Seeing as we are on our way to our 6th port, and I have yet to finish writing about destination number 3, I guess I will have to summarize a little more. I also noticed a common theme throughout my blogs that I will classify as empty promises. Lots of “will update more tomorrow” or “will have free internet to upload all kinds of super stuff” and very very little follow through on said claims. For this I apologize, and ask that you do not abandon me and my blog effort just quite yet.
Days two and three in Namibia only increased in fun but decreased in health: I somehow completely lost my voice along the way and Dana was fighting a pretty bad cold which I also inevitably caught. But it’s a lot to be said that even this could not damper our spirits, and later on day two even when we were all so burnt our skin was hotter than the sun, we were STILL having an excellent time.
Note: spf55 doesn’t mean squat in the desert.
So day two was our Sea and Sand dunes trip, which started early in the harbor on a boat tour, which I had a feeling was going to be a good time as soon as our boat pushed off from the dock and a seal flung itself out of the ocean onto the boat to ride along. My feelings were further confirmed when our guide, Claus, stopped the boat before we really got going to get out some “Namibian coffee” to help us with our “sea legs”, and rapidly produced a bottle of sherry and 12 shot glasses. This was approximately 9:30am. And to those who were opposed to the shots, there was an unlimited supply of champagne, which goes down easy any time of the day, and coca colas in the classic glass bottles, as Claus was so proud to point out. And now I’ve wasted too much time detailing our drinks. Moving on. So we had a really neat tour of the harbor, lots of seals who frequent the boats, but only for food we were informed, they don’t care about us, and also we saw some dolphins and were bombarded by giant pelicans who also stopped in for some fish. So we spent the morning riding around in the harbor and were enjoying ourselves so much we begged Claus not to drop us off for the sand dunes portion of the day, but luckily he refused. So we all loaded up in Land Rover 4x4s for about an hour drive along the beach to Sandwich Harbor, which is where the dunes meet the ocean. Our guide Nico turned out to be just as good spirited as Claus, and although he did not seem thrilled about having the car of all girls at first, I think we broke him in pretty fast. (quick fast forward: when he dropped us off at the end of the day we invited him to come meet us out later and he asked where so our friend Nel replied “Namibia!” at which point he decided we were hopeless and abandoned the invitation.) Along the drive we stopped a few times to check out the scenery and at one point to look at the garnet in the sand which was really pretty, and then there was the ultimate stop when we came across the beached humpback whale. You could see it, and smell it, a hundred yards away it was truly impressive. Nico said they had tried to get it back in the water earlier in the week when it was still alive, but it would not go.
Note: whales are the only animals (aside from humans) to commit suicide
So although it was sad, we were lucky to be able to get so close to an animal like that- for those who could stand the smell. It had barnacles all over and its tongue was swollen almost bigger than its head because of the built up gasses after it died. Nico said in order to get rid of it they will have to blow it up. Gross. Once we reached Sandwich harbor the guides set up lunch for us on the beach and we had some time to hang out and swim. Then it was back in the 4X4s for offroading in the dunes, which was, according to our friend Molly, to much fun to handle. Then to top off our wonderful day we had a delicious dinner, appetizers then pizzas and the best lasagne ive ever tasted then ice cream sundaes and other lovely desert treats- the whole meal was 4 hours for six of us yet only cost us 15bucks a person. And as we were walking out, our waiter stopped me and gave me a rose because he “liked my eyes”. I felt bad because due to my lack of voice all I could do was grunt a little. Unfortunately the mean guard at the ship deck confiscated my rose because it could be carrying infectious diseases or something I don’t know. But it’s a nice memory.
Ok I’m clearly failing at summarizing so day 3: we went kayaking it the morning, saw lots of seals and dolphins up close and personal and decided we want kayaks. Did some souvenir shopping, Dana almost got pick pocketed but was a savvy traveler and caught the guy before he could get anything. Then back to the ship for a day of napping before South Africa!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
"Beach, booze, and barbeques keeps you young"
Well my friends, family, loved ones, and other strangers, I am sad to report that we have completed the African portion of our voyage. We packed our days pretty full and time flew by, but there is still so much more I wish we could have done. But clearly I have a lot of updating to do, so in the words of my close personal friend Julie Andrews, lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.
