Sea Olympics!!

Sea Olympics!



A tradition on the semester long voyages for Semester at Sea is the
Sea Olympics! Basically each hallway of students competes as a team
(or a sea, for example, I live in the Caribbean Sea hallway!) in a
bunch of different fun games. The opening ceremonies for the Sea
Olympics are always a lip-syncing competition the night before the day
of the Olympics. Each team is supposed to have 10 people from each
team to put together a performance for the lip-syncing. I ended up in
the wrong place at the wrong time so I got roped into participating in
this event. My team became really passionate about our lip-syncing
performance, we only had 2 days to make up the whole thing, but we
practiced a lot and it turned out hilarious! We lip synced to 5
different songs: Don't Stop Believing, She Thinks My Tractors Sexy,
International Love, Danza Kuduro, and Pound the Alarm by Niki Manaj.
It was such a random mash up of songs. I lip synced Don't Stop
Believing to open up our performance. And all our hard work paid off,
our lip-syncing won first place!! The next morning everyone met in the
Union at 10am to go over all the events (and announce my team as the
winners of the lip sync) and then at 11am the events began. There was
close to 20 different events and each person could sign up for a
couple different events to participate in. I participated in Taboo,
Phase 10, Pass the Orange (passing an orange down a line of people
only using your chin and chest…hilarious game), Tug-o-war (our first
round of Tug-o-War we competed against the adults who just happen to
have 2 body builders on their team…slightly unfair! Haha we lost
pretty quick.). The closing ceremony was a synchronized swimming
competition. Keep in mind our pool is pretty tiny! The synchronized
swimming was absolutely hilarious. Every team (there was 10 teams) did
something different with the music and dancing. Sea Olympics ended
around 4oclock, and since classes were cancelled we had the rest of
the afternoon to catch up on homework or just hang out. They didn't
announce the winner until the following day (Monday) in our Global
Studies course (the class that the whole ships attends). But my sea
tied for first!! Which means we get to depart the ship first in Ft.
Lauderdale so hopefully the lines at customs and things don't take
hours! So proud of the Caribbean Sea win!

Cape Town, South Africa

South Africa



Day 1: I woke up at 530am to watch the ship come into the Cape Town
port. I got to see the sunrise as we pulled up right in front of Table
Mountain. After the sun rose and we were docked, I went and laid in
bed until 730am when Randy (the guy who makes all the announcements)
came onto the PA system to wake everyone up and remind them that every
person on the ship has to have a face to face 'meeting' with South
African immigration before anyone is allowed to debark the ship. This
was the first port we have had to do this so Kelsey, Dylan and I went
and stood in line for our passports before we went to breakfast. The
line was really long but luckily it moved fast and we were able to
catch the end of breakfast at 830ish. Then of course there was like 5
kids who ever one had to wait on to go have their meetings, once
everyone finally did Kelsey and I met up with some friends to head
into the Victoria Albert Waterfront. We took a cab to the waterfront
with Sean, Kyle, Kelsey, Brooke, and Alex. We walked around the mall
and the whole waterfront and then ate lunch at Hindebrands, which is
right near the water. I got a cappuccino (which I have realized I have
come to like cappuccinos!) and ate an awesome Caesar salad Panini. I
had made plans to stay with a woman who lives in Cape Town named
Maureen. Maureen's sister lives in Arizona and plays tennis with my
dad so it all worked out wonderfully that I was able to stay with her.
Maureen asked me to call her when we arrived in port to figure out to
meet. So after I ate I took Kelseys phone (since my phone doesn't work
in port) and called Maureen. We decided to meet at 430 outside the
hotel at the waterfront. My friends didn't have plans so we headed
over to the info centre for a while, while they all looked for tours
to do. Then they all left around 1pm to go on their tours and I
wandered around a bit by myself (luckily found a novel in the mall I
was supposed to get before the voyage for one of my classes, good
thing I had one last English speaking port!) then walked back to the
ship (and of course got a little lost). One I got back to the ship I
finished packing up my bag and headed back to the Waterfront. I timed
it perfectly to meet Maureen in front of the hotel. I had only been
sitting there for a couple minutes when I saw a woman looking around.
I had told Maureen I was wearing red pants so she spotted me! We
finally met and got into her car. She then drove me around the
peninsula and we stopped at a gorgeous beach, I had no idea Cape Town
had beaches like this, Maureen said the water is too cold to swim
though. After driving for an hour or two we headed back to her place
and waited for her son to get home from work. Then when her son
(Adrian) got home we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. I was
so excited to have Mexican food! It was really delicious (I tried a
cheese stuffed pepper, really good, definitely going to try to make
them at home!) Then we went home and went to bed after watching a
little TV.

Day 2 : The next day we woke up and Maureen and I headed into
Stellenbosch (there is a good chance I am spelling that wrong but I
don't have internet to look up how to spell it…But Stellenbosch is one
of the wine lands!). Before we drove all the way up there, Maureen had
to run some errands so I tagged along. One of her errands was to pick
curtains from a woman who lives in one of the very poor townships. I
thought it was really interesting to see the extremities between the
first world and third world neighborhoods in South Africa. After that
we headed on a Stellenbosch where we went to a bird sanctuary (there
used to be cheetahs there but they moved, but we went into the
sanctuary anyway to look at the birds!) The birds were way cooler than
I thought they would be, I got to hold and pet owls! Then we walked
around this awesome restaurant where the tables are all up in the
trees, it was one of the coolest restaurants I had ever seen. And then
we headed to the wine farms. The first one we went to we ate lunch
there and tried a couple different wines. The restaurant/lounge we
were in was absolutely beautiful. Then we drove around some more
looking for anther wine farm to go to. Every left and right turn you
can take off this road takes you to another wine farm; it was amazing
how many there were! We got a little lost but ended up driving up onto
one Maureen was excited about that she had never been to. So we drove
up to it. This wine farm was less crowded than the last so one of the
guys pouring the wine gave us a whole history on each wine and was
really interesting. We also got to see one of the workers use a sword
to chop off the top of a champagne bottle. After spending a while
there we headed off out of Stellenbosch. On the way back to Maureen's
house we stopped at some little shops and art galleries and walked
around them. And then we drove back to Maureen's house. That night we
ate burgers for dinner, they came with bbq sauce, but it tasted like
what I know of as sweet and sour, they were really good though! Then
Maureen's daughter's flight was landing around 930 so she went to pick
her up. We went to bed after watching some tv after her daughter
(Lauren) got in.

Day 3: The next day I happily slept in and went out for lunch and
drinks at a restaurant by the gorgeous beach in Camps Bay with Lauren
and her friend. Then we drove around and drove down into the port to
attempt to show them the ship. Sadly our ship was docked behind a huge
building that help security, so you couldn't get through the building
unless you had a SAS id card, so instead I only got to show them a
portion of the ship, a little anti-climatic. Then we drove back to
Maureen's house and Adrian and I got ready to go hike Lions Head.
Lions Head in the small peak to the side of Table Mountain. Table
Mountain was incredibly foggy all weekend, very few SAS kids actually
got a chance to go up to the top of it, but Lions Head was the next
best thing. Lions Head was a great hike, the top was pretty
treacherous because you had to rock climb on chains and ladders and
handles and things, and it was pretty scary at points but really cool.
It was also the most ridiculous wind I have ever experienced, if you
were wearing baggy clothes I wouldn't be surprised if you just flew
away. I don't think I will ever experience such extreme wind ever
again. Then we hiked back down which was just as treacherous because
we had to climb down all the chains and handles. I loved the hike, it
ended up being almost as exhausting as my hike in Ghana, but it was
very different scenery! Then when we got back to Maureen's house,
Lauren was there with a few of her friends about to go out so they
waited for me as I quickly showered and got ready and went to dinner
with them. We ate some delicious sushi at the end on Long Street and
then walked over to one of the bars (called Neighborhood) to try to
meet one of Laurens friends. Her friends never ended up coming so we
went to a bar right near Maureen's house. I was so exhausted from the
hike but I rallied and had a lot of fun at the bar. Adrian and some of
his friends came and met us at the bar. We danced all night and ended
up walking home (since we were just 2 blocks away) around 230am.

