Mauritius

Hello Again!

This time, I’m going to talk about Mauritius (L’Ile Maurice). Mauritius was like Hawaii, but with a lot of people who speak French, Creole, and some Indian languages and with a lot more poverty. I’d love to go again, but I’m not sure if it would be worth the plane ticket cost.

Mauritius’s past is interesting in that there was no indigenous population that the Europeans wiped out and/or enslaved. The only thing they wiped out was the Dodo bird, which the Mauritians are apparently really proud of (it’s even on their seal).  They did still manage to make a lot of people miserable , though. They brought slaves and then indentured Indian servants once slavery was outlawed to do the work on their sugar plantations, which means that most of the population is Creole or Indian. Even though the last foreign power to control the country was Britain, there’s still a strong French influence because the English just let the French do whatever they wanted after control passed from the French to the British. Apparently Mauritius is also the only (or at least one of the few) places where the France actually won a battle in the Napoleanic Wars. Or at least, I think they (my Global Studies Professor and the U.S,. Diplomat in Mauritius – talk about a nice post!) said it was the Napoleanic Wars.

While in Mauritius, most of my friends went off to the beach, but I went with my Aging & Culture class to an ashram and vocational school. This was not my first choice, since we were only in Mauritius for 2 days, but I needed an FDP for that class to write a paper on, and my professor was in charge of the FDP and had strongly encouraged the class to go. Only 6 of the 20 people who signed up showed up, which I actually liked because it meant we really got to interact with the people and could easily hear the tour guide. I ended up being really glad I did the FDP, because I got to interact with some adorable Mauritian girls in my terrible French (I think we only half-understood each other) and then dance the Sega, which I guess is the national dance of (or at least widely practiced in) Mauritius. That was all at the vocational school. We also stopped at the ashram, which from what I could gather is a sort of shelter for old or battered women.

That night I had meant to meet up with my friend Jacob because it was his birthday, but that ended up not really working, so instead a few friends and I went to Grand Baie (a place with good beaches) and got dinner and then put our feet in the nice water. I actually went all the way in, and I really wish I’d been there during the day, because the water felt OK at night, but I’m sure it would have been awesome during the day time.

The next day I wandered around with my friend Nimish around Port Louis, which is not a very picturesque place, and it is certainly not what is on the postcards. All the postcards show the places to go hiking, the beaches, or Dodo birds in these places. Anyway, we wandered around a long time and got some awesome cut pineapple off of a street vendor (probably not the best idea, but it tasted great), bought some stuff at the market, and bought stamps/sent postcards.

And that was Mauritius! I’m a bit sad I never got to the beach during the daytime, but my FDP was really, really awesome, so it’s OK. I have plenty of time for the beach in Hawaii.

As for life in general, as I said, I just finished the bulk of my midterms last week, between South Africa and India (with Mauritius in the middle). Today is the Sea Olympics, and we’ll see how that goes. Our Sea (the Mediterranean) still doesn’t have a chant ready and I’m probably going to lose my events (the Orange Pass and Hula Hula Hoops) and let everyone down, which I normally would not care about, but everyone seems really cutthroat so I don’t even know if it will be fun. The winning sea is the first to get off the ship in San Diego, so the incentive is there, but I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll have more fun than I’m anticipating I will.

Oh! And I forgot something about South Africa, way back when I posted that entry: the first day, I actually climbed Table Mountain. Well, I didn’t – I chickened out ¼ the way up and took the cable car because I kept making my friends wait for me and I was completely out of shape – but my friends did.  Anyway, the views at the top are great. Well, they are until the fog comes in. Then it’s freezing and all you see is fog. But we got to see the views before the fog came in, so all was good.

That’s all for now.

Ghana

Sorry for the very long gaps between entries. I do have the excuse of midterms and papers being due, but mostly it’s been a combination of laziness and just not “feeling the muse,” as my fazere would say. I’m actually posting two entries today, since I think people would rather read two smaller entries than one large entry.

Ghana was pretty cool. I realize I use this word a lot, but it really does describe most of the things I’ve seen. Everyone carries stuff on their heads there, which is a talent I do not have. There was even a vendor with a giant sunglasses display on his head. It was impressive.

One of the first things I did in Ghana was visit some queen mothers, which are not actually the mothers of chiefs, but rule in tandem with him and are always a close female relative of the chief. I think ,based on some readings I did for a  class, the title comes more from the idea that they are the mother figure of the “traditional areas” over which they rule, and therefore a mother figure to the chief as well. I just wrote a 9-page paper on my visit with the queen mothers, so I’m not really feeling up to talking too much about the experience, but I will say that it was very interesting and the mothers were very informative (we basically got to ask them whatever questions we wanted, although most of the questions focused on how they ruled and their lifestyle and things), and they were all educated and spoke English. They were also very much into promoting the women and women’s vocational education in the area, so power to them.

I also explored the market in Takoradi (where we were docked), but that was definitely not my favorite experience. People stared at us like we didn’t belong (which is true, we didn’t, and we were not planning to buy anything) and there was a creepy guy who kept following us. There was this really nice lady who spoke English and helped us get back on the main road once we wandered down some side streets and got lost, so that was really nice of her. We also got some cooked plantains with some spicy sauce that were pretty good, but other than that, I could have done without the market.

The best day I had in Ghana was the day me, Michaella, and our friend Howard took a cab with a really nice cab driver (I talked to him pretty much the entire 4-hour round trip) to Kakum National Park, which is a rainforest with a set of extension bridges set up over part of the canopy that you can walk along. It doesn’t sound all that cool, but it was one of the best experiences I’ve had on the entire trip. Some people (we got there at the same time as an SAS trip) were whining about the rain, since it was pouring on us, but I think they were crazy because a) it’s supposed to rain in a rain forest and b) the rqain made the experience even better.

After the rain forest, the three of us stopped at this restaurant over a crocodile (er, it might have been alligators, but I don’t really know) pond. We also arrived here at the same time as an SAS group and so it took us forever to get our food. Well, mostly, it took them forever to cook Michaella’s food, which was funny because all it was was two small shish-kabobs. Anyway, that place was really cool because I ran into two people from SAS who had hired a local bird guide for the day, and they let me join them for about half an hour around the premises of the crocodile place. It was awesome. One of these days I’ll post a bird list for those of you who care (which is probably just Uncle Dave and maybe my mom), since I’ve seen a lot of cool birds on this trip.

The other big thing I did in Ghana was go to Nzulezo (I hope I’m getting the spelling right), which is a village on stilts. We were fortunate enough to get free tickets to the SAS trip going there (there’s a ticket donation box I tend to check very frequently), and it was sort of neat. I say “sort of” because the canoe ride to the village was really really cool, but the village itself was much too small for the 80 of us and it felt like we were invading the villagers’ privacy. They also looked very unhappy that we were there. We didn’t actually spend that much time there – we pretty much heard the chief give a speech about the legend of the foundation of the place (the people were escaping wars and followed their god, who had the form of a snail, there), were pressured into donating, and then left. I wouldn’t have minded donating – I probably would have given them some cedi anyway (Ghanaian currency) – but they basically stood in front of you with a bowl, so you felt completely awkward and compelled to donate. I didn’t like it. It also makes you wonder what they do with the money, since  those in charge said they use it to pay for a school teacher for the children, but the place is so obviously in poverty and they get TONS of tourists (mostly local), so you’d think you’d think they would have enough money to pay for a teacher and toimprove the villagers’ lives. Basically, I’d sum up the experience as uncomfortable.