NAMIBIA! Day 1:
Something I learned about Namibia: not many people know it exists. If you are one of these unenlightened people, go to your map, locate Namibia, contact your nearest travel agent, and book a trip. Seriously. I have just never had so much unceasing pure fun in such a short amount of time. We stayed for three days, and had SAS trips the second two days so the first one we wanted to just eat some good meals of course and go from there. But like I mentioned, few people on our voyage seemed to know anything about Namibia or were even aware of its presence before this trip, so most of us were pretty much at a loss of what to expect from it. Pretty much as soon as we stepped off the ship upon arrival however, Dana and I decided we were going to absolutely love it. I cannot even tell you why, we were docked in a giant lumber/construction port type area and had to walk in the blazing sun about 15 minutes to the gate entrance but it was just such a great atmosphere from the getgo (is that the right phrase?) We had a delicious lunch in this great restaurant called “The Raft” that was on stilts right in the water and we enjoyed a selection of fondue, “snake bites” (beef rump wrapped in bacon), some onion rings of course, and had our first pleasant discovery of the extremely cheap cost of beer, $1.50 for a Heineken or Windhoek- their personal brand. Dana set up a spur of the moment dune boarding trip for us in the afternoon, a popular pastime seeing as Namibia has some of the largest dunes in the world, so it was off to that after lunch. Wayne from Dune 7 picked us up in his charming van and then picked up a few other SASers along the way, and drove us out to dune 7. Now up until right about when we pulled up to the dune I was feeling pretty confident/excited, but then I noticed it was about 400ft and suddenly remembered I have never skied, or been snowboarding, and really am not a fan of physical activity in general, and have an overwhelming phobia of falling, and there was a few moments of panic. But suddenly I was on an atv flying up the back of the dunes desperately gripping a stranger named marcus, and before I knew it the only way down was riding strapped to a board at neckbreaking pace, which actually might have been more like the speed of a powerwalk but I felt like I could have broken the sound barrier at the time. Anyway, they gave us a quick briefing on technique: knees bent, lean forward, one hand out and one in the sand, heels down to go and toes down to stop. Well I found that it was just as successful to throw yourself bellyflop spreadeagle into the sand to stop so that worked out pretty well for me once I got the system down. But really it was SO much fun, I mean it I am really not one for physical activity or anything slightly risky or challenging, but this was great. I even got over the NDE’s on the back of the atvs that took us up to the tops. It was also a great bonding experience with the other people who came with us, once you’ve seen each other tumbling down a dune screaming and trying to shake sand out of places sand should never go, you feel much closer than you actually are.
We met up with our newfound friends that evening after de-sanding and headed out to Swokupmund, a popular nearby German Town. We were docked in Walvis Bay, and as Namibia was colonized by Germany there were some quaint little German Town areas that had more markets and restaurants than the bay. We headed to this bar/restaurant called Tiger Reef, which was a neat place right on the water- all sand floors and picnic table style dining. There was a wedding party in one section and live entertainment who sang nothing but American music such as cheeseburger in paradise and the one and only, Bruce Springsteen. Not only did everyone end up bonding with the wedding party, but Dana managed to make a new facebook friend right there in the bar on her blackberry who we are trying to convince now to come to the states. We also met a really interesting man who had come in 500km that day from the bush where he lived to try and find food for his family. He sat down at our table and explained that he was an artist and would hike in during the day and try to earn money doing portraits then build a shelter at night before he could head back to the bush. It was really interesting talking to him, he was learning English just by coming to places like that and talking to people, his native language was a form of Bantu which had the clicks and he tried to teach us how to say some things but man those clicks are tricky. And also, his grandfather was the man who made the movie “The Gods Must be Crazy”. I was very excited about this but I don’t think anyone else knew what he was talking about. So all in all the night proved to be fun AND educational! Who would have thought.
more later, bed time.
NAMIBIA! Day 1:
Something I learned about Namibia: not many people know it exists. If you are one of these unenlightened people, go to your map, locate Namibia, contact your nearest travel agent, and book a trip. Seriously. I have just never had so much unceasing pure fun in such a short amount of time. We stayed for three days, and had SAS trips the second two days so the first one we wanted to just eat some good meals of course and go from there. But like I mentioned, few people on our voyage seemed to know anything about Namibia or were even aware of its presence before this trip, so most of us were pretty much at a loss of what to expect from it. Pretty much as soon as we stepped off the ship upon arrival however, Dana and I decided we were going to absolutely love it. I cannot even tell you why, we were docked in a giant lumber/construction port type area and had to walk in the blazing sun about 15 minutes to the gate entrance but it was just such a great atmosphere from the getgo (is that the right phrase?) We had a delicious lunch in this great restaurant called “The Raft” that was on stilts right in the water and we enjoyed a selection of fondue, “snake bites” (beef rump wrapped in bacon), some onion rings of course, and had our first pleasant discovery of the extremely cheap cost of beer, $1.50 for a Heineken or Windhoek- their personal brand. Dana set up a spur of the moment dune boarding trip for us in the afternoon, a popular pastime seeing as Namibia has some of the largest dunes in the world, so it was off to that after lunch. Wayne from Dune 7 picked us up in his charming van and then picked up a few other SASers along the way, and drove us out to dune 7. Now up until right about when we pulled up to the dune I was feeling pretty confident/excited, but then I noticed it was about 400ft and suddenly remembered I have never skied, or been snowboarding, and really am not a fan of physical activity in general, and have an overwhelming phobia of falling, and there was a few moments of panic. But suddenly I was on an atv flying up the back of the dunes desperately gripping a stranger named marcus, and before I knew it the only way down was riding strapped to a board at neckbreaking pace, which actually might have been more like the speed of a powerwalk but I felt like I could have broken the sound barrier at the time. Anyway, they gave us a quick briefing on technique: knees bent, lean forward, one hand out and one in the sand, heels down to go and toes down to stop. Well I found that it was just as successful to throw yourself bellyflop spreadeagle into the sand to stop so that worked out pretty well for me once I got the system down. But really it was SO much fun, I mean it I am really not one for physical activity or anything slightly risky or challenging, but this was great. I even got over the NDE’s on the back of the atvs that took us up to the tops. It was also a great bonding experience with the other people who came with us, once you’ve seen each other tumbling down a dune screaming and trying to shake sand out of places sand should never go, you feel much closer than you actually are.
