Isabela At Sea

Wrapping up an amazing summer

2010-09-09T23:49:00.003-04:00

I realize that there’s probably no point to writing this post now, since I’ve been back from SAS for almost a month, but I think this blog needs closure and I also really need a place to write my thoughts. I might return to this blog randomly throughout the semester or I might forget about it completely. All I know is that this journal I’ve been keeping religiously for the last two and a half months is feeling lonely and needs a post. I also know that this is going to be a very random post as there are a million things going through my head right now. But I should probably start off with a recap of the last few days of the trip?

After auction day, we had four days of classes, basically just wrapping up the semester. Then we had the Global Studies final, which I did well on (too bad Global Studies doesn’t transfer!). The next day was a study day for the finals the following day, but since I didn’t have any more finals, there wasn’t much to do. The night of finals day was the Alumni Ball! We got all dressed up for our 5:30 seating, then proceeded to wait in line for 20 minutes while people were seated in the main dining hall. We were greeted with champagne and were taken to our table. Steve, Shaara, and I signed up to sit together, but tables only came in 2, 4, 6, or 8. We were put randomly with another group of 3 at a 6-person table. Once we got to the dining hall, we were surprised to be sitting with the ship’s doctor (Dr. Tanya), her husband (Dr. Dave), and their two sons! Even better, the doctors live and work in Pittsburgh! Dr. Tanya is a doctor for the Steelers and Dr. Dave works in hospital medicine at UPMC. Better YET, Dr. Dave graduated from Pitt with a degree in neuroscience! It’s a small world. While enjoying our decadent dinner of bruschetta, minestrone soup, Caesar salad, and delicious filet mignon, we talked about the Steelers, Pitt, football, and medicine, among many other things. When dinner was over, we stopped to get a picture with the captain of the ship. We then headed over to the Union for our “program” while the other half of the ship ate dinner. The program consisted of a newlyweds game with really weird questions. I understand they were trying to be funny, but asking, “what song would your partner say defines your life” is a bit too much. After the program, we waited in yet another long line to get to the dessert buffet. Yum! Lots of chocolate! =) There was a dance that night up on the pool deck, so we went up to check it out, danced for a while, then decided it was way too hot and muggy and left (and the music they were playing was way too slow to dance to!)

The next day was a packing/reflection day. We went to a lecture in the morning given by some SAS alums who returned for this voyage, and they talked about what to expect when returning home. One of them made a comment that I finally fully realized during my first few days back at Pitt. She said that everything goes so fast on SAS—one day you’re in Greece at the Parthenon and two days later you’re in Istanbul marveling at the Hagia Sophia—that we kind of get desensitized from seeing so many amazing things in such a short time period. Usually trips are rushed in order to see everything, and there’s really no time to sit and think, “what am I really seeing?” Everywhere we went was, “here’s this famous thing, you have 15 minutes to take pictures before you have to be back on the bus.” Wash, rinse, repeat. I realize now that by the time we got to Egypt, I was so accustomed to seeing new wonders that seeing the pyramids was not as exciting as I had expected. When I got to Pitt, I was printing out a picture of me and Steve on a camel in front of the pyramids, and I thought to myself, “I can’t believe I did this this summer. I actually rode a camel with my boyfriend in front of the Great Pyramids of Giza.” Few people can say that, and I feel like I could have appreciated it then much more than I did. All the more reason I have to go back someday and move slower, taking everything in and TRULY appreciating everything I see. Less pictures, more memories.

Anyway, the rest of the day we pretty much spent packing, and if you’ve seen my pictures on Facebook you can probably imagine the devastation of our room. That night we had a humorous “cultural pre-port” on America, in which the art history professor talked to us about Virginia, how to speak Starbucks, how to locate a KFC, and other things that may come in handy in our last port. It was a lot of fun looking at America from a tourist-y perspective!

Our luggage had to be packed and ready to go the next morning, so thankfully that cleared up some room in our tiny cabin. That afternoon was convocation, where we recognized about fifteen students who were graduating off the ship. We also got to watch our voyage video, put together by the ship’s photographer and videographer. The video is absolutely amazing; I think I have watched it about 30 times and I tear up every single time! We then grabbed our passports (last time!), had dinner, and met back in the Union for our logistical pre-port. We had these pre-ports before every port, and they usually consisted of warnings about traffic, taxis, medical issues, stuffed animals with bug eggs inside, and occasionally syphilis (a word which, unlike team, contains two i’s). This one was just for fun and consisted of inside jokes from the entire voyage. The best part was the fashion advisory: leggings are NOT PANTS! HA! After this, we went outside to get some last-minute pictures and to watch the last sunset. It was a rather bittersweet night.

Disembarkation day finally arrived. The two months that we spent on the ship flew by like two weeks and we were preparing to set foot on home turf. I woke up at 5am to get a good spot on deck and to watch the last sunrise, and I was surprised to only find two or three other people out that early. Everything was still pitch black except for the lights that came from the ship, which was always really eerie. We could see the lights of Virginia in the distance and watched the last pilot jump on board to guide us into Norfolk. Steven joined me around 6am, and we watched as the black sky slowly turned blue and then pink as a gorgeous red sun rose. It was probably the second best sunrise of the entire trip, the first being the one as we sailed into Istanbul, and I was glad I dragged myself out of bed to watch it. We went inside to grab a quick breakfast and then perched ourselves at the deck railing to sail into the port. I talked to my sister and my mom on the phone for the first time in months! We were crawling along, but finally we got into port and saw all of the waving, excited parents. The deck was a mess of people talking on their cell phones, trying to locate their families. We had to wait a few more hours before we were docked and could start disembarking, which was supposed to start around 10am. I believe one of the crew members didn’t show up for customs, so they spent time trying to find him. Finally, the first sea (Caribbean) was called off, followed quickly by Steven’s sea. My sea was supposed to be next so I got all of my stuff ready and went out into the hall. It was crazy. The Voice, who was on deck 5, could not see the chaos ensuing on decks 2 and 3 as he was calling seas to disembark. My sea was called, but by that time there were about 4 lines converging onto one staircase, and movement came to a halt. To our dismay, Tom called two more seas before I had moved two feet. The other lines, which contained seas called after ours, were moving faster than ours. I finally made it to the staircase, which is rather hard to stand on when carrying three terra cotta tajines and many other (heavy) souvenirs, to see that some rude people were taking the elevators down and cutting in line. They finally remedied that problem and we moved a bit faster. The deans and LLCs were waiting by the door, and after many hugs and goodbyes, I handed my ID card to security and left the ship I called home. By the time I got off the ship, I was so tired from carrying all of my bags that I literally inched to the terminal where our luggage was. Thankfully most of my bags of souvenirs could be stacked on top of my luggage, so that made transportation much easier. I finally got out of the terminal and greeted my waiting parents! We packed up the car, I said some last minute goodbyes to people, we grabbed lunch at a tavern in Norfolk (spinach salad! Yummy!) and we headed home.

So here I am in the United States, the last port visit of the trip. The day before disembarkation, I was all packed and ready. I knew I would miss the ship and the people I met, but I was also really ready to get home to see my family, friends, and my dog. I was excited to share my pictures and my treasures since all anyone has been seeing was my words and the pictures on the SAS website. Life on the ship was hectic; we were either preparing to enter a port, in port, leaving port, taking an exam, or writing a paper. How else can you cram in 7 countries and 22 class days in a summer? I thought I was ready for an “extended” port stay and for things to die down a bit before I would be thrust back into the fall semester. Boy, was I mistaken.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I was so happy to come home, sleep in my own bed, spend time with my family, move back to Pitt, and get started on my junior year. But there was still a subconscious part of me that thought I would be getting back on the ship soon to sail on to the next port. There was that part of me until yesterday, when I finished uploading all my Semester at Sea pictures to Facebook. Writing that seems really silly, but there was something about having shared the entire trip, passing it on to whoever wanted or cared to see it, that finalized it for me. It’s over. I just had the most amazing two months of my life and it’s over. I won’t be getting back on the ship (at least not anytime in the near future) and there are other people—strangers—living in my cabin and sleeping in my squeaky bed. I have no one to talk to in the dark at 2am about random stuff when I can’t sleep. No more sunsets or sunrises over open water. I can’t just walk outside whenever I want and look at the vast expanse of ocean that surrounded us. As much as I love Pittsburgh, there’s nothing as calm or beautiful or peaceful here as being surrounded by nothing but water. I want to be traveling or at sea so badly, but I also know that I have a place here. Too bad Pittsburgh isn’t near the ocean =(

Anyway, I realized that I needed to move ahead and focus on Pitt now instead of daydreaming about the summer, so I came up with two “goals” or things to add to my bucket list to keep myself looking forward. The first is that if I ever go on a cruise, I am not going to miss a single sunrise or sunset; they are just too amazing to miss, and each one is so unique. The second is that I will someday return to Semester at Sea, whether it be as a staff member (doctor!), a lifelong learner, or as a partial voyager. I’m pretty sure I belong at sea. (That is, when I don’t belong in Pittsburgh…because I like it here too…)

So that’s it. Thank you to everyone who read my blog! Since I got back, several people told me that they had been following my blog, and here I thought it was only my parents, my sister, Steve’s mom, and a couple of friends. I only got feedback from those people, so I thought they were the only ones reading! So I thank everyone who read, whether you commented or not, (although I really really really liked getting comments!!) and I’m glad you put up with my obscenely long and detailed posts!!!

I also wanted to thank my parents for making this dream trip a reality for me, and my sister for telling me about Semester at Sea in the first place. My family has always been so supportive of everything I do, and there is no way I could have done this without them. Thank you and I love you!!!

I leave you with lyrics to the song “Down River” by The Temper Trap…

Finally we have seen some things
Some awfully nice
Some dreadfully bad…

But we will sing, cast our hopes out to sea
Though our hearts break, through violent winds our ship will sail
And I don’t understand how this world would work
Cause time will tell us nothing
I’ll take a chance on something

Feeling old, feelings this time take you
Down river, down river, down river, down
Walk these stairs, put the pieces back together
Go, don’t stop. Go, don’t stop. Go, don’t stop.
Go, don’t stop now, GO….

<3

Auction Day!

2010-08-16T13:28:00.000-04:00

I am done, done, done!!! I just finished taking my Global Studies final, which went well, and I am done with finals! My poetry teacher cancelled our final and we didn’t have to take our anthropology final if we were happy with our grade. So I am just enjoying the ride until disembarkation on Saturday!

Last Wednesday (the 11th) was our auction day. The silent auction started at 3:30 and the live auction was at 8pm. There were lots of cool items, and I bid on a couple things but I was soon outbid. =( There was artwork, food, clothes, jewelry, basically stuff that people picked up throughout the trip.

Then it came time for the live auction in the Union. It was intense!! I kept track of all of the items and how much they went for. We raised SO much money! Here’s the list:

-3 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies - $135
-Dr. Campbell’s personal sweatband - $110
-Tickets for 4 to the Big Apple Circus with a backstage tour from Barry Lubin (Grandma the Clown) - $850
-One day unlimited internet access - $305
-2 bags of free laundry - $30
-4 reserved pool lounge chairs for the last five days of the voyage - $100
-T-shirt with selected special questions of the day - $600
-Sailboat race; compete in a sanctioned event in Lake Champlain, Vermont - $100
-Opportunity to steer the ship for 30 minutes - $475
-Select the dinner menu for one evening - $400
-First person off the ship - $450 (they gave this to 2 people, so we got $900 off of that)
-Map of route signed by Captain Kingston and bridge crew - $525
-Raise the MV Explorer’s US Flag as we enter Norfolk - $400
-Breakfast in bed served by your LLC - $300
-A weekend with Peter Chu in Santa Barbara - $650 (2 groups, so $1300)
-30 minute call home during our 9-day stretch to Virginia - $90
-Be “The Voice” for the day – make the noon and 1730 announcements - $300
-Five night stay for up to 6 people at luxury ski lodge condo in Big White Ski Resort, British Columbia, Canada (Tom’s condo) with a fully stocked fridge - $2600 (3 groups, so $7800)
-Photo session by ship’s photographer - $350
-Visit the Steelers training camp, go on the field during practice and enjoy lunch - $650 (2 groups, so $1300)
-Write one of the questions for the Global Studies final - $150
-The IT guy’s photo vest/safari jacket - $140
-Last student off the ship - $500
-Private guided tour of NYC from a local – eat the best pizza in Brooklyn, see the city by water taxi, grab a picnic at the best grocery store and eat it under the Brooklyn Bridge, and go shopping in Chinatown (all expenses included) - $300 (2 people, so $600)
-Three days and two nights at Terma Rosapepe near Salerno, Italy. Includes total body exfoliation and facial mask. - $800
-Bubble bath in the Executive Dean’s Office - $150 (2 people, so $300)
-Dinner with your favorite faculty member in the Glazer Lounge with a bottle of wine from Spain, Italy, or Croatia - $350 (2 people, so $700)
-Reserved spot on deck for entrance into Norfolk - $175
-Blow the ship’s horn as we enter Norfolk - $300
-Private dinner for two in Executive Dean’s Office - $250 (2 people, so $500)
-You and 12 friends sitting at the Captain’s table during the Alumni Ball - $1000
-“The Voice” records a personal message for your voicemail - $120 (2 people, so $240)
-Pie Dr. Bowler - $400
-3 day/2 nights in Seoul, South Korea with you and up to 5 friends or family members - $1000

With the silent and live auctions, we ended up earning $31,000. Our goal is $50,000, which will beat the record of any SAS trip ever. Right now they are just collecting donations and we are at $44,000. Hopefully we make it!

Five more days until I’m heading home!

Morocco!

2010-08-14T22:16:00.000-04:00

I just realized my last blog post was exactly a week ago. I feel like I haven’t stopped doing things since then! We had 4 days in Morocco, then the first day of sailing was the day of the shipboard auctions! I also had to write two papers that day that were due yesterday, but I am finally done with papers and I just have to worry about my Global Studies and Anthropology finals. My poetry teacher just told us today that we won’t have a final, I’m good with that! I can’t believe we only have 8 more days on the ship. The summer has flown by and I will soon be home. I’m excited to go home but I’m really going to miss this ship!!! I have a lot to cover since the last post, so this one is going to be about our time in Morocco and tomorrow I’ll write about the auction. There are also a TON of special questions, so I’ll split them up.

-----Saturday, August 7-----

Today we docked in Casablanca! The port area is pretty sketchy, and we were told it was a 20-25 minute walk to get from our ship to the port exit. The area right outside the ship had stacks and stacks of boxcars, and everything was really dirty. We had a city orientation at 1330, so we just relaxed on the ship and enjoyed the air conditioning until then. Our first stop on the tour was the Mohamed V Square, which was basically a big square around a non-functional fountain with about 200 pigeons swarming around. Little kids were running around with balloons, and people were trying to sell everyone henna tattoos. Craziness! Our next stop was the Royal Palace, where the king will be staying during the entire month of Ramadan. We only got to see the outside of it, but even the outside was covered in mosaics. We then stopped at the Cathedral Notre Dame du Lourdes and admired the gorgeous stained glass—the glass covers the entire lengths of both walls! The next stop was the Hassan II mosque, the 3rd largest mosque in the world with the largest minaret in the world. It was amazing, but it would have been better if it hadn’t been so overcast that day. The mosque is built over the Atlantic Ocean and the floor is made out of glass so that people can actually pray over the water. Our trip didn’t include entrance to the mosque, so we just observed the outside. Our last stop was a shop in the old town, where I bought a hand-painted spice/sauce holder/server thing. Yeah, I can’t really describe it, but it’s cool! After the trip, we went back to the ship to escape the heat. Shaara and I enjoyed a wonderful Mary Kate and Ashley movie that was playing on the TV (Holiday in the Sun for those Olson fans) while Steven left the room (ha!). We enjoyed laughing at the horrible acting and one-liners. Some of the gems: “He’s what time it is!” and “What’s up?” “…Not my temperature!” Then Steven rejoined us, we went to dinner, we played Phase 10, and we called it a night.

-----Sunday, August 8-----

We woke up bright and early today for our daytrip to Marrakech. There was actually a mix-up with the trips—we were supposed to go to Rabat (Morocco’s capital) today and Marrakech tomorrow, but the travel agents that SAS was working with changed the Marrakech trip to today. So we got refunded for the Rabat trip and we were off on our 3-hour drive south to Marrakech. On the way, we stopped at a gas station since our bus didn’t have a bathroom. Steven and I decided that it was a perfect time for a Magnum bar (that time being 9am of course). The Magnum bar is the most delicious ice cream bar I have ever eaten, and I really hope that I can find them somewhere in the US. Imagine: caramel ice cream coated with a layer of chocolate, then a layer of caramel sauce, all coated in a thick second layer of chocolate. YUM. Anyway, onto Marrakech. Our first stop was the Majorelle Gardens, where we saw lots of cacti and a pond with lilies and tons of turtles and frogs. The bus then dropped us off in the old city and we were walking from there. We walked to the Bahia palace, which was home to the Grand Vizier (high official). People here are crazy with their scooters and bikes, they scoot into the tiniest spaces and there is really no sidewalk to speak of, so the walk was interesting. We even saw a man riding a scooter with one hand, and in the other arm he was holding a baby. Seriously??? Anyway, we went to the palace and saw all of the amazing mosaic ceilings. We compared the rooms of the regular wives to the room of the “favorite” wife, which were huge compared to the rooms of the concubines. The vizier’s room wasn’t too shabby either. =) We then walked another 15 minutes through narrow streets with scooters whizzing by until we got to the Dar Si Said Palace, which is now a museum. We had 20 minutes to look through the museum, which contained about 5 rooms with a few things in each one. The exhibits included weapons (some daggers), jewelry (necklaces), and kitchen stuff (pots). Everyone was basically done with the museum after 5 minutes, so we headed off to lunch. The restaurant we ate at was squeezed in between souks in the main square in Marrakech, but it was pretty large inside! The first course was interesting: a pile of diced cucumbers, a pile of diced carrots, a pile of cooked spinach with some kind of sauce or spice, and a pile of cooked eggplant. Now, we had been warned since Turkey not to eat vegetables or fruits that we do not peel ourselves, so everyone kind of stared at the cucumbers and carrots, not knowing what to do. We’ve also been taking Pepto-Bismol before every meal (the doctor suggested for everyone to do that since Turkey) so we figured we were safe. The piles of spinach and eggplant looked interesting but tasted really good on bread! The main course came out, and I wish I could have just kept eating that. It was a HUGE bowl of couscous with cooked vegetables, beef, and cooked dates. Everything was SO good, I had several spoonfuls =). Dessert was…..weird. It was carrot shreds in orange juice with cinnamon sprinkled on top. I tried it because I said I would try everything, but it was just too weird for me. I felt bad because no one in our group ate it, and so much food was wasted. I would have been happy eating couscous all day! After lunch we had a couple hours of free time to shop in the big square. There were snake charmers and people with monkeys, and one guy even came up and put a snake around Steven’s neck! We bought lots of cool things, I’m just not sure how everything is getting home! The 3-hour bus ride home was miserable as the air conditioning kept shutting off. Not fun! We just bummed around on the ship when we got back, thoroughly enjoying A/C!

