Here is the letter Flat Emma sent home from Espana:
Hi
everyone! Here is the story of my
adventures in Spain.
The day I
arrived, I saw a cool fountain which is in the middle of Fuengirola . That is the name of the city where Uncle Rod
and Aunt Jeanene are working during their mission in Spain. It is on the coast near Malaga. In the photo you can see a sign with the name
of the city behind the fountain. The
fountain has sea men and sea women and sea horses around an obelisk. The fountain is in the middle of a
‘roundabout’. They use them instead of
traffic lights most of the time, and they often have statues or art in the
middle.
The next
day we walked for 10 minutes down to the sea shore so I could play in the sand
and see the beautiful blue water.
 |
Considering a swim in the Mediterranean Sea |
The
weather is almost always warm and sunny here in Spain. Many people used to earn their living with
fishing here. Now tourists have mostly
taken the place of fishing as an important industry. People come from all over
Europe to enjoy the sun and the sea.
Then I rode
a sea gull! Well really I just sat on another fountain. It had rocks and sea gulls and was easy to get close to.
 |
| Near a fountain in Fuengirola |
The rest of
the week I rested up for our trip to Merida.
We drove 4 hours toward the middle of Spain to get there. This city is filled with very old ruins of
buildings built by the Romans!
 |
| Roman ruins |
First, I walked on an old Roman road. Then we saw the coliseum. The Romans used their coliseums for entertainment. Instead of sports, they had fights. I stood next to a picture of one of the gladiators. The hole in the middle of the arena was sometimes filled with water and used for mock sea battles. The rest of the time it was covered up. The coliseum is huge! Some parts have been rebuilt so we can see how it must have looked long ago. This one was started about 100 years after Christ. (100AD) I made friends with a very small lion. Lions were sometimes part of the fighting long ago.
Next we
walked to the Theater. This is the best
preserved Roman theater in Spain, maybe in the world. It is right next door to the Coliseum. It is still used for lots of plays and other
events. Can you find me?
I tried out
many different places. I pretended to be
in a play. Do you like my acting? I was standing next to the statue of an
emperor at the back of the stage. One of
the statues lost his head. Later, I held
hands with the statue of a lady. I
couldn’t tell if she was sad or had a head ache. There were beautiful gardens and interesting
columns too.
Then we
went to see the hippodrome or the Roman Circus.
It was a race track for chariot races.
 |
| Roman ruins near Merida |
You should see the movie Ben Hur. It shows chariot races. My Uncle
pretended to race some other Senior Missionaries that went with us.
 |
| On your mark, get set... go! |
On the way
home we stopped and took a photo of some olive trees with olives on them.
 |
| Olive Garden with Elder Uncle Rod |
I was amazed by how many olive trees there
are. They were planted as far as you
could see along the freeway going for over an hour. There must be millions of trees. Most of those olives are used to make olive
oil. Spanish people eat LOTS of olives
and olive oil. Do you like olives?
The next
day we went to church. I made a new
friend named Melissa. She is 10 years
old and lives in Fuengirola too. She is
very nice. She speaks Spanish of course.
Tomorrow I
want to try on a gypsy dress. Women wear
them to dance. They also use beautiful
fans to keep cool.
 |
There are some
elephants I want to ride, too. Then I
will be ready to go on my next adventure.
 |
| Riding Spanish elephants! |
Aunt Jeanene and Uncle Rod and I really had a good time together.
Thanks to my great-tia and great-tio for this wonderful tour of Spain!
You can read more about all the activities of Elder y Hermana Castillo on their mission blog: http://rodcastillo.blogspot.com/.
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