After we rode the canoes back, we had lunch. That put some things into perspective. The food was really good, but there were tons of little kids around who begged us to give them our leftovers. We didn’t understand what they were asking for at first, but once we did, of course we obliged. It was just strange, uncomfortable, and sad to see little kids begging for scraps like that.

There were some other uncomfortable instances, too. For example, every time you went through the port gate, people would descend on you and try to force you (usually successfully) to buy a bracelet they would make on the spot with your name on it. When we were paying our taxi driver after getting back from Kakum, my friend paying took FOREVER to pay the guy, so we had like 10 guys surrounding us and forcing us to buy bracelets. I ended up with an ugly pink one with “Ghana” threaded into it, but at least I only paid 1 cedi (I don’t remember how much that is in U.S., but it isn’t much) for it.

Other than those things, I also did some shopping right next to our ship, where a bunch of people from Accra had set up some stalls and were selling their crafts. I’m a little sad now that I didn’t get a painting, but oh well.

I have the feeling that this entry may come off as incredibly negative, which isn’t really what I want. I did have a really good time in Ghana, and I think it’s important to see how other people live, especially those less fortunate than you. I’m not saying it’s OK to gawk at people’s misfortune or anything, but when in a developing country, I do think it’s important to see what’s around you. And I did have a good time. Like I said, it was uncomfortable, but Ghana was still really interesting and cool.

South Africa

So far, Cape Town was definitely the best port we’ve docked in – it’s not a far walk at all from stuff to do, and it isn’t a commercial port, but instead right on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, one of the best parts of Cape Town. Most of our other ports were obviously commercial ports, so they were not aesthetically pleasing and had a lot of traffic. And I won’t deny the fact that the free Internet access at the mall literally 2 minutes away from the dock was another bonus for Cape Town.

I didn’t get a chance to really explore Cape Town as much as I would have liked to. My friend Megan and I did explore a bit during our journey to the train station (I’m fairly sure we took the longest way to get there), and I got a chance to see Greenmarket Square, which is where you can buy handmade souvenirs and things. I also got a chance to see the gardens, the Castle of Good Hope, the Holocaust Museum, the cathedral where Archbishop Tutu lead the peace march of 1989, and the District Six Museum on an FDP (Faculty-Directed Practicum). We were supposed to go to Robben Island, but the ferry was broken, so we had to make due with other sites of significance to Cape Town.

The Castle of Good Hope was really boring. We were supposed to have a tour, but we got there too early, so we just sort of wandered on our own. I guess the local military still uses the castle, which is sort of neat I guess, but there wasn’t much to see there. There was an old furniture collection, some paintings of Cape Town, and a bunch of weapons and medals from the colonial wars fought on South African soil, but that was about it. Apparently during the Boer Wars the soldiers would leave these really nasty pointy things on the ground to cripple the enemies’ horses. I thought that was really cruel. The best part of the museum was the random Egyptian Goose and an African Sacred Ibis hanging out in the courtyard, which I’m sure no one else really found interesting except for me. There was also another duck species that I can’t for the life of me identify, but that’s what happens when you don’t have a bird book with you.

Anyway, after that we walked to the District 6 Museum, which was really small and had some artifacts from families who had lived in District 6 before it was leveled. I had no idea what District 6 was prior to the visit, and I still am not sure I know completely what it was, but I think it was basically an area where mostly poor black people lived during apartheid, and the government kicked the people out (they compensated the displaced people, but not for the amount of money the land was worth) under the pretense that the living conditions there were unsanitary. Of course, instead of making better houses for the blacks and colored people (apparently, “colored” is what the apartheid regime referred to those with mixed ancestry) who had lived there, the apartheid government leveled the whole place and was going to make the area a place for whites to live, but I guess thanks to protests and things the area was never built up again. The only buildings still there are a few religious structures, which our guide told us probably managed to avoid being torn down in part because they were part of larger branches of religion with international ties and things, so tearing them down would have made people outside the country unhappy with them.

Following the District 6 Museum, we went to the Holocaust Center, which was definitely my favorite part of the day. “Favorite” is probably not quite the right word, but it was definitely something I won’t forget. Although the influence of the Holocaust is not that prominent in South Africa, there is a small Jewish population, many of whom came to South Africa as a result of the Holocaust. I think our guide told us that most of the Jews in Cape Town came from Poland and Latvia/Lithuania, but I could be remembering that wrong. Anyway, the point of the Holocaust Center was to educate people about the Holocaust and its similarities to apartheid. Of course I’d studied the Holocaust in school, but actually hearing the stories from the guide, especially the experiences she had had other visitors relate to her, was something entirely different.

After the Holocaust Center we walked through the gardens in town (which were quite nice, and we were told they were where produce used to be grown for the ships stopping in Cape Town on their way to further destinations) to the cathedral where Archbishop Desmond Tutu lead a protest march in 1989. There was a small exhibit with pictures and facts about this march in the crypt, and we visited that briefly. It’s pretty cool, because the Archbishop is actually on our voyage and talked to us about living under the apartheid system just a few days before we arrived in Cape Town. We were told that the march was completely illegal, but they got around that by having foreign diplomats take part in the march, as other countries most likely wouldn’t have taken kindly to having their diplomats tear gassed.

Oh, speaking of diplomats, before we disembark in almost all of the ports we dock in, we have a diplomatic briefing. Let’ just say our briefing this time was…interesting. One of the diplomats told us we’d all get mugged or shot or something and scared us all into not really wanting to explore Cape Town. He also said some things that I’m pretty sure offended some of the people onboard, and I heard that one of the deans yelled at him, which he deserved.

That reminds me of some other instances of getting in trouble. Some kids have already been expelled from the program. I don’t know why, but rumor has it one of them had heroin. We also had a group of kids at karaoke night that SHOULD have gotten in trouble (I have no idea if they did, but I assume they must have been reprimanded in some way) that sang a really inappropriate song (there are kids onboard…I’ll get to that in a minute) and then acted out one part of the song on their friend which talked about grabbing a woman by her hair and smacking her on the butt. We have a really cute term we use to refer to the many jerks on the ship that do stuff like this: SASholes. Anyway, I got a talking-to for my song choice, too, although I don’t really know why they bothered when those guys sang that song. I sang Amish Paradise by Weird Al, and they told me it wasn’t really an appropriate song choice because it makes fun of a specific minority group. OK, to be fair, it does do that, and SAS is all about promoting diversity and acceptance, so I’ll buy that, although it does seem a bit silly to me.

