Friday we visited Salamanca, and as I have come to learn an excursion means that we are most definitely going to see a cathedral. The New Cathedral was started in 1512 to help stabilize the deteriorating Old Cathedral built from1200's to 1300's AD. Today, the New Cathedral is the only entrance to the connecting old, Romanesque, old cathedral. However it is the old cathedral that enchanted me. Once you enter the old cathedral you are in awe over the beautiful golden altar and tombs of important men and women of the church. However, if you look beneath your feet you are able to see something really amazing. If you cannot tell tomb number 94 is in the picture. There are rows of tombs with number on them that represent people who died of bubonic plague. We were standing on the plague! That is insane to think about. It was also funny that upon this discovery a few of us decided that the plague was coming up through the stone and seeping into our shoes. The Black Death however, is transferred by fleas, which fed on the bodies of rats that were infected with the bacteria. Then when the infected coughed, the bacterium was transmitted through the air. This plague killed roughly 75 million people and in Spain roughly 35 percent of the population. Therefore in reality I don’t think it is transferable through stone but one never knows.