Semester at Sea - I'm on a Boat!

Olympiad Games

2009-09-27T12:16:00.001-07:00

8/11/2009

My third day in Morocco rivaled the Bulgarian Jeep Safari in terms of randomness. After what became my morning routine of breakfast, a quick swim, an even quicker shower, and then catching the bus, we went to our planned event for the day – Olympiad games! None of us really knew what to expect, but we were all pleasantly surprised. Upon arriving at our destination, we were split into four teams, and each of us had a team leader. My team was the read team (team Hmar Hmar: the word for both red and donkey in Arabic). The first activity was camel racing. Four members from each team chose their camel, and raced them through a set of cones and back to the beginning. While at this point – after having been in Egypt – almost everyone had ridden a camel, that simply entailed sitting while someone else guided them. For this event, after sitting on the camel, we were supposed to make them get up, go, steer them through cones, and somehow get them to stop again after crossing the finish line. I think it was more entertaining for the guides than it was for us. I had a blast though, and my team won! My camel also passed a few of the other camels during the race! After the camel race, one member of the team was nominated to participate in a blindfolded ATV relay. After that, another ATV relay took place – this one without blindfolds – and after cheering for my team, I went over to take pictures with some of the camels with Lexi, Anna and Meredith. We then had a snack break with mint tea and flat bread before continuing on with the games. The third even was an egg hunt, with actual raw eggs hidden in the palms, and then we selected teams of four to play Berber polo (polo on donkeys). It was hilarious! Each donkey had a guide pulling them around and there was lots of yelling and cheering. After a very intense tournament, my team ended up coming in second (I blame a bad call from the ref, but who is counting anyway). Lastly, there were bike races on rusty old bikes across the rutted up and dried field. That ended the game portion of the day, but there was still a lot left.
After finishing up all of the games, we all got on ATV’s (two per ATV), and got to drive to lunch! I got to drive the ATV because Betsy didn’t want to drive at all, and I loved it. We followed one of the group leaders in a long caravan and made it to the program owners house for a traditional Moroccan lunch served out of tagines. It was topped off with mint tea and cookies. We rode the ATV’s back to the main area, and then we got to ride camels. We were given scarves, and lined up to have our heads wrapped with them, and then we all got into groups of 5 to be matched up with a camel caravan. We took off, and all named our camels. Anna aptly named hers Frank Sinatra, and throughout the trek, he would sing to me (as he was right behind me so his head was right by my knee). My camel was named wooly. I got to practice my French with our guide, and it turns out I remember more than I thought!
It had been a long day in the sun, and we were all pretty relieved to get back to the hotel and clean up. After relaxing, dinner, and cleaning up, I took a taxi back to the square with Lexi and Amanda. Lexi was going to meet up with some other people, and so after we made sure she had safely located them, Amanda and I took off to do some last minute shopping. After walking around in the square for a while and checking out some of the entertainment, we made our way into the market, where we met up with Youssef, a vendor who had sold Amanda several dresses the night before. He invited us in for tea, and we got to talk with him for a long time about his work, and what he thinks of Americans and how he likes Morocco. It started getting late, and we saw some of the other shops closing up, but I still wanted to get spices, so he took me to his friends store that was still open and helped me (he also helped me get them for half of what I would have been charged had I not been with him!). As we were leaving the spice store, Amanda and I ran into Michelle, and he joined us to wonder around some. As soon as he was with us, we got much less attention, which was a welcome change. He, on the other hand, said that he got much more attention with us than without us. All three of us were so excited and wanting to soak in every last second of out last night in port, and so when we were done looking around the square, we took a taxi back to the hotel, where we dropped off our purchases and headed back out to explore near our hotel. We ended up at McDonald’s were Amanda got a McFlurry and we sat outside people watching.
As we sat there, a lot of people were leaving (it was almost 2am!), and several little boys started getting closer and closer to the seating area and asking for money. The security scared them away by squirting them with spray bottles, and they would scatter before slowly creeping back in. We just sat outside talking about our favorite part of the trip, and how amazing it all it, and the extreme differences from what we are used to. It was really interesting talking to Michelle, because he has such a different perspective to begin with. He made it to 16 different countries during the course of the summer, because he did some traveling before SAS! After we all started to lose energy, we took a taxi back to the hotel, and called it a night. We made plans to meet up for a swim after breakfast the next morning before it was time to head back to Casablanca.
Unfortunately, in the morning, the pool was closed, and so it was just breakfast, gathering everything up, and then heading to the bus. On our way back to the ship once we made it to Casablanca, we stopped by Rick’s Café, where we were able to take pictures, but not go inside. Once back to the ship, we had to wait in a very long line to get back on, and barely made it to lunch. After lunch on the ship, I headed back out with Amanda, Sara and Dan to explore Casablanca for a few hours before on-ship time, and also to try to spend the leftover dirham that I had. It was fun to get just a few more hours on land before heading home. After returning to the ship for the last time, I unpacked, showered, and met up with my friends from different trips for dinner. We all went on to the front deck to watch the ship pull away, but got told to go inside, since there was a potential for waves while exiting the port. It was sad to see Morocco go, and it was amazing that I got to experience everything that I did in just one summer.

Maroc

2009-09-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in getting these last few posted, but hope you enjoy reading about how my summer adventure ended!

8/10/2009

Day one in Morocco was primarily a travel day. After waiting for the ship to clear, there was not enough time to go out in Casablanca before my trip, so the first time I left the ship was to go down and load the bus to Marrakech. A nearly four hour bus ride later and we were in Marrakech, checking into our hotel, which was very nice. My randomly assigned roommate for the trip was named Lexi, and we had a room with a balcony overlooking the pool! Morocco as a whole was not what I expected at all. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of another Egypt, but was surprised at the amount of effort put in to making the areas I saw appear to be pretty. There was landscaping, and the buildings were very nice and finished, unlike those in Egypt. It was almost like being in an amusement park town though, in that at face value, it looked nice, but upon unloading the bus and walking around, it was clear to see that it was in fact only the looks that were nice. The sidewalks were falling apart, and there were still some buildings that were under construction, but still had people living in them because they provided a shelter (despite the lack of walls). The first night in Marrakech I went walking around with Lexi, Meredith, Anna, and Dan (not the same one from Egypt), and then we called it a somewhat early night.
I woke up earlier than wake-up call for day two in Marrakech, and Lexi and I headed down to breakfast. It was delicious! Not only was there cereal, fresh squeezed orange juice, real hot chocolate, and pastries, there were also Moroccan crepes being freshly made by a chef. They were flaky and mix of crepes, tortillas and pancakes. They were also good with pretty much any topping you can think of. After breakfast, Lexi and I went for a quick swim, and then it was time for the day to begin. We loaded up the bus, and headed out into the city. Our first stop was a brief photo stop at one of the mosques. We didn’t get to go inside, but instead walked over to it from where the bus stopped, and took some pictures while we listened to the history of it, then walked back. Our next stop was the Palais Bahia, a gorgeous palace with intricate tiling, hundreds of doorways, and detailed carvings in every room. We went through the rooms and learned what they used to be used for. After the palace, we continued on to the Tombeaux Saadiens, or burial tombs. It was fun to finally have all of the years of French I took on school pay off, as Morocco has a very strong French influence, and many of the signs are in French as well as Arabic, and many of the locals speak French. We stopped for lunch at a Moroccan restaurant, where the food was very good. They came around to all of the tables and washed our hands – and then we all passed around hand sanitizer, because who knows how clean the water was – and then our food was served in a traditional Tagine. A tagine is a clay pot that they both cook and serve the food in. Lunch was good, although it was very slow, especially since we were all eager to go out and explore more. After lunch, we stopped at a pharmacy, where we learned about the medicinal uses of some traditional Moroccan spices, oils and lotions, and then finally we moved on to the long anticipated square in Marrakech! As we wondered through the souks (the open markets) to get to the square, I was talking to our tour guide to get a rough idea of pricing and inflation so that I would be able to recognize a good deal when I was bargaining for prices.
Upon showing up at the square, we set a meeting time and place to go back to the hotel for lunch, and then I set off with Lexi to get some shopping done. The square was full of performers, and monkeys and vendors. All of them wanted to charge for pictures, and some of them would even do things like put a monkey on your arm and then charge you to get it off. Luckily I managed to avoid that. After wondering through the market and making some purchases, we made it back to the bus (barely) and then headed back to the hotel for a quick dinner and freshening up. After dinner, the bus took us back to the square, where we were greeted with an entirely different scene than there was during the day. There were people everywhere, bright lights and food stands set up everywhere, and circles of people congregated around games, performers, story tellers and more. Henna tattoo artists were set up all over the place, and with the number of people and the sounds and smells, it seems like it was a festival, but it was just an average Monday in Marrakech. I set off with Anna, Meredith, Betsy, Lance, Courtney and Michelle. After getting our fill of the square at night, we split two cabs back to the hotel and all went to bed.

Five Days at Sea

2009-08-08T02:58:00.000-07:00

8/4-8/2009

The five days at sea after Egypt was a much needed break. It was nice to have time to catch up on sleep, and more importantly to catch up on school work. Along with having several days to unwind, we have also started gaining time, as Morocco is only 7 hours ahead of West Coast time instead of the 10 hours ahead I have been! The second day at sea brought the Crew Talent show, which was really funny. There was lots of dancing involved, some singing, and even a cross dressing finger painter! All in all it was a very fun night. I was still recuperation from Egypt, and so I called it an early night and didn’t participate in Casino night, which was later on the same night. The third day at sea was one of my favorites so far, primarily because there was no class! It was the auction day, and also a day to catch up on schoolwork. I used it primarily to catch up on sleep. All day long the silent auction was going on, and then in the evening was the live auction. There were some pretty amazing trips being auctioned off, and they went for a lot of money.
Tomorrow we arrive in Morocco, and I we gain another hour tonight, which will make waking up for sunrise even easier! They made an announcement that we should expect rough seas going into Casablanca Harbor, and I looked it up on the ocean weather site we are able to access for free, and saw that they are predicting 10 foot swells! It will be just like the first few days again, which I really enjoyed. In Morocco, I am going to be on a SAS trip the entire time that will take me to Marrakech and involve some more camel riding. Hopefully my camel will be friendlier than Charlie Brown was this time around. I am actually really excited for this trip, as at the end of seven countries of constant planning, I just get to be told where to go, and already have all of my travel and lodging taken care of. It will be a nice break. I can’t believe how close this adventure is to being over! It is going to be a strange adjustment back to life on solid ground where I am not thrust into a new and foreign environment each week.

Rural Cairo and Children's Hospital

2009-08-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

8/3/2009

My last day in Egypt was another full one, fitting right in with the trend. I was on a SAS trip for the entire day. We started out on a bus to Cairo. We saw an art factory that was designed for children, and now is for mothers, to be able to work and make money through making tapestries and pottery. It was amazing how intricate the rugs they were making were, and how quickly they wove them with no set pattern. From there, we stopped for lunch on the Nile. We went to a floating restaurant, with an amazing view of the river, since it was on the water. They brought out the meal, and I was slightly throw aback to see it was basically a meat platter. No good for me at all. I tried to tell the waiter who set it down “vegetarian” but I don’t think he spoke any English. A few minutes later, I heard another girl trying to explain vegetarian, and I turned and said “me too!” They whisked away my plate, and I didn’t really understand what was going on, but as everyone else was getting their plates cleared and dessert brought out, I saw two plates come out of the kitchen piled high with French fries. One of them went to me, and another to the other girl. Apparently in Egypt, a sufficient vegetarian meal is a pile of French fries, and a few steamed vegetables. After lunch, it was back to the bus.
Our last stop of the day was the Children’s Hospital. It was specifically for cancer patients, and it was very nice. It had been built through donations, and was a non-profit organization. We got a tour of the hospital, and then we got to meet some of the children. They were getting treatments, and all seemed very sad, but we had come equipped with stickers and pencils and other little gifts, and started passing them out. The kids really seemed to like it, and it was nice to see how much of a difference something as simple as a sticker could make in these children’s mood. After that, it was back to the bus and a race to get back to the ship. We ended up not making it back until nearly 7pm, quite a while after on ship time. Luckily, when you are late because of a SAS trip, there is no penalty! Egypt was yet another amazing country. I can’t believe how each new place I visit is able to top the last when I have such an amazing time in all of them! It will be exciting to see what Morocco brings.

Mushkela 122!

2009-08-08T02:24:00.000-07:00

8/2/2009

Day four in Egypt continued our marathon trip. The train did not arrive quite as early to the Cairo station as it had to the Luxor station, but it was still only 6:30am or so when we were out on the platform and trying to figure out our next step. Our goal for the day was the Egyptian museum in Cairo, and the bazaar. We decided to go for the museum first, as we had heard it wasn’t air conditioned, and we wanted to try to beat the crowds. One of the guys went to the tourist information to ask what time it opened, and we were told it opened at 7. Thinking this was perfect, we headed outside and crammed all five of us into another cab to get us to the museum. We were dropped off near the door, and had to go through a metal detector to get to the main gate. Upon arriving at the main gate, we were disheartened to see that the museum did not, in fact, open at 7 am, but that it opened at 9am. We were left with just under two hours to kill, and no idea of what to do with ourselves. Luckily, we were right near a big hotel (The Nile Hotel or Palace or something like that) and so we went in looking for some food and a place to stay for a while. It worked out perfectly. At 8:45, we walked back to the museum. Turns out our plan to go early still didn’t help us to beat the crowd! We went through security, purchased our student tickets – it takes a lot of convincing to get them to take our Semester at Sea ID’s as student cards, but we always manage – and headed inside. After what felt like going through airport security, we were inside the museum. The museum was massive! So many artifacts and statues and sarcophaguses and more! It was slightly overwhelming. It was very interesting to have seen all of the temples and tombs where the artifacts were from the day before in Luxor, and then to be seeing all of the statues. I have decided archeologists have to be very good at puzzles… some of the statues or pots were clearly found shattered into tiny pieces, but have been put back together to look like the original again, not an easy feat with such small pieces that are so similar. I think it would be like the popcorn puzzles, where all of the pieces look the same, but the shape dictates where they go.
In the museum, we decided to get the extra ticket to go into the two mummy rooms. We had heard it was well worth it, and also that the mummy rooms were air conditioned, always a plus! Each room had about 12 or so mummies in it, some of them from the tombs we visited in Luxor. Some of the mummies were still completely wrapped, but a large majority had their heads, toes, and hands visible. They were so well preserved. Fingernails and toenails, hair, teeth still pearly white, even eyelashes on some of them. It was amazing to see, but at the same time you have to think that this is not what they intended for themselves when they were mummified. After the mummy rooms, lots of artifacts, and seeing King Tut’s mask, we decided it was time to continue with our day, and we exited the museum and made our way to the bazaar. It was nothing compared to the Grand Bazaar in Turkey, and most things were much cheaper. We spent some time looking around and made a few little purchases, but all of us were so tired, and desperately in need of a real shower, so none of us were really in the mood for bargaining or haggling over prices, and we decided to head to the train station. At the station, we knew where we were supposed to get tickets, but were having trouble getting to the front of any of the lines, and didn’t really understand what was going on. After a while of waiting and scoping out different lines, an Egyptian girl said to Audrey and I, “get in this line”, apparently we had been waiting in the men’s line, which explains our utter lack of progress. She introduced herself as Hadil, and asked where we were trying to go. We told her, and she offered to buy our tickets for us. She was so friendly and helpful. Hadil was also taking the train to Alexandria, because that is where she lived, she had been in Cairo applying for the American University of Cairo. On the train, we got to talk to her and learn about her thoughts on Egypt and America. She also told us places where it was safe for girls to go at night in Alexandria, so we would be able to go back out after a shower and a little down time. She gave us her phone number, and told us to call her and she would see if she could come out with us.
Upon getting off the train, Hadil even got us a taxi to the port, and negotiated the price with the driver so we wouldn’t get ripped off. Then we said goodbye with hopes of seeing her later. We made it to the port in one piece, and were all very proud of ourselves for our successful adventure. We were also ecstatic to see the ship, it is a very welcoming sight after a few days away. We showed up in time for dinner, and then spent some time just relaxing and unpacking. Then, Sarah, Audrey and I decided to go back out to try to find Hadil. We ended up not meeting up with Hadil, but we found a nice little café along the water with outdoor seating, and stopped there. As we were enjoying the people watching, a family walked by and smiled and waved. A while later, they walked by again in the other direction, and after they had passed, one of the little girls turned to look back. I smiled and waved, and her face lit up with joy. We decided to call it a night pretty early, and started walking back toward the ship. A few blocks down from where we had been, the family we had seen was sitting at a similar outside café. They recognized us, and invited us to sit down. We obliged, as it is not everyday you get a chance to sit and enjoy the evening with a nice Egyptian family. The father, Hassan, and the oldest daughter spoke English fairly well, and the mother understood almost everything we said, she just wasn’t as able to communicate it back in English. It was so pleasant sitting and talking and smiling and laughing with them, and they seemed so genuinely pleased that we sat with them. They got us each a tea and we sat and talked for hours. They taught us some Arabic through pointing and saying words, or teaching the Arabic words to us for the words they new in English. We learned how to count to five, and say a few basic phrases. The youngest daughter was absolutely thrilled when she could help to teach us something. We took pictures, and as we were learning that the number for 911 was 122, the Hassan’s wife turned behind her and started cracking up laughing. She managed to get out “muschkela 122” (that is how the word sounded, I'm not sure how it is acutually spelled) the equivalent of which is “problem 911” in English between her laughter, and we peered around her to see what was so funny. There was a little boy with his pants around his ankles peeing on the building with his eyes closed! He looked like he was falling asleep, and he was there forever! We all started laughing too, and the little boy was completely un-phased by the whole ordeal. We were amazed when we looked at our watches to see it was 2am, so much for our early night. We decided to bid them goodnight, and thanked them profusely for their kindness. We made it back to the ship, and then it was time for bed, we were all exhausted.