Before I get back to South Africa, I’d like to discuss the shipboard community a bit. I mentioned the community a bit in my blog about the MV Explorer, but I didn’t really talk about the Life-Long Learners or the young whippersnappers on the ship. LLLs are predominantly retirees, although there are some who aren’t retired, and they take classes but don’t have to take tests. The faculty/staff and some of the LLLs have kids, who don’t really have class (although some of the older ones take some classes), but I guess they have times during the day where they do schoolwork and you can volunteer to tutor them if you want. I thought about it, and then realized I would not be a helpful tutor, so I gave up on that idea. Anyway, at first I was annoyed there were kids on what is supposed to be a college campus, but I guess you just get used to them after a while. I’ve also recently decided that I don’t hate kids anymore (I didn’t used to be able to stand them), which may be another reason I don’t mind them too much.

But back to South Africa. One of the days in port I participated in a program called Operation Hunger because one of my other friends was doing it and I didn’t want to be stuck by myself all day. Operation Hunger would have been cool if they knew we were coming. Instead, we got started about 3 hours late and we didn’t really help with anything even though it was supposed to be a service project. If anything, I think we were more of a hindrance than a help in some cases. For example, we went to this health clinic where they give food to TB patients so that they don’t stop taking the medication halfway through, and I guess they postponed handing the food out a bit so that the volunteers could be introduced to us. We also talked briefly to one of the women who worked in the clinic, but she had no idea we were coming, and we probably disrupted her busy schedule for a few minutes of her time.

The one really cool thing we did with Operation Hunger was visit a traditional healer’s home. He talked to us a bit about traditional healing methods versus more modern techniques. He said the main problems he saw to were those regarding marriage disputes, but for actual health cases the basic idea of treatment is to cleanse the body by emptying it out. He also talked about how he sold “mooties” (I have no idea if the spelling is correct on that), which I can only gather translates to talismans. Another interesting thing he mentioned was that we were technically in a sacred space, and so he hoped to add another floor to the building where tourists could go (I guess he gets a decent number of them, although I bet most of them are from SAS) so that tourists could still come, but wouldn’t be stepping where they weren’t supposed to.

Our last stop on Operation Hunger was a Rastafarian community in a township. A township is basically a shantytown, although some townships have government housing and seem to be a lot better off than the unofficial settlements people set up along the road. At this township, we helped to weigh the kids at a sort of school/daycare facility to assess if the community’s children had a trend toward being underweight. Had such a trend been found, the Operation Hunger employee told us that they would look and see if the problems were rooted at home or in the community, and would either help the families if that was where the problem seemed to be or the communities by helping with things like setting up food gardens or with starting small businesses. Only 5 people were actually needed for the job and I didn’t particularly want to play with the kids, so I sort of just stood around doing nothing. I heard that the other groups who did Operation Hunger actually helped serve soup and were needed to help weigh the kids (they weighed a lot more than we did), so I think our group was the only one that had a mediocre experience.

I think one good thing about participating in Operation Hunger, though, was seeing the townships. You’d think South Africa was a completely developed country if you stayed in Cape Town, but there is a huge gap between rich and poor that is evident in the townships. Many of the people live in shacks, and AIDS is a huge problem because many people have multiple partners and don’t use protection. It was definitely a big wake-up call to see signs for cheap or free abortions on nearly every lamppost. Apparently people try to avoid modern medical attention, so they’ll try just about everything they can before going in to seek modern methods of treatment. There isn’t really electricity in the townships, so if I understand right, the people tap into the electricity from the power lines. We were actually told that there had been a huge riot just a few days before we visited in the township where the traditional healer lived. It definitely shows you that Cape Town is not exactly representative of all of South Africa.

The day after Operation Hunger, I went on a mini safari with SAS in a game reserve about 2 hours away from Cape Town. It was sort of like a giant wild animal park like we have in the states, since there were gates and things and the animals had been introduced into the reserve, but for the most part the animals were free-roaming. We saw ostriches, white rhinos, African elephants, wildebeest, water buffalo, a giraffe, springbok, and impala. We also saw some crocodiles, lions, cheetahs, and a leopard, but they were all in smaller enclosures. Anyway, there was this one ostrich that was just chilling by the pool of the lodge where we had breakfast and lunch, and it was sort of awesome to think that I was in Africa by a pool with an ostrich a few yards away. I also saw some cool birds, and although I didn’t have a bird guide, I did have my binoculars, so I was able to identify a few of them when I got back to the ship and was able to use the bird guide in the library.

The next day everyone was busy, and I didn’t think it would be prudent to walk around Cape Town by myself, so I spent most of the day in the mall drinking some really good hot chocolate and mooching off of the free Internet. The next day was much more exciting, because Megan and I went on an adventure to Simon’s Town vie train, where they have an African Penguin colony. Honestly, seeing the wild penguins was the only thing I really wanted to do in Cape Town, and about 2 or 3 times I was supposed to go, but then plans changed or people couldn’t go, so I’m extremely grateful that Megan went with me. Apparently taking the train is not all that safe because it’s the off-season, but we had a security guard in our car, so all was good. She asked for our names and wanted us to write them down, and we thought she was trying to sell us a pass (she had been talking about one you could buy), so we were a bit weirded out at first, but then we realized she just wanted to get the names of travelers she met, so we obliged. But then we were really confused because the pass she was talking about included a bus ride, and we were all told to get off the train at Fish Hoek, which was about 3 stations before Simon’s Town, and the only way to get to Simon’s Town was by bus (it was pretty far to walk). We got on the bus even though we didn’t have the special pass, and I still don’t really know what the point of the special pass is, because they let us on the bus without any fuss. I wonder if maybe the security guard had told us the wrong price for the special pass (it was 5 more rand than what we paid) and we did have the special pass, because on the train ride back a bunch of people were kicked off the train who didn’t have the right kind of ticket (we had the right one, thankfully).

Anyway, eventually we get to Simon’s Town and walk a bit before we find the penguin colony. We ended up paying more to see the penguins than we did for the train ride (the train was something like $2.50 round-trip), but it was worth it, because they were right up against the railing. A lot of them were molting and looked pretty bedraggled, but there were a few without half their feathers missing, except they were closer to the ocean and therefore not as close to the railing/us.

After that, we followed the free path, which still gave us plenty of opportunities to see penguins, but at the end of the path was a beach that was part of the park, so we were glad we paid the entry fee and hadn’t just taken the free path. Megan didn’t get in the water (it was frigid), but I did. At first there wasn’t anything to see, but then I noticed there was a penguin a bit of a ways out, standing on a rock. So naturally I swam out to it. Of course it dove in the water right before I got there, but I hadn’t exactly been expecting it to stay there. After that, I went back to the beach and Megan and I climbed on some of the boulders for a bit, and then we saw a penguin (the same one, maybe?) swim right up to the shore. I decided to follow it, and we both ended up on a boulder, where I was maybe 3 yards from the penguin. At one point it came really close to me, but eventually it went back in the water. Before it disappeared it came right up to the beach again, and I tried to get a picture of Megan and the penguin, but of course it dove right before I took the picture. Apparently Megan already swam with penguins when she went to Brazil, but Ben and I (another friend) like to make fun of her when she talks about it because apparently most of the penguins in Brazil that she saw were dead (they were from Antarctica and had accidentally come too far north), so we like to point out that the penguins were alive this time. Anyway, swimming with the penguin and seeing the penguin colony was definitely the highlight of Cape Town as a port. They were adorable, and I probably took way too many pictures and videos of them.