We met up with our newfound friends that evening after de-sanding and headed out to Swokupmund, a popular nearby German Town. We were docked in Walvis Bay, and as Namibia was colonized by Germany there were some quaint little German Town areas that had more markets and restaurants than the bay. We headed to this bar/restaurant called Tiger Reef, which was a neat place right on the water- all sand floors and picnic table style dining. There was a wedding party in one section and live entertainment who sang nothing but American music such as cheeseburger in paradise and the one and only, Bruce Springsteen. Not only did everyone end up bonding with the wedding party, but Dana managed to make a new facebook friend right there in the bar on her blackberry who we are trying to convince now to come to the states. We also met a really interesting man who had come in 500km that day from the bush where he lived to try and find food for his family. He sat down at our table and explained that he was an artist and would hike in during the day and try to earn money doing portraits then build a shelter at night before he could head back to the bush. It was really interesting talking to him, he was learning English just by coming to places like that and talking to people, his native language was a form of Bantu which had the clicks and he tried to teach us how to say some things but man those clicks are tricky. And also, his grandfather was the man who made the movie “The Gods Must be Crazy”. I was very excited about this but I don’t think anyone else knew what he was talking about. So all in all the night proved to be fun AND educational! Who would have thought.
more later, bed time.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Somewhere exotic . . . like a house . . .
Obviously, despite my promise to stay on top of my blogging, I have not. I blame this partly on the fact that the few immediate days after our return to the ship from morocco were spent catching up on homework for returning to classes, and also my allotted internet minutes finally wore out, so it goes without saying it took me a few days to make it upstairs to purchase more. Quick interesting fact about the internet minutes, they round up on our sessions, so if we sign on for as little as 1 second, it counts as a minute. Or 7 minutes 3 seconds gets rounded up to 8 minutes. So about 30 minutes gets wasted that way. Totally cheap. Anyway, I lastly blame my lack of blogging on the fact every spare moment truly has been dedicated to sleep. We take napping to a new level here. But for those of you who are just dying to hear about morocco, you shouldn’t be. But I’ll include a few lines anyway.
Morocco was, interesting. As mentioned, our arrival was delayed one day so we headed straight to Marrakech our first day in port. We had a traditional Moroccan lunch, which was pleasantly surprising- big loaves of bread with different vegetable toppings, couscous, and desert of some of the best oranges I’ve ever tasted, mint tea, and really delicious sugar cookies. We stopped at a Moroccan home for more mint tea and crepes, and our first authentic Moroccan bathroom experience: a tiled hole in the ground. We also were wrapped up in turban type headgear, check out danas blog for photos. Then we went camel riding, which I have done before in Australia but have no memory of, which turned out not to be such a loss because frankly, camel riding is neither very comfortable or exciting. The camels were tied together face to butt, which was due to the apparent inability to train camels to do anything, and really they looked rather miserable. We went on about a 20 minute ride through what I would consider to be slums, but our guide was really entertaining and funny and though he didn’t speak English he was more than willing to work out a conversation with me from the 5-10 french phrases I remember. But mostly he just made fun of me. 20 minutes might not seem like a very long ride, but trust me, on a camel, its more than enough time. I think today is the first day the muscles of my butt feel semi normal again, and that is not counting the numerous thigh muscles I pulled trying to get on the thing in the first place. Moving on. The next day we got up early to visit a mosque whose significance I failed to catch, the Palace Bahia which I also failed to understand what it is used for these days, and the Sardian tombs. The Palace was interesting to see the Moorish woodwork and tiles, very intricate designs, but honestly it was cold and really rainy and not many people were feeling very enthusiastic, especially because our guide insisted we didn’t need the bus and had us walk in the rain to each location. We had another lunch of the same as the day before, but it was still good, and by the time we went back outside it was sunny and warmer. We headed to the Medina, which is the market, and our guide led us through a maze of tiny alleys to a little spice shop which was pretty cool. Dana and I stocked up on lots of herbal creams and remedies and teas, don’t really remember what most of them are for. But we did get lots and lots of saffron. The medina is really amazing, it is just packed with stalls of all sorts of souvenirs and foods and all sorts of other things- and if it hadn’t been for the swarms of flies we had seen earlier co-inhabiting the shelves of pastries in most of the shops earlier, we might have ventured to try some of the food. The medina also included such marvels as snake charmers who liked to wrap their snakes around your neck while you weren’t looking then demand payment for that “treat”, and men with monkeys on chains ready to pose for a photo op. Those were the highlights I suppose, all in all I can’t say I was entirely impressed- we just felt sort of unsafe and the city was just kind of dirty. I did hear from people who went into the mountains and visited the berber villages that it was really neat and beautiful there, and a some of our friends who were also in Marrakech had a great time and went out at night and were totally fine, I just suppose it wasn’t my style. So recap: interesting place, lots of different culture, not my favorite.
