Best ship day ever!!!

So I'd say that today was the best day ever but I am going to 8 countries this summer and the variety show is coming up so i'm going with best SHIP day!

My first class was really easy, global studies was canceled for test day, the test was really easy, my second class was canceled because the L.A. congress woman never showed up. Then, since Italy is tomorrow, I had no homework to do and ended up working out and then playing cards and watching a movie. Then Ryder was still sleeping when I went up so I chilled by the pool and then met my extended family for dinner. I was the only one who showed up so it was just me and Ellie (a TA for Global Studies). Dinner was really fun though! Ellie has been to Tanzania too and she also speaks French! So now i'm waiting for the preport lecture and then i'm going to pack for Italy : )

ESPANA

Hola amigos!
I think I'm just going to finish up all of Espana because I get to Italy tomorrow and I'll have much more to write after that...
Day 3:
This was the day I went to Seville with my next door neighbor Lexi.

I had such a relaxing morning compared to the day before. I woke up on time and was early for the bus (so early in fact that I had time to run back to my room to pick up my ticket that I had forgotten). I slept for most of the bus ride to Seville but I woke up when we got close to the city. I really didn't like the tour S@S had put us on. It was one of those tours that told you when and where to look instead of letting you get off the bus and explore it on your own. But that was ok because Seville was so beautiful that it made up for it.

Our first stop was the Alcazar which is a palace (I kept thinking it would be a prison because i got it confused with Alcatraz...). It was so pretty! I probably took a couple hundred pictures there. It was made Islamic style but then converted to a Christian palace but they left up all the wall adornments that said things like "Allah is the only god". Those silly christians...

After we walked around the palace for a while (with our pushy tour guide getting frustrated because we were slow) we walked over the the cathedral where my camera promptly died. I'm going to try to get some of lexi's pictures though. We walked all the way up to the top of the tower to get a good view of Seville. IT WAS GORGEOUS!!! You could see everything! All the streets in Seville were really twisty and small so it looked like a really complex map with tiny lemmings running around!

So then we went back down and saw the actual cathedral part (it is the biggest catholic cathedral in europe) and then we saw Christopher Columbus's tomb (sorry about the bad grammar). After that we were all hungry to we started to walk to the restaurant and ironically passed some miners who were living in the cathedral and were on a hunger strike because they had been laid off without being paid the full amount they deserved. (Unemployment is a HUGE problem in spain. They are at about 18% and I saw a protest at least once a day that had to do with getting paid or getting jobs.)

Lunch was interesting. They served us water, bread, wine, mushrooms, asparagus, olives (super salty!), calamari, tortilla patata, chicken, and pork. I tried everything because there is no way i was going to go all the way to spain just to waste it by eating only familiar foods. That being said, I'm never eating olives or calamari again.

After lunch they graciously gave us a whole 15 minutes of free time (that was sarcastic... please don't think that was actually sincere) so I got some souvenirs. Then we drove back to Cadiz and I got changed and put my stuff away and me and lexi walked around Cadiz. Our main goal was to find the post office to get stamps but we started off in the wrong direction and ended up just wandering our way around until we found it and stopped in a bunch of different stores on the way. I got a spanish magazine for my class and we got ice cream (Heladas?) and walked through some toy stores and a Sephora-ish store (lexi had to pick something up). We finally made it to the post office and thankfully the guy spoke english so we didn't have to try to act out stamps.

On the way back to the ship we ran into a Norwegian girl and a German guy who were students at the University of Cadiz and were learning spanish and we chatted for a while (they wanted to know why there were so many Americans here) and then we ran into some other S@Sers at a cafe and stopped and the 4 of us shared a churro con chocolate. So then we went back to the ship and chilled for a little while.

Later me, courtney, and lexi went out for sangria and sat in front of the cathedral for a while and then went to bed early.

That day was ok... I really liked the cathedral and alcazar at Seville but I wish that I could have done it myself instead of being told what i should be looking at.