After we got back from Simon’s Town, Megan and I went to Greenmarket Square and then the supermarket before getting back on the ship, and then waited around until we left port. And that was South Africa. Oh, actually, I forgot to mention that one night a few friends and I went to Marco’s, an African restaurant with live music. I got the Pan-African Platter, which cost more than I usually like to spend at a meal, but it had weird African meats in it, so I got it anyway. It had two species of antelope, or at least what I think were antelope (springbok and kudu), and ostrich. Ostrich tastes kind of nasty, by the way. And now I’m actually done with this entry.



P.S. – I didn’t proofread or edit this entry anywhere near as much as it probably needed, so sorry for spelling and grammar mistakes! I’ll have an entry on Ghana up before Mauritius, hopefully.

In the Indian Ocean

I realize you all probably would like a substantial blog post about Ghana and South Africa at this point, but I unfortunately have papers and midterms coming up and I felt completely terrible all day today, which was not conducive to blogging. However, I've just been struck by inspiration to blog, although this has nothing to do with the countries I've been visiting (those posts take way too much time and energy). Instead, I just want to say that right now the MV Explorer is in the middle of the Indian Ocean, right in the center of the most awesome thunderstorm I've ever seen in my life. For awhile they were letting us on deck to take pictures, but I guess the winds are too strong now so they've ushered us away from the railings and things. But I tell you, it's amazing out there! The wind is really strong and the mist is so thick coming off the sea that it sometimes stings when it hits you, but it feels awesome and the lightning looks amazing. I took a few videos but they really don't do the spectacle any justice. This probably isn't actually very interesting to read about, but trust me, it's amazing!

Life on a Boat

I should probably write up my Ghana entry before typing up an entry about anything else, but I am feeling unmotivated to write about Ghana at the minute (I can tell you that it was awesome, though), so here’s an entry about living on the MV Explorer instead, since I’ve received a lot of questions about it.

So, the MV Explorer. It seemed pretty big to me when I first boarded it, but it’s actually pretty small for a cruise ship, which I think is why it rocks so much all the time. Well, that, and the fact that it’s one of the fastest cruise ships in the world, and I think the speed contributes to the roughness of the ride as well. There are 7 decks total, but everything there is to do or see (of which there isn’t much) is on decks 5, 6, and 7. The first four decks only have cabins that people sleep in, with the general rule being the higher you go up, the better your cabin is. I’m on deck 3 on the inside toward the middle of the ship, which means that I’m in a double that doesn’t have a window looking out onto the water, but I don’t feel too much of the boat moving (although believe me, I still feel it). The rooms are all pretty small, except for the faculty and Life-Long Learners’ cabins, but you get used to it.

Starting on the fifth deck, there are only a few living quarters. Instead, the 5th deck has Timitz Square, which has the Purser’s desk, which is where you go to settle your shipboard account debts, get a new room key/ID card (I’m still on my first one!), and other administrative things like that. Right across from the Purser’s Desk is the Student Life Office and Field Office. The Student Life Office is where you…well, I’m not sure exactly, since I never go there. I think you sign up for intramural sports there. Oh, and you can check out board games. The Field Office is where you sign up for trips run by SAS in port and ask any questions regarding these excursions. Near Timitz there are also several rooms which serve as offices for important figures in the shipboard community, such as the deans’ offices.

Continuing aft (toward the back of the ship), there are some cabins and I think some classrooms (I don’t walk down there much), but not much else of interest. At the rear of the ship there’s a dining hall, but it’s not as cool as the one of the 6th deck because you can’t eat outside on the 5th deck.

There is a lot more stuff on the 6th deck. Starting at the back, there is the aforementioned dining hall (or Garden Lounge, as it is officially named), and as you move forward, you’ll see the Wellness Center, where there’s a sauna and you can get a massage (not for free, of course). I think that’s also where you can get a haircut. After that you’ll see some classrooms on your left and the Piano Bar to your right, where students like to hang out and study or buy overpriced snacks. Continuing forward, you’ll pass the two stores on campus, one which sells clothes, the other which sells practical things you might need in port, such as bug spray, toothpaste, and money belts, among other things. Eventually you’ll reach the library to your left (which is very small and used to be a casino before the ship was re-equipped to be a college campus) and the computer lab to your right, which is where I’m sitting right now, since I can rarely access the Internet at all from my own computer because my computer is terrible at connecting to weak wireless connections.

If you keep going forward from here, you’ll seem to hit a dead end at the Union, the largest room on the ship and also the one I hate the most. It’s the room that’s the closest to the front, so you really feel the movements of the ship here. Unfortunately, since it’s the largest room, Global Studies (mandatory for all students, although only half are enrolled in each of the two sections of it) meets here, and pre-port meetings and optional seminars are held here as well.

Although the Union seems like a dead end, there is actually a hidden door in the room which leads to the Bridge, the command center of the ship. I took a Bridge tour toward the beginning of the voyage, so I got to see what happens there. There’s always an officer on duty and other people there doing whatever it is they do, but the ship is usually on auto-pilot. There wasn’t too much to see there aside from all of the machines and stuff that look like something out of a sci-fi movie that show where the ship is, how fast it’s going, and stuff like that. The best part of the tour was when they let us take pictures in the captain’s chair with a hat and binoculars. It was ridiculous and tourist-y, but fun. We also talked to the crew about their jobs and stuff, but I don’t remember much of what they told us (this was about a month ago, after all). I know they did say that sailors work for something like 6 months at a time and then have a few months off, regardless of whether they’re in the middle of a voyage or not. This means that new crew members are always coming and going throughout our journey whenever we dock.

As for the seventh deck, like the fifth, there’s not much here except for Desmond Tutu’s room and some staff rooms until you reach the back of the ship, where there’s a pool and the Pool Bar, which has really good smoothies and other things to eat if you’re growing tired of the dining hall food. There’s also a gym on this floor and a small basketball/volleyball court.

And that’s more or less the ship, assuming I haven’t forgotten too many things. The crew is all very friendly, but it’s weird having your room cleaned every day and having people pick up your dishes for you or getting juice for you in the dining hall. My cabin steward probably hates my roommate and I because we forget to change the in/out magnet on our door, so he usually tries to clean the room when we’re in there. I’ve tried to remember to switch the magnet, but I think our steward probably doesn’t even pay attention to it at this point, but instead just tries to find a time when neither of us are in the room by checking multiple times each day.

