Caceres isn't super famous, but it has some excellently preserved walls, towers, and buildings. The old part of the city is kind of up on the hill a bit, and there are really narrow streets in between tall buildings. It totally made me think of movies like Les Miserables, the Count of Monte Cristo, Zorro, etc, with the city walls and narrow, cobbled streets. I can't even express how incredibly COOL it was!!!!!

Me on top of the tower. We also went on top of the other tower you can see behind me, in the left of the picture. Amazing. And it was sunset time. Even more amazing.

Narrow streets. TOTALLY Les Mis. Around the inside of the city wall, there is a narrow street that goes all the way around. It is built that way to more easily facilitate the movement of troops from one point to another along the walls, unencumbered by people and citizens that crowd the inner streets of the city.

Trujillo: We went to Trujillo Saturday afternoon. Trujillo is fairly small, somewhat insignificant, but it has this amazingly amazingly fabulous castle up on the hill. It also has a cactus tree. We ate cactus fruit and got stickers all over our fingers. We then proceeded to charge at full speed up the hill - in the Extremadura heat - to "conquer" the castle. We are legit like that.

Statue of Francisco Pizarro in Plaza Mayor - he conquered Peru.

Me on the wall of the castle overlooking Trujillo

What the inside looked like - it was basically a big square with an open courtyard in the middle. More a fortress than a palace, definitely. You can walk all the way around on top of the walls - it's about four feet wide, and the walls on the side are four feet tall or so, with gaps to shoot arrows between :)

What it looked like from down the hill a bit.

The delicious fruit of the cactus...

After Trujillo, we got back on the bus and headed back to Alcala. This is basically what everyone was doing:Somehow Ken managed to sleep two hours on a bumpy bus without dropping those cards. Way to go man. You're my new hero. :D

A Marvelous Work and a Wonder

Thursday - Sept 9, 2010

We met at the train station and took the train to Madrid, minus a slight detour where we forgot to get off the train and had to get off, get on the train going the other way, and then get off at the correct location. We then took the Metro to the Pavones station, came out of the metro and walked down the street, turned the corner, and this is what we saw:
It is even more beautiful in real life than it is in pictures. I felt like crying just looking at it. I think the temple plaza is the cleanest place in Madrid, even though Madrid is a pretty clean city, at least, as far as I have seen.

We then went into the CCM - (MTC) and took a brief tour. The president, President Earl, told us the CCM takes all the missionaries going to Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, aaaannnd... somewhere else, all go through the CCM. They usually have between 12 and 20 elders and sisters there at the same time. The Russian missionaries also come down and stay there every so often while they get their Visas renewed.

The CCM is housed in an apartment building, which also contains apartments for members who travel to the temple. It takes up several floors, includes classrooms, bedrooms (which we didn't see... haha), a cafeteria, and an absolutely beautiful view of the temple:



After the tour, we watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. In Spanish. I understood most of it, and it was really amazing. Then we were able to go practice with the missionaries! We split into groups of 2-4, and the missionaries practiced giving us discussions. It was amazing. The elder and sister who were teaching my group had only been in the CCM for one day. The elder was from Barcelona, and the sister was from Manti.

I was really touched by this sister, though she struggled a lot with expressing herself in Spanish, she bore a very simple and sincere testimony of how the Gospel blesses her life, and even though it was just a practice session, it brought tears to my eyes. I don't know her or her story, but I know she loves the gospel, and I am so excited for the lives she's going to touch. I love missionary work. It's the work of God, and it is so amazing. I'm so proud of all my missionary friends! :)

Oh, hey Madrid...

