We woke up in Casablanca, Morocco, on Saturday morning, and I jumped on a city orientation tour. On the tour we went to several different places, like the fruit/flower/ everything else market, the Royal Palace, and the Hassan II Mosque. The mosque is probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to, it is the third largest in the world after the two in Saudi Arabia, and since it was completed in the early ‘90’s it is really fancy and modern compared to the other mosques I have been to. We seriously walked around there for an hour with our mouths open in amazement. There was a bathhouse there too, but it was much different than the one in Turkey and it wasn’t open for public use yet either. That tour was done around 6:30 and then a few friends and I went to a restaurant called Rock’s Café. It is modeled after the one in the movie Casablanca and was opened by an American woman who works (or worked I can’t remember) for the embassy. We met her while we were eating dinner and she knew all about SAS, having seen several voyages pass through Casablanca. Anyway, the food was good but overpriced, and after two hours of sitting there we headed back to the ship.
On Sunday I hung around the ship trying to catch up on reading and homework and get over this stupid cough I’ve had since Turkey… then I headed out in the evening to see the bazaar in Casablanca. Most everything was starting to close so we didn’t stay long, and the humidity was extremely intense! Ha ha I am so over humidity.
I spent the last two days in Morocco in Marrakech, which is about 3 hours southeast of Casablanca. I think I like this city more than Casablanca, it’s smaller and lies close to the Atlas Mountains, so it was nice to be in that kind of setting again. We did a short orientation tour of Marrakech and stopped for a long time at the old souk. Our guide walked us through the winding streets and took us to a legit Berber pharmacy where the have tons and tons of spices, teas, and naturally made products. We got a full presentation of the most popular spices and such, and then got to pick out what we wanted. Then we went to a restaurant in the souk’s square and had some amazing couscous and veggies for lunch and after that we had about 3 hours of free time before dinner. Kari and I ventured through the souk and once again tried to avoid the aggressive salesmen… we each found a few last minute souvenirs then spent the rest of the time in a café drinking Moroccan mint tea. It started raining after a while! And I hear that it rains only 20-25 days out of the year in Morocco so it was kind of cool! We met up with our tour group at 7:45 and headed to dinner. The restaurant was amazing; it was originally a traditional Moroccan house so there were several rooms of seating. We sat in the largest room that had full grown trees in the middle, kind of like a canopy and the dome in the ceiling was open which let in fresh air. It was a really unique place, and the food was fantastic. There was also a belly dance performance that was hilarious because they made some people come up and dance with them... not me though! Thank goodness!! We didn’t leave the restaurant until about 11:30 and then when we got to the hotel we discovered we were locked out and had to walk to the other side of hotel, aka the other side of the block! Once we got back to the hotel we crashed.
On the last day in Morocco, our SAS trip continued with zip lining in the Atlas Mountains… and let me just say it was a perfect ending to Semester at Sea! We drove an hour outside of Marrakech into the mountains and were dropped of pretty much on the side of the road near a couple of Berber villages. We then hiked for about 40 minutes in the crazy heat to this facility that has rope courses, trampolines, a pool, ping-pong tables, nomad tents, and several zip-lines and rope bridges. We got all harnessed up, plus gloves and helmets, (Kari said we looked like miners…”miners, not minors!”) and then began by walking across a rope bridge to another hill. One the first hill we hooked all our carabineers and safety lines onto the wire, kicked off and zipped to the next hill. It was INSANE! Ha ha we did three short lines, and then had to wait in line for the last one. I was told that the last zip line at this place is the longest in Africa, and it definitely seemed so! The guys working there said that not very many people can make it all the across, including myself. Ha ha I had to pull myself the last ten feet or so… but it was amazing!! Seriously zip-lining between hills in the mountains!!! Well we were exhausted after that, especially with the crazy heat! We ate lunch at the restaurant up there and then headed back down to the bus. The ride back to the ship took longer than expected, especially since we stopped for Magnum ice cream bars (these things are amazing and I’m pretty sure that they are not in the States at all ☹) we got back to the ship about 15 minutes after on-ship-time, but it wasn’t a problem since we were on a SAS trip!
I cannot believe that I’m on my way home right now! It’s so insane how fast this voyage has gone by… this has been an unbelievable, absolutely incredible, life changing experience. 8 countries, 4 continents, 1 summer…. Not bad!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Walk Like an Egyptian
Holy cow! I’ve been to Egypt… this has been absolutely amazing! We arrived in Alexandria on Tuesday morning and I had a SAS tour that took us to the Alexandria catacombs and other places of interest. The catacombs were amazing, and much different than the ones I had gone to in Rome. It was like the hall of a building, with separate rooms for family tombs, and a huge spiraling staircase that went down three floors below the surface… two of which are completely under water. We then went to the El Montazah Palace, Qaitbay's Citadel, and a huge mosque. We ate dinner on the ship and I went to bed early to rest up for the next day.
On day 2 in Egypt I had another SAS trip, Pyramids and Jeep safari… it was the best SAS trip I’ve done so far! On the three hour bus ride to Cairo, our tour guide covered Egyptian history basically from its beginning to the present… she has her PhD in Egyptology and is a professor during the academic year and a tour guide during the summer… she really knew her stuff! Anyways, we arrived at the Pyramids at about 10:30 and got to spend a lot of time wandering around. It was amazing to finally be there, best moment ever! We then drove down to the Sphinx and again got to wander around and see all three of the Pyramids at a distance. It was AMAZING! I have no other words to describe it. After that, we went to lunch at a snazzy country club, then headed over to the Pyramid of Djoser, or the Stepped Pyramid, which is the first pyramid ever, designed by Imhotep – you know the bad guy in The Mummy movies, yeah the bald dude in the loin cloth, in real life he was an architect, like the first ever recorded or something, yeah not a crazy priest dude – anyways it was really pretty fantastic to be standing in front of this truly ancient building. They were doing restoration on it so there was scaffolding all around, which is pretty distracting, but it was still and awesome thing to see. We then went back to the country club where we ate lunch, and got into ten different 4x4 Jeeps. The drivers took us way into the desert, up and down sand dunes, and by some other smaller pyramids… it was insane! Our driver must have been fueled by our screams and laughter because he just kept on driving faster and up and down steeper dunes, ha ha it still makes me laugh now just thinking about it! After half an hour of that, we met our up with our camels and their drivers. It was crazy and almost laughable to think, “hey I’m on a camel in Egypt and those things in the distance are legit 4,000+ year old pyramids.” Well anyways, I named my camel Fernando and have a lovely video of me doing so! After another half an hour of this, we said goodbye to our new camel friends and got back on the bus for another 3-hour drive (nap) back to Alexandria.
On Thursday, my friend Stephanie and I hung around on the ship for the better part of the day, trying to catch up on homework in preparation for midterms and final projects/ papers… we only have eight or so days of class left! In the afternoon we ventured out to the Library of Alexandria by taxi… a taxi ride in Alexandria is an experience in itself. It’s like The Fast and the Furious in real life… absolutely nuts! If there are three painted lanes, they somehow create five lanes of traffic, and completely neglect to use any type of signaling whatsoever. Well I shouldn’t say that because everyone, EVERYONE, honks… why are they honking? I have no idea, they must feel like it makes traffic go faster, but how could they go faster when they’re going 100 mph in the first place… well that’s just an estimate because the speedometers don’t actually work. And while this is all happening people are embarking on the suicide mission known as crossing the street, or are hailing taxis that then stop in the middle of the road. It’s insanity, but I have yet to see an accident! One thing I can’t stand though is how none of the taxi drivers use the meter thing, so you have to bargain the price with them before you get into the car, and most of the time we don’t know how far the place we want to go is, so it’s rather difficult to negotiate a price. I digress… the Library is really beautiful, very modern and fancy and has a great antiquities collection and some modern art. We met back up with our taxi driver, Jamey, oh yeah, the wait for you at places so they get more money from you. He took us back to the ship where we again hung around.