Day 4: The next day I woke up and Maureen was skyping with her sister
Marion (who is friends with my dad in AZ, which is the reason I was
able to get in touch with Maureen and was able to stay with her) so I
met Marion over Skype and chatted (since I have never actually met her
in person, I'll have to do that once I get back to Arizona. Then we
all got ready and Maureen and Lauren and I headed to Boulders Beach to
see the penguins! We bought our tickets and headed down the walkway to
where the penguins hang out. Most of the penguins were molting so many
of them looked like they were in a very awkward stage in life, with
half of their bodies with nice new feathers and the other half of
their body with frayed and fuzzy crazy looking feather. It was very
funny to see! I took a think about a hundred pictures of the penguins,
such goofy creatures. Then we drove a little farther down the coast
and ate some fish and chips by the harbour near the boulders. Lauren
had to make sure she was back in time to get picked up for the airport
so after lunch we hustled back and Lauren's dad came to pick her up
and then Maureen dropped me back off the ship after I thanked her. I
found my friends once I got on the ship and we headed back over to the
waterfront and went shopping for little gifts in the mall and market
and then went to a sushi bar for dinner (I have learned that I love
sushi!). The sushi was delicious, and I was starving. After dinner we
walked back to the ship. I was exhausted so I went to bed pretty soon
after that.

Day 5: Then the last day I woke up early because I signed up for a SAS
trip to the AM Biehl Foundation. (I missed breakfast by like less than
a minute) so I bought a muffin from the snack bar (which was way
better than I expected) and caught my bus to the Amy Biehl Foundation.
Once we got to the offices of the foundation we watched a dvd about
the whole Amy Biehl story, which I think is such an amazing story, all
of the people involved are incredible. I have never heard of such a
story that shows how forgiveness can really make such a difference. I
won't attempt to explain the whole Amy Biehl story, but in short
(really really short) Amy Biehl was killed because she was in the
wrong place at the wrong time and was assumed (because she was white)
that she was against the black population is South Africa when really
she was an American on a FullBright Scholorship trying to help every
race register to vote, she was very much an advocate for equal rights.
She was stabbed to death, and her killers were sentenced to 18 years
in prison. After 4 years her killers applied for amnesty, which they
were granted. Amy Biehls parents started this foundation to carry on
what Amy believed in. Now after many years, 2 of Amy's killers
actually work for the foundation and have made big improvements with
the foundation. The whole story is quite remarkable. After the DVD the
owner Kevin came and spoke to us and then we had the opportunity to
buy some Amy Biehl things (bracelets and books and things, I bought a
couple bracelets to support the foundation) and then we headed to a
few schools to see what the foundation actually had done to improve
the education in the townships in South Africa. One school we went to
we watched some 7th graders read to 1st graders (to have the younger
have role models to look up to and learn how important reading is).
After that we just wandered the school, though we were definitely
being disruptive because the kids were stop paying attention in class
as we walked by, I felt bad we were causing such a ruckus! Then we ate
lunch at a local popular restaurant in one of the townships (that was
basically a giant open area with a roof over it) but we ate an
assortment of sausage, chicken, mealie meal (don't know how to
describe this, but it was plain but good!) and salsa. Then we went to
2 after school programs where the kids were very talented. We saw them
play instruments, dance and helped them with their new gardens they
are building on the school ground to help feed the kids and teach the
kids how to grow their own food. I wish we could have spent more time
at each school but we were on such a time crunch that we could only
spend like 20-30 min at each school. I would have rather we went to
less schools and spent an hour or more at each school so we could
actually meet and chat and get to know the people and the kids at each
school. We got back to the ship at 5pm and had to turn our passports
in with another face-to-face meeting with immigration. We were
supposed to sail at 20:00 but the port agent advised us not to because
the winds are so rough outside the port. So we stayed the night at the
dock (though sadly no one was allowed to leave or enter the ship) and
ended up not leaving until 11am the next morning!

Neptune Day!!

Neptune day is the day the ship crosses the Equator. But we are lucky
on this voyage because we were able to cross the Equator at the Prime
Meridian! In maritime world this is a pretty big deal because 0,0 is
not on any route that many ships take. When someone crosses the
equator on a ship you become a 'shellback' (where before you were
considered a polywog) but if you cross at 0,0 then you are an emerald
shellback (the rarest form of shellback, might I add) So the morning
after we left Ghana we were awoke with a parade in the hallway. The
Resident Directors and dependent children (professors kids) had a
bunch of instruments and came banging on everyones door. This was all
happening at like 730am....a little early for the loud noises in my
opinion. Then over the PA system they announced that King Neptune and
Minerva were here and ready for the initiation of the polywogs. So my
roommate and I rolled out of bed and went up to breakfast. After
breakfast we didn't really know what to do so we headed back to our
room and sat around for a while. At 9am we decided to go up to Deck 7
outside to see if anything was going on. Well we somehow missed the
memo because most of the ship was out there jumping in the pool or
getting their head shaved our kissing real fish. So we ran back
downstairs, changed into our bathing suits and got in line for the
'initiation'. The initiation consisted of getting a pitcher of fish
juices (it was the water from where they keep the frozen fish in the
kitchens...so it definitely was fishy) dumped over your head and then
jumping into the pool, then kissing a fish (yes a real-dead- giant
fish) smack on the lips and then kissing King Neptune's ring (which
was our Executive Dean dressed in a wig painted green in a skirt, and
then getting salt drizzled on our head. After all of that we were
officially shellbacks! (and smelled gross). All of our professors were
painted and dressed up and super into it, it was hilarious, my
anthropology professor was the one who was making everyone kiss the
fish hahah. Then another tradition for crossing the equator is to get
your head shaved (goes back to the military/navy days on ships). So I
got my head shaved...JUST KIDDINGGGG. Yeah right, hope I scared you, I
don't think I could pull off the bald look. But quite a few people
(even girls) shaved their heads! After the nonsense had calmed down a
bit we headed back to our rooms to shower and then went up to lunch.
We didn't actually cross 0,0 until 4pm-ish so when that time rolled
around we went and stood outside, taking in the thought that we are at
the center of the world! It didn't look any different (obviously there
is no flag floating out there with a 0,0 sign on it...though that
would have been cool!) but it was still cool to be there! Everyone had
a lot of homework that night since most of the midterm exams were
before we got to South Africa so I studied for a while and then went
to bed early. But now I can offically put on my resume I am an Emerald
Shellback!! haha!

Ghana!

Ghana!



During our logistal pre-port the night before we got to Ghana (a
mandatory meeting where we learn the important logistical things we
need to know for each country) The entire ship sang Happy Birthday to
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (sang over a video message)! He was supposed
to be on our voyage (he has a long history with Semester at Sea) but
he is accepting an award during our voyage so he had to cancel. He
wrote to our ship saying how sad he is that he cannot come on our
voyage.



Day 1: The first day I had a field lab with my Psychology class to
the Department of Social Welfare of Ghana. We met a woman named Helena
who talked to us about the Care Reform Initiative and how there are a
ton of orphanages that don't abide by any guidelines (foreigners come
start orphanages to save the world and then just fail) so now they
have laws and rules and all have to be registered. The Care Reform
Initiative started in 2008 and they have a long way to go but they
have made tremendous progress. After we left the DSW we ate lunch at
Buka- A Fine African restaurant. We ate real Ghanaian food like Fufu,
but most of it was really spicy and it was already really hot and
humid outside so we were all sweating bullets. Helena wanted to take
us to a registered home so after the lunch we went to Kinder Paradise.
Kinder Paradise was chosen for us to visit because it was always
consistently ahead of all other orphanages and basically had it
together from the beginning. Kinder Paradise was started by a German
woman who 1998 (pretty sure 1998…give or take a year or two maybe).
The owner/founder lady talked to us about her life and work. Daniel
(15 years old) toured us around the whole place, he wants to be an
architect and has lived in the home for 7 years. Then we showed us
some African drumming and some girls danced and then 5 of us went up
and attempted to dance with them. We were all terrible dancers
compared to them; it was very entertaining. Then we headed back to the
ship, and we had just enough time to catch the end of dinner on the
ship so I ate dinner and chatted with some friends on Deck 7, then
headed off to bed because I was exhausted.