-----Monday, August 9-----

We didn’t have any trips planned for today and we didn’t feel like making our way to Rabat on our own, so we just decided to check out the souks that were a few blocks from the port. So I said on the first day that it is a long walk from the ship to the port entrance, probably about 1.5 miles. There is a free shuttle that apparently runs from 9am to 9pm, but we never saw it once. So we walked, and I was disgustingly dripping with sweat by the time we made it to the gate. The souks were interesting, everything was really cheap (money-wise, not quality-wise) and no one was interested in bartering. We got some good trinkets!! We trekked back to the ship for dinner and called it a night. All these trips are catching up with me, all I want to do is sleep!

-----Tuesday, August 10-----

Today is our last day on land until the USA! We wanted to go back to the Hassan II Mosque so that we could look inside, but we slept in so we didn’t leave the ship until 10:30 or so. We took a cab to the mosque, spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get in the mosque, then a security guard told us it wasn’t open for visitors until 2pm. Great. We walked a few blocks until we found a restaurant for lunch. Steven ordered a chicken and French fries tagine, and I got a meat tagine. We waited about 45 minutes for our food, but it was delicious!!! I had bought a tagine in Marrakech and I am glad the food that comes from it is good! Tagine is the name for both the stew/meat and the dish thing that it’s cooked in. Yum! It wasn’t even 1pm when we finished our lunch, and it was really hot (around 45 degrees C) so we decided to get a cab back to the port and spend the rest of our dirhams in the souks. We successfully spent every last dirham! Getting all this stuff home is going to be interesting…

LOTS OF SPECIAL QUESTIONS / COMMENTS!

After leaving Morocco, a student said, “Do we have an interport student on the ship?”

(Conversation taking place in smoking area, deck 5)
Student 1: “Where are you going?”
Student 2: “Upstairs to get some sun.”
Student 1: “But it's really cloudy.”
Student 2: “I think it will be sunnier up there.”

Student 1: “I weighed myself in kilometers today” (pronounced kill-AHH-meh-ters)
Student 2: “I think that's a measure of distance.”
Student 1: “Oh, I meant kilometers then.” (pronounced kill-oh-MEE-ters)

Student 1: “What school do you go to?”
Student 2: “West Virginia University.”
Student 1: “Oh, I've never been to Virginia.”
Student 2: “Well have you been to West Virginia?”
Student 1: “Wait, West Virginia is a state?”

Tomorrow’s post will be about the shipboard auction! It was a lot of fun and we raised SOOO much money!

Gibraltar today, Morocco tomorrow!

2010-08-06T09:14:00.000-04:00

I’m finally done with all the work I had to do before Morocco! This week was crazy. Today we are bunkering in Gibraltar to refuel and we will be in Casablanca tomorrow!

Yeah so I’m not sure why I’m getting spam comments on my blog, so I changed the settings a little bit and I think you have to enter in a word now before you can post a comment. If it doesn’t work, email me and let me know so I can change it back.

I got 100% on my global studies midterm!!! Today we turned in our 6-page paper for GS, I’m sure the teachers will enjoy grading 736 papers! I’ve done so much work these past 4 days for my poetry class and global studies that I’m really far behind on anthropology reading. The weird thing is that these classes are a breeze compared to my classes at Pitt, but I feel like I have so much more work to do because I’m not used to writing papers for each class and having 40-50 pages to read for each class. I’m used to chemistry labs and studying biology!! And of course no one feels like doing work when we are experiencing all of these countries. =) I have 2 papers due right after Morocco, so we’ll see how that goes….

Last night was the crew talent show, and it was amazing. I was really sad that our steward, Jess, didn’t perform, but he seems really shy. A lot of the crew did solos, and they were all really good singers! The entire galley (kitchen) crew did a dance and they had custom-made jerseys that said “All-Star Galley.” The last “act” was the entire housekeeping crew (including Jess!!!) singing “We Are the World.” The crew comes from so many different countries around the world, many actually come from some of the countries we visited on the trip! It was great to see a different side of the crew, usually we just see them in their uniforms and briefly chat with them throughout the day, but we never know that they are amazing singers or dancers or guitar-players. I definitely enjoyed this talent show more than the student one!

Tonight we turn our clocks back an hour so we get an extra hour of sleep!! Woohoo!!! I can’t believe we only have one more port before we go home. The trip across the Atlantic seemed to take forever, but it feels like just yesterday we were in Italy and Croatia. I’m definitely going to miss the ship but I’m kind of ready to go home to see my family and my puppy!!!

Long time, no blog!

2010-08-04T21:28:00.000-04:00

It’s been a long time since my last blog, but I feel like I’ve been doing things non-stop since we got back from Egypt!! I’ll talk a little about the orphanage visit we did on the last day in Egypt (July 31). The day after that was the much-anticipated Sea Olympics, which I will also describe in full. =) Then began the work. I had two 5-page papers due on Monday, yesterday was completely devoted to studying, and today we had our second Global Studies midterm. I thought it was pretty easy, and I only know of one question that I got wrong! Too bad that class doesn’t count for anything back at Pitt. Anyway, here’s a backtrack to July 31….

Shaara, Steven, and I had a service visit to an orphanage in Alexandria on the last day we were in Egypt. It didn’t start until the afternoon, so we all got some much-needed sleep, went to lunch, and went shopping in the little souks right outside the port terminal so we could spend the last of our pounds. Got some good deals! We boarded the bus for our service visit, which was an FDP for Teachers at Sea (a group of recently-graduated teachers who are taking education classes on the ship) but there were extra spots so we had gotten tickets. I guess I was just expecting an institutionalized orphanage, but our guide explained something completely different. The orphanage is “run” by an elderly, wealthy couple and they take care of 34 kids. There is no adoption in Egypt so all orphans either go to orphanages or are taken care of by family members. Also, many orphans in Egypt are illegitimate children because if the mother keeps a child out of wedlock, she loses her home, her job, and everyone shuns her. The couple runs the orphanage as a big family—all of the kids are brothers and sisters and they call the couple mom and dad. They each have their own room in their 7-story apartment building, they all go to private school, and they eat the best food they can possibly buy. They range from 1 year old to 13, but most of the kids were between 5 and 8. Anyway, we get to the building and walk up a couple of flights to the first floor, where the “father” was waiting to greet each of us. We then walked to the back of the floor to a large room where all of the kids were ready and waiting for us. There were 35 of us, 34 of them, and many helpers….there were almost 80 people in the room and there was no air conditioning. All of us were sweating up a storm but the kids were used to it and had a lot of energy!! We had brought a bag of little toys like frisbees, balls, stickers, markers, paper, and bubbles, so we broke out the toys and started playing. Most of the boys started playing immediately, the girls were more reserved and just stared at us like “what are you people doing here?” Steven played catch with a little boy while I showed another boy the clay that I had (he was more interested in another girl’s bubbles). It was hard because there were more of us than there were children of playing age, and people just kind of surrounded the kids. One boy came up to me with a notebook and a pen and started drawing, so we drew flowers and then he started writing the English alphabet (A, B, C, D, F…and he forgot the rest). I then broke out my Toy Story stickers and he had fun throwing them around the area. He was apparently the “naughty kid,” I witnessed him hitting another kid when he tried to take a marker. Just like brothers! After about an hour and a half, the kids started to unravel and a few started crying, so we walked up 2 floors to the TV room and the father spoke to us about how he appreciated our coming and a little bit about the orphanage. He started with 10 kids and it grew from there, sometimes they hear a knock on the door and a 1-hour-old baby is on the doorstep. We were really amazed how much this man provided for these kids, and he said that in the Islamic religion, taking care of an orphan is a sure way to paradise, so he and his wife are ensuring their trip to paradise. Which sounded a little selfish when he said it, but they are providing the best care to these kids, better than any other orphanage they would have gone to!

The next day, we didn’t have classes so we could have a full day to enjoy the Sea Olympics!! The cabins on the ship are split into “seas,” and each sea is a team competing against each other in the Olympics. My sea is the Mediterranean (Steven is Aegean) and our color is orange (his is black)! The opening ceremonies started at 11:00, and they consisted of a few speeches by important people and then our chant competition. Kevin, our LLC (like an RA), came up with a chant for us. My favorite line was “we’re oranger than your fake-n-bake!” (it means fake tan for those of you not in the know). There were some pretty good cheers! Everyone went to grab lunch before the first events started at 1:00. There were a ton of events at each time slot, so I couldn’t go to everything. I watched Extreme Musical Chairs, the extreme part was that in the championship round, everyone was blindfolded and teachers moved the chairs around. Crazy! We didn’t place in that, though. The events I missed were flip cup (a type of stupid drinking game), Pull-ups, and Ice Cube Scramble (picking up ice cubes with chopsticks). In the next set of events, I was competing in Global Studies Jeopardy. We got absolutely dominated by the Aegean Sea, and they actually ended up beating the teacher’s sea! (The teacher’s sea was called the Diploma Sea). While we were failing at jeopardy, our team went on to win at Tug-o-war! I also missed the “Donut on a String” event, which was supposed to be eating a donut off a string without using your hands, but I guess they couldn’t get a donut and had to use a bagel. That must have sucked. We didn’t place in that either. We did get first place in mashed potato sculpting though! Each team had to make a sculpture using 3 pounds of mashed potatoes. Yummy! I watched synchronized swimming, which was hilarious. Our team of 6 guys, led by Kevin, won 2nd place for their rendition of Beyonce’s Single Ladies. It was hilarious! And it’s all on tape! While this was going on, we got 2nd place in the (female) pie eating contest. There were 3 events in the last time slot: Mystery Challenge, Shave the Airhead, and Limbo. I went to watch Steven compete in Limbo, and he won the championship!! He was an instant celebrity because he beat out all these tiny, bendy girls. I have that all on video too, it’s crazy! After limbo, we went to watch the end of Shave the Airhead, in which you have to lather up balloons and shave them with a razor with out popping them. My team came in 1st! Mystery challenge was just wrapping up so we went to watch that. The teams for mystery challenge included 7 girls and 1 guy, and the goal was to dress up the guy in the girls’ clothes. We came in 2nd for that! After all of the events, we had a barbeque with the same food as July 4th, so that was tasty. At 7:30 we had the final event, the lip sync competition. I got all of the acts on tape, they were all amazing!! Our team didn’t place unfortunately, but I think we should have! They did a mix of Halo/Walking on Sunshine (the Glee version) with Hey Mickey. Then they announced the final scores. We came in 3rd (yay!!), Steven’s sea came in 2nd, and the Caribbean sea came in 1st. The team that came in first gets to get off the ship first in Norfolk (now who would want to do that?) and they get a reception with the faculty and staff in the faculty lounge. We just heard that Steven’s sea gets off second and my sea gets off third, so hopefully I’ll be off the ship before lunchtime!

Yesterday (Tuesday) was the faculty and student talent show, basically a bunch of really good singers and funny skits. Tomorrow is the crew talent show! And I get to write another paper. Woo!

Due to popular demand, stupid questions and comments are back! There are three!

SAS Student: “Where are you from?”
Local person: “I’m from Egypt.”
SAS Student: “How far is that from here?”

Parent of SAS Student: “I need someone that speaks the language.”
Local person: “I speak Arabic.”
Parent: “No I need someone who speaks Egyptian”

“What flavor are Fig Newtons?”

“Are there cows in Egypt? I’ve seen a lot of cattle, but I haven’t seen any cows”

Cairo/Luxor

2010-07-31T22:04:00.000-04:00

Hello all! I returned yesterday from a 4-day trip to Cairo and Luxor, and there is definitely a lot to tell! Egypt is completely different from all of the other ports we’ve been to. I’d have to say that what we saw (pyramids, Sphinx, museums, temples, etc.) was by far my favorite of the entire trip, but by the end, I couldn’t stand the people. More on that later. Here is my day-by-day!

-----Tuesday, July 27-----

We are in Egypt! I had planned to wake up to watch us pull into Alexandria, but my snooze button just kept calling and I slept in (ha) until 0730. We quickly grabbed breakfast and finished packing for our 4-day trip to Cairo and Luxor. Our trip was meeting in the Union at 0930, and it was so hectic!! There were around 120 people on our trip alone, and many people had parents going on the trip. It was fun seeing parents reunite with their kids, and one girl’s brother even surprised her when he showed up! That made me even more excited for seeing my family again in a few weeks. Not that I want to leave the ship, of course! We went out to our buses, which were cramped but very well air-conditioned. The bus ride to Cairo was 3 hours long, which was ample time for a nap! We got to Cairo a little after 1300 and ate a buffet lunch at a 5-star hotel that overlooks the pyramids! We were still fairly far away from them but it was so cool to get off the bus and see them! A little band greeted us as we walked in, and we went to the dining room for a wide variety of food. No one really knows what traditional Egyptian food is, but the food we ate was fairly common—“oriental” rice, roast chicken, beef in “brown sauce,” and penne pasta. After lunch and dessert, we got back on the bus and headed to Memphis, which was the first capital of Egypt. On the way, our tour guide pointed out a village saying “this is where the middle class people live,” and we were amazed. What they refer to as middle class, we would probably refer to as slums. Pretty much everywhere we drove was so dirty and there were piles of trash everywhere. It was amazing just to see the vast difference in the qualities of life between Egypt and the previous countries we’ve visited. Once we reached Memphis, we saw a huge statue of Ramses II that was found lying on its back and has stayed that way every since. The statue is HUGE and very well preserved considering it is several thousand years old. We then proceeded to the alabaster sphinx of King Amenhopis II, a small preview for the large sphinx at the Giza pyramids. After exploring the area, we proceeded to Sakkara, a cemetery complex. We saw a 5000-year step pyramid belonging to King Zoser, and we explored a few tombs. I am getting better at managing small tunnels! If I thought people selling stuff in Turkey was bad, people here were even worse. They follow you and keep following you, even when you turn around and say NO loudly, they still follow! My goodness, people! There are “security” people everywhere who are just wearing long gowns and turbans, they didn’t have any badges except for a paper nametag that said “security.” They all ask for “baksheesh,” which is a tip. The man at the door to one of the tombs wanted a tip for, well, I guess standing at the door. He actually grabbed my arm and asked for baksheesh but I pulled away and he moved on to asking the next person. Pushy people!!! We then headed off to our very nice 5-star hotel. SAS does well! There were two different buildings in the hotel, and of course Steven and I were in different ones. My room was amazing and had the absolute comfiest pillows EVER. I felt like I was lying on a cloud. We had a half hour “siesta” before we had to meet to go to the Khan El Khalili bazaar. Our tour guide gave us many warnings, like not to stray from the main street and not to buy anything expensive (like jewelry) because it was most likely a knockoff and overpriced. This bazaar was nothing like the one in Istanbul! It wasn’t even a tenth of the size and the streets were full of trash and food. Ick! We walked for a while, not really finding much variety. Steven found a stone statue of Anubis, and I got a pyramid and a votive made out of a really pretty stone. They were 45 Egyptian pounds each (~$8) but I haggled him down to 60 pounds for both. I am redeeming myself from the lamp incident! I had also been eyeing some colorful cloth bags with embroidered elephants or camels on them. I got one with elephants on it for 45 pounds down from 60. The guy wouldn’t go any lower because he claimed it was hand-embroidered (which I highly doubt because every bag looked the same). Steven wanted a set of canopic jars, so we went to a store with hundreds of statues. He is now a pro at bartering, and he got the shopkeeper to accept a price much lower than he wanted. I believe he was asking 320 pounds for a set of 4 small jars, and Steven got him down to 150! We left the bazaar for a buffet dinner at the hotel at 10pm. 4am wakeup call tomorrow!