Day 4:
Sadly this was our last day in Cadiz : (
Me and courtney got up early to go enjoy the beach one last time. Since the tide was out I went to look at the tide pools and an old spanish guy saw me trying to take pictures of the little animals there and him and his cute little grandson found some crabs and showed them to me. It was so funny because the guy tried to tell me that they bury themselves in the sand during low tide and did a little wiggle thing. I wish I had caught it on camera!

So then me and courtney headed back to cadiz because I needed a couple more postcards. We ended up walking around to find a sports shop because Courtney had to get her brother something.

After that we were really hungry so we walked around to find the cafe courtney had gone to with lexi the first day in Cadiz and apparently had really good Tortilla Patatas (i still don't know how to spell that... i asked Bridget and she said it was patata). After walking around for an hour we finally found the place so we ordered Tortilla Patata and Tortilla Queso and the guy goes "No tortilla." So that sucked. We ended up walking 2 doors down and ate at another cafe. I picked a random item off the menu so that i could try something new (it was called Chacinas Queso) and the waiter brought me out a plate of cheese... that was it. just cheese. At least it was tasty! Oh and another thing about Spain is that when they put bread on your table it isn't free. They just put it there without you asking for it and then charge you if you eat it.

After eating we walked back to the ship to get our computers and enjoy the free wifi one more time but too many people had found out about it and it wasn't working very well so we just hung out on the deck until it was time for dinner.

I had a really good time in Spain! I didn't get on ship time so that was good. I figured out that you can enjoy a country with out knowing its language (most of the people i interacted with in Tanzania spoke a little english or I spoke enough swahili to argue about prices). I also learned that America is a lot more uptight than i thought! In spain they take 2 hours to eat lunch and 2 hours for siesta after that so the streets are pretty much empty. The people walk slower there and there too. though they are also so laid back that most women and girls go topless at the beach and the men and boys wear speedos... Maybe a little uptightness is a good idea.

Since I've been back on the boat I've done 2 papers and taken my global studies midterm (its all electronic, they email us the test at 7:00 AM and we have until 11:30 to return it. We are on the honor code that we won't cheat), gone swimming with Ryder, and planned out what i'm going to do in Italy. We get there tomorrow morning and my plans are...
Day 1: Go to Rome and stay the night there
Day 2: Enjoy Rome
Day 3: Enjoy Rome and make it back to the boat on time to catch a ride to Naples
Day 4: Go to Vesuvius and Pompeii
Day 5: Either shop or go to Capri... TBD

PS- These plans are in no way definite

I may as well do day 2 while i'm on a roll...

Day 2:
I was woken up at 8:00 the next morning by Georgina pounding on our door to tell Bridget that they were 45 minutes late for their trip to Sevilla, Cordoba, and Grenada. I let her in and found Bridget her ID and then, under the impression that it was 7:00 not 8:00 I went back to sleep. That turned out to be a bad idea because I slept through my bus leaving for my S@S trip. (oops!) In my defense I was only 10 minutes late.

After that I went back and called my next door neighbors so that when they headed out I could join them and then went back to sleep until 10. When I called Lexi again to see if she was ready to go yet she said that she wanted to sleep some more so I walked around the ship to find someone to go explore with. I ended up running into my friends Spencer, John, and Whitney. John, Whitney, and their other friend were heading to Sevilla for the day but Spencer wanted to stay in Cadiz so I said I'd walk with him to drop the other 3 off at the train station and then we could wander around together. Lexi ended up running up when we were just about to head down the gangway and told us to come back for her after the train station so that she could come too. So we walked all the way to the train station and on the way back we walked through a pretty park (they have a lot of gorgeous gardens in Cadiz) and when we got back to the ship Lexi wasn't there but we did run into Jill and Courtney so they joined us! We started out by trying to find a store called Blanco's which is the Spanish version of forever 21. On the way we found a nice little souvenir shop and I got some postcards and then we ended up walking by the big cathedral.