Since we’ve been back the most exciting news has been Neptune day, which was the celebration of crossing the equator yesterday. It’s an old navy tradition of induction, and was really fun. We were woken around 730 or 8 by pots and pans and whistles in the hallway, not unlike previous conge announcements at villa, and were summoned up to the top deck at 9. Induction included getting some sort of green goop poured on us, kissing a dead fish, kissing the ring of King Neptune (an unidentified man pained entirely bright green), jumping into the freezing pool, then kissing or touching another dead fish. It also is when a lot of people shave their heads, boys and girls. I was surprised by how many girls shaved theirs, I was not one of them, my bio ethics teacher however was among those who did. I noticed in class today once you got over the shock of seeing a bald women, it really accentuated her lovely earrings. So besides that the day was just spent by the pool and out on the decks enjoying the hot equator weather- I managed to contain my sunburn to my shoulders only- won’t let it happen again mother. Back to classes again today. I’m sort of breezing through events here, trying to keep this post from getting even longer and also I want to watch the movie they are showing in the union right now. So for now, I shall say goodbye. Ill get in one more post before Namibia on Saturday. Love to all.
Morocco was, interesting. As mentioned, our arrival was delayed one day so we headed straight to Marrakech our first day in port. We had a traditional Moroccan lunch, which was pleasantly surprising- big loaves of bread with different vegetable toppings, couscous, and desert of some of the best oranges I’ve ever tasted, mint tea, and really delicious sugar cookies. We stopped at a Moroccan home for more mint tea and crepes, and our first authentic Moroccan bathroom experience: a tiled hole in the ground. We also were wrapped up in turban type headgear, check out danas blog for photos. Then we went camel riding, which I have done before in Australia but have no memory of, which turned out not to be such a loss because frankly, camel riding is neither very comfortable or exciting. The camels were tied together face to butt, which was due to the apparent inability to train camels to do anything, and really they looked rather miserable. We went on about a 20 minute ride through what I would consider to be slums, but our guide was really entertaining and funny and though he didn’t speak English he was more than willing to work out a conversation with me from the 5-10 french phrases I remember. But mostly he just made fun of me. 20 minutes might not seem like a very long ride, but trust me, on a camel, its more than enough time. I think today is the first day the muscles of my butt feel semi normal again, and that is not counting the numerous thigh muscles I pulled trying to get on the thing in the first place. Moving on. The next day we got up early to visit a mosque whose significance I failed to catch, the Palace Bahia which I also failed to understand what it is used for these days, and the Sardian tombs. The Palace was interesting to see the Moorish woodwork and tiles, very intricate designs, but honestly it was cold and really rainy and not many people were feeling very enthusiastic, especially because our guide insisted we didn’t need the bus and had us walk in the rain to each location. We had another lunch of the same as the day before, but it was still good, and by the time we went back outside it was sunny and warmer. We headed to the Medina, which is the market, and our guide led us through a maze of tiny alleys to a little spice shop which was pretty cool. Dana and I stocked up on lots of herbal creams and remedies and teas, don’t really remember what most of them are for. But we did get lots and lots of saffron. The medina is really amazing, it is just packed with stalls of all sorts of souvenirs and foods and all sorts of other things- and if it hadn’t been for the swarms of flies we had seen earlier co-inhabiting the shelves of pastries in most of the shops earlier, we might have ventured to try some of the food. The medina also included such marvels as snake charmers who liked to wrap their snakes around your neck while you weren’t looking then demand payment for that “treat”, and men with monkeys on chains ready to pose for a photo op. Those were the highlights I suppose, all in all I can’t say I was entirely impressed- we just felt sort of unsafe and the city was just kind of dirty. I did hear from people who went into the mountains and visited the berber villages that it was really neat and beautiful there, and a some of our friends who were also in Marrakech had a great time and went out at night and were totally fine, I just suppose it wasn’t my style. So recap: interesting place, lots of different culture, not my favorite.
Since we’ve been back the most exciting news has been Neptune day, which was the celebration of crossing the equator yesterday. It’s an old navy tradition of induction, and was really fun. We were woken around 730 or 8 by pots and pans and whistles in the hallway, not unlike previous conge announcements at villa, and were summoned up to the top deck at 9. Induction included getting some sort of green goop poured on us, kissing a dead fish, kissing the ring of King Neptune (an unidentified man pained entirely bright green), jumping into the freezing pool, then kissing or touching another dead fish. It also is when a lot of people shave their heads, boys and girls. I was surprised by how many girls shaved theirs, I was not one of them, my bio ethics teacher however was among those who did. I noticed in class today once you got over the shock of seeing a bald women, it really accentuated her lovely earrings. So besides that the day was just spent by the pool and out on the decks enjoying the hot equator weather- I managed to contain my sunburn to my shoulders only- won’t let it happen again mother. Back to classes again today. I’m sort of breezing through events here, trying to keep this post from getting even longer and also I want to watch the movie they are showing in the union right now. So for now, I shall say goodbye. Ill get in one more post before Namibia on Saturday. Love to all.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
You shall reserve the right to shank
Soooo we’re NOT getting into morocco tomorrow morning, apparently the ship that was supposed to be fueling us for 3 hours was just bobbing around being unsuccessful at its job….so we might get in tomorrow night instead hopefully. More time for homework? No I think not. More time to work on the sweet countdown chain dana and I are making to decorate our room- fifth grade advent chain style for sureeeee.
