Pictures of Mérida, Part I: Roman Theatre and Amphitheatre

Mérida, about an hour from Cáceres by train, is something I really looked forward to seeing while in Extremadura (the province). Why? Because it was the Roman capital for the Roman province (which included Portugal)! All things Roman! How can I not get excited?

We went there Thursday the 23rd. It was cooler and windy but the skies were clear. The first stop was at the Roman Amphitheatre and Theatre which are right next to each other and you get one ticket to see both. Below are pictures from these two landmarks (a later post will include the rest of Mérida - I'm trying to limit how many photos end up in each post).

This is the ampitheatre. It is known as the most well-preserved one in the world. Essentially, it's the place where the gladiators and animals fought and blood ran. Very exciting entertainment. You can see Emily's hand pointing something out as she explains some aspect of the place.

 This shows the southern entrance which is opposite the one in the previous picture. Colin is taking a picture and Rachel is posing prettily.

This is one of the rooms off the side of the northern entrance. It was probably where the gladiators prepped. Rachel and Sarah demonstrate how that was done.

Since I'm only posting pictures from my camera, there are very few of me. This is in some crevice near the southern entrance (notice my new hat and pashmina).

This is from above the southern entrance, just before the announcement that the place was closing in fifteen minutes.

First glimpse of the theatre (which was decidedly much more posh than the amphtitheatre but not as popular). The center arch is the back of the stage.

One side of the stage (the side closer to the amphitheatre). After this quick glance, we hurried out to the entrance. They normally wouldn't re-admit people who had been there in the morning, but we got a promise that we would be let back in after lunch (and we were).

After lunch: the toilets!

These columns, in the area behind the stage, were completely submerged in dirt that had accumulated over the centuries and has recently been excavated. The area includes the toilets in the previous picture. This whole area was where hobnobbing took place after performances.

A closer look at the stage.

A look upwards from directly beneath columns on the stage. Good view of two layers of decorations.

Rachel photobombed her parents during a cute photo session.

Pictures of Cáceres

Happy Christmas Eve! We're taking things pretty easy around here today. Some are currently hiking up a mountain (on a road) this afternoon. I don't trust my stomach enough to go (had a bad time last night and things haven't quite settled down yet). When they get back, we will be meeting Emily's host family and having dinner with them. It is very nice and sunny out today. For this post, I've picked out photos sights around Cáceres, mostly the old city and I'll give a short description for each. Yesterday we went to Mérida but that warrants its own separate photo post.

The three sisters, opposite of Arco de la Estrella.

A wooden door leading to ... bricks? Sarah's hand through the slit can touch the barrier beyond. Why the need to preserve the door after walling in whatever it used to lead to is a mystery indeed.

 

The Alworth family just outside of the old city walls near the Jewish Quarters.

Colin for sale at the market! This colin is a type of fish, not slabs of my Colin.

River of umbrellas in one of the two passage ways along the long line of regular weekly market stalls. Got great deals on leggings (1 euro each), pashmina (2 euros each), zip-up fleece top (7 euros), and a brimmed hat (6 or 7 euros).

Do not fear, fellow Americans: these are costumes of individual religious orders in Cáceres which are worn during a parade. The different groups each carry a large float usually with a figure of Christ or Mary and plants on them as they trudge slowly through the streets. The hoods are to show humility.

This is Papa trying out a weighted example of the wooden supports for the floats.

The ceiling of an underground cistern, where water has collected for many years. Cisterns were a large part of the water supply as far back in Cáceres's history as is known.

Stairs leading from street- to water-level inside the cistern (not navigable anymore, at least for the average tourist).

Colin and Papa walking down the street, having one of their many conversations.

In Cáceres!

Just a quick note saying we've all made it. We did come through Frankfurt airport but there was only an hour or so delay for our airplane, which we spent most of the time sitting in our seats waiting for them to finish hosing the plane down with what looked like antifreeze. Otherwise, all is well. 3-4 hours of sleep in plane seats in about 36 hours is not fun, let me tell you. Rainy but quite warm (maybe around 50 degrees F) here in lovely Cáceres. Have walked around, looking at the old city, and have had a sufficient amount of coffee :) About to head to the Christmas market! Hasta mañana!

Now I'm a Real Librarian!

I just got accepted for the part-time reference librarian position at CLC! Hurray! My first day is the Monday after we get back, which is perfect because it gives me about a day to deal with jetlag and relaxing but not enough time to get too nervous. Hopefully.

I'd gotten a call but it was during the 20 minute interval that I just happened to have my phone off on Wednesday. So I talked to Colin that night and then called back, leaving a message Thursday morning then Thursday afternoon. I got a call back this morning and from the sound of it, I felt like I was hired already, but I tried to be only cautiously optimistic. I said I was available to talk and look around either today or tomorrow but not next week, so they said, "How about 11:30?" So in I went, with hardly a minute to freak out.

