We are currently refueling in the harbor next to the Strait of Gibraltar in between Spain and Morocco, very cool! I was just told by my friend Tim with dreadlocks that has become a constant fixture in Carol and my room, and who writes on our white board outside our room, 3 times a day, that the Strait of Gibraltar is really United Kingdom territory, so technically we are in the UK right now! We left Spain last night at 11 pm from the port of Cadiz. SPAIN WAS AMAZING!
We docked at 8 am on Wednesday, June 24 and spent the day exploring Cádiz. We meandered around the edge of the town along the waterfront for a while before we headed into town. We went to get a café con leche, and a bocadillo (sandwich) in a little plaza right next to the marina and then wandered the narrow streets of Cádiz for a while until we reached the Cathedral de Cádiz. It was very pretty and across the street from the ocean. Cádiz is actually on a peninsula so the town is surrounded on 3 sides by water. We went into the Cathedral and looked around and then went down under the alter to see the tombs of some notable and influential people of Cádiz, we didn’t really know who they were but it was cool nonetheless. We heard that you could climb the bell tower of the church and it had the BEST views of the city so we climbed to the top, it was a steep climb and used ramps instead of stairs, but when we finally made it the views were AWESOME! I took a ton of pictures; we had a 360° view of the whole town and could see how it was indeed surrounded by water on most sides. There was a panoramic view of the city that was numbered and played what the sights were on a recorded loop so it was cool to listen to that and identify the parts of the town.
After that we went to this museum called the Yacimiento Arqueologico, Casa del Obispo that preserved an old bishops house that was inhabited by the Romans, Muslims, and Spanish throughout history. The whole house was preserved and as we walked through the rooms the floors were glass bottomed and we could see the aqueducts and old parts of the house through the floor, it was very neat! According to the brochure “the visitor will have a direct experience of the evolution of the city from the 8th century BC to the 19th century.” The house was a place of worship for many civilizations, a Phoenician funeral complex and in Roman times it was dedicated to the worships of the gods Apollo, Aesculapius, and Hgyia. When the Muslims arrived in Spain, it was used to summon the citizens to prayer. In the 16th century, Bishop Garcia de Haro converted it to an Episcopal residence.
After that we walked around some more and kind of stumbled upon the Cádiz fish and produce market, it was tented and had rows of stalls of people selling their fresh produce, we walked through all the rows and looked at all the goods, then we walked through the Plaza de las Flores, basically a ton of flower stalls with lots of fresh flowers for sale, it smelled GREAT!! After that we walked along the waterfront to the beach and had lunch at this little beach bar, I had a tortilla Espanola bocadillo, which is eggs+potatos on a French baguette, it was pretty good! We drank some sangria and met up with some of our new friends, 3 guys from California that are Fijis from SMU, and a bunch of kids from Colorado that go to CU Boulder. We camped out on the beach with all the locals for the afternoon and laid out and swam, the water was gorgeous and not very cold! It was a fun afternoon, then we walked back to the ship and Camille got us a little lost. We ended up circumnavigating the whole town of Cadiz and 45 min later the MV Explorer and the marina was in sight! I think we ended up walking around the entire perimeter of the town before the day was through hahah oh well.
We got back to the ship at like 8, showered and got ready for dinner. Clark made us reservations at this little restaurant in the historic district, and I ate a GREATTTT steak, with potatoes, and tomatoes and drank some good white wine. We watched the US/Spain soccer game and were happy when the US won!!! After dinner our group of like 15 wandered the streets trying to find a bar to settle at, because in Spain the clubs don’t get going until like 3 AM or so. We went to a little local bar and had some drinks and sat down and talked to some locals for a while, then more Semester at Sea kids started showing up and it got REALLY crowded so after we said hi to everyone we decided to move on. Fernanda, our friend from Spain, met up with her friend Pablo who lives in Sevilla and they were at a club called Barabbas in New Cadiz which is the more residential/modern part of town, also where the beaches were, so we were trying to met up with them. We were trying to get a cab and directions to meet her, and in the process of flagging down a cab we came across a different club that looked really fun so we decided to stop in there for a little bit. Carol and I met these older Spanish men and ended up dancing with them for a while, and Hannah befriended some older Spanish ladies, that had this crazy gray hair and looked like witches, but they had a fun time dancing together. After a while we remembered that we were trying to meet up with Fernanda, so we gathered our group (Caroline, Hannah, me, Clark, Camille, +3 new Spanish friends) and got a cab to the Barabbas. It was SUCH a cool discoteca! We danced ALL night, and Pablo turned out to be pretty CUTE! I hung out with him for most of the night, next thing I know, I have literally stayed out ALL night, lost complete track of time and its 7:15 in the morning. Fernanda, Pablo and I are walk to his car, and they take me back to the ship. The port was open for the morning so Pablo could drive right up to the gangway of our ship and I said goodbye to them, ran and got my bag (which thankfully I had packed the night before) for my trip to Sevilla and headed to the Union to meet for our trip, never mind the fact I hadn’t gone to sleep yet! However, I have NO REGRETS, it was one of the craziest, most fun nights of my life!!!!!!