Things I learned today:
If you leave a goldfish in a dark room, it will turn white
Things I learned today:
If you leave a goldfish in a dark room, it will turn white
Just take a cab, its like 5 pesos...
Alright Spain. This is gonna be a long one. Feel free to do it in parts.
Our first day in Espana was glooooorious. Dana and I woke up to a view of the sun rising over the pier in Cadiz, and were immediately energized for the first time in ehhh two weeks? Seriously have not been so happy to be up before noon in I can’t remember how long. I tried jumping on the bed but that resulted in me hitting my head on the abnormally low ceiling so we celebrated with obnoxiously loud music instead- (a little Spanish techno and some MGMT needless to say). To get off the ship in this port we didn’t have to meet with customs officials personally, which in some places they will want to see us with our passports, we just had to wait in line and swipe our cards on the way out. Since everyone was getting off about the same time we still had to wait in like for probably 40 minutes, I’ve also never been so happy to wait in a line before. The port in Cadiz was only a two minute walk from the center of town, and we didn’t have plans the first day so we just walked around with a small group of people. We had breakfast/lunch at a little café and enjoyed a different selection of food finally, paella, chocolate con churros, big glasses of sangria, pizza, and spaghetti. We spent most of the day just walking around and enjoying being outside on solid ground and finally getting into the actual travelling. The weather was gorgeous, probably in the 60s and with the sun shining it was warm and comfortable. Cadiz is a really neat city, its has the feel of small intimate old European towns but has modern areas too, and everyone was so nice. Within the first half hour of being out in the city I was reminded of how fun Spain and just the Spanish in general are, people were just so outgoing and generous it was hard not to be in a great mood the whole time. Dana even commented on my uncharacteristically long lasting good mood on our way back to the ship in the afternoon when I waved and shouted hello to a passing stranger in a semi, but I should really give a tad bit of credit to our mid afternoon cervecas for that one.
That evening we had signed up for Andalucian flamenco night, an SAS trip. It was about a 30 minute bus ride to an old traditional Spanish ranch where we watched a few different flamenco performances in a small bull ring and a demonstration bull fight with a calf. They served tapas and sangria after and had more flamenco dancing, it was pretty neat and I liked the location so it was just so adorably Spanish but the whole event wasn’t that special, can’t say we got that into it. But still a neat experience. We went to meet some friends in the New City to go out and walked along Playa Victoria just looking for anywhere to go, we ended up in a bar that was modeled as an old sunken pirate ship . . . I was just entirely too intrigued by the skeletons in pirate hats outside to not go in. But anyway we went to a club after that then back to the ship to sleep, but only after we made our cab driver take us to every possible pizza place in a 15 mile radius trying to find one open at 2:30. No dice. But we did get a high speed ride through the tiniest allies possible so that was a nice adventure.
It was up bright and early again the next day for our next SAS trip into Ronda and Arcos, two white towns in the mountains about two hours away. Once again despite the early hour and slightly rainy weather I couldn’t help being in a good mood. We went to Arcos first, right up in mountains overlooking the green green green valleys and towns below. It was a bit of a hike up the slippery cobblestone streets, but the resulting view was breathtaking. Really never seen any views like the ones from these two towns, I wish I could upload pictures. Madeline, the view in Arcos reminded me exactly of the beginning of that old Disney tape we had of Jack and the Bean stalk, you know in the opening scene before the magic harp gets stolen? Just like that. Anywayyyyy we did a tour around the town, spent some time in the two local churches St. Peters (which was home to two mummies of random martyrs that were a gift from the Vatican- maybe we could ask for one for home decorating mom? Prop it up in the living room where the Christmas tree was?) and St. Marys, and had a little free time which Dana and I spent sliding back down the cobblestone streets looking for a pastry shop and creepily taking pictures of adorable Spanish children . . . ok that was me but Dana encouraged it. Seriously every single child we saw in spain was abnormally adorable. But anyway success on the pastry search then it was another hour ride to Ronda. Ronda was a favorite of Hemingway, and I know he wrote about it in one of his books but I forget with one- a little help on that one from anyone who has actually read his books?? We switched tour guides there to a local, this adorable man who had a great mix of Spanish and Scottish accent, I think he said he was fluent in 10 languages. But he gave us a really thorough and interesting tour, so much interesting information I don’t think I can even begin to relate it here. Ronda is sooo old and has Moorish, Spanish, and Celtic origins and you can see the different influences all over its really really neat. The old Cathedral we went to was huge and literally half was built by Moorish settlers then half fell down in an earthquake or sumin so they rebuilt in the Renaissance and all the different settlers in different periods rebuilt or added onto it so its just a mixture of different cultures it was cool/creepy. The view in Ronda was even better, its not only built in the mountains but also right into a huge cliff- the bridge we stopped at was a 330 foot drop but on the other side the drop was 660ft. It made my legs shake to even stand near the railing and there was a brief moment where my glasses almost slid off my face into the deep abyss below. The middle of the bridge was used as a prison up until the early 1900s I think he said, only way out is straight down into the gorge below, I’d have to say much harder to escape from than Alcatraz. I asked our tour guide if anyone ever jumped over the bridge and he said there are always a few people during tax season . . . I think he was joking but he did say a every once in while someone does jump. We also toured another bigger bullring and Don Boscos house, whose garden had another insane view of the valleys below. I really felt like I was in Italy the whole time, I don’t know why but even later when we went to Seville it just felt like Italy I had to keep reminding myself we were in Spain. Made me think of grandpa and great grandma Gasbarre.