-----Wednesday, July 28-----

After only getting about 4 hours of sleep, we were off to watch the sunrise at the pyramids! Apparently they closed off the area so only our SAS group was there. We sat on a wall and watched as the dark sky became lighter and lighter. It was very foggy so we couldn’t see the sun, but it was still amazing. We had box breakfasts from the hotel which included 3 rolls, a croissant, an apple, and a hard-boiled egg. We had been told to avoid fruit and I didn’t trust the egg, so my breakfast was bread. We walked down to the pyramids, and some people bribed the guards so that they could climb on one of them (after we were told not to since someone on an SAS trip many years ago climbed up, fell, and died. But whatever makes them happy I guess). We then headed back up to the buses because camels were waiting for us!! Steven and I got on the same camel and the driver took my camera to take pictures. We were told to lean back, and the camel started to get up. It was pretty scary! His back legs stood all the way up while his front legs were still kneeling, so we REALLY had to lean back to keep from sliding off the front! It was a bumpy ride, but it was a lot of fun in the end. The driver took pictures of us with the pyramids in the background. At the end of the ride, the camel kneeled but didn’t want to sit, so the driver whipped the poor thing =(. He of course asked for baksheesh and we gave him a dollar because he took pictures (we weren’t required to tip because we had already paid for the ride). My behind was pretty sore after that ride!! We again boarded the buses for a close-up look at the pyramids. We walked around the Great Pyramid, the only remaining wonder of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and Steven climbed up a few stairs (legally). The next stop was the Sphinx, where we sat for a while with my “uncle” Greg and my sea’s graduate assistant, Sarah, admiring the view of the Sphinx with the pyramids. Next we were off to the National Archaeological Museum, where we saw a collection of the treasures found in King Tut’s tomb. Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures, but Steven bought a CD with pictures of all the artifacts. We bought an extra ticket to go into the mummy exhibit, where we saw mummies of many pharaohs! The mummy of Rameses II even still had hair! Since we hadn’t eaten since 4am, we were starving, but we still had one more stop before lunch. We drove to the Citadel of Saladin to visit the alabaster mosque of Mohamed Ali (no, not the boxer—he’s the founder of modern Egypt). From the citadel, we had a panoramic view of Cairo. FINALLY we went to lunch (it was around 2pm already), which was on a boat cruise down the Nile. We ate a buffet lunch with pretty much the same exact food that we’ve been having at every meal, and we were entertained by folk music, a bellydancer (a very out-of-shape bellydancer), and a guy with a big skirt who spun around really fast and did tricks with his skirt. We cruised for a while down the Nile, but we were in a fairly Westernized/touristy area. There are buildings on the water with restaurants like TGI Fridays and Chili’s. It was still a fun trip, and we were thankful to have food for the first time in almost 10 hours! We then headed back to the ship for another siesta (it’s extremely hot in the afternoons so we get to spend them in the air-conditioned hotel). I took a 2-hour nap (yay!!!) and then we headed out for the Sound and Light show at the pyramids. I had heard that the show is extremely touristy and lame, but we really had nothing else to do so we went. I swear that SAS bought out the show. Our trip was there along with the Cairo Overnight and the Cairo Extended trips. Probably half the ship was there. Anyway, the show started with the pyramids being lit up. I have to admit that the lighted pyramids against the night sky was really striking, but we could really do without the sound. The Sphinx narrated the show, there was dramatic music, it was all very over the top. Example: The Sphinx says “The world fears time, but time fears…….THE PYRAMIDS” *dramatic music with the pyramids lighting up*. Yeah. After the show, we went back to the hotel for dinner, again at 10pm, and went to sleep because we had a 3am wakeup call for the next day!

-----Thursday, July 29-----

After another night of little sleep, we were up and packed by 3:30am and on the bus to go to the airport. We again got the same box breakfasts, yum! We were missing 2 girls from our bus, and our bus leader went to call them thinking that they overslept. He woke them up and apparently the wakeup call was too early for them because they said they were signing off the trip (and thereby throwing away about $600). Whatever, the rest of us were off to Luxor! The benefit of getting to the airport at 5:30am is that no one is there! The flight took about an hour (no food this time), and once we landed we were off to the Valley of the Kings. Our ticket got us into three royal tombs: Ramses I, Ramses VI, and Ramses IX (apparently it was a popular name). The tombs were so well preserved that most of the hieroglyphics and drawings still had their original color. Steven and I paid extra to go into the tomb of King Tut, which was worth it except for the “security” person there. We were the only two people besides this security guy, and he started talking to us. As soon as he started, I knew we would have to pay him baksheesh. He pointed out all of the artwork on the walls and gave us his flashlight so we could get a better look at Tut’s sarcophagus. At the other end of the tomb was his mummy, which was extremely tiny considering he died when he was around our age. The guy pointed out his buck teeth. After we were taught everything about the tomb, we were preparing to leave when the guy asked us if we were married. He was amazed when I said we weren’t, since Muslim couples don’t date in public. He immediately grabbed my arm and clutched it to his stomach (ew) and proceeded to tell Steven that he needed to marry me because I was pretty or something. He alternated between grabbing my arm, touching Steven’s beard, and touching my face, the entire time we were inching toward the door and trying to leave. He then told Steven that we need to come back in a year and we had better be married and have a kid. Riiiiiiiiight. We were making it obvious that we were trying to leave, and he finally let us go, but not before asking for baksheesh. I gave him 5 pounds (less than a dollar) and we bolted out of there. I pretty much bathed in hand sanitizer when we got out. It’s amazing and a little scary how we learn in America that it is bad if a stranger touches you, but here it is so common. It’s not threatening or anything, I wasn’t afraid of the guy (I probably would have been if I didn’t have Steven with me) but it was just uncomfortable since I grew up knowing that it’s weird for a stranger to physically touch you. So after we bolted out of there, we checked out the shops that were near the bus. It was like the bazaar in that everyone was trying to get our attention, but they were REALLY persistent and just kept following us. I seriously told one guy about 15 times that I didn’t want to buy his book of Luxor. I did, however, spy an adorable wooden camel that I wanted. Thinking it didn’t cost more than $10, I asked the man how much. He said 160 Egyptian pounds, which is about $29. Heck no! I said all I had was 50 pounds (~$9). He said “no, 85!” Again, I said all I had was 50 pounds. He kept going lower: 75, 70, 65. Then I said my bus was leaving and I had to go, so he finally gave it to me for 50. I trotted off happily with my purchase (and my remaining 200 pounds). We then headed to the temple of the only female pharaoh, Queen Hatshepshut. Three different “security” people tried to get baksheesh from us (I was starting to get really annoyed with them). One guy jumped in a picture I was taking of Steven and then demanded a tip. We lied and said we left our money on the bus. Another guy offered to show us a place behind a rope we weren’t supposed to cross, and we just walked away. The last guy started pointing things out to us like the guy in the tomb did, but we learned our lesson and just ignored him. It was already extremely hot (our tour guide said we were lucky as it was only 110 degrees, and the day before got up to 130 degrees!!!!), but we only had one more stop. Just outside of the valley with the temple were two huge statues called the Colossi of Memnon. They are pretty weathered and you can only make out the shape of a person, but they were definitely colossal! We returned to the hotel for another buffet lunch with the same food and then we had a 5-hour siesta away from the blazing heat. Some people went to the pool, which overlooks the Nile, but I chose instead to nap in the air-conditioned room. We got back on the bus and went to Luxor Temple, where our guide gave us a very detailed tour of the major statues and pictures on the wall. We headed back to the hotel for an (early) dinner and got some much-needed sleep.

-----Friday, July 30-----

Our wakeup call came at 6am this morning, so we got ample sleep. We got a real breakfast this time, and I got a scrumptious omelet that was made right in front of me. Our big group was divided in thirds for the flights back to Cairo. Steven was on the 10:25 flight and I was on the 2:15 flight, so we had different itineraries. Everyone went in the morning to Karnak Temple, which Steven was very excited to go to. I’m not really up on my Egyptian history or mythology, but I definitely appreciated the amazing statues, obelisks, and carvings on the walls. We all went to the airport and said adios to the 10:05 and 10:25 flights. They were flying back to Cairo, eating lunch there, then driving the 3 hours back to Alexandria (yes, Alexandria has an airport but I guess SAS bought roundtrip tickets to save money). My group went back to the hotel to pack and rest before lunch was served. At 12:45 we were off to the airport again for our flight. I had to open my bag at security because I stupidly forgot to take my nail clippers out of my makeup bag before the trip, but the security guy just looked at them and gave them back to me. Other people were traveling with huge bottles of liquid and razors, so they had to throw them out (common sense, people?). We finally all made it through security and we were off to Cairo. The plane was extremely small and a little bumpy, but I made it out alive =). Once in Cairo, we hopped on the bus for our 3-hour ride from hell. The first two hours were fine, but our driver began to get really impatient. He laid on the horn and tailgated cars, and it seemed like we were driving really fast (the kid in front of me said we were only going 55-60 but it seemed like so much faster). We even drove another bus off the road!!! Once we got into the city of Alexandria, it became a lot worse. We had been told to be extremely careful in crossing streets because oncoming traffic doesn’t stop. Traffic here is HORRENDOUS. There are no lane lines, and if there are, people don’t obey them. It’s a free for all. I took video of us driving through the city, and I think we almost hit 5 cars and came close to hitting several people. At one point we were stopped in traffic, no one could move, and our driver was laying on the horn. Crazy! The scariest part was when we had the ship in sight and everyone was so relieved, our driver drove right out into 4 lanes of traffic and we were inches from a collision. It’s all on video! As soon as we got to the ship, we all bolted off of that bus and ran to the ship. The whole trip was amazing, but I was definitely happy to be home. I missed my room!!!

If you've got a date in Constantinople...

2010-07-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

She'll be waiting in Istanbul!

The past couple days have been pretty crazy as it’s been 11 days since our last class day. I had a poetry exam today, which ended up being extremely easy as it was open book. We also had a tentative due date today for a poetry paper, so I was trying to get that done, but he pushed the final due date to after Egypt. Right now I’m taking a break from packing to write this post because I won’t be writing for 4 days! Steven and I are doing the Cairo/Luxor overnight trip, which involves 2 days/2 nights in Cairo and 2 days/1 night in Luxor. On our last day (Saturday) we have a visit to an orphanage in Alexandria. It should be a good time, although I’m a little sad that we have no time to explore Alexandria. Anyway, about our last 2 days in Turkey…..

We didn’t have any trips planned for the last 2 days, so we decided to spend a few hours in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. We got there around 9am and stayed until well past 2pm. And we probably didn’t even see half of it. The bazaar has 61 streets and over 4000 shops, but we were told a lot of the shops sell the same exact things. There were lamp shops selling the same kinds of lamps, jewelry shops selling the same kinds of jewelry, and leather shops up the kazoo. I really wanted a lamp, so we went into a store to look around. The price they give you is too much and you’re supposed to barter it down to a reasonable price. We were given a lot of tips beforehand, like to shop around to find the best price and everything. We get to this first shop and I see a lamp I really like. It’s a hanging metal lamp with a glass bowl covered in a multi-colored glass mosaic, I figure it probably costs around $40-$50. I asked the salesman how much, and he said 120 lira, which is about $78. I said thank you and that I was going to go look around and he goes, “No no no I will not let you leave! How much do you think it is worth?” Despite my protests he would not let me go, and I offered 80 lira, which is about $50. He took it, and I walked off happily with my lamp but still a little disappointed that I gave in too easily. Steven also wanted a lamp, so we stopped at another store nearby. I wish I had just walked out of that other store and shopped around!!!!!!! Steven got an even bigger lamp for 40 lira ($25). I was really mad at myself for overpaying for my lamp!! I guess it was a learning experience, and I definitely got better at bargaining after that. We wandered around, looking at different stores. I usually hate shopping while at home, but I have really enjoyed shopping on this trip. While I loved looking at the variety of new things in the bazaar, the salesmen really started to get on my nerves. Let’s just say I like my personal space, and these people get in your face and try to sell you carpets and leather jackets and cashmere and everything you can think of. As soon as you tell one that you don’t need a carpet, another one swoops in. I know it’s their culture and they are trying to sell their goods, I just wanted my bubble! They said funny things to us like, “come in so I can help you spend your money!” or “how can I take your money from you?” Clever, huh? I knew of some things I wanted to get, like scarves, tea, teacups, and possibly a blanket, so we shopped around. I got a set of six teacups and saucers, blue with etched flowers, for 20 lira. Turkish teacups look more like shotglasses than our idea of teacups. I also got an obscene amount of tea (I tried apple tea and pomegranate tea and absolutely loved both, so I guess I’m developing a liking for tea?) for really cheap. We found one shop with boxes of tea for 5 lira each. The owner said “for you, 3 lira.” I ended up getting 4 for 10 lira! I was getting better! A lot of shops were selling ceramic plates and bowls, and I saw a really pretty turquoise pattern that I loved. I picked out 4 bowls of the same color but with slightly different patterns, all handpainted, and asked how much they were. They were 12 lira each, but I ended up getting 4 for 35 lira. Woot! I got other little things, like a scarf, a t-shirt, a magnet, but my biggest purchase was a throw for a future couch in a future apartment. We stopped at the first shop we saw, where I saw a pretty maroon and beige patterned throw. This kid was trying to sell it to me, saying it was 120 lira, but I kept saying I wanted to look around. I could tell it wasn’t really high quality. An adult came out of the shop and started talking to us, and I was only able to get it down to 90 lira. I asked him for his card and said that I would probably be back, I just wanted to look at other styles (and not be in the same predicament as the lamp). We wandered around a bit more until a guy pulled us into his shop. He showed us to a room across the street where we sat down on a bench and he brought out different throws for us to look at. I wasn’t too thrilled about any of them and they were really expensive, around 400-500 lira. I said my highest price was probably 150 lira, so he brought out a stack of silk and cashmere throws. I fell in love with a red and beige one with a simple flower design. The salesman said he usually sells it for 220 lira, but since I was (allegedly) his first customer of the day, he said he would give it to me for 130 in cash. I still wanted to keep looking around to see if I found one I liked more or for cheaper, but he said that offer wouldn’t stand if I left and came back. I was still really unsure, I was between paying around $80 for a silk/cashmere throw I really liked or looking around and possibly finding a better price. I also didn’t have 130 lira on me in cash. His last offer was 130 lira with credit card, which they try to avoid as they have to pay a 5% commission. I was happy with that and walked away with my new purchase. It was a fun but long 5 hours of shopping! Oh, I forgot to talk about lunch! We found a little area with cafes and we each got a panini, thinking we would be getting a hot sandwich. Apparently in Turkey, panini means a French bread pizza type thing. It was delicious! Mine had ham, mushrooms, and cheese while Steven’s had sausage.

So after our long day at the bazaar, we went back to the ship with our new treasures to relax. We then walked a few blocks to the Galata Bridge, which has a bunch of restaurants underneath it. I thought we were done with the people-in-my-face thing for the day, but every single restaurant had a waiter outside getting in your way and trying to get you to eat at the restaurant. We passed on 2 restaurants, wanting to see what was ahead, but we ended up eating at the 3rd restaurant because the waiter practically pushed us into our seats. We got a 10% discount on our dinner though! I got meat shish, which was deliciously tender meat on a stick served with rice, and Steven got some kind of meat stew that was served boiling hot in an iron pan. Both were very tasty! Shaara had told us that there was a place to get ice cream on the bridge, but we walked the entire thing and didn’t find it. Bummer! We called it a day and walked back to the ship.

For our final day in Istanbul, Steven said he wanted to go to the Topkapi Palace Museums. We had been told in Global Studies that the museum holds the jewels and weapons that belonged to the sultans of the Ottoman empire, and that these jewels made the crown jewels look like rocks. I was bummed that I couldn’t take pictures of anything, but we saw jewelry, thrones, and weapons completely encrusted with gold, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. We even saw an 86-carat diamond—it was HUGE! (and had a rope around its case so you couldn’t even get remotely near the thing). After a few hours in the museum (half the places were closed for some reason) we took the tram back to the ship, ate lunch, and wrote postcards. We tried our luck at the free wi-fi at the Starbucks outside of the port, but there were about 40 SASers there and the internet was too slow. Lame. I’ll have a lot of pictures to upload when I get home!

The stupid questions and comments just keep getting better and better. Today I have two official (spoken by The Voice) and two that I overheard.

1. “Why do I need a Turkish visa if I already have a credit card?” (We needed to buy a Turkish visa if we were planning on leaving Istanbul)
2. Girl 1: “I wish we had chunky peanut butter on the ship”
Girl 2: “But then the people who are allergic to nuts can’t eat it”

3. “That big statue in Egypt with the body of the lion and the face of a human, what is that called?”
4. “Can we go to Mecca?”

So that’s it. My next post won’t be until Friday at the earliest. Adios!

Istanbul (not Constantinople)

2010-07-24T22:09:00.000-04:00

The last few days have been absolutely crazy! I guess I will start from the beginning—prepare for a long post!

We arrived in Istanbul on Tuesday around 7am, and we woke up early to watch the ship pull into port. We watched the sunrise over the Asian part of Turkey and passed by the famous mosques we had learned about—the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia—on the European side. It was amazing! After our diplomatic briefing, we were told that we all had to carry our passports while in Istanbul. We’ve had 4 people lose their passports already (2 people found theirs and 2 were left behind in Greece and had to meet up with us in Turkey) so I wonder how many people will lose theirs this time. Anyway, off we went on our 6-hour city orientation. We saw all of the major sites in the city and it was very worth it. Our first stop was the Sehzade Mosque, where we enjoyed the architecture and detailed mosaics after we took off our shoes and I covered my head with a shawl. We learned that icons are forbidden in the Islamic religion, so you will never find a person, face, or animal in a mosque. The next stop was the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, better known as the Blue Mosque because of its blue mosaics inside. It was huge, more than twice the size of the previous mosque. We had some free time to look at the mosaics and then we were off to the Hippodrome, where chariot races used to be held. All that remains are 3 columns: a very tall one made of stones, part of an obelisk stolen from Egypt, and the bronze serpent column stolen from Delphi (which we learned about in Global Studies—it was made by the Greeks from the melted weapons of the defeated Persian army—ha!). A road is now in place of the former track so there is still a feel of the shape of the Hippodrome. The next stop was the Hagia Sophia, which was first a church, then was converted into a mosque, and is now just a museum. It has the largest dome in Istanbul, and the inside of the building was amazing. We could see how the Muslims covered the Christian icons with their mosaics, some of the icons had been uncovered so we could see the juxtaposition of the two religions in one building. On our way to our next stop, I grabbed an ear of corn from a street vendor, hot and delicious!! The final stop was the Byzantine Cistern, a huge underground vault where water for the city used to be stored. We walked through the pathways and looked at the modern art that is now exhibited there. To give you an idea of the size of the cistern, it contains 336 Corinthian columns! We went back to the ship to shower and eat dinner, then walked around the port area trying to find a place for dessert. We happened upon a string of hookah bars, and everyone was trying to get us to come in and smoke. Ick. We finally pulled away and found a little ice cream stand. Good stuff! Turkish ice cream is really thick, not as creamy as gelato but still very good!