Now its Thursday, June 25 and we are on the bus headed to Sevilla, we get there at 9:30ish and walk around a plaza for a while to stretch our legs, I napped the whole way there so I am feeling a little better but still EXHAUSTED! We head to the Alcázar and walk around for a while, it had a very strong Muslim influence, and all of the walls are covered in very elaborate calligraphy that is made out of plaster /alabaster/marble, it was gorgeous. The ceilings were so intricate and the walls were also tiled in bright bright colors and complex patterns, it was SO PRETTY! It has been enlarged by its inhabitants every century so it was neat to see what rooms and such got added on and who built them. The Muslims also have inside gardens in their homes that have pools in the middle so that was picturesque and pretty as well! After the palace we headed to the Cathedral of Christendom, were Christopher Columbus is buried in a raised tomb supported by 4 statues of Spanish soldiers in full uniform. The Cathedral I believe is the 3rd largest in the world and the largest cathedral in the Gothic style in the world! After that we walked around the Jewish Quarter of Sevilla, and shopped around. The Jewish Quarter was made up of mostly tiny narrow streets. We had lunch at a Spanish restaurant and they served us family style, typical Spanish food. After that we went to site of the Universal Exhibition Sevilla 1992, we took a lot of pictures. On the outside of the building, there are tile mosaics for every province in Spain that depict its history, and then also a tile map of the region with the cities/towns. We walked around the Parque de Maria Luisa for a little bit then got on the bus to head to Córdoba.
It took 2 hours to get to Córdoba, and I slept the whole way there. We arrived at abt 6:30 PM at our hotel and got our roommates, they were assigned alphabetically. My roommate was Claudia, from Mexico City, who goes to school in San Diego. I met up with some new friends, Ashlea Feezel was on my trip, and her roommate Rachel Holt from TCU, and some girls from CSU (Colorado State University), and one from Pittsburgh, and one from USC, and a boy from New York. We had 2 hrs of free time before dinner so we walked around and explored the area around our hotel. We went into the Cortes de Ingles department store some other local stores. After dinner a group of people wanted to go out but I was so tired from not sleeping the night before that I decided to get some sleep because we had to be down in the lobby at 8:30 AM the next morning.
The next day we toured around Córdoba, we first went to another Alcázar that had really pretty gardens, I took some pictures but the people working there wouldn’t give us all brochures because they thought that there were too many people in our group, it was so annoying! After that we went to the Mezquita, which was originally a mosque and then converted to a Church when King Ferdinand III reconquered Córdoba in 1236, there was so much history and so many different elements of architecture that were from every period of history! The whole thing was MASSIVE, hearing all abt the city of the mosque/church we had lunch at our hotel in Córdoba and then got on the bus for another 2 hour long bus ride to Granada. We got to there at like 6:30. Granada was probably my favorite city of the trip (not counting Cadiz—I LOVEEEDD Cadiz). We stayed at a hotel that was on a hill and overlooked the city, it was on the same hill as the Alhambra. After we settled into our rooms we explored the hotel, it had a nice pool on the 3rd floor and this awesome patio dining area that had a spectacular view of the city. We decided to go into town and explore before dinner, so we walked down the hill, through this beautiful park with tall cypress trees lining the road, we were shaded from the sun and it was very cool, not hot. When we got into the city we walked around a little bit and then had tapas and drinks at a little café. There were some WEIRD gypsies that were walking around the plaza that we were in tormenting people, they were dressed in strange outfits and had painted faces. They would shoot off a cap gun and one of them would pretend to fall dead in the middle of the road and the others would come up crying and yelling and freaking out that their friend was “dead.” A woman in a pinstriped suit and a white painted face chased a poor Asian tourist around and was drooling at the mouth, and after she chased the girl away turned her attention to a little boy and made him cry too. It was so weird, and no one was doing anything about it, you would think someone would have called the police for disturbing the peace or something; I guess they don’t have those kinds of laws in Spain. When trekked back up the hill for dinner and got ready to go out. It was this girl on the trip, Caitlin’s birthday so we all wanted to check out the Granada nightlife scene to celebrate with her. We walked back down the hill and didn’t really know where we were headed and kind of just strolled around, I LOVED Granada. Everyone was out for their nightly stroll eating ice cream and just enjoying the city and weather. The city seemed more refined, sophisticated and cosmopolitan than Cordoba or Sevilla. After 30 min of wandering and not finding a bar to go to we randomly ran into these 2 American looking boys in jeans and polo’s came up to us and asked if we were lost. It turned out they were studying for the summer in the Granada and one went to Arkansas (Ryan) and the other was born in Singapore, but his parents were British, yet he went to an American school so he didn’t have an accent, and now his family lives in Trinidad & Tobago, his name was Ryan. They were very friendly and told us they wanted to show us the Cathedral, so we took a little detour and got to see the cathedral, it was lit up and really beautiful. They took us to this local bar Peo, where I drank tinto vernao (red wine + lemonade…it was SOOOOOO good) and they gave you free tapas with your drink. We met some locals and Ryan and Dan’s other friends that were studying with them came and met us. Then we headed to a chupiteria (shot bar) and this club Camboria. It was a fun night!