As for what I do to pass the time? Not much, honestly. There are classes every day we’re at sea, except on Reading Days, when we catch up on classwork and take our Global Studies tests. There is no free entertainment other than the informational seminars we have almost daily, which range from how to get into the Secret Service to the food of Spain. Since there’s not too much to do entertainment-wise, I spend my time hanging out with people (usually in my room) or sleeping, with the occasional reading or studying session thrown in. I was playing a lot of video games up until we reached Ghana (I was trying to finish a game), but everyone seemed to think I was playing unhealthy amounts of them (this is true), so I’m taking a break until after South Africa. This really just means I sleep more. I don’t know if it’s the fact I don’t go outside much (I only go outside to study or eat) or that the ship is always rocking, but I always want to sleep when I’m on the ship. I think I also do it a lot because on days when the seasickness hits me pretty hard (it has never been as bad as that second day, but I still feel woozy sometimes), sleeping means I don’t have to deal with the unpleasantness.

Yesterday was actually an exception in my typical daily life at sea, since yesterday we celebrated Neptune Day, or the day we passed the Equator. We actually passed the Equator AND the Prime Meridian at the same time a few days before that, but the staff chose to carry on with the festivities yesterday because it was a Reading Day anyway and that way no one had to miss class or anything. Neptune Day was pretty special. Some of the faculty and students went around at 7:30 in the morning banging drums, cymbals, and blowing a whistle around the entire ship to make sure everyone got up. They also were sure to bang on people’s doors. I was not very happy about this, but I sort of expected it and had gone to bed at a decent hour, so I didn’t feel too strong of an urge to punch something (I’m not a morning person). During the festivities, people shaved their heads (including several of my friends), and a lot of the hair is going to be donated to charity to make wigs. I’m not sure why crossing the Equator warrants shaving your head, and I would never voluntarily shave my head, so I passed on this particular festivity. I did, however, have “fish guts” poured on me, but only after I changed into my swimsuit. The “fish guts” were, from what I could tell, actually seawater with green food dye, some random bits of plant that I’m still trying to get out of my hair, and something to make it smell like fish. Anyway, after having the “guts” poured on you, you take a lap in the pool (which is maybe 4 meters long at most), kiss a fish (I think it was actually real) and the rings of “Neptune” (aka Dean David) and his “wife” (aka the Executive Dean), and then are knighted by someone with a plastic sword and “initiated” into who-knows-what cult (I wasn’t really listening to the official name, since I was at the back when they were explaining everything). Don’t worry, this was all caught on video. Oh, I forgot to mention that all the staff was dressed up ridiculously with streamers and face paint to make them look like sea people or something. Later that day we had a midterm, though, which was not nearly as exciting, and everything was back to normal today, including my lovely 8 a.m. classes.

Well, I think that about sums up what life is like on the MV Explorer. One of these days I plan to take a video of the ship to give you all a better idea of what it looks like, but since I can never upload anything, I don’t really know how much good that will do. I’m hoping for good Internet in Cape Town, so hopefully I’ll upload some pictures at least then. But this is all for now. Keep the emails coming (I’d like to think I’m decent-ish about replying to them), and at some point I’ll have an entry on Ghana for you all to read.

Morocco

Morocco

Hello again! It’s bit later than I said, but regardless, here’s the promised entry on Morocco .

Our port this time around was Casablanca , and while it has a movie named after it and is the largest city in Morocco (I think), it is not a very interesting place. Rick’s Café does exist there, but it was made for the tourists and was not the one actually in Casablanca. It’s also a horribly overpriced place to eat, or so I’ve been told. Casablanca does have the 3^rd largest mosque in the world with the tallest minaret, though, which I went inside on my last day there. They make you take your shoes off inside and SAS told us girls to cover our arms and heads when we went inside, although it seemed as if the Moroccans were used to tourists and didn’t really enforce the head covering. I still wore one for most of it, and let me tell you, I can’t even imagine wearing something on my head all the time. It looks pretty cool, but not having the choice to remove it is something I would not enjoy, and most of the women I saw in Morocco were always covered up. The younger children and a few young women, one of whom I talked to a bit on the train and helped me get off at the right station, didn’t have them on, but the norm was clearly to cover up. We were also told not to wear shorts or revealing T-shirts, but I did see tourists breaking this norm (although I personally tried to dress conservatively). Anyway, it makes you appreciate being able to wear whatever you want.

So before I got sidetracked I was talking about the Hassan II Mosque. It was pretty cool inside – very similar to the Alhambra , for obvious reasons. It was interesting to see mosques with minarets that were much slimmer than what I was expecting, since I was expecting the more round ones like in Aladdin. I think there are mosques with that type of minaret, but I didn’t catch why the different types exist or where to find the more round ones. Anyway, the Hassan II mosque also had a green laser that pointed toward Mecca at night, which I found sort of funny, because I definitely don’t generally associate holy places with green lasers, even if said lasers are pointing to other holy places. Anyway, that was the only place of which I took any pictures, because up until the last day in Morocco I didn’t have my camera with me because we were told we’d have to get permission to take pictures of everything and I didn’t want to be charged a Euro or something to take pictures. Turns out I would’ve been OK after all and wouldn’t have been charged a Euro, but I was with people who took lots of photos, so hopefully I can bum some off of them.

On a completely unrelated note, drivers in Casablanca and Morocco are crazy. Crossing the road is literally life-threatening, as is taking a ride in a cab (which I did frequently). Oh, and I don’t know why they bother drawing lanes on the roads. Nobody stays in them. I also don’t know why they have crosswalks, since no one uses them. Also, you have to barter for everything, and they know tourists have no idea what they’re doing, so I was ripped off a lot, especially by cab drivers. Speaking of cab drivers, my first (and probably best) experience in Morocco was a cab ride to the train station to buy tickets, followed by a cab tour of the city. Our driver was really friendly (almost everyone was, especially if you were either going to be paying them or already had, although there were some people in the souks who were really friendly toward us even when we said we weren’t buying anything) but INSANE. At one point he got out a guidebook and was flipping through it to show us pictures of Casablanca while driving, and other times he’d turn and talk to us instead of watching the road at all for substantial amounts of time. It was definitely a cultural experience. Our cab driver also got this random group of Asian tourists to take a picture of us (me, the girls I was in the cab with, and the driver) on their cameras (so we’ll never even see the picture) and when we saw a random girl who he thought was Indian he yelled “Look! India !” and pointed enthusiastically from one of the girls I was with (who was obviously of Indian heritage) and the random stranger, to which the stranger replied “Um, I’m from South Africa .” He also kept saying that once nighttime fell (it was Ramadan at the time) that he would drink, smoke, eat, and “Be a king!” He also got this restaurant to pretty much open just for us (although other people came a bit later) before sundown even though it was Ramadan. It was a good restaurant, too, although kind of pricey.