Friday was kind of depressing, because about six were trying to go organize a day trip to Luxor, which is pretty far south. It all ended up falling apart in the end, and I used up the last of my Internet time so on Friday we didn’t really do much. Alexandria is a wonderful city, but one that can really be done in a day or two… especially when your on a tour, so on Friday we went to a mall for a while just to get out of the heat. Eight of us squeezed into a Station Wagon sized taxi, and I mean squeezed. We spent most of the day there, walking around, drinking coffee and people watching. It was pretty amazing/ confusing to see these women completely covered from head to toe looking at all these different clothing items like tank tops, skirts, and heels. I wonder when they could wear such clothing, I mean who knows, they could be wearing it under their long skirts and veils for all we know. I just thought that it was strange, well not strange but interesting. I think that while we were in the mall, my friends Stephanie, Vanessa, and I were the only blond people in the whole building, and we definitely felt like we stood out. I’m sure that people really noticed the group of us walking around, especially since we had 7 girls and 1 guy, and were speaking English. I don’t think I’ve felt more like a foreigner than when I was in Egypt. I felt almost naked when we were walking amongst these people so completely covered, and we were dressed pretty conservative ourselves! It’s just a very different feeling. Not really uncomfortable, but different. Well, anyways, we went back to the ship that night, and on Saturday we tried, TRIED, to go to an authentic restaurant that Lindsey had found in her guidebook. So we went out to flag a taxi and told him the name and address of the restaurant. The next two hours were a hilarious struggle to find said restaurant or anything really… our driver probably had no idea what we were saying, but kept stopping at these random places. Eventually we decided to tell him to drop us at the Bazaar and we would try to find a place to eat, but did he take us to the Bazaar? No. Instead he took us to this fancy, expensive store that gives taxi drivers commission for bringing their clients there. Ugh, we were so frustrated and sick of the heat that we decided to return to the ship. The Explorer left a few hours later, and I said goodbye to Egypt, for the time being. I really must return there, I need to see everything south and around Cairo! Who wants to come with me?!
So we’ll be in Casablanca, Morocco on Saturday, our last port! It’s absolutely insane that we have less than three weeks left of this trip! I mean I start classes in Boulder in exactly three weeks from today! Insane!
LOVE LOVE LOVE
On day 2 in Egypt I had another SAS trip, Pyramids and Jeep safari… it was the best SAS trip I’ve done so far! On the three hour bus ride to Cairo, our tour guide covered Egyptian history basically from its beginning to the present… she has her PhD in Egyptology and is a professor during the academic year and a tour guide during the summer… she really knew her stuff! Anyways, we arrived at the Pyramids at about 10:30 and got to spend a lot of time wandering around. It was amazing to finally be there, best moment ever! We then drove down to the Sphinx and again got to wander around and see all three of the Pyramids at a distance. It was AMAZING! I have no other words to describe it. After that, we went to lunch at a snazzy country club, then headed over to the Pyramid of Djoser, or the Stepped Pyramid, which is the first pyramid ever, designed by Imhotep – you know the bad guy in The Mummy movies, yeah the bald dude in the loin cloth, in real life he was an architect, like the first ever recorded or something, yeah not a crazy priest dude – anyways it was really pretty fantastic to be standing in front of this truly ancient building. They were doing restoration on it so there was scaffolding all around, which is pretty distracting, but it was still and awesome thing to see. We then went back to the country club where we ate lunch, and got into ten different 4x4 Jeeps. The drivers took us way into the desert, up and down sand dunes, and by some other smaller pyramids… it was insane! Our driver must have been fueled by our screams and laughter because he just kept on driving faster and up and down steeper dunes, ha ha it still makes me laugh now just thinking about it! After half an hour of that, we met our up with our camels and their drivers. It was crazy and almost laughable to think, “hey I’m on a camel in Egypt and those things in the distance are legit 4,000+ year old pyramids.” Well anyways, I named my camel Fernando and have a lovely video of me doing so! After another half an hour of this, we said goodbye to our new camel friends and got back on the bus for another 3-hour drive (nap) back to Alexandria.
On Thursday, my friend Stephanie and I hung around on the ship for the better part of the day, trying to catch up on homework in preparation for midterms and final projects/ papers… we only have eight or so days of class left! In the afternoon we ventured out to the Library of Alexandria by taxi… a taxi ride in Alexandria is an experience in itself. It’s like The Fast and the Furious in real life… absolutely nuts! If there are three painted lanes, they somehow create five lanes of traffic, and completely neglect to use any type of signaling whatsoever. Well I shouldn’t say that because everyone, EVERYONE, honks… why are they honking? I have no idea, they must feel like it makes traffic go faster, but how could they go faster when they’re going 100 mph in the first place… well that’s just an estimate because the speedometers don’t actually work. And while this is all happening people are embarking on the suicide mission known as crossing the street, or are hailing taxis that then stop in the middle of the road. It’s insanity, but I have yet to see an accident! One thing I can’t stand though is how none of the taxi drivers use the meter thing, so you have to bargain the price with them before you get into the car, and most of the time we don’t know how far the place we want to go is, so it’s rather difficult to negotiate a price. I digress… the Library is really beautiful, very modern and fancy and has a great antiquities collection and some modern art. We met back up with our taxi driver, Jamey, oh yeah, the wait for you at places so they get more money from you. He took us back to the ship where we again hung around.
Friday was kind of depressing, because about six were trying to go organize a day trip to Luxor, which is pretty far south. It all ended up falling apart in the end, and I used up the last of my Internet time so on Friday we didn’t really do much. Alexandria is a wonderful city, but one that can really be done in a day or two… especially when your on a tour, so on Friday we went to a mall for a while just to get out of the heat. Eight of us squeezed into a Station Wagon sized taxi, and I mean squeezed. We spent most of the day there, walking around, drinking coffee and people watching. It was pretty amazing/ confusing to see these women completely covered from head to toe looking at all these different clothing items like tank tops, skirts, and heels. I wonder when they could wear such clothing, I mean who knows, they could be wearing it under their long skirts and veils for all we know. I just thought that it was strange, well not strange but interesting. I think that while we were in the mall, my friends Stephanie, Vanessa, and I were the only blond people in the whole building, and we definitely felt like we stood out. I’m sure that people really noticed the group of us walking around, especially since we had 7 girls and 1 guy, and were speaking English. I don’t think I’ve felt more like a foreigner than when I was in Egypt. I felt almost naked when we were walking amongst these people so completely covered, and we were dressed pretty conservative ourselves! It’s just a very different feeling. Not really uncomfortable, but different. Well, anyways, we went back to the ship that night, and on Saturday we tried, TRIED, to go to an authentic restaurant that Lindsey had found in her guidebook. So we went out to flag a taxi and told him the name and address of the restaurant. The next two hours were a hilarious struggle to find said restaurant or anything really… our driver probably had no idea what we were saying, but kept stopping at these random places. Eventually we decided to tell him to drop us at the Bazaar and we would try to find a place to eat, but did he take us to the Bazaar? No. Instead he took us to this fancy, expensive store that gives taxi drivers commission for bringing their clients there. Ugh, we were so frustrated and sick of the heat that we decided to return to the ship. The Explorer left a few hours later, and I said goodbye to Egypt, for the time being. I really must return there, I need to see everything south and around Cairo! Who wants to come with me?!
So we’ll be in Casablanca, Morocco on Saturday, our last port! It’s absolutely insane that we have less than three weeks left of this trip! I mean I start classes in Boulder in exactly three weeks from today! Insane!
LOVE LOVE LOVE
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Turkey Turkey Turkey!
