Two fridays ago, I visited Italic. This was the first Roman settlement in the Iberian peninsula (side note: the greeks named it Iberia, which translates to, the land of many bunnies). It was a dream come true. Ever since I was 9 or 10 I have wanted to visit Roman ruins. I read every scrap of information or literature about Greece and Rome when I was younger and finally seeing some in real life was so surreal.
The city was primarily a wealthy retirement community after the conversion from the republic to the empire. Emperors Hadrian and Trajan were born there and Julius Caesar was briefly a governor in the region. The homes of these people were massive. There were only a single story, but the ceilings were between 12 and 15 feet high (to combat the summer heat) and the dimensions of the house were easily worthy of a nice subdivision.
Easily the coolest part was visiting the amphitheater. We only got to walk around under the seats and on the arena floor. We did get to view the room were the gladiators waited to enter for battle. In this room, on the wall was a bronze plaque that had the gladiatorial prayer etched into it.
The weekend before last, I went to Cadiz for the annual celebration of Carnival. I was expecting it to be rather wild; it was. We arrived there at about 10:00 and we were planning to leave the next morning at 5:30. So we all knew we were in for a wild night.
The streets were filled with thousands of young people dressed in various costumes. The costumes weren't scary as much as they were either fun or political. My group of friends and I dressed up as a mascot from our favorite restaurant, Superlunes from Cien Montaditos. We were a hit. We won the costume contest on our bus and we received a bottle of champagne as a prize.
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