One Day in Luxor

2009-08-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

8/1/2009

My wakeup call came far too early on Saturday morning. We had been told that breakfast would be around 4:30, and so I set my watch alarm at 4:20am, and when I woke up, I realized the train was stopped. I quickly changed, brushed my teeth, again making sure to use bottled water, and then gathered up my backpack and headed next door to Sarah and Audrey’s room. Right as I was about to knock, the door opened. They were as confused as I was about the train being stopped, and I came in and sat down on the bed. We were all pretty groggy, and just waited to see what happened. The train started moving again, and we continued waiting for breakfast. A knock came on the door a while later, and it was our steward giving us a 10 minute warning to breakfast. He returned again with three trays of food. Breakfast consisted of every form of bread imaginable – croissant, role, sliced bread, muffin – and jam. It was edible, but nothing amazing. We finished up, and got ready for the long day ahead of us, and then we were at the Luxor station. As we unloaded the train, we met up with the LLC’s again, Matt, Lisa, Simon and Sadhika, and started our day before the sunrise again.
People say you need five days to see everything in Luxor, but we managed it in one. As soon as we exited the train station, we were, per usual, ambushed with cab drivers and men asking if we needed tour guides and had to fight our way away from them. Once we were free, we conferred with the LLC’s and decided to go with them. They were going to a hotel with one of the men, and he was going to show them information about the tour the hotel offered, and then they were going to decide from there. That is how we found ourselves wondering the sleepy streets of Luxor as the sun rose, watching as the city woke up to start the day. We arrived at the hotel in question, and were reassured when it turned out to be one of the nicer ones. It was refreshing to walk in to the air conditioned lobby of the hotel, for even as the sun was rising, the heat of the day was increasing. We sat in the welcoming couches around the center table, and were shown all of the stops the tour would include, and told prices for the day. The offer included an air conditioned mini-bus for only our group on nine, a guide that spoke English, five stops on the West Bank before lunch, and two stops on the East Bank after. After some negotiating on the price, we came to an agreement, and waited for our tour guide to arrive. It was a little after 7:30 when he showed up, but none of us were complaining about the wait, we were happy to rest in the clean, cool lobby after our adventure on the train. We piled into the van, which was surprisingly comfortable and spacious, and set out for the day. As we were crossing the Nile, we had our first stop of the day to take some pictures. The van just pulled over on the bridge – still in a lane of traffic – and we all piled out onto the sidewalk to take pictures. Then, we reloaded and moved on to our first stop of the day, the Valley of the Kings.
It was still early in the morning when we arrived, but the heat was already stifling, and there was not much shade available. The tickets we had allowed us to go in to three of the tombs, and so our guide picked out his three favorite, consulting us to make sure we agreed, and we set off. The first was the only two level tomb and belonged to Tuthmosis III, before entering, our guide gave us the history, and explained to us what we would see. He was nice enough to stop in the shade to explain it to us, and then it was off to the tomb. We had to climb up a slightly rickety staircase, already crowded with other tourists and travelers to get to the entrance, and then upon entering, we began our descent. Only a few feet in to the tomb, the temperature was increasing, and by the time we made it to the burial chamber, it felt like we had willingly climbed into an oven, but with more humidity! The detail of the hieroglyphics, and how well they were preserved was amazing to me! After we had gotten our fill of the tomb, we made our way back up the stairway, and as we neared the entrance, it was already getting much cooler. When I stepped out into the fresh air, it felt like I was stepping into air conditioning (despite the fact that it was probably already in the mid 90’s out)! The second tomb we saw belonged to Sety II, and the last one to Horemheb. Both were just as impressive as the first, but not as warm.
From the Valley of the Kings, we moved on to Hatchepsut’s Temple, which was an impressive sight. It was built in to the side of a cliff, and had been restored some to look more like its original form. It was three levels and had columns, statues, and carvings everywhere, and a wide ramp leading up to the top floor. Looking out from the temple, it was crazy to see how defined the line between the desert and the oasis of the fertile Nile valley was, there was a very distinct point at which the yellows, browns and reds of the desert transformed into lush green plant life.
Our last stop on the West Bank of the river brought us to the temple of Ramses II, and it was amazing. We spent a lot of time taking pictures and looking around in awe before our guide told us that we were not even in the temple yet, we were just in the entrance. Everything was so well preserved, and we were told that it was because the temple was buried in sand for many years, and that protected the colors and the carvings from time. By the time we left this temple, we were all warm, tired and hungry, and so it was off to lunch. On the way we stopped at two huge statues and took some pictures, and then crossed the Nile to the East Bank where we found food. I had packed snacks, so I was good to go for the day, but everyone else selected McDonald’s as their restaurant of choice. It was the best view I have ever seen from a McDonald’s, it looked out over the Luxor Temple and in the far distance, the Nile River. It was also three stories, and so the higher we got, the better the view. Once we were all fed and cooled down – there was some nice, and much needed, air conditioning inside the McDonald’s – we made out plans for the afternoon. We elected to just view the Luxor temple from the outside, and instead, go for a Faluca ride on the Nile. A choice I was very happy with. As amazing as all of the temples were, they were all starting to blend together into a blur of amazing statues, carvings and columns.
The one stop we had left before the Nile boat ride was the Karnac Temple, the most impressive one of the day. If I remember properly, it covers 65 acres; in any case, it was absolutely massive. The heat kept us from exploring for too long, but we managed to take the time to soak it all in. We left the temple, and after being shown how to get back to the train station from the boat dock, said goodbye to our guide and driver. We then were led down to the boat dock by the boat captain they had arranged for us, all of our backpacks and bags in tow. The falucas (I’m not exactly sure how to spell that, but I am going with spelling it phonetically) were gorgeous. Mostly white with brightly colored flags and paintings decorating the mast. They also had covers of brightly patterned sheets, and plush cushions lining the benches. We were led across one and into ours, the Mona Lisa. Once we were all settled in, we set sail. It was quite the process getting out of the dock area. There were young boys with ropes on the boats lining the exit, and we kept maneuvering back and forth until finally we were clear and the sail was put up. We made our way upstream for a while, crossing over and moving in the shallower waters with a weaker current. It was very relaxing and the breeze was refreshing after a long day in the heat. All of us just sat and enjoyed. We made it up to Banana Island, but opted not to stop. As we got close, the wind died down, and we just sat, stationary waiting for the wind to pick back up. As we were waiting, the river police showed up. They check all of the boats for proper licensing once a day, and in Egypt, it is customary to tip the police. Strange. We then made our way back downstream and to the dock again, where we thanked our faluca driver, and unloaded. We walked toward the train station, and along the way stopped to watch the sunset over the Luxor temple and the Nile. After the sunset, it was time to go catch our train, and we made our way the three or four more blocks to the train station. We showed up in perfect time, with just long enough to figure out where we needed to wait before our train came rumbling up. I think it may have been the exact same train that took us to Luxor, and now we were heading back to Cairo. This time around, unfortunately, there was someone else in my cabin, and they didn’t seem to speak any English. For peace of mind, I grabbed the blanket off my bed and my pillow after dinner, and curled up on the floor of Sarah and Audrey’s room to sleep. I felt I would not have gotten a very good night’s sleep with all of my worldly possessions (most specifically my passport!) available to a total stranger. I was tired enough that the floor was very comfortable, and I even slept better than I had the night before because I was comforted by being in the same room as friends. In fact, we all fell asleep pretty quickly after dinner and a “shower”.

Saving the World, One Egyptian Cab Ride at a Time

2009-08-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

7/31/2009

Day two brought another early morning. Yet again, I found myself awake before sunrise, but this time it was not to watch the sun come up, but it was to get ready for my day. I hadn’t finished packing before I fell asleep, and I was planning on spending the next two nights away from the ship. Luckily, packing went quickly, since I would have to carry everything I brought with me the whole time. After I packed, I ran upstairs for a quick breakfast, and then it was off to the buses. I was on a SAS trip called “Pyramids with Camel trek and Jeep Safari”, which sounds like it would be pretty hard to mess up. I didn’t meet Audrey, Sarah, Dan and Tim before loading the buses, and there were three buses, so I was a little worried that my plans might fall through, but I was assured the buses would stay together all day, and so I didn’t worry about it too much. Turns out the reason the buses would be staying together is because we were in a caravan, complete with police escort, for safety.
The day started with a nearly three hour drive along the desert road between Alexandria and Cairo, and then we continued on to Giza and the pyramids! Our guide for the day was named Raina, and she was very nice. Along the way, she gave us history and an idea of what we would be seeing. Even with all of her talking, nothing prepared me for my first glimpse of the pyramids. They were massive, and much closer to the city than I expected. Our first stop was the Great Pyramids in Giza, where we were given time to look around and take pictures. It was crazy. Not only was I standing next to one of the wonders of the ancient world, there were also camels, vendors, and other travelers everywhere! Our last warning before exiting the van was not to let anyone put us on a camel. It wasn’t long before we found out why this was necessary.
Upon exiting the bus, we were ambushed with men trying to sell head coverings, get you to take a picture with their camel, get you to buy a statue of some sort, and they didn’t like hearing the answer “no”! I made it out unscathed, but saw more than one student being herded toward a camel that was waiting in a laying position. Apparently they put you on the camel for free; it is getting off that costs money. From the pyramids, we moved on to the Sphinx. We were given time for pictures at the Sphinx, but not nearly as long as I was hoping, and then it was back to the buses and on to our next stop. Our next stop was the jeep safari portion of the day. We unloaded the bus, and piled into jeeps. They were not nearly as old as the ones in Bulgaria, nor did they have soft tops, but a while after we took off into the desert, I began appreciating to solid nature of the roof. I ended up in the middle of the back seat, and as such had minimal things to hold on to. There was also no seatbelt to help my situation. We bounced along and I think I spent about half of the time airborne, trying to brace myself between the ceiling and my seat. We were all laughing and bouncing along over dunes and racing the other jeeps. It was a lot of fun, and there were also some photo stops, where our driver would stop at the top of a dune and let us snap some pictures of the pyramids in the distance before continuing along again. After making our way into the desert, we saw the camels we were driving to meet. The jeeps all circled around and stopped by the camels, and we unloaded.
The camels were all lying down in a line, and we each got our own camels. Some of them looked friendly, others looked vicious. When I exited the jeep, my hand got grabbed and I was being led to a camel that was laying down and roaring like a dinosaur. He did not look happy, and I was pulling away trying to get to a more content looking camel, but I was unsuccessful, I was ushered on to the saddle, and just managed to get my hand holds before my camel stood up. They are much taller than I realized, and it is not exactly a smooth ride. Managing to stay on my discontented camel while it stood was enough of a challenge, and before I really got settled in, we were off and moving. The guy who was responsible for herding my camel, and one other camel along was named Alec, and he told us that our camels were named Columbus, and Charlie Brown. Mine was Charlie Brown. After we started moving, he settled down a little – at least he stopped roaring, which comforted me slightly. A thirty minute trek through the desert later, and we were back at the country club where we were to have lunch. As we stopped, Alec told us to “lean back”, one of the few English phrases he knew, along with “picture?” and “are you happy?”, and our camels laid down so we could climb off.
The lunch buffet we had set up was delicious, and like most of the countries I have visited, there was watermelon for dessert! At lunch, I was finally able to go talk to Audrey, Sarah, Tim and Dan, and make a meeting time for later on. They had ended up on a different bus, and as such we had not run into each other as much as we anticipated. The drivers were going to drop off everyone planning on staying in Cairo at a pre-designated spot where it would be easy to get a cab though, and so that is where we were going to meet to try to make our way to Luxor. After lunch, we still had another stop on the itinerary. We went to a temple, and then the step pyramid, the oldest stone building in existence. From there, we had a view of the bent pyramid in the distance, one in which they changed the angle of the sides when it was partially finished in order to finish on time. This was our last stop, and it had been a full day, it was already after 5pm. The buses loaded up again, and caravanned to the drop off spot. Despite the fact that we had been told it was in Cairo, it was actually in Giza, within view of the Great Pyramids. The other buses pulled up as we were unloading – about half, if not more of the trip was not planning on returning to the ship – I was able to meet up with Audrey, Sarah, Tim and Dan. We had trouble getting a cab at first, since there were so many people that were trying to do the same thing, but eventually we found a cab driver who was willing to let all five of us into his cab, and actually charge us the proper rate (what the guides had told us to expect) to get to Ramesses station, where we would figure out train stations. It was an interesting cab ride, to say the least, and with all of us crammed in there, we decided we were just doing the environment a favor, instead of taking two cabs. By some miracle, we made it to the train station in one piece, although slightly cramped and happy to be freed of the cab. We were able to get our tickets to Luxor, as well as return tickets for the next night on the sleeper train, and then we were told that the train left from Giza – where we had just come from – and not Cairo. At this point, it was all just a series of jokes, rather than getting upset or flustered, we just laughed, and prepared ourselves for the adventure ahead. We decided to take the metro down to Giza, as it was cheaper than a cab, and we thought it might be slightly less cramped. We were wrong about the second part, the passengers were crammed on to the metro like sardines, but it was easy to navigate, and relatively quick, as well as air conditioned. Always a plus. We made it to Giza fairly quickly, and fortunately the train station and the metro station were in the same location, so we just had to go down a flight of stairs and we were on the platform waiting for our train. We were early though! As we were waiting, we met up with four of the LLC’s from the ship (they are basically the equivalent of RA’s), and they were planning on doing the same thing we were, Luxor in a day with two back to back overnight trains. We were in the same car on the train as them, so we waited with them, and talked about what there was to do in Luxor.
We found car 10, where we were assigned to, and got on. The entire train was sloped at a rather extreme angle toward the center of the tracks, which made no sense to us, but we hoped it would right itself when the train started moving, and it was. The sleeper cars consisted of three seats, a small sink, and a door connecting to one other cabin that looked like a mirror image. I was odd man out, as they were supposed to be two bed cabins, and so I had a separate, non-connected cabin. All in all, it was a lot nicer than any of us expected. I stayed in the cabin with Sarah and Audrey, and we had the door open that connected to Tim and Dan’s room through dinner time, then we were all ready to crash for the night. Dinner was surprisingly edible, it consisted of the steward bringing us all trays with food, and then coming back to clear them away when we were finished. After clearing the trays, he came back to fold down the beds. The back of the seats folded down into the lower bunk, and the top bunk came down out of the wall. I made sure he folded down the bed in my cabin too. There was even a ladder to get to the top bunk. Because there was no one in the second bed in my cabin, I went in there to have my own bed, and dead bolted both of the doors, telling the girls I would be back around breakfast time. It was a bumpy ride, and every now and then the train would jerk, sending me nearly rolling off my bed. Luckily, I was tired enough, and used to sleeping on a ship that moves, that I was able to fall asleep quickly.

One Obama Dollar

2009-08-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

7/30/2009

The sunset over Alexandria was a pretty one, and after sunrise, breakfast, and waiting to clear customs, it was time to explore Egypt. It was surreal walking down the gangway, stepping on to solid land, and realizing that not only was I in Egypt, but I was in Africa! I set out with Amanda, Athena, Kara and Jack, and after we got through the intense security of the port – especially in contrast to Bulgaria where there was frequently no one manning the port building – we set out into the city. After exiting the port building, there was a long walk to the gate of the port, and the entire area was very well manicured, green lawns, fountains, flowers and the likes. At the gate, we were again asked for passports, and required to sign out and get a slip of paper in order to sign back in when we returned. We finally made it outside the gate, and were bombarded with the true Egypt. It is not all nicely manicured lawns and ornate fountains, but it is a bustling city where horn honking makes up a language of its own, and the buildings are old, and mostly unfinished. There is garbage and unpleasant smells everywhere, and it is crowded. We were not only struck by the different world that is Egypt upon exiting, but we were also mobbed by cab drivers and vendors. We started walking, saying we didn’t want a taxi, we didn’t want to buy anything, we wanted them to leave us alone, but that meant nothing, they followed us down the street, with more and more latching on until they outnumbered us at least two to one. We decided they were not going to leave us alone, and we did need to take a taxi to get to our destination, so we agreed to take a taxi, and then even more yelling commenced. They all started yelling out prices, “one Obama dollar each!” “five pounds!”, and tried to usher us to their cab, and then they were yelling at each other, because they all wanted our business. Port security had to come over and break up the fight, turning to us and saying “walk, go”. We hadn’t even made it a block away when one of the cab drivers pulled up, and because all the others had left and we wouldn’t cause another fight, all five of us piled in to the cab and set off.
I don’t think I will ever complain about bad drivers in America again after this trip. The cab set off, and we were weaving through traffic and swerving to avoid pedestrians and the horn was honking every few seconds and other cars were veering toward us it was crazy. By some miracle, we made it to the Alexandria Library, our destination, in one piece, and tumbled out of the cab. We got tickets to the library (it is a newer building, but is set on the sight of the oldest library) checked in our bags, and entered. The air conditioning of the library was a welcome change to the heat, and the library itself was gorgeous. It was huge, and after walking around for a while, we went down to the antiquities museum and saw artifacts and statues.
We left the library, and after the peacefulness of the cool inside, we were again struck by the heat, noise and smells of Alexandria. We decided to walk along the water for a while, and just take in the city. The only problem was that to get to the water, we had to cross the street. We waited for a while, watching some of the locals step fearlessly in front of the traffic, and cross one car at a time. It wasn’t even possible to cross one lane at a time, because the concept of traffic lanes hasn’t seemed to reach Alexandria yet. Eventually, we found a group of locals crossing, and used them as shelter between us and the cars, following their lead to get across.
Walking along the water, it was really possible to take in Alexandria. It was a jungle of tall buildings, many of which were under construction, none of which looked up to building standards in the US. The streets and sidewalks were covered with garbage, and the smell changed every few blocks, rarely to something pleasant. The water had large clumps of garbage floating in it, and there were a few fishermen along the litter ridden banks.
We eventually made it to one of the big mosques, where we stopped to take some pictures. We just happened to show up right as a tour bus full of SAS kids did. We said “hi” to them, and I saw Audrey and managed to make plans with her for the next few days in Egypt. The bus left then, it had only been a five minute photo stop for them, and we continued to the mosque to take closer pictures. We were planning on continuing to the catacombs, but the cab driver we hailed told us they were closed, instead, we settled on heading to the where the lighthouse used to be. It was one of the wonders of the ancient world, until in the 14th century, and earthquake brought it crashing down. Now it rests underwater, and there is talk of making an underwater museum to see it. We got there, and stayed for a while looking at some of the stands selling things and people watching. There was an aquarium, and we decided to check it out, but upon entering and seeing a line up of small fish bowls along the wall, decided it wasn’t worth it. After a while, we began our trek back to the ship.
We walked through some windy streets that were mainly residential, although it is hard to tell. Because of the population problem, almost everyone lives in apartment buildings, and so it is hard to tell the difference between residential and industrial. We walked past an alley where three little kids were flying kites, and it reminded me of Lindsay’s descriptions of the Philippines. One of the kites was simply a plastic bag tied to a string, and the other was a rolled up sheet of paper. They were so happy too, and were very fascinated by the group of us walking by. Sometimes, I felt like a novelty item because people would stop and stare. The children were especially interested, as they had not yet learned to hide their curiosity. The little boys flying kites stopped to wave and smile at us as we passed, and then we continued on. Another two little boys riding bikes accompanied us for a while before riding off, and a third little boy smiled when we passed. He followed for a little ways, and at the encouragement of an older boy, called out “what’s your name?!” I replied, and he giggled and hid behind a parked car in embarrassment. There was a woman pulling a bucket on a rope up to her window on the upper floor of one of the buildings, and as we passed, the bucket she was pulling hit an overhang on one of the windows and sent a chunk of cement crashing four stories down to the ground below. It nearly hit a young girl walking by, and we all stared in shock at what had happened. Everyone else carried on as if it were nothing. We made it back to the port after our adventure, and it was amazing at how quickly we all lowered our guard after we were inside the gates. The discrepancy between the well cared for and pristine pier area and the surrounding city of Alexandria was extreme. At the same time, it was all of the things that were so different from what I have experienced before that made me love Egypt so much.

Hospitals of Varna

2009-07-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

7/27/2009

The last day in Bulgaria I had a SAS program at 12:30, and Jon had one at noon, so we decided to spend the morning together so no one else would have to come back to the ship early. Jon’s camera had broken and so we went in search of a camera shop. We got to a street that had some restaurants, touristy shops, and a few blocks down, the large word “FOTO” on the outside of a store pointed us in the right direction. We walked in to the shop, and were very relieved when the girl working there spoke English. He purchased one of the cameras, and we set back out to spend the end of our lev (the currency of Bulgaria). We headed back to the ship for lunch at 11:15.
My afternoon trip was called “Hospitals of Varna”, and we were taken on tours of two different hospitals, one the public university hospital, and the other was a much smaller, private hospital. We were shown around by medical students, and given a presentation by the health care director. Health care is definitely different, as are regulations to do with confidentiality and cleanliness. It was a very interesting trip though, and something that most travelers don’t get to see – at least not in happy circumstances. We got back to the ship around 4pm, and had two hours until on ship time. I didn’t want to go far and risk getting back late, so I dropped off my stuff, and headed into the port building to attempt to get free wifi. It worked, but not well. It would go very fast and work fine, then suddenly disconnect my computer. After several failed attempts at uploading pictures, I decided to throw in the towel. I shut down my computer, and headed over to the vending machine. I still had 5 lev I had not managed to spend in the morning, and so I put it toward snacks, which I feel will be very nice to have on the long periods of time at sea we have coming up.
After the ship had left the port, I went to a party with my extended family. My adopted parent’s biological son had moved rooms, and was having an ice cream cake celebration. The room was tiny, about half the size of the normal cabins, and we still managed to fit 10 people in it! It was a “Congratulations on your new digs” celebration according to the cake, and it was a lot of fun. After that, it was time for homework, and then to bed early.