I can’t believe that we only have two more ports, and in four weeks I’ll be back in Boulder! It’s crazy how so very fast this is going! On Tuesday morning, we arrived in Istanbul, Turkey! This was probably one of the ports I was most excited for. I can remember learning about the Hagia Sophia my first year in Art History, and I hoped that I would someday get to visit it! Well on Tuesday I got to do just that! I managed to get on an SAS tour of Byzantine Art at the last minute, and I’m so glad that I did because it was probably the best tour I’ve done so far. We headed to the Golden Horn (or Old Town) stopped quickly at the City Walls built during the Roman Constantinople. Then we headed to the Kariye Museum, formerly the Chora Church, which means “Church of the Holy Savior Outside the Walls” because it used to be in the “countryside.” Pretty nifty name I think ha ha. This church has some very impressive mosaics, made from various stones and gold leaf. We next went to a mosque affectionately called Little Sophia, and here it began to rain… like hurricane rain. When we arrived, we couldn’t go inside righty away because they had just begun a prayer time, so we ate lunch under some tents outside by the fountain and drank Turkish tea. I have to admit that I was a little nervous to go into the mosque, having never been to one I wasn’t sure how the process would go. However, I found it to be very comfortable. We had to remove our shoes at the door and cover our heads with scarves, it wasn’t required to cover our heads because we were visitors but our guide said it shows respect… anyways, the carpet was very soft and the interior was absolutely beautiful! After a while we headed outside, and one of the professors suggested that we take a small detour to another mosque before heading to the next scheduled stop. The second mosque, I can’t remember it’s name, was even more impressive; and after the visit, our guide took us to an old building across the street which provided an excellent view of that mosque and it’s unique graveyard, and the Bosphorus. We then walked to the hippodrome by the Blue Mosque and looked at the Obelisk of Theodosius, and the Serpentine Column. Our next stop was the Basilican Cistern, which was AWESOME. I don’t know how I can explain this place in a way that will make it sound as cool as it truly is. You walk down some very steep stairs to this 16th century cistern made from brick with marble columns. There is probably a foot or so of water on the ground, and some even drips from the ceiling. We walked on these sort of bridge things around the cistern in almost total darkness. They use the space for art exhibitions, so there were some not so impressive modern art pieces scattered around in the water, which were kind of distracting, but oh well! In one of the corners there are sculptures of the face of Medusa on the bottom of two columns, which are huge… and honestly, kind of random to me! I mean the cistern was used to hold water, some 100,000 tons of water storage, and so they put these fantastic sculptures there? Hmmm… our guide didn’t really explain why they were there, he just pointed them out. Anyways, we next went to the Hagia Sophia that has been turned into a museum of sorts, basically it’s not a mosque or a church, it’s just sort of there. It has the largest dome in Istanbul and these huge medallions with Arabic writing that sit just below the dome. It was absolutely amazing to finally be there! Next we went to a mosaic museum and on the way we walked past the Blue Mosque again… at this time there was another call to prayer, and the feeling of being near that huge mosque with the prayer call and criers playing over the loud speakers was very surreal. I have no idea what they were saying but I suddenly felt like I was in an entirely different world, and we truly were. After the stop at the museum, we went to a building that had several fancy shops in it to wait for the bus. The sales people were very nice to let us stay in there with the wonderful AC and even offered us some apple tea (I found the Turkish people to be extremely hospitable). We got back to the ship around 6:30 and were exhausted, so we ate dinner on the ship and went out to Taksim Square, the more “hip” part of the city, and drank some more tea.
On Wednesday, I joined my friend Kari for another SAS tour that went to four palaces and the Asian side of Istanbul. Among them was the Dolmabahce Palace which was the second residence of the sultans until 1923… this thing is huge! It sits right on the Bosphorus and is elaborately decorated inside and out. There are probably 20+ crystal chandeliers that couldn’t even fit in my bedroom by themselves… it was absolutely nuts! The other palaces were similar in over the top decorations. Seriously over the top, I think I could buy a house with one of the doorknobs! I must say that the strangest thing I’ve experienced so far happened at the last palace, the Kucuksu Palace I believe. So we were warned about these crazy toilets called “squatters” but I had yet to see one. Basically it’s just a hole in the ground, but not like a dirt hole… oh no, there is porcelain and tile all around them, ridged places for your feet so you don’t fall, and a handy bar to hold on to. Imagine the rest for yourselves… I did not enjoy this. The Asian side of Istanbul is surprisingly different from the European side in that it is much more residential and just calmer overall. I think I could see myself living there! Ha ha I know it’s pretty far from CO, but it was awesome!
On Thursday Kari and I slept in and then headed to the Grand Bazaar for pretty much the entire day! The Grand Bazaar is absolutely insane. It is the biggest covered market in the world, with 4,000 shops and probably a million salesmen that all want to help you spend your money, and that are not too shy to tell you that you should be spending your money at their shop. It’s crazy, absolutely crazy. Soon after walking in, Kari and I were pulled into a scarf shop, given some apple tea, and had several scarves picked out for each of us. We probably stayed there for 30 or more minutes just looking at scarves, we were out of control. After that shop we wandered around for a few hours, ducking in and out of various shops. We tried not to stop anywhere for too long or you get pulled inside, and if they catch you looking at something for a second they attack you trying to sell everything to you. Craziness. Kari really wanted to buy a carpet so we spent a long time in a few carpet shops. The first one was really nice, they took us to their upstairs showroom and gave us some more tea and threw down 30+ carpets for Kari to choose. She found one that she like of liked but in the end didn’t buy it. We went into another one and basically the same thing happened… more and more tea! Kari had also found a huge blue-ish, turquoise-ish plate that she loved, but it was pretty expensive and the guy wouldn’t lower the price so she didn’t get that either. But not to worry, we spent our money in other ways haha!
Lindsey, Kari, and I went to the Topkapi Palace on Friday morning, which was the first palace to the sultans, and is now a museum filled with the sultan’s jewels and relics of the prophets. It was pretty crowded there so we got in and out pretty quickly. Lindsey had spent the past two days outside of Istanbul and hadn’t seen the Bazaar yet, so we headed in that direction. We first stopped at the Spice Bazaar, which I like much better than the Grand Bazaar. It is much less crowded and the salesmen are not as aggressive. Almost every shop sells huge mounds of spices, tea, Turkish delight, and other goodies… and the whole places smells amazing! We got to try different types of Turkish delight and bought some highly recommended Turkish coffee. We then headed to the Grand Bazaar and Lindsey got her first taste of bargaining and the aggressive salesmen. That day was probably the worst for us as we were hassled by many different salesmen. One wanted to take a picture with me and then tried to kiss me, but I ran away! And then Kari got that plate she had wanted the day before for less than half price and an unexpected kiss… ugh!! She sanitized her face right after, no worries! Ha ha… other than that it was a pretty good day at the Bazaar. We got back to the ship around 5:45 just in time for me to head off to a Suri Dervish ceremony. These “Whirling Dervishes” as they are commonly known, do a ritualistic dance accompanied by traditional music. They wear these long white skirts, white jackets, and tall, thimble-looking hats and spin around for minutes at a time. Through this dance, they are opening a connection with God, and it is a ritual tradition that goes back to the 13th century. This was absolutely amazing. These five men came out and spun around each other so effortlessly for quite some time, and the music was beautiful. We got to sit in the front row so I could feel the breeze made by their skirts, and one of them was going so fast I’m surprised that he didn’t fall right over! It was an amazing final night in Istanbul!