As for what I actually did in Morocco ? Not much, honestly. I spent two days in Marrakech, which pretty much conforms to all the stereotypes of a Middle Eastern city I think Westerners have of them – snake charmers, huge marketplaces, music performances, etc. Except we didn’t get very close to any of the above because we didn’t want to have monkeys thrown on us and then charged 5 Euros for it, which is what happened to some other SAS kids. Some kids apparently got peed on by monkeys, which is hilarious and disgusting, and some others got bit, which is not good. One of the people I was with almost had a snake put on him, but he avoided that because we all knew we’d get charged an outrageous amount of money for it. Anyway, the souk (marketplace) in Marrakech was really neat. I didn’t buy anything there, but just walking around was really something else. There were all sorts of crafts for sale, and you knew they were handmade by Moroccans, so that was really awesome. There were also all sorts of spices and natural healing things for sale, and those stalls smelled amazing – I wish I could have packaged the smell as a souvenir or a present for someone. Oh, and apparently the Moroccans use charcoal, indigo, and what looked like a sort of clay as make-up. I thought it was super neat that they still use natural products like that as cosmetics.

Marrakech was even cooler at night, though. The group I was with sat at a restaurant with a view of the central square (Jamaa el Fna, if I’ve got the spelling right) right before sundown, so we watched the sun fall and the marketplace slowly fill up with more and more people. That day was also the end of Ramadan, so it may have been even livelier than usual. Regardless, it was a really cool sight, and even though I didn’t get any pictures of it, I bought a postcard of pretty much the exact same view I saw, so one of you lucky people will get to see that at some point. I also took a picture of the postcard, so I guess I can post that.

Oh, I’ve somehow neglected to mention the hostel I stayed at in Marrakech. It was down a really shady alley, so the first time my group and I went there, we were starting to doubt its legitimacy. But when we got inside, all doubts were extinguished. I don’t know how to describe it other than it was awesome. The entire place was very Arabic in style, with abstract designs and tiling that looked like something from the Alhambra palaces, but obviously on a much smaller scale. The staff was really, really sweet, too. The men gave us a map of the city and explained to us how to get everywhere and made us some delicious mint tea, and in the morning the women took pictures with us and tied our head scarves properly for us (since we had no idea what we were doing) and wrote our names out in Arabic (which appears to use a phonetic alphabet). They also made a breakfast of crepes, bread, coffee, and tea (not free of charge, but I hardly think 2 Euros is expensive for a home-cooked meal). The crepes were really interesting because they definitely weren’t French crepes – they were much thicker and chewier, but they tasted great with jam and butter. One of the women also taught me how to make the Moroccan mint tea, which I greatly appreciated because that stuff is good and I want to make some when I get back home. According to her (if I’m remembering correctly), you take however many teaspoons of Chinese green tea you want (I think it was around 3-5 for a full teapot), add in hot water and something like 5 to 7 sugar cubes (it is very sweet), some fresh mint, mix it all together, and then put this all together in the awesome traditional teapot and put it on the stove for a few minutes before serving it.

The showers were certainly something else, though. One of them had the toilet and shower in the same room with no separation between them, and if you weren’t careful the water would spill out into the hallway. There was also no toilet paper, something that happens in a lot of Morocco . In fact in Casablanca there were some little girls on the street trying to sell packets of tissues for a Euro or something because they knew tourists would buy it. And in the train station bathroom in Marrakech, the toilets didn’t have a flush – you dumped a bucket of water down them to flush them.

There were also random hoses in the hallways of the hostel with pots underneath that were not large enough to catch all the water that fell out of the hoses. I also have no idea where the water came from in the first place, but I assume it was from the showers. There was also no lock on our bedroom door, the towels had holes, and I didn’t use any of the blankets for fear of bed bugs. It really made me appreciate the showers and clean bed back at the ship. But really, it was an awesome place. There was also an open roof, so at nighttime the group I was with and I went there to catch the cool evening breeze.

Oh, the trains are also something else. The group I was with decided to save 50 dirham (something around $5 or $5.50) by going second class instead of first class, which meant we were very crowded and a lot of people didn’t get a seat. I got a seat an hour into the train ride to Marrakech, but some people stood the entire 4 hour ride. Ouch. On the way back the train was much less crowded, so I had a seat the whole way, but our window was locked shut for an hour or so, so there was no circulation and our compartment was stifling hot. I don’t think I ever appreciated an open window as much as when someone who worked on the train unlocked it for us.

Other than that, all I really did was hang around Casablanca and its souk with some friends from SAS. I didn’t end up buying anything in Marrakech, but I did get a really cool camel leather cushion and a nicely crafted leather purse (since the one I brought with me to SAS is a bit too conspicuous) in Casablanca , as well as a present for my mother. Jacob, Michaella and I also took a cab to the ritzy part of town one day, which basically meant it had a lot of private beaches and nice café-type places. There was also a movie theater, and I almost regret not seeing some random movie in Arabic with no subtitles.

I guess before I close up I should talk about the food. I actually didn’t have as much authentic Moroccan food as I would have liked (I ended up eating at a few European places and even a McDonald’s once, much to my chagrin), but what I did have was really good. The couscous was great, but some places only serve it on Fridays or Fridays and Saturdays. I haven’t the faintest idea why this is, and I probably should have asked. Anyway, I also had lemon chicken and various kinds of tagine (food cooked in a special kind of dish), most of which contained either lamb or chicken. I also had cooked vegetables, including the best carrots I’ve ever tasted in my life. I don’t know what they were flavored with, but they were awesome. There was also a lot of bread, which went very well with the vegetables. I heard someone else had pigeon, but I didn’t have that particular experience. I did have coke a few times though, and their coke bottles are a lot cooler than ours – they’re glass and have Coca-Cola written in English and in Arabic. I also had a lot of freshly-squeezed orange juice, which is the only kind of orange juice I enjoy.

And I guess that more or less sums it up. Morocco was certainly an interesting place to visit, but I would never, ever visit it again. Nothing was bad about it (that I experienced) other than being ripped off all the time and having people try to sell me things I didn’t want, it was just a place that I wasn’t particularly interested in and still am not. Well, and it was weird when my friends and I were walking back to the ship one night and the only people still out were men. It’s a little hard to want to return to a nation where you’re so obviously an outsider and your gender isn’t really respected. Although I was pleasantly surprised by the young woman in the train who did not have a head covering and was chatting excitedly with a middle-aged man the entire train ride, since it showed that some women don’t constantly cover themselves and some men, at least, clearly aren’t bothered by it. And no one was rude to me or anything – quite the opposite, in fact – but it was just sort of uncomfortable being there, especially because I didn’t feel safe. I was less anxious and on my toes after the first few days, but the first day I was worried about being robbed the entire time.

Actually, my experience was a good one, especially compared to some other people’s. One of my friends was robbed at knifepoint, some people had things thrown at them, and others had people yell lovely things like “Fuck the U.S. !” at them. A few people made fun of the group I was with by loudly yelling things in English at us (they weren’t rude things, but were obviously said to mock us) and my cab driver the first day playfully said that Hindus were crazy when he found out the Indian girl we were with was Hindu and not Muslim, but other than that I didn’t come across any real discrimination or American hate. I was also in Morocco on 9/11 and faced absolutely no problems whatsoever (that was actually the day I talked to the nice lady on the train), and according to the U.S. diplomat who debriefed us before our visit, the whole burning the Qu’ran issue wasn’t even very well-known there.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I had a good experience, but I definitely don’t have plans return to Morocco. Next is Ghana (we dock in Takoradi tomorrow), which I previously never even thought of visiting, but I’m hoping that it’ll be a really awesome experience. At least a lot of people speak English there. I tried to use my French in Morocco , but people opted to speak to me in English instead, which is a little sad since I’ve taken around 5 years of French, but also made things less complicated because I often misunderstood things or couldn’t make myself understood very well in French. As my roommate tells me, the one thing I am very good at is saying “Non merci!” to persistent cab drivers.