The next morning at 10 AM we headed out on foot for the Alhambra. My roommate Claudia ended up staying out until 5:30 AM and didn’t wake up, although I tried to wake her up 3 times before 10. She was 30 min late and since our trip was pushed forward an hour (scheduling screw up, we had to cut our last day 1 hr short to make it back to the ship on time), our tour leaders were already FAHREAKING OUT. I had to run up and wake up Claudia again, and told her everyone was waiting and really mad, and she was very unfazed by the whole situation, it was annoying and uncomfortable. Anyways, we started our tour of the Alhambra, which I found out wasn’t just a Moorish palace but actually an entire city that held 3,000 citizens and was begun in the 1240s by the first king of the Nasrids, this great citadel once comprised an entire complex of houses, schools, baths, barracks and gardens surrounded by defense towers and thick walls. We started out tour at the gardens then proceeded to the summer house for the king and his family, then we walked around the city part, saw the baths, a castle that King Ferdinand built for his wife Isabel but never finished, and finally went into the Alhambra itself at 12:30, it was very cool with all the mosaics and calligraphy. We also saw very cool views of the entire city of Granada, I took a bunch of pictures! After the tour we walked back to the hotel, ate a quick lunch, then got back the bus and headed back to Cadiz.
We got back on the ship and found out that the kids SAS trip to Barcelona had their flight delayed until 9:30, so we were supposed to leave at 8 and instead left at 11. It was ok, we just sat up on the top deck taking in the last views of Cadiz and hanging out with our friends and hearing about all their trips and stories in Spain. Clark and I played some marathon ping-pong too!
We have a test coming up on Tuesday in Global Studies and also a paper for that class due on that day too. I also have journal entries for advertising too, everyone on the boat has a ton of school work so we are probably going to be on school lock-down until we get to Italy in 3 days!
I MISS EVERYONE DEARLY AT HOME, HOPE ALL OF YOUR SUMMERS ARE GOING GREAT!!!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
LAST DAY BEFORE ESPANA
Sorry I haven’t posted in the last 2 days, the internet has been pretty faulty in our cabin so I haven’t been on the internet to post! The past 2 days have been sunny so we have been spending most of the days up on the deck after classes! 2 nights ago we had dinner outside on the 6th deck with Rocky one of the teachers on the ship, he is an Environmental Planner and teaches at Sonoma State in California. He brought his family on the trip and his 3 yr old son Ryder is the CUTEST little blond boy! He is taking Spanish on the boat and is running around chattering to everyone, he is adorabbbble! Rocky has traveled extensively, and recounted some of his adventures for us; it was fun to hear his stories!
Pub nights the past 3 nights have been fun, I am meeting s0o0o0o many new people and the sunsets have all been gorgeous! 2 nights ago we passed through the Azores Islands, they belong to Portugal but are 1,000 miles away from mainland Portugal. They looked like something out of Lost; I took a bunch of pictures! We also saw a school of dolphins that were swimming close to the ship; they would jump out of the water. The tops of their bodies were black and the bottom gray, I have never seen any dolphins like that before! The ship sailed in between 2 of them and they were in sight for most of the day. It was so neat passing through them bc you could stand on the back of the ship on the top deck and see land on both sides of you! We could also see the little towns on the islands, and when it got dark all the lights flickered from around the islands, it was really pretty!
Classes are going well, we have our first tests in about a week and a half right before we get to Italy. We are making travel plans with the friends that we have met, and are trying to put together a villa in Croatia, on the beach with a bunch of people, apparently it will only cost abt $30 a night per person, I hope it works out. There was a “dance” on the ship 2 nights ago in the union (our biggest class room), we planned on going but we didn’t realize it ended at 11 so we didn’t make it. The sun sets at 10 every night so we hang out on deck after dinner talking and watching the sun go down, so I guess time slipped away faster than we thought, oh well, everyone else said it wasn’t that great…hah.
We are going to be in Cadiz tomorrow at 8 am, but they have to check everyone’s passports and we have to go through immigration procedures on the ship so we don’t know what time we are actually going to get off! Hopefully it will only take max 2 hrs. We are going to spend the day in Cadiz, walking around sightseeing: go to the Cathedral, museums, shop at the market which is supposed to be cool, and then probably hit up the beach in the afternoon. Fernanda is going to be with us in Cadiz, and one of her friends is coming to meet us, so I’m excited to meet him, she said he’s verrrrry good looking haha. Then we are going to go out in Cadiz tomorrow night. I head to Sevilla, Cordoba, and Granda for the rest of the time we are in Spain. I am very excited to see the Mezquita, Alhambra, and Cathedral and explore all those cities!!!! We have a community (aka ship-wide) meeting tonight, called “pre-port” and they are going to give us all the necessary info we need to know before we get off the ship, safety wise, how to disembark, get back on, stuff like that. Oh, we also saw another whale today, this time we got to see his tail when he would dive under the water; it was only abt 100 yds from the ship! NEAT! I prob will be able to use an Internet café somewhere in Spain so I will update all of you then!
MISS YOU ALL!
Pub nights the past 3 nights have been fun, I am meeting s0o0o0o many new people and the sunsets have all been gorgeous! 2 nights ago we passed through the Azores Islands, they belong to Portugal but are 1,000 miles away from mainland Portugal. They looked like something out of Lost; I took a bunch of pictures! We also saw a school of dolphins that were swimming close to the ship; they would jump out of the water. The tops of their bodies were black and the bottom gray, I have never seen any dolphins like that before! The ship sailed in between 2 of them and they were in sight for most of the day. It was so neat passing through them bc you could stand on the back of the ship on the top deck and see land on both sides of you! We could also see the little towns on the islands, and when it got dark all the lights flickered from around the islands, it was really pretty!