Our last day was spent at the Blue Mosque, which is quite possibly the most impressive in the city. Like the Topkapi Palace, it was extremely crowded with tourists from all over the world so we didn’t spend too much time there. This mosque is so pretty I can’t even describe it. The interior is covered with blue, white, and gold tiles, and has low hanging, simple chandeliers. Ugh I can’t describe it very well… Google magic! The whole time in Istanbul, we had planned to go to a Turkish bath, so after the mosque we went to the Cemberlitas Hamami, a bathhouse built in 1584. I won’t go into full detail about it on here, but it was incredibly relaxing, and an amazing experience. We spent three full hours there and dreaded the idea of going back out into the nasty heat and humidity after we had been scrubbed, bathed, and massaged. Oh it was amazing and the perfect ending to our time spent in Istanbul!
We’re on our way to Egypt now!!! If you know me at all you’ll know that I the most excited about this port… I will get to see the pyramids on Wednesday! THE PYRAMIDS! Ahhhh! Oh and I get to ride a camel which is pretty exciting too! Ha ha
Here are some hilarious “Special Questions/Comments of the Day” from Turkey…
“Why do I need a Turkish Visa when I already have a credit card?”
“I’ve been to the European and Asian sides of Turkey, I wish we were going to Africa too.”
LOVE LOVE LOVE
On Wednesday, I joined my friend Kari for another SAS tour that went to four palaces and the Asian side of Istanbul. Among them was the Dolmabahce Palace which was the second residence of the sultans until 1923… this thing is huge! It sits right on the Bosphorus and is elaborately decorated inside and out. There are probably 20+ crystal chandeliers that couldn’t even fit in my bedroom by themselves… it was absolutely nuts! The other palaces were similar in over the top decorations. Seriously over the top, I think I could buy a house with one of the doorknobs! I must say that the strangest thing I’ve experienced so far happened at the last palace, the Kucuksu Palace I believe. So we were warned about these crazy toilets called “squatters” but I had yet to see one. Basically it’s just a hole in the ground, but not like a dirt hole… oh no, there is porcelain and tile all around them, ridged places for your feet so you don’t fall, and a handy bar to hold on to. Imagine the rest for yourselves… I did not enjoy this. The Asian side of Istanbul is surprisingly different from the European side in that it is much more residential and just calmer overall. I think I could see myself living there! Ha ha I know it’s pretty far from CO, but it was awesome!
On Thursday Kari and I slept in and then headed to the Grand Bazaar for pretty much the entire day! The Grand Bazaar is absolutely insane. It is the biggest covered market in the world, with 4,000 shops and probably a million salesmen that all want to help you spend your money, and that are not too shy to tell you that you should be spending your money at their shop. It’s crazy, absolutely crazy. Soon after walking in, Kari and I were pulled into a scarf shop, given some apple tea, and had several scarves picked out for each of us. We probably stayed there for 30 or more minutes just looking at scarves, we were out of control. After that shop we wandered around for a few hours, ducking in and out of various shops. We tried not to stop anywhere for too long or you get pulled inside, and if they catch you looking at something for a second they attack you trying to sell everything to you. Craziness. Kari really wanted to buy a carpet so we spent a long time in a few carpet shops. The first one was really nice, they took us to their upstairs showroom and gave us some more tea and threw down 30+ carpets for Kari to choose. She found one that she like of liked but in the end didn’t buy it. We went into another one and basically the same thing happened… more and more tea! Kari had also found a huge blue-ish, turquoise-ish plate that she loved, but it was pretty expensive and the guy wouldn’t lower the price so she didn’t get that either. But not to worry, we spent our money in other ways haha!
Lindsey, Kari, and I went to the Topkapi Palace on Friday morning, which was the first palace to the sultans, and is now a museum filled with the sultan’s jewels and relics of the prophets. It was pretty crowded there so we got in and out pretty quickly. Lindsey had spent the past two days outside of Istanbul and hadn’t seen the Bazaar yet, so we headed in that direction. We first stopped at the Spice Bazaar, which I like much better than the Grand Bazaar. It is much less crowded and the salesmen are not as aggressive. Almost every shop sells huge mounds of spices, tea, Turkish delight, and other goodies… and the whole places smells amazing! We got to try different types of Turkish delight and bought some highly recommended Turkish coffee. We then headed to the Grand Bazaar and Lindsey got her first taste of bargaining and the aggressive salesmen. That day was probably the worst for us as we were hassled by many different salesmen. One wanted to take a picture with me and then tried to kiss me, but I ran away! And then Kari got that plate she had wanted the day before for less than half price and an unexpected kiss… ugh!! She sanitized her face right after, no worries! Ha ha… other than that it was a pretty good day at the Bazaar. We got back to the ship around 5:45 just in time for me to head off to a Suri Dervish ceremony. These “Whirling Dervishes” as they are commonly known, do a ritualistic dance accompanied by traditional music. They wear these long white skirts, white jackets, and tall, thimble-looking hats and spin around for minutes at a time. Through this dance, they are opening a connection with God, and it is a ritual tradition that goes back to the 13th century. This was absolutely amazing. These five men came out and spun around each other so effortlessly for quite some time, and the music was beautiful. We got to sit in the front row so I could feel the breeze made by their skirts, and one of them was going so fast I’m surprised that he didn’t fall right over! It was an amazing final night in Istanbul!
Our last day was spent at the Blue Mosque, which is quite possibly the most impressive in the city. Like the Topkapi Palace, it was extremely crowded with tourists from all over the world so we didn’t spend too much time there. This mosque is so pretty I can’t even describe it. The interior is covered with blue, white, and gold tiles, and has low hanging, simple chandeliers. Ugh I can’t describe it very well… Google magic! The whole time in Istanbul, we had planned to go to a Turkish bath, so after the mosque we went to the Cemberlitas Hamami, a bathhouse built in 1584. I won’t go into full detail about it on here, but it was incredibly relaxing, and an amazing experience. We spent three full hours there and dreaded the idea of going back out into the nasty heat and humidity after we had been scrubbed, bathed, and massaged. Oh it was amazing and the perfect ending to our time spent in Istanbul!
We’re on our way to Egypt now!!! If you know me at all you’ll know that I the most excited about this port… I will get to see the pyramids on Wednesday! THE PYRAMIDS! Ahhhh! Oh and I get to ride a camel which is pretty exciting too! Ha ha
Here are some hilarious “Special Questions/Comments of the Day” from Turkey…
“Why do I need a Turkish Visa when I already have a credit card?”
“I’ve been to the European and Asian sides of Turkey, I wish we were going to Africa too.”
LOVE LOVE LOVE
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Channeling Zorba the Greek!
The first time that I seriously learned about ancient Greece was in my senior year of high school. I was taking the AP Art History class offered by my favorite teacher, and within the first month of the class, I had fallen in love with the subject. Being on this trip has allowed me to see much of what I have learned about over the years as an art history major. So today, the first day in Greece, I got to do just that as I went on an SAS trip to the Corinth Canal, Epidarus, and Mycenae. The first two sites were pretty impressive… the Corinth Canal is amazing just considering what it took to create it, and the Epidarus theater is awesome. It is the best preserved Greek theater from it’s time, and performances are still put on there today. In the center of the circular orchestra is a smooth stone, and if you stand on it (it’s now level with the ground, very polished and smooth) you are in the center of the acoustics. When you speak, sing, clap or even drop a coin in this place you can hear the sound radiating away from you and the people in even the last row of seats can hear you perfectly clear. Even today they do not use microphones of any kind. As we sat in the top row, other tourists began to sing in various languages and the sounded as if they were just feet away from us… it was pretty incredible!
We next went to Mycenae, where I felt like a failure of an art historian. I completely forgot that the supposed “beehive” tomb of Agamemnon and the infamous Lion Gate could both be found at this site. Fail. Well to my defense, I guess I haven’t truly studied Greek art since that first year of art history. Anyways, the tomb is in excellent condition, it is completely empty, but still has quite exquisite masonry. The Mycenae acropolis is almost in total ruin so it’s hard to imagine what it truly looks like, but the Lion Gate was still in place and clearly depicts the ruler’s power. It was truly a great day for an art nerd like myself, even if I don’t always exactly remember what I’m looking at! That night Lindsey and I walked around the port area of Athens, called Piraeus, ate dinner, then stopped at a little market to get snacks (NUTELLA!) to take back to the ship.