The next day was our overnight trip to Cappadocia, a region in central Turkey. We met in the Union bright and early at 6:15am and received SAS’s version of a continental breakfast, which apparently includes a few pastries and orange juice. I, of course, had planned ahead and brought a baggie of cereal and a granola bar. Go me! We boarded the motorcoach and were off to the airport! It was crazy trying to organize 81 people with their passports and plane tickets, it probably took us an hour to get to our gate. Our flight was slightly delayed, but soon we were taking off. The flight was only about an hour long, but they served us a sandwich and almond bread! I was amazed—for our 2 hour flight to Halifax, we didn’t get anything! Almost as soon as I finished my lunch, we were preparing to land. We landed safely in possibly one of the tiniest commercial airports in the world. It was basically one runway and a small building. And it was in the middle of nowhere. Our tour guide met us there and we were off! We stopped at so many places that I may not remember the names of everything, but here we go! The first stop was the Kaymakli Underground City, where Christians had built houses, churches, schools, and other buildings to live in during times of persecution. It was 8 stories deep and went about 130 feet into the ground, but we were only able to look at the first 4 stories. The passageways were small and we had to crouch down and crawl at some points to get through. The passages would branch off into other passages and open up into rooms, our guide said they were used to confuse enemies. There were also trapdoors and hiding places so the Christians could surprise their attackers. It was amazing to see how they could carve an entire working city out of rock! They even had a winery—important things! The next stop was a panoramic view of Pigeon Valley. Pigeons were apparently very important in Cappadocia as they served as food and fertilizer. Yum. There were pigeon houses carved into the rocks. After that, we were well overdue for lunch. We stopped in an area with several restaurants and were given an hour to eat. We went to the first restaurant we saw: Steven got some kind of meat dish with tomato and egg, and I got chicken kebab. Quite tasty. Our tour guide took us to many different places, and this was where I started losing track of what was what. Everywhere we went, we saw these large conical rocks made out of volcanic stone with doors and windows carved into them. The volcanic stone is pliable enough that it can be easily carved and people made houses and entire cities out of these rocks. The guide also took us to two “fortresses” where the castles were also built in the same fashion. We got to the hotel completely exhausted, but we had to grab dinner and get ready for a Whirling Dervish ceremony. Dinner at the hotel was pretty good, but dessert was amazing. Everything was buffet, and there were probably 40 choices for dessert. We hopped back on the bus for the Whirling Dervish ceremony, which was held in an old camel caravan resting station. The ceremony was very involved, I was glad we got a pamphlet explaining the different parts or I would have been completely lost. The Dervishes apparently spin approximately 800 times during the entire ceremony and are in a trance the whole time. They spun around so fluidly –I would get dizzy! After the ceremony we were given cinnamon tea, which was delicious. We went back to the hotel, which had rather sucky air conditioning, and instantly fell asleep after an exhausting day.

My hotel roommate had a hot air balloon ride the next morning and had to wake up at 4am, I woke up with her alarm and then went right back to sleep for 2 more hours. I called my mom from the hotel phone =) and then got ready for breakfast. Not as good as dinner, but it was a lot better than the ship’s breakfast! The group who went for the hot air balloon rides met us at breakfast and then we were off for our second day of sightseeing. In the morning, we visited the open air museums of Goreme Valley and Zelve Valley, more cities carved into rock. In the Zelve Valley, our tour guide led us up a path to a rock with a tunnel inside. None of us had brought flashlights, so everyone was using the flash from their cameras to light the way. It was pretty scary! It was completely pitch black, and we were crawling through a downward-sloping tunnel until it became a set of stone stairs. We made it out alive but rather dusty (I washed my clothes when I got back to the ship and the water in the sink was a nice dark brown—yummy!). The Goerme Valley was more developed and we explored the different chapels and buildings in the city. After Muslims took over the city, they scratched the eyes out of most of the icons in the chapels, again because icons are forbidden in Islam. Some of the frescoes were still very well preserved and have been there since the 11th century! Our last stop of the morning was to see the “fairy chimneys.” It’s hard to describe these, basically they are very tall cone-shaped rock formations with “caps” on top. Go search them on Google images!! They are made of 2 different kinds of rock from 2 different volcanic eruptions: the “cap” rock on top is much harder than the rock below, and wind has eroded the bottom rock to make it look like the cap is precariously balancing on the cone. Quite cool! We then stopped in the town of Urgup for lunch (I had Turkish pizza which consisted of meat, cheese, and egg, and Steven had a meat shish kebab) followed by some delicious apple tea, and then we were on the road to the airport. We were apparently going to a different airport than the one we arrived to, this one was thankfully much bigger. Our flight was delayed half an hour—boo! We again were fed on the flight, this time there was a chicken sandwich, a weird salad with sour cream and lettuce (?), and banana chocolate mousse. We returned to Istanbul safe and sound. Although Cappadocia was amazing, I was very happy to see the ship, my air-conditioned cabin, and my comfy bed again!

All right, it’s pretty late over here and I have class in the morning, so I will talk about the last 2 days in Istanbul tomorrow! But now (drumroll please) here is the stupidest comment of the entire voyage:

--A girl was talking about her time in Istanbul. She said, “I made it to the Europe side and the Asia side, I wish we were going to Africa!”

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

One person apparently lost their passport, we don’t know yet if they made it back to the ship or not. I believe the two people we left behind in Greece made it back. Fun times!

New post tomorrow!

2010-07-23T20:42:00.000-04:00

Hello, faithful blog readers! Sorry I have not updated in 4 days...by the end of the day all I want to do is sleep!! I will write a huge post tomorrow explaining life in Istanbul!

Turkey Day! (Not Thanksgiving...)

2010-07-19T08:23:00.000-04:00

Greece is now behind us and we will be in Turkey tomorrow! Today is “Turkey Day,” a free day where we don’t have classes but we have lots of optional programs to attend. Apparently there is going to be good food, too! I haven’t written in three days, so here’s what’s been going on:

Three days ago (Friday) we had an SAS trip for Greek cooking lessons. I was excited for it, but it ended up being kind of lame. We weren’t taught how to cook at all. Our group of 40-some was split into 5 teams, each at a different table with lots of ingredients. Each team was given a menu and the ingredients in each dish (just the ingredients list, not how much of each). We were given 5-8 minutes to prepare each dish, and one of the chefs walked around with a finished dish for us to try to make. So we basically just threw things together. I definitely don’t know how to cook, but at least I know that when something calls for salt, it means a little bit, not the palmfuls that people were chucking into the salads. Yum. The trip was from 1100 to 1400, so we thought that we would be fed lunch after the lessons, but we were expected to eat what we made. I tried a little spoonful of each dish, but I wasn’t really into eating a meal out of stuff we threw together in 5 minutes. Steven and I signed off the trip at the end and took the metro to Monastiraki, one of the main squares in Athens. We grabbed a very satisfying lunch there: we shared a “cheese pie” (basically fillo dough filled with cheese), and we each got souvlaki (pork on a skewer). Yum! After lunch it was the search for the sandals. Both Shaara and I read the same girl’s Summer 2009 blog before coming on the trip, and the girl went to this famous sandal shop in Athens where they custom-fit these leather sandals for you. It was actually only a couple blocks away from where we ate lunch! The shop is very “hippie” with lots of paintings and eclectic decorations all over the wall. And leather sandals EVERYWHERE. A guy handed us a “menu” of sandal styles to pick from and I tried a few on before picking one. They adjusted the straps to my feet and I was done! They were fairly cheap too—only 27 euros. Steven got a pair of sandals, too! I need to break them in, but they are already comfortable and they fit perfectly! We hailed a taxi and asked him to stop at the Hard Rock Café before taking us to the port. I literally ran into the store, bought my guitar pin, and ran out in 30 seconds because our driver couldn’t park on the street. Fun times! (if any future SASers happen to be reading this, the sandal shop is at 2 Aghias Theklas Street in Psirri. Or just go up to a local, point to your feet and say “sandals?” and they will tell you where to go).

On Saturday we had a free day, so we had gotten ferry tickets ahead of time to go to Aegina, one of the closest islands to the Greek mainland. The boat we were going on was called “Flying Dolphin” and it was actually a hydrofoil! It went really fast and glided on top of the water. We got to the island in about half an hour and then realized we didn’t really know what to do. The man who was selling us the ferry tickets told us to take a bus to the other side of the island to a place called Aghia Marina, so off we went. The port area was full of shops and people, but the middle of the island seemed to be run down and abandoned. Apparently very few people on the island spoke English, because when we asked which stop to get off, no one could help us. We finally asked a couple “marina?” and they said they were going there too. So we made it successfully. There was a dress shop at the place the bus dropped us off so we decided to shop a little bit. Steven got a pair of swim trunks and I got a couple of dresses. The store owner started talking to me in Greek (everyone thinks that I’m Greek because I have really tan skin now) but thankfully she spoke English. We went to a few other shops before deciding it was time to eat. I had read on WikiTravel about a cheap but delicious restaurant called Pita Tom, so we went there, but they said we wouldn’t be able to get gyros until 1pm (it was noon at the time). So we decided to do dessert first and went across the street to a snack bar to get ice cream with this warm brownie kind of thing. I wanted baklava but the place didn’t have it =(. We then went down to the beach. The sand was absolutely scorching, even through the beach blanket I had. We parked ourselves very close to the water and I ran in. I was expecting the freezing cold water like in Capri and Croatia, but the water was so warm! I could have stayed there forever. I wish we had someone else to sit on the beach watching our stuff because Steven and I had to take turns going in the water. After about an hour on the beach, we went back to Pita Tom for some much-needed food! I ordered a feta cheese “salad” and a gyro, Steven got a stuffed beefsteak. The feta cheese was delicious, just a nice brick of cheese covered in oil and spices. The gyro was even better, with tender meat, tzatziki, and even French fries! Steven’s dish was kind of like a meatloaf thing stuffed with cheese and tomatoes, he said he really liked it but I would take my gyro over his any day! After lunch we went to a little grocery store, I picked up some snacks and a frappe “maker,” basically just a cup with a top to shake the frappe in. The frappe is the “specialty” coffee drink in Greece, and it is basically instant coffee, water, milk, and sugar, served cold and very frothy. So I got the shaker and a can of Nescafe instant coffee and I am ready to make my own frappes! Then we waited about 40 minutes for the bus back to the port. Apparently the bus only comes every hour. Our return ticket to Piraeus wasn’t until 7:15, but we got it changed to 5:30 because we couldn’t find anything else to do. On the ferry we met an older couple from the US who were just in Turkey and were now in Greece, so we told them all about our ship and where we were going. When we got back, we just bummed around on the ship and enjoyed air conditioning and free food.

Yesterday was another free day, but we had to be back on the ship by 6pm so we decided not to go into Athens and just stay in Piraeus. Big mistake. Being Sunday, absolutely EVERYTHING was closed. Restaurants, shops, pharmacies, everything. Well, the sex cinema was open, but that wasn’t a destination we wanted (there was a man hosing down the chairs outside when we walked down that street—eww). So we went back to the port terminal, where some shops and a snack bar were open, and we ate lunch there. Pork wrapped in bacon on a stick = delicious!! We went back to the ship to write postcards and then ventured out a little later. I think we saw two restaurants open, everything else was still closed. We wanted to find a grocery store so I could buy some olives, so we asked someone at a snack bar. They said the main market was closed but there was an Asian market a few blocks from there. No olives there (I think the only reason it’s called Asian market is because it’s owned by Asian people, it was just a regular grocery store) but I got a box of “Nestle Fitness” cereal. It’ll be a nice change from tiny boxes of Special K and cornflakes. So our second outing was a bust, and we went back to the ship to bum around until dinner. I’m mad I didn’t get any olives!!!!

Special comments/actions of Greece:
-“I really do like this Greek style of gyros”
-People were trying to send postcards with stamps from Italy and Croatia.

Turkey tomorrow!!!!!!

It's all Greek to me!

2010-07-15T21:33:00.000-04:00

So we have officially been on the ship for a month, it definitely feels like longer! We have over a month left and three more ports! Quite exciting. Right now we’re watching Labyrinth on a movie channel (I haven’t seen this movie in FOREVER!) and Steven is amazed at the awesomeness of David Bowie’s hair. I miss this movie!

After Croatia, we had two days at sea, which included my Anthropology midterm. We had about an hour and a half to write several definitions, 7 few-sentence essays, 3 one-paragraph essays, and 4 one-page essays. Definitely didn’t have enough time to finish. =( Oh well. In other news, they curved the Global Studies midterm A LOT and I got a 96% (I got 6 wrong out of 35). Woohoo!

Yesterday was our trip to Athens and the Acropolis. Our trip didn’t leave until 1300, so Shaara, Steven, and I went out into Piraeus and got breakfast. A lot of the restaurants in the immediate vicinity of our ship were closed, but we found a place to get really filling omelets and freshly squeezed orange juice. I don’t think I’ve ever had orange juice that just tasted like, well, just the juice from an orange. Definitely better than the stuff from a box! We left for Athens, which is about 6 miles from Piraeus (Athens is technically not on the water, so we are docked in Piraeus). First there was a short bus tour of Athens, which basically included the guide pointing out things that we could see for a split second between buildings. We got to see the stadium that held the first modern Olympic games in the late 1800s. Pretty cool. We also drove by the Temple of Zeus. Next stop was the Acropolis and Parthenon! By that time it was a nice, comfortable 40 degrees Celsius, which is about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and no shade in sight! The walk up the hill was very slippery as the path was made out of marble, but we finally made it up to the Parthenon. We could see all of Athens from the top of the hill. Unfortunately not much of the original Parthenon is left as it has been looted and it even exploded once. We were given free time until we had to meet the bus to go back to the ship, but Shaara, Steven, and I had signed off early to go to the New Acropolis Museum. The museum opened just last year and it holds the small amount of artifacts left over from the looting of the Acropolis. A lot of the sculptures and stuff were stolen by the British and are in London. Lame!

After the museum, we walked down a random street and grabbed dinner. Shaara and I both got gyros—it was quite tasty. Not the same as the gyro we get at Greek fest though, this was a pile of meat, a pile of tzatziki sauce, and little triangles of pita to make our own gyro “nachos.” Steven got lamb with potatoes. There were a lot of touristy shops around the area, so we went window shopping and grabbed some gelato. We then hailed a cab back to the port, which was an experience in itself. I’m pretty sure he was only in a lane for about 30 seconds of the entire trip. Scary!!

So we have access to the port’s free wi-fi, and I tried connecting so I could upload pictures. Everybody and their uncle is Skyping, so Facebook was being super slow. Oh well.

Today we were up bright and early to go to Delphi, where the Temple of Apollo is. Steven is big into Greek mythology and he was really looking forward to this trip! It was a 3-hour drive to Delphi—sleep time! We drove up windy mountain roads (we seem to hit these in every country) until we reached the Delphi Museum at the base of ancient Delphi. The guide showed us around the museum, which contained sculptures and remains from Delphi. Everything in the museum was original, unlike in the New Acropolis Museum where the large majority of things were cast models. Also unlike the NAM, we were allowed to take pictures in the Delphi Museum. So, moral of the story: you can take pictures of real artifacts but you can’t take pictures of fake casts of artifacts. Good deal, Greece.

After the museum, we started the slippery trek up “The Sacred Way” to the Temple of Apollo, stopping along the way to learn about the other buildings that are still standing or were once there. Whoever decided to make steep paths out of marble is not very smart, we were slipping all over the place! I was laughing at the girls wearing sandals. The view from the Temple of Apollo, which is now only 5 or 6 pillars standing on a base, was amazing. We got to see dioramas of what Delphi looked like at its prime, it would have been amazing to see it before the buildings were destroyed.

Everyone was starving, and it was time for lunch! I can definitely say I had the best meal of the entire trip. We stopped at a restaurant, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Our guide told us that it was a 4-course meal of traditional Greek food. Yay! Out comes the bread and tzatziki sauce. I could have made a meal out of that alone! Then came the appetizers. Everyone got one of each food: stuffed cabbage (stuffed with veal), fried zucchini, fried cheese, and spinach pie. Everything was SO GOOD. Then we had Greek salad (lettuce, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, kalamata olives, and FETA CHEESE). The entrée was “fried meat steak” which is basically a glorified meatloaf, but it tasted really good with tzatziki sauce. It also had a little feta surprise inside. =) That came with some rice and fried potatoes (they like frying things). We were stuffed, but not too full for dessert! Baklava! Steven highly enjoyed his first tasting of baklava, and I, as always, loved it. I wish I could take some home!

We rolled out of the restaurant to our last stop, the monastery of Hosios Loukas (Holy Luke). Our guide told us all about the architecture of the monastery and how it was influential for future churches. There were gold mosaics all over the ceilings, and she was really detailed in telling us what each mosaic was depicting. Very cool! We also saw the body of Holy Luke himself, a little worse for the wear. As we were leaving the monastery, our guide pointed us to a bowl of Turkish delight and said that we could take a piece. Now, I just heard that we had to try Turkish delight, I didn’t know what it was. It’s apparently like a gummy candy covered in powdered sugar. It didn’t taste too great, but maybe if I get some in Turkey it will taste different. Anyway, we hopped back on the bus and slept all the way back to the ship. Hooray for long bus rides!

Long time since last blog post = lots of stupid questions!

1. “How many more games until the world cup finals?” (This was asked AFTER they broadcasted the WC finals on TV for us and everyone was talking about Spain winning)
2. “Do we have to exchange Spanish euros for Greek euros?”
3. “Isn’t a drone just a copy of a human?” (This requires a story--as we were sailing through Greek islands, apparently a drone flew by us. We were told that they think it was Israeli, just checking us out. They apparently flew fairly close, but not many saw it because we were in Global Studies at the time)
4. This wasn’t an official stupid question/comment, but Shaara just told me what a girl said on her trip: “I just had a Greek version of…..what do they call a gyro here?”

Tomorrow we have Greek cooking lessons (fun!) and then I’m going to try to find this shop that makes sandals. Shaara and I read about this shop from a girl who wrote about it in her blog from last summer, they apparently measure your feet and custom-make the sandals for you right there for only 40-ish euros. So hopefully I’ll go get that done, stop at Hard Rock Café for my guitar pin, and back to the ship. We’re going to try to get to a Greek island for Saturday, then spending Sunday in Piraeus. Busy busy!

Snorkeling fun!