Classes are going well, we have our first tests in about a week and a half right before we get to Italy. We are making travel plans with the friends that we have met, and are trying to put together a villa in Croatia, on the beach with a bunch of people, apparently it will only cost abt $30 a night per person, I hope it works out. There was a “dance” on the ship 2 nights ago in the union (our biggest class room), we planned on going but we didn’t realize it ended at 11 so we didn’t make it. The sun sets at 10 every night so we hang out on deck after dinner talking and watching the sun go down, so I guess time slipped away faster than we thought, oh well, everyone else said it wasn’t that great…hah.
We are going to be in Cadiz tomorrow at 8 am, but they have to check everyone’s passports and we have to go through immigration procedures on the ship so we don’t know what time we are actually going to get off! Hopefully it will only take max 2 hrs. We are going to spend the day in Cadiz, walking around sightseeing: go to the Cathedral, museums, shop at the market which is supposed to be cool, and then probably hit up the beach in the afternoon. Fernanda is going to be with us in Cadiz, and one of her friends is coming to meet us, so I’m excited to meet him, she said he’s verrrrry good looking haha. Then we are going to go out in Cadiz tomorrow night. I head to Sevilla, Cordoba, and Granda for the rest of the time we are in Spain. I am very excited to see the Mezquita, Alhambra, and Cathedral and explore all those cities!!!! We have a community (aka ship-wide) meeting tonight, called “pre-port” and they are going to give us all the necessary info we need to know before we get off the ship, safety wise, how to disembark, get back on, stuff like that. Oh, we also saw another whale today, this time we got to see his tail when he would dive under the water; it was only abt 100 yds from the ship! NEAT! I prob will be able to use an Internet café somewhere in Spain so I will update all of you then!
MISS YOU ALL!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
HaPpY BiRtHdAy AVERY!!!
6/19/09
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AVERY VAUGHAN!!!!
Today the weather was cloudy, rainy, and windy, boo. I was falling asleep in my 8 AM advertising class, but could stay awake a little better in global studies. After that I came back to my cabin and did some reading before I went to eat lunch on the 6th deck outside. While we were eating lunch we saw some blow spouts of some animal blowing out water a couple hundred feet away from the boat, it was soooo cool. Then a little while later we actually saw the animals swimming in the water, we are split, as to whether they were dolphins, or whales, either way it was awesome to see! Because of the rain, we couldn’t hang out on the deck all afternoon, so we camped out in this piano lounge area where a lot of people were studying and all did our reading there. In my Art History class at 4:15, we learned ALL about the acropolis, the entire time. After class we went and sat on the deck for a while and watched the water, then we ate dinner. It was PuB NiTe again so we had some wine with our dinner. We have made good friends with out waiters, Alan and Paul, and tonight we found out that ALAN HAS A TONGUE RING, hah. It was a funny discovery. We all gathered in Carol and my room before we went out on the deck to have our last 3 drinks of the evening. When we got up there it was a LOT less crowded than the night before, so we grabbed a table and just sat around talking. I chatted with “Austin from Austin” as he is known on the ship, hes a pike (spelling, Hallie correct me please) from UT and was actually in my accounting group in one of my classes last semester, small world! Hannah and Caroline talked to the “interport” student, Fernanda. Each leg of our trip we pick someone up in the previous country that sail with us to the next country, which they native to. They hang out with us and educate us on our next destination, Fernanda is our “interport” student from Majorca, Spain. After pub night she and our other new friend, Triana (see story about Hannah in previous post) came back to our room and we all talked until 3 AM. It was so interesting to hear about their backgrounds. Fernanda was originally born in Brazil and then moved around in Spain/France before her family settled in Majorca (island off coast of Spain, also where Rafa Nadal is from..) where her dad owns/runs clubs and bars, and restaurants. Before her parents had her they were professional dancers/acrobats and traveled around the world. She goes to a University in Barcelona, and speaks 6 languages. One time when she was visiting her cousin in Argentina she got on stage at a concert that M.I.A. performed at and danced with on stage with her! She told us so many other cool stories like that, I’m so glad we got to hang out with her last night, we will all be sad when she gets off the boat in Spain! Triana is from NYC and goes to FIT. She wants to be a singer though; she is just doing fashion marketing for the time being. She also had a lot to say, it was just really cool getting to know them and talk to them! That’s all for now!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AVERY VAUGHAN!!!!