After that tour of those towns I have to say, mom and dad, couldn’t you have picked somewhere a little more exciting than St. Louis to raise me??? Seriously even the plants in Arcos were cooler. I picked out some summer homes though, don’t worry. Pretty much every neat house, building, church, or palace we went to in spain Dana and I tried to buy, but considering we only had about 70 Euros between us we didn’t get very far.
Right, so then it was back to the ship that evening and right to bed because for some reason, Dana and I booked a 6:45 train ticket to Seville the next day? Totally over ambitious. But we miraculously got up before the sun and made it through the extreme morning fog to the train station, about 8 minutes before the train took off. That thing was right on time. We slept the whole two hour ride, and when we woke up we weren’t really sure where we were or where we were even going to get off, so we just picked a popular looking station and got off there. We were planning on meeting Mallory later that evening, so we just thought we’d do sightseeing all day, but we didn’t make any plans at all. This is the first time I’ve ever traveled with no predetermined anything, we had no idea where we were, where we wanted to go, how to get there, or where we were staying. There was a moment or two of panic and a little confusion on why we thought it would be a good idea to get to Seville at 845 considering most Spanish don’t even wake up til 10, but we sat down in a café and got out the blackberry, did a little wikitravelling, hopped in a cab towards some more touristy areas and started walking. We wandered through the Jewish quarter Santa Cruz and made it to …. Ok we are experiencing a mini earthquake of some kind on the ship brb. Right we must be sitting right on top of the engines or something. Uh anyway so we walked to the Cathedral and decided the best way to knock out the major sites would be a horse drawn carriage ride. So we did that and he took us to the Plaza De Espana, where Star Wars II Attack of the Clones was filled, along the river, through Maria Luisa Park, and some other cool buildings and monuments that we aren’t really sure what they are cus our tour was in Spanish and like I said, we did minimal research for this. But it was pretty cool anway, I would love to go back in the spring and summer when the park is in bloom and all that. It was pretty cloudy and chilly when we were there. We had lunch in an amazing bakery café thing that served food and had cheese and wine and meat and crackers and delicious pastries and candy and anything you could ever desire and proceeded to haunt my dreams for the next three hours during our siesta. I was really starting to feel those early morning by the afternoon in Seville, we were exhausted but pretty happy we had survived and found our way around and gotten a decent hotel. So we slept, and got back up and went out in search of champagne, cheese and bread, which we celebrated with in our room while getting ready for dinner with Ali and Mallory!! They are studying with CIE in Seville, and came down to meet us and we had familiar food: nachos, chicken fingers, and French fries, and drinks. We met another new friend, our hobbit-like bartender who called himself little john and played Britney spears when we asked for spice girls, but we forgave him that one. We went to a few more bars with some of Mallory and Alis friends and people in their program, it was WONDERFUL to see them, I was sad we only had one night, and Dana and I were really really exhausted so we didn’t last too long. We had to head back to Cadiz the next day in the morning- we were due back on the ship at 6 and had to allow a few hours to possibly wait in line. We were exhausted, I was sick, and just ready to crash. So we managed to get a quick small lunch back in Cadiz and made a valiant effort at uploading photos/blogging with the free internet by the ship we found, but no such luck, it did not work. So I went back to the ship at about 3 and managed to avoid any lines, but Dana said she was in line for about 45 minutes, and that was still way early. Slept all afternoon well into the evening until our friends came banging on the door- they did a SAS Seville, Cordoba, Grenada, trip- got some great pictures.
I think the hardest thing in Spain was actually just the language difference, of all the times I’ve traveled I don’t know if I wasn’t aware of it or was just always with people who did the brunt of the work or knew the local languages, but I felt as though people in Spain this time spoke much less English than I had encountered on past trips. Dana studied Spanish in highschool and even a little in college and some of the people we were with spoke well enough to get around, but when we were out with just us two we spent a lot of time staring blankly at people and did most of our communication through sign language. Made us a little nervous for the rest of the countries, because the language barrier is only going to be worse for the most part here on out.
So now it is Sunday afternoon and we are back on the ship, which is sad but its only for one day, we get to Morocco tomorrow. We don’t have any classes today, well we had global studies this morning to learn about some of the history of morocco and we have a few more meetings to prepare us. I have lots of homework and journaling to do for classes, its going to be a busy next couple of weeks. We are anchored outside of Gibraltar right now, waiting to bunker (fuel up). It is great to finally be traveling, can’t believe we are out of Spain already and will be in and out of Morocco before we know it. Can’t say how happy I am to have an experience like this, the reality of it finally started to hit a little when we were in spain. Dana and I kept saying in Seville we couldn’t believe anyone would ever just turn us loose in these countries, but thanks for doing that! ☺ I will try to break up the blogging more in and between countries so there are no more of these multiple page posts. Thanks to everyone who made it through the whole thing!!!