2010-07-11T18:44:00.000-04:00

Those four days in Croatia went by way too fast! I was very sad to leave, but in a couple of days we will be in Greece! We have lots of fun trips planned: SAS trip to the acropolis, SAS trip to Delphi, a Greek cooking class, and then going to a Greek island for a day. Exciting!

So yesterday we went on the coveted snorkeling trip! We were lucky that we both got that trip, as a lot of people wanted it! We got off the ship and couldn’t see a bus for our trip, but someone pointed past the buses and a little boat was waiting to take us to the snorkeling place! We sped away from the ship and around a little peninsula to a place called Abyss diving center. We got our fins and snorkels (which I’m sure weren’t sanitized but whatever) and off we went to a nearby island. I know snorkeling isn’t hard, but they didn’t give any instruction, basically told us just to jump off the side of the boat and snorkel. Well I sucked at it. Every time I tried to breathe through the snorkel underwater, my brain told me “you should not be breathing right now!!” and I froze up. I think I also had a rather crappy snorkel because it kept letting in water and I was tired of blowing air out of it. I gave up on the snorkel and just swam around with my mask, exploring the rocks and swimming with fish. There weren’t too many fish, but I was able to get really close to some of them. The rocks were covered with sea anemones and sea urchins. The water was FRIGID and extremely salty, but it was a lot of fun! After about 45 minutes at the island, we were boated back to the diving center and we had about 2 hours of free time to snorkel off the beach or pay some extra money and go parasailing or tubing or something. We got a couple of fruit smoothies at the bar and then went swimming around the beach. The water was cold, but I went right in. Steven was being a sissy and inching into the water. Silly! There were actually a lot more fish around the beach than at the island, and we just enjoyed swimming around and exploring. It was finally time to leave, and the boat dropped us off right underneath the MV Explorer, definitely a cool experience!

After eating lunch on the ship and washing out all the salty water, we caught the bus to the old city, where there are a ton of shops and restaurants. We had been warned that the marble cobblestones were slippery, and they definitely were! For some reason I was wearing old navy flip flops. Not a good idea. Anyway, our first stop was an ice cream shop that Steven had gone to when he did his tour of the city walls. We got 2 HUGE scoops of ice cream for 20 kuna, which is about 4 dollars. Probably the cheapest ice cream we’ve gotten this whole trip. Croatia seems fairly cheap! We then wandered around the streets, stopping in stores. I was on the lookout for a magnet and a good t-shirt, but everything I was finding was really touristy and poor quality. I found a hand-painted magnet in a food store, where I also picked up some olive oil which I was told was “the best olive oil in Croatia.” I got to try some of it on bread and it was quite tasty! I was told it can go on everything, even vanilla ice cream. I think we’ll skip that one and just stick to bread. =) After shopping around some more, we stopped at Taj Mahal, a restaurant our tour guide had suggested to us. Despite its name, it served traditional Croatian food. We got a sampler platter of lots of different kinds of meats: chicken kebabs, meat patties, sausages. Meat city! It was quite tasty, but we were so full! We walked around some more, but places were starting to close down and once you’ve seen one touristy souvenir shop, you’ve seen them all. We headed back to the ship, tired from an extremely long day.

Today we thought we wanted to go back to the diving center to go tubing or something (riding in an inner tube being dragged by a boat). There was another SAS snorkeling trip leaving this morning, so we walked down to see if they could tell us how we could get to the place. They apparently had a bunch of openings, so we just bought a ticket for the trip and did the same thing again! We went out again to the island and explored a different area, this time finding a lot more fish. One of Steven’s flippers broke so he had to climb up on some pointy rocks to fix it. Ouch! I swam in an entire school of fish, so close that I could just reach out and touch them. Very cool! I also saw those tiny little shiny fish that change directions really fast to confuse their predators—they are in Finding Nemo and they make shapes while talking to Dory and Marlin (hopefully people know what I’m talking about). They definitely look like they are flashing! After 45 minutes of exhausting swimming, we went back to the dive center. We looked into parasailing but we didn’t have enough cash. We decided on an “aquahog” which is a mix between a tube and a banana raft and seats 2 people. We donned our lifejackets and got into the boat to head out. Getting on the raft was a trip. Steven got on first so he could be in the back, and he fell into the water. While he was getting out, I tried to get on, and I too fell in the water. It was not an easy feat! Finally we both got on and we were off! I was holding on for dear life, but it wasn’t too hard and was a lot of fun! All of a sudden, about halfway through our time, the boat driver started going really fast. I started freaking out. I was being pelted by water from the wake and I was so tired from 2 days of snorkeling that it was getting really hard to hold on. Then he started making sharp turns, and I couldn’t hold on anymore and flew off. Now I know what a skipping stone feels like! Apparently when I flew off, I took Steven with me, so we both ended up in the water waiting for the boat driver to get us. I guess his going fast and doing tight turns was the “grand finale” because we started heading back to the beach with Steven on the raft and my choosing to sit safely on the boat. I am not one for extreme water sports. Definitely not doing that again! Steven, of course, had a blast. =P After that we still had about 1.5 hours of free time, so I swam around with the fish while Steven napped on the “beach.” I am beat!

Again we went back to the ship for food and such, then headed out to the grocery store to spend the last of our kuna. Yay for cheap sodas!

Stupid question, Croatia version:
On a tour of the city walls, the tour guide said, “this is where the prince was beheaded.” A girl asks, “Did he die?”

Tonight’s the last night we have to set our clocks ahead! Woohoo!!

Croatia!

2010-07-09T19:40:00.000-04:00

Soooo yesterday I had my first and most likely last shot. It was pretty nasty. But more on that a little later.

Croatia is so gorgeous!! When we had our logistical pre-port meeting 2 nights ago, they surprised us by saying we were going to be docking that night instead of in the morning. We still couldn’t get off the ship but we went up to the decks to see the city. The area around the port is the new town and the houses are built into hillsides. The majority of the houses are white with red roofs, which is really pretty when put against the blue water. The water here is even prettier than it was in Capri! I just want to jump off the side of the pier and go swimming! I’m soooo excited to go snorkeling tomorrow!

Yesterday I had my FDP to the Osojnik village for a folk show, and Steven went to a tour of the walls of the old city. We drove across a bridge that spans the harbor and we were able to get off and take pictures of the water and the town. I have never seen water bluer than this! We then drove to a little abandoned town and walked through, our bus picked us up on the other side (I really didn’t see the point of this, our guide didn’t tell us anything about what we were seeing…). Finally we started making our way up a mountainside and into the little mountain village of Osojnik. We went into a small church that had been completely destroyed by fire in the Yugoslavian conflict about 20 years ago. They rebuilt the church using some of the stones that survived the destruction. Most of the buildings in that area of town were completely destroyed and have since been rebuilt. While we were walking around the area, a breeze blew through and it just smelled like flowers! There is no industry in Dubrovnik, so there is no pollution, the sky is clear and everything is just clean! It reminds me of Switzerland. =)

So we got to the house where we were going to eat and watch the folk show, passing by some cute donkeys on the way, and the second we got there, we were greeted by shots of their local drink, a plum-flavored brandy. Our tour guide said it was a form of welcome, and, following my try-anything-once mentality, I tried it. Only after I drank it did she say that it was about 80 proof. She said it’s basically Croatia’s moonshine. It was extremely strong, like drinking pure alcohol. Not pleasant at all! =P I washed that down with some delicious candied figs and orange peels. While some people stayed back for more brandy (some people had 5 or 6 shots…yikes!) I went into the little courtyard where the patriarch of the family was starting to play a kind of fiddle and women were dancing around him. SAS people started dancing too, I’m sure the brandy helped! After that, we went down to another little courtyard covered by a lattice with grapevines. The women brought out plates of bacon, cheese, and bread, as well as their homemade wine made from the grapes above us. We put the bacon on a stick and cooked it over a flame, then put it with the cheese on the bread. A bacon s’more! Yummy! I had a taste of the wine and it was pretty good, not strong, very sweet. After people had time to enjoy the wine, we went inside to a cellar-like room for the main meal. It was dimly lit and we sat at long benches. Out came more wine! (I stuck with water, the people around me were getting a bit out of hand). Following salad, platters of (what we think was) pork and potatoes came out. The people reminded me of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding: we asked what kind of meat it was and they said, “It’s meat! Just meat!” Yep, helpful! It was tasty nonetheless. The dessert was little pinwheels of cake with chocolate frosting, those were quite good too. After dinner, we went upstairs for more dancing and singing. I just enjoyed watching. =) It was a fun trip!

When I got back to the ship, we grabbed dinner and then headed to the supermarket that is right outside the ship. We stocked up on drinks: a can of fanta or coke here is 4.99 Kuna, which is about 88 cents! We were paying 3-4 euro per can in Barcelona and Italy, and soda on the ship costs $2! Yay for savings! I also got a little bag of “crazy sours” Skittles to see if they were the same as our sour Skittles, and they are nothing alike! These taste like sweet tarts and aren’t really sour =(

So today was our trip to Trsteno, Ston, and Korcula. This was actually our alternate choice trip since we didn’t get the service visit to the orphanage. In the end, I kinda wish we hadn’t picked an alternate. We were at the bus bright and early at 0700! First we went to Trsteno (slept on the way there), got off the bus, and walked to the botanical garden. At the entrance was a HUGE 500-year-old tree. That was cool. We walked along a path and our guide showed us a fountain from the 17th century. That was it. Back on the bus and off to Ston. Again, slept. We get to Ston, where we walked to a field of salt mines, basically just pools of salt water that they let evaporate to get sea salt. We spent approximately 5 minutes there, then got back on the bus. Back I went to sleep for the hour bus ride to the place where we would catch the ferry to the island of Korcula. Korcula is gorgeous! We first went to the Museum of Icons, which is really just a room with icons. Adjoined to that was St. Mark’s Cathedral. A woman told us all about the architecture and artwork there, and our tour guide translated for us. Our final stop was the Municipal Museum, where there were a lot of artifacts of the town and area. Lots of coins. Understandably, everything was in Croatian, so we didn’t really know what we were looking at. Lunch was included in our trip, so we went to the restaurant next (we were all starving!) The first course was a piece of lettuce with a cold seafood salad consisting of mussels, clams, and squid. I did try it and ended up eating only the lettuce—all the seafood tasted really fishy—not good! I think only one person in our entire group actually ate the salad, I felt bad about all the food going to waste. The entrée was grilled fish with potatoes and green beans. Of course, Steven doesn’t eat seafood so he was mad that he wasn’t going to eat anything. Also, there were a couple vegetarians and one person allergic to seafood in our group! The main server was being pretty rude, one of the vegetarians asked if they had anything without meat and they said “that’s fish, not meat! You can eat that!” and they said they wouldn’t switch their meals for anything else. I flagged down our tour guide and told him that Steven doesn’t eat seafood, so thankfully he went to tell a server and Steven got a nice piece of pork thrown in front of him. I wish I had pork instead of my fish! There were still bones in the fish, and even though I picked them out, every mouthful still had 3 or 4 bones. Not a pleasant dining experience. I felt bad for the girl allergic to seafood, I don’t think she ate anything. The dessert was the saving grace of the meal, it was a custard-like cake thing that’s hard to describe but tasted really good. After lunch, we had an hour of free time. Steve and I checked out some jewelry shops and wandered around, then we went back to our meeting point early and put our feet in the water while we waited for the ferry. We got the ferry back to our bus and immediately got on for the 2.5 hour ride back to the ship. More sleep time! We finally got back around 6pm, feeling like we spent the majority of the day sleeping on a bus (that’s because we did). Every SAS trip before this one had been amazing, I guess there had to be one dud. Our tour guide was so nice and knowledgeable, I just wish we were seeing more interesting things or we stayed more than 20 minutes in one place. Oh well.

Tomorrow we are snorkeling near the island of Kolocep! I’ve heard from other trips (there have been snorkeling trips every day) that it was amazing so I’m sure we’ll have fun! I wish my camera were waterproof, though! After that, we’ll be exploring the old city for the rest of the day, possibly hitting up a beach or something. Exciting!

On the [sea] again...

2010-07-07T04:39:00.000-04:00

We will be in Croatia tomorrow! Yesterday was pretty hectic as it was the first day in 12 days that we’ve had class, and everyone had to take the Global Studies midterm. It was hard! I attended all the classes, took notes, and studied, but he definitely pulled out little details and made questions about them. Then my Anthropology paper on Pompeii was due at 8am this morning so I had to churn that out in the early hours of the morning. I’m ready for some sleep!

On our last day in Naples, Steven and I went on an SAS trip to Mt. Vesuvius. The roads up the volcano are definitely not made for a motorcoach bus! The driver went a lot slower than the one going up Montserrat, so I felt a lot safer this time. They drove us to around 1000 feet, where we had to wait until 0900 for the ticket office to open. Some of the guides and shop owners there had dogs, and we played with them for a while. I have lots of pictures of Steven with his new friend! The dogs were so sweet but they definitely needed to be brushed! We started hiking up the remainder of the volcano, about 250 more feet, and one of the dogs was following us for a while. The hike wasn’t too hard, but it was all gravel and volcanic stone so it was kind of like hiking up through sand. It was a fairly foggy day so we couldn’t see much until we got to the top and the sun started coming out. We were above the clouds! We were able to see into the extremely deep crater and I picked up a volcano rock as a souvenir. =) I thought the walk down was harder than the walk up because we kept sliding on the gravel and sand. It was a good trip!

When we got back to the ship, we grabbed lunch and started to study for our Global Studies midterm. We had to be on the ship by 1800, but there was a July 4th barbeque at 1730. We were told that the crew went all out for the BBQ, and they weren’t kidding! The food was amazing for being mass-produced for 700+ people. Burgers, delicious ribs, corn on the cob, macaroni and cheese, all topped off with some patriotic chocolate cake. YUM!! About an hour after we had to be on the ship, we had a huge group picture. Everyone went out to the back of the 4th-7th decks and the photographer took the picture from the dock. The picture must be crazy!

It was hard to transition back to classes yesterday! I guess the hotel staff thought that it would be a rough day because it was TACO DAY for lunch! I had read about the amazingness of taco day from alumni, and although it was a very welcome change from the daily pasta, potatoes, and meat, I didn’t find it as amazing as everyone had said. Stale tacos!

So we will be in Croatia tomorrow morning! I have an FDP for my Anthropology class at 1300, we’re going to a village about an hour away from Dubrovnik and will be watching a folk show while learning about the village. We have to use a tender to get from the ship to Dubrovnik, so that should be an interesting experience!

I know everyone has been missing stupid questions, so here are two overheard in Italy:

1. On a tour of Rome, the guide said, “This building was built in 76 AD.” A girl asks, “Wait, is that 1876 or 1976?”
2. “How long is the bus ride to Capri?”

And for rumor control, we are officially going to Greece. Yay! Next post will have updates from Croatia!

Pompeii and Capri

2010-07-04T19:10:00.000-04:00

Happy 4th of July from Naples, Italy—the sketchiest place on Earth! Seriously, the port area is scary. We wandered up and down the street just outside the port in search of a restaurant or something, but everything around the port is shut down or really dirty. Sooooo we decided to stay on the ship. Anyway, here’s what we did for the last 2 days!

Yesterday Steven and I had an SAS trip to Pompeii. I have to write a paper on Pompeii for my Anthropology class, so I had to go on one of the trips to Pompeii (like I wasn’t going to anyway?). They have actually excavated the majority of the town, and the first stories of most of the buildings are still intact. We saw Mt. Vesuvius looming in the background. Our tour guide showed us many little details that we would have missed, like how a certain male reproductive organ is a symbol of good luck and is therefore carved on the doorways of many buildings. Yep! This symbol is also carved on the streets to show the direction to the brothels, of which there are several. There are also 3 dogs that live in Pompeii, apparently people just left them there. We saw all 3! Two of them were playing with each other in what was once the square, and one was sleeping in the sun in the public bath. I miss my puppy!!!!! There are dogs everywhere! Our trip also included a little tour of a cameo factory. Cameos are drawings carved into pieces of seashells. We got to watch an artist work on a cameo, they said it takes about 3 days to make one! We then went down into the store, where we found that the cameos cost several hundred dollars. There was a lot of jewelry made out of lava stone and real coral. Unfortunately we only had about 20 minutes of free time, not enough for significant perusal.

We grabbed lunch on the ship and decided to check out the area around the port. Most places were closed. We went to a tabbacheria (no idea if that is spelled right) because they sell stamps. We somehow communicated to the woman who spoke no English that we each wanted 6 stamps. It was fun! Since we couldn’t find anything to do and we were told to stay off the side streets, we thought it best to just stay on the ship the rest of the day. We have a Global Studies midterm in a couple of days anyway!

This morning we were up bright and early to go to Capri! We had bought ferry tickets the night before for the 0730 ferry, and we grabbed a window seat for the 80-minute ride over. People in Italy do not believe in lines—they believe in mobs. Seriously, every door is like a cattle chute! Once we finally got off the ferry in Capri, we joined another mob hovered around the ticket booth for the tour around the island. We got our tickets and joined yet another mob to get on a motorboat (the boat holds about 25 people). The guide/captain drove us all around the island, making stops and telling us about some of the different places. We first saw the coral grotto, which has a band of bright orange coral growing on the rocks just underneath the level of the water. We peered into the white grotto, which apparently had a stalactite shaped like the Virgin Mary (we couldn’t see it). He drove us precariously into the green grotto, almost knocking some girls’ heads on the roof of the cave, and we saw some very pretty bright green water. The final major stop was the blue grotto, La Grotta Azzurra, which was absolutely amazing. I think my mom might cringe at what we did to see this cave, though. =) So there are all these motorboats floating around the entrance to this cave, and rowboats come up beside the motorboats for people to get on. Only 3 or 4 people can get on a rowboat, so it takes some time for everyone to get a turn. When it was our turn, I made the leap over the side of our boat to the rowboat and somehow got inside without my usual klutziness. Then the driver of the rowboat took us over to the ticket booth boat, very interesting. We waited in a short line to go in, and then it was our turn! Quickly, our driver told us to lay flat on our backs…and he meant it!! The entrance to the cave is very narrow, and we had to lay completely flat to fit through it. Once we were inside, though, the cave was huge! The water was so amazingly blue. The rower sang to us in Italian and explained why the water was lit up like that. He said that sunlight hits the water outside the cave and then reflects into the cave, giving the water a natural luminescence. We were only in there for a couple of minutes before we had to squeeze out of the cave again. It was so worth it!