Day 2: I woke up early and scarfed down some breakfast. I had an
overnight trip leaving at 8 and I had to be on the bus by 730. After
my quick breakfast I had to run back to my room for my ankle braces
and my water bottle, two very important things I'm so glad I didn't
forget. I got on a bus and we drove for over 4 hours to this village.
This is where our 'medium' hike was to take place. Two local boys (in
flipflops…) were 'hired' to take us up to the top of the mountain.
This hike was not medium…it was extreme. It was straight uphill the
entire way (if you tripped…you were going down) not to mention it was
so hot and soooo humid out. Another girl on my trip and I ended up
sticking together because we were about the same pace. We were
5minutes from the top of the mountain, on the edge of death, when
another local boy walked up behind us, grabbed our hands and quite
literally dragged us up the mountain. The girl I was with was
struggling hard to keep hiking, so the local boy let go of her and
dragged just me up the rest of the way. When I got to the top I
realized it was definitely worth the ridiculous hike. The view from
the top was amazing. So proud I made it, we sat at the top for a long
while waiting for the last people to come up, one girl didn't make it
but everyone else eventually did. The local boy that dragged me up
the mountain had a bag full for ice creams for us which we were all
very excited about something cold because most of us had finished out
water. Then we hiked back down the mountain, which was just as
treacherous (if not more..) than the hike up. When we got to the
bottom the local boys were really angry that no one had paid them for
the ice creams…because we had no idea they were for sale. So our tour
guide starting yelling at the boys in their language about how they
didn't tell us they weren't for free so we shouldn't have to pay and
all of this nonsense. Eventually everyone on my trip decided we would
pay for them because we were so grateful to have these little ice
cream things. Then we got back on the bus and drove another hour to a
waterfall. Camera fee of 1 Cedi or $1…but I didn't have any money so I
just decided to leave my camera. We had a 45min walk in to he forest
until we came to the HUGE falls. It was amazing. I'm glad I didn't
bring my camera because it would have gotten soaked. It felt like a
shower, which was good because we all desperately needed one from our
hike. I was standing easily 100ft away and could still feel the spray
of the waterfall. We all stood near the falls for quite a while, and
then the sun was about to start setting so we had to get out of the
forest. I was feeling great and got a little cocky so I didn't wear my
ankle braces on the walk back…I tried my best to be careful until
(yup, you guessed it) I rolled my ankle. It hurt so bad but I didn't
fall and I played it off like it was all good (telling myself in my
head to just walk it off) It's a little swollen but not too bad. Then
we got back on the bus and drove to the Tafi Atome village. We ate
dinner once we got there(rice and tomato sauce with eggs in it) then
the village put on a little show with singing/drum-playing/dancing for
us around a fire. Then we got up and danced with them, furthered the
stereotype that white people can't dance but it was really fun. Then
we were all walking to the bus to get our bags and one kid on my trip
fell in a ditch and sprained his ankle, which ended the fun vibe real
quick. He wanted to cab it 3 hours back to the ship…but we were in the
middle of nowhere and we doubted a cab would be easy to find. Luckily
he got talked out of it and just went to sleep with it elevated. Went
all slept in 3 different guesthouses because there was 20 of us. All
but 2 kids in my house stayed up and talked and played cards til late
which was fun because I had never met any of them before. Went to bed,
had to share a bed with a girl who snored and yelled casual
conversations in her sleep…it was sleep talking taken to a whole new
level…so I did not sleep much. Also it was really hot, but I had been
sweating consistently for 12 hours at this point so it really didn't
bother be too much.

Day 3: Woke up at 6am and went and fed Mona Monkeys in the forest.
They are cute little monkeys that live around this village. The
monkeys jump onto your back and steal the bananas out of your hand, so
cute! Then after that we went and ate breakfast and walked around the
village saying hi to everyone. One of the little boys in the village
was super shy (not many kids were really shy) and he was hiding so I
kept waving at him and he would giggle and run behind his mom and she
kept trying to get him to wave at me so I bribed him with a toothbrush
and then after some long staring he walked over and took the
toothbrush. I gave his mom one too and she was very thankful and
funny. I don't think she spoke English but she knew Hello and Thank
You and laughed along with me as I waved to her son. I danced with 3
girls walking to school as well. They didn't have much electricity in
the village, but if they did the first thing they would get is a
really loud stereo system so the one pub-like kind of place was
blasting music that you could hear down the street. It was still so
humid, still sweating from the day before, and my only shower was
standing next to that waterfall, you can bet I smelled greaaatttt.
Then we got on our bus/van at 930 and drove to a beautiful resort and
ate lunch at noon which was delicious. It rained pretty hard but
luckily we were under a solid roof. Then we came back to the ship and
I was smelly and exhausted but I knew if I laid down I would never get
back up so I went back outside to the tents set up right outside the
ship to buy some little gifties. The sellers are SUPER aggressive and
just throw things at you basically and expect you to buy them. But
luckily they take really any currency (the exchange rate is just
awful) so a lot of us spent all of our left over Euros and Pounds.
After like 45-hour out there I was exhausted from being pulled in a
million directions and bargaining (I'm not good at haggling so it took
a lot out of me to haggle) I went back onto the ship, showered a much
needed shower and laid in my cozy bed….soooo happy to be in my
comforts again. I woke up a while later and got a burger cause I slept
through dinner and chatted with some friends about their experiences,
we all pretty much agreed we would love Ghana so much more if we were
constantly being pulled to buy something from every person we passed,
but when I was in the village nobody was aggressive to buy anything,
so that was much more enjoyable. I even walked right up to a stand
selling bottled drinks in the village and the woman just happily said
hello but didn't pressure me into buying anything…which actually made
me want to buy something from her because she was so calm. It was
complete madness in the markets I guess, I never actually went into
one (besides the one outside the ship) which is probably good because
I would have been so overwhelmed.



Day 4: On the last day I signed up to go to Torgorme Village for a
naming ceremony. Dylan signed up for the trip as well so I had a
friend with me. We took a bus ride for about 2 hours (and then a van
ride for the last 10min because our bus couldn't fit over a bridge).
When we got the village everyone that lived there ran us to greet us
and show us to our seats and they played music and danced and were all
so excited. We got to sit in the front row next to all of the school
kids-pretty prime seating if you ask me. Then they showed us a few of
their dances while we waited for the other van full of kids to show
us. I had one little girl (couldn't have been older than 3 or 4) who
latched onto me from the beginning. So I danced with her and then she
sat on my lap through the entire ceremony. Once everyone showed up
they started the naming ceremony where they called everyone up one by
one and told them their new name and what it meant. Just call me Abla
Segbedzi! (Abla-I was born on Tuesday and Segbedzi- means I have the
will to get anything done). We got a handmade pot with our name on it
and a bracelet made from beads made in the village. After the ceremony
was finished we had 20minutes to look around the village, so the kids
instantly grabbed us and gave us a tour. They took us down to the
river where they get all of their water. They all love cameras and
think they are the funniest things so they kept taking pictures of
themselves and then looking and laughing hysterically. Then as we were
walking back up from the river I met the mother of one of the girls
showing me around. She didn't speak much English but one of her
daughters had gotten a Frisbee from the donations and didn't really
know what it was. I was trying to motion how to play with it but they
didn't understand do I grabbed it and threw it into a bush. The woman
just stared at it and said "and its finished..?" The I realized that
was an awful way to teach the game so I picked it up again and threw
it to a little girl and then taught her how to throw it back to me.
Everyone around me started laughing but then they started playing by
themselves, it was pretty funny. Then the little girl with my camera
took a picture of the older woman and showed her and the woman just
laughed some more at the picture. I called her beautiful and she
denied and called her baby beautiful. It was really adorable. Then I
kids grabbed me and we headed back to the van because it was time to
leave. We all squished into the van and headed back to the ship. Ghana
was very fast paced but the people were all so nice. They all had very
interesting stories and I wish I had more time to spend in the
villages (not so much in the markets…too much going on for me). I cant
stress enough how kind the people were, no matter where we went they
were always so nice.



Thing I learned in/about Ghana: They are named by the day of the week
they were born. So there are really only 7 boy names and 7 girl names.
But when the Europeans were in Ghana they forced everyone to adopt a
'Christian name' so they all have 2 names. Like Stephen and/or Koffie
would be both of my tour guides names, and they are interchangeable.
The Ghanaians didn't know for a while that the Christian names they
were all adopting were average Europeans names.

There are about 46 different languages in Ghana, though English is the
official language for business and things. Most of the language are
similar just have different dialects, my tour guide compared it to
American English versus Irish English versus British English.

There are 10 different regions in Ghana. I was in the Greater Accra
region and visited the Volta region for 2 days(where the hike and
waterfall was).