I could write a novel with the things I learned and am grateful for I’ll try to include a few later. I should probably move on to real homework now, something I have not done once yet on this trip. Hopefully somewhere in Morocco we will get better free internet and can find out some sort of system for photos. Stay tuned friends and family. Miss everyone 150%
Our first day in Espana was glooooorious. Dana and I woke up to a view of the sun rising over the pier in Cadiz, and were immediately energized for the first time in ehhh two weeks? Seriously have not been so happy to be up before noon in I can’t remember how long. I tried jumping on the bed but that resulted in me hitting my head on the abnormally low ceiling so we celebrated with obnoxiously loud music instead- (a little Spanish techno and some MGMT needless to say). To get off the ship in this port we didn’t have to meet with customs officials personally, which in some places they will want to see us with our passports, we just had to wait in line and swipe our cards on the way out. Since everyone was getting off about the same time we still had to wait in like for probably 40 minutes, I’ve also never been so happy to wait in a line before. The port in Cadiz was only a two minute walk from the center of town, and we didn’t have plans the first day so we just walked around with a small group of people. We had breakfast/lunch at a little café and enjoyed a different selection of food finally, paella, chocolate con churros, big glasses of sangria, pizza, and spaghetti. We spent most of the day just walking around and enjoying being outside on solid ground and finally getting into the actual travelling. The weather was gorgeous, probably in the 60s and with the sun shining it was warm and comfortable. Cadiz is a really neat city, its has the feel of small intimate old European towns but has modern areas too, and everyone was so nice. Within the first half hour of being out in the city I was reminded of how fun Spain and just the Spanish in general are, people were just so outgoing and generous it was hard not to be in a great mood the whole time. Dana even commented on my uncharacteristically long lasting good mood on our way back to the ship in the afternoon when I waved and shouted hello to a passing stranger in a semi, but I should really give a tad bit of credit to our mid afternoon cervecas for that one.
That evening we had signed up for Andalucian flamenco night, an SAS trip. It was about a 30 minute bus ride to an old traditional Spanish ranch where we watched a few different flamenco performances in a small bull ring and a demonstration bull fight with a calf. They served tapas and sangria after and had more flamenco dancing, it was pretty neat and I liked the location so it was just so adorably Spanish but the whole event wasn’t that special, can’t say we got that into it. But still a neat experience. We went to meet some friends in the New City to go out and walked along Playa Victoria just looking for anywhere to go, we ended up in a bar that was modeled as an old sunken pirate ship . . . I was just entirely too intrigued by the skeletons in pirate hats outside to not go in. But anyway we went to a club after that then back to the ship to sleep, but only after we made our cab driver take us to every possible pizza place in a 15 mile radius trying to find one open at 2:30. No dice. But we did get a high speed ride through the tiniest allies possible so that was a nice adventure.
It was up bright and early again the next day for our next SAS trip into Ronda and Arcos, two white towns in the mountains about two hours away. Once again despite the early hour and slightly rainy weather I couldn’t help being in a good mood. We went to Arcos first, right up in mountains overlooking the green green green valleys and towns below. It was a bit of a hike up the slippery cobblestone streets, but the resulting view was breathtaking. Really never seen any views like the ones from these two towns, I wish I could upload pictures. Madeline, the view in Arcos reminded me exactly of the beginning of that old Disney tape we had of Jack and the Bean stalk, you know in the opening scene before the magic harp gets stolen? Just like that. Anywayyyyy we did a tour around the town, spent some time in the two local churches St. Peters (which was home to two mummies of random martyrs that were a gift from the Vatican- maybe we could ask for one for home decorating mom? Prop it up in the living room where the Christmas tree was?) and St. Marys, and had a little free time which Dana and I spent sliding back down the cobblestone streets looking for a pastry shop and creepily taking pictures of adorable Spanish children . . . ok that was me but Dana encouraged it. Seriously every single child we saw in spain was abnormally adorable. But anyway success on the pastry search then it was another hour ride to Ronda. Ronda was a favorite of Hemingway, and I know he wrote about it in one of his books but I forget with one- a little help on that one from anyone who has actually read his books?? We switched tour guides there to a local, this adorable man who had a great mix of Spanish and Scottish accent, I think he said he was fluent in 10 languages. But he gave us a really thorough and interesting tour, so much interesting information I don’t think I can even begin to relate it here. Ronda is sooo old and has Moorish, Spanish, and Celtic origins and you can see the different influences all over its really really neat. The old Cathedral we went to was huge and literally half was built by Moorish settlers then half fell down in an earthquake or sumin so they rebuilt in the Renaissance and all the different settlers in different periods rebuilt or added onto it so its just a mixture of different cultures it was cool/creepy. The view in Ronda was even better, its not only built in the mountains but also right into a huge cliff- the bridge we stopped at was a 330 foot drop but on the other side the drop was 660ft. It made my legs shake to even stand near the railing and there was a brief moment where my glasses almost slid off my face into the deep abyss below. The middle of the bridge was used as a prison up until the early 1900s I think he said, only way out is straight down into the gorge below, I’d have to say much harder to escape from than Alcatraz. I asked our tour guide if anyone ever jumped over the bridge and he said there are always a few people during tax season . . . I think he was joking but he did say a every once in while someone does jump. We also toured another bigger bullring and Don Boscos house, whose garden had another insane view of the valleys below. I really felt like I was in Italy the whole time, I don’t know why but even later when we went to Seville it just felt like Italy I had to keep reminding myself we were in Spain. Made me think of grandpa and great grandma Gasbarre.