Free Falling

2009-07-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

7/26/2009

*I apologize if this is more detailed than you need, it is mainly for me to remember every little detail, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

After getting back to the ship, I walked through the gangway and found Eli waiting for me, Amanda and Athena were also with her. They had decided to join us for the walk. I dropped off some of my stuff, changed, and we headed off the ship. As we were walking along, I found an ATM that was connected to a bank and monitored with a surveillance camera, and I deemed it safe from fraud and got out money. As soon as I had the money, I realized there was no turning back. I had nothing else I was going to spend it on, and none of the exchange offices had good rates. We walked for a while and then came to a stairway leading up to a bridge, which we climbed, and continued walking along the bridge. It was a busy highway bridge, and the sidewalk was interrupted with light poles every little ways. We made our way out to the center of the bridge, which took a little bit, because it was a very long bridge. On the way out we passed Courtney and Jillian who were on their way back, and they said it was the best rush ever. A little while later, we passed a group of 6-8 SASers who said that they weren’t taking any more people for the day, we decided to keep going and at least see if they were taking reservations for the next morning. As we neared the top of the arch, the bridge curved slightly and our destination came into view. There was a tiny yellow tower, maybe two feet tall, that looked like it had a lawnmower engine attached to it sticking up from the blue railing. There was also a crowd of people gathered around it. I felt my heart start beating faster, and we kept walking. I had already convinced myself I was going, and I knew there was no turning back…
There were two girls in harnesses in the crowd, and the guy in charge had dreadlocks down to his butt and a neon traffic vest on. Traffic was flowing by, with cars occasionally honking when they passed. We stopped at the edge of the throng of people, and I watched as the first girl climbed up onto the railing of the bridge (an additional 3-4 feet above the sidewalk) and stood facing out holding on to the yellow tower. Upon one of the guys’ instructions, she slowly scooted away from the yellow tower, and stood with her arms out, breathing heavily. After less than a minute, she shook her head slightly, and was pulled back down, nearly in tears. This didn’t help my resolve. I just wanted to see someone go before me. Anyone. It was hard to hear what was going on with all of the traffic whizzing by, but as they removed the harness the first girl, the second girl was hoisted on to the railing, where she did the same thing. After some convincing, she climbed back up, and stood there forever with a completely forlorn look on her face, breathing heavily. She even crossed herself, and continued with her breathing. It had taken too long though, she wasn’t going to go either. As she was being pulled back down, I found the one guy in charge that spoke English and asked “are you taking anyone else today?!” He looked at me skeptically for a second, and then smiled and said “I guess we could!” and went to grab the form. I read it carefully, and filled in all the blanks, my excitement growing. As I was signing my name, the reality of what I just got myself into hit me, and I had to take a second to process. As I was filling out my form, another girl who had been harnessed climbed up on the railing and barely even hesitated. There was no way that it was her first time, but in any case, seeing someone else survive helped calm my nerves a bit.
Before I new it, the guy with dreadlocks was laying out a harness and telling me to step into it, then pulling it over my shoulders. After that, an ankle strap was put securely on each of my ankles, and I slid off my flip flops. Then, as I was looking down over the edge and contemplating how far it was, he came back over to me saying “Whitney Huston, you must pay now”. I got out my money, and handed it over. It was done, I had to go or I had just wasted all that money. There was no getting it back, even if I chickened out. There were two more people in front of me. Neither of them spoke English, and both of them appeared to be military guys. I waited anxiously, watching them carefully, and convincing myself that I wasn’t crazy. After the first one was back, I turned to him and said “fun?!” I think he found my inability to stand still (I was fidgeting and bouncing all over the place) entertaining, but he responded “yes, very fun”. It was reassuring. Before I new it, they called me up. The younger guy in charge was the one that spoke English, and as I was getting all clipped in I asked if I got instructions. He said yes, his English was good, so he would try to explain to me. I would climb up on the railing, and then he would say “go” at which point that is exactly what I was supposed to do. Afterwards, a rope would be lowered to me which I was to clip to my chest and then spread my arms to be pulled up. It was the going part that made me the most nervous. He told me I could jump, or fall, I just had to make sure it was chest first. I told Amanda, Athena and Eli I would need a countdown from three, something to give me a second to prepare, as this would be my first time. After I was on the railing and out of the way of the yellow tower, I could hear them counting. When I climbed up, I had only been looking at the railing and the tower, and when I stood up I looked out at the horizon, as I stood there, I could hear them but the fear was building and I couldn’t hear what numbers they were saying. My heart was pounding! I turned to them and yelled “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!” and they all screamed “ONE!” I looked back out and I leapt!
The second my feet were off the ground, I looked down, and I had a moment of terror realizing what I had just done. I was free falling, and the water below was no where near. Before I had to long to contemplate my eminent doom, I could feel the tension of the bungee, and I was decelerating. Before I knew it, I was flying back up through the air, and right side up, I looked around, and as I started falling again, still right side up, I realized that I was going to have to be upside down very quickly. The bungee caught again, and I swung around and kept on bouncing upside down and spinning and looking out at the water and the bridge I had come from. I let out a yell of triumph, and when I was just hanging upside down spinning, I hear Eli yell down “how was it?” I screamed back up “that was AMAZING!” and listened as it echoed off the bridge. I could feel that I was shaking, but I think it was the mixture of excitement and fear and shock. Soon, I saw the red rope I was supposed to grab, but I was still spinning and slightly disoriented, and the rope was very far away. He started swinging it, and eventually I could reach it. Once he saw it was in my hand, he pulled it up (almost too quickly, I nearly let go from the rope burn) and I had the clip, which I hooked on to the harness on my chest. Then, I spread my arms out wide and waited.
As the tension on the little red rope increased, I was pulled into a laying, and then a seated position in the harness. It was a slow ride back up, and I used it to look around and enjoy the view, and also to try to process. When I got to the top, I maneuvered my feet onto the narrow ledge outside the railing, and waited for further instruction. After the guys fiddled with the different ropes some, they pulled me over the railing in a slightly awkward “beached whale” type fashion since my ankles were strapped together. Once I was back on solid ground, they quickly removed the harness and began packing. I was the last one of the day.
The funny thing about bungee jumping is, before this trip, I really had no desire to go. It ended up being so much fun though. It is crazy, because after the initial fall and recoil, you get to do it again, and again, and again, and then just dangle helplessly from your ankles while you are waiting to get hoisted back up. It was so much fun, and unlike anything I have ever done before. I am torn between a strong desire to go again, and the thought that it was absolutely crazy and not natural to willingly hurl myself off such a tall object… Sky diving next I think ;)

That was Random...

2009-07-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

7/26/2009

Day three in Bulgaria was action packed. After waking up to rain, the aftermath of what was apparently a very large thunder storm around 5am, and having breakfast, I went down to the pier to meet for the “Jeep Safari and Picnic” that I had signed up for through SAS. Upon walking out onto the pier, I saw a line up of about 15 jeeps and vans, all of which had soft tops on them, and looked very old. The drivers were also standing in a group, all wearing camo shirts with “Jeep Safari” written in large white letters on them. We were split in to groups of about 6 and brought to our jeeps. Because of the rain, the tops were on, but it appeared that they were put on after the rain started, because the cloth seats were pretty damp. Our driver introduced himself as something that sounded like Andre, and after waiting for all the jeeps to load away we went. It was funny driving through town in a procession of very old, rugged looking green jeeps, but also a lot of fun. We were informed that the jeep we were in was 45 years old, and you could tell! There were rust spots on the door, and one of the doors had to be held shut with a latch like you would find in a public restroom. There were also no seat belts in the jeeps. After tearing down the roads with the drivers all honking their horns playfully at each other and playing leap frog, we pulled on to a side road where we drove up a little ways and then stopped. It had stopped raining, and all of the jeeps took off the covers. They also did something to the tires of all of them, fiddling with the bolts. I seemed like they were preparing them for off roading. We took of driving again, this time on a narrow road through the trees where we drove up to an overlook through the trees. Bulgaria reminds me a little of Oregon in that it has a lot of lush, green forests. At the overlook, all of the jeeps stopped, and we all unloaded to walk along a muddy and slippery path to the viewpoint. It was a short walk, but I still managed to slip in the much. I caught myself before I fell all the way and only my hand ended up muddy. The overlook was of the Golden Sands Resort, like I said, they are very proud of that here. After a little talk about the resort, the leader told us that we should prepare ourselves for some surprises, and we made our way back to the jeeps and reloaded. The jeeps went flying back down to the main road, and continued along.
Eventually, we pulled off the road, went through a little dirt area where we stopped to reconvene and replace the tops as it was raining again, and then went tearing through the mud and puddles in true four wheeling fashion. It was so much fun, and the jeeps were sliding everywhere, but the drivers seemed to know what they were doing. Three of the jeeps got stuck in the mud and we had to stop and wait for them to get out, and as we were waiting we took the top back off. It stayed off for the rest of the day, the rain was done. With the top off, we were able to stand up while the jeep was going, and had much better views of the forests. After a lot of bouncing along, we ended up back on a windy little road that took us to our next stop. It was a tiny little building that they presented to us as a “local distillery” but it looked more like the set up you would find in someone’s basement. A vat was draining through a cloth into a large bucket, and we were told that the brandy distilled there was not only for drinking at meals, but also had medicinal uses. I’m not sure I believed all of it. After learning about the distilling process, we got to try the brandy. They poured it out of plastic water bottles and soda bottles that had been refilled, and it had tiny bits of what looked like dirt floating in it. Just the smell of it almost made me gag, but I took a tiny sip anyway. It was NOT good. One sip was more than enough, and I handed my cup off to someone else who wanted more.
We reloaded the jeeps, and took off tearing through the mud and dirt once more until we made it to our next stop and second surprise. It was a honey tasting, and it was much better than the brandy tasting. It was very sweet honey, and was still a little grainy, but overall very good. Our third stop brought us to the most random part of the day. After our guide asked if anyone had military experience, and no one had, he told us we would be shooting guns. In truth, they were pellet guns, and we all got a chance to try to his plastic bottles lined up along the fence. None of us quite understood why we were in the middle of nowhere in Bulgaria shooting pellet guns, but it was fun, so we didn’t argue. A little more off roading brought us to our final stop, and our bbq picnic!
We unloaded and sat down to a very good lunch, as well as more brandy, beer and wine. While we were eating, all of the drivers came out with instruments and sang to us. First they played traditional Bulgarian music, and then they played songs from the countries of all of the passengers. My driver was the singer, and he also played a little drum. After they sang to us, they started playing Bulgarian music again, and we all got up and learned traditional Bulgarian dance. It was the perfect end to the trip. After lunch, we headed back and one of the girls in my jeep played the drum and we drove through sunflower fields and more country side. We made it back to the ship around 4:30, my jeep was the first one to make it back. After thanking the driver, I ran back to the ship because I was supposed to meet friends at 4, when my trip was supposed to return, for the next activity of the day I had planned. The jeep safari was a great time, and very random, but it was fun to see the country side of Bulgaria and get out of Varna

What do you do in Bulgaria?

2009-07-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

7/24-25/2009

My first two days in Bulgaria were a nice break after Istanbul’s hustle and bustle. Apparently, Varna is a beach resort type city, and so beach time is a must. Coming in to Bulgaria, I had no idea what to expect, but what I found were large beaches, lots of sunshine, and a good adventure. After arriving about noon the day before we were supposed to, and sitting anchored off the beach for the rest of the day, I was more than ready to go come Friday morning. I woke up for the sunrise, and it was an odd change of pace to have the ship be stationary through the entire thing. We were tendering until mid afternoon, which means that I rode the tender boat to shore. Upon arriving, I set off down the beach with Jon and Jack. The beach directly next to the road leading out of the pier had a big volley ball tournament going on. There was loud music playing, an entire stadium type set up with bench seating and security, and lots of banners and side tents where the players would wait. It looked very official, although I never figured out what it was for. It was there until our last day in Bulgaria. We walked past the games, and down toward the water, where we walked down the beach for a long time. It was a very crowded beach, and there was a forest of umbrellas covering the strip near the water, some of them personally owned, but most of them “for rent”. Basically, after paying a set fee for an hour or for the dya, you are aloud to set up your stuff under the umbrella you rented, and enjoy the small patch of shade. It seems kind of silly to me, since all of the sand was equally covered in rocks and shells, and there was nothing special about the umbrellas, but almost all of them were taken! The crowd on the beach consisted of what looked to be mostly vacationers, whether they were Bulgarians visiting the beach, or from other countries it was hard to tell, but there were very few locals. There were, however, lots of extremely painful looking sunburns, very large old women in bikinis and men that looked pregnant wearing speedos, and naked children everywhere, some of which were a little too old to be going naked in public still. That’s Europe for you though…
After walking for nearly an hour, we decided to stop and swim, as it was very hot out. The water of the Black Sea was refreshing, and much less salty than the other places I have swam on this trip so far. We got out and dried off and continued our walk. We came to an uphill in the road that paralleled the beach, and decided to take it and walk back through the Sea Garden, a large park. The road led us to a trail through trees, with an occasional view of the Black Sea and the MV Explorer floating off the shore. As we continued walking, we passed little restaurants and bars tucked away, and eventually made it past some of the key buildings our maps showed. These included the dolphinarium, the zoo, the reptile atrium, and a large monument of sorts. We made our way from the park to the ship at 2pm, and while Jon and Jack returned to the ship, I met up with my “Wonders of Bulgaria” SAS trip, where we were taken to an old monastery set in to a limestone cliff, the Golden Sands beach resort, and the stone forest.
The monastery was very interesting, and we got to climb up in to the cells and had great views out over the Black Sea. The Golden Sands resort didn’t really fit in, but I learned that the locals are very proud of it. We were given an hour to walk around, and as we all got off the bus, everyone had the same confused expression of “what are we doing here?” on their face. It felt kind of like a mini-vegas, complete with Eiffel Tower, but also in the mix was the feel of a spring break resort. We all showed back up at the bus a little early, because no one knew what to do with themselves. Next, we went to the stone forest. The brochures make it look like some huge, amazing thing, but in reality, it looks a little more like a “world’s largest ball of yarn” type tourist attraction. It is right off one of the main roads, and when we showed up, there was no one there. We got an introduction from the guy working at the gift shop, and he told us that there are several theories on how the pillars of rock formed, but it was hard to understand his thick accent. The only part I did understand was when he tried to tell us that touching the pillars would pull out all of your negative energy and fill you with positive energy. We were given time to wonder around and explore, and another tour bus showed up with more SAS kids.
After returning to the pier, the ship still wasn’t alongside (or pulled up next to the pier), and so I waited with some of my friends from the tour – and about half of the student body on the MV Explorer – to get back on. It was in the process of pulling up, but there was a long wait to get on, everyone wanted free dinner.
After dinner, I got ready and headed out with Brook, Courtney, Lauren, Meredith, Logan, Sam, Shane, Eric, Anna, Andrew, Rudy, Emma and a few other people to the bars along the beach right next to our boat. It was fun to be so close (we could see the ship from all of them). We found a place that had seating in the sand, and music playing. It was a really nice atmosphere, and after a little while, a bunch of other SAS kids showed up. I don’t know that the bar was ready or so much business, but it certainly got it. After a while, I decided to call it a night, and headed back to the ship with Brook, Lauren and Courtney. My second day in Bulgaria was a relaxing one, full of walking through the Sea Garden and exploring some more with Brook, Eli, Jon, Amanda and Athena. We made our way down to the beach and swam and rested and enjoyed the sunshine and another relaxing day. It was extremely hot out, so it was really nice to finally make it down to the water and go swimming. The evening was much the same as the last. I went to the beach with Jon, Athena, Amanda and Eli, and there were a few other people we knew at the place we ended up at. It was a relaxing evening of people watching and enjoying the beach.

Seeing Stars

2009-07-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

7/21/2009

My last day in Turkey was very relaxing. It was nice to have five days in Istanbul not only because of its large size, but also because it allowed me to slow down a little and relax. I started the morning heading toward the Blue Mosque with a group of friends. We arrived after taking a detour through the grounds of one of the palaces, and proceeded toward the entrance. All of the girls in our group put on scarves to cover their heads and shoulders, and made sure their skirts were ankle length while waiting in the line at the entrance. When we got to the front, we all removed our shoes and went in. It was similar to the other mosques, but much larger.
It was a mob scene inside. The area up to the small fences that ask visitors to please not go any further was full of people, and everyone was snapping pictures and looking around. I made my way toward the fence, and stopped to take a few pictures. As I was looking around, I noticed that a girl that was having her picture taken looked really familiar. At first, I couldn’t place her face, then I decided she must just look like someone I know, or maybe an actress. As she was walking away, one of the girls I came with standing next to me said “did you see Anne Hathaway?”. As soon as she said it I placed the face. I had been standing mere feet from her, and not realized. We quickly spread the word among the group we had shown up with of about 8 that Anne Hathaway was in the mosque, and everyone didn’t believe us at first. When we exited, we saw her again taking another picture. They believed us after that.
After our celebrity sighting at the mosque, we moved along toward the bazaar again, where we all tried to get rid of the end of our lira. After our fill of the bazaar, we headed to the spice market, which was closer to the ship. It was like a mini grand bazaar, but with Turkish delight, dried fruit and spices everywhere! The sellers were just as friendly though, and there were a few free samples involved. As we were getting ready to leave, one of the salesmen was trying to entice me to buy something. I told him I was all out of lira, and he continued talking to me anyway. He then asked if he could ask me a question, and I hesitantly waited for what it was. He proceeded to inquire as to why American women all had such white teeth compared to other nationalities. I laughed, and as a group we tried to explain, but he didn’t believe any of our answers.
After the spice market, we sat around in the nearby square out front of the new mosque, and watched the pigeons and the several individuals selling bird feed, as well as all of the street vendors and foot traffic. All in all, it was a very satisfactory last day. We eventually meandered our way back to the ship so as not to be late for shiptime. After getting on the ship, we were informed that we would not depart Istanbul until nearly midnight, and we would arrive in Varna by noon the next day, where we would be at anchor, and using tender boats to reach shore for most of the first day. It sounds like Bulgaria will be a very fun country!

How Bazaar

2009-07-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

In the morning, I set out with Jack, Jon, Amanda, Athena and Kara. Jack and Jon were planning on getting Turkish baths, and as the bath house was right next to an entrance to the grand bazaar, the rest of us were going to go do some shopping, and meet up with them later. After setting a meeting time outside the bath house, we set off to the bazaar. It was not at all what I expected. I envisioned more temporary style tents, kind of like Saturday Market, but that is not what I found at all. The entire bazaar is located in a very large, labyrinth of a building, with overflow shops filling the streets immediately outside of the gates. We entered through gate one, where we were greeted with a high, arching ceiling, and shops lining both sides of the wide walkway. Soon, the branches in the pathway began, and we made our way further into the depths. Pretty much everything is for sale, from ceramic plates and bowls to pashminas to trinkets of all sorts, sunglasses, jerseys, rugs, hookahs, lanterns… if you can think of it, you could find it here. I quickly learned that prices were highly negotiable. As we walked through the different allies, we were enticed to come look at each and every shop owners goods, and promised the lowest prices. When one of the other girls stopped at an ATM, I went to look at some of the pashminas. Curious about the pricing, I asked how much one of the ones I liked was. The response I got was 25 lira! Way more than I would willingly pay! I said “too much” and started turning to walk back to my friends and they quickly lowered the price to 20 lira, I shook my head and it fell again to 15 lira. When I said “5 lira”, they laughed and countered with 10 lira. That is as low as they were willing to go, and I decided to feel out the prices a little more before making any purchases. It was good to know that in a matter of about thirty seconds, a price could be cut by almost two thirds.
Much of our day continued in the same manner, seeing something we liked, asking the price, working it down to a lower one, and then either accepting or walking away. The biggest key is the ability to say no, because sometimes that brings the price down that extra little bit that makes it worth while. We made our way back to meet the boys, and then it was their turn to experience the bazaar. It was really fun to bargain for prices, and the salespeople were all so friendly. Some of them would even remember you if you walked by their shop more than once. The salesmen are all very convincing actors, they know how to sell, and how to make you feel like you are getting a good deal. They convince you that the price they are giving is just for you, not for anyone else, and only because you are so pretty or charming. By the end of our time in the bazaar, all of us had much emptier pockets and much fuller arms. It had been a successful day.

The Prince's Isles

2009-07-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

7/19/2009

During breakfast, Athena, Kara, Amanda and I recruited Jack to be our designated male traveling companion for the day. Our plan was to make it to the Prince’s Isles, although we didn’t know exactly how to go about this. While we were looking for information on the ship, we ran into Professor Horn, who was also planning on heading the same direction with his family, and he checked the weather for us and told us where the ferry sight was. We thanked him, and set out. Jack new exactly were the ferry sight was, and so we followed him along. We purchased our tickets, which were actually little metal tokens that you put into a slot in the rotating gate to get through, and as we were waiting for the ferry to arrive, we saw Professor Horn and his family. He gave us another tip that the view from the top level of the ferry, and so we followed him up the stairs, and sat near him. He had a map that was very helpful also. We ended up getting off at the third island, and setting off to explore.
The Prince’s Isles have no motor vehicles other than service vehicles, and it was strange to see roads but no cars. It almost felt like going back in time, because horse drawn carriages were prevalent. I found it very funny, because the drivers would yell out “taxi” as we walked by. After walking up and down the main street, we stopped at a café on the water for lunch. As we were eating, our table was swarmed by stray cats, all of which were very friendly. Out waiter did not speak much English, but was able to communicate well enough. He seemed to find us very entertaining, if nothing else. After eating, we pulled out the phrase sheet we had been given by SAS to attempt to say “thank you” in Turkish. When he came back over, he was very fascinated by the sheet, and snatched it away from Amanda, going through all of the phrases and proceeding to tell us that they were all wrong.
After lunch, we went walking around some more, and then decided to rent bikes. Jack and Athena got a tandem bike, and the other three of us chose single bikes. They were not in the best condition, but it was only 3 lira for one hour. We all hopped on and started pedaling. We headed uphill for quite a ways, and found some amazing views of the sea and surrounding islands. We finally found a road that seemed to head around the island, and continued for a while before stopping at a little park with a picnic table. We continued on then, going down a large hill. We rode past a small beach with loud music playing, and up a very large hill. At the top of the hill, there was what appeared to be the equivalent of a bus farm, but for horsed. All of the carriage horses that were not currently working were standing inside a large fence, some eating, some resting, and some just wondering around. We made it back to the part of town we had started in, and by some miracle turned down the exact street our bike vendor was on, showing up with five minutes to spare in our hour. It was a lot of fun. After that, we stopped at a fruit stand, and then walked down to a small beach to sit by the water. I updated my journal, Jack went swimming (none of us girls were comfortable getting into swim suits in a country where women were still wearing head scarves), and the other girls took pictures and sat around. After a while, we decided to head back on the ferry, as we felt there was not much more of the island to explore.
Once on the ferry, we all fell asleep almost immediately. Something about the familiar rocking after living on a boat for so long was very comfortable. None of us were sleeping deeply, but instead we alternating being awake to see when it was our stop, and napping. We made it back, and decided to try to find a movie theater and go see the new Harry Potter movie. We new there was one in Taxim square, and we had a map that showed us the right direction. We made our way up there walking, and found the square very easily, but did not see the theater when we got there, so Jack asked for directions. We got a general direction, and headed down that street for a while, before we decided it was time to stop again. I saw a stand selling dondurma, Turkish ice cream that is kind of sticky like taffy, and decided to try some. Before I even had a chance to order, or even express interest to the guy selling it, he had scooped some up and stuck it in a cone, then went about giving a show as he scooped more up and flipped the cone around and held it out, then pulled it away. He handed it to Amanda, and then started making a second, holding it out on a long stick toward all of us in turn, but no one would take it because we didn’t want to be charged. Finally, he told us the second one was free, so I paid for the larger one, since I had planned on getting it any way, and we asked him for directions.
Finally, we saw a sign, and followed it to the left where we found the theater just in time to make the 6pm showing. We got our tickets, and were escorted into the theater. Once inside, it did not differ much from a US theater, except for the Turkish subtitles. The movie itself was in English, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. About halfway through, the picture disappeared, and the screen turned bright blue and flashed something in Turkish. We all looked at each other in shock, but no one else in the theater seemed at all phased by the sudden stop in the movie. Apparently, movies in Turkey come complete with a 15 minute intermission. After a chance to stretch our legs and talk for a little bit about the movie so far, the screen flashed again, and some quick music played, then the movie started back up from right where it left off. We all really enjoyed the movie, as we are all pretty big Harry Potter fans. After that, it was a relaxing walk back to the ship and time for bed.