I don't remember the names of most of the people I met, but that should come with time.

I am so excited! At the same time, I can hear my inner critic and the sloth side of my brain voicing their opinions and saying, "It's not all *that* great." But I really do think it is awesome. I feel blessed. Blessed - it's the only word I can think of to describe what I feel right now. So I say to the negative critics in my head, "Shoo! I don't need or want you right now!"

Oh, and yes I am still pretty nervous, but not as nervous as I have been since getting the voicemail on Wednesday. This is an awesome thing to happen just before leaving on the trip.

Phew ...

Jokes

I found a list of animal jokes on a piece of paper that I wasn't sure what to do with, then I decided to share the fun here!

What's black and white and goes around and around?
A penguin in a revolving door.

Why don't you see penguins in Britain?
Because they're afraid of Wales.

What do elephants do at 5:00 in the morning?
They hide in the forest and jump out of trees.

Why are alligators flat?
They wander about the forest at 5:00 in the morning.

Perhaps a real post will be made later :)

Kind of hopping around and got things to do so I'll try to make this short and sweet.

The roads are getting pretty slippery with the weird 20 degrees but steadily falling snow melting to slick wet stuff on the roads. Glad I got prescriptions and went to the post office before it got to bad and/or real rush hour started. This is the second time this winter - last was when we went downtown Chicago on Saturday for Colin's soccer game and to hang out at Shaheli's but there was a huge load of snow that got dumped on us so it was pretty and fun. Also tried an interesting restaurant called Lokal which served Shaheli and me bottomless mimosas. For lunch.

I've written 5k words since the end of nanowrimo, which makes me both happy and disgruntled. But mostly, I am surprised that it seems I garnered so much boost from the nanowrimo craze. Though I suspect there are three reasons that have greater impact: 1) It's not November anymore. No more buffer (excuse) for not doing other things. 2) So much stuff needs to get done now, because it's not November anymore. You know, real life stuff. 3) I've been trying to force myself to find a stopping point which is making me freeze up because "ACK I have no clue how to 'end' this." So, instead of stressing out trying to basically do nanowrimo and real life and getting ready for Spain all at once, writing has downshifted in my list of priorities. This lets me not freak out whenever I don't write in a day or feel like I should have written more. I'm aiming for a "wimpy" 500 words a day which will get me another 5k or so words before leaving for Spain. If the story ends by then, awesome. If not, something else to do in January when we get back. 500 words is a lot harder to come by now that I'm so far into the story and don't have a clear end in mind, but I refuse to let it collect dust until January. The creative juices must keep flowing.

As for "the rest of life," I've been really tackling things. You might remember me mentioning my on and off interest in productivity and organization tricks and tips. I had been dancing around the idea of reading the Getting Things Done book and I finally checked it out of the library Monday. I'm trying really hard not to become some crazy fan of it. Definitely need to test it out for awhile, but wow I'm actually feeling real relief and control and seeing results already ... I'll be sure to blog more specifically about it later, but you can find a good summary of the GTD ideas here. The best thing to do is read the book, though. I will refrain - for now - from raving and shouting that everyone should do this.

Okay, that was a bit longer than I thought it'd be but it has been a few days. Back to ruling the world now.

Arsenic life forms, moms, and cats

Sometimes my mind just goes crazy for random tidbits of information. Some of what I find is not always exactly "information" but funny nonetheless. Similar to a news update but with silly things, I thought I would share this morning's finds:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/nasa-finds-new-life/
Arsenic! New life form on Earth! Mind boggling indeed. Since the official news briefing isn't until 2 pm EST today, definitely something to file under "keep active watch on news about this." Also, in case you don't read xkcd, this is what they were referencing but I picked up the news separately. After reading the comic and not getting it.

http://www.johnnywander.com/files/comics/209.jpg
This is one of my favorite webcomics. I love it because it's especially relevant today. Both Colin and I got silly/cute/ridiculous emails from our mothers this morning. We had talked to Colin's mom last night who asked us for a list of books we wouldn't mind getting as gifts. One which is called "52 Loaves." Being funny, she sent us an email asking if "52 Meat Loaves" was the book and if we *really* did want it. Also, talking to Colin helped ease some of the family-related stress (which I won't go into here) and she thanked him for a good night's sleep. Aww.