Today the weather was cloudy, rainy, and windy, boo. I was falling asleep in my 8 AM advertising class, but could stay awake a little better in global studies. After that I came back to my cabin and did some reading before I went to eat lunch on the 6th deck outside. While we were eating lunch we saw some blow spouts of some animal blowing out water a couple hundred feet away from the boat, it was soooo cool. Then a little while later we actually saw the animals swimming in the water, we are split, as to whether they were dolphins, or whales, either way it was awesome to see! Because of the rain, we couldn’t hang out on the deck all afternoon, so we camped out in this piano lounge area where a lot of people were studying and all did our reading there. In my Art History class at 4:15, we learned ALL about the acropolis, the entire time. After class we went and sat on the deck for a while and watched the water, then we ate dinner. It was PuB NiTe again so we had some wine with our dinner. We have made good friends with out waiters, Alan and Paul, and tonight we found out that ALAN HAS A TONGUE RING, hah. It was a funny discovery. We all gathered in Carol and my room before we went out on the deck to have our last 3 drinks of the evening. When we got up there it was a LOT less crowded than the night before, so we grabbed a table and just sat around talking. I chatted with “Austin from Austin” as he is known on the ship, hes a pike (spelling, Hallie correct me please) from UT and was actually in my accounting group in one of my classes last semester, small world! Hannah and Caroline talked to the “interport” student, Fernanda. Each leg of our trip we pick someone up in the previous country that sail with us to the next country, which they native to. They hang out with us and educate us on our next destination, Fernanda is our “interport” student from Majorca, Spain. After pub night she and our other new friend, Triana (see story about Hannah in previous post) came back to our room and we all talked until 3 AM. It was so interesting to hear about their backgrounds. Fernanda was originally born in Brazil and then moved around in Spain/France before her family settled in Majorca (island off coast of Spain, also where Rafa Nadal is from..) where her dad owns/runs clubs and bars, and restaurants. Before her parents had her they were professional dancers/acrobats and traveled around the world. She goes to a University in Barcelona, and speaks 6 languages. One time when she was visiting her cousin in Argentina she got on stage at a concert that M.I.A. performed at and danced with on stage with her! She told us so many other cool stories like that, I’m so glad we got to hang out with her last night, we will all be sad when she gets off the boat in Spain! Triana is from NYC and goes to FIT. She wants to be a singer though; she is just doing fashion marketing for the time being. She also had a lot to say, it was just really cool getting to know them and talk to them! That’s all for now!
Friday, June 19, 2009
First Day of Class
“that’s rude if I had a talent, I would share it…”
June 18, 2009
Today was our first day of class, it was hard waking up at 7AM, and even harder with my body thinking it was 6AM, I also found out that we will be losing an hour of sleep every night until we get to Cadiz, schweet.
My Advertising & Society class at 8 AM was pretty interesting, my teacher who is from UGA is an absolute HOOT. She was wearing roll on body glitter like the stuff we used to get at Limited Too when we were little, ALL OVER HER BODY. Her face, chest, shoulders, arms, covered. She gloweddd at the front of the class. She is really funny too, I think the class is going to be interesting and not that hard! Then we had global studies, all 750 of us have it at the same time, and we got spots in the back, it doesn’t seem like its going to be that hard either, and it was actually more interesting than any of us expected.
After that I have a break from 10:45 until art history at 4:15 with Camille, so I basically have the whole day. After lunch, since it was like 80 outside and really sunny we laid out on the side top deck of the ship. We made a genius playlist on my I-pod speakers of “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child and the genre of songs that followed made everyone who walked by laugh, it broke the ice to say the least. It got pretty windy on the side so we moved to the wooden deck by the pool and it felt 15 degrees warmer.
Then I had Art History, we are going to be studying buildings in the Med instead of actual art-which is fine with me, since we are going to have the opportunity to see a bunch of this stuff in port.
After class Carol and I went to the workout room and Carol got kicked off her machine (bc we have to sign up in advance and only get 30 min time slots) by the Executive Dean of Students, so I had the pleasure of working out next to him, for my last 10 min, hah! We had “pub night” tonight. We were allowed 2 drinks at dinner, I had white wine. Then we went out on the deck to watch the sunset from the back of the ship. It was GORGEOUS! After the sun set it was chilly so we went back upstairs to get ready for PUB NIGHT, yippeeee! It was really fun; we met some new peeps and hung out with the friends that we had already made! While there Hannah made friends with a teacher from NOLA, they had a GREAT and lengthy convo about God knows what, then Hannah spilled her red red wine on the table and Camille, yells out "Hannah lick it up.." as a joke bc of our limited quantity of alcoholic beverages. THEN THIS GIRL FROM THE NEXT TABLE OVER GOES, "OH DO YOU MIND IF I HAVE IT?" AND LICKED THE RED WINE OFF THE GLASS TABLE...like....whhaaaaaaaaaaat. We were shocked and confused. Then Hannah went up to this group of LLCs (Living and Learning Coordinators, they are basically younger teachers that are hall monitors, and have special activities they are in charge of) and told them that Caroline would like to teach the WHOLE BOAT (approx 1050 peeps) a DANCEEEE, Caroline almost slapped her, twas hilarious.. I really think she might have to do it. After pub night ended at a prompt 11 PM, we proceeded to the smoking deck, bc our friend Clark wanted to smoke a cig. Hannah had a lovely karaoke performance with this black girl name Triana (she is super cool!), wearing tribal African regalia, and had a weave of braids to her waist. I could elaborate on the details but most of you know how this exchange prob went down seeing as Hannah grabs the mic and belts out karaoke every chance she gets. I will leave you with this mental pic: they are belting out “Colors of the Wind,” Pocahontas style and Hannah is gripping a handful of Trianas braids when this security guard comes out on deck and tells us they need to tone it down, they could keep singing just at a quieter tone... Hannah proceeds to tell him to next time just look out the porthole window on the door and motion with the "volume down" hand signal instead of coming out. After the performance was over, that DUH I captured on video, we came home and I’m going to bed bc I have class at early and we are losing another hour tonight, ughhhh.
Hope its sunny tomorrow again!
Much love to everyone
June 18, 2009
Today was our first day of class, it was hard waking up at 7AM, and even harder with my body thinking it was 6AM, I also found out that we will be losing an hour of sleep every night until we get to Cadiz, schweet.