The other countries next to Ghana don't have ports cause they are
landlocked so they drive all the way through Ghana to get their goods
from Ghana's port so Ghana wants to build a rail system to the
surrounding countries so the other countries trucks don't congest
their cities and roads because their roads are crazy. Many kids on the
ship saw multiple car accidents, some of them really graphic!



Things I tried: Fufu, cocoa right off the tree (white and squishy and
weird, but tastes much better than it looks), rice balls, plantains,
Ghanaian bananas (so delicious, way better than any banana I have ever
tried), spicy food in really hot weather-so sweaty

For those of you concerned...

(Chelsea Woit) I was in Santa Cruz de Tenerife!!

A few more pictures from Tenerife

Looks like I'm in Az!

Tenerife, Canary Islands (Our Stop Instead of Morocco)

Tenerife, Canary Islands



Day 1: I woke up early to the ship coming into port (or rather…the
train coming through my window, violently shaking my room). I didn't
have any plans for the day but one of the SAS day-trips sounded kind
of fun so Dylan and I planned to just show up at the gangway when the
trip was leaving (around 830) and try to get on at the last second.
(Most of the time you can go to the gangway early and get a 'dock-
sale' of SAS trips, its really nice we don't always have to sign up
before-hand. Signing up for anything ahead of time is not something I
am good at) Luckily we showed up in time because we got two of the
last seats on the Tenerife Jeep Tour trip. We hopped in one of the 5
jeeps and after everyone was ready we headed off driving through
Tenerife. Tenerife has a huge volcano on it (it is an island after
all…) so the jeep tour took us up to the top of the island where the
volcano was. Many kids on the ship were planning on hiking the
volcano, which after doing some research (and my fear of hurting my
ankles) I decided that just cause I made through hiking around
Gibraltar, doesn't mean I can do a 6-7 hour hike up a volcano. Our
jeep tour stopped every once in a while so we could take pictures of
the amazing views. The higher we got up the island, the colder it got,
and my regret of wearing shorts and a t-shirt grew. The middle of the
island had big trees and was very forest-y, then when we got up near
the top it turned very rocky (from all the volcanic magma). At one
point on the tour everyone was amazed at the red rocks we stopped near…
but to me I felt like I was in Sedona, I was home! Except not really…
because there was a volcano in the distance. Then at the top we
stopped for some hot chocolate and cookies and there was a couple of
vendors. One of the vendors was selling chocolate covered dried
bananas and almonds, I couldn't resist buying the chocolate covered
bananas, they were too good, so I bought a tiny box. Then after our
short break we headed back down the island with a few more stops (one
looked like we had stopped at the moon, it was really cool!) We got
back to the ship around 2pm and were pretty hungry so Dylan and I
walked over to the city center. We forgot that everything closed
between 2-4ish so the only thing we could find for a while was
McDonalds, but we refused to eat there, so after some more walking we
found a cute little restaurant open. There was about 7 other SAS kids
eating in there so we sat near them and enjoyed some lunch, and a
local Canary Island beer (Dorada)! I was exhausted by the end of lunch
and I knew I would be up late so we walked back to the ship and I took
a nap and then showered and got ready. That night was my friends
(Alex) 21st birthday so 8 of us were all going out to dinner to
celebrate. It was Sunday night so not a lot was open but we were sure
(well one of the girls were sure, so we believed her) that this nice
restaurant would be perfect. So we hopped in 2 cabs and headed off to
this restaurant…it wasn't open, so one of the cab drivers said he knew
of a good place that would be open, so we believed him and he drove us
about 10-15min away (up the side of the mountain where it looked
completely deserted…the scenes from the movie Taken was running
through all our head for a moment) and then we got to this restaurant
and it was closed as well…at this point we were all unhappy and hungry
so we told the cabs to just drop us off in the city center and we
would find something. Luckily right where we got dropped off there was
a cute little restaurant open. We enjoyed dinner (though we were with
some people with awful restaurant manners, especially because the
waiters didn't speak any English, so by the end they would just look
to Dylan and I because at least we were understanding most of what
they were saying and could reproduce some broken Spanish which I think
they appreciated.) but I was happy it was over because by the end the
entire restaurant knew that we were being those stereotypical loud
annoying Americans, and the people we were with didn't even seem to
notice. After dinner we went to a bar a few doors down on the same
street to meet up with everyone else to help celebrate Alex's (and a
few other peoples) birthdays. I didn't stay up too late; I was tired
from the long day on the jeep tour, but it was still a fun night after
a great day, I'm glad I took the jeep tour so I got some really great
views of the island.



Day 2: Today was probably the least productive day I've had on the
trip. My roommate (Kelsey) woke up early and left to find WiFi in town
to get some Skyping in, once she left I fell back asleep and my alarm
never went off so I didn't wake back up until 10am. I called Dylan and
woke him up. We met at 11am and left the ship to go find breakfast
somewhere. Halfway to the city center we ran into Kelsey so she came
along with us to find food. We eventually found a little café and
ordered some sort of sandwiches and orange juice, none of us knew what
we actually ordered, but it turned out well. We all enjoyed our
sandwiches and then carried on to find a grocery shore somewhere. We
passed a computer store and since Dylan's computer charger has stopped
working, the three of us walked over. The computer guy didn't know how
to help without the computer there so Kelsey and I walked back to the
ship with him. The computer store was closing at 130 so Kelsey and I
strolled back to the city center while Dylan zoomed over there to make
sure he got there before it closed. He got a charger for his computer,
then we went over to McDonalds next door to use their free WiFi. The
WiFi wasn't too great so I basically just stared at Facebook for a
while but it wouldn't let me click much. Then we asked some locals
where the nearest grocery store was, and from what we understood, it
wasn't close. So we wandered up the city center and found tiny grocery-
like store that would be good enough. I bought some granola bars,
cashews, kinder eggs, and Pringles. Then after that we walked back to
the ship with all of our groceries and I wrote out some emails and
saved them because our internet/email on the ship was down (and had
been for about 2 days). Then at 530 there was a barbeque up on Deck 7
for dinner (where theres the pool (tiny pool) and a snack bar that we
can buy food that doesn't consist of pasta and potatoes) so we went up
there and ate some delicious food that was not the usual dinner food,
so we were all very happy with it. Then the tugboat came along right
next to where we were eating to pull us away from the dock and head
out of the port. It was really cool to watch first hand, tugboats are
amazing haha. We all stood at the railing and watched from the ship us
leaving the port, waving to every boat that passed us (I totally got a
wave from a little tiny boat going by us!)



I wish I had brought my computer to use the WiFi at McDonalds because
I have found out my computer no longer plays disks…it eats them for a
while then spits them back out. Which is very unfortunate because I
only have 2 movies on my computer (Mean Girls, and The House Bunny…
both are very educational, I know) and I don't have any Internet to
download the program that I need to play movies off other peoples
external hard drives. So basically the amount of times I have watched
Mean Girls and The House Bunny is disturbing, and I can now quote both
movies fully. I don't really like movies that much (solely because I
always fall asleep during them) but I would give anything to just have
my computer play a few more movies.

Pictures from friends cameras!

I was really excited this monkey and its baby was just walking by me...

Pictures from Gibraltar!

My friends have good pictures on their cameras that I need to get a
hold of, but so far this is the pictures I have on my camera.

More pictures from Spain

Shark Face!! At the fish market in Cadiz

Pictures from Spain

On the beach at Salina's Beach

6 Days in Spain!

Ibiza, Barcelona, Sevilla, Gibraltar, and Cadiz!

