The Second Time I Almost Died, or, Is That Gargantuan Thing A Roach???

Sagunto, Valencia province, Spain

Off the bus and up, up, up!

This isn't important, I just love this ramshackle house.

The first of many

Gate to the Jewish Quarter, also the Ghetto, later.

  

Way of blood, I think.  Our restaurant was on the left. 

 

This was where I was told to park it. 

Halfway there...

His Royal Highness, King of the Mountain

The main road you see was actually created by the Romans on a natural causeway that existed.  It is still the main route.

Today I rested my ass on a piece of history...specifically, a 2500 year old column hewn from local rock by the Romans.  It was a transcendental moment.  Especially since I think I died about halfway up the mountain.  On foot.  (at one point this workman on the side of the road looked at me and said "hey, looks like you should sit down for a few minutes", to which I neither replied nor complied, although I probably should have.) The breeze of a spring we never had wended its way around us and restored me to my former glory.  Began with the Roman temple and forum, then walked to the Islamic archway and 18th century doors.  Ended up back at the Roman temple or, as it came to be, an 18th century infantry school.  Chatted with a lovely gentleman who was reading what looked like Hebrew.  He gave us a wonderful picture of what happened in this area in the last 2500 years or so.

Too bad his version had very little to do with actual fact, but he was so sweet and so earnest I couldn't help loving him.

A little farther up the mountain, we popped into the Epigraphic Museum to view  random-scratches-that-might-have-been-letters carved into assorted blocks of rock.  Granted, they were about 2500 years old as well, but once you've seen one...well, you know the rest.  (Okay, seriously, they looked like they could have been carved yesterday.  It was spooky.)  I was especially taken with the kittens pacing outside and drinking water from the cup of a broken roman column.  They were skinny, though, and hard to look at.

Thirsting and winded, we began our descent.  I should clarify:  I was thirsty and winded.  The others, damn them, were just fine.  Walking down I eschewed the Carthaginian path and instead took the road.  We ended up at the museum of Roman heritage.  I wandered around looking at things and thinking "this looks just like what I saw in Rome".  Then thinking, "you're an idiot, these were Romans, duh".  I quite appreciated a bronze miniature for his virility and several others for the strength of their, um, features. Until someone pointed out they were from the first century.  BCE.  (Yeah, that's old.  It's even older than that...it's effin old.)  Amazing specimen!  Some Roman might have laid this little guy at a shrine to Whoever in order to be granted long, um, life.  Upstairs, more artifacts including lead tablets used to write curses.  The curse-er would then toss into a well hoping that the message would make it to Hades.  These sheets read something like this (in old latin, of course): "Dear God of Hades, please curse my mother-in-law, Mrs. Cruelius, to eternal damnation, and, oh, itching.  your faithful servant, Lionedes".

I especially liked the one in the shape of a shoe sole.  Thinking of squashing the enemy????

I was speechless when I walked around the corner and beheld a glass bead, with a face, that looks eerily similar to one I purchased recently.  The dice, from the third century BCE, could have been manufactured yesterday.  One of our colleagues reported that she used to play a game like jacks where she grew up (in Haiti) .  The pieces of an identical game were right under our noses and about 2800 years old.  Plus ca change...as the expression goes.

Chatted with the museum supervisor and told him all we had done.  He introduced himself by name-something that doesn't happen all that often with strangers in Spain.  I was honored.

I took my honorific self and walked to the Jewish quarter (ok, it was across the street) to hold a table for a paella lunch.  This is one street down from the Jewish Ghetto.  (It wasn't very big since there weren't all that many in the area.)  I wanted to eat there, in part, to honor the lives of those who suffered at the hands of bigots of one era or another.  It was cheap.  It was decent.  And it rained!  (Rain on the mediterranean coast in JULY!)  It was an amazing lunch.  Bordering on miraculous.

Returning home, we began casually exchanging personal disaster stories.  (Doesn't one's conversation inevitably turn in that direction?)  I thought I trumped all with my hairy airplane story, until I heard the words:  "The SECOND time I almost died..."  Oh well, not sure if I should be upset or happy at losing that particular battle.  Right.

I made it almost to the apartment door when I nearly collided with the ladies in front of me.  There was something in the road they wouldn't go near.  We all had to back up, then cross the street to avoid only the second bug I'd seen in Spain...unfortunately, it was also quite possibly the largest bug I have ever beheld. I didn't get close enough to it to ascertain the exact species, but I believe it was something like "Biggest Freakenus Cockroachius Ever" species.

I need a nap.