Ryder was running around in front of the cathedral to chase the pigeons. I asked him what he was doing and he said "I'm eating the pigeons" so I joined him for a little while. He was so cute! He asked me what my favorite ice cream flavor is and when I said Mint Chocolate Chip he said, "Look! There's a mint chocolate chip pigeon!" After a while I felt bad for holding up Courtney, Jill, and Spencer so we left the square and kept trying to find Blanco's. When we finally got there the line was really long but we went in anyway. I got a dress (its black with teal and white designs at the top and bottom) and I've been calling it my Spanish dress. After waiting in line for about 45 minutes we went to a grocery store to pick up water bottles and went to the beach. I had forgotten a towel so while Jill and Courtney sun bathed, me and spencer went out to see the castle. It was really cool because there were giant rocks and tide pools along side the bridge to the castle. We climbed on all the rocks and saw these giant holes that went down the the water underneath the rock and when a wave came water would come shooting out.

When we finally got the the castle it was locked so we peeked inside for a little. As we were about to start walking back to the beach we saw a bunch of local kids jumping off the bridge into the ocean.

*DISCLAIMER: MOM, DAD, AUNT JEANNE, MAMA C, AND ALL GRANDPARENTS PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS NEXT PART* Spencer is from Colorado and apparently goes cliff diving all the time so we mimed to the locals that we wanted to try it and they showed us where to stand so that the water was deep enough. Spencer went first and I waited with our stuff and then I went. It was kind of scary because it was about 20 feet up but it was so much fun! So then when i realized that I still didn't have a towel and neither did Spencer we just sat on the rock for a little while until we dried out. So then we got back and told Courtney and Jill about it and we ended up playing tic-tac-toe in the sand. (I kicked butt thank you very much!)

So then the 4 of us walked back to the ship for dinner (I ate most of my meals there to save money) and then we all went back to our individual rooms to get ready to go out. Spencer went to keep his friend haley company while she ate at a cafe so we joined them there and found some other S@Sers to join. Jill and Spencer went to have a beer with their professor, Rick, and me, courtney, and haley stayed with the group we met (named Bailey, Craig, Michael, Joe, and Mark) we went and got spencer and jill so that we could leave and just walked around the town. We found some cool places like a gay bar that was empty at the moment so the bartender let Jill serve us all drinks and then a bar where the bartender taught us how to make Mojitos and then sat and chatted with us. I went back to the Ship at 1:30 because I didn't want to miss my S@S trip again in the morning (I set my alarm and laid out all my clothes before I went out).

At the end of the day I couldn't have been more happy that I had missed my trip. My favorite part was the beach.

whew!

So I JUST finished my second paper and did all of my homework! That means that the only thing standing between me and Italy is a global studies midterm and about 250 nautical miles...

Since I have so much to tell everyone about spain I'm going to post it one day at a time so that I don't overwhelm anyone! But before i get to that i just had to mention that yesterday when i was playing with Ryder his mom let him go in the pool with me and John (the guy who watches him the hour before me) and i made the mistake of teaching him Motorboat Motorboat which he loved and made us do about 50 times so then to distract him I got him to jump into the pool and sang "Ryder be nimble, Ryder be cool, Ryder jump into the swimming pool!" Which also turned out to be a bad idea because then he wanted to jump in again and again and again. On the bright side he knows my name now : )

Ok so here is some spain...
Day 1
I woke up early to go to my FDP (a required field trip for a class) and got there early because I was so excited. We waited for a LONG time for our guide Georgio. We walked to the beach (in Cadiz… Playa Del Mar I think) and stood by the seawall and talked about oceanography stuff. It was fairly boring and it got really long and it was hot out and I was hungry so our professor finally noticed that we were all drooping and so we walked down to the beach (before we were at the top of the seawall on the street) and on the way there our prof announced that we were done with the field trip but since Georgio was staying with him at the beach we were welcome to stay and chat. So we ate our box lunches from the ship (aka. A chicken leg, a hardboiled egg, a Capri sun, oreos, an apple, and a really dry sandwich… I didn’t eat the chicken or the egg). I ate with some people I met named Betsy and Dan. So then a girl names Alyssa joined us and we all went to explore the tide pools and we found a hermit crab and got all excited but then these little Spanish boys walked up and had buckets full of little tide pool animals like crabs and sea urchins (yeah we got showed up by 4 yr olds…). So then we went and chatted with Georgio and walked to Playa Victoria, which is the beach where Halle Barry was filmed coming out of the water for that one James Bond movie. So then I decided to go back to the boat to meet my next door neighbors and go out and Dan came with me. We got lost pretty much instantly but thankfully Dan had a map. I didn’t mind getting lost because the streets were all so cute and I got to see a lot of old Cadiz.