Anyway, that's all for Morocco, so I'll write again once I'm back from Ghana!

Spain (9/4 - 9/8)

And now for the much more interesting stuff! But first, I need to make a logistical announcement: Most of you probably already know this, but I can’t for the life of me get my Semester at Sea account (the one to which I have free access on the ship) to receive the verification emails from my yahoo accounts that needs to go through for me to be able to set up forwarding, so I’m mostly unreachable from my usual @pacbell.net emails. Instead, if you want to reach me for whatever reason, email me at n d mylastname @ semester at sea . net (but obviously remove the spaces and use my real last name).

That aside, let’s talk about Spain ! (Or Espagna, as the Spanish call it). So we arrived in Cadiz on September 4^tharound 7 in the morning. I’m not sure exactly what time we got in, since I opted to sleep in instead, but I might as well have gotten up because Michaella and Jacob decided (out of the goodness of their hearts, I’m sure) to make sure that I was up not too long afterward. After getting up, Lorelei (my RA who I traveled around southern Spain with) and I met up with two other girls from SAS to look at bus schedules and explore the city a bit. We also got some excellent tapas at a bar, which, in Spain , is more like a small restaurant or café and is not, according to one of our deans, a place to get “shwasted.” (The bar, that is. Not the tapas.) It’s amazing how much you can learn about your own culture by being on a cruise ship with several college students, since I had no idea that the term “shwasted” existed prior to this journey. For those of you who are not in the know, “shwasted” is a combination of two other terms that describe someone who is incredibly inebriated. But enough of U.S. slang, and back to Spanish food!

So, tapas. They’re small servings of appetizers, but the origin of their name is pretty interesting. If I’m remembering correctly, way back when, the Spanish used to prevent things from falling into their drinks by putting food on top, and over time that food came to be known as tapas. Anyway, the tapas we got late that morning/early afternoon were really good, even though we had to eat in a hurry because I had to be back on the ship by 1 for my tour of Cadiz with SAS. Although we had to eat quickly, which is incredibly un-Spanish, we still appreciated the food. Actually, that first meal was the best I had in Spain . We had some Iberian ham; the best pork I’ve ever had in my life, even though I have no idea what it was called; the national dish of Spain , which, by the way, I have no idea how to spell (paella?) but it has rice and seafood in it; and meatballs in “traditional sauce,” according to the English-translated menu, which apparently tastes a lot like sauerkraut. Luckily Lorelei is fluent in Spanish, because I don’t speak a word of Spanish, and neither did the other girls. (On a somewhat-related note, I really disliked being <i>that</i> tourist. You know, the one who expects everyone to speak English them. At least in Morocco I kind of sort of knew what was going on.)

So we eat our tapas and head back to the ship, and then after almost forgetting my ticket to get on the tour, I manage to successfully be on the dock when the tour starts. It was actually really cool, but of course being the awesome person I am, I forgot to take my camera with me. At any rate, our tour was really awesome. We walked around all of the Old Town , which really isn’t all that big. Apparently Cadiz is only about 10 km in radius and has 135,000 people. Its claims to fame are its beaches (where Spaniards from the big cities come to escape the tourists in their hometowns), its age (its one of, if not the oldest, continually occupied cities in Europe, dating all the way back to the Phoenicians), and the fact that it was not conquered by Napolean, so the Spanish Constitution was written there. Oh, and its venue for exhibitions and stuff nowadays was the first tobacco factory in Europe , if I remember correctly. Anyway, there are some nice shops and stuff in the alleyways and the drivers sometimes actually let you cross the street without trying to kill you, which is a nice difference from France . What I don’t understand, though, is how anyone makes any money here. It seems like they’re never working. Supposedly the Spaniards work just as much as Americans, but I find that hard to believe. The shops are only open from around 12-3 and then 5:30-9:00, which can be really frustrating. Anyway, the town has a cool cathedral and a watchtower with a great view of the city & a device that projects a bird’s-eye-view image of the city. I didn’t go inside either of them, but I did go inside the Museo de Cadiz, which has paintings, an archaeology exhibit, and traditional puppets from the region. I didn’t care much for the puppets or paintings, but the archaeology stuff was cool – there was lots of Phoenician jewelry, two sarcophagi, Roman statues, and other odds and ends, including a Phoenician baby bottle that looks like the lamp in Aladdin. According to our guide, the heads of the Roman statues were made separately from the bodies, because the bodies could be made anywhere, but the heads were carved by the best artisans who lived in Rome . I thought that was pretty cool. She also told us that this one guy dedicated his life to finding another Phoenician sarcophagus after the first had been discovered, but never found one. It wasn’t until his kids decided to demolish his house after his death that the second one was found. Talk about irony.

After the museum, we had a break in the Flower Market, where I got some nice ice cream, and then we continued to the New Cathedral, which took over 100 years to construct. The bottom of it is made out of fossilized sand (or something like that), but the top is made of limestone because the people of Cadiz had to stop digging up the fossilized sand or else nothing would be holding up their city any more. The upper part of the cathedral is also not as nice because by the time the city finished building it, it wasn’t as rich as when the construction began (construction commenced during a time when Cadiz was the only port with access to the Americas ). We didn’t go inside, but it was still pretty neat from the outside. After that, we walked past the Old Cathedral (which was destroyed somehow and wasn’t rebuilt because they decided to build the new one instead) and then saw some sort of government building with a bell tower on top that plays a tune composed by Manuel de Falla (the composer of the broomstick piece in Disney’s <i>Fantasia</i>) every hour on the hour. Actually, we saw where de Falla was born and the house he spent a good deal of his life, too.

After the tour, I honestly don’t remember what I did…probably bought my bus tickets and stuff and ate. Oh!  Just kidding. I decided last minute to do the SAS field program where we went to a Flamenco show and saw a bull fight and equestrian show. The equestrian show was OK – it was basically a lot of dressage (which is supposed to be dancing on horseback) and some Flamenco dancing. The bull fight was more hilarious than exciting because it was actually a test run to see if these two baby bulls would be suitable to actually be in a bull fight, but I think they probably failed the test because they were much more afraid of the people and the flailing capes than angered by them. One of the guys who was maybe 16 (they weren’t official matadors) was almost hurt by one of the bulls, but most of the bulls’ attempts were half-hearted so it wasn’t very exciting. Though to be honest, after talking with a friend who saw an actual bullfight where one bull’s guts were flung all over the stadium and another was dragged around the stadium before it was fully dead, I think I prefer the fight I saw.