Baths, Boats and Whirling

2009-07-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

7/18/2009

After breakfast on the ship, I set out with Eli, Sam, Logan, Julie, and Brooke to go find a Turkish bath. We had looked up information on them the night before, so we knew which one we were headed toward. Along the way, we were going to stop and check out prices and times for a boat cruise up the Bosphorus. We were approached by a few men calling out “Bosphorus boat tour, ferry up the Bosphorus”, and we listened to what each had to offer. The first one we ran into promised a two hour boat cruise up past the bridge, with a 30 minute stop on the Asia side of the channel at a palace, and so we took his card saying we would be back later in the afternoon. I don’t think he believed us, but he told us where we could find him, and that his name was Rommy. After that, we continued along to Cemberlitas hamam, or the bath house we were going to.
When we got there, there were options of treatments, from a basic entrance fee that was fully self service, to the traditional treatment which included an exfoliating scrub, a 15 minute soap massage and a shampoo, to the luxury treatment which added a 30 minute oil massage on top of what is included with the traditional treatment. I opted for traditional, while all of the girls I was with selected luxury. We were all handed small cardboard boxes, and tokens with the massage treatments on them, and then told ‘women on the right”. We walked through the door indicated, which was a hallway curving around a corner, and then into a room with a marble fountain in the center, and cushioned benches all the way around the outside. There was a juice bar in one corner, and a spiral staircase in another. We were handed towels and ushered up the staircase to the second level. We changed and made our way down the stairs. We were then pointed through another door to an entry room full of plush towels, unlike the sarongs we had been given, and into the bath room. It was marble, with fountains around the edges and small wash rooms, and a large octagonal marble slab in the center. It was also ridiculously hot and steamy. The ceiling was domed, and there were circular holes speckling it to let in light.
We all laid out our sarongs on the marble, and laid down on top of them. It was very relaxing, and the marble was heated, which was very nice. It didn’t take long before I was sweating, a lot. After a little while of just relaxing, one of the ladies working at the bath house pulled one of us to one edge of the octagon, and told us to lay parallel to the side, then another, and pretty soon we were all around different edges of it laying with our exfoliating scrubbers (which were in the box we had been handed) on our backs and waiting. It was very restful, and I was torn between looking around in wonder at where I was, and taking a nap. Before I fully got a chance to decide, one of the ladies came over and claimed my token, and my treatment began. First, the exfoliation, which left me feeling much smoother. The lady that was giving it would pat my back and indicate a rolling motion when I was supposed to roll from my stomach to my back, or she would grab my arm when she wanted me to sit up. After a thorough scrub down, she ditched the exfoliating mitt and grabbed a cloth sack out of a bucket of soapy water. She shook the sack so that it filled with air, then closed the top and squigied her hand down it, sending a cascade of soap bubbles all over. They smelled slight of lemon. I then got a full body massage with the soap, and it felt very nice. Lastly, she took the exfoliating mitt again, and did one last scrub all over with the soap and the mitt, then dumped some water over me to rinse away the soap. I was sad that it was over, but she grabbed my hand and let me to one of the wash basins along the side of the room and told me to sit. She proceeded to wash my hair, and then rinse by dumping water over my head. The water felt so good, because it was just enough colder than the air in the room to be refreshing, but it wasn’t cold. After my hair was rinsed, she asked a final “you like?” to which I responded “yes” with a smile, and then she pointed my to the baths through one of the doorways in the room.
There were two pools. The one to the right was smaller, and had a tiny waterfall pouring in to it, and the one on the left was rectangular and had a little spurt of water trickling into it from one corner. Both were filled to the brim. Between them, there was a narrow walkway and there was a little ledge for shoes and sarongs across the way. I got into the larger pool, which was cool and refreshing, and Julie soon joined. All of us had started our massages at different times, so we finished at different times too. After we had both cooled down quite a bit, we decided to move into the other pool, which was more like a hot tub, and sat in there waiting for the other girls. They arrived shortly, and we moved back over to the cooler pool. It felt even better in contrast to the hot water!
As the other girls went out to get their oil massages, I continued to alternate between the hot marble and the cool bath, talking with the girls that were either already done with their massages, or waiting. After the last two girls finished, we went out in to the cooling room (the one with the marble fountain and the juice bar), where there was a basket for our now drenched sarongs, and piles of large, plush towels for us to take. We sat on one of the cushioned benches for a while, all of us kind of in a trance from how relaxed we were, then went up to change and walk back to the ship. Leaving the hamam, several people we passed along the sidewalk would make comments like “Turkish bath, so fresh, smell so clean”. We thought it was quite funny, and figured it was our location and our dripping wet hair that was the giveaway.
On the way back to the ship we stopped at a Vitamin Bar, and I got a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. It was very good. The other girls also got various fruit juices. We then continued back to the ship, breaking in to almost a run once we got through port security, and springing up the stairway to the dining hall, where we made it to lunch just before they started taking the food away. After eating and dropping off a few things in my room, we met up again to go find a Bosphorus tour. A girl named Rudy, who is also from Oregon, joined us. We also recruited Tommy as the token boy in our group (as it doesn’t matter how large the group of girls is, if there is one boy, everyone is treated with more respect), and his friend Nikki. We walked back to where we had met all of the people advertising boat cruises in the morning, and found Rommy again. He was absolutely thrilled that we came back!
He told us that there was some swimming competition going on, and he was now offering only a one hour and thirty minute boat cruise, with no stop in Asia. We told him that earlier he had told us two hours, and he agreed, stating that we kept our promise, and so he would keep his. Upon establishing this, we started following him, and he called up the “captain” to let him know we were coming. When we arrived at the boat, it was tiny! It had a U shaped bench seat around the back portion of the boat that had enough seating for the 9 of us, wish a little extra space, and that was about it. We got on, paid, and then it was away we go. It was a very rocky ride, as all of the large ferries were speeding around and making large waves. The boat was put putting along, making very slow progress up the channel, and every now and then, as we paced a palace or mosque, Rommy would pop his head out and tell us what building it was and a little bit of history behind it. We hugged the European side of the channel on the way up, passing right next to the MV Explorer. We were talking with Rommy, and told him that we were living on the ship, and taking classes. When we got up past the bridge, we passed to the Asian side of the channel, where we stopped. Instead of pulling up beside the land, the captain just nosed in against the wall, and we were instructed to scurry along the edges of the cabin, and then crawl over a fence of the bow of the boat. This was tricky maneuvering in a skirt, but we all made it and no one fell in. We synchronized our watches with Rommy, decided on a meeting time, and then headed off into Asia.
We stopped at a fruit stand, looked at some shops, and made our way down the road looking for the palace gardens. Tommy and Nikki split off from the rest of the group, and after spending time wondering around, we made our way back to the boat. The captain was swimming, and so were several others. We took some pictures, and four little boys came over to pose, telling us to take pictures of them too, and then asking to see them. Rommy came back, and asked where the other two were, and we said they were on their way back, so he loaded us on to the boat again (just the reverse of how we had gotten off. The captain stopped his swimming and hopped in the boat, and Rommy went searching for Nikki and Tommy. We backed out of where we were, so the waves didn’t keep pushing the boat into the wall, and waited. They all showed us shortly, and we pulled back up. After everyone was loaded, we made our journey back.
When we got back to the first bridge, we were dropped off much closer to the MV than we had taken off from, because it had ended up being basically a private tour just for us. We pulled up next to another boat about the size of ours, and climbed through it to get to land. It ended up being much more fun than one of the large ferries that may go faster, but packs people in and does not give as much explanation of the history of the buildings. We thanked Rommy and the captain, and made our way back to the ship in time for a free dinner. Then, I had time to run down to my room and change and clean up slightly before it was time for one of the few SAS trips that I signed up for. I was going to a Sufi Dervish ceremony.
Eli, Julie, and Amanda were also all going, and so I met up with them at the gangway, and we headed out to the buses. We went inside, and first there was a gallery with pictures of the whirling Dervishes, and free Turkish delight. The room where the performance took place was off to the side, and I had front row seats. The band came out, and started playing, and then stopped for a while, then they started up again as the five whirling Dervishes entered the room. While they claim it is a purely religious ceremony, I couldn’t help but feel that it was a little more showy that it needed to be, and that was purely for the sake of all of the viewers. It was very interesting though, and they did go through ritual movements, and when it ended, one of them came back out to answer questions, where we learned what their motions meant. Then, it was back to the ship, where I was exhausted after a very full day and just stayed in, downloaded pictures, and went to bed.

Istanbul

2009-07-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

7/17/2009

The morning we were to pull into Istanbul brought an early awakening to go up and see the sunrise. Unfortunately, some of the professors had been advertising it, and about half the student body decided to wake up and watch. Not quite the peaceful sunrises I had been getting used to. The skyline was hazy, making the sun very red. There was not much in the way of buildings along the skyline, but it was very pretty. As the sun came further up, we started circling, apparently we had shown up early, and had to wait for the pilot boat. After the sun was at a sufficient height in the sky, we all went back to bed with plans to wake up for breakfast, where we talked about plans for the day. It was a much slower morning than usual, as it took the ship much longer to clear customs, and they needed to distribute disembarkation papers to everyone in order for us to be able to leave the port area. By the time all of that was done, it was almost lunch on the ship, and we decided to stick around for another free meal, and then set out exploring.
Jon, Amanda, Athena and I left and set out toward the bridge that crosses into the main downtown area, or at least the one closest to our ship, as Istanbul is massive. The bridge was lined with fisherman, and there were ferries and shuttle boats jetting around the water so quickly I don’t know how they avoided collision. Turkey is the first country in which I have truly felt it was completely different. The women were wearing head scarves for the most part, and had ankle length dresses and long sleeves, even in the extreme heat, and almost none of the men were wearing shorts. I felt very awkward walking along, as I am in the habit of making eye contact with people I pass and smiling, and apparently in Turkey, that means I am “available” I decided it would be best to avert my eyes slightly downward. We were all dressed in long pants, and short sleeve t-shirts, so we did not stand out as much as some of the other foreigners parading about in their skimpy attire, but we still did stand out. We went to several mosques throughout the morning, stopping outside to put scarves over our heads and remove our shoes. They are very large, open spaces, but have low hanging lights so they do not feel cavernous.
We walked around some more in search of the Blue Mosque, and ended up at one of the gates to the Grand Bazaar. While we were all tempted, we had decided to save it for later in our stay in Istanbul, and just asked directions from one of the gate guards to get to the mosque. It took us a little while, but we found it. There was a grassy area between it and the Haiga Sophia, and there was a fountain in the middle. We walked toward the blue mosque, and as we got to the entrance, the call to prayer started and the mosque closed to the public. We sat in the courtyard for a while, contemplating waiting until it opened again, but decided against it, and headed back toward the ship.
We made it on the ship just before dinner ended, and rested for a while before heading out to a hookah bar. I am not a big fan of smoke of any kind, and was skeptical of intentionally putting myself in a situation in which it would be prevalent, but decided it would be worth it for the experience. We went to a bar that was on the underside of a bridge, right on the water with fishing lines hanging down, and fish periodically being reeled up. The chairs were large, brightly colored bean bags, and there was even music playing. I did not partake in the hookah, or water pipe as they are called, but had fun just talking and mostly observing the night life.
All in all it was a successful first day in Turkey. After we got over the initial shock of all of the differences, we were much more comfortable. Everyone we met was so friendly, although most of them own stores and are just trying to get business. The carpet salesmen are the worst. The first one we met stopped us to talk, and ended up guessing all of our heritage, and then the second tried, and failed, to invite us in for tea, saying it was okay because we had our “bodyguard” Jon with us. Later on in the day, a salesman called out as we passed “three angels and Charlie, how can I take your money”. Angels and Spice Girls are common terms used for non Turkish women here. It is entertaining to say the least. The other thing that is very different about Turkey is that they do not guess American first when you do not speak the language, and generally seem surprised when you tell them you are from the states. It is a god surprise most of the time though, they seem genuinely happy that we are visiting.

Last day in Greece

2009-07-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

7/16/2009

At 10am I met up with Jon, Athena and Amanda, and we set off toward the metro. I timed the walk to be 30 minutes, so we would know how long to leave ourselves to get back to the ship on time at the end of the day. We each purchased a day pass, and hopped on the metro, intending to get off at whichever stop looked most interesting. The first stop we chose was mainly residential, and did not offer us much in the ways of entertainment, or even food, so we decided to try again. This time, the stop we got off at brought us directly to the library, a huge building with pillars all along the front and intricate paintings and carvings. We decided this stop looked like a much more promising options, and started wondering around some. We decided to look for somewhere to get food after a while, and ended up at a crepe shop. They had the most amazing crepes ever! I got one off the children’s menu, as it had the toppings I wanted most. It was called snow white, and had strawberries, chocolate, white chocolate, and sprinkles. The others got different ones ranging from the special, which had about 10 different toppings including ice cream, to just chocolate and whipped cream. They were all phenomenal!
We ended up back at the tomb of the unknown soldier, where we stayed for a few minutes to watch the changing of the guards, and then hopped back on the metro. We indirectly ended up back in the flea market area, and spent a while wondering through the shops and spending the end of our euro, and then headed back toward the metro so we wouldn’t be late for shiptime. The last day in each port, there is shiptime, which means you have to be back on the ship by a certain time, usually 6pm, and if you are late, it means that you have to wait a given number of hours after arriving at the next port before you can disembark the ship. Not something I want to get! Before getting back on the metro, I got a nectarine and some cherries, and I enjoyed them on the right back to Pireaus. We made it back to the ship with time to spare, and cleaned up. I had a relaxing dinner, did some sink laundry, made sure all of my homework for our one day of class was complete, and then did a photo exchange with my travel buddies.
The one day on ship between ports was a busy one. After breakfast, I have a break long enough to check e-mail and get a little homework done before my first two classes of the day, which are back to back. Then it is time for lunch, and a break in which I attempt to catch up on reading for my last class of the day. After that class it is dinner time. I had a family dinner with my extended family, and it was fun to hear what everyone did in Greece, and what their plans were for Turkey. Family dinners also mean ice cream cake. This time it was mint chocolate chip, the best flavor yet! After dinner, the inter-port student tells us some about the country, and then we have pre-port, which tells us the basics about what to expect, what to wear, and what to avoid in the upcoming country.

Aegina

2009-07-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

7/15/2009

After a quick breakfast, and throwing all of the island necessities together, I headed to the ferry terminal with Jon, Athena, Amanda and Kara. We were going to meet Sara, David and Katie there. It was a brisk walk to the terminal, as we didn’t want to be late, and then we purchased our tickets and boarded the ferry. We went up to the top deck, and settled in for the hour plus ride. I slept for most of it. The sun was shining and it was nice and warm. Upon arrival at Aegina, we arranged our return tickets, and then went off to explore.
First, we stopped at a beach that was visible from the ferry, and maybe a five minute walk away. The water was some of the clearest water I have ever seen. Jon and I were the only two that went swimming, while everyone else just waded near the beach. We ran in to one of the professors on the ship and his family, and he showed us a map and explained what some possible activities for the day would be. He also told us that there was a much nicer beach about 10 minutes away. Following his advice, we packed up. Sara, David and Katie went to find food, and the rest of us went to Apollo’s Temple, where we first walked through a museum of artifacts, and then to the lone pillar still standing. It was different from all of the other ruins, because it was possible to walk right up and touch it. That is exactly what we did too! We took several pictures and from the temple, we could see the beach we wanted to go to.
We wondered down to scope it out, and all of us decided to go swimming. The water was the perfect temperature to be refreshing without being cold, and was crystal clear. It was so relaxing just to float. When we did finally start to cool down, we decided to get out and dry off for lunch. It did not take long to dry, as the sun was pretty sweltering. We gathered up our towels and bags, and headed into town. There were several restaurants that looked good, and we settled on one with outdoor seating under a shady umbrella. I ordered watermelon, because I was not that hungry yet, and it was some of the best watermelon I have ever had. When we were looking over the menu, I had been skeptical, but then I saw a heaping plate of watermelon come out to another table, and that solidified my decision.
In Greece, even while sitting at an established restaurant, street vendors and gypsies approach you during your meal. We had a guy come up and try to sell us watches, another with sunglasses, and then a man playing the accordion whose daughter (that could not have been over 10 years old) came up and stood right by our table with a little plastic cup and pleading eyes. It was definitely a new experience for me. Once we had taken our time eating, we decided to wonder through some of the little shops. Most of them had pretty similar stuff, and so our shopping escapade did not last long. We headed back to the beach. After another swimming session, and then just spending time in the shallow water soaking, we all got out to dry. We laid on the beach, and then dispersed to little patches of shade where the others read or wrote in journals, and I wrote some post cards to send home.
Around 6pm, we left the beach to walk back to the ferry stop, and make sure we had enough time for ice cream. We made it back on our ferry, where we sat outside for the ride back. I was much more awake this time around, and got to enjoy the beautiful views of islands and the sea. We made it back to our ship in one piece, and after a shower and a little down time, Kara, Amanda, Athena and I set back out to find a late dinner. I went along just because it was such a nice night, I had already eaten dinner and wasn’t’ hungry. The restaurant we found was very quaint, and we sat outside and looked over the menu. While we were looking at the menu, a man walked over and said “MV Explorer?” We all nodded, and he introduced himself as one of the guys that helped to build our ship and its sister ship the Voyager. He said he built the Jade Spa, and we all commented on how nice it was. He told us we had found the best restaurant in the city for fish, and asked why we hadn’t ordered any. (There had been some misunderstandings, and some of the food we ended up with was not expected at all). Kara and Athena asked his advice on how to order the fish, and he tried to explain, then he went back to sit down. A few minutes later, he came back and said “I ordered a fish for each of you” in a very proud way, and we thanked him before he left again. Sure enough, a few minutes later a platter shows up at our table with four fish on it. Athena and Kara each had two, Amanda and I opted out and offered ours to them. We thanked the builder of the MV again, and then walked back to the ship for bed. It is amazing how draining a day on an island can be.

