Andalucia! First Stop: Merida

OM goodness this week was awesome. Seriously. You all have no idea. We left Tuesday morning for a weeklong trip to Andalucía which is in the South of Spain. Just so you can all have an idea, remember in Italian Job when left ear wants a house with a room for his shoes, this is where he wants it. Anyways, it started with a 3 hour bus ride to Merida. On the way there there was a rest stop that had pretty impressive labels for the bathrooms. The Ladies and Gentlemen signs were pictures of old Spanish Ladies and Gentlemen. It was another testament to the Spanish’s innate attention to detail. Even something like a bathroom sign is elaborate and impressive. In Merida they had a bunch of really old Roman stuff. Just so you all know, during the time of Rome, aside from the actual city of Rome, Spain was the most roman place in the world. In order to get into the actual city of Merida we had to cross a Roman bridge. It was a really awesome and I was rather impressed that the Romans had the ability to build something that would last 2000 plus years and still be as good as new. When we went into the city we had planned to head quickly to a famous museum but even before we got near we saw tons of cool Roman ruins. As we got there we found out that it would close in only 30 minutes. But, we decided that it was worth it and went ahead in. It was really cool and there were a lot of things I had thought that I would never see. They had some of the bodies who had been mummified by ash 2000 years ago. I was really impressed at the way nature works. So anyways, Merida had a huge coliseum and amphitheater. They weren’t open till after the infamous Spanish siesta so we had 3 hours to wander around the city. (Southern Spain is prety famous for decorative plates and such.) I made the wise choice to stick with the girl who was the tour guide to the city. You see, we all were assigned a certain site in Spain to report on and when we get there we get to be the group’s tour guide. Brittany was assigned the whole city so she knew all the cool stuff. We went with her and saw an ancient sport arena. I was really tempted to hop the fence and run an official Roman Lap but it probably wasn’t a good idea. I really like the idea, however, of all the sports that had gone on in roman times. We wandered a bit more and saw a lot of the city. Merida is famous for it's orange trees.As we wandered we ran into a Party. You see, the reason that the museum was not going to open again in the afternoon was because it was a holiday in Merida. So we found where the cool party was and had a blast. After we had had our fun at the party we turned and noticed that our tour guide had left us. So we wandered around a bit more and found a really nifty plaza. It had a few orange trees.I decided that I needed a moment to think. We found the Mario Brothers. They thought they were funny but they weren't. They did however tell us where this cool arch is. From there we went to a cool medieval festival. I was able to shoot a bow and arrow but none of my scout camp skill have survived. I did win a sucker. From there I bought a chocholate crepe. It was awesome. At five we met at the Amphitheater and Coliseum. I was really enjoying the environment. It was kind of awe inspiring to think that this all had been around since the time of Christ. The whole area was amazingly beautiful.

The Amphitheater was really immense. For sake of inspiration I had the troy soundtrack play on my iPod for a bit and it was rather fitting. I was lost in thought for a bit and someone decided that I needed a picture. We managed to get the whole group together for a group photo and us guys set up our cameras on the steps for timer shots. It took so long however that my camera turned itself off and when I pressed the button, nothing happened. I was rather sad but there was a lady there that I asked to take a picture but she had no idea what she was doing. The first picture we hadn’t even sat down yet. In the second no one was looking. The third one was with us at the top of the picture. This was a problem because there was no amphitheater in the shot and all ground. Honestly, people here who are set on attention to detail are excellent at it but a lot of people are just really apathetic. It’s kind of sad. Brock did take a good picture though from the timer so I just got it from him. It was really neat and I almost didn't want to leave but I wasn’t too down because that wasn't even a real stop. On the way out we did get a pretty neat sunset picture. And thus we left Merida. We quickly went from there to Sevilla but that is another tale.