Day 1: On the morning we arrived we got to sleep in a little because
we weren't meeting our group until 1030. There was a group of 30 of us
that all signed up for a trip through a company called Global
Citizens. When we were all together on the 5ht floor dining room we
debarked the ship together. Our tour guide Carlos was standing outside
the ship with our bus waiting for us! We all got on the ship and
headed off the airport in Malaga, about three hours away from our ship
in Cadiz. We all got onto our RyanAir flight where there was what
seemed like a million other SAS kids on as well. We all slept through
most of the flight and arrived in Ibiza. When we landed the whole
plane started cheering! We found our next bus with our tour guide and
took the 20min ride to the hotel. We got to the hotel around 5pm and
all got our room keys, of course Dylan and I were roommates. We
dropped off our bags and left to go explore. We wandered around for a
bit then realized we should change into our bathing suits and sit on
the beach for a bit. So we ran back to the hotel, changed, and then
walked down the beach behind our hotel. A couple hotels down there was
a huge party of some kind so we walked in. It was really warm out so
we each got a slushie drink to walk around with. We then carried on
walking down the beach and ran into friends on our trip at a nearby
beach bar. We sat with them and chatted about how excited we were to
finally be in Ibiza! After a while we were getting hungry so we headed
back to the hotel. After having a fiasco with using some of Dylans
hair products gone wrong we finally finished getting ready. We headed
over to our friends hotel room (Ian and Stew) to have a drink before
going out. We bought tickets to go to one of the most famous clubs on
the island, but since Europeans don't go out until much later than the
US we had some time to kill. After hanging out with a group of SAS
friends we left the hotel. We all walked over to the club (called
Space) around 1130pm. When we got inside we all ended up getting split
up so my friend Stew and I just sat at the bar chatting for a while
and danced. The club was really big so it was pretty impossible to
find any of our friends. After a couple hours I was a bit tired of
dancing so I headed over to a bar across the street from our hotel.
After hanging out there for a while my friend and I walked down to the
beach. There were a bunch of paddle boats on the beach that had slides
connected to them so we played on those for a while (re-living our
childhoods). After all that it was very late so I headed back to my
hotel to get some much needed sleep.


Day 2: Since both Dylan and I got home really late (he got back to the
hotel just before I did) We slept in until just after noon. We rolled
ourselves out of bed and grabbed some breakfast across the street. The
beach behind our hotel was really crowded and not very nice, so we
asked the front desk of our hotel of any recommendations of other
beaches in the area. He told us to go to Salinas Beach. So Dylan and I
caught a cab and headed over there. It was about a 15-20minute ride
over to Salinas. We didn't have any towels with us so we decided to
just walk down the beach and see what we find. As we were walking we
started to notice the amount of nudity on the beach. There was a very
big range of people of the beach, some very naked, and some completely
clothed. We walked down the whole beach (only about a quarter of a
mile) and it turned into a rocky coast. We kept walking and somehow
ended up in some sort of forest. The longer we walked into the forest
the more lost we felt but we would randomly see people so we knew we
couldn't be too far off the beaten path. After about an hour or so of
walking through the forest we found our way back to the beach. By that
time we were both starving so we looked for a restaurant in our price
range (cheap). All the restaurants on the beach were really expensive
so we walked down a random path and found a cute little patio
restaurant. I ordered a Spanish omelet…and then found out that Spanish
omelets are different when you are actually in Spain. It was basically
an omlet with a lot of potatoes cooked into it, more potatoes than
eggs actually, but I was really hungry and it was still really
delicious. We were both pretty tired from the sun and our big meals so
we caught a cab back to hotel and napped for a bit. Our hotel had
dinner included with our rooms so after our nap we went downstairs and
ate some dinner at the buffet with a bunch of other SAS kids. We got
ready for the night and went and downstairs because we could hear
really loud music coming from the lobby. Once we got downstairs we
realized the loud music was coming from a Michael Jackson tribute show
so we took a seat in the audience. After about 2 minutes of watching
this show I realized it was the worst seen thing I had ever seen. They
were dancing and lip-syncing and were just completely awful at both. A
few of out friends (Katie and Kyle) came over and joined us to watch
the monstrosity going on on stage. At midnight we met up with the
whole SAS group and headed over to the club Pacha where DJ Tiesto was
playing (the huge incentive for this trip was a ticket into the Tiesto
show!) Once we were all there we caught a bunch of cabs to the club.
Almost right when we walked in we saw some friends who weren't on our
organized trip but made it to Ibiza on their own. A girl we know spent
a lot (a lot a lot a lot ) of money on a VIP table for the show so she
got four of my friends to go sit up at her table. After dancing for a
while on the dance floor we headed up to the VIP section. We hung out
there dancing and taking lots of pictures (of course) until about 4am
when I was getting very tired. (The lack of sleep from the night
before was not doing me well) I headed back to the hotel and happily
went to sleep.

Day 3: I woke up to my alarm go off at 9am and found 2 of my other
friends who slept in our hotel room. I wrestled them awake and sent
them off to their own hotel because Dylan and I had about 15 minutes
to be ready in the lobby to meet with our tour guide and group to
catch our flight to Barcelona. We made it down there, and surprisingly
everyone in the 30 person group was on time, regardless of all of our
very late nights. We hopped on our bus and headed off to the Ibiza
airport. The group was split into 2 different flights about 30minutes
apart so we all split up. My friend Kyle and I saw at the Burger King
in the airport half asleep until our flights gate number came up on
the screen and then walked over and sat half asleep at our gate. Both
flights got delayed 30minutes so after a while the whole group of SAS
kids were sporadically laying throughout the airport. Eventually our
flight arrived and we got on and all fell asleep before we took off.
The flight was just under and hour (so our naps were short) and
luckily our tour guide was on our flight so we all sat in baggage
claim waiting for the other flight of kids to get in. After waiting
for close to an hour we figured out their flight landed at a different
terminal. So my group got on the bus with Carlos the tour guide and
headed over to the other terminal. Carlos eventually found them but
when the other group got on the bus they were a bit (a lot) grouchy
from waiting for so long. Once we were all on the bus we headed off to
our hotel in Barcelona! I slept the whole bus ride so I can't exactly
tell you how long it was…but less then an hour! The hotel was really
nice and was on a long street of long buildings but before you walked
into the lobby of the hotel you would have no idea how big it was
inside. I was amazed at how huge and nice it was. Once we checked in
to our hotel Dylan and I were starving so we wandered down the street
to find some food. A couple blocks down on the corner we found a nice
tapas restaurant and since it was such a sunny day out we decided to
sit outside. We ordered a lot of tapas (croquettes, Greek salad,
meatballs, some sort of delicious ham) and happily ate all of them.
After we were very full we headed back to the hotel. Everyone else was
using this time to nap, so we followed the crowd and decided to take a
short nap. Well that short nap turned into 3 hours because neither of
our alarms went off. We were supposed to meet up with our tour guide
at 730, but when I woke up it was 745. In a frantic state I ran out to
our balcony and luckily our room was right above the entrance and
everyone was just leaving the hotel for a small walking tour. So I
yelled down for them to wait 2minutes and Dylan and I frantically made
ourselves look decent (decent might be a strong word here, I hadn't
showered yet…) and ran downstairs to meet with the group. As a group
we walked over to the subway and bought metro tickets for the night.
We took the metro over to see La Sagrada Familia cathedral. The
architecture of the cathedral was absolutely amazing. The outside of
the cathedral was all lit up and looked very beautiful. Then we walked
over to the other side of the area and saw the old hospital that
resembled a castle almost. It is no longer a functioning hospital but
the building was still really amazing. We all wandered around for a
bit (avoiding a small protest/rally going on) and then headed back to
the metro. We walked back to the hotel but a few of us were pretty
hungry so we left again to find some good food nearby. We found a
restaurant that looked good after walking around for about 15min and
we all ordered different pizza-like things. They were all delicious.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel, used some of the free WiFi
(free WiFi is a hot commodity in our lives now) and then headed off to
sleep (also watched some BBC News because it was the only English
channel and I don't remember the last time I had real tv)