My Advertising & Society class at 8 AM was pretty interesting, my teacher who is from UGA is an absolute HOOT. She was wearing roll on body glitter like the stuff we used to get at Limited Too when we were little, ALL OVER HER BODY. Her face, chest, shoulders, arms, covered. She gloweddd at the front of the class. She is really funny too, I think the class is going to be interesting and not that hard! Then we had global studies, all 750 of us have it at the same time, and we got spots in the back, it doesn’t seem like its going to be that hard either, and it was actually more interesting than any of us expected.
After that I have a break from 10:45 until art history at 4:15 with Camille, so I basically have the whole day. After lunch, since it was like 80 outside and really sunny we laid out on the side top deck of the ship. We made a genius playlist on my I-pod speakers of “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child and the genre of songs that followed made everyone who walked by laugh, it broke the ice to say the least. It got pretty windy on the side so we moved to the wooden deck by the pool and it felt 15 degrees warmer.
Then I had Art History, we are going to be studying buildings in the Med instead of actual art-which is fine with me, since we are going to have the opportunity to see a bunch of this stuff in port.
After class Carol and I went to the workout room and Carol got kicked off her machine (bc we have to sign up in advance and only get 30 min time slots) by the Executive Dean of Students, so I had the pleasure of working out next to him, for my last 10 min, hah! We had “pub night” tonight. We were allowed 2 drinks at dinner, I had white wine. Then we went out on the deck to watch the sunset from the back of the ship. It was GORGEOUS! After the sun set it was chilly so we went back upstairs to get ready for PUB NIGHT, yippeeee! It was really fun; we met some new peeps and hung out with the friends that we had already made! While there Hannah made friends with a teacher from NOLA, they had a GREAT and lengthy convo about God knows what, then Hannah spilled her red red wine on the table and Camille, yells out "Hannah lick it up.." as a joke bc of our limited quantity of alcoholic beverages. THEN THIS GIRL FROM THE NEXT TABLE OVER GOES, "OH DO YOU MIND IF I HAVE IT?" AND LICKED THE RED WINE OFF THE GLASS TABLE...like....whhaaaaaaaaaaat. We were shocked and confused. Then Hannah went up to this group of LLCs (Living and Learning Coordinators, they are basically younger teachers that are hall monitors, and have special activities they are in charge of) and told them that Caroline would like to teach the WHOLE BOAT (approx 1050 peeps) a DANCEEEE, Caroline almost slapped her, twas hilarious.. I really think she might have to do it. After pub night ended at a prompt 11 PM, we proceeded to the smoking deck, bc our friend Clark wanted to smoke a cig. Hannah had a lovely karaoke performance with this black girl name Triana (she is super cool!), wearing tribal African regalia, and had a weave of braids to her waist. I could elaborate on the details but most of you know how this exchange prob went down seeing as Hannah grabs the mic and belts out karaoke every chance she gets. I will leave you with this mental pic: they are belting out “Colors of the Wind,” Pocahontas style and Hannah is gripping a handful of Trianas braids when this security guard comes out on deck and tells us they need to tone it down, they could keep singing just at a quieter tone... Hannah proceeds to tell him to next time just look out the porthole window on the door and motion with the "volume down" hand signal instead of coming out. After the performance was over, that DUH I captured on video, we came home and I’m going to bed bc I have class at early and we are losing another hour tonight, ughhhh.
Hope its sunny tomorrow again!
Much love to everyone
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I'm on a BOATTTT!
July 17th, 2009
So last night after I thought the “community meeting” wasn’t going to happen we got an announcement to meet in the Union, so we went and we met all of the faculty and the 2 Executive Deans, then heard some more info about the voyage, blah blah blah… THEN we came to our rooms and Hannah, Camille, Carol, and I watched TWILIGHT, finally!
Today was our first day at SEA, and we had orientation stuff ALL DAY! We broke up into discussion groups to talk about this AWFUL book we had to read that of embraces the theme of our journey, yup we have a theme. Its social justice and human rights or something. My room met in the faculty lounge at the very front of the ship (its stocked with a FULL bar mind you..hmmm), and most of my group got severely sea sick including my discussion leader so we adjourned an hour early so every one could go back to their cabins and sleep. Since I have yet to be afflicted with sea sickness, I just napped for a little bit. Then we went to lunch, and I met 2 people that went to high school at Kent, Denver with Marshall!!!!!!!! Jay goes to Vanderbilt and Remy this really cute girl goes to Brown, she is also Camille Robinson’s roomie. Then we had other orientation stuff to do, like hearing about ship safety, IT orientation, field trips, that good stuff! Then we came back to our rooms and napped AGAIN. Caroline, Camille, and I went to the workout room after that and attempted to do the elliptical, it was pretty interesting due to the rocking of the ship, but we managed without falling off. Afterward we went out on deck and watched the ocean for a while, its still pretty choppy, the captain said that swells were 10-15 ft high still…I hope we get out of this storm soon…
On the ship we are allowed to drink at designated “pub nights,” and on those days we are allowed 2 glasses of wine at dinner and 3 drinks on the 7th deck by the pool after that. We tried to figure the beverage service situation out at dinner, but they told us it starts tomorrow…oh well!
After dinner we had an “involvement symposium” where they told us a bunch of ways to get involved on the boat, like planning events like the Sea Olympics, babysitting the kids onboard, multi-cultural issues, stuff like that. Hannah and Remy met this ADORABLE old couple Gen and Michi in their book discussion groups, and this is their 9th voyage. Old people and adults can go on this trip and they are called “Life Long Learners” and take classes like us! Anyway, at this involvement symposium you could adopt a family on board, so our friends requested to have Gen and Michi be our grandparents for the rest of the voyage!!!!!!!!!