It's a Small World

2009-07-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

7/14/2009

Tuesday morning, I set out with Jon, Sara, David, Francesca, Katie and Kara to go to the new Acropolis Museum. When we made it there, the line was full of huge tour groups and guides with numbers to keep their group in order. The museum was very interesting. It was rooms full of status and artifacts, and it is amazing how small some of the things they have recovered are. After walking around for a while, we turned a corner and who should I see walking toward me but my room mate from freshman year at Gonzaga, Lauren! She was as shocked as I was! After catching up a little, we parted ways. We explored the rest of the museum, and then left to go walking around. We ended up in similar flea market type streets, and when everyone else stopped to get lunch, I continued to shop around since I wasn’t that hungry (and I had packed snacks). I returned just as everyone was finishing up, and then we decided to walk around some more. It is crazy to be walking around and look up and see the Acropolis looming above all of the buildings and shops.
We made our way back to the metro, and then on our walk back to the ship decided to investigate ferry tickets for the next day. We found ferry times and Sara, David and Katie decided to join Athena, Amanda, Kara, Jon and I in our trip to Aegina we were planning on. After that, we returned to the ship, where we all parted ways to clean up and rest before the evening. There was supposedly free wifi in the cruise ship terminal, but after Kara, Jon and I all carted our laptops over there, and sat for fifteen minutes trying to connect, we decided to call it a failed mission and returned to the ship.
We ate dinner on the ship, and then Amanda and Athena got back from their day trip to Delphi, and we decided to go out. We didn’t have a destination in mind, but as we were walking, we ran into another group of SASers, and they said they were heading to a beach. We decided to tag along. After walking across the city, we ended up splitting off from the other group, and finding a nice rock wall that ran out along the water to sit on. We sat and talked and looked up at the stars, and after spending a little while there, we met three Greek teenagers, Helen, Nick and Andrew. They stopped to talk to us for quite a while, and we all had lots of questions. Eventually they had to leave because they are all in summer classes, and shortly after we decided to head back to the ship

The Acropolis

2009-07-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

7/13/2009

The sunrise as we pulled into Greece was luckily later than the previous port, and so after waking up and watching the sunrise, it was time to kill a little time checking e-mail, and then head to breakfast. I am always amazed when I wake up for the sunrise how warm it is when I go outside. It seems like early in the morning on the water it would be much colder, but I always open the door to the front deck and am blasted with warm air. This phenomenon could also be partially due to how cold it is on the ship. On class days I sometimes have to go out and warm myself before class so that I don’t freeze during class.
After breakfast and getting ready, I set out into Greece with Athena and Kara to see the Acropolis. We walked along the pier to the metro. I was happy when I saw that the maps and the stations were set up almost exactly like those in Rome, and I would be able to navigate easily all day. We switched lines at one of the stations, and then got off at the Acropolis station. The metro in Greece is basically like a free museum. There are stations with ruins in them, and almost all of them have artifacts of some form, such as clay pots and statues, and little plaques describing what they are. They are also immaculately clean. There are dogs everywhere though. They are on the streets, in the Ferry terminal at the pier, in the metro stations, all over the place. They are well fed, and even have collars, but none of them seem to have homes, and they were not very well bathed. All of them are absolutely adorable though, and if I had it my way, I would have about fifty new pets by now. I refrained though, forcing myself not even to pet them, which was a very difficult thing to do when they are so cute and friendly.
Back to the metro, we walked out of the station and up the street, and there it was, the Parthenon on top of the huge hill. We purchased our tickets and went in. First, we went through old statues and ruined amphitheaters, and then climbed up to the Parthenon and the temple of Athena. It was absolutely huge! There was scaffolding along a large portion of it. The funny things about ruins are they are constantly falling apart, and therefore must constantly be preserved and fixed. After getting our fill and attempting to soak in the magnitude of what we were seeing, we continued down to try to go to the new Acropolis Museum, which, of course, is closed on Monday. Instead, we continued on to the streets filled with little shops and cafes. After shopping around for a little while, we decided to find lunch. The café we found had amazing food and friendly service! I knew I was going to like Greece when they brought out a free pitcher of water while we were looking over the menu. They don’t seem to think water is free in Europe, because everywhere else it comes in bottles, and only upon request. We all got sandwiches.
After lunch, we found the Temple of the Olympian Zeus. There were an extremely large number of dogs laying in the shade by the temple, and they were even being fed and had water bowls out. At least although they are strays, they are being taken care of. We left the temple and went exploring further through the streets of Athens, and ended up at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We had missed the changing of the guards by about 15 minutes, but we stopped to take lots of pictures of the guards, who stood as still as statues, only moving to pound their gun when someone got too close. A constant stream of people would file up to take pictures next to them, and then move to allow the next person to get a picture. There were also enough pigeons in the square to rival St. Marco’s Square in Venice, and many people were feeding them. They were some of the fattest pigeons I have ever seen! While we were there, we ran into Jessica, Katlyn, and Katlyn’s family. They are our neighbors on the ship, and Katlyn’s family is in Greece for the next week or two. After chatting with them, we decided to walk down to the library, which was gorgeous. So intricate and so much detail to every part of it.
We then walked back to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier so that we could watch the guards change out. They have quite the intricate little routine worked out, that is almost completely synchronized. From there, we took the metro again looking for the ancient market, and ended up instead in a flea market full of little shops and stores selling fun things. We shopped around for quite a while, and then once we had our fill, we made our way back to the metro and decided to continue on to the Olympic Stadium.
As the metro continued along, it kept getting more and more crowded, until everyone was packed in like sardines. We were wondering what station they were all going too, and then we hit the stop we wanted and everyone piled out. We exited the station, and could see all of the people pouring through the gates to the Olympic Stadium. Not knowing what exactly was going on, we decided to just go with it, and follow the crowd until we were stopped. As we got to the second gate to get into the actual stadium, we were convinced we would be asked for tickets, or stopped for some reason. It didn’t happen, we continued through, and followed the crowd to a tent that was set up, where we received free t-shirts and hats. From there we walked into the stands, and sat down. There was the Athens Grand Prix going on, with athletes from around the world participating in track and field events, and as we sat there watching, the crowd kept growing. It was a lot of fun to watch track and field, and imagine what the stadium must have been like during the 2004 Olympics. Then, we made our way back to the ship, where we had a mellow night, and went to bed early.

Sea Olympics! Go Aegean Sea!

2009-07-16T13:17:00.000-07:00

7/12/2009

Our second day between Croatia and Greece was a no class day, and I was excited about getting sleep and relaxing, having a lazy morning, and not worrying about a schedule, but from the very beginning, the day did not go as I had planned. I woke up much earlier than I wanted, probably because Athena and I were so tired the night before we forgot to close the window over our porthole and it got bright in our room. It turned out to be a good thing though, because as I finally decided it was time to get out of bed and stop trying to fall back asleep, the tell tale chimes of the PA system rang out, and we were informed there would be a life boat drill in 20 minutes. Lifeboat drills include putting on long pants and long sleeves, a head covering (a hat), and close toed shoes. Putting on the life jacket provided in your cabin, and making your way up to the emergency section to wait for roll and inspection finishes up the lifeboat drills. The siren sounded exactly 20 minutes after the warning, and explained that a lifeboat drill was taking place. Everyone stumbled out of their rooms at this point and made their way up to the fifth deck where the emergency stations are located right next to the life boats. Once we were out on the deck at our emergency stations, which are marked by a letter and number on our life jackets, one of the crew members calls out the names of everyone in that group. It takes forever and we are all smashed together in our bulky orange life vests. It was very warm, and it was also easy to tell that several people had been woken up by the drill. We managed to finish with role pretty quickly, but then everyone has to wait for the captain to walk by each group and approve them. We got approved on the first try. Lastly, the captain made a quick announcement saying it was the “best drill he has seen ever yet so far on this voyage” or something along those lines, whatever that means.
After such an unexpected start to the day, there was time to relax for a little while and prepare for the Sea Olympics. The Sea Olympics is comprised of a series of different events, all of which earn points. In the end, the most points wins. The teams are divided by hall, or sea, meaning that the entire second deck was on one team because we are so much smaller than the other decks. We are the Aegean Sea, appropriate as we were headed toward Greece which is bordered by the Aegean while competing in the Olympics. The events included synchronized swimming, pictionary, paper boat races, academic bowl, dodge ball, lip synch, relay race and sea makeover. It ended up being a fun filled day, but not quite the relaxation I needed. I participated in the relay race, and watched several other events. The synchronized swimming was really entertaining, to say the least. A group of four boys from the Aegean Sea did the synchronized swimming to the thong song, with thongs drawn on with sharpie, fully complete with stars, hearts and bows. It was pretty hilarious and definitely had the most audience participation. Unfortunately, the judges didn’t agree, and we didn’t get as high of a score as I thought we deserved. At the lip synch, there was one absolutely hilarious act. It was a guy named Eric who put on hair extensions, had a full dress, heals, and make-up. He even had stuffed boobs! He sang the “when I think about you I touch myself” song and it was ridiculous. He did an amazing job, and never broke character. At the make-over, all of the guys were made in to girls, and most of them could walk better in heals than me! They made very pretty girls. Once the scores were totaled from all of the events, a closing ceremony took place. The Aegean Sea came in third!
After the closing ceremonies, which basically consisted of announcing the winners, it was time for a dinner bbq. The line was ridiculously long, and took forever as they kept running out of food. The day wound up with preparing for Greece, and trying to catch up on school work.

Kayaking and Cliff Jumping

2009-07-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

7/10/2009

I woke up this morning in time for a quick breakfast on the ship, and then headed outside at 8am to meet the group I was kayaking with. It was supposed to be 14 of us, and Audrey, the girl that set it up, was not too happy when 8:05 rolled around and only 6 people were there. Eventually, 10 showed up, and then I ran inside to wake up one Jon, who had shown interest in going, so we had a group of 11. It was quite the fiasco trying to catch the bus and get to our destination, as the bus the kayak company told us to take only ran once every hour or so, and we had missed it by about 15 minutes. We ended up being around 45 minutes late when we finally showed up to the beach! As we were walking through the pier, and trying to figure out the bus schedule, the videographer from the ship was following us and filming for the different promotional videos they make. Who knows, I could end up in an advertisement. Once we made it to the beach, which was a little past Old Town, we apologized for being late and started getting ready. Our guide was named Marco, and he was very friendly. He spoke English, but would make funny mistakes in the different tenses and sentence order and such. At one point instead of asking if I wanted him to loan me water, he asked if he could borrow me some water. He also remembered our names by associating them with celebrities, so I immediately got dubbed Whitney Houston. After getting all of us into water skirts and water shoes, giving us dry bags to hold our belongings, and teaching us how to hold a paddle, we grabbed kayaks and headed to the water. We paddled along the shore to the old city, and then crossed to Lokrum Island, where we paddled the shoreline for a while and then stopped at a little inlet to get out of our kayaks and explore. It was about a 2 hour paddle to get to the inlet, but we had some pretty slow paddlers in our group. When we got on the island, Marco pointed out the dead sea, which apparently connects to the ocean somehow, but looked a lot more like a saltwater lake. There was a rope swing, a cave going into the rock, and a cliff to jump off of, but first, our group continued to lunch.
There were no cars on the island at all, I think the restaurant where we ate was one of the only buildings, and there were peacocks running around everywhere. They were huge too! They put the one at the Oregon Zoo to shame. After lunch, I went for a swim in the dead sea, and watched as some of our group shimmied up the rock cliff and jumped off. I opted out, as I don’t think I could have even climbed up without falling. When our guide showed up to gather us all up, he first decided to show up all of the other jumpers. He climbed up the rock face like it was nothing, and then did a perfect swan dive from about 40 feet up. Then, it was time to go. We got back in our kayaks and paddled around the island to go back instead of just going back the way we had come. On the way, we passed a nudist beach! Not something I was prepared for. I had been paddling along looking at the pretty cliffs and trees that lined the island, and all of a sudden I was staring at a bunch of naked people, most of whom were old men. It was disturbing. It quickly looked away, trying to forget what I had just seen. Yuck! We paddled back across to where we started, and the water was much rougher than it had been on the crossing to the island, but still lots of fun. We made it back to the beach around 2pm, giving us 4 hours until on ship time. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to walk back, and get a little extra time to take in everything. Three others agreed and joined me. It is so pretty all long the coast in Croatia, that it was a really enjoyable walk.
Halfway through our walk back, we decided to stop at the swimming spot that I found the first day, and after climbing down all of the stairs, we realized that it was really crowded. When I first found it, there was no one else there. This time around, there were a whole bunch of SAS kids down there, and even a few locals. We got in the water and swam for a while, and watched some of the other people jump off the platform. We decided it looked fun, so we climbed out and went up to jump too. I love the adrenaline rush of jumping, but only when I know it will be a happy ending. We each jumped in a few times, and got some pictures, and then got out to dry off. Once we deemed ourselves dry enough to continue walking, we started the long climb back up the stairs. We stopped at a few of the little shops along the way for some last minute gifts and souvenirs, and then it was back onto the ship for a shower and dinner. I was so salty from all of the sea water that it was starting to crystallize on my skin. After dinner, I did a picture exchange with my different travel companions. All in all it was one of my favorite days on this trip so far.

Island Hopping

2009-07-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

7/9/2009

I find myself frequently having the thought that life can’t get much better. Today, I spent the day island hopping… in Croatia! After waking up a little later than expected (I slept through breakfast), I met up with Amanda, Jon and Eli, and we walked into the old city. We were looking for a ferry to the one visible island, but came across something a million times better! It was a boat that went to three different islands, included lunch and unlimited drinks, and would take up almost the whole day! It was in a square that was full of the different companies advertising their tours, but the one we got pulled into first seemed like the best deal. The guy was so friendly explaining what all was included, and what we would do. He even gave us a special family deal. I think it is because he thought Amanda was a lot younger than the rest of us, and so when he was talking about the last island we would visit, he said it was great for the children and pointed at her, and she gave him the stink eye. He started backpedaling then, saying "at this island, everyone is child. I am three times your age, and when I go there I am child, playing in sand and building towers like baby". It was very funny. With our family discount, we each had to pay 175 kuna, or roughly 35 USD for a 7+ hour cruise including three islands, a full lunch, and unlimited drinks (water, soda, juice, wine, funky homemade brandy that no one wanted to try...). I thought that was a pretty good deal, and by the end of the day we all agreed it was well worth it!
There were roughly 30 people on board, and the boy serving up drinks looked like he was about 12. We asked, and he said he was 15. The boat showed up at 10:45, right on schedule, we all loaded, and away we went. It was a rocky ride, bringing back memeories of the first few days crossing the ocean, but it was fun too, and it gave us some amazing views of Croatia. We got to spend 45 minutes at the first island, which was called Kolocep. Once they pull up, they unload the boat and have a sign saying what time we all need to be back, and everyone disperses. We went to the beach and swam for a while, and saw some other SAS kids that were doing the same 3 island tour, but with a different company. They paid at least 50 more kuna each for their tours, and didn’t get as long at all of the islands! We hoped back on our boat, and climbed up to the top sun deck, where a table was set up and our meals were passed up. There was an option for fish, chicken, or vegetarian. I obviously selected the vegetarian one. It was delicious. Roasted eggplant and onion, cucumber, tomato, cheese, fresh bread, and one of the best apples I have ever had. I even had a glass of wine with lunch, and commented on how I could get used to that life. As we were getting served our food, the boat started its journey toward the next island, and we had an escort of around 20 seagulls for quite some time. They were getting thrown all of the scraps, which is probably why they followed.
At the next island, Sipan, we had another 50 minutes in which we walked around and explored the island, and then just sat and soaked in how amazing everything was. We hopped back on the boat and headed to the last island, Lopud, where we spent a full three hours enjoying the sun and sand. We chose to walk across the island to the sandy beach that has shallow water extending for a long ways in front of it. Other than being mildly scared by some of the fellow beach users being completely nude (males and females included), it was an amazing time. We floated in the refreshing water, and enjoyed the tree covered hills surrounding us. After we had our fill, we trekked back across the island, which was only about a 20 minute walk, got some gelato and did a little perusing through the souvenir shops. By that time, it was time to get back on our boat and head back.
We pulled away from the dock, but then circled back immediately, apparently not all of the passengers were on time, and as we were pulling away two British girls were frantically running toward the dock. After loading them, it was time to leave for good. We were all very happy with how the day had gone, but also very drained from all the sun. The shade on the lower deck of the boat, and the rocking of the waves nearly put us all to sleep. As we got closer, and there was more boat traffic, the rocking became a little less mellow, and a lot more extreme! The boat was sloshing from side to side with water splashing up on each side as it rocked. It was really fun. We made it back to the old city in time for a brisk walk back to the ship and a free dinner on the ship. All of us agreed that it was one of our favorite days so far, and money well spent.
On each of the islands, we had been running into the SASers doing the same tour with other companies, and we made plans to meet up with Jack when we got back to the ship and had dinner. There was talk of going out, or even going to see a movie, but in the end we chose to just stay in. Jack was really pushing going to a movie, but Amanda and I were dragging our feet, and then we heard an announcement that Boondock Saints was playing on the ship, so our problems were solved. They had free snacks set out, and we made it through about half the movie before we all started falling asleep and decided it was time to go to our rooms so we would be ready for our last day in Croatia.

Tendering and Heat Lightening

2009-07-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

7/8/2009

Day two in Croatia brought a slow start, and then more beach time. Amanda, Athena, Kara and I got off the boat early, since our boat was going to be tendering for part of the day. That means that our slip at the pier was going to be used by other ships, and so our ship would be anchored out in the bay, and tender boats would be transporting students between the ship and the shore. Eventually, we decided to just walk around the peninsula near the peir, and we ended up with a perfect view of the MV Explorer anchored in the harbor, and a beach that was not full of SASers. There was a really pretty pathway along the water that had trees on either side, and some houses and a lot of little fishing boats along the water that we walked along to get to the beach. We spent several hours swimming, laying in the sun, and generally having a good time. As we were getting ready to leave anyway, another group of SAS kids showed up, and immediately they all stuck out like sore thumbs. There were a lot of them, and they were very loud and slightly obnoxious. We took that as our cue to finish gathering up our stuff, and head back toward the ship. We stopped for a late lunch along the way. The place we ate at had a rooftop terrace where we sat in the shade of umbrellas overlooking the water and all of the boat traffic. Because of the strange timing of our meal, no one else was eating there, so we had the entire terrace to ourselves. There were little song birds all around that were very friendly. I think they were used to getting table scraps, and so they would hop between the tables and chairs all around us just watching and waiting. After a long, relaxing meal in the comfortable shade, we continued our walk back to the ship.
We made it to the pier just in time to get our bags checked and hop on the last tender boat going to the MV. The tender boats are actually our life boats, and they are covered, and fit up to 150 people. They loaded this one pretty full. It was about a 15 minute ride to get out to our ship, where we unloaded onto a floating platform, and climbed some stairs to get inside. The entire tender boat ride, I had some girl I hadn’t met yet talking at me. I got her entire life story, most of which I think was fabricated… It was good entertainment to say the least. Once we were back on the ship, I decided to go up to the gym and go for a quick run while I waited for the shower. It was the least rocky run I have had in quite some time. Then it was time for a shower and dinner, and by that time we were back in our slip at the pier and able to leave the ship again.
My amazing day ended with the perfect summer evening. As we were getting ready to go out, huge black clouds rolled in, and lightening started. It was heat lightening, so there was no thunder, and no rain, and it was still almost uncomfortably warm outside. We watched for a while from the deck of the ship, trying to capture it on film. I had my camera out and ready, but every time a lightening bolt lit up the sky, I would be so distracted staring at it I would forget to click the button and take a picture. Then, we decided to go out for the night, as some of the girls I was with wanted to find a bar. We walked in toward old town, watching the sky periodically flash along the way. Croatia is almost as stunning by night as it was by day, and our end destination beat almost anywhere. We ended up making our way to the cliff side bar we had seen from the city walls the day before, where the doorway opened up through the city walls into an adorable, candle lit patio overlooking the water, full moon, and clouds flashing with lightening. The candles provided dim lighting, and there was soothing music playing, and the moonlight was dancing across the water's surface. It reminded me of old time movies. We were sitting on the top patio, but I went down to the bottom one for a while to get an unobstructed view. After quite a while of just enjoying life, we made our way back to the ship. The weather was perfect on the walk back. Warm enough not to need a jacket or sweater of any kind still, but cool enough to be comfortable walking. After nights like this, it is hard to imagine life can get better.

City Walls and Beaches

2009-07-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

7/7/2009

The sunrise the morning we were pulling into Croatia was an early one. If I remember properly it was 5:20am. It was really pretty though, and after a few extra hours of sleep, and going to breakfast, it was time to go out and explore Croatia. Croatia is absolutely gorgeous! In the morning, I went walking with Jon, Athena, Amanda and Kara, and we just explored near the ship for a while because Athena and Jon had to be back at the ship for the city walls tour. Amanda, Kara and I made a plan to meet up with them at the beach later in the afternoon, and then we headed back to the ship to change and grab a quick, free lunch. We decided to walk to the Old City area, instead of taking the bus, and it was the right decision to make. The walk takes about one hour at a leisurely pace, and goes up over a hill. When we got to the top of the hill, the bath overlooks a little inlet that is stunning. Looking down and taking pictures, we saw a stairway going down that ended in a platform and a ladder into the water. As we continued walking along, we found the top of the staircase, and after exchanging exciting looks, we decided to go down and explore. It was a long ways down, and when we got to the bottom, we saw a platform carved into the rock with little tables and benches, and even a shade covering. When we got onto the platform, we realized that “locals only” was painted all over at random around the platform, but there was also a sign saying “guests” on an arrow pointing past the platform. Upon investigation, we realized it lead to a platform with no shade or tables, and so we decided the best choice would be to leave our bags on that platform. It was deserted when we got there, and so after setting down our towels and bags, we climbed down the rest of the stairs and crawled down the ladder into the water. It was so amazing. The water was the perfect temperature to be refreshing, but not too cold to be comfortable. We swam for a pretty decent amount of time, and as we were swimming, two more pairs of people showed up and came in. I think people were seeing us swim from the walkway, and decided it looked like a good idea. We were kind of worried when they first appeared that they would get mad if they found out we were American (American's have a bad reputation pretty much everywhere), so we made up our own language to sound like we were from another country. It worked, except we couldn't understand what anyone was saying.
We climbed out, took some pictures and dried off, and then we began the long climb back up to the road. We continued our walk to old town, and when we got there, all we could see was the large city wall surrounding it. To the right, there was a tall rock island with a diving board set up probably 70 feet in the air for the diving competition that was part of the summer festival that would begin the day we left Croatia. SAS has kind of made a habit of having us leave each country a day or two before the festivals start, but it is probably for the best. We decided to do the city walls tour, because we heard it was well worth it, so we purchased our tickets and climbed up all of the stairs to the top of the wall. As we reached the top, we just happened to be in the middle of an SAS tour, and there were Jon and Athena. Looks like we wouldn’t have to worry about our meeting time after all! We walked around with their tour group for a while, and took in all of the amazing views. It was gorgeous looking out over the Sea and the City, but it was also really hot. When we couldn’t handle the temperature anymore, we decided to search for a swimming spot. From the top of the walls, we had seen a bar nestled into the cliff side, and a bunch of people were cliff jumping from one of the rocks. That was our goal because Kara really wanted to jump. We wound through some of the streets until we found a little wooden sign pointing at the city wall and reading “cold drinks”. We followed where it pointed, walking through a gateway in the wall, and popped out at the top of a staircase leading us down to three platforms covered in umbrellas and tables, with a bar on the middle one, and then past that a throng of people on an unsheltered platform, some of whom were climbing over the railing and jumping in. The cliff was a little higher than I like to jump from, and the audience was a little to big, so I opted out, but Kara went for it.
Next, it was off to the beach, which s crowded, but a lot of the people were other SASers so we knew them. The water felt so amazingly cool and refreshing. We came back to the ship for free dinner, and then ended up staying in for the night. I have been battling a cold since the end of Italy, so I was planning to call it a lazy night anyway, but it seems like all of us were feeling pretty lazy. We played Apples to Apples, and had a great time. Day one in Croatia was an overall success!

