Itálica

I woke up early on Saturday morning and casually checked the time on my super cool 90s-era Nokia phone to see that it was 7:50am.  It took me a few seconds to realize that while my roomie and I were (over)sleeping soundly in our bunk beds, a few of our friends were already on their way to meet us at the bus stop to leave for Itálica.  Whoops.  We quickly got dressed,  stuffed our bocadillos (the sandwiches our Mamá Pilar makes us when we go on trips) into our purses, and ran to the bus stop.  We then took the bus across town to a bus station.  We finally met up with the rest of the group and began the 2o minute drive to Itálica.  Whew.

The first place we visited in Itálica is the coliseum.  It dates back to the first century BC.  Three events took place in this arena:  Gladiators would fight each other, Gladiators would fight lions/tigers/other scary animals, and occasionally Christians would be fed to the lions. 

It was so crazy to be in the exact spot where all of this took place. 

There are passageways all around the coliseum.  The gladiators/wild animals would walk through the passageways to enter the arena.  Creepy!

Here I am pretending to be a gladiator entering the arena:

Scary, right?

The pit in the middle of the arena used to be covered with wooden boards.  There were rooms down there where the animals would be kept and the gladiators would get ready.

Julianna and I hanging out with some Roman ruins :)

This is the foundation of a house...i know, not that interesting :) The fact that it is thousands of years old makes it better though...right?

The rooms of the noble people in the house had mosaic floors:

A few years ago someone was digging a hole to put a garage in, and they stumbled upon this:
The entire city of Itálica is on top of an ancient Roman city.  However, if you find anything of interest on your land, it immediately become public property.  For this reason, nobody digs holes or modifies anything in Itálica.  It is strange to be in a modern city and to suddenly see a huge Roman theatre between the highway and a coffee shop.

Later that night, we went exploring downtown Sevilla.  It was my first time to see the river!

So beautiful.

I feel so lucky to be in Spain.  I'm having a great time and am learning so much!  Hopefully my Spanish will begin to improve soon...my speaking skills are not what they should be.

For now I am taking it one day at a time, which is much less overwhelming than thinking about my time here as a 4 month chunk.

I'm ready for a week of school, shopping, and exploring.

adios,

julia