Then we went back to our rooms and watched Harry Potter 2 on the closed circuit TV, and set our clocks ahead an hour before bed. I have to wake up super early bc I have class at 8 am tomorrow. Goodnightttt
Love yall!
So last night after I thought the “community meeting” wasn’t going to happen we got an announcement to meet in the Union, so we went and we met all of the faculty and the 2 Executive Deans, then heard some more info about the voyage, blah blah blah… THEN we came to our rooms and Hannah, Camille, Carol, and I watched TWILIGHT, finally!
Today was our first day at SEA, and we had orientation stuff ALL DAY! We broke up into discussion groups to talk about this AWFUL book we had to read that of embraces the theme of our journey, yup we have a theme. Its social justice and human rights or something. My room met in the faculty lounge at the very front of the ship (its stocked with a FULL bar mind you..hmmm), and most of my group got severely sea sick including my discussion leader so we adjourned an hour early so every one could go back to their cabins and sleep. Since I have yet to be afflicted with sea sickness, I just napped for a little bit. Then we went to lunch, and I met 2 people that went to high school at Kent, Denver with Marshall!!!!!!!! Jay goes to Vanderbilt and Remy this really cute girl goes to Brown, she is also Camille Robinson’s roomie. Then we had other orientation stuff to do, like hearing about ship safety, IT orientation, field trips, that good stuff! Then we came back to our rooms and napped AGAIN. Caroline, Camille, and I went to the workout room after that and attempted to do the elliptical, it was pretty interesting due to the rocking of the ship, but we managed without falling off. Afterward we went out on deck and watched the ocean for a while, its still pretty choppy, the captain said that swells were 10-15 ft high still…I hope we get out of this storm soon…
On the ship we are allowed to drink at designated “pub nights,” and on those days we are allowed 2 glasses of wine at dinner and 3 drinks on the 7th deck by the pool after that. We tried to figure the beverage service situation out at dinner, but they told us it starts tomorrow…oh well!
After dinner we had an “involvement symposium” where they told us a bunch of ways to get involved on the boat, like planning events like the Sea Olympics, babysitting the kids onboard, multi-cultural issues, stuff like that. Hannah and Remy met this ADORABLE old couple Gen and Michi in their book discussion groups, and this is their 9th voyage. Old people and adults can go on this trip and they are called “Life Long Learners” and take classes like us! Anyway, at this involvement symposium you could adopt a family on board, so our friends requested to have Gen and Michi be our grandparents for the rest of the voyage!!!!!!!!!
Then we went back to our rooms and watched Harry Potter 2 on the closed circuit TV, and set our clocks ahead an hour before bed. I have to wake up super early bc I have class at 8 am tomorrow. Goodnightttt
Love yall!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
ADIOS AMERICA, SEE YA IN 67 DAYS!!!
Today was such a long day as I write this it feels like this morning was at least a week ago. We woke up at 6:30 to a call from the front desk saying our cab was downstairs- he was 45 min early. After quickly getting ready, packing our bags, and loading them on the trolley that we stole the night before and locked in our room over night, we proceeded downstairs. I bet the cab driver his Harley Davidson that he couldn’t fit all our 8 suitcases into his van cab, but he somehow managed. We had a quick and tasty b-fast, only to walk outside and find that Ed had been reading the newspaper for the last 20 min with his headlights on, and his cab car battery was now dead. YIKES! (SIDENOTE: we were scurrying to get to the pier so that Hannah Rose Kitz could get to a dentist in Halifax bc her dental emergency was escalating…) We were swiftly rescued by the hotel airport VAN that jumped our cab, and soon were on the way to the pier. Only to discover 200 ft out of the parking lot Hannah forgot her camera, so we went back for her to grab it. The 25 min drive into Halifax was REALLY REALLY pretty and scenic, picture lots of pines and lakes with cabins and cute little docks! Somehow during the ride Ed transformed into a self-proclaimed tour guide on all things Novia Scotia! He was chattttttting our ears off, and due to my lack of sleep it was hard for me to process, but I tried my hardest. The town of Halifax was quaint and pretty, the harbor is really pretty! Ed got us to the pier finally and unloaded our bags and we got into a long line that was the length of the whole pier warehouse. I was checking out everyone else’s bags in the line and mine were by far the largest, what can I say? I am a MAJ overpacker. The line moved pretty fast but my duffels don’t have a pullout handle so it was annoying and hurt my hands to pull them. We made it on to the ship, through security, got our ship ID cards and made our way to Room 3019, our home for the next 9 weeks!!!!!! Carol and I unpacked and were pleasantly surprised to realize our room wasn’t TOO small and we had ample room to store all of our stuff! The walls are also magnetic, so we hung pics on the them with magnets! The bathroom is cramped though…
Next we got off the ship and went to lunch at some seafood place on the waterfront, it was pretty good, I had fish and chips and everyone else got crabcakes and a lobster roll! I realized I really wished I had brought a pillow and the others agreed, so after lunch we went to the Halifax Shopping Center and bought pillows at Sears! We came back and Camille Robinson (Hannah/Alixe’s friend from NOLA) came down to our room, and some of her friends Clark, Frances, and Isabel also came over and we hung out for a while.
So far everyone seems really friendly and wants to make friends, it should be fun tomorrow meeting peeps when I have more energy!
