Oh, the streets of Rome

I don't usually get excited about ruins. They can be kind of impressive, sometimes, but my typical resonse to a ruin is something like "Yup, that's really old, hmm" and then I move on. Mérida, on the other hand, is a whole town full of Roman ruins. It doesn't even pale in comparison to Rome, since I've never been. Mérida used to be Augusta Emerita, starting back in 25 BC when it was founded, apparently for veterans of the Roman wars in Cantabria. Which kind of made it a Roman retirement community, huh? Anyway, Augusta Emerita was the capital of Roman Luisitania and basically the capital of the whole Iberian peninsula for almost 800 years, until the Muslims took over. Mérida now is the capital of Extremadura, which is pretty much the same, right?

Anyway, the ruins. There's a whole Roman theatre and an amphitheatre. They take advantage of them by having a classical theatre festival every year (how cool is that?), but I happen to be here during some of the very few summer days with no performances. Poop. Would have been money well spent, even if I couldn't understand the words. Anyway, the amphitheater is where they had the spectacles that people liked, mostly gladiator-type stuff and fights between animals. You can see what used to be box seats where the rich people sat, and tunnel where the performers entered. The theatre is where people had to go, for stuff like politicial speches. Both apparently held thousands of people, although they didn't seem that big. And weren't ancient people really short? Maybe they were really disproportionate or something, but the stairs were sooo steep. I really had to stretch to climb them, but the tunnels weren't much taller than me so the Romans couldn't have been much taller than me, either. Maybe that's how they built up their leg muscles, I dunno. But there's lots more. The remains of two excavated houses are open to visitors. Some rooms had nice mosaic floors that were really well preserved, and one of the houses had these cool indoor ponds with openings in the roof above to collect rain water. There's a cemetery with some preserved masoleums, aqueducts, one of the longest Roman bridges anywhere, the old town forum. Also the circus, which nearly gave me a nervous breakdown because I could. not. find it. The place allegedly held 30,000 people, how do you miss something like that? (Okay I have driven circles around the Michigan highway system looking for the Palace of Auburn Hills which holds 21,454, but the roads are confusing down there and it was dark.) Well for one thing, you had to walk down an unmarked tunnel to get to the circus. And then once you go through the tunnel, there is no fucking circus. There's an open field with some rocks, and they call it preserved. This is why I don't usually get excited about ruins. But overall, this place is really amazing. The stuff is over two thousand years old. Joder. Makes you feel very small and insignificant, kinda like looking at the ocean.

Mérida was great, but it really kicked my ass; the stuff is all spread out, and to see everything I walked around all day and it's hot and kinda humid. Whine. I'm exhausted, I'm sweaty, I'm dirty, I'm sunburned, my feet hurt, I can't possibly smell good. (Reminds me of this Bob Dylan song--I was bald...) Brutal, just like the Romans.