As for my mom, she has a different thumb pain than I do and she'd just gotten a cordisone shot for it. It hasn't helped at all. She and my sister also have an enterovirus that's going around in northern Michigan. She had called Colin yesterday wondering why I hadn't called her back. She asked if we were fine (Dad had emailed me earlier and I'd sent a bulk email to all immediate family members reporting that we hadn't come down with it). It turned out that my phone during an update had decided I didn't want automatic Google Voice syncs anymore although Colin's kept his preference of autosync. She had sent a lengthy text message yesterday morning with no "call me" included. This morning I got an email from her - she was typing on the smartphone (which acts as the homephone) because she hasn't yet learned how to set up the wifi connection on her laptop (which she's had for almost a month). Apparently she is still sick and her thumb still hurts. She was concerned because Colin said I was fine but "the email you sent Dad suggested otherwise." The text from that bulk email? "I did have a headache like Nathan a couple of times and felt bad on Saturday morning but I don't think I had what they had. I had a bloody nose this morning and have been feeling especially tired lately but I'm far from incapacitated." Maybe I should have just said "I am fine" but I thought that last phrase would be enough to calm anyone's fears. Silly me.

Normally, I stay away from blogging about the frustrations with my mom, but the Thanksgiving visit is so fresh on my mind. There were definitely fun times but, well, it was family times too.

And on a lighter note: The ridiculousness of cats and boxes plus the coincidence of two tweets from different people on the subject very recently.

wilw 

Cat: WAT U DOIN. Me: Putting books into this box. Cat: I HALP U! [Jumps into box] Me: So... Cat: MYBOXMYBOXMYBOX! Me: Um. Cat: NOT YOURS.about 14 hours ago via web
And since a friend of mine chooses to keep her twitter private, I will paraphrase by saying that one of her own cats was in love with his cardboard box. Previously he was trying to claw his way out of the bottom of the box and at the time of the tweet (three hours previous to wilw's) he was investigating it from all angles.

I will now use this as an excuse to include a lolcat.

Summary of novel so far

A fellow nanowrimo-er that I had met at a meet-up earlier this month sent me a message congratulating me for winning and she asked what my novel was about. After I sent a reply, I decided I would copy it here for others to read. Keep in mind that it's a very rough summary and what the writer thinks a novel is about is always different than what a reader will find in the novel. I have this nagging feeling that it'd be an extremely boring for anyone else, but I'll probably offer it up when I think it's finished for anyone to read it. Anyway, here's my response:

I have to admit I'm a bit of a rebel. I *did* write the same novel all month, but it's turned out to be a lot bigger of a story than I thought it'd be. I'm happy enough to have the kickstart nanowrimo gave me and the fact that I did manage to write 50k by the deadline. I'm still typing away, which is fine by me.

What it's about? Well, it's about a little boy who starts out as a three year old when the novel begins. He's currently seven and a half. I just follow him around, recording his adventures. Although they are not spectacular, his development is interesting enough to me. The backdrop is that he was born in a mining colony on a (currently unnamed) moon in the solar system which means right away he's unusual because most natural births that had occurred off Earth had been unsuccessful. When he was born, such births were simply just discouraged but his mother was unaware of this and had become pregnant before they left Earth. Also unusual is the fact that he has three older siblings. This oddity has only been hinted at so far; the progression of the novel is learning simple things like this as the boy learns them. His colony finished mining that moon and are now living in a large space station.

The overall questions: When will the mining company and/or the authorities learn of his existence and what will happen to him then? What will the rest of his life be like? Right now, he wanders around and becomes friends with other people, including a girl much older than him, a boy his own age, a librarian, and an elderly Jewish couple. He's on the brink of many life changes though. The fun isn't over yet!

I know it's encouraged to write the whole novel - beginning, middle, end - during nanowrimo, but I had no idea what the end was going to be which made it a bit difficult to pace so that I'd be done by the end of the month. I am still not entirely sure what the ending will be, but I suspect I'll have to do a series. Or at least find a satisfying ending point for the first novel, regardless of whether or not I actually write any sequel.

In related news, my wrist is almost always aching these days. It doesn't seem like it's directly connected to how much writing I do, oddly, but I suspect it doesn't help any. My mom is getting a cortisone shot in her thumb soon for a different ache and when I was home it was discussed that sometimes people need to just keep getting another cortisone shot periodically. It has been over seven years. It'd be sooo nice to be able to not have an aching wrist almost all the time, but I'm hesitant on the surgery option.

So along with the continued writing, I plan to make an appointment with a different doctor (don't get me started on why I'm switching doctors, but if you ever move to Round Lake area, contact me before you pick a doctor) and ask if another shot would be wise. (Yes, pretty please, may I have one?) As for the brace, I find that it can be hard to be sure I'm wearing it correctly, such as if the angle the brace is on the wrist and such. A few times wearing it has actually exacerbated the pain (usually I'd just call it a dull ache but sometimes it elevates to worse). Not to mention how much more it cuts down on what I can do.

Okay, done enough writing for the day. Time to crack open a book.