On the wall in my apartment last year, there was a poster with many hilarious quotes, phrases taken out of context, etc, etc. One of said quotes read, "You can sleep when you're dead!" (yes, I did say that, to illustrate the overrratedness of sleep when social activities were ocurring). Here in Spain, I have modified my slogan to, "You can sleep in the States, you can eat hamburgers in the States, you can watch movies in the States, you can talk in the States..." (pretty much anything generic that should not take precedence over uniquely Spanish activities). With that as a preface, let me recount the events of yesterday:

Melanie and I were in our little room, surfing Facebook, talking about nothing in particular.
Melanie mentions we've been here almost two weeks.
I yelp, "TWO WEEKS?!?!"
She says yes.
I slam my computer shut with, "Why the heck are we wasting time sitting in this little room! We're going to Madrid!"
Melanie senses the urgency and seriousness of the situation and immediately agrees with me.

Ten minutes later we're on the train:

Thirty minutes later we emerged from the Metro station into the Puerta del Sol, where we proceeded to walk past six ice cream stands in order to arrive at the specific one that we wanted, then we went to at least ten souvenir stores in search of a Barca jersey for me, (didn't find it, but I WILL! haha), then we ended up at the Mercado de San Miguel eating overpriced and very delicious trufas (truffles), and finally walked through the Plaza Mayor, which is undoubtedly so far my favorite place in Madrid.

The trufas were good.

VERY good. Mine is just quivering with fear, though.


I might also mention that I successfully rode the Metro for the very first time - I've never even seen a subway before, it was pretty sweet.

And as a side note, I'm pretty sure that any doubts Melanie had in her mind regarding my sanity have now been confirmed. Hopefully she's cool with having a completely crazy roommate, who randomly decides to go on soccer-jersey searching adventures in big cities and who likes to make faces at dogs, mirrors, and truffles, who has two different colored shoelaces and often talks to herself without realizing it, and who has absolutely no sense of color-coordination for her outfits... Hey, it's all good, life is more fun this way!

True football...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Villa

My absolute favorite.

That is all.

I want to be a Roman when I grow up...

Today in class we talked about columns, arches, and magical buildings.

Sadly, I can't find a good article online to link to here. But we talked about the Pantheon in Rome. The ceiling is a dome, which is the largest unsupported dome ceiling in the world. It was built by the Romans, and it has a hole in the middle through which sun, rain, whatever can come. However, when you're inside, you have the sensation that the rain doesn't come in. This is due to several factors:
- in that area it is often windy, and the rain falls at an angle, therefore not entering the building, though it appears that it is.
- the Romans who built the Pantheon built an amazing drainage system, so that the floor does not stay wet, making it appear that the water isn't even falling.
- the building is very tall and light amounts of rain evaporate before falling all the way to the floor.

In all actuality, if it's pouring rain outside, you will get wet, although it won't really appear to be raining within the building.

We also talked about columns. The Greeks influenced the Roman columns, however, the Romans were very showy people and definitely wanted fancier columns than the Greeks had. So, just to confuse all the poor students of ancient architecture millenia later, they decided to mix all the basic styles of columns together and create a bazillion new types of columns and columnal decorations. Thank you, Romans. I appreciate it very much.

My apologies that this post is so incredibly lame - I haven't felt very well the last couple of days and therefore have been laying in bed watching Lion King instead of playing in Madrid like my group has. I also therefore have no pictures of my own to post. Instead, here is an excellent picture of the Pantheon:







Cool, eh? I thought so. I promise to not be lame and have something more interesting in the next few days. Friday we're going to Extremadura, which is on the western side of Spain, so that will be very cool. We also plan to tour the CCM (MTC) here in Madrid and see the temple Thursday night.



And as a side note, I drank Coca-Cola for the very first time yesterday. Not bad, though it definitely has a unique flavor!

All roads lead to the Puerta del Sol

It's true, actually. The Puerta del Sol is a massive plaza in the middle of Madrid that has roads spiking off of it like the rays of the sun - some of them you drive on, some are just for walking. Puerta del Sol is nicknamed "Spain's belly button." In reality, the real exact center of Spain is about 20 km away, but.... close enough. All carreteras - freeways/highways - start from Puerta del Sol. There's a little plaque saying "0 KM". All directions in Madrid are relative to Puerta del Sol, all streets are numbered according to how close they are to Puerta del Sol, etc, etc, etc.