After that tour of those towns I have to say, mom and dad, couldn’t you have picked somewhere a little more exciting than St. Louis to raise me??? Seriously even the plants in Arcos were cooler. I picked out some summer homes though, don’t worry. Pretty much every neat house, building, church, or palace we went to in spain Dana and I tried to buy, but considering we only had about 70 Euros between us we didn’t get very far.
Right, so then it was back to the ship that evening and right to bed because for some reason, Dana and I booked a 6:45 train ticket to Seville the next day? Totally over ambitious. But we miraculously got up before the sun and made it through the extreme morning fog to the train station, about 8 minutes before the train took off. That thing was right on time. We slept the whole two hour ride, and when we woke up we weren’t really sure where we were or where we were even going to get off, so we just picked a popular looking station and got off there. We were planning on meeting Mallory later that evening, so we just thought we’d do sightseeing all day, but we didn’t make any plans at all. This is the first time I’ve ever traveled with no predetermined anything, we had no idea where we were, where we wanted to go, how to get there, or where we were staying. There was a moment or two of panic and a little confusion on why we thought it would be a good idea to get to Seville at 845 considering most Spanish don’t even wake up til 10, but we sat down in a café and got out the blackberry, did a little wikitravelling, hopped in a cab towards some more touristy areas and started walking. We wandered through the Jewish quarter Santa Cruz and made it to …. Ok we are experiencing a mini earthquake of some kind on the ship brb. Right we must be sitting right on top of the engines or something. Uh anyway so we walked to the Cathedral and decided the best way to knock out the major sites would be a horse drawn carriage ride. So we did that and he took us to the Plaza De Espana, where Star Wars II Attack of the Clones was filled, along the river, through Maria Luisa Park, and some other cool buildings and monuments that we aren’t really sure what they are cus our tour was in Spanish and like I said, we did minimal research for this. But it was pretty cool anway, I would love to go back in the spring and summer when the park is in bloom and all that. It was pretty cloudy and chilly when we were there. We had lunch in an amazing bakery café thing that served food and had cheese and wine and meat and crackers and delicious pastries and candy and anything you could ever desire and proceeded to haunt my dreams for the next three hours during our siesta. I was really starting to feel those early morning by the afternoon in Seville, we were exhausted but pretty happy we had survived and found our way around and gotten a decent hotel. So we slept, and got back up and went out in search of champagne, cheese and bread, which we celebrated with in our room while getting ready for dinner with Ali and Mallory!! They are studying with CIE in Seville, and came down to meet us and we had familiar food: nachos, chicken fingers, and French fries, and drinks. We met another new friend, our hobbit-like bartender who called himself little john and played Britney spears when we asked for spice girls, but we forgave him that one. We went to a few more bars with some of Mallory and Alis friends and people in their program, it was WONDERFUL to see them, I was sad we only had one night, and Dana and I were really really exhausted so we didn’t last too long. We had to head back to Cadiz the next day in the morning- we were due back on the ship at 6 and had to allow a few hours to possibly wait in line. We were exhausted, I was sick, and just ready to crash. So we managed to get a quick small lunch back in Cadiz and made a valiant effort at uploading photos/blogging with the free internet by the ship we found, but no such luck, it did not work. So I went back to the ship at about 3 and managed to avoid any lines, but Dana said she was in line for about 45 minutes, and that was still way early. Slept all afternoon well into the evening until our friends came banging on the door- they did a SAS Seville, Cordoba, Grenada, trip- got some great pictures.
I think the hardest thing in Spain was actually just the language difference, of all the times I’ve traveled I don’t know if I wasn’t aware of it or was just always with people who did the brunt of the work or knew the local languages, but I felt as though people in Spain this time spoke much less English than I had encountered on past trips. Dana studied Spanish in highschool and even a little in college and some of the people we were with spoke well enough to get around, but when we were out with just us two we spent a lot of time staring blankly at people and did most of our communication through sign language. Made us a little nervous for the rest of the countries, because the language barrier is only going to be worse for the most part here on out.
So now it is Sunday afternoon and we are back on the ship, which is sad but its only for one day, we get to Morocco tomorrow. We don’t have any classes today, well we had global studies this morning to learn about some of the history of morocco and we have a few more meetings to prepare us. I have lots of homework and journaling to do for classes, its going to be a busy next couple of weeks. We are anchored outside of Gibraltar right now, waiting to bunker (fuel up). It is great to finally be traveling, can’t believe we are out of Spain already and will be in and out of Morocco before we know it. Can’t say how happy I am to have an experience like this, the reality of it finally started to hit a little when we were in spain. Dana and I kept saying in Seville we couldn’t believe anyone would ever just turn us loose in these countries, but thanks for doing that! ☺ I will try to break up the blogging more in and between countries so there are no more of these multiple page posts. Thanks to everyone who made it through the whole thing!!!
I could write a novel with the things I learned and am grateful for I’ll try to include a few later. I should probably move on to real homework now, something I have not done once yet on this trip. Hopefully somewhere in Morocco we will get better free internet and can find out some sort of system for photos. Stay tuned friends and family. Miss everyone 150%
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