When the boat brought us back, we were starving, so we went to one of the many pizzerias along the water. We each ate THE BEST pizzas ever. Mine had mozzarella with ham and mushrooms while Steven’s had mozzarella and salami. Yummy! We then ordered a sundae type thing with 2 spoons, but I guess the waiter heard wrong and brought us 2 desserts. Oh well! It was such a good meal! After lunch, we headed off to the “beach.” Now, when I think of beaches, I think of hot sand and cool water, relaxing, and people-watching (not to be confused, of course, with creeping). This beach was a pebble beach, and the pebbles were not only scorching hot but also really really hard and painful to walk on! We finally made it to a semi-open spot and laid our blankets down. Steven went in the water first while I watched our bags, and he said the water was freezing and the rocks were slippery with moss. I made my way to the water and immediately decided that I needed to go in with my flip flops—walking on those pebbles is just too painful! The water felt so nice and cool after laying in the hot sun, but he wasn’t kidding about how slippery it was! A tiny wave hit me just as I stepped on a slippery rock, and I slipped and my shoes came off. Steven had fun watching me flail in the water trying to find a less slippery spot. I painfully made my way back to our spot and decided to just get a little sun for the rest of our time there. No more pebbles for me! Oh, and definitely the best part of the beach was the lovely display of what I like to call “people wearing bikinis who should not be wearing bikinis.” You can also replace “bikinis” with “speedos” and get a similar effect. Oh yes.

Steven needed to get some more cash, so we hiked about a mile up a hill to the center of town (there was a funicular that went up there but we didn’t feel like paying for it). We definitely worked off that lunch! I don’t think I’ve ever sweated more in my life, and yes, you really did need to know that. We finally reached the top and saw the most beautiful view of the port (I forgot to take a picture…darn!) and found our ATM. There was also a store selling limoncello in all kinds of bottles, and I got a little bottle in the shape of a cello! So cool! Mission accomplished, we walked back down, which is a much, much nicer walk than the one up. We shopped around for a bit and then stopped at another little restaurant for dinner. I got seafood risotto, which, for 15 euro I got a heaping plate of delicious risotto, about 8 mussels, 3 clams, 10 pieces of cuttlefish, and 2 shrimp. I got one bum mussel, but the rest was delicious! I like Capri! We walked around a bit more since we still had an hour to kill before our ferry left, so we got gelato again, this time coffee and cookie mixed. Yay! On the ferry back, we sipped limoncello and reminisced about the enjoyable day. =)

Right now I’m watching Vicky Christina Barcelona on one of the movie channels and writing postcards. Tomorrow morning is a hike up Mt. Vesuvius! Apparently they drive us up to 1000 meters and we just hike the 200-some meters to the crater. I’m quite excited…the view should be amazing!

There has been talk that we may not be docking in Athens, but I don’t think they have made any final decisions yet. Apparently the port authority is on strike now, and there is a big general strike planned for the day we arrive. I haven’t had access to news for the past 3 weeks, but I’m assuming there are still riots or at least some form of political unrest. I’ve heard that they’re looking into other places for us to dock or we may stay longer in Croatia. I know our safety is the most important, but I was really looking forward to Greece! Bummer!

All Rome-d out!

2010-07-02T18:20:00.000-04:00

Hello, faithful readers! Today you are in for a very long post…4 days worth of stuff! Rome was amazing, but as the title of the post says, I’m definitely “all Rome-d out.” So enjoy this big post made up of 4 mini-posts! And leave me comments! I like comments! And emails, lots of emails!!!!!! =)

-----June 29, 2010-----

Early this morning, we docked in Civitavecchia, Italy! We arrived and were cleared earlier than expected, so we were able to leave the ship at 0930. Steven and I picked up our passports and were off to the hectic train station to buy our tickets to Rome. Thus began the first hiccup of our trip. The ticket we bought said our train left at 10:30 (they run every half hour), and it was currently 9:45. This little tiny train station had no signs whatsoever, and the ticket didn’t say where the train was or anything. We asked a guy who worked there and he pointed to a track around the corner, so we went to that train. There were other SAS students on the train who said that it was the 10:30 train. Well, the train started pulling out at 10! We were officially on the wrong train, but thankfully no one came around to check tickets and we sat across from a group of German people who kept trying to talk to us in German when we told them we only spoke English. Anyway, after the 1.5 hour train ride, we made it to Rome and made our way to the hostel. We arrived at the hostel to find two other SASers checking in too! The man who showed us to our room, Gino, was extremely nice and joked around a lot (when we asked him if we could get air conditioning, he jokingly said “no, you must die in the heat!”) I was so surprised how secure the hostel was. We had 3 keys: one for the door to the street since it is locked at night, one to get into our hallway (there are 2 rooms in the hall) and another to get into our room. Talk about security! We have a teeny bathroom with a teeny shower stall, but it’s a nice room. When we got in, the temperature was 28 degrees C, which is 85 degrees F! Air conditioning cost us 5 euros per night, which we immediately got.
        After dropping off our bags, we went across the street to a restaurant called La Famiglia. Steven ordered cannelloni, I ordered lasagna, and we each had half of each others’ meal. They were so good! After lunch, we trekked to the Spanish Steps. It took us a while to figure out how to navigate…there aren’t signs on every street corner telling you where you are! We made it to the steps, where we were harassed by a man selling flowers and we filled up our water bottles at the public fountain (which is totally safe, clean, potable water). Our next stop was the Trevi Fountain. It was flooded with tourists and we didn’t have any small coins to throw in so we decided to go back later. Next we went to the Pantheon, half of which is now under construction (Boo!). We were too late to go inside since it closed early (today, of course, was a Roman Catholic holiday) so we plan to return tomorrow. Our final stop on the little tour was the Piazza Navona, a piazza with beautiful Bernini fountains AND where I had my first gelato 4 years ago. The place I had gelato was gone! It was renamed and is now more of a restaurant with only 10 flavors of gelato as opposed to the dozens that were there before. Bummer!!! We walked down the piazza to another gelateria—Steven got chocolate chip, and I got Nutella (with real chunks of Nutella—yum!!). We then started working our way back to the hostel, stopping at many of the shops along the way. We also stopped at the Trevi Fountain again to throw our coins in so as to ensure a speedy return to Rome. We were SO tired and hot by the time we made it back to the hostel, and we went for an “early” dinner (7pm) at another nearby restaurant, Babbo’s. Our Italian interport student told us we HAD to try mozzarella di bufala (buffalo mozzarella) and pasta amatriciana, so we did both! Our antipasti was parma ham with mozzarella di bufala and foccacia bread. Yum!! Then Steven got the amatriciana and I ordered gnocchi with shrimp and tomatoes. Although I don’t mind getting shrimp with their heads on, I’m getting tired of peeling them! When we got back to the hostel, I took advantage of the free internet and our now-18 degree room. =)

-----June 30, 2010-----

        Today was such a long day!! We walked all the way from our hostel to the Circus Maximus, where chariot races were once held. It was very disappointing—there are only a couple of ruins amidst construction vehicles, piles of dirt, and modern fences. They are apparently trying to excavate or restore it or something. We then walked back toward the Colosseum, contemplating the Arch of Constantine for a while. We had tickets for a guided tour through the interior of the Colosseum, but we couldn’t find the entrance! We walked ALL the way around and finally saw it and started our tour. The inside was amazing—our guide showed us pictures that recreated how it looked. They’ve actually started to rebuild some of it to show what it used to look like. I took quite a few nice panoramic pictures inside! After the Colosseum, we started to head to the Campo de Fiori, where our interport student said there was a market. Most of the shops were already closing up, but we picked up 2 little bottles of limoncello (a type of alcoholic lemonade-y drink). We grabbed lunch at a little pizzeria (the restaurants on the side streets are best!) and got 2 pizzas to share. One had cheese and thinly-sliced ham, and the other had beefsteak, parmesean, and rocket (which we learned was a type of salad green). Both were delicious! After lunch, we stopped at a gelateria for our 2nd gelato of Italy! I mixed coffee and chocolate while Steven mixed chocolate and chocolate chip. Yum-o!
Our next stop was the Pantheon, and thankfully it was open this time. We marveled at the huge dome and the sculptures inside. Steven was just amazed at how big the place was! At this point, we were tired, hot, and sweaty, but we decided to head down to the Roman Forum. We wasted half an hour searching for the entrance, and once we found it, it was too late to get an audiotour. So we used a tour book that Bridget had loaned me (thanks, Bridget!) and did the tour ourselves. We didn’t get through all of the forum before it closed, so we may return tomorrow! We headed back to the hostel for showers and to eat dinner. We ate at La Famiglia again, except this time Steven got pasta carbonara and I got meat-filled tortellini with peas and mushrooms. So good! For dessert, I had the most delicious tiramisu and Steven had some tasty chocolate gelato. Tomorrow we are checking out of our hostel and heading to the Sistine Chapel! Oh, and limoncello is delicious! =)

-----July 1, 2010-----

Today definitely had it’s ups and downs. This morning, we checked out of our hostel and left our bags in the lobby. We grabbed the metro to Vatican City, and passed by the extremely long line for the Vatican Museums because we bought tickets online beforehand. Hooray for being prepared! We walked through the many rooms of the museums, enjoying the Egyptian room the most with its REAL mummies! There was also a room full of animal sculptures, full of horses and dogs and a big camel. Our main goal was the Sistine Chapel, and even though we kept following the signs to the chapel, we were lead through an extremely long maze of rooms and hallways and stairs (I think we went up and down stairs about 5 times) before we finally made it. The artwork was absolutely amazing, we just stood there and marveled at the murals for a while. We understandably weren’t allowed to take pictures, but some awesome gems of individuals were sneaking pictures (some with flash). Steven and I were surprised with how small the chapel was, it was just one rectangular room, but Michelangelo’s artwork covered the majority of the walls and ceiling. We made our way to the exit and had some lunch just outside St. Peter’s Square. I had a little pizza while Steven had a “tour of Italy” including lasagna, pasta amatriciana, and ravioli. Italy is all about carbs, carbs, carbs!!! The place we ate also had gelato, so I got pistachio and Steven got a mix of hazelnut and tiramisu (and he liked it!!!). We caught the metro back to the train station (the two metro lines in Rome intersect at the station) and then got on the other line to go to the Forum. Rome’s metro is so dirty and crowded—they literally shove as many people as possible into a train and then they are smushed up against the windows and doors when the doors close. It’s scary! We made it to the stop in one piece, and it was then that I realized that I left our ticket back in the hostel (our ticket for the Colosseum also includes admission to the Forum and Palatine Hill for 2 days). Ugh!! So I went to buy two more tickets while Steven got the audio tour, and we began our long tour of the forum and Palatine Hill. We tried to follow the map that they had given us with the guide, but there was so much construction going on that the map was not accurate and we either missed stops or weren’t looking at the right things. Not to mention that once we got to Palatine Hill, there were so many different streets that we turned down the wrong one and got completely lost. The numbers for the audioguide were only on the map and weren’t marked in the actual area that we had to be in, so we had no idea where we had to be. We decided to skip the last couple stations and head back. We grabbed our bags from the hostel and went to the train station to head back to Civitavecchia. Now, I know that we are in Italy and that Italian is the main language, but I didn’t expect there to be such a lack of English! We went to a little kiosk thing to buy our tickets, and even though we pressed English as our language, a lot of the important stuff was in Italian (who knew there were so many different train tickets?). We asked someone for help, but everyone is in a hurry and no one would help us. Finally, we found a man who helped us work the machine even though he didn’t speak much English. We got our ticket and asked him which platform we had to go to, he said 15. The train was leaving in about 20 minutes, so we started our walk to platform 15. No train there. We asked someone and he said the train to Civitavecchia was on platform 28, not 15. Platform 28 is EXTREMELY far from 15, and we only had 10 minutes, so we basically ran half a mile to the other platform. The train at 28 was actually going to the airport, not Civitavecchia, but luckily the train next to it at 29 was our train (or so we thought). Once we were on the train, we realized that this was a train that was leaving 20 minutes later than our ticket said, so we were yet again not on the right train. The freaking ticket was all in Italian, and there are no signs anywhere! Nowhere on the ticket did it say 28 or 29. So we thought we could just stay on this train like we did on the first train, but a lady came around and started checking tickets. The man in front of us apparently had the wrong ticket, and he was kicked off the train at the next stop. I became worried that we would be kicked off next, but thankfully she never came back and we finally made it back to Civitavecchia and the ship. I was so glad to see the ship!!!! We missed dinner, so we grabbed food from the pool deck and just enjoyed being on the ship, safe and sound. Tomorrow we go on a tour of the catacombs!

-----July 2, 2010-----

        I was so thankful that today we had a full-day SAS trip because I didn’t have to deal with Roman public transportation. I fully enjoyed our hour drive into the city in an air-conditioned motorcoach! Our trip was called “unusual Rome and catacombs” and our first stop was at the catacombs. We walked down lots of stairs until we were about 20 meters underground. It was so nice and cool down there, I wish we could have explored for more than the 15 minutes we were there. Our guide showed us some of the main crypts and explained all of the writings on the walls and how the catacombs were built. Very cool! Apparently the catacombs were raided by Barbarians so many of the crypts were emptied or destroyed. After the catacombs, we went to the Crypt of the Capuchin Friars. The crypt contained 5 little rooms decorated in human bones. Different bones covered the walls and ceilings in interesting patterns, and some bones were used to make chandeliers and altars. Most of the rooms had the hooded skeletons of Capuchin friars. They said that the bones were a “hymn to life.” I really enjoyed the visit, although it was a little creepy!
        After the crypt, we had almost 5 hours on our own to get lunch and explore the area. Since we just spent 3 full days in Rome and pretty much saw everything we wanted to see, we weren’t sure what to do. Rome’s Hard Rock Café was on the same street as the crypt, so we went there so I could buy a pin. We then decided to eat there (there’s only so many consecutive times you can have pizza or pasta). We had some delicious burgers!!! After lunch, we walked around the area, but since we had already walked around there, we got back to the meeting point an hour early and just sat there to wait for the bus. As amazing as Rome was, I was definitely ready to leave and go on to Naples!
        We are traveling to Naples overnight, and tomorrow morning we have a tour of Pompeii. That should be a lot of fun, although it ends at 1230 and we’re not sure what to do for the rest of the day. It may be a day of relaxing (or studying for our Global Studies midterm that is in 3 days!)

Hasta luego, Barcelona!

2010-06-27T18:15:00.000-04:00

We are on our way to Italy! We pulled out of Barcelona around 9pm tonight, I can’t believe how fast these last 4 days have gone! As much as I enjoyed our SAS tours of the city, I am really looking forward to doing Rome independently and on our own time. The city tours were very rushed, and we will have three full days in Rome to do whatever we want! So although I’m sad to be leaving Barcelona without seeing everything I wanted to see, I am so excited for Italy!

After getting another 4 hours of sleep last night (ahhhhh!), Steve and I were up bright and early to grab breakfast and head to the metro station. La Sagrada Familia opened at 9am, and we wanted to be at the front of the line so we had time to do other things. While waiting in line, we read that the towers were closed today. Major bummer!!!! There is an elevator that goes up to the top of one of the spires, but for some reason or another, it wasn’t operating today. We were really upset, apparently we have really bad luck with this cathedral! Anyway, we got our tickets (hooray for student discounts!) and an audio tour and set off to finally see the inside of the cathedral. The entire interior is a major construction zone, and visitors are only able to walk around along the outer walls. I was so glad we got the audio tour because it pointed out many things we would have missed. The stained glass is gorgeous from the inside! Usually the stained glass in churches depict scenes from the Bible, but the stained glass there was just a beautiful rainbow of colors representing the sun, water, earth, and fire. There were large pillars in the area I’m assuming the mass will congregate, and the pillars are made from stone from all over Spain. The seats for the choir are carved into the wall over the back door. We went to the museum in the basement of the cathedral and got to see some of Gaudi’s original sketches (most of them were lost in a fire during the Spanish civil war). There was also a “Gaudi and Nature” exhibit where we could see models of some of his architecture alongside his influences from nature. Most of his structures are actually designed after plants and natural patterns. Everything looks amazing now, I can’t wait for all of the construction to finish and to see it in its completion! Sign me up for Semester at Sea Summer 2026!

Back to the metro to catch a train to (near) Park Guell. The metro station was so far away from the park, and the park was perched atop an extremely steep hill. We finally made it to the top, turned the corner and saw the buildings and mosaics I have always seen in pictures. I battled people in order to get a picture with the famous lizard fountain! We walked around on a trail and then came to the roof of the building with the mosaic benches. We could see the entire city from up there! There were so many different places to go, but we had to start heading back because I had to attend an FDP on the ship at 1600. Along the way back to the metro station, we stopped at a little restaurant (the ONLY one open that we could find) and got personal pizzas. About 98% of the shops and restaurants in the city are closed on Sundays, basically the only places open are the touristy shops. Anyway, we made it back to the ship, I took a much-needed shower, and I went to my FDP on Doctors Without Borders in Spain. It was very informative, but the woman who spoke was a psychologist and could really only speak on mental health.

While we were watching the ship pull out of port, we asked The Voice what the latest scoop was. He said he has heard of 66 people who got pick-pocketed, and he’s estimating that about 60 more got pick-pocketed and either didn’t tell him or didn’t realize it yet. One person was sent home due to “conduct issues” and 3 guys claimed they were roofied. Several people got dock time (one guy has 36 hours of dock time!) because they couldn’t manage to make it back on the ship by 6pm, even some faculty members! Tsk tsk!

Current Location: 41 degrees N latitude, 2 degrees E longitude, traveling at 13 knots! Tomorrow we’ll be sailing between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, hopefully we see some land!