Naples and Pompeii

2009-07-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

7/5/2009

The last day in Italy, I woke up and went up to breakfast, where I ran into Amanda, Kara and Athena. They were all planning on going to Pompeii for the day, and so I decided to tag along. None of us wanted to bring many belongings along after all the warnings we had had about pick-pocketers. I left the ship with my money belt tucked securely under my shirt, and my camera in hand, and that was it. We began our walk to the train station with only a vague idea of where we were going, but luckily ran into several fellow SASers that gave us more detailed directions and instructions for when we got there. Walking through Naples was even worse than taking to bus through it. Garbage was everywhere, and lots of areas had very strong and unpleasant smells. I was happy when I discovered we were not, in fact going to the main train station – which the guy on my flight back from Naples had warned me to avoid – but rather a smaller side station. We got there and purchased our tickets, and then went down and hoped on the train.
Aside from being somewhat rundown, Naples was hot, and slightly muggy. I feel like I have never sweated so much in my life. The train ride to Naples was short, and there were several other SASers with the same plan. We got there, and walked to the entrance and got in the line for tickets. When we got to the front, Kara tried to pay first, but she didn’t have the exact change, and the guy behind the ticket counter flipped out. Nowhere did it say that you must pay in exact change, apparently it was an unspoken rule or something. He started yelling about it and then stood up in a huff, practically threw a stack of one euro coins at her, and then yelled “now you have all my change, it is yours, take it” in a very rude way! We were all standing there somewhat shocked by the whole ordeal. Once we all managed to get tickets, we went in and started our exploration. Instead of paying for a tour, we grabbed a map that had the key sites marked with numbers, and a booklet that described what was at each number. Other than the ruins of old buildings, one of the first things we saw was a storage type unit for all of the pots some statues, and even some of the plaster casts they had discovered. It was very sad to see them and realize that it was in fact representative of a real person. There was one of a dog that was contorted and on its back, apparently it had been trying to free itself from the chain it was hooked to and run away, but never managed to. There was another one of a pregnant woman laying on her stomach and shielding her face. We moved on from there, and wondered around the whole city.
One of the more interesting buildings was the brothel. Inside the door, there were rooms lining the hallway with pictures above each doorway and a large, stone bed in each room. One side of the bed even had stones that were slightly raised, like pillows. None of them looked comfortable though. The worst part was the two stray dogs that were curled up sleeping in two of the rooms. They were no doubt trying to beat the heat, as all throughout Pompeii it was almost unbearably warm. There were some faucets around, and as we were walking, we would run our arms or legs under to cold water to cool down some. Back to the brothel, the pictures about each door were kind of like a menu, which seemed very strange, but apparently there were frequently language barriers, and that was the best approach. After that, we went to the coliseum, and a few other of the key buildings. It was crazy how well preserved some of the buildings were, with artwork and marble counter tops still looking like new. The streets even showed ware marks in the stone from carts wheeling along them. There were also crosswalks, composed of large, raised stones, because apparently back when Pompeii was inhabited, the streets flowed with sewage, which the carts were fine to drive through, but the people didn’t want to have to walk in.
We left Pompeii when we were all so hot we couldn’t handle it anymore, and hopped on the train back to Naples. We walked past the ship looking for food, and when the other girls found somewhere in the less sketchy part of Naples, I continued one block past them to look for some last minute souvenirs. Then, it was time to go back to the ship. It was kind of nice to be back on the ship and getting ready to head back out to sea.
We had a belated fourth of July BBQ, and the kids on the ship put on a parade. They were so cute dressed in red, white and blue with face paint and flags. And then we had an evening full of meetings and preparing for the next port. The one day of class that came next seemed so disjointed and out of place. It flew by and before I knew it, it was the pre-port before Croatia, and then sleep before another four crazy days in Croatia.

The Ghetto

2009-07-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

7/4/2009

The morning routine was pretty much the same as the night before, but we also packed up everything in our rooms. After breakfast, we did one last check for belongings, and then checked out of the hotel. The lady working the reception desk, Valentina, was so friendly, and she let us leave our bags there while we went to the beach, so we didn’t have to worry about lugging them around. Being a Saturday, and summer, the beach was pretty crowded. As we got closer to the water, the sand also became covered in shells. They were good shells too! Not just broken little pieces, but full spirals and many different colors. The water was a comfortable temperature, but I refrained from swimming, knowing that I would not have the option of a shower until after returning to the ship, and I did not want to have to fly back covered in salt water and sand. We stopped for gelato on the way back to the hotel to pick up our things, and it was the best gelato I had in Italy! I don’t know if it was just the atmosphere, or if it was actually the gelato, but it was so creamy and delicious.
We sat and savored every last bit of gelato, and then continued on to pick up our bags. While we were gathering them, we asked Valentina if there was anywhere we could fill our water bottles, and she just gave us brand new, ice cold ones for free! She said tat she liked us, and next time she wanted to go out with us instead of working. We left to catch the water bus back to the airport, and checked in for our flight. As we were checking in, we kept seeing more and more SAS kids in the airport waiting to check in for their flights. In the end, I would say there were probably at least 20 SAS kids on the same flight we had back to Naples. While we were waiting, the flight got delayed with no announcement at all, making me happy we were flying back with a day to spare rather than cutting it too close.
Once the line finally started moving, and turned quickly into a mob scene rather than a line, and we all crammed into the shuttle and made it to the airplane and got on we were so happy to be done waiting. Sarah, Audrey and I sat in the very front row, which was nice because we had lots of leg room. I spent most of the flight reading for class, and as we got closer to Naples, started looking out the window. We could clearly see Mt. Vesuvius, which was really pretty. As we were gathering our bags from the overhead bin, the guy sitting behind us started talking to us. He was from New York and traveling on business, and told us he goes to Naples a lot, and we should make sure to “watch ourselves”. Not the most comforting, but good advice nonetheless. As he continued talking to us, he also recommended that we avoid the train station, and maybe if we smiled a lot and didn’t talk much we could pass as Germans, and we wouldn’t be bothered as much. We thanked him, and then headed through the airport with the intention of taking a taxi to the port. As we got outside, one of the other SASers said that there was a bus that would take us there for much cheaper, so we all ran over and hopped on the bus. We exchanged stories from Venice with the other groups, and got to see a little bit of Naples while we were at it. That is when I decided I was glad I didn’t have more time in Naples. It was kind of a ghetto. There was lots of garbage, some frightening looking people, and all in all next to Venice it was like I was on a completely different planet! We realized that the guy on the plane had not been joking around, and we should probably take his advice.
We got dropped off right in front of a castle, which was next to the port. Walking down to the port entrance, we saw what couldn’t have been anything else but the remnants of a cannon impact on the wall of the castle, and were bombarded with people selling goods on the street. Knock off pursed galore! We made it to the port entrance, and found out there was a shuttle running back and forth to our ship, since the port area was so large. We jumped onto the shuttle, waited a little while before it took off, and then made it back to the MV Explorer. The Explorer is no longer foreign and new, but rather it is a comfortable home to return to after traveling for a few nights in each country. It looked especially inviting after four days of travel, and knowing that dinner was being served upstairs. We rushed on to the bus, and ran up the four flights of stares to the dining hall still donning our backpacks and other luggage. When we got up there, we had barely 5 minutes before they stopped serving food, so it was perfect timing to load up a tray, catch our breaths, and then relax before eating.
Venice was such an adorable city, and next to it Naples, with its garbage, run down buildings, homeless people, and all around uninviting feel made it seem like we were not only in a different country, but a whole different world from where we had been the past few days.

Clam's got nothing on me...

2009-07-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

7/3/2009

On Friday morning, I woke up as planned and went down to the breakfast provided by the hotel. It was really good, with some pastries, delicious granola, and even little packets of nutella (some of which I snagged to bring back to the ship with me). I was even convinced to try the coffee, since Italian coffee is supposed to be really good, and enjoyed it. I don’t think it will become a habit though, still not quite sweet enough for my taste. After breakfast, we grabbed our pursed and headed out to find a ferry from Lido to Venice. While we were waiting to figure out the best water bus option, Kelly made the statement that she was “happy as a clam”. Personally, I don’t really think of clams as overly exuberant creatures, and so my automatic response was that “clam’s got nothing on me”, which was true. Venice was such a beautiful place it would have taken a lot more work than I was willing to put in to not have an amazing time. We took the shortest one that just got us to the same island as St Marco’s Square, and walked along the waterfront to get there. It was so pretty with parks, bridges, and lots of people out and about. When we got a little closer, we started running into street vendors, and shopped around a little. I mainly looked so I had a price reference for throughout the rest of the day. We arrived in St. Marcos Square, and it was so amazing. All I could think about was the movie “The Italian Job” and the beginning scene of the gold heist in Venice. The Square was crowded, and pigeons were everywhere. I almost got pooped on by one of them! I was walking along and splat, right in front of my face. I think it fell not even two inches from my nose. I am very glad it didn’t hit me though. After taking our fare share of pictures in St. Marco’s Square, we continued through the narrow walk ways, trying to leave the crowd behind. While we were walking, we got enticed to do a gondola ride. Split five ways, the price wasn’t that bad at all, and we were all ready to have somewhere to sit down.
We loaded up the gondola, with our driver seating us strategically to balance the weight, and then away we went. I felt like he knew everyone else that was out on a boat, especially all of the other gondola drivers, and I felt like they were talking about us. Hopefully they were saying nice things. It was so peaceful going around the canals, and as we passed important buildings, our driver would point them out and say their significance. After a rather long amount of time passed, we were back where we started and continued our roaming through the streets. We found a cute little café for lunch in view of the Rialto bridge, and took our time eating. Tara and Kelly stayed sitting at the table while Audrey, Sarah and I walked to take pictures of the bridge. It was the classic view of all of the postcards from Venice, and absolutely stunning. The stairs were marble, and worn down from years of foot traffic, making them very slick. Walking back down them, Sarah slipped, but didn’t fall. When she caught herself, two older Greek ladies that were walking next to us yelled out “Hoopah!”, and threw their arms in the air. That made us all laugh. We got back to the table, settled our check, and decided what was next. Tara opted to go back to the hotel, and Audrey, Sarah, Kelly and I continued our adventure through Venice. We took lots of pictures, especially of the buildings that were noticeably crooked, sad proof that Venice is in fact, sinking. Then, we stopped at a wine bar, where the other girls ordered Spritzers, and Audrey got a plate of roasted red peppers that she shared. They were amazing. We stole some of the bread to bring back to St. Marco’s Square to feed the pigeons too. After that, it was time for some gelato, and a relaxing stroll back to the square.
There were little kids running around chasing the pigeons and trying to stomp on them, and when Sarah held out her bread, she was swarmed by birds. One promptly landed on her shoulder and began eating from there. As she was crouched down with the bird on her shoulder, a little girl with a face covered in gelato came up to here, and Sarah offered her some bread to feed the birds. The girl seemed a little confused by the whole process, but also seemed to enjoy it. After all of the bread was gone, we made our way over to a bench to look at out map and figure out where we wanted to go next. The two people on the bench, a dad and son, just happened to be from Dallas, Texas, where the girls I was traveling with all were from or went to school near, and so we chatted with them for a while. We may have even convinced the kid to go on SAS as a study abroad program when he gets to college. After wishing them a good rest of their trip, we decided to head back to the hotel to clean up, and then go get dinner on Lido.
After some quick power naps, and just rejuvenating after a long day in the heat, we looked for food. There was nothing to special, so we went back to the same restaurant we ate at the night before. It was good food at a good price, and the waitress was much friendlier the second time around. None of us were feeling too rambunctious after food, so we decided to call it a kind of early night, and headed back for bed, making plans to go to the beach the next day before our flight out.

Roma to Venezia

2009-07-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

7/2/2009

After waking up at 8:30 (Kelly had to leave for the airport at 9, and Athena and Amanda had left at 3:30am), I quickly dressed, packed, and snagged some of the free fruit provided in our rooms. I also grabbed a voucher for the continental breakfast that was served across the street at the hostel. Breakfast consisted of orange juice, a yogurt, a role with apricot jam, and a glazed croissant. I enjoyed it outside at the tables while getting some reading in for class. I took a long time eating, as I had no hurry, but also did not have enough time to do anything big with my day. After breakfast, I went to the train station, checked out what times the trains to the airport left, and bought my ticket. While at the train station, I ran into some fellow SASers that were headed to the Vatican, After chatting some about what they had done the night before, and what their plans were for the rest of the day, I did some window shopping and exploring down the street right by the train station that one of the German ladies had recommended to me. It was very fun to just walk down the street looking at the stores, and the end closest to the train station had a large circle with a fountain in the middle. The traffic in Italy, or rather the driving, is crazy. There are no lane lines on the roads, which are all made out of brick or cobblestone or some other uneven surface. Traffic lights also seem to be a bit more of a suggestion than anything else. And then there are the motorcycles and scooters… I don’t know how there are not more accidents, because I feel like with the haphazard approach to driving they would be quite prevalent.
After I got my fill of shopping, I headed back to the train station where I successfully located the proper platform, and waited for the train to show up. It was a short 30 minute train ride, during which I squeezed in some more reading for class, and then it was too the airport, figuring out the proper terminal, and getting through security. All of that was very easy and straightforward, and before I knew it I was sitting at my gate waiting to load. After not too long the other girls on my flight showed up, and then we were loading. There seems to be no real concept of lines in the transportations system. One will be formed, but then when it starts moving everyone just crowds to the front, making the line wider than it is long. We walked down to the tarmac, and loaded a waiting bus, which then drove us out to our plane, where again there was no regard for boarding groups or any such thing as everyone rushed up the staircase to the plane.
It seemed like almost immediately after the plane got above the clouds and I was able to briefly nap that we were descending again. Coming into the airport, Venice was clearly visible, and we kept getting lower and lower over the water. For a while it looked like it was going to be a water landing, and then, at the last minute, land appeared. We took a water bus from the airport to Lido. It is basically a large boat that makes stops at several different locations, and provided us with anice scenic tour of Venice on the way to our hotel, the Hotel Rigel. I don’t even know how to describe what a different world Venice is, the boats drive down “roads” marked by wooden pillars in the water, and there are places where there seems to be not real regulation. We got to Lido, and found our hotel very easily, and then we checked in. Kelly was not there, so I hung out in Audrey, Sarah, and Tara’s room, and as soon as we made a game plan for the evening and started getting ready, Kelly got back.
The island of Lido was like a quiet little paradise. It was so gorgeous everywhere, and there were so many bikes and not many cars or motorcycles at all. We wondered around the streets for a while looking for the beach. We were unsuccessful. First, we found a stairway down to the water that provided the perfect backdrop to several photographs and a perch for us to all sit looking out at the sunset over Venice and let it sink in that this was really happening. When we finally pried ourselves away, we found a very cute restaurant for dinner. I got the Margarita pizza, which is colored red, white and green after the Italian flag, and it was very good. After taking our time and enjoying the atmosphere and conversation, we made our way to the main street for gelato. So good! As we were enjoying our gelato, two Italian boys came up and introduced themselves to us as Davide and Alberto. They each walked down the line of 5 of us, shaking each of our hands and repeating their names. They chatted with us for a while, and then invited us to the beach. We decided that since there were 5 of us, and only two of them, it was safe to go. Plus, we really wanted to know where the beach was. There was a slight language barrier, but we were all able to communicate fairly well. When we got to the beach, we realized we had been going the complete wrong direction when we had been looking before. It was a very nice beach, very big. There was also a little bar set up at the close end of it, so we sat there and talked some more before bidding our new friends goodnight and heading back to our hotel. We made plans to meet up at the free breakfast our hotel provides the next morning, and went to our respective rooms for bed. After just one night in Venice, I already knew I would want much longer than I had to stay there.

Rome Continued

2009-07-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

7/1/2009

After the Pantheon, it was off to the Trevi fountain. The superstition goes that if you toss in one coin, you will be back some day, two coins is a wish for love and three coins is a wish for divorce. Each coin must be tossed in separately, facing away from the fountain and holding the coin in your right hand, then throwing it across your body over your left shoulder. I threw in one coin, as I did not have nearly enough time in Italy to truly see everything and absorb it all. The Trevi fountain is one of the places our tour guide recommended for cheap gelato, and that was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up! It was AMAZING! I got raspberry and strawberry because it as so hot and humid out (especially with my fully loaded backpack for the 4 days and 3 nights off the ship) and I needed something refreshing and light. We enjoyed it while people watching in the Piazza, then we moved on to the Spanish steps. Luckily we approached from the top, and just had to walk down. At the top of the steps, there were more vendors selling artwork, and a spectacular view of the city. After getting our fill, we headed down the steps, which are actually quite slippery from years of wear making them smooth and slightly sloped, and into the Metro station. We got day passes, which allowed us to ride as many times as we wanted, and anywhere the station went, and so we headed straight to the Colosseo stop, and the Coliseum.
I did not expect to walk out the exit of the Metro and practically un into the Coliseum, but that is exactly what happened. Directly across the street there it was! I was stopped dead in my tracks allowing time for it to sink in. There were even more guys outside the coliseum dressed as Caesar look-alikes than there had been outside the Pantheon, and all of them called out in their broken English “I am Caesar, take a picture with me, photo, picture with Caesar”. Apparently they charge 5euro if you oblige their request! Absurd! I snipered pictures of several of them, but none with me and them together.
On a side note, the fountains of Rome all have drinkable water running through them. It is cold and fresh and delicious. Many of them have a constant stream flowing downward, but if the hole is covered, they will squirt up in the fashion of a drinking fountain. The water is supplied by the aqueduct system, which is thousands of years old but still fully functional. I just found that interesting, enjoyable, and hard to get used to all at the same time.
After the coliseum, it was on the Metro and back to Vatican City, where the blue skies were quickly turning an angry shade of gray and the wind was picking up. It was not very long before pouring rain started, and lightning and thunder so close it was an actual crack came rumbling through the massive pillars. After that, some shopping, my first experience with Italian pizza, which was anticlimactic after all of the build up, and some more standing around and watching the lightening, Tyler had to catch the return bus to the ship. I made my way back to the metro station, declining countless offers from guys selling umbrellas, and took the Metro back to the hotel I was staying in. The other girls were still not back, so I grabbed my travel journal and some postcards and made my way to the Coliseum after the rain stopped. I sat there writing postcards and updating on my adventures from the day, and then, when the sun sank a little lower, and it felt like it was going to start raining again, I took the metro back to the hotel. Italy is vastly different from Spain, in that so many people speak English, and so it does not necessarily feel as foreign as Spain did. While I was waiting for the girls to return, I sat at a restaurant right next door to the hotel. It was outdoor seating that they would have to walk right past, so it was the perfect location. I made friends with the restaurant owner, and the two older German ladies sitting at the table next to me. I even got a free dessert out of the deal! Apparently, if I learn Italian and go back there, I have a job waiting for me at that restaurant. I guess it is good to have options… As I was finishing up, Kelly, Amanda and Athena came walking back. It was perfect timing. I said goodbye to my new friends, and we all went to our room and passed out for the night.

The Pope!

2009-07-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

7/1/2009

Italy is finally here, and after spending five days there, I have decided that I need to find some way to go back. On Wednesday, I woke up very early to watch the sunrise (at 5:42am). Despite the early hour, it was really warm out. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I felt cold outdoors! The sunrise was really pretty, and as usual, it accompanied our ship pulling into port in Civitivecchia. After finishing up packing and organizing everything I would need for my adventures in Italy, I went up to breakfast. After enjoying breakfast, it was back down to my room to grab my backpack, and then up to the pre-port meeting with the diplomat from Italy. It was a boring presentation, but it allowed me time to make arrangements with the girls I was staying with as to where and when I would meet them in Rome. I was on a scheduled SAS trip called “Rome on your Own”, and was supposed to meet at the pier at 9:15am. Everything seemed to be running a little late throughout the morning though, and so instead of sitting and listening to how many pick pockets there are in Italy, and how not to get robbed, I went up to the teachers land to check out my passport since I would need it for flying and checking into hotels. After that, I went all the way down from deck 7 to deck 2 (despite my lack of time and ability to go running, I certainly do climb a lot of stairs while on the ship) where the gangway was located. When I got down there, I was told the ship still had not cleared customs, and that I shouldn’t crowd the area. I ran to my room to do one final check that I had everything, and by the time I got back, students were lined up to leave. Leaving the ship is a quick and easy process, in which all that is required is swiping your student ID. It is getting back on the ship that is slightly more prolonged. From the pier, I saw another group that was waiting around looking kind of confused, and joined them after asking that they are on the same trip as me. We were directed to the buses that were waiting, and I claimed a seat. I didn’t have any set plans for my day in Rome, other than exploring and trying to see everything. As the bus continued filling up, one of my adopted brothers, Tyler, sat next to me and we started discussing our plans. We decided we would spend the day exploring Rome together, noting that our adopted parents would be so proud ;)
As the bus started moving, an Italian tour guide started talking to us all. We were each given a map and a sheet of paper telling us how to contact her throughout the day if we decided to leave the group. I had already alerted the organizers to the fact that I would not be returning on the tour, and so I didn’t have to worry about it. Our guide, Paula, had us look at the map as she went through good walking routes to see everything, how to navigate the metro, where cheap gelato and pizza could be found, what sights were worth going in and which ones were best seen simply from the outside and a little bit of history for everything. It proved really helpful in letting us know what it was we were seeing and why it was important. We got off the bus, and were led to the meeting point for later that day. This spot was right next to St. Peter’s Square, and so that is the first place Tyler and I went, and lo and behold, there was the Pope! There was a large crowd directly in front of him, and within the group there was a section where everyone had black umbrellas, another group where everyone was wearing yellow hats, a third in which the people were waving Spanish flags and so on. There were also two huge TVs on either side of the square that had a bigger view of the Pope. We got to hear him speak and sing in Latin, and then, after lots of pictures and looking around in awe, we moved on because we were told it was less crowded later in the afternoon.
First, we walked passed the Castle St. Angelo, which we were told to just take pictures of from the outside, and then we crossed the pedestrian bridge. The water of the river was very brown, but the rest of the city was gorgeous! So many statues and such intricate detail on all of the buildings. The streets are all bricks or cobblestone, and none of them have street lanes of any form at all! It makes for some crazy driving. One of the funniest things I saw in Italy was along a street lined with parallel parked cars. A little smart car was backed in to the curb, and did not stick out at all past the other cars! After the castle, we made our way to Piazza Navona. This used to be a coliseum, but there are no ruins left. There were a lot of vendors selling artwork, and one of them in particular took a liking to me, inviting me to come sit in the shade because I looked tired with my backpack on. At first, I thought he was trying the distraction technique while his friend came up from behind to steal things out of my bag, but Tyler was watching my back, and I had nothing to worry about. I politely declined sitting, saying I was just looking at the artwork, to which he responded that for me, “special price” on anything I liked. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that “special price” was not so special, as it was offered to everyone just to try to make it sound like a good deal. Some of the artwork was gorgeous, but I had no way to safely transport it, so I had to walk away. The next sight we saw was the Pantheon, which just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the city. We were walking through apartments and restaurants, and them we walked into a square and there it was! The Italians were much more friendly than the Spaniard I met, and they also spoke much more English. While we were walking along the sidewalk between a restaurant and the outdoor seating, and one of the waiters jokingly said “no, sidewalk closed” then started laughing. I thought it was really funny. The Pantheon was really crowded, and there were horse drawn carriages, huge tour groups, and men dressed up like ancient Romans all over the place. I was trying to take a sniper picture of one of the guys in costume, but I failed because he noticed and asked if I wanted a picture with him, calling me Barbie, as I was warned some Italians do. Inside the Pantheon was very large, with the sunlight shining down through the circular hole in the middle of the ceiling illuminating the whole room. The size alone of these ancient buildings is impressive enough, but on top of that the detail of the artwork and carvings is just astounding!