On the second day (at this point I’ve lost all sense of what day of the week it is!) I went on another SAS trip to the Saronic Islands… three islands in one day! The first was Hydra and was probably my favorite. It was the perfect definition of a small Greek town, complete with donkeys! (they really looked more like mules but whatever) We wandered around there for a bit and had some amazing Greek coffee, which is like espresso with milky foam, condensed milk, cinnamon and ice, not absolutely sure though… it’s absolutely delicious, I think I had about 20 in these five days. Everyone drinks them here, they even have reusable cups specific for them that kind of look like frappaccino cups from Starbucks, but with reusable materials, obviously, but seriously everyone has one of these beverages at all times. Cops, taxi and bus drivers, street vendors, pedestrians…. and toursists of course! Anyways… we spent a little bit of time on each island (Hydra, Poros, and Aegina)which took up the whole day. Oh and on the way back to Piraeus, the ferry boat provided some “authentic Greek dancing” (imagine air quotes here) which could not have been cheesier. First a male “comedian” (again air quotes) came out dressed like an old Greek woman and did some awful lip singing to ‘70s music from the States. Then some creepy but “authentic” (so not authentic) dancers came out and did various dances… then again with the “comedian” now dressed as Elvis (oh the horror) and then the ever so creepy dancers. Lets just say I felt embarrassed to be there, and the waiters were even laughing the whole time. Well, it was it was an experience.
On the third day (Friday, I believe) Lindsey and I hit the ruins of Athens hardcore! We saw pretty much everything we wanted to see in one day… the Acropolis, Ancient and Roman Agoras, Hadrian’s Arch and Library, the Temple of Zeus, the New Acropolis Museum…. Oh man my dogs were barking!. All the ruins are so fantastic even in their ancient state… and the Acropolis! Oh man it was AMAZING! Not to mention we ate the BEST food ever It was a very successful day… and we turned in pretty early.
On Saturday we had another SAS trip to Delphi, which is incredible, and is now competing with the Pantheon in Rome as my favorite monument. It lies on the side of a mountain, and you can walk all the way to the top to see the fantastic views of the valley and port below. To get there we had to drive through a small town that is fast becoming a popular ski resort… you can ski and snowboard in Greece! How cool is that?!?! I’m going back for sure! Lunch yesterday was fantastic as well, the Greeks know how to make food that’s for sure! Saturday night, Lindsey, my friend Kari and I were too exhausted to function properly but didn’t want to sit around on the ship because it was still rather early… so we decided to go see a movie! I know, I know… who goes to see a movie in Greece?! But it was a perfect, air-conditioned break! We took a taxi, which was an adventure because the driver spoke about 3 words in English, and the theater was fantastic. Very clean, with assigned seating… pretty fancy! We saw Eclipse ha ha laugh all you want! Our taxi driver on the way back to the ship was very interesting in that he spoke several different languages to us, even though we clearly were speaking English. Within 20 minutes he said “grazie,” “thank you,” and “adios” a couple of times!
Today we just sort of wandered around Athens… and well, ate. I can’t get enough of this food, seriously, it’s amazing. And at the moment, I can feel the rumble of the engines which means we are on our way to Turkey (or Chicken as one of the very young SASers calls it… when I say young I mean like two or so)!!! Does Turkey count as Asia, I mean it’s technically on both continents so does this mean I will have been to Asia now?! Sweet.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
We next went to Mycenae, where I felt like a failure of an art historian. I completely forgot that the supposed “beehive” tomb of Agamemnon and the infamous Lion Gate could both be found at this site. Fail. Well to my defense, I guess I haven’t truly studied Greek art since that first year of art history. Anyways, the tomb is in excellent condition, it is completely empty, but still has quite exquisite masonry. The Mycenae acropolis is almost in total ruin so it’s hard to imagine what it truly looks like, but the Lion Gate was still in place and clearly depicts the ruler’s power. It was truly a great day for an art nerd like myself, even if I don’t always exactly remember what I’m looking at! That night Lindsey and I walked around the port area of Athens, called Piraeus, ate dinner, then stopped at a little market to get snacks (NUTELLA!) to take back to the ship.
On the second day (at this point I’ve lost all sense of what day of the week it is!) I went on another SAS trip to the Saronic Islands… three islands in one day! The first was Hydra and was probably my favorite. It was the perfect definition of a small Greek town, complete with donkeys! (they really looked more like mules but whatever) We wandered around there for a bit and had some amazing Greek coffee, which is like espresso with milky foam, condensed milk, cinnamon and ice, not absolutely sure though… it’s absolutely delicious, I think I had about 20 in these five days. Everyone drinks them here, they even have reusable cups specific for them that kind of look like frappaccino cups from Starbucks, but with reusable materials, obviously, but seriously everyone has one of these beverages at all times. Cops, taxi and bus drivers, street vendors, pedestrians…. and toursists of course! Anyways… we spent a little bit of time on each island (Hydra, Poros, and Aegina)which took up the whole day. Oh and on the way back to Piraeus, the ferry boat provided some “authentic Greek dancing” (imagine air quotes here) which could not have been cheesier. First a male “comedian” (again air quotes) came out dressed like an old Greek woman and did some awful lip singing to ‘70s music from the States. Then some creepy but “authentic” (so not authentic) dancers came out and did various dances… then again with the “comedian” now dressed as Elvis (oh the horror) and then the ever so creepy dancers. Lets just say I felt embarrassed to be there, and the waiters were even laughing the whole time. Well, it was it was an experience.
On the third day (Friday, I believe) Lindsey and I hit the ruins of Athens hardcore! We saw pretty much everything we wanted to see in one day… the Acropolis, Ancient and Roman Agoras, Hadrian’s Arch and Library, the Temple of Zeus, the New Acropolis Museum…. Oh man my dogs were barking!. All the ruins are so fantastic even in their ancient state… and the Acropolis! Oh man it was AMAZING! Not to mention we ate the BEST food ever It was a very successful day… and we turned in pretty early.
On Saturday we had another SAS trip to Delphi, which is incredible, and is now competing with the Pantheon in Rome as my favorite monument. It lies on the side of a mountain, and you can walk all the way to the top to see the fantastic views of the valley and port below. To get there we had to drive through a small town that is fast becoming a popular ski resort… you can ski and snowboard in Greece! How cool is that?!?! I’m going back for sure! Lunch yesterday was fantastic as well, the Greeks know how to make food that’s for sure! Saturday night, Lindsey, my friend Kari and I were too exhausted to function properly but didn’t want to sit around on the ship because it was still rather early… so we decided to go see a movie! I know, I know… who goes to see a movie in Greece?! But it was a perfect, air-conditioned break! We took a taxi, which was an adventure because the driver spoke about 3 words in English, and the theater was fantastic. Very clean, with assigned seating… pretty fancy! We saw Eclipse ha ha laugh all you want! Our taxi driver on the way back to the ship was very interesting in that he spoke several different languages to us, even though we clearly were speaking English. Within 20 minutes he said “grazie,” “thank you,” and “adios” a couple of times!
Today we just sort of wandered around Athens… and well, ate. I can’t get enough of this food, seriously, it’s amazing. And at the moment, I can feel the rumble of the engines which means we are on our way to Turkey (or Chicken as one of the very young SASers calls it… when I say young I mean like two or so)!!! Does Turkey count as Asia, I mean it’s technically on both continents so does this mean I will have been to Asia now?! Sweet.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
Monday, July 12, 2010
"The Pearl of the Adriatic"
On the way to Croatia, I read that the brightest blue on Earth, as seen from space, is the Adriatic Sea; but after spending a few days here I don’t think that you need to go to space to discover this. Croatia is quite possibly the most beautiful place I’ve ever been—well so far—but you get the idea! Everywhere you look is like a postcard… my eyes have been overwhelmed for the past four days.
We arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia Wednesday night around midnight, but couldn’t get off the ship until the next morning because of customs. So on Thursday I took a tour of the Old City Wall, which goes around the entire medieval city. This tour offered excellent views of the Old City as well as the Adriatic and a few of the many many many Croatian islands (I was told there are over 1,000 of them) that lay just off the main coast. After that we walked around the Old City and had dinner there in one of the several little cafés that are scattered around. As we were walking back to the bus station, a salesmen for sea kayaking approached us and told us all about these 3 hour tours you can take and gave us a really good deal for one of them. So on Friday we decided to go sea kayaking! This is exactly what I had in mind for this port, and at 2 pm that day we set off in our double kayak into the blue Adriatic Sea. Our guides were awesome, and two were very attractive… always a bonus! Ha ha We started out right by the Old City and within 40 or so minutes had reached the island of Lokum. Then, we circled the island, which had a lovely nudist beach on one side—scarred for life—and then headed back towards the mainland. We went to a private beach, accessible only by sea, where we snorkeled and ate lunch. Then we returned to the starting place by going around the Old City Walls…. Oh and we passed a café called Buza, where locals and tourists go cliff jumping and drink overpriced beer, and these annoying little kids swam out to us and grabbed on to our kayaks, attempting to flip us all over… little punks! Well we survived that attack and made it all the way back to our starting place. We decided to go back to the ship for dinner and to shower, and then headed out again for a little more adventure.
On Saturday, we decided to take a ferry to another island, Lopud, and hang out on the beach for a while. We went to the store by the port and got some snacks and beverages, then boarded the ferry that goes to three islands just off the coast of the mainland. The island of Lopud is pretty small, and I don’t think anyone lives there for reasons other than tourism, but I could be wrong. Anyways, it was a perfect little spot for some needed R & R. We swam and sun bathed for a few hours, all while trying to avoid spotting old men in Speedos… what is with Europeans and Speedos?! I’ m starting to believe that this is an epidemic. All the people that wear them are those who should never EVER be seen in anything less than something resembling a poncho or something very very large, loose, and conservative. We took a ferry back to Dubrovnik around 7 pm, arriving just in time for dinner and the Germany v. Uruguay World Cup game. We couldn’t understand a word that was said on the TV and my friend Lindsey and I were the only women to be found, but it turned out to be a great night, and Germany won!
Yesterday I spent most of the morning catching up on some homework, and decided to eat lunch on the ship. I sat down at a random table and was soon joined by three of the Life Long Learners on the ship. I ended up sitting there for over an hour with them because they were just too funny! Two of them were a couple, both close to 80 years old, that had been married for over 50 years… oh man they were hilarious! We talked about almost everything, and they told me about how they had walked the Old City Walls in Dubrovnik 25 years ago and that they’d been to Greece several times before… I want to be like them in, goodness, 60+ years! Well after that amazing lunch experience, I headed to the Old City for one last walk around, and was back to the ship just before on-ship time.
Being in Croatia for the past few days has been absolutely amazing. I can definitely see myself returning her for a longer period of time. It’s a perfect mix of a beach city and a mountain city, and has a cultural history that is very interesting. If you are looking for a vacation spot that is different from the typical resort areas, I seriously recommend Dubrovnik… a little pricey, but definitely worth it! And, most people speak English, which is helpful because we seriously tried to speak Croatian and failed miserably. One of our waiters said it was nice to see tourists trying, but it is understood that Croatian is a very hard language to learn… and now we’re heading to Greece, do they speak Italian in Greece?! Ha ha oh this will be interesting!
love love love
We arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia Wednesday night around midnight, but couldn’t get off the ship until the next morning because of customs. So on Thursday I took a tour of the Old City Wall, which goes around the entire medieval city. This tour offered excellent views of the Old City as well as the Adriatic and a few of the many many many Croatian islands (I was told there are over 1,000 of them) that lay just off the main coast. After that we walked around the Old City and had dinner there in one of the several little cafés that are scattered around. As we were walking back to the bus station, a salesmen for sea kayaking approached us and told us all about these 3 hour tours you can take and gave us a really good deal for one of them. So on Friday we decided to go sea kayaking! This is exactly what I had in mind for this port, and at 2 pm that day we set off in our double kayak into the blue Adriatic Sea. Our guides were awesome, and two were very attractive… always a bonus! Ha ha We started out right by the Old City and within 40 or so minutes had reached the island of Lokum. Then, we circled the island, which had a lovely nudist beach on one side—scarred for life—and then headed back towards the mainland. We went to a private beach, accessible only by sea, where we snorkeled and ate lunch. Then we returned to the starting place by going around the Old City Walls…. Oh and we passed a café called Buza, where locals and tourists go cliff jumping and drink overpriced beer, and these annoying little kids swam out to us and grabbed on to our kayaks, attempting to flip us all over… little punks! Well we survived that attack and made it all the way back to our starting place. We decided to go back to the ship for dinner and to shower, and then headed out again for a little more adventure.
On Saturday, we decided to take a ferry to another island, Lopud, and hang out on the beach for a while. We went to the store by the port and got some snacks and beverages, then boarded the ferry that goes to three islands just off the coast of the mainland. The island of Lopud is pretty small, and I don’t think anyone lives there for reasons other than tourism, but I could be wrong. Anyways, it was a perfect little spot for some needed R & R. We swam and sun bathed for a few hours, all while trying to avoid spotting old men in Speedos… what is with Europeans and Speedos?! I’ m starting to believe that this is an epidemic. All the people that wear them are those who should never EVER be seen in anything less than something resembling a poncho or something very very large, loose, and conservative. We took a ferry back to Dubrovnik around 7 pm, arriving just in time for dinner and the Germany v. Uruguay World Cup game. We couldn’t understand a word that was said on the TV and my friend Lindsey and I were the only women to be found, but it turned out to be a great night, and Germany won!
Yesterday I spent most of the morning catching up on some homework, and decided to eat lunch on the ship. I sat down at a random table and was soon joined by three of the Life Long Learners on the ship. I ended up sitting there for over an hour with them because they were just too funny! Two of them were a couple, both close to 80 years old, that had been married for over 50 years… oh man they were hilarious! We talked about almost everything, and they told me about how they had walked the Old City Walls in Dubrovnik 25 years ago and that they’d been to Greece several times before… I want to be like them in, goodness, 60+ years! Well after that amazing lunch experience, I headed to the Old City for one last walk around, and was back to the ship just before on-ship time.
Being in Croatia for the past few days has been absolutely amazing. I can definitely see myself returning her for a longer period of time. It’s a perfect mix of a beach city and a mountain city, and has a cultural history that is very interesting. If you are looking for a vacation spot that is different from the typical resort areas, I seriously recommend Dubrovnik… a little pricey, but definitely worth it! And, most people speak English, which is helpful because we seriously tried to speak Croatian and failed miserably. One of our waiters said it was nice to see tourists trying, but it is understood that Croatian is a very hard language to learn… and now we’re heading to Greece, do they speak Italian in Greece?! Ha ha oh this will be interesting!
love love love
Monday, July 5, 2010
Rome wasn't built in a day... uh, clearly!
On Tuesday, we arrived in Civitavecchia, which lays about 80 minutes away from Rome by train. This little town is really quite adorable, and has pretty much everything a person could need, and yet I spent most of my time there in the Subway where there was free internet. Feel free to judge me.