Barcelona, Days 2 and 3

2010-06-26T21:33:00.000-04:00

(6/25-6/26)

Today, Steven and I split up for different trips! He left at 8am for his Medieval Templar Knights tour in Lleida while I had my paella tour starting at 10am. I need to start getting more sleep—in the last 48 hours, I have gotten 6 hours of sleep. Not good! Anyway, let me start off with a recap of yesterday! (June 25)

Yesterday morning, Steve and I went to Montserrat (“serrated mountain”) about 45 minutes outside of Barcelona. Driving up the mountain was incredibly gorgeous. The bus careened around the tight turns, and I could just see the headlines “SAS bus tumbles down mountainside” but it was all okay. We got box lunches and were on our way once we reached the top! Our guide gave us an overview of the chapel and monastery, and we were able to go inside the chapel. Everything is perched so perfectly in this mountain, I swear I took 300 pictures! Then we had an hour of free time in which we could go up or down the mountain on a funicular. Down the mountain was the holy grotto. We chose to go up the mountain to St. John’s cave. Unfortunately, it took 15 minutes to get onto the funicular and we only had enough time to look around at the top of the peak, we never had time to go to the cave, which was disappointing. Still, the view from the top was incredible, and hopefully I can go back there someday to see everything.

Once we got back to the ship, we headed out again to grab some lunch (the box lunches were nothing to write home about). We went to a mall area that was a short walk from the Colombus monument and got a pizza margherita to share. Delicioso! We had this bread before the pizza came out called pa amb tomaquet, which is literally “bread and tomato” in Catalan. It was so simple but quite tasty…excellent little appetizer. I’m pretty sure it was just toasted bread covered and soaked with crushed tomatoes and drizzled in olive oil. Yum! Will have to try to recreate that at home =) We still had some time, so we inquired about a dessert menu. Steven picked out a sundae consisting of a scoop of chocolate, a scoop of vanilla, and a scoop of praline ice cream for us to share. It was such a treat after spending the morning and early afternoon in the hot sun hiking on a mountain! After that, it was time for our Barcelona at Night tour. I guess I didn’t look at the time of the tour when we signed up for it—I thought it was going to be, you know, at night when it was dark out. Nope, it started at 6pm, and sunset wasn’t until after 9! Also, this tour was exactly the same as our orientation tour that we took on the first day. We even went back into the Pueblo Espanol. Since we had already done a guided tour, we were able to roam around on our own for 45 minutes. I bought a couple pieces of jewelry, a couple of prints, and lots of postcards to send and for the scrapbook! We also got free sangria samples!! Heheh….

After we toured around the city, we went to the base of Montjuic to see the Magic Fountains. This was the only part of the tour we hadn’t seen before, and it was amazing! The place was packed with people, I was amazed we didn’t get separated from the group! The show included music and the fountain had lights and different water formations. I took a video of part of the show, hopefully it turns out well! After we made a quick pitstop at the ship, we headed out on a quest for churros con chocolate. We walked up La Rambla, which was much more lively than the night before, and finally settled on a little restaurant after a server assured us that they had churros con chocolate. What a lie! The churros were freshly made, hot and delicious, no complaint there, but instead of the thick, creamy, syrupy chocolate that I was expecting, they just served us regular hot chocolate! So not the same! We returned to the ship for some much needed rest, although I decided to call home and write the blog post you see below this one.

So…today: the paella tour! (I know my sister is going to read this and salivate). It started at 10am with yes, yet another bus tour. I had the same British tour guide as with the tour on the first day (the really good, descriptive one) but near the end of the 3-hour tour, we just wanted our paella already! We were dropped off at La Boqueria, one of the best markets in the world! It was so crowded and Spanish people move soooo slowly that I almost immediately got separated from our group. I saw our tour guide’s hat, so I followed him, but he was apparently trying to help a student find a paella pan to buy. Since I saw no one else on our trip and I didn’t want to get lost, I followed them ALL around the area surrounding the market. We finally return to the market after 20 minutes of searching, and there is a stand right there in the market selling kitchen utensils and, of course, paella pans of every size. Great. Anyway, after the market we walk down some back alleys where there were a bunch of shops and restaurants. Finally, we started to walk down to the restaurant where we would be learning how to make paella. We actually went to the same restaurant that Steve and I ate at yesterday for lunch! We went upstairs and immediately downed glass upon glass of water, and then the tapas started. First, more pa amb tomaquet, then olives, ham, manchego cheese, and calamari. I had a sampling of everything, but I wanted to save room for the paella! We were then called back to watch the paella being made. In a back room there were three HUGE paella pans, each big enough to serve 15-20 people. We all gathered around a pan and watched as the chef first cooked the prawns and mussels, then took them out to cook the vegetables (onions, peppers, and peas). We learned that the sautéed vegetables was called “sofrito” and that you’re only supposed to put in vegetables that caramelize (mushrooms work well too). After the vegetables came what I thought was squid, but was actually cuttlefish (if Libby is reading this then she is probably horrified that I ate cuttlefish). So much better than squid! It doesn’t get rubbery at all and is much more tender than squid while still having the same texture and taste. Then the rice was added and toasted, and we were all given spoons and we took turns stirring the paella components. To that, they added a red “sopa de pescado” sauce was added to cook everything in. This cooked for about 10-15 minutes until all the water had boiled off. Then it was time to eat! This paella was SO much better than the one at the flamenco show, so much more flavor and the seafood was probably the best I’ve ever eaten (I did get jipped though, I got 2 mussels on my plate but only one had meat inside…bummer!) Mmmmm! The one downside of really good paella is that when you are opening up the prawns, the red sauce gets everywhere! Oh well, still good. So after tapas and a plate full of paella, we were stuffed, but there was dessert! Crema Catalan, a type of custard, in a little dish kind of like crème brulee except without the hard top. Very tasty. I also got some café con leche to enjoy with my crema Catalan, all in all a very good and satisfying Spanish meal!

So this is when the fun begins. My tour was supposed to be over at 3, it actually ended at 3:45pm. According to our list of trips, Steve’s trip was also supposed to end at 3, so we said we would wait for each other at the terminal before boarding the ship. I was worried that he was worried that I wasn’t back yet, but there was nothing I could do. I get to the terminal, he’s not there. I go inside and he’s not in his room, so I go back outside to wait and read some stuff for my classes. 4:30 rolls around and I decide to go inside and ask the Purser if he was on the ship (we have to swipe in and out). He was not, and neither was his trip leader, so I was assuming that a bus broke down or something. Finally, at 5pm, a tour bus rolls in (not his) and I go to ask the driver if he knew anything about a late bus. He said that tour wasn’t supposed to be over until 5pm, our sheet had a typo, and that they were delayed another hour, so 6pm. Soooo then I sat for another hour, waiting for the bus to get in. Poor Steven comes in at 6pm and apparently the trip was horrible. People were complaining the whole time because they apparently didn’t read in the trip description that it was a 2-hour bus ride there and back. I guess they went to the first place in Lleida and had a tour there, but then they were supposed to go to another place half an hour away from there. Apparently SAS didn’t account for siesta, and the place was closed from 12-4:30. If they had waited to go at 4:30, they wouldn’t have returned to the ship until 9, so they just decided to head back. Poor Steven! We had a whole night planned, but since he got back 3 hours late we had to drastically change. Originally we were going to tour La Sagrada Familia and then head up to Parc Guell, but both were closing in a couple of hours. I decided I wanted to run up to the market again since I didn’t really get to see it. So we walked up Las Ramblas to the market, where I bought a paraguayo for a euro and a watermelon wedge for a euro. Steve and I went outside and enjoyed the watermelon (it had been pre-sliced and they provided a fork). Yum!

After the market, we just wandered around the Gothic quarter for a long time. We shopped around, I found a really cool-looking coffee mug that is very Gaudi-esque. We then found a place with churros and chocolate….REAL churros con chocolate, and the chocolate was SO good. Yum! To work off our snack, we wandered around for a couple more hours. Everything was closing, so we decided to grab some dinner. We searched EVERYWHERE in the Gothic quarter but the only things open were ice cream shops! We finally found a restaurant where I had a veal brochette (which is like a kabob) and Steve had a pork, bacon, and sausage brochette. Very tasty!

At this point, it was around 11:20pm, and we decided we wanted to see La Sagrada Familia at night since it is lit up. So we get the metro to the cathedral (which was an ordeal in itself since we had to change trains). I took a couple of pictures and then we went across the street to get a better view. As I’m getting ready to take a picture, the clock strikes midnight and the lights shut off. Just like that. Oh well. Back to the ship!

Plan for tomorrow: wake up early to get in as early as possible to La Sagrada Familia, then take the metro to Parc Guell, then if we have time, we’ll go on a tour of La Pedrera. Hopefully we can fit it all in! Hope you enjoyed this extremely long post! Tomorrow is our last day in Barcelona =( but we get to Italy on Tuesday!!

First day in Barcelona! Ole!

2010-06-25T21:25:00.000-04:00

Note: The stuff in this post occurred on 6/24, was written on 6/25, and was submitted on 6/26. I have had no time to write, which is unfortunate as I really don’t want to forget all of the things we have done! Hopefully I can get better at writing faster or taking notes or something. But here you go!

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First day in Barcelona was a success!

Yesterday morning around 0730 we docked in Barcelona! Steven and I went to eat breakfast outside on the 6th deck and got to watch the ship dock. Our ship is so puny compared to the big cruise ships! There’s a ship here called “The World” and apparently people buy/rent condos on the ship and they just live on the ship and sail around the world. Sweet life! Even though our ship is small, it’s so pretty at night when the string of lights is lit up. Pictures will come at some point….eventually. I really wish I could be visually sharing these things instead of just talking about them!

So at 1100 I had a poetry FDP on the ship. A Spanish poet came to talk about poetry along with a doctoral student in the local university. Unfortunately they came about 20 minutes late (apparently Spaniards are late to everything…like me) and I had a tour leaving at 1300 so I had to leave early to scarf down lunch and run off the ship with Steven for our city tour! This was a 4-hour motorcoach tour through all of the major sites of Barcelona. We got down four times, I believe, to look around at the different places. The first place was Montjuic, which is a mountain overlooking Barcelona. It is covered with palm trees, ferns, and other exotic plants. When we got to the top, we got out to take pictures of panoramic Barcelona (of course I utilized the awesome panoramic feature on my camera…captured all of Barcelona and the port in one amazing shot!). We saw our ship from the top, and there were a bunch of fountains and gardens (got a picture of a dog drinking out of a fountain, very cute). Up on Montjuic was also where some of the buildings were for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992…too bad I don’t remember that one! After the top of Montjuic, we headed down the hill to the Pueblo Espanol. To our surprise, the price of our tour included the (expensive) ticket to get into the village! We had 45 minutes to explore. Pueblo Espanol is basically all of Spain in one village. It was built for the World Fair when it came to Barcelona (unsure of the year) and it contains architecture from every major area in Spain. It’s set up like a village, with streets (just for pedestrians though), shops, restaurants…each sector represents a different area of the country. It was a little disappointing that the whole thing was fake, nothing was original, just replicas of existing buildings, but it was very cool to see all the different types of construction and architecture there is in one country. In the middle of the Pueblo, there is a big plaza with a concert stage set up. Apparently Bob Dylan was playing there last night, and people were FREAKING out. Seriously? I don’t get it. On our way out, we spotted a gelateria and of COURSE had to get a gelato! Strawberry cheesecake!! Soooo yummy. It was a good treat after walking around in the hot sun.

After Pueblo Espanol, we went to La Segrada Familia! Our tour guide was so great…he knew the story behind every single sculpture on the cathedral (and there are a lot!) and even pointed out hidden components of the sculptures. Hopefully I can remember most of them for when I make a scrapbook (I took a picture of every sculpture he talked about). The building is a work in progress and is supposed to be finished in 2027…I foresee a trip back to Barcelona when it is completed!! It is apparently supposed to get 10 more spires, and four of them will be twice as tall as the ones that are there now! That is really freaking tall! Definitely going back when (if) it gets finished! We didn’t get to go inside, but we’ll be going back on Saturday to do a tour of the interior. We went around the entire cathedral and looked at all of the sculptures. It’s such an amazing piece of architecture! Along the tour, we also got to see Casa Batllo and La Pedrera (two more Gaudi buildings) and hopefully we’ll get to go back to La Pedrera this weekend to tour it and go up on the roof. There are so many things to see and do, and we only have 3 more days!! Ugh! I guess that just means we have to come back…hehehe….

Our final stop was at the Barri Gothic Cathedral. We had 45 minutes to go around the Cathedral and look around. Again, our tour guide was amazing in explaining the meanings of the different altars and sculptures! After the cathedral, we went back to the ship. Unfortunately, our guide was so good at explaining things that we returned half an hour late, and we didn’t have time to go up to the ship and change for the trip to see a flamenco show. I was bummed that I couldn’t wear the dress I brought for the show, but it was better than being late for the trip! This trip was called “Flamenco at Night with Dinner.” It started off with a one-hour tour around Barcelona, and it went to pretty much the same places we went to earlier in the day. We had a different guide who was actually Catalonian (our first guide had a British accent) so she had some different things to say and we still learned a lot. When we got to “Palacio de Flamenco,” we got a seat near the front. It was sort of like a dinner theater where you eat first and then watch the show from your table. So…the food! Our first course was seafood paella with a side salad. Talk about delicious! Each paella had 2 shrimp (complete with head and eyes), a mussel, and squid. I also got Steve’s seafood =) The side salad had green olives, and I hate green olives, but I tried these and they were AMAZING. Dr. Gies had told us that if we didn’t like olives in the states to try them here and our idea of olives would definitely change. In the US, olives are soaked in brine. Here they are soaked in olive oil (makes sense?) and they are delicious! I am an olive-eating machine! Anyway, the paella was delicious! As soon as we finished the paella, the show started. While we were watching the show, our 2nd course of chicken and sautéed vegetables came out. Since Steven gave me all of his seafood, I gave him the majority of my chicken. Such a good girlfriend I am! =) The show, like the food, was amazing…there were many different acts including both women and men, young and old. There was a man probably in his 50s dancing and stomping extremely fast! We enjoyed the end of the show while eating chocolate flan, a perfect end! The music was really good, I tried to follow the words and I knew they were telling a story, but I guess my Spanish wasn’t good enough. =(

After we got back to the ship, we got ready to go to Las Ramblas for tapas (this was a couple of hours after we finished eating at the flamenco show). The day before was the summer solstice, which is apparently a HUGE celebration in Spain (for instance, the Picasso Museum is only closed December 25, January 1, and June 24…it’s a major holiday here!) and people were apparently hungover and not out. Las Ramblas was dead! Very few people were there. We sat down outside of a little restaurant and ordered our sangria and croquetas. After I got used to the taste of the sangria, I really liked it! I definitely approve. The croquetas were good too =) We just sat and sipped our sangrias and watched the drunk people stumble by. Quite an enjoyable life. I could get used to this. Too bad we only have 3 more days here.

There were TWO stupid questions yesterday! The second one was the best one of the trip thus far….

“Where is the terminal?”
“Can we get off both sides of the ship?” (The Voice responds “Yes, but I think you’ll find the starboard side to be a bit drier”)

So…that was the first day! Tomorrow is Montserrat and a night tour of Barcelona! Hopefully that post will be up soon……right now it is 3:45am and I am going to bed!

Land, Ho!

2010-06-23T09:24:00.000-04:00

Last day of classes…for a while! Our next class day is after Italy, which is July 6. Unfortunately that is when most of our first papers and/or midterms are. But…tomorrow is Barcelona! We have a pre-port meeting tonight and a diplomatic briefing early tomorrow morning to inform us all about any problems going on in Spain or general tips on getting around. At 11am, I have an FDP (faculty-directed practica) for my poetry class: a Spanish poet will be coming on the ship and I believe we will be having lunch and hearing a talk from her. At 1pm, Steven and I are going on the Barcelona city tour, and then at 6pm we are going to a flamenco show with dinner! A very fun-filled day! We have the option of “signing off” a trip at the end instead of traveling back to the ship, and we will probably do that at the end of the flamenco trip so we can see Barcelona at night if it is not TOO late. I know “late” in Barcelona means 4am, but we’ll see. We have an inter-port student from Barcelona riding on the ship with us, and he said not to go clubbing (not that I would anyway) tomorrow night because no one goes out on Thursdays. But maybe that means the city isn’t as “happening” on Thursday night so we may not find much to do. That may be the time for churros con chocolate! Delicioso! We got a map of the dock and the area around the dock, and our ship won’t be too far from Las Ramblas! Yay!

Not very much has been going on the last few days, mainly just attending classes. All 738 of us took our Global Studies map quiz on Sunday, that was an event. Easy peasy though! Lots of class work, lots of reading, lots of giving up on reading and just going to bed (my favorite). Oh and we changed our clocks forward an hour again last night… last time until we go to Greece! Spain, Italy, and Croatia are in the same time zone, then Greece, Turkey, and Egypt are in the same time zone, then we just have to go back to Spain time for Morocco. I am really looking forward to 25-hour days on the way back home, even though we’ll be studying for finals.

We saw land yesterday! Africa (Morocco) and Europe (Spain) at the same time while crossing through the Strait of Gibraltar! I tried taking pictures, but it was really foggy and I don’t think that many came out. We were really close to the Africa side and got to see some towns and a fairly large mountain range! I think everyone is ready to get off of this ship and see Spain! We only have about 200 nautical miles until Barcelona, and I believe we will be docking there late tonight or in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. Most likely tonight though, as we’ve been going 400-500 nautical miles a day.

So since my last blog post, I have met with my extended family. For that, we get placed in a “family” headed by a lifelong learner or a grad student. I now have a “cool uncle,” Greg! (he’s a grad student). Our family, minus one person, met last night for dinner, and we’re going to meet up after each port to talk about what we did there. He and one of the girls in the family are also going on the Cairo/Luxor trip that Steve and I are doing, so that should be fun too!

I also signed up to be a writing tutor to help people with the many papers we have to write on the trip. Yay!