I must go be productive for class now, but I will continue this when I get a chance later today hopefully. I have so many stories from each day in Italy, it will take quite a while to get through them all, and with Croatia coming up tomorrow, it is just madness!

When in Rome...

2009-06-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

6/30/2009

It seems like both yesterday and ages ago that I was in Spain. In actuality it was three days ago. Now, I am going to bed, and when I wake up, I will be able to see Italy! If I were sane, I would probably be in Italy, but I have decided to wake up and watch the sun rise over each new country, which means that come 5:40am I will be out on the front deck of the ship watching the sun rise over Italy! I am so excited, as I have a lot planned for the five days I will spend in Italy. At 9:30 I am leaving for Rome, spending one night there, and then flying out around 4pm the next day for Venice! After 2 days in Venice, I will fly back to meet the ship in Naples, and attempt to squeeze a trek up Mt. Vesuvius and a trip to Pompeii in before I have to be back on the ship. It will be a busy five days, and then only one day to recuperate before Croatia. I can’t believe how quickly it is all going by.
Today I had my first exam, which went relatively well… I think. Then a lot of outside time relaxing, and packing before the pre-port meeting which told us the crucial information of where the ship will be and advice for travel. Last night before bed I did sink laundry for the first time ever, and it seems to have worked out pretty well. A few of my pairs of socks are not quite dry yet, possibly from the lack of ventilation – there is no fan in the bathroom, no way to prop doors open (even if we were aloud to), and opening the window is definitely out of the question. Luckily, they are not something I need for my trip, so I should come back to nice, clean, dry socks!
Tonight I met up with the girl I am rooming with in Venice, Kelly, and figured out how we will meet up. She is going to Rome at a different time than me, and didn’t know where she was planning on staying yet, so I invited her to stay with Athena, Amanda and me for the night in the Hotel Romae. After making those arrangements, I went to night snack, which has recently become the most popular place to be at 10pm when the ship is at sea. Basically the cafeteria crew put out left over sandwiches, wraps and deserts from the past day or two, and the line becomes so intense that people start waiting 10 minutes before the food is actually out. It is funny really, since none of it is that phenomenal, but occasionally there is a chance for brownies! It is also a fun place to people watch, and we checked out pictionary from the purser’s desk and played a quick game. That leaves me where I am right now, trying to make myself tired, since it will be an early morning!
I probably won’t get a chance to post anything new until after Italy, but expect a lot when that happens. I hope you all have a happy fourth of July, I know mine will be, but it will probably lack the classic fireworks.

Wait! I have to take tests!?

2009-06-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

6/29/2009

Yesterday, the morning after leaving Spain I woke up to sunshine, lots of other ships and of all things land! It was strange to be back at sea, but still be in sight of land, and also to have so much other water traffic surrounding us. At breakfast (which is the best meal of the day) on the back deck both Europe and Africa were visible in the distance, but hard to distinguish between. One distinct difference I noticed at breakfast, other than the fact that there were signs of life outside of our ship, was all of the bugs. Since boarding, I had not noticed a single bug, but at breakfast they were prevalent. Nothing big, just little fruit fly type insects, mainly noticeable because of their prolonged absence while crossing the ocean.
We were moving very slowly, and shortly after breakfast we stopped all together. We were in the Gibraltar Straight, and it was time for refueling, or bunkering as it is called on the ship. The morning was interrupted with an announcement that the side decks were closed, and no smoking or naked lights were allowed until the bunkering process was finished. After global studies, I returned to my room to begin studying, and looked out the window which usually greets me with gentle shades of blue at a bright red, slightly rusty glow! The ship that was refueling us was immediately outside my window (or porthole), and the large rubber buoy with tires attached to stop the ships from colliding was rolling up and down right outside the wall and making a very loud, quite grating squeaking and squelching noise. After realizing that studying in my room was not going to be productive, I made my way out on to the deck – no less distracting, but much more enjoyable – to try to study. The entire ship is in study mode right now, as we are all required to take Global Studies, and we have our midterm test tomorrow (Tuesday, the last day before Italy) as well as a midterm paper due. Ugh. Something about doing homework when it is so sunny and gorgeous outside just seems wrong! Especially when I just got back on the ship from four amazing days in Spain, and have five adventure packed days in Italy in the immediate future. A four day weekend in a foreign country is a great way to make school the last thing on my mind. This midterm is reminding me that school is what I signed up for though.
Finally, right when I had to go inside for my afternoon class, we started moving again. The water is so much smoother now that we are in the Mediterranean that I can’t even tell we are in motion unless I am outside and watching the water go by (or if I am laying in my bed as I am now because the engine is right below my cabin and my entire bed shakes when we are moving, something that is much less noticeable when the whole ship is rocking and rolling too). I enjoy the rumble of the engine because it is a good source of white noise while I try to fall asleep. The rest of the day went by pretty smoothly.
After class, I had a family dinner with my adopted family, which consists of a professor, Andrea and her husband Steve and their biological son (who also happens to be a student) Ryan. They adopted about ten other students, so we make a very large family, and we get to eat at the captains table in the main dining hall. It is the table right next to the back windows that is always reserved in case the captain shows up. We talked about what everyone did in Spain, and what everyone’s plans were for Italy, and then after we were all done eating it was time to celebrate birthdays! Andrea and Steve both had birthdays that were close, as did Josh, one of their “adopted” children. They had pre-ordered a massive ice cream cake, and when it arrived we sang happy birthday, and then got to enjoy the cake. It was chocolate ice cream, and white frosting and probably the best thing I have eaten on the ship! We are planning on doing family dinners between each port, and at our first meeting we all wrote down our birthdays so we could celebrate! For those of us, like me, who don’t have summer birthdays, we wrote down half birthdays, or quarter birthdays, or just dates that we liked. There are also two graduations to celebrate at the end of the voyage, so it sounds like the cake will be a regular occurrence. I guess when you have a big family celebrations come up a lot more frequently!
Today has been a busy day so far, mainly filled with homework and studying, but fortunately I take advantage of my location and opt to do homework out on the deck in the sun as much as possible. I am going to miss this option when I get back to school. It is very refreshing to be able to look up from homework and see nothing but calm blue water. It is also nice to have a constant gentle breeze and warm sun. The land that was so close yesterday has disappeared, and so it was back to the feeling of being on the open ocean, but without the waves. Around 9:30pm, when I was watching the sunset create a beautiful blend of orange yellows and reds as it sunk below the clouds in the distance, we were finally within visibility of land, but on the far horizon, not close. But I am getting ahead of myself. This afternoons monotony of homework and studying was broken up by the bridge tour I had at 1500 hours!
While we are at sea, it is possible to sign up for bridge tours, and mine finally arrived. We met in Tymitz square (one of the main meeting locations where administrative desks are) and waited for our escort to show up. He was late, but it was worth it. The tours can hold up to 15 individuals, but half our group didn’t show, so there were only 6-7 girls. We got lead through one of the many “CREW ONLY” doors, and then through another and we were in the bridge. Not what I expected at all! I was picturing a central steering wheel similar to those in pirate movies, but instead it was a long panel of electronics and computers, and a tiny little plastic wheel in the middle which looks more like it belongs on a video game than steering a ship! Our presenter was from Croatia, and had a very thick accent, and the escort that came to get us was from the Philippines. We got an introduction to what all of the electronics did, and about halfway through I looked out the front window and saw dolphins! Immediately I cried it out, and all of us looked up and stared, awestruck while our guide just kind of looked bemused by how enthralled we all were. We stopped for pictures and video as they went past, leaping in the air and gliding through the water. I think this one group contained more dolphins than I saw total crossing the ocean. After that distraction ended, we went back to learning about the ship. Then we got an opportunity to take pictures in the captain’s chair and around the bridge, and then we were kicked out so they could get back to navigating. That was pretty much the highlight of my day. After that I just finished my midterm paper, studied more, watched the beautiful sunset, and now I am going to bed so that I can wake up and be refreshed and rejuvenated for my midterm.

Hasta luego Espana! (or however you spell that)

2009-06-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

6/27/2009

I met up with Athena, Amanda, Amy and Jon at 10:30, and we went out, computers in tow to enjoy our last day in Spain. We found chocolate churos for breakfast, and they were delicious. Then we found a grocery store so they could get a few snacks for the ship. After that, we found the Plaza de Mina, where there is free wireless internet, and that is where I am sitting now writing this. Unfortunatley, the signal is not strong enough for my computer to pick up on (although no one else had any problems) so I decided to catch up on my blog instead. Amanda and Athena just got back from trying to take a picture in a nearby square, and apparently a pigeon pooped on Amanda’s arm. Gross! I can’t believe that it is my last day in Spain, and I am just finally beginning to feel comfortable finding my way around and communicating my needs, but this has just made me infinitely more excited for what is to come! A few things I have learned about Spain is that everyone smokes, and they smoke everywhere. Indoors, outdoors, two feet away from you in line, I feel like it is a rare occurence to get a breath that is not hinted with the aroma of smoke. Also, the locals are not as friendly as I expected, especially at restaurants, but in some ways I don’t blame them because of the behavior I have seen from some of the other SASers. They also don’t seem to believe in garbage cans here. All of the streets and squares are riddled with trash, even though there are garbage cans everywhere. The beach in Cadiz is just as bad! Everything from plastic bags to food wrappers… so much garbage. It is floating in the water and all over the ground! I don’t understand how in such a beautiful place there can be so much garbage, and people don’t seem to care! They also don’t seem to care whether or not they wear clothes (more specifically tops) on the beach, which was a new experience for me. I have never before felt overdressed in a bathing suite and sundress, but we got several looks that implied “who are these people wearing so much clothing?” It was definitely a different experience, and one that I am kind of glad has not made its way to the states. The driving is also crazy. The allies are all very narrow, with extremely narrow sidewalks, and the cars just go barreling along. So many mopeds too! Last night in line for gelato, the cars going by literally rubbed up against the peope in the back of the line. I don’t understand how anyone knows which direction the streets go, because they are all only wide enough for one car. And people drive fast! I saw one moped flying along late at night with nothing but a small toot of its horn before blasting through each intersection. It seems like a very hazardous practice. Now the plan is to go explore some of the shops before heading back to the ship by 1800 hours to avoid dock time. It is going to be a busy few days, and then Italy! I don’t know what I expected out of this trip, but so far I have had the most amazing time ever, even just sitting in the square on my computer and people watching is so enjoyable, and it has been such an eye opening experience. Despite things such as being turned away from the one restaurant, I have loved my time here, learned so much, and am somewhat reluctant to leave. The one thing helping me come to terms with it is all that awaits me! This truly is going to be the most amazing summer ever!

After re boarding the ship, I sat out on the deck and did some much overdue homework while waiting for dinner. I was on the back deck, and staring out over the city and the last minute arrivals. Then, at 8pm, when the ship was supposed to leave, we had small group meetings with the original alphabetically assigned groups from the orientation on the ship. These were aimed at reflecting on experiences, and discussing how they matched up with or did not meet expectations. It was fun to hear a little bit about what some of the other people on the ship did with their time in Spain. The ship's disembarkation was delayed by three hours until 11pm because one of the SAS sponsored trips to Barcelona had a delayed flight. While waiting to be back on the open seas, I exchanged pictures with my travel buddies. It was fun to see everyone's pictures, and nice to get the ones that I didn't have. Now, I am laying in bed about to go to sleep and slightly reluctant to face class in the morning, but I have a feeling that the fact that Italy is only three days away will keep me going. It is strange to be on a moving ship again, after a few days on land, I adjusted to being stationary, and now lying in me bed I can tell that I am in motion, although the ship is not rocking much. I can't ait to see what the other countries hold, and am excited for many more adventures, but for now it is time to settle back into my class routine for three days.

Tarifa

2009-06-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

6/26/2009

Woke up before the sun and in my groggy state of sleepiness pulled on a bathing suit and a sundress, threw sunscreen and snacks in my bag, and Athena and I headed out to the hallway to meet Jon and Amanda for our 6:45am bus to Tarifa! The bus station is right outside the port gates, but the side one closes from 11pm to 7am, so we had to go to the far one. We were a tiny late, trying to organize in the morning, and having one of our group (Spencer) not show up, and had to walk at a very brisk pace to get to the bus station in time. When we showed up, there was no one in the ticket office, and we were a little worried we had missed our only chance. Then, someone showed up. By this time, we had figured out that the best approach was to right down where we wanted to go, and what time, and give that to the ticket agent. After all of us purchased our tickets, we hoped on the bus and headed to Tarifa. When we arrived, we found a very cute little town (that was still sleeping because it was 8:30am). Tarifa is the southernmost point in Spain, and well known for windsurfing. We walked down the main street, and then turned and headed toward the beach! The sun was already shining, but it wasn’t too warm. And across the straight, Africa was visible! There are ferries that go from Tarifa, Spain to Tangeir, Morocco and it only takes 35 minutes. We didn’t really look into this though, since we will all be in Morocco in August! After taking lots of photos on the beach, and dipping our toes in the water – which was not nearly as warm as the water in Cadiz – we walked down the beach, and then cut up onto the main street again. We just walked through all of the little shops, many of which were playing American music, and a lot that I could have mistaken for shops in Hood River or somewhere similar, and ended up at a cute little restaurant for lunch. I had a quesadilla vegetal, which was really good. After a little more shop wondering, we started looking for the windsurfing. We had been told that the streets were lined with shops that rent windsurfing gear, but apparently kite boarding has taken over and all that was present was kite school. The people in Tarifa were a lot friendlier than other people that we have experienced, saying “hola” and treating us nicely. In Cadiz, and even Sevilla, most of the locals seem none to happy to have outsiders, especially Americans, invading their space, and it doesn’t help that we arrived in numbers in both places (800 college age kids unloading and taking over a city doesn’t help one to be inconspicuous). I think we were the only SASers to chose Tarifa as our destination, and it was so relaxing to find a less populated area where we didn’t have to worry about other SAS kids being disrespectful. After a while, we found a map in one of the stores that told us the windsurfing beaches were much further down than we expected, and so we hit the beach and started walking. It took us a little over an hour to get to the first beach that had kite boarders on it, and we had to wade through a stream that was about knee deep to get there. Once we arrived, we set up camp, and it was time to go swimming in view of two continents. The water was much colder than my previous swim in Spain, but it was worth it, because it was amazing. The wind had also picked up by the time we made it to the beach, and so after getting out and laying on the beach it was very quick to dry. We had about an hour on the beach of watching kite boarders, napping, doing reading, and writing in journals (mainly napping for me ;) ). Then, with about two hours until our return bus, we gathered up our stuff and started the walk back to the city. When we got to the small stream we had crossed, we realized the tide had come up quite a bit, and the water was now deeper. We sent Jon in first to scout out the shallowest path, and then followed – so much for being completely dry, I was up to my waist in water crossing it. The walk back to the city when much quicker, and we arrived at the bus stop with plenty of time to spare. We were happy we had purchased our return tickets when we arrived though, because the ticket office was closed. We had time to go get some water, and then waited for the bus to arrive. When it finally did, most of the people waiting flocked to the door, completely blocking it and jostling for position. This baffled me, as the bus was still full of passengers that had to unload before anyone got on. No one seemed to care, and no one moved away to clear a path, so they had to shove there way through. I slept most of the bus ride back, and stared out my window for the rest of it. When we got back, we made our way back to the ship, and dispersed to shower, then we met back up to go out and find dinner, as we missed dinner on the ship by a few hours. When we were going through the lobby, we ran into Amy, and invited her to join us. We found Gotinga again (it was good food and inexpensive), but all of the outdoor seating was full, so we decided to try out a place at the other end of the square. This is where we all got a taste of true Spanish inhospitality! We sat down, and the waiter quickly came over to see it he could get us any drinks. Three people ordered water, and one a beer (I brought my own water with me, so I ordered nothing). The drinks arrived promptly, but there were only two waters, and then the waiter left without bringing us menus or anything (even though we had requested menus when we first sat down). A table of four Spanish locals showed up about 10 minutes after us, were brought a menu, and table cloth, and drinks very quickly. We finally got our waiters attention again, and asked for a menu at which point he told us that the kitchen was closed and they were no longer serving food (Amanda knows some Spanish, and so she has been dubbed group translator). Since some of us had drinks, we had to wait around to finish them, and in the process of that and getting our bill, we watched as the table that was seated after us had bread brought out to them, followed by full meals for everyone. I guess when we were told the kitchen was closed, it wasn’t a general statement, but that more specifically the kitchen was closed for only us. We left and found somewhere else to eat, and our waiter there was so friendly and helpful, and even spoke some English. I had had a snack on the boat to save money, and so I was just along for the socialization. A few more SASers found us, and sat down to chat for a while, then Amy and Amanda got gelato, and we headed back to the boat. It was a long walk back, because we got turned around and ended up hitting the main street at the far end of town, and rather than returning to the labyrinth of narrow streets, we made it back to the ship by following the main street around the shoreline. We made a meeting time in the lobby for the next morning, and then dispersed to go to bed.

Sevilla

2009-06-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

6/25/2009

This morning after sleeping a little later than expected, I woke up and hoped on a train to Sevilla with Athena and Jon. It was kind of refreshing to be dealing with only a small group, a lot easier to appease everyone. After somehow communicating the need for a roundtrip ticket from Cadiz to Sevilla, we waited only 5 minutes for our train to arrive. The whole time we were on the train, I could not stop staring out the window in awe! It is crazy to think that I am in Spain, and a lot of the train ride there was through the country side (a view that is interchangeable with most areas that are unpopulated). The few differences were the buildings, which are gorgeous here, the endless fields of sunflowers, which were gorgeous, and the occasional river we passed that had boats everywhere. They were all along the beach on dry land, as well as all across the water, and all were empty, making me wonder how the owners get to their empty boat in the middle of the river. The entire train ride, we were unsure of which stop we wanted, and were unable to understand any of the announcements. We also sat in the seats assigned on our tickets, which meant that Jon was separated from Athena and I by several cars. By some miracle, we ended up all getting off at the right stop, and proceeding up to figure out the time for our return trip. We got maps of the city, which didn’t show where the train station was, and spent a while just wondering the streets somewhat lost but still having fun. I got earings for Erin for 2 Euro at a streetside vendor, and we stopped at a café for what appeared to be chocolate covered pastries. After more wondering and trying to locate ourselves on the map we had, we finally found a garden and a flamenco place across the street from each other that were both on our map, and oriented ourselves to go find the cathedral. As we got closer, it got much prettier. We walked through a garden, and ended up in winding ally ways with small shops and quaint buildings. Upon leaving the garden, the tower of the cathedral became visible, and we used that as our navigational beacon. When we finally arrived in the square, my breath was literally taken away by the massive beauty of it. The cathedral is 900 years old, and I have never felt so small indoors before. It was impossible to capture the magnitude of it on film, and all of my pictures do it no justice. After spending a long time trying to photograph the outside (from the bottom to the top would not all fit in one frame), we started approaching the door. As we were taking a few last minute pictures outside, Jessica and Katlyn, our neighbors on the ship showed up with some other friends. We all decided to go inside, and it was only 2 Euros for students. The first room was full of artwork, and then into the Cathedral where Christopher Columbus is buried. It was enormous. There was construction going on to renovate because some of the gargantuan pillars holding up the ceiling had cracks running across them, and it was impossible to describe just how amazing it was. Huge organs that spread floor to ceiling, everything so ornate, amazing stained glass windows…. So amazing. The we climbed the tower. Spiraled hill going up to the top, with windows interspersed and panoramic views. After what seemed like forever climbing, we made it to the top of the bell tower and could see the whole city and more. So many pictures and then a bell chimed when we were up there, so loud. After a large amount of time up there taking it all in and trying to convince myself it was real, we headed down and wandered back through some of the ally ways and little shops. Got ice cream and chips with guacamole, then eventually wound our way back to the train station to hop on the train home. Beautiful sunset from the train, and back to the ship after a long day to refresh and then go out in Cadiz and find food (they eat late here). I had a crepe with some type of melon, and it came with ice cream in it, delicious. We did a little better communicating. It was at an adorable outdoor café called Gotinga. Back to the ship and packing up for Tarifa, and then passing out in bed.