4 PM was our mandatory lifeboat drill, if you have ever been on a cruise, skip the remainder of the paragraph… anywho we had to don these BRIGHT orange life jackets complete with light and whistle and listen to some Russian with a horrible accent yellow at us through a bullhorn explaining the procedure if the ship were to sink… Fortunately, Carol, Ashlea Feezel and I are in the very first lifeboat, so we will be the 1st to get off if something should bad happen! We had to line up in rows on the desk and wear closed toe shoes, a HOODIE (?), and long pants, it was a long 30 min.
The ship left Halifax at 5, so we went up on deck to watch us leave port, we met some boys from Newport Beach that go to SMU and they seemed nice, they were pretty cute too! We actually turned around in the port, and did a full 360 degree turn before leaving because we had to do some “annual compass reading” before we left! After that we checked out Adelaide and Lauren’s room, and then went to dinner. The food was pretty mediocre. I hope its better tomorrow!
We have this community meeting tonight, I have no idea where or what it entails but I hope it doesn’t last long. I just want to watch Twilight and go to bed. I’m exhausted, and we have a long day of orientation stuff tomorrow. I will leave you with this quote:
Goodbye land, hello ocean! Next stop: CADIZ, ESPANA!!!!!
Next we got off the ship and went to lunch at some seafood place on the waterfront, it was pretty good, I had fish and chips and everyone else got crabcakes and a lobster roll! I realized I really wished I had brought a pillow and the others agreed, so after lunch we went to the Halifax Shopping Center and bought pillows at Sears! We came back and Camille Robinson (Hannah/Alixe’s friend from NOLA) came down to our room, and some of her friends Clark, Frances, and Isabel also came over and we hung out for a while.
So far everyone seems really friendly and wants to make friends, it should be fun tomorrow meeting peeps when I have more energy!
4 PM was our mandatory lifeboat drill, if you have ever been on a cruise, skip the remainder of the paragraph… anywho we had to don these BRIGHT orange life jackets complete with light and whistle and listen to some Russian with a horrible accent yellow at us through a bullhorn explaining the procedure if the ship were to sink… Fortunately, Carol, Ashlea Feezel and I are in the very first lifeboat, so we will be the 1st to get off if something should bad happen! We had to line up in rows on the desk and wear closed toe shoes, a HOODIE (?), and long pants, it was a long 30 min.
The ship left Halifax at 5, so we went up on deck to watch us leave port, we met some boys from Newport Beach that go to SMU and they seemed nice, they were pretty cute too! We actually turned around in the port, and did a full 360 degree turn before leaving because we had to do some “annual compass reading” before we left! After that we checked out Adelaide and Lauren’s room, and then went to dinner. The food was pretty mediocre. I hope its better tomorrow!
We have this community meeting tonight, I have no idea where or what it entails but I hope it doesn’t last long. I just want to watch Twilight and go to bed. I’m exhausted, and we have a long day of orientation stuff tomorrow. I will leave you with this quote:
Goodbye land, hello ocean! Next stop: CADIZ, ESPANA!!!!!
TRAVEL DAY
Today was a VERY long day, but we (Caroline, Hannah, Ashlea and I) have finally arrived at the Garden Hilton at 1:30 AM local time here.
I had to arrive at the airport 2 hours early for my flight because I feared that my bags were overweight (they were by 20 lbs) and oversize (which they also were but thankfully the lady checking me in let it slide). My flight to Dallas was quick/painless/noneventful.
I arrived in Dallas and met up with Hannah, Caroline, Adelaide, and her friend/room mate Lauren , also a pleasant surprise chilling at the gate was good ole Leslie Kitziger who had her own brand of wisdom to impart on us! I will take it to heart Les.
We arrived in NYC via JFK to a black sky that steadily worsened throughout our layover. We celebrated Caroline's 20th bday at Bobby Van's steakhouse and had enjoyed some Santa Margherita vino! Throughout our meal our flight kept getting delayed. When we made it back to our gate we started to notice lots of kids our age and made friends with some people, mainly a boy from TCU named Andrew, he was cute and we chatted with him for a while! Once we got on board (there were only 31 passengers, about 10-12 Semester at Sea kids) we found out that we were the 40th plane in line to take off due to the weather delays, so Carol and I passed the hour that we sat on the runway watching Pride & Prejudice on my comp, while Hannah made friends with a nice man from Halifax who trained pilots in Miami, and told her that one of his planes got hijacked in the Bahamas recently...uhhh...
We landed in Halifax and walked down stairs to get off the plane, went through customs and immigration, picked up our large duffles (mine are the largest I have seen yet, oopstini) and got a shuttle to our hotel.
Due to Hannah's severe tooth ache, she is boarding early @ 8 am tomorrow and probably going to get a root canal somewhere in Halifax, I am scheduled to board at 11:20 but am going to try and board with Hannah at 8 am, justifying it by telling them she needs a companion to take her to her root canal, and then just set up my room instead of disembarking again.
I have to wake up in less than 5 hours so I'm hitting the hay, miss everyone already!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
I'm 21!!!!!!!
So I just made my blog for Semester at Sea, Summer 2009, I leave in 5 days for HALIFAX, Nova Scotia and then the next day board the ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean! I am sOoOoOoOo excited!
Anyway, its also my 21st birthday, so I am headed to Austin to celebrate!
Anyway, its also my 21st birthday, so I am headed to Austin to celebrate!
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