On Monday, I went on a tour of the bridge (where the captain and officers “drive” the ship). I was surprised to find out that the captain is rarely there (what does he do with his time all day?) and the ship is run by an officer and other attendants. The ship is on complete autopilot, so I think they just sit there and make sure everything is looking okay? I got to get a picture sitting in the captain’s chair, wearing the captain’s hat, though! We learned some valuable information about the ship, like how one of the engines just randomly stopped over the weekend and they don’t know why. That’s comforting! It was also really rocky that day and after the tour I had to go back to my room to take Meclizine (similar to Dramamine, but it doesn’t knock you out). So far I haven’t been really seasick, I have just gotten dizzy twice (I guess that’s part of the seasickness) so I took the medicine just in case. Some people have it really bad! Meclizine makes you have bizarre dreams, too. I can’t remember what mine was about 2 nights ago, but it was very odd! Who needs hallucinogenic drugs when you can take Meclizine? Juuuuuuuuust kidding!

And now for everyone’s favorite part of the blog: the stupid questions of the past four days:

-“Where is the Leaning Tower of Pisa?”
-“What’s in the Picasso museum?”
-“Are we going to cross the Atlantic on the way back?”
-“Do you change time zones when you cross the Equator?”

The Voice has also started a rumor debunker… the last couple rumors (which are false):

-“The ship is running out of fuel.” (He said that we have fuel-carrying submarines that run along side the ship)
-“We are not stopping in Turkey.” (He said we can stay on the ship when we get to Turkey if we don’t want to go, but the ship will be going to Turkey)

Someday I am going to record one of the announcements. The Voice says everything so seriously, but he’s hilarious!

And finally (I know…long blog post!) I want to share a poem we read in my poetry class. It is very relatable to the trip!

The Sea is Enormous (Aun cuando el mar es grande…) by Juan Ramon Jimenez

The sea is enormous,
just as everything is;
yet it seems to me I’m still with you…

Soon only water will separate us;
water, restlessy moving—
water…only water!

Current location – 37 degrees N latitude, 0 degrees W longitude, traveling at 14.4 knots!

Dolphins! Land! Clowns! Oh my!

2010-06-20T09:57:00.000-04:00

Hello faithful blog readers! It is 7am here and I have been up for over an hour! Why, do you ask? Today was the first sight of land! Yesterday at our lunch announcements, the Voice (our assistant executive dean who comes over the loudspeaker at 1200 and 1730 to give us our daily updates) told us that at 0600 we would be passing by the Azores Islands!! So if you go look at a map right now, you will know approximately where we are. Still fairly far from Spain, but we’re getting there! We will be there on Thursday. So Shaara and I woke up at the obscenely early hour of 0545 (my sister would be proud) to see the islands and watch the sunrise. I took about 60 pictures of the sunrise, I wish I could upload them to Facebook so everyone could see them! I’m going to carry my pictures on a USB drive once we get to Spain so if I see an internet café I can jump in and upload pics. I don’t think the pictures really capture how gorgeous a sunrise over open water is!

Backtracking to yesterday…after a long day of classes (and a much-needed nap) Steven and I went running on a treadmill. Let’s just say that running on a treadmill on a rocking ship is not an easy feat. I managed to get a 15-minute run in without injury, but as soon as I started the cool down, one of my feet left the tread and I started to fall. I can just imagine my mom reading this in terror and I know I’ll be receiving an email to never get on a treadmill on a moving ship again, but I am fine. I caught myself, and Steven was right there to help. All is good! But I think I’ll be staying away from the treadmill for now. =)

At dinner yesterday, someone saw dolphins and everyone immediately ran to the windows of the dining hall. They were too far away to see clearly, all we saw were fins coming out of the water. We also saw birds, so we knew land wasn’t far away! That was our first sighting of animals since we left Halifax, the first real thing we’ve seen other than water and sky for five days! I’m hoping we see a whale sometime soon…that would be excellent!

After dinner, we had a performance from our first inter-port lecturer, Barry Lubin. Our academic dean, LaVahn Hoh, is a leading expert on the circus and the history of the circus, so he brought in Barry to perform for us and tell us about his life. Barry is a clown for the Big Apple Circus! His character is “Grandma the Clown” and his performance was hilarious! I took video of the entire thing (one of the reasons my first memory card is full) so hopefully it’s not too big to post. Barry is sailing with us until Naples, and then he is going up to Germany to perform there for a while. Very cool!

Speaking of lectures, every night we have what is called an Explorer Seminar where a faculty member or inter-port lecturer talks to us about something important to them or integral to a place we are visiting. Dr. David Gies spoke to us about Spanish food 2 days ago. Yum! I already knew most of the food, but he gave us tips about when to eat what. Breakfast 7-10am, “Almuerzo” 11:30-1, Tapas 1-2:30, Lunch 2:30-4, Dinner 9-whenever. I am quite looking forward to paella, croquetas, and especially churros con chocolate! Yum!!! He also gave us a list of food we should avoid, like crilladillos and pulpo. Look them up if you don’t know what they are =) Although I’ve had tiny pulpos before (pulpitos?) and they are tasty!

So every day during the 1730 announcements, the Voice tells us the “stupid question of the day.” These are actual questions that have been asked on Semester at Sea, and they are pretty special. Here are the questions from the past two days:

“Is lobster so expensive because it is extinct?”
“If I want to eat Italian food in Italy, do I just ask for food?”

Oh yes, I am always looking forward to these announcements for the next sparking gem of stupidity.

Current location – Latitude: 38 degrees N, Longitude: 25 degrees W, traveling at 20 knots. Past the halfway point!

And HAPPY FATHER’S DAY from the middle of the ocean to my dad!! =)

Day 3 at sea!

2010-06-17T16:15:00.000-04:00

Why hello there! I haven’t had much time to sit down and write a blog post, so here’s 2 days of fun in one tidy post!

Yesterday was a LONG day of orientation meetings. Lots of rules to know! Apparently if someone goes overboard, the ship goes 3-4 miles before they can turn around to pick up the person…that’s scary! We also found out that one person who was supposed to be on our voyage had a cancelled flight to Halifax on Monday night and missed the ship. Unfortunately he can’t join us in Barcelona because by that time he’ll have missed 7 days of classes. I can’t even imagine how the poor guy feels, I think I would be in fetal position and crying.

Also yesterday was our “Involvement Symposium” where we get to sign up for student groups. I signed up to be a writing tutor (hooray for correcting people’s papers!! I’m excited for that one!!), pre-med group, extended family (a bunch of students get assigned to a lifelong learner and they are our “grandparent” for the trip. We can have dinner with them and basically have a little family on the ship), yoga, and I signed up to help out with the kids. Some of the faculty members bring their spouses and kids, and there are kids ranging from 1 to 17 on the ship (and the oldest person is 92!). Basically a bunch of people signed up to help keep the kids occupied if the parents want to have dinner alone or something.

Anyway, last night was HORRIBLE. They warned us that we would be hitting some rougher waters, and they were NOT kidding. It wasn’t stormy or anything, but the waves are huge out here. For some reason I thought that the farther from land you get, the calmer the waters get, but apparently I have no idea about anything nautical in nature. I didn’t really get much sleep…our beds are situated so that when the boat rocks from side to side, we rock up and down like we’re laying on a see-saw. One minute, the blood is rushing to your head, the next minute you tilt to the foot of your bed. The first night was a gentle rocking and I soon got over it and fell asleep, but last night it was so bad that I was literally sliding up and down the bed! We had planned to wake up at 6:45 am so we could get to breakfast at 7:30 and class at 8. I woke up around 6 to very heavy rolling. The nighttable drawers in the room above us were slamming open and shut (how they stood that for half an hour is beyond me). I just laid there, waiting to either fall asleep or for my alarm to go off, but at exactly 6:43, one giant roll threw all of our stuff off the night stand. Talk about a wake-up call! Showering was fun this morning too, I was slammed against the wall during another big roll. Only 7 more days of this and we’re in Barcelona! I really do like the ship but I can’t wait until I can walk down a hallway without holding onto the railings!

I had all of my classes already today, but it didn’t help that I didn’t get sleep the night before. The classes seem good, I already have 30 pages to read in Anthro, 30 pages for Global Studies, and 6 poems to read for Poetry. I almost fell asleep during my poetry class because of the gentle rocking of the ship (and maybe the fact that I didn’t get any sleep last night.) I just got an email from Kevin, our LLC (kind of like an RA) about stargazing tonight at 2200 but Steve and I signed up for coveted ellipticals in the gym at 2200 so I guess no stargazing for me =(

Bought a phone card today. $20 for 13 minutes. Super.

Also spent quite a bit in the ship store. I got a few t-shirts, a sweatshirt, a blanket (super comfy!!), and sweatpants. I think I’m all set…for now =)

We are currently at 37 degrees latitude, 52 degrees longitude, traveling at 20.8 knots! Still very very far from Spain =(

My email here is ivnegrin@semesteratsea.net. PLEASE email me!!! Tell me what’s going on with the world! (It’s kind of ironic that I’m traveling the world and for 66 days I really have no clue what is going on in the world!) And apparently my forwarding from gmail isn’t working so if you’re sending me something important, don’t send it to gmail. I have to log on to the extremely slow internet to check that so I’ll probably only check it once a week.

The next time I set foot on land, I will be in Spain!

2010-06-15T21:16:00.000-04:00

I am on the ship! It took us over an hour to get through the line, through security, and through all of the paperwork, then another hour to unpack. I am all settled in now though, and waiting for 15:00 for our first meeting thing. 16:00 is our lifeboat drill, then general body meetings and floor meetings and orientation meetings and meeting meetings galore! Classes start on Thursday!

This was the lunch menu:
Salad – iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots
Pasta primavera
Beef stew
Mashed potatoes
Bean stew
Some kind of pre-made sandwich
Assorted desserts

I had some salad and beef stew, I was expecting the worst but it tasted pretty good! The water here has a funky aftertaste, though.

…..a few hours later….

So the lifeboat drills took FOREVER, standing and staring at our lifeboat for half an hour. Finally the time came for the ship to leave (17:00, or 5:00pm), and my roommate Shaara and I went up to the observation deck to watch. Well, we were extremely close to the ship’s horn (there’s probably a more technical term for that but whatever) and it sounded about 5 times, practically bursting our eardrums. We slowly but surely made our way away from the pier and we were soon on our way! We then met up with Steve and his roommate and went to dinner. It was then that we started to really feel the swaying of the boat. I’m sitting on my bed writing this post and I am swaying back and forth, the water in my glass is shaking…I definitely didn’t expect this much motion! It’s really bad up on the 7th deck, where the treadmills and ellipticals are. The clinic has free motion sickness pills, so I just took one and hopefully I won’t get sick.

Current location: Latitude 44 degrees, Longitude 63 degrees, moving at 15.3 knots

Next stop, Barcelona!

2010-06-14T21:11:00.002-04:00

Note: I tried to get pictures to work in this post but the blog website is being dumb, so go to my facebook and see ALL of the pictures from Halifax!

So tonight is our last night in Halifax!! Tomorrow morning we will be heading down to the pier to wait in a super long line to get on the MV Explorer. Yay!

Yesterday was the search for a watch. Both Steven and I rely on our cell phones to tell time, and we both forgot to bring watches, so we headed up to the shopping district to find some. While up there, we found the Halifax Citadel and the public gardens, so we hung out there for a bit =) We also found a grocery store, where we bought some delicious apples for later and I even found diet Cherry Coke...which tastes like old-fashioned cherry coke with the cherry syrup...yummmm! Steven found raisin (grape)-flavored Fanta...very interesting. Also found many interesting flavors of potato chips. Like prawn cocktail and roast chicken. Interesting. We ate dinner at this really good Greek restaurant. It was decorated with pictures of Santorini and we decided we absolutely have to go there!

This morning, we went on a Harbour Hopper tour. It's like a Ducky tour (Pittsburgh, Baltimore) but with a frog theme. We were the only ones there until approximately 70 elementary school students came around the corner like a stampede. Thankfully, the guide let us get on the boat first and had the majority of the kids get on the other boat so there were only about 20 on ours. We learned a lot about the history of the city, like how the big pond in the public gardens is named after the last man to be hanged in Halifax. She also proceeded to talk about Sidney Crosby scoring the game winning goal to beat the US for the gold medal in hockey...fully knowing that we were American =P We should have told her that we go to school in Pittsburgh (there is Pittsburgh Penguins stuff everywhere just because Halifax is Sidney Crosby's hometown).

This just in...Steven is watching the Colbert Report, and he's making fun of the Canadian military. Apparently Canada is covered in ancient caribou dung. Hmmmm.

Anyway, tonight was the "meet and greet" at a bar in Halifax. I got to meet up with my roommate and met a few other people, but unfortunately the event wasn't really conducive to mingling (I couldn't even hear Steven talking across the table from me!) I'm sure meeting people once we're on the ship will be much easier.

All right, I have to go pack up my bags so we can head off to the ship early tomorrow. My next post will be from the ship!! There will most likely not be any more pictures until we get to Italy (June 29) because there is free internet at our hostel. Also, no facebook! You can either comment on here and I will get it via email or you can email me directly (I will post my SAS email address once I get it tomorrow).

Adios! Ciao! Zbogom! Antio! Elveda!

Halifax!!

2010-06-12T20:48:00.008-04:00

So we have safely arrived in Halifax! The plane was super teeny tiny (held 50 people...talk about claustrophobic!!) and there was quite a bit of turbulence. Nova Scotia was so pretty from the plane--there are lakes and forests with the occasional development. The city is right on the water, our hotel is literally 2 blocks from the water's edge! We are going to walk down to Pier 20 tomorrow, which is where the MV Explorer will be docked. So excited!!

After checking into the hotel, we decided we were starving and needed some grub. About 3 blocks from the hotel was an Irish pub called Durty Nelly's (you think that's a bad restaurant name? There's another called Your Father's Moustache...no joke!!). After a stressful night of packing and a day at the airport, pub food was calling. =) Below is Steve enjoying his chicken pot pie and me enjoying my delicious burger with Guinness cheese. YUMMM!
All of the condiments were Heinz =) Halifax loves Pittsburgh! After dinner, we walked down to the water to check out the docks. There were lots of people walking their dogs, which made me miss my puppy =(
Quite pretty! Anyway, that's about it for tonight. It's an hour later here than it is in York and it's been a long day!

2 more weeks!!

2010-05-30T22:37:00.001-04:00

In 2 weeks I will be in Halifax!! I still have a lot to do, just
returned from a week in Ocean City, MD with my family, and I'm
starting to make a to-do list for Semester at Sea. I have been
officially accepted to go on this trip for over a year now, and the
fact that it's 2 weeks away hasn't really hit me yet! In other news, I
just found out that I received one of five $2000 scholarships from the
National Society of Collegiate Scholars. Yay!

So this blog post is to update on the trips that I will be doing off
the ship. We just had a "pre-sale" which includes all of the trips in
Spain, Italy, and Croatia, as well as any overnight trips in the rest
of the countries. We buy the rest of the trips once we get on the
ship in June. Here's what I got confirmed for--quite excited!!!

SPAIN:
-Barcelona City Orientation
Narrated motorcoach tour of the city: Olympic Stadium, Casa Amatller,
Casa Batllo, La Pedrera (all Gaudi works), Columbus monument, La
Sagrada Familia, walking tour of the Gothic Quarter, and the Cathedral
of Barcelona
-Flamenco at Night with Dinner
A one-hour panoramic drive through the city followed by dinner and
flamenco show
-Montserrat
A Benedictine monk retreat situated on a mountain
-Barcelona at Night
-Paella Tour
Trip to a market to learn about the components of paella, then a chef
will show us how to make paella, then we get to eat it! Yum!!!
-Catalonian Health Service Lecture
A speaker from the Catalonian Health Service will be talking to us
about management of infectious disease in a foreign country.
-Doctors Without Borders Lecture
Learning about medicine and medical emergencies in foreign countries

ITALY:
-Unusual Rome and Catacombs
A tour of the Roman Catacombs
-Pompeii Tour
-Mount Vesuvius Hike

CROATIA:
-Osojnik Village & Folk Show
This is an FDP for my Anthro class, but it sounds pretty cool!
-Trsteno, Ston & The Island of Korcula
-Snorkeling
Snorkeling off of one of Croatia's islands!

TURKEY:
-Cappadocia (2 day, 1 night)

EGYPT:
-Cairo/Luxor (4 days, 3 nights)
2 days in Cairo including tour of the pyramids, watching the sunrise
over the pyramids, then 2 days in Luxor, visiting the Valley of the
Kings.

So that's it! So far, at least. Next post will be from outside the
United States!!

A month away!!!

2010-05-12T00:52:00.003-04:00

So exactly a month from today, I will be preparing to board a plane to Halifax, Nova Scotia!!!! I don't really think the amazingness of this trip has hit me yet, and I am far from being prepared (still need to get a suitcase!!) but I just keep thinking of that amazing ship and I can't wait to call it home for 2 months!!

I plan to post the link to this blog on my facebook so any interested people can read about my travels, so here's a little background on my program if you don't know about it. Semester at Sea is a study abroad program through the University of Virginia. I found out about it from my sister, who had seen a Road Rules season that took place on board the SAS ship. If it weren't for her, I would never have found out about this! The fall and spring semester voyages sail completely around the world, but Steve and I opted for the summer voyage so we could fulfill gen ed requirements without interfering with our major classes. The voyage works out perfectly, as it basically covers the majority of the places I've ever wanted to visit—Greece, Egypt, Spain…Italy again! I'll post my "field trips" once they are approved next week. =)

We take classes while the ship is traveling at sea but not while we are in port. We spend 3-5 days in each port. I am taking Global Studies (which everyone has to take), Introduction to Anthropology, and Studies in Poetry. I'm pretty excited about the classes, but I may end up hating Anthro as I believe I have to write 4 or 5 papers. Ick! Thankfully the classes are pass/fail =)

So Steve and I are leaving on June 12 for Halifax, staying there for 3 days to explore the city, and then we board the ship on the 15th for embarkation! I will post an update later with the trips that I get approved. SOO EXCITED!