Still, the evening was a lot of fun, because after that we had tapas at a nice restaurant with a Flamenco show and then we danced afterward. One of the SAS kids knew salsa and I tried dancing with him but sort of failed. Oh, and the Macarena was played twice, which was kind of hilarious.

So that was all just the first day. I’ll try to be a bit more brief from here on out because I’ve already spent several days trying to finish this blog and my attention span isn’t long enough to be as detailed for the rest of this particular entry. Anyway, on the second day Lorelei and I went to Tarifa, the “southest point of Europe ,” according to a street sign. We meant to go whale-watching but it was pretty windy so none of the companies there were sailing that day, and the one that normally sails out of a different bay when it’s windy had a mechanical failure. Lorelei and I think the SAS kids broke the boat because the SAS whale-watching trip had used the same company and boat the day before. Anyway, we tried pretty much every single whale-watching place, but it was no use. We still had fun, though, because we took pictures of Morocco across the water, the Strait of Gibralter , and of ourselves touching both the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean . Funny how simply changing the name of the ocean at a specific point can seem so cool. We ended up heading back pretty early, though, because around 3 all the stores were closing and we didn’t have anything to do. But we still had a good time because we grabbed some other SAS kids back in Cadiz and hit up the beach. It kind of reminded me of the beaches of Antibes in summer (i.e. very crowded and a little dirty), but the water was really nice and it felt good to get out of the hot sun.

The next day Lorelei and I took a bus to Granada , where we ended up joining forces with 2 other SAS girls and a guy that decided last minute to join us as well. The bus ride took about a half an hour more than expected and we already didn’t have much time to explore the Alhambra (the main reason we were going to Granada), so that kind of stressed me out, but after booking the hostel and dropping our stuff off there, we were able to finally get to the Alhambra with a good 4 hours to explore.

The Alhambra was pretty interesting. It was the last stronghold of the Muslim population against the Spanish back when the Muslims ruled southern Spain . There weren’t many of the informational blurbs of the things we were looking at that you usually find in museums (either in Spanish or English) so I missed out on a lot of the history of the place, the but the architecture was still quite a sight to behold. I did see the place where Ferdinand and Isabella (you know, Columbus ’s financial backers) were originally buried, though. But the Nasrid Palace and the Garden Palace were definitely the highlights of the fortress. The intricate Islamic carvings in the Nasrid Palace and the way it was set up was so much nicer than a European castle, and I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to live there in the…1300s, I believe it was. And the gardens and fountains in the Garden Palace were just so nice to look at. I took lots of pictures, but unfortunately my skills as a photographer are quite lacking and my camera, while nice, just couldn’t capture the detail and splendor of the palaces. When I eventually get them uploaded, I don’t think they can even begin to show you all what it was like there.

Later that night, we spent a very significant amount of time trying to figure out traveling logistics for the next day and trying to figure out how the guy we were with, who decided to go off on his own that night, would meet up with us again to get the train together. I think this trip taught me that I worry a lot more than I ever thought – I was constantly stressing out about getting to the trains on time and making sure we saw everything. I still had a lot of fun, but I’m thinking that I will do more SAS-organized trips in the future or simply visit fewer places in each country, because I think that will be much less stressful.

Anyway, after finally figuring out our plans, we got dinner at this really cool restaurant that had probably 50 pig legs just hanging on the ceiling. I ordered an assortment of meats (I have no idea what they were), and it was really good. Well, except for this really strange black meat that tasted sort of like it had been pickled and fell apart in your mouth. After that, we got ice cream from this really stellar (I’m running out of adjectives here) place. The displays there were awesome – the watermelon-flavored ice cream had an actual watermelon in it that was carved like an animal, and there were actual fruits on top of the fruit-flavored ones and candy bars still in their wrappers perched on top of the candy-flavored ones. It was a good marketing strategy, because seeing the actual thing from which the ice cream got its flavor right on top of the ice cream just made me want the ice cream even more.

We eventually finished eating, headed back to the hostel, and got ready for bed/went to sleep, although not much sleeping occurred because the room was stifling hot and I was freaking out about the kid who wandered off (he was staying in a mosque, but he was super reckless and didn’t really seem to think things through, and I could definitely see something terrible happening to him because he wasn’t coming back until 6 in the morning or so). Eventually the kid came back, and then about an hour later we called two cabs to take us to the train station so we could catch a train to Sevilla. We were about an hour early because we wanted to be sure we could get tickets for the train, so once we had our tickets we had about an hour to kill. We decided to use this time to get some breakfast, and luckily there was a little coffee place in the station. I had some donuts (very Spanish, I know). The train ride itself was pretty fun – four of us had seats facing each other, so we chatted for a bit before passing out because of the lack of sleep from the previous night and the fact we had had two early mornings in a row.

Once we got to Sevilla, we wandered around kind of aimlessly. Well, I really wanted to see the Alcazar (another Moor palace thing) and the cathedral, but one of the other girls wanted to wander, so that was kinda lame that we had pretty different agendas. We also had to meet up with two other girls from SAS, but we weren’t sure exactly when or where we were going to meet up with them because we weren’t sure if they had gotten our email the night before or not, but luckily we ran into them when we were wandering around. We never did end up seeing the Alcazar, but Lorelei and I saw the inside of the cathedral, which is apparently the 3^rd-largest in the world. Christopher Columbus is buried there, but I forgot that at the time, so I didn’t really look for his resting place. I did notice the organ in there, though. It was huge, and its pipes took up a huge portion of the center of the main room. The ceilings were really awesome, too, and the view from the bell tower was something to behold. We also wandered around the Spanish Plaza , which I mistook for the cathedral (this was before we had found the cathedral) and the other girls thought was the Alcazar. Apparently it was actually built in the 1900’s for something (I don’t remember what), so we were both wrong. Regardless, even if it was a newer building, it looked really cool and I took a bunch of pictures before my camera died. The other landmark we saw was the university, which used to be a tobacco factory but now just looks cool/is a place to learn.

Anyway, I had originally planned to spend the night in Sevilla, but I decided to head back early with the two girls who had hung out in Granada with Lorelei and I instead. They were really loopy off of sugar the whole way back, and we kept taking silly pictures, eating candy, and giggling on the train. When we got back to Cadiz we tried to find someplace that was open to eat, but Spain (or, well, Cadiz , anyway) has terrible hours, so nothing was open. At that point I met up with Michaella and Jacob and we wandered around for awhile and eventually found a club/bar place where some of the other SAS kids were. We stayed for awhile and then walked back to the ship and went to bed. The next day was our last day, so Michaella and I walked around, went to a grocery store to pick up some things, and took some pictures. We got back onto the ship about an hour and a half before we had to be, just to be safe. Around 8 p.m. we finally left the port, and when I woke up I was in Morocco .

Yes! FINALLY done with this entry! I’ve been working on this for days. Don’t expect as much detail in the future, because finishing this was painful. Anyway, I hope now you have a better idea of what I’ve been up to recently. Hopefully I’ll get an entry on Morocco posted around Friday or so, but until then, adios!