We got back to the boat at about 2:45 so my friends had already left so Dan said I could join him and his friends. So I went and got my suit on really fast and we walked back to Playa Victoria and went swimming for a while. Dan’s friends (Katie, Hilary, John, and Sean) were all really funny and nice so I had a good time and the guys actually went in the water so I had someone to swim with (yay)!! So then we walked back and got dinner on the ship and I went and got ready for my flamenco trip.

I fell asleep on the bus to the flamenco place but the minute I got off the bus they handed me a glass of sherry so that woke me up. First we went to a bull fighting ring and watched some flamenco dancers dance with a horse. It was good dancing and I really liked it but the announcer was super awkward! He was Spanish and I don’t think he knew what he was saying in English but he kept talking in a really low creeper voice and saying things like “Make love to the horse” “The horse is thanking you for your heart”… (don’t worry I took a video!)  and then this guy wearing ridiculously tight pants (don’t worry I took a picture!)  come out to fight the bull (they were testing it or something to see if it would be a good mom to future fighting bulls) and the bull was really shy at first and he ended up chasing it around the ring but finally the bull started fighting him and I got some awesome pictures and then the flamenco dancers came back out for one more dance. After that we went inside for some Sangria, Tortilla Patato (I don't think that's spelled right...), and really good cheese (too bad i can't remember what kind it was!). After they let us chat for a while the flamenco dancers and a singer and a guitar player came out and danced some more. This was the best part. The guy flamenco dancer was really good! When they were done dancing they went out to the crowd to get people to dance with and after a little while everyone was up and dancing. We did the Macarena (which the spanish ladies found hilarious for some reason) and then a similar spanish dance that was really fun.

I got back to the ship at about 11:30 and changed really fast and went out with my friends Georgina, Taryn, Lexi, Bridget, Justine, and Ashley. We went to a restaurant that had a lot of S@S-ers first and then went to New Cadiz and found a less touristy place. At 3:45 we got cabs to head back to the ship. When we got back we all sat around mine and bridget's room and decided we were hungry so we snuck up to the union to eat at the breakfast buffet they had put out for the students going to Barcelona. After that we all went to bed.

I didn't like my FDP that much until they stopped the lecture part. Then i loved it! My favorite part of the day was probably getting lost on the way back because it was so pretty.

Spain post will be up soon...

Hey everyone!

I'm working on a big old post about what I did in spain but I have 2 papers and a midterm in the next 2 days so it might take a while...

Em

Pictures!!!

Bullfighter during my Andalucian Flamenco Night trip

Flamenco Dancing

Cadiz is so pretty

Climbing the walls

Random islands in the middle of the Atlantic... we were all excited to see land though!

Me and Bridget, my roommate

EEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!!

I'M IN SPAIN!!!! and trust me, after 6 days of class and losing an hour of sleep that is the only thing that could get me out of bed at 6:30 to see us pull into port... but that is exactly what I did!! It was GORGEOUS!! The sun rose right over what i'm assuming are mountains but knowing nothing about spain i could be wrong. I stood out on the deck for about an hour to watch the Spanish captain guy come get on the ship to help steer us into the port. I think I took enough pictures to wallpaper my room back home!

I'm about to take a nap so that I can be wide awake when we are finally allowed to get off the boat.

ps. Its hilarious! The boat has stopped rocking for the first time since Halifax but I'm still compensating for the waves so I was sitting at the breakfast table wiggling back and forth and now i'm sitting on my bed doing the same thing! Its so strange! (Its like when you stand in a doorway and push your arms out and then walk out of the doorway and they go up by themselves!!)

pps. if you couldn't tell by the ridiculous use of exclamation points or the subtle title of this post I'M SUPER EXCITED FOR SPAIN!!!! Bring on the churros con chocolate and tapas!!!