Day 4: The next morning the plan was to meet at 930 in the lobby to
head off to the airport. I guess one girl (we'll call her blondie) in
our group complained that we wouldn't make it to the airport in time
and chewed out our tour guide about it (while 3 other girls left at
830 in a cab to the airport…our flight was at 1040). So our tour guide
called everyone at 845 saying we were now leaving at 9. Well when he
called I was still laying in bed with my belonging strewn across the
room. In a frantic 15 minutes I managed to get all ready and down in
the lobby in time (but unfortunately didn't have time to eat
breakfast, my favorite meal of the day). A couple kids didn't get the
memo for leaving at 9 so we ended up waiting for them for about 15
minutes and then we found out one girl went out to breakfast without
the 9am memo and was expected to be back until 930 when she thought we
were leaving. Bascially the morning turned dramatic really fast. Then
as blondie was throwing a small fit and my tour guide was stuck
between a rock and a hard place he ushered everyone onto the bus and
said he would sit back and wait for the girl out to breakfast and then
cab it to the airport with her. So we get on the bus and blondie is
just going on and on about how we are going to miss our flight and we
start driving about 3minutes when the bus stops and we see our tour
guide and the missing girl come sprinting up to the bus and get on.
Now that we are all accounted for (and now its after 930 because of
all the hysterics, so really this made us later than originally
planned) we head off to the airport. We get to our terminal, get our
boarding passes stamped, and head off to security, with blondie
leading the way, of course. Once we get through security we all go to
look at the tv monitor to see which gate we should be running to…when
we realize the gate number isn't even up yet because we are still so
early…at this point I was very unhappy with little blondie…and I think
everyone else was too. We did have time to grab some breakfast though
(which might I add was delicious) and then we all boarded our flight.
I slept through the flight again; sleeping on planes has become a
specialty of mine. Then we got to Sevilla and hopped on the bus
waiting for us. The bus dropped us off near the city center of
Sevilla. Our tour guide was born and raised and still livs in Sevilla
so he was very excited to show us around his hometown. He walked us
over to the Plaza de España which consists of really gorgeous
government buildings. Then we walked through the city and ended at a
tapas restaurant. The restaurant was not expecting 18 (loud, annoying,
non-spanish speaking) kids so needless to say they were not excited
about us. We all ordered and ate (praying they hadn't spit in our food…
slight exaggeration, but they were really not happy with us) and the
food was delicious (the ones I ordered were delicious at least, a few
others were slightly more questionable). After the food (and splitting
the check 18 ways…) we all had about 3 hours to wander by ourselves
before we had to meet back up with the bus. My friends and I had seen
a awesome little gelato place on the walk over to the restaurant so we
retraced our steps and found it again. We all enjoyed our gelato the
steps of the cathedral. The cathedral had already closed for the day
so we moved on. We saw a line of people outside another building (a
line obviously means something inside has got to be interesting) so we
walked up to see what it was. The building was the Reales Alcázares
de Sevilla, a royal palace that was originally a Moorish fort and is
now the oldest royal palace still in use. It was only 2euro with our
student cards so we paid and walked inside. This palace was HUGE and
beautiful. There was a million different rooms and gardens all with
amazing architecture. We stayed in there for almost 2 hours (got lost
inside for while as well). Then once we found the exit we realized we
needed to hurry over to the bus so we wouldn't be left behind. After
looking at a couple maps we found the bus and hopped on. Once everyone
was accounted for we started our 3 ½ hour bus ride back to the ship in
Cadiz. I attempted to sleep for most of the ride but the seats were
super uncomfortable so I ended up just staring out the window for a
couple hours. Once we got back to the ship I was exhausted so I
decided to make some chicken noodle soup (luckily I brought some
little 3minute soups on board with me in Halifax!) and went to bed.

Day 5: Gibraltar!! I woke up at 8 and ate breakfast with a group of
friends, all of which had plans for the day and all of them had been
to Gibraltar earlier in the week raving about how cool it was. So
Dylan and I decided we should go to Gibraltar for the day since we had
zero plans and Cadiz doesn't have a whole lot to do in it. The bus
station was about an 8min walk from the ship and there was one bus to
and from Gibraltar each day, so if you didn't get on this bus, you
were suck. We heard people were already buying up the bus tickets in
advance so we decided we should probably go buy ours before they sell
out. So we quickly left the ship and headed to the bus station…in the
pouring rain. And when I say pouring rain, I mean poouurrriinnggggg
rain. We finally made it through Niagara Falls to the bus stations,
got our tickets and headed back out into the Falls back to the ship.
By the time I made it back to my cabin it looked like I had gone
swimming fully clothed. I hung up my sopping wet clothes, changed into
dry ones and then headed back to the gangway. The ship crew was in the
middle of a practice emergency plan so no one was allowed to exit or
enter the ship so we all just sat in the hallway waiting for them to
finish. Finally they finished their drill and we headed over to the
bus station, luckily the monsoon had lightened up a bit so the walk
was much easier this time around. I slept on and off (of course) on
the two hour bus ride to the border of Spain and Gibraltar. (if you
don't know, because I didn't know a week ago, Gibraltar is a British
territory at the end of the Iberian Peninsula) We walked across the
border but to get to the city you have to literally cross a live
airport runway. It is a small airport that doesn't get too much
business, but it was still very weird to just casually walk across a
huge runway. We decided to walk around Gibraltar with a few people we
sat near on the bus who had the same sort of plans as us…as in no
plans at all. So the group was Dylan, Isiaah, Jaques, Brett and this
other girl that I don't know the name of, and I. Isiaah, Jaques, and
Brett are all RD's (kind of like RA's where they are the students go-
to person depending on where your cabin is located on the ship if we
were to have any questions, but all of the RD's on the ship are
extremely over-qualified and are really fun) As we got into town we
decided it would be a good idea to grab some food now because who
knows where we are going to end up. So we wandered down a side street
and found this tiny door where a man and his wife were cooking food.
It was Moroccan food and none of us knew what to order so the man
cooking basically just made us some food and none of us knew what we
ordered, this may have been the best meal decision I have made on this
trip. We all ended up with (amazingly seasoned and marinated) Moroccan
steak (or 2 people got chicken) and cheese in a baguette. After the
first two bites all of us couldn't stop raving about how delicious our
sandwiches were, all talking with our mouths full of course because we
couldn't get enough of these delectable baguettes. We walked and ate
our sandwiches until we came up with a plan to ride the cable car
(tiny gondola) up to near to the top of the Gibraltar rock. On the
walk to the cable car we got approached by what felt like a million
taxi drivers selling us their 'amazing' tours around the rock, but
since we had about 7 hours until our bus left back to the boat, we
decided we could do it all on our own for wayyyy cheaper. We rode the
tiny cable car up the mountain and got an amazing view of the water
and the whole rock and we could even see Africa in the distance,
though it was pretty foggy out so we could barely make it out. Now I
knew Gibraltar was known for the monkeys on the rock but I didn't
really know what to expect with these monkeys, and I don't think
anyone did because right as we left the cable car station there was a
monkey sitting on the wall with its baby, just hanging out. So of
course all of us are like OMGZZ TAKE A PICTURE WITH ME AND THE MONKEY
but all of us are too afraid to get too close to it. Little did we
know there were a hundred other monkeys about 20steps from us. So we
all stared at this one monkey for a solid amount of time until we
decided to move on, and then felt ridiculous because it was wild
monkeys galore! They were everywhere just hanging out, doing monkey
things. There was a little old abandoned house looking thing that all
the monkeys were on so we walked to the top of it a took probably
close to a gazillion pictures of the monkeys. They were so cool and
just kind of ignored us for the most part. After the monkey photo
shoot we carried on along a road to see where it took us, stopping
every couple minutes to stare at some more monkeys. Then at one point
I guess most of us were staring too long because Brett and Jaques
carried on walking and we couldn't see them anymore. So we came to the
fork in the road and had to blindly guess which path they took, and
for some reason the winning path was a straight uphill climb to the
top of the rock. (this extreme uphill was obviously not my choice, I
chose the road that was flat/downhill) so we started hiking…and hiking…
and hiking. Until we get to a gate (all of us panting at this point)
and behind the gate is the 100ft canon and the actual top of the rock
where (on non-foggy days, unlike today) you can see a view of the
whole area. So we turned around and walked back down this 90degree
hike back to the fork in the road, and this time we took by original
guess of the flat/downhill road. At the end of this road there was a
cave and a little bar/restaurant/souvenir shop. Our cable car tickets
got us into the cave for free so we headed inside. The cave was huge
and amazing. There were little pathways all over it, and one side of
it has been turned into a concert hall! As I was standing on the stage
imagining me performing on this concert hall (oh wait…I don't have any
sort of talent) we found Brett and Jaques in the cave! So we all
banned together again and after exploring the whole cave, we carried
on down the rock. Our next stop was the WWII tunnels. We walked into
one and it had signs explaining what every part of the tunnel was and
fake canons where real ones used to be. The canons were set up in the
tunnel with just a hole on the wall of the tunnel that would have shot
out into the ocean. The tunnels were really cool! After that we
decided we should figure out how to get down the rock back to the city
so we had plenty of time to catch our bus. The walk down was very
steep, I don't know how people driver down these steep windy roads,
definitely some of the craziest roads I have ever seen. The entire
walk down I was afraid my ankles were going to give out on my at any
second. (if you are unaware, I have ankle issues) and I was not
wearing my ankles braces, living life on the edge! Haha. But we
eventually made it back to the city center, both ankles still intact,
and bought some postcards and magnets and did the touristy thing. It
was dinner time now and since all of us were still talking about our
delicious Moroccan sandwiches we walked back to the Moroccan place to
get another. As we walked up the cook was outside smoking and his
whole door was all closed up. He saw our disappointed faces and then
told us he ran out of food! He only makes a certain amount everyday so
he never has left-overs and he just works until he runs out of food.
We were all very sad but told him how delicious his food was and then
carried on to find something sub-par to our lunch. Isiaah, Dylan and I
were very hungry while everyone else wasn't too bad so they carried
on while the 3 of us stopped at a place to get some pizza. We all had
huge meals (Dylan finishing his with a gigantic piece of apple pie…)
and this realized we were cutting a little close on time and had to
get back to the bus station. For some reason we all thought the bus
station about 2minutes away…until we realized we were lost. So we
started running…in the wrong direction. We eventually asked a local
and he explained how far we were, but ironically we were standing
right outside a taxi station so we ran up the steps and got a taxi.
The taxi can only take us to the border, but that was still far enough
because we could sprint the rest. We ran through the border (literally
sprinted past the border agents…I'm sure that didn't look suspicious)
and made it to the bus station…and the bus hadn't even shown up yet…
great. So we had about 10minutes to kill and then the bus finally
showed up and we all boarded and slept the whole way back to the Cadiz
bus station. We walked back to the ship from the bus station and I was
exhausted from all of our hiking/walking/monkey staring so I went
straight to bed!