On this first day, my friend and I made our way to Rome on the train and got to Rome around 10:30 am. What a freaking AMAZING city!! I love how the old city has combined with the new city, and everywhere you turn there is an ancient ruin or something equally awesome. We first went to the Colosseum, but didn't go inside that day; then we went to the Roman Forum and the Capitoline Museum... both full of Roman sculptures and ruins which are both fantastic. It was so very hot and humid, so we stoped for lunch at a small cafe and had some amazing pasta. Our waiter was absolutely hilarious, he asked us where we were from, and then did an impression of Eminem hahaha the relevance still escapes me! We then walked to the Pantheon, but found that it was closed because it was a holiday, All Saints Day, or something like that. Bummed out as we were, we found some amazing gelato to comfort us. And I mean AMAZING, holy crap I could eat that stuff everyday of my life! We then wandered around a bit more and stumbled on Trevi Fountain where we made wishes and threw coins into the water. By this time is was getting kind of late, so we stoped for dinner and had some pizza and several glasses or red wine ha ha! Making our way back to the train station was quite a challenge as Italian drivers don't feel the need to stop for pedestrians... but we survived!
Wednesday morning came much too soon, and at 8:30 am, I joined a tour group called Rome on Your Own, and that's just what I did, sorry Mom! I felt completely comfortable in this city and there was so much that I wanted to see that I didn't really feel like waiting for a group of people to form. I made my way across the city by metro to the Colosseum, where I didn't have to wait in line, thanks to our excellent guide that drove us to Rome that morning. The Colosseum was beautiful despite its state of ruin,and provided great views of the Forum and Arch of Constantine. I stopped for a quick lunch of handmade pasta, YUM, and then went to the Pantheon for the second time. I'm so glad that I did too because this building is spectacular and I think I could have sat there for a few hours at least. I stopped again at the same gelato place as the day before, and then began what I'm calling a "Where Did Tom Hanks Go in Angels & Demons?" tour around the city, and finished it with a tour of the Vatican the following day.
St. Peter's is absolutely HUGE, very intimidating and beautiful at the same time, and the lines weren't too bad! It was so amazing/weird to see all that I had studied in the past few years in my art history classes in one spot! The Vatican Museum was equally amazing, and I heard that if you were to pause and look at each piece of art there for 5 seconds, you would be in the museum for 8 years... sounded crazy to me at first, but after walking through the many many galleries, I started to believe it! The walk through the Vatican Museum ended in the Sistine Chapel... Holy crap I've been to the Sisten Chapel! ha ha I'm starting to feel like an art history badass, or just more of a nerd... either works for me. On Friday I had a SAS tour that took us to some ancient Roman catacombs and this super creepy church with rooms decorated with the bones of monks... eeekk! The catacombs were very creepy and the tunnels extended for 20 kilometers below the surface, just enough space to get completely lost in! Every once in a while the lights would go off while we were down there, of course we would freak out and our guide would just laugh at us.. but come on, that's pretty scary! This tour ended at about 12:30, and having seen most everything that I could think of to see in Rome, I headed back to Civitavecchia and the ship. (my feet surely appreciated this!)
Saturday was our first day in Naples, Italy, and I joined to girls on a day trip to Pompeii, which was a challenge! In each port so far SAS has provided a shuttle bus to get us out of the port area and into the city... but this time it was a total FAIL! The shuttle driver didn't seem too pleased to be driving us anywhere, and when we finally got off the bus, we had gone in the complete opposite direction of the train station. Walking back was super creepy, ha ha one guy offered to drive us to Pompeii and back for 70E... when it only cost us around 16E plus admission into the ruins. What a creeper that guy was! We finally made it to Pompeii and walked around for a long time in the crazy humidity and heat. Mt. Vesuvius lay off in the distance with an eerie puff of cloud/smoke/something scary coming out of the top... which was really unsettling considering I had plans to climb it the next day! Once back in Naples, we found some fantastic pizza and headed back to the ship absolutely worn out!
Yesterday I safely hiked up Mt. Vesuvius, which was an amazing experience... I mean it's a volcano! It was really humid so the views weren't that great as there was a blanket of clouds between the peak and Naples and the other surrounding cities. But it was still beautiful! Having realized that it was the 4th of July, we celebrated by drinking wine that was made from grapes cultivated on the mountain (you can't pass up three bottles of really good wine for 8E!) We went out for pizza again last night, and found that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays. We were amazed to find a little place was still open, but didn't expect anything amazing! We were wrong. Naples knows how to do pizza, well it was invented here right?! I would be disappointed otherwise. Today is our last day in Italy, man it went by really fast!! Tonight the crew is doing a 4th of July cook out, and I guess they do this very well! I'm looking forward to it, but am sad that I missed out on Granny potato salad!
We'll be in Croatia on Thursday!! I don't really know what to expect from this port, but I've heard it's beautiful, but also that there are nudist beaches, which I will be avoiding at all costs!
LOVE LOVE LOVE
On this first day, my friend and I made our way to Rome on the train and got to Rome around 10:30 am. What a freaking AMAZING city!! I love how the old city has combined with the new city, and everywhere you turn there is an ancient ruin or something equally awesome. We first went to the Colosseum, but didn't go inside that day; then we went to the Roman Forum and the Capitoline Museum... both full of Roman sculptures and ruins which are both fantastic. It was so very hot and humid, so we stoped for lunch at a small cafe and had some amazing pasta. Our waiter was absolutely hilarious, he asked us where we were from, and then did an impression of Eminem hahaha the relevance still escapes me! We then walked to the Pantheon, but found that it was closed because it was a holiday, All Saints Day, or something like that. Bummed out as we were, we found some amazing gelato to comfort us. And I mean AMAZING, holy crap I could eat that stuff everyday of my life! We then wandered around a bit more and stumbled on Trevi Fountain where we made wishes and threw coins into the water. By this time is was getting kind of late, so we stoped for dinner and had some pizza and several glasses or red wine ha ha! Making our way back to the train station was quite a challenge as Italian drivers don't feel the need to stop for pedestrians... but we survived!
Wednesday morning came much too soon, and at 8:30 am, I joined a tour group called Rome on Your Own, and that's just what I did, sorry Mom! I felt completely comfortable in this city and there was so much that I wanted to see that I didn't really feel like waiting for a group of people to form. I made my way across the city by metro to the Colosseum, where I didn't have to wait in line, thanks to our excellent guide that drove us to Rome that morning. The Colosseum was beautiful despite its state of ruin,and provided great views of the Forum and Arch of Constantine. I stopped for a quick lunch of handmade pasta, YUM, and then went to the Pantheon for the second time. I'm so glad that I did too because this building is spectacular and I think I could have sat there for a few hours at least. I stopped again at the same gelato place as the day before, and then began what I'm calling a "Where Did Tom Hanks Go in Angels & Demons?" tour around the city, and finished it with a tour of the Vatican the following day.
St. Peter's is absolutely HUGE, very intimidating and beautiful at the same time, and the lines weren't too bad! It was so amazing/weird to see all that I had studied in the past few years in my art history classes in one spot! The Vatican Museum was equally amazing, and I heard that if you were to pause and look at each piece of art there for 5 seconds, you would be in the museum for 8 years... sounded crazy to me at first, but after walking through the many many galleries, I started to believe it! The walk through the Vatican Museum ended in the Sistine Chapel... Holy crap I've been to the Sisten Chapel! ha ha I'm starting to feel like an art history badass, or just more of a nerd... either works for me. On Friday I had a SAS tour that took us to some ancient Roman catacombs and this super creepy church with rooms decorated with the bones of monks... eeekk! The catacombs were very creepy and the tunnels extended for 20 kilometers below the surface, just enough space to get completely lost in! Every once in a while the lights would go off while we were down there, of course we would freak out and our guide would just laugh at us.. but come on, that's pretty scary! This tour ended at about 12:30, and having seen most everything that I could think of to see in Rome, I headed back to Civitavecchia and the ship. (my feet surely appreciated this!)