Cadiz

2009-06-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

6/24/09

Cadiz is amazing. Woke up early to watch the sunrise and see our ship pull into the port. The sunrise over Spain was gorgeous. Such vibrant shades of orange red and yellow silhouetting the town of Cadiz. It helped that it was the first land in a while. It was also the first sunrise I remember enjoying in quite some time! The old buildings lining the sky line only added to the beauty! Once it was light out, I watched as we pulled into port. There were probably around 100 people, students, professors, lifelong learners on the front deck enjoying the sunrise. As we pulled into port, the buildings became visible in much more detail, and a huge cruise ship pulled in behind us. After crossing the ocean, I was feeling pretty impressed by our ship, and very content with its size, but next to this beast of a ship named the Grand Princess, we were dwarfed. We practically could have been one of the lifeboats on it. Other than the size, a glaring difference appeared when passengers started unloading. Our ship is full of college aged students, and this ship was like a retirement community on water!
After an unusually smooth breakfast (we were all accustomed to rocking back and forth), it was time to go! I can’t even describe the surreal feeling of walking down the gangway onto land for the first time since Halifax! Real, solid land, and I was standing in Europe for the first time in my life. For the first two days I was swaying slightly from the lack of movement, but I got used to it quickly. The morning was spent exploring the city, and taking more pictures than were probably necessary. The streets, if you want to call them that, are comprised of a labyrinth of narrow allies that occasionally open into squares with restaurants, fountains, and benches. In winding through them, we saw a couple walking what I at first thought was a very fat dog, but upon taking a second look, realized it was a pig! They were walking it down the street on a leash as if it were completely normal. Very strange. Some of the girls in the group I was with got hungry, so we stopped in a gorgeous little park and they got Spanish tortillas, which are comprised of potato, egg, and maybe cheese as well. I tried some and they were a little bland but pretty good. After that, we meandered our way back to the ship to change, and then it was on to the beach. I was in a group of three girls and two guys, and we finally found the beach and walked down to it and were immediately greeted with the realization that it was a topless beach! Not what we were expecting at all. Babies and grannies alike were lacking swimsuit tops, and all of us kind of stuttered our shock as we tried to comprehend what we were seeing. After the initial shock, we found a less crowded area of the beach, and set our stuff down. Besides the fact that there were several half naked women, a plethora of thongs, and many men in speedos, there was also a lot of garbage. Much more than I would have expected. Maybe they need to begin doing SOLV beach clean ups in Spain. There were food wrappers, plastic bags, and an assortment of other discarded items littering the sand and moving up and down in the swelling waves. Other than that the beach was gorgeous though. Bright turquoise water that was warm enough to be comfortable, but still cool enough to be refreshing in the hot Mediterranean sun, and the backdrop of all the old buildings of Cadiz, along with a castle reaching out into the ocean. Being as it was my first beach experience in Spain, the only option was to go swimming (don’t worry, I found a chunk of water that lacked floating garbage). After getting enough swimming, floating, and bobbing in the waves in, I retreated to the beach to dry off in the sun, and we all sat, chatted and dripped dry. I saw a little green lizard on the wall separating the beach from the street, my first Spanish lizard, and then after we were dry enough to put on clothes, we left the beach and started our quest to find the Cathedral.
The Cathedral is gorgeous. It is very old, and very large, and we purchased tickets to climb to the top of the tower. The brick spiral path wound uphill around the inside of the tower for a really long ways. Apparently they didn’t think stairs were necessary. Every few spirals, a window looked out over the city, and as we got higher, the view became more and more impressive. Upon reaching the top, it was absolutely breathtaking! A panoramic of the city of Cadiz, all of its amazing architecture, and the sea. We took so many pictures, and then our Global Studies professor and his partner showed up. We enlisted them to take a group photo for us, and after absorbing all of the beauty, decided to make our way down. Next, we saw a 3,000 year old well/dwelling to the best of my understanding. It was ancient, and somewhat falling apart, but there were signs depicting what each area once looked like, and huge post made of clay and dirt.
More wondering the city followed, there are several cute stores, and SAS kids and old people (from the other cruise ship) where everywhere. We went back to the to have dinner and change into warmer clothes for the evening, and then went back out into the city. We found a square where the Spain vs. USA soccer game was playing on an outdoor TV and a large group was clustered in tables and chairs watching. It was really fun to just pull up a chair and watch, and it was just Amanda, Athena and me at that point, so we weren’t too conspicuous. The crowd was really into the soccer game, and it was really funny watching the little kids in the front throwing their arms in the air or clutching their head when something bad would happen, and cheering and screaming when something good happened. At half time, I made my way back to the Cathedral to meet my friend Allie from Gonzaga. She just happened to be in Cadiz at the same time as me, so we met up and got to chat for a little while. She was with her sister, and they were going to the beach, so after we talked for a while, I went back to the soccer game. We got hungry again after the game, and decided to find somewhere to eat. We found a really cute little place called Gotinga, where they had an English translation of the menu, which was infinitely helpful. After we finished our food and sat chatting for a while, we decided it was time to pay and head back to the ship, we were all exhausted after such a long day. The only problem with this plan was communicating our need for the check. Our waiter didn’t speak English, and none of us knew the word for check in Spanish. At first there was a misunderstanding because he though we wanted to order more, or hadn’t ordered yet, and they were done taking orders for the night, and then finally, after some gesturing and trying to explain we were finished eating, he realized what we wanted. He was very friendly and helpful the whole time, trying really hard to understand which was really nice. After paying, it was back to the ship, set up a meeting time for the morning, and then a quick shower and passing out in bed. Long day and another one ahead!

Almost in Spain

2009-06-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

6/23/2009

This morning brought another sunny day, and more smiling faces. We are now less than 24 hours from the port in Cadiz, and I am so excited to finally be in Europe. I feel I have acclimated well to life on the open seas. It is very strange because I no longer even feel the rocking of the ship. This is due to many factors. Partially, because with the nicer weather we were also greeted by much calmer seas, and I have now had many days to acclimate to the gentle rocking of the ship. For the first few days when it was cloudy and cold out, and everyone was trapped indoors, I was worried about making it all the way across the ocean without going insane, but now that the sun has decided to join us, the decks are covered with sunbathers and people are in much higher spirits. Going to class everyday is a little waring, and I am excited for Spain because it means four days in a row with no class. I will have much more to write once I am back from my adventures as well.

My plans for Spain involve spending the first and last day in port exploring Cadiz, finding some nice beaches, and wondering the town. Fort the middle two days, I believe the plan is to take a day trip to Seville one day and a day trip to Tarifa the other. Apparantley Tarifa is the windsurfing capital of Europe, and so I may get to go windsurfing even though I am not at home. The group I am traveling with plans on just investigating our options, and maybe asking for local opinions of what we should do. I am excited to finally get onto dry land, and eat food that is not made in bulk and bland in flavor!

I spent most of yesterday, and the majority of my day today outside enjoying the sun and doing reading for classes and talking with friends. This is a life I could grow very accustomed to :) This morning while I was out on the deck by the dining room, I saw two whales go by. They were both at a distance, so I couldn't get any pictures, but even from such a far distance their size was notably large. I also saw a yacht type boat, which is a good indication of how close we are to land, up until today the only other ships were freighters.

Along with the sunshine, we have been graced with clear, stary nights. There are still some whispy clouds, but not enough to block out the sky. I have found that late night is the best time to visit the gym, as it is generally uncrowded, and it works well because of the slight case of insomnia I have developed due to the time change. I finally braved the treadmill, and it was not nearly as bad as I was expecting. It is almost more like running on a trail because first it will feel like I'm running on a side hill, then uphill, then downhill and it constantly changes as the ship rocks around. Only occasionally do I need to hold on while a big wave goes by. Last night after running for a while I went outside to stretch and was greeted by a very warm evening and stars for the first time on the trip. I wish they would turn the lights on the ship off so that I could really enjoy them, but even with the light polution I felt like I was floating through space. At night there is no divide between sky and land, it is all just darkness blending together. I stood for so long staring in awe. This is what I imagined when I was planning for this voyage, it just take a few days for the weather to arrive.

Well, now I am off to enjoy some more sun, write a paper, and go to class. I got adopted by a family too, so I am meeting them for dinner. There are a lot of faculty that are here with family members (wife, husband, children), and I signed up to be adopted. I just got a note on my door telling me I was invited to family dinner tonight, so I am excited to meet them. It is just a way to meet and interact with another member of the faculty, and make another connection on board. It should be really fun. Tonight we also have a breifing on what to expect in Spain, and then I have a block party for my floor which should be a great way to finally meet everyone that I haven't yet. Expect updates, but maybe not until after Spain...

Land!

2009-06-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

6/22/2009

I am now 9 hours ahead! It is crazy that I will wake up and be in class Tuesday before Monday even ends on the West Coast! Unfortunately, the huge time change has been messing with my sleep schedule quite a bit. I am generally not tired at all during the night, but in the morning and until early afternoon, I am completely exhausted. I have been trying to avoid napping to push myself into my new schedule, so far no real luck, but I am having fun still! It is very strange going to class every day though, I think yesterday marked the first Sunday that I have ever attended class. As much as I am enjoying the open seas, I am ready to get to Spain to have a break from class. Currently, we are only 29 hours away from docking at Cadiz, and I am so excited. I got my first taste of Europe yesterday when we passed our first land since leaving Halifax! I have never seen so many people so excited about a little island before. I was out on the deck with friends watching it slowly approach from a distance, and as we got closer, there were dolphins surrounding the boat, and I even saw a whale from a distance! We saw some small houses on the islands in little villages, and even a tower on top of one. They kind of reminded me of the LOST islands. Very remote. I will try to write a longer post tomorrow, I got partially through this and then got distracted talking to my roommate. As it is now nearly 4am and I am still awake, I think I should probably try to get some sleep before morning… maybe I will adjust by the end of this trip…

Dolphins!

2009-06-18T18:55:00.000-07:00

6/18/2009

I saw my first dolphins today and it was amazing! I woke up to much brighter skies, and after breakfast with some friends and Global Studies, our required class, the clouds started to break. It was the first day of classes, and it sounds like I am really going to enjoy the two that I am in, one focuses on stress and stress management (like going on a summer cruise around the Mediterranean is a stressful thing ;) ), and the other is on cross-cultural psychology, which should fit in really well with visiting multiple countries. It is an odd experience going to class on a boat, and it is really strange having 720 other people in one of my classes. Global studies, being required, has all of the students, as well as the other faculty and staff attending, so it is packed, and the whole room rocks back and forth with the ship. It is different than anything I think I will ever experience again. The seas have calmed quite a bit today, which is very nice, and I think that seeing the sun gave everyone a renewed enthusiasm for the trip. I made sure to eat all my meals outside, and am going to miss having the option of getting food and going to sit on the back deck and stare at endless ocean when we reach land, but more exciting things will come then to distract me. It was while I was sitting at dinner on the back deck that I saw my first dolphin. It flew out of the water and arched gracefully through the air before submerging again with only a small splash. I completely forgot the sentence I was in the middle of and yelled out "DOLPHINS!!!!" They were a ways behind the ship to the left of our wake (which isn't really a wake at all but more of a path of churned up water) and there were probably four or five of them. After getting to see a few more jumps, the vanished into the distance. Unfortunately they were too far away to capture by photo, but I am hoping that the nice weather will stick around, and it will bring more dolphins with it.
Tonight was also the first pub night on the ship. This means that students are able to get a drink ticket, and have up to three beers or wine coolers over a two hour period, and let me just say that the students on the ship came out in force. There were people that dressed up for it as opposed to donning the athletic gear and sweatshirts that are common place. The staff were also out in number, enforcing the rules: no drinking too quickly, no drinking games, no leaving the designated area with a drink, no giving your drink to someone else, and many more. Did I mention that they charge $3.50 for each can of beer? Crazy. Anyway, we are losing another hour tonight and so I need to start my reading for class tomorrow before I try to get some sleep. Its going to feel like another early morning as I am now 6 hrs ahead of the west coast. I am hoping for more clear skies tomorrow so that I can finally see what the stars are like in the middle of the ocean and maybe get some sun - don't worry mom, I'll wear sunscreen ;)

I Love College

2009-06-17T17:56:00.001-07:00

6/17/2009

So it is our second day at sea, the first full day of sailing, and the ship has been rocking and rolling all day long. I woke up this morning to gray skies and strong winds, and the front decks are closed because of such. Today was an inside day, which has made cabin fever set in fairly quickly for some, although fortunately I am not experiencing any sea sickness and have been able to laugh at the waves, many are walking around the ship a slight shade of green, and they have provided barf bags on all of the garbage cans. They are getting heavy use. My last night in Halifax was a blast, I met up with a huge group of SAS kids at a night club that opened only for us, and we had a great time meeting and mingling before we set off. Hauling my luggage down to the pier on Tuesday morning to check in to the ship was an interesting experience to say the least, but I made it in one piece, and joined the long procession waiting to pass through security. Luckily, Tuesday was a gorgeous sunny day, and after getting on the ship and going through a maze of check-in stations, I got to see my cabin for the first time! It is very... cozy. There is a lot more storage for all of my stuff, which is nice, and I have a porthole, which makes me so happy! I am on the second deck, which is right above the engine, so my bed vibrates and there is a constant rumble from that, but I don't mind at all. From the porthole you can see the waves up close and personal, and it is really fun to watch, because there are some big ones. They crash together and froth and send spray shooting into the air! I have found myself mesmerized by it almost every time I have entered my room. Day one on the ship held a lot of time exploring and lunch and dinner out on the back deck in the sun. I watched with a group of new friends as what once was the shoreline of Halifax disappeared, and we said our farewell to land for the next 8 days. The next land I see will be Spain, and I could not be more excited! I still don't know that it has fully hit me that I am actually doing this, but every now and then I have a moment of clarity in which I realize that I am experiencing something that many never will, and I am thrilled! I am getting further east than I have ever been in my life by the second, and am hoping for nice weather soon so I can see what the stars in the middle of the ocean look like. I guess I have the return voyage if that fails ;) Classes start tomorrow, and even though I have only been on the ship for two days, it feels like much longer. Possibly because of how much gets squeezed in, and how surreal the experience is.
I am finally starting to find my way around the ship better, and only get lost looking for my room 30% of the time. A lot of the second deck is crew only areas, and I cant tell aft from stern when I am in the middle of it, which is why I get so turned around. I scoped out where all my classes will be today, so I should be able to find them all, and my navigational skills get a little more reliable each day. I went the the gym on the ship for the first time today, and it proved to be an interesting experience with all of the rocking of the ship. I used the elliptical and luckily never fell off, but had to hold on tight to do so at times. I am excited to get settled into class life and closer to Europe, and will try to update soon on how classes are and if the weather clears. I am having the time of my life though! Loving every minute and I can't quite seem to wipe smile off my face. Its time for me to go to bed though, as it has been a jam packed few days, and we are losing another hour tonight.

Halifax!

2009-06-14T11:16:00.000-07:00

After leaving my house at 3pm on Saturday, flying to Seattle where I proceeded to wait for over 5 hours in the airport while my next flight continued to be delayed, and then sitting crammed in the middle seat of three where my two neighbors were definitely taking up more than just the seat they paid for, I made it to Washington DC at about 4:20am. I was surprised to walk out of the plane and find the airport bustling with business men and women, and everyone getting their morning coffee and quite chipper until I realized I had lost three hours, and really it was 7:20, the start to everyone's day. It was easy enough to find the gate my next flight was leaving out of, and upon arriving I started scoping out everyone in the waiting area searching desperately for a friendly, but slightly terrified face of someone in my shoes, a fellow student going to meet up with the semester at sea program. There were several prospects, but all were groggy, and I was slightly exhausted from traveling through the night, so I waited to board and was thrilled to get a much more spacious seat for the last leg of my journey. Upon arriving in Halifax and clearing customs, I found the shuttle bus waiting area that would take me to the hostel I was staying at and waited. As I sat, several others began to fill up the waiting area, and we quickly established that we were all going on the same voyage, and all of us were thrilled. As expected with a voyage that is 77% female, there was only 1 guy in the group of around 15 of us. We exchanged the basics, "where are you from?", "what school do you go to?", "where are you staying in Halifax?" and then it was time to go. The poor shuttle driver wasn't expecting so many passengers heavily laden with bags and suitcases, but luckily he must be really good at tetris, because after much heaving and stacking he managed to fit everything in, and we loaded up and were off. Halifax is a cute little town, and I am excited to go exploring! I made it safely to the hostel, which is exactly as I expected it to be, and along with the three other girls from my flight that were also staying here, met a few more students that had already arrived. After a long wait to check in I dragged my bags upstairs, and settled in. I am so excited to finally be starting this great adventure, even though it still doesn't feel real to me. I feel that SAS students will continue to flow in until the voyage departs, and soon we will be taking over the city!

Finally

2009-06-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

So the day has finally arrived, my last day at home, and more specifically, my last day in the country for the next two and a half months! I have been thinking about this day for so long, and preparing for the past several weeks, and now, there is little left for me to do but anxiously wait until I leave for the airport and my journey begins. I have my bags packed, reorganized, repacked, and full of snacks and school supplies, and I am just hoping that there is nothing essential I am forgetting. I leave at 3pm today for the airport, and will b flying through the night to arrive in Halifax, Nova Scotia at 11:47 Sunday (of course with the four hours I will lose, that is not quite as long of a journey as it seems at first). I am so excited to get this voyage underway and actually meet all of the people I have been conversing with online since I decided to go on Semester at Sea.

Preparing for the Journey

2009-06-05T14:58:00.000-07:00

It is just starting to hit me that I will very shortly be boarding a ship that will become my home for the 67 day journey that awaits me. I think that up until now, I have been viewing this experience as a source of extreme excitement, but something that is always off in the distance, and with my flight leaving in 8 days, that distance has rather suddenly vanished! I am starting to pack and realizing how little time I really have before I leave to organize paperwork and figure out what is essential and what is frivolous for a two month journey to multiple countries, all with different cultures. Is is best to bring all more conservative clothing like I will need in Egypt and Morocco? Will I want nice clothes as well as clothes that I am willing to dispose of at the end of the journey? Is it too much to just bring everything? To this last question, I know the answer is yes!
I started off today at a travel clinic getting my last vaccination and a prescription for malaria medication. Then, I ordered a backpack which, if all goes well, should arrive on Wednesday, just in time for me to decide what is going in it and load it up for my voyage. I am getting slightly anxious for the trip to come as well, I know it will be the most amazing thing I have done up until now in my life, but I also know that there is no way for me to anticipate everything it will hold for me... There is only one thing I can be certain of at this point, and it is that I will remember these next few months for the rest of my life!

My summer Itinerary!

2009-06-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

For those of you that are not yet aware, this summer I am participating in the Semester at Sea program, and will be spending 67 days on a boat sailing around the Mediterranean and taking classes. Sounds rough, I know ;). I am going to try to keep this as updated as possible throughout my travels, and you can also check out the SAS website (www.semesteratsea.org) to follow where I am. Currently, I am at home getting some last minute travel details worked out, and growing more excited by the day! On June 13, I will fly to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the ship boards, and then my adventure will begin. This link contains a calendar, and information on the ports I will be in (https://www.ise.virginia.edu/asp/mydocuments/A09/A09_CalComm.pdf). Here is the itinerary of countries I will be visiting, and dates when I will be there:

Destination	Arrive Depart	Day	Date	Time
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada	Depart	Tuesday	16 June	1700
Cadiz, Spain	Arrive Depart	Wednesday Saturday	24 June 27 June	0800 2000
Civitavecchia / Naples, Italy	Arrive Depart	Wednesday Sunday	01 July 05 July	0800 2000
Dubrovnik, Croatia	Arrive Depart	Tuesday Friday	07 July 10 July	0800 2000
Piraeus (Athens), Greece	Arrive Depart	Monday Thursday	13 July 16 July	0800 2000
Istanbul, Turkey	Arrive Depart	Saturday Wednesday	18 July 22 July	0800 2000
Varna, Bulgaria	Arrive Depart	Friday Monday	24 July 27 July	0800 2000
Alexandria (Cairo), Egypt	Arrive Depart	Thursday Monday	30 July 03 August	0800 2000
Casablanca, Morocco	Arrive Depart	Sunday Wednesday	09 August 12 August	0800 2000
Norfolk, VA, USA	Arrive	Saturday	22 August	0800