Day 6: On the last day in Spain I had a field lab scheduled for my
anthropology class 'Reading Images Culturally'. Our field lab was
supposed to be in Morocco, but since that port was cancelled, they
quickly put together this field lab in Cadiz. The lab was a walking
tour through the whole city of Cadiz, with our tour guide, a lady
named MaryAnn. MaryAnn knew everything you possibly could about Cadiz.
We saw most of the cathedrals of the city, some of the archeological
sites, and learned about the history of Cadiz. We also got to go into
the fish market, which was really crazy but really cool at the same
time! Then we headed off to the tallest tower in Cadiz and climbed to
the top. (my legs were so sore from Gibraltar the day before, so these
200 stairs up the tower were not my favorite). At the top of the tower
we could see all of Cadiz, it was a stunning view, especially because
it was a beautiful sunny day. We could even see our ship! Then one of
the women who works in the tower showed us the 'camera obscura'. This
thing was so incredibly cool. The camera obscura is a giant reflection
on this big round white canvas where we can literally see the entire
city of Cadiz. We can see people walking along the street miles away
from us, birds flying, people sitting on their balconies (kinda
creepy, but really cool). We could see everything happening in the
whole city. So she showed us around the city for a while and then it
was time to head out and get back to our tour. By this time my whole
class was starving so our excitement for everything had exponentially
decreased. After about another 45min of walking we finally made it to
the last part of our field lab, a fancy tapas restaurant! We all sat
down and the tour guide had a pre-set meal plan for us so the waitors
just started bringing out mass amount of tapas to the table. There was
salad, and pork, and fried fish (legitimate entire fish, faces and
all) and a million others. I loved the salad, liked the pork, tried
the fried shark, and was scared of the fishes with faces on them.
After a long enjoyable meal our lab was over anf we were free to leave
and spend the last couple hours before we left Cadiz on our own. So I
went back to the ship to drop off my bag, called Dylans room (of
course) and he was in there napping, so I woke him up and made him
come buy souvenirs with me. We each bought our usual postcard an
magnet and then went real shopping in the clothes stores…I bought a
few pieces of clothing that were obviously necessities…Then we decided
to wander back in the direction of the ship, not before stopping to
get some decilous gelato though. Once we got back to the ship I had
planned on napped until we were going to leave the port, but then they
announced everyone to go to the back decks to take a group picture! So
I got up, and put on my bright coloured hat (so I would be able to
point myself out in the picture) and headed to the back. After being
out there for a while smiling and waving for a hundred pictures we all
headed back inside and then I took a nap. Later that night we hung
out on Deck 7 at the back all catching up on eachothers trips and
things, but we all went to bed pretty early, 6 days in Spain really
wore us all out!!



After I post this blog I am going to post just some pictures from
Spain because I email these posts in (because I ran out of internet on
the ship) but my emails are only allowed to be so big. So I am just
going to do separate posts with pictures in them!

Change of Plans!

Due to the tons of anti-american protests all over North Africa
(including Casablanca, Morocco which is where we were scheduled to
port) we are no longer going to Morocco. Our dean called a meeting the
night after Portugal and broke the news to us. It is really
unfortunate because Morocco would be such an extreme difference for
all of us (more than just a few different customs and a language
barrier like the places we have been so far). I think Morocco would
have been an amazing eye opened for everyone on the ship!! So instead
of Morocco we spent 2 extra days in Spain and then we are going to the
Canary Islands for 2 days and then heading off to Ghana and we will be
back on track with the regular itinerary! The Canary Islands will be
pretty cool, but just a little (ALOT) different than Morocco.

Portugal <3

Portugal



Oh what a fabulous trip Portugal was!! I love Portugal and had such an
amazing time there, I want to go back ASAP!

Day 1: September 19 we arrived in Portugal. My friends and I planned
to meet around 830 to debark the ship, and since we were planning to
sleep on the ship every night we didn't need to go through the hassle
of getting out passports from the crew, (which does save a bit of time
when everyone on the ship is trying to debark). My roommate and I woke
up and got ready and I decided to go grab breakfast (breakfast is by
far the best meal on the ship, always different kinds of omelets and
sometimes French toast, YUM.) After I ate we met in the main square of
the ship and headed out to wander Lisbon for a little until Dylan had
to leave to go to his Field Lab. We found a cute little coffee shop
about 10minutes from the ship and sat down and ate some croissants and
buns. We didn't really have any plans for the day, or rather any day,
so we decided to just start walking in the direction the main square
of Lisbon was. At this point Dylan left to go back to the ship to meet
up with his class for his Field Lab. So Kelsey, Victoria, Emily and I
wandered around, ran into a few other SAS kids all doing the same sort
of wandering until we found the big main square that had a bunch of
shops and restaurants surrounding it. We went into an information
office and looked at a bunch of pamphlets and things and decided our
best bet for the day was to take an open-top (hop-on hop-off) bus tour
around the city to get the lay of the land. So we caught the next bus
just a block from the office and drove through the city. All of the
buildings were so pretty and a lot of them were completely tiled on
the front with colorful tiles and things. About ¾ the way through the
tour all 4 of us were getting hungry so we got off and walked down a
street with a bunch of little restaurants on it. We decided on the one
that looked pretty busy and sat down. Our waiter spoke broken English
and told us about one of the items on the menu was a mixed platter and
was very popular in Portugal so my roommate and I decided to share one
of these 'very popular' dishes. Oh how we regretted that decision
rather quickly. Our food came out and it was a platter of very random
meats that all seemed very uncooked…and when I say uncooked…I mean I
think one part of it might have still been alive (slight exaggeration…
but it was bad). So we both just kind of pushed the very un-edible
looking food a around for a while and after everyone was finished
'eating' we decided that we would just go back to the ice cream stand
on the way there and make that the rest of our lunch. We ate our
lovely ice creams in this beautiful park and just enjoyed the sunny
day…well the 3 of them did that while I frantically looked for my bus
ticket that I must have dropped somewhere. Then we headed back over to
the bus stop near this amazing giant statue and a very pretty little
marina and waited for the bus. The bus arrived and luckily the bus
driver didn't really care too much that I didn't have a ticket and we
continued on our tour. One of the last bus stops was right next to our
ship so we planned to get off when the bus stopped there…well the bus
did not stop there and just zoomed right by. So we got off at the next
stop about a mile or two from the ship and slowly wandered and found
our way back to the ship. We had about an hour before our friends got
back from their field lab so we all relaxed for a bit on the ship.
Then we grabbed some dinner on the ship and then Dylan, Kelsey and I
wanted to go shopping for a bit. I remembered seeing a giant store on
our bus tour so we told the cab driver to take us there hoping it was
some sort of mall. It ended up being a GINORMOUS department store, it
had 8 floors with everything you could ever imagine…except for
anything Kelsey and I were looking for. We wandered around, lost Dylan
for a while (like an hour…) and then headed back to the ship empty
handed (except Dylan bought a bunch). Then once we were back at the
ship we found out our friends were at a bar just up a hill by the ship
that looked out onto the river and you could see our ship lit up with
all its pretty lights, so we headed over and met them. The bar was
really nice and when we showed up there were 8 of us in total. Our
friends had 2 bottles of port wine on the table and were so excited to
share with us because the bottles were only 4 euro's each. So my 2
friends and I each tried their wines and then ordered a third bottle
for the table. Every time we ask to order a bottle the waitress gave
us a weird look but we didn't think anything of and just thought it
was the language barrier. Well when we went to pay (expecting a
12eruos bill) we all chipped in our 2euros each…until we got our
actual bill that was 175euros…that is when we found out the bottles
were not 4 euros each (4 euros a dose…which we are assuming is a
glass) and our waitress gave us a weird look because they don't
actually sell bottles at this bar because they are so expensive…
whoopsies, this was not our brightest moment, rather our stupidest
moment yet. We all agreed to pay for our stupidity but the owner was
nice and a bit sympathetic so he gave us all a free shot of alcohol
after we paid our 175euros. Then we all left and caught a cab to the
part of the city with all of the nightlife. When we arrived there we
saw a ton of SAS kids hanging out, along with even more locals. It was
a very cool scene and every bar was very different then the last. We
stayed there for a while and then two of my friends (Dylan and Alex)
and I caught a cab to a very popular club in Lisbon called Urban
Beach. Urban Beach was probably one of the coolest clubs I had been
into and it was just a 5minute walk from the ship, and you could see
our ship all lit up right outside the window, very cool!! After
dancing there for a while the 3 of us headed back to the ship and went
to bed.