This statue is of King Carlos III - 1700s - under whose reign Spain began to be recognized as a nation. (also note the massively huge billboard for the new Karate Kid movie - yeaaahhh!)

Puerta del Sol is only one of the cool things in Madrid. For our first day there (yesterday) we did a walking tour as a group of the old part of the city. Things that we passed by, that we will return to see more of later included:

Palacio Real: ---------->

Prado Museum:







We passed a lot of cathedrals and monasteries and other such places, as well as Cervantes' house (the guy who wrote Don Quixote - he's like the backbone of Spain), but I'll post more about them as we actually go to them.




Today Melanie and I explored Alcala. Historically. It was awesome! We discovered an archeology museum right here, 10 minutes away, that has displays from "the beginning of time" clear up through today. It talks a ton about Roman Spain, Celtic Spain, Spain during the Moorish control, during the middle ages, everything! We plan to go back often as we cover these eras in our History/Culture class. (and of course, everything's in Spanish - excellent!) :)

We also found an absolutely lovely cathedral that we want to go in - but we were half an hour late for the tour, so we'll go back.

This whole country is jam-packed with history, architecture, stories, buildings, museums, cathedrals, palaces, everything! We've seen a lot of the current culture - fairs, bowling, shops, etc - now I'm super excited to start learning about the past and all the eras and all the people who have been here before me. I never considered myself a "Europe person" until I started learning about Spain. Now I completely understand the attraction - there is sooo much history here!

How to run with bulls

1. Wear good shoes.
2. Don't be drunk (pretty much all the people that die have been drinking for the previous, oh I don't know, 100 hours).
3. Don't get stepped on. It's worse to be trampled than gored. Bulls weigh as much as a mid-size car.
4. Know something about bulls:

Here's the thing. Bulls don't have peripheral vision like you and I. They see what's straight ahead of them and not much else. So, if you're running with the bulls, and he's charging you like crazy, simply run off to the side of him and poof! you're gone. He doesn't see you, and he'll run after the next poor tourist that he can now see. Nearly all the people who die in Pamplona every year are extranjeros, or foreigners, who run in straight lines. And you cannot outrun the bull. I promise.

No, I have not been running with the bulls, but I DID go to the first day of my Spanish History/Culture class! It was more entertaining than any class I've ever had - our profe is amazingly fun!

History of running with the bulls: Back in the day, you know, when the Romans were out conquering people and such happenings, there were these little people living in the north of Spain. They tended to build their towns on hills. One year the Romans camped out to fight them - at the bottom of the hill. Instead of fighting, the people let their bulls out and drove them down the hill. Naturally, the Romans ran for their lives. Hence, running from bulls. :)

There's more legends, such as merchants driving them through the streets to cattle markets, etc, but I like that one best. In northern Spain in that time period, bulls were considered god-like. They are very muscular and impressive animals, and the people considered them "guerreros" or warriors. However, when a bull gets to be 11 or 12 years old, it gets old and decrepit and the death process is very slow and painful. The people did not see this as a fitting end for a god/warrior, so they decided that these animals should die in their "natural habitat" or, that is to say, a war. Hence the beginning of bullfighting. A suitable death for a noble warrior.

I definitely don't agree with bullfights - I think it's quite terrible, both for the poor bull and the torero (bullfighter), but it was cool learning the supposed origins of the activity.

A few more Spanish highlights:
- Spanish movies are not like American movies. They rarely have happy endings, and are not nearly as predictable as the American theater.
- In Spain, waiters/waitresses are paid normal salaries. Hence, people don't tip, or tip very little. The waiters obviously love when ignorant American tourists show up!
- The doorknob on our apartment is in the middle of the door. Very odd.
- If you get on the train at a station where the ticket machine is closed, and then get off, apparently nobody cares that you didn't pay... :S haha!

Viva Espana!