Day 2: Day 2 was definitely one of the best days of my voyage so far,
relaxing and beautiful. We woke up determined to find a beach (my
friends and I hadn't stopped at a beach once this voyage, so Portugal
was the place for a beach day!) so we asked the port agent where the
closest/best beach was. He told us to go to Cascais. So the 5 of us
(Me, Dylan, Kelsey, Victoria, and Austin) caught a cab to Cascais. The
cab driver dropped us off in the town of Cascais and we were all
starving so we started hunting for a restaurant. We walked down some
tiny roads and came up to a restaurant on the corner that looked like
they had awesome food and cheap prices (perfect for us! Haha) so we
walked in and sat down (we were the only people in there, it was very
small, but had really cool furniture!) And then the owner/waiter/chef
came over and started speaking English to us we got even more excited.
The owner is from England but has lived in Portugal for 11 years (also
has lived all over the U.S.). We ordered some yummy food and sangria
and chatted with the owner as we sat in the sun on the patio. We
stayed there for a while and we all left nice and full and so happy we
found this place on a little side street. The owner of the restaurant
directed us to the beach and we thanked him very much and walked the
5-10minutes to the beach. When we turned the last corner and saw the
beach and the beautiful water all of our jaws dropped I think. We set
up our towels and then (quite literally) went sprinting into the
ocean. It was pretty chilly at first but we didn't care, we were too
happy to be there. Once the initial excitement my friends settled onto
their towels and Dylan and I went and walked down and around the
beach. There were a lot of other SAS kids on the beach but we were a
bit farther down then them so we said hi and kept walking. Then we saw
some people paddle boarding (stand up on a surf board with a big tall
paddle) out around the anchored ships/sailboats and decided we needed
to do that. After asking quite a few people we found the guy who rents
them out. He gave us a quite lesson on the basics and then told us
that is a police boat stops us, tell them we own these boards and
didn't pay money to use them (just a little sketchy…but that wasn't
going to stop us). So we headed out on the boards and when we got out
there, there was one other kid on the board and he was from SAS too so
the three of us paddled around all the anchored sailboats. (I was
impressed with my paddle boarding skills…though I did fall of twice in
a very dramatic way attempting to save myself…the guys got a laugh out
of it at least). We had an hour on the boards we stopped in the middle
of the boats and just laid on the boards and chatted and took in the
sights. Then it was time to head back in. When we got back Dylan and I
walked back over to our friends where a few more SAS kids had joined
us. Dylan and Kelsey went to go eat so Victoria, Austin, and I happily
laid in the sun. Then one of the girls laying near us said they were
invited onto one of the sailboats anchored off shore and asked if we
wanted to join, so Victoria and I did. So the 3 of swam out to meet
the other 4 girls hanging out on this sailboat. Once we completed the
lengthy swim out there we then had to climb up the side of the
sailboat with no ladder…this may have been the most difficult thing I
have ever done. After finally getting onto the back of the boat (which
everyone enjoyed watching me struggle to get on) I met the guys who
actually live on the sailboat. They are from Sweden and are sailing
the world for 2 ½ years and they just left Sweden 3 weeks ago. The
sailboat was relatively small (especially because we were stuffing 9
people on it) but the guys who lived on it had such a cool story. They
had all saved up money and decided this is how they are going to see
the world. The amazing part is 2 (of the 3) had never been on a
sailboat before this journey…ever…and now they are living on one for 2
½ years. And their life is literally coming in and anchoring in
different ports and/or marinas staying for a couple days and then
moving on to the next. I am fascinated with their lives and think in
my next life (or this life, if I win the lottery) I want to travel the
world on the sailboat. (Yes, I am aware I am doing the same thing on a
ship right now, but a sailboat would be cool too!!) After hanging out
with them for a while and learning about their awesome lives they gave
us a ride back to shore on their little baby zodiac and we met up with
the rest of our friends laying on the beach. After lying in the sun
and drying off for a bit we decided it was time to head back to the
ship for dinner. Half of us caught a cab and half of my friends caught
the train back to the ship. One of my friends in the cab started
talking about how he was going to go to the soccer game (Sporting
against FC Besal) at the stadium in Lisbon that night and was just
heading back to the ship to shower really quick. I instantly wanted to
go and so did Dylan, but Kelsey was pretty dehydrated from the sun and
also had a cold so she just needed to relax on the ship for a bit. So
once we got back to the ship Ian, Dylan and I headed out to the soccer
stadium. We grabbed some food (I ate a bun with an omelet inside of it
from a stand…it was delicious but very random) and bought our tickets
(and of course had to go to the venders and buy some Sporting gear…
which by the way both Dylan and I were attempted by a pick-pocketer,
lucky we knew not to keep anything in our pockets, but boy did I shoot
that old man a dirty look, he didn't seem to pleased!) then headed
into the game! We were sitting in the nosebleeds but it was still
awesome. The really intense cheering sections for both teams were
directly under us and it was amazing how loud and excited they were
the whole game, I loved it! Unfortunately the game ended with a 0-0
score, so we didn't get to see a GOOOAALLLLLLL but it was awesome
nonetheless. I have never really watched a pro soccer game before, but
I really liked it, and where better to watch my first game than
Portugal? After the game I was exhausted from the jam-packed day so we
headed back to the ship and I went to bed for some well needed sleep.



Day 3: Day 3 was a day dedicated to shopping. We realized Portugal was
very cheap and decided we all needed to do just a bit of shopping for
things we left at home before the voyage. Kelsey, Dylan and I woke up
(slept in a little later til about 930) and ate breakfast on Deck 7
(where they have the awesome breakfast wraps and croissants). Then we
grabbed a cab to an actual mall (unlike the place we tried on the
first day) that was way on the other side of Lisbon. This mall was
also incredibly large with a million floors and stores (ha, that
rhymes!). We shopped there for a while and used the WiFi at the Burger
King and we all left with a few things from H&M. Then we headed into
the main square of the city (more touristy area) and wandered through
all the street performers and souvenir shops. There was one street
performer playing an accordion that had trained his tiny Chihuahua dog
to hold the little bucket for people to put change in, it was so cute!
I think most people gave him change because he trained his dog and not
for his music. We all bought some postcards and magnets and touristy
things and then wandered up a side street to find some food. We came
across this time sushi restaurant (and since we had talked about
eating sushi in every port, we decided now was the time) so we went in
and ordered sushi in our broken Portuguese/Spanish. I couldn't tell
you what we ended up ordering, but it was delicious! I was so happy to
finally have some great sushi; we ended go back up and ordering more.
After our sushi feast we walked the shops a bit more and then caught a
cab back to the ship in plenty of time of 'on ship time'.



Portugal is definitely one of my most favorite ports so far, the
locals were so nice and welcoming and tried hard to understand my
attempt at pretending I can speak Portuguese when I'm really just
speaking Spanish. I really want to come back to Portugal and explore
more of the country ASAP!!!