Saturday was our first day in Naples, Italy, and I joined to girls on a day trip to Pompeii, which was a challenge! In each port so far SAS has provided a shuttle bus to get us out of the port area and into the city... but this time it was a total FAIL! The shuttle driver didn't seem too pleased to be driving us anywhere, and when we finally got off the bus, we had gone in the complete opposite direction of the train station. Walking back was super creepy, ha ha one guy offered to drive us to Pompeii and back for 70E... when it only cost us around 16E plus admission into the ruins. What a creeper that guy was! We finally made it to Pompeii and walked around for a long time in the crazy humidity and heat. Mt. Vesuvius lay off in the distance with an eerie puff of cloud/smoke/something scary coming out of the top... which was really unsettling considering I had plans to climb it the next day! Once back in Naples, we found some fantastic pizza and headed back to the ship absolutely worn out!
Yesterday I safely hiked up Mt. Vesuvius, which was an amazing experience... I mean it's a volcano! It was really humid so the views weren't that great as there was a blanket of clouds between the peak and Naples and the other surrounding cities. But it was still beautiful! Having realized that it was the 4th of July, we celebrated by drinking wine that was made from grapes cultivated on the mountain (you can't pass up three bottles of really good wine for 8E!) We went out for pizza again last night, and found that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays. We were amazed to find a little place was still open, but didn't expect anything amazing! We were wrong. Naples knows how to do pizza, well it was invented here right?! I would be disappointed otherwise. Today is our last day in Italy, man it went by really fast!! Tonight the crew is doing a 4th of July cook out, and I guess they do this very well! I'm looking forward to it, but am sad that I missed out on Granny potato salad!
We'll be in Croatia on Thursday!! I don't really know what to expect from this port, but I've heard it's beautiful, but also that there are nudist beaches, which I will be avoiding at all costs!
LOVE LOVE LOVE
Sunday, June 27, 2010
SAS and Spain!
June 27, 2010
Oh baby, this is going to be a long one!
Living on the Explorer with over a thousand other people has been an amazing experience. We’ve really started to form our own little community onboard, and I’m starting to recognize people from various activities, finally! OK so this ship is absolutely amazing, super clean and friendly… but the food, oh it’s killing me! I mean I have to give the chefs props, cooking for this many people 3 times a day is quite a feat; but being the veggie that I am (though I still eat fish and eggs), I’m surely struggling! Sometimes when they offer meat they don’t offer any fish, so what do I eat? SALAD! And it may be years before I eat a potato again! It doesn’t taste bad, sometimes it’s quite tasty, but there’s little variation…. I mean what else could they possibly do with a potato?! They MUST have something up their sleeves!
Anyways, the first few days aboard were a struggle for a whole different reason. Who would have thought that a ship crossing the Atlantic would rock from side to side the whole time?! Walking through the already narrow hallways is a challenge, the only way to survive is to let the ship move you where it wants to and not fight it! Some people were getting very seasick, and they gave out medicine, which I took as a precaution… it made me extremely tired. What do they put in those things?
Everyday, our steward Crispen comes in and makes our beds, cleans the bathroom, and gives us fresh towels if needed. This freaked me out a little bit at first, not that some dude was in our rooms, but I’m used to cleaning up after myself (yes Madre, I am and you know it!). And after almost two weeks, I still make my bed before he comes in! He couldn’t be nicer, and is absolutely hilarious so it makes the whole thing much more comfortable. The professors and faculty are equally entertaining. The Assistant Executive Dean, Tom, does all the announcements, so we call him “The Voice,” and he has the greatest humor ever. Almost everyday he tells us a “special question of the day,” that is something stupid he’s heard on the ship… Some of my favorites are, “Will we be crossing the Atlantic on the way home?” “Where is the Leaning Tower of Pisa?” and “When we’re in Italy and we want Italian food, do we just have to ask for food?” I hope stupidity doesn’t rub off in such tight quarters! My professors are fantastic as well. Everyone is required to take Global Studies at the same time, so we’re scattered throughout the classrooms on the ship. Our professor is Dr. Bowler and he is extremely hilarious, which he kind of has to be to keep all of our attention at 9:30 in the morning (now 1:30 am in CO!). His humor is extremely immature and he always references movies, usually bad war ones, in his lectures, which I’m sure you all know keeps my interest!
On Thursday we woke up in Barcelona, Spain. Such a weird thing to say! We just woke up and we were docked and Barcelona was right there! We weren’t exhausted from taking a plane, we were just pumped to finally be there! I had a SAS trip at 1, so we went into town for a bit before I had to be back to the ship. The major tourist spot here is called La Rambla, and it kind of reminded me of 16th St. in Denver, with the walkway down the middle of the street, but it was a lot busier and there were a ton of vendors. You could buy anything from a painting to a rabbit there… it was crazy! If you turned off La Rambla in either direction, you could easily get lost in the little shops, cafés, and endless towering apartment buildings; and while it was really busy and crowded most of the time, it was still so nice just to experience the culture. I liked the more non-touristy streets, where you can sit at a café or restaurant and hear only Catalan (a mix between Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian, and is the main language in the Catalonia region) and Spanish… but this didn’t surprise me. Anyways, my SAS trip that first day was a Gaudi tour that took us to Parc Guell, La Sagrada Familia, and La Pedrera, and it was AMAZING! Seriously, you should Google these if you’ve never seen them before they’re fantastic… so is his Batillo house, which we were supposed to see also, no idea why we didn’t though because it’s one of the more famous of his buildings… My friend and I went back to the Batillo house and paid the entrance fee, which we think we already paid with the SAS trip so we’re going to try to get our money back for that part of it… and our tour guide was a complete psycho and kept yelling at us and not let us wander around… I mean she wasn’t going to let us on the roof of La Pedrera, which is the reason why you go to see that house, FAIL! I digress… Thursday night was an adventure as I went out with four other girls, with no idea what we were doing. We wanted to find a place to watch flamenco or salsa, but had no luck… so we decided to walk to the beach where we were told is a strip of clubs and bars (full of SASers, oh joy!) so we headed that way. It was dark and a little scary, so we decided to go to a restaurant because we were also hungry. The waiters ushered us upstairs and started bringing us plates of food, which we were scared to eat in case we would get charged, but this one girl just started eating the stuff and opened the fancy, glass bottled water... we thought we were going to have a huge bill! There was about four waiters helping us out, one spoke English very well and the others were OK. (One of them spoke Italian so I got to practice a little!) Two of them were younger and asked us to go dancing with them the next night, Friday, but they were pretty creepy so we didn’t ha ha! They walked us out of the restaurant (oh and we didn’t get charged for all the food either!) and took some pictures with us, probably because we were all dressed up for a bar and not a restaurant… uh yeah. But besides the creepiness, it was a pretty good night.
On Friday, we just sort of hung out around La Rambla and the streets around there during the day. Friday night, five of us girls again decided to go out, and again we had no idea where to go. I wanted to find a cool bar to watch the Spain v. Chile soccer game, but that didn’t happen because the other girls wanted to go on a pub-crawl (but Spain won!). Don’t get me wrong, pubs are cool, and the promoters were two attractive guys, one from Australia (not fair that the sister gets to talk to that all day!) and the other from Wales… but the first bar was packed full of tourists. It wasn’t looking good so one of the girls, Lindsay, and I, decided to find a little place to eat some tapas and drink sangria. What a great night that turned out to be after we split! Maybe harsh, but true! And if you haven’t had sangria, you’re missing out! Saturday was probably the best day in Barcelona, and the last for me, because Lindsay and I spent the day wandering around. We decided to start at the beach were you could get on a gondola type thing that took you from the beach up the mountain. We could see all of the city and far into the Mediterranean from up there, and it was pretty nice to be at a higher elevation again for a while! At the top of the mountain, Mont Juic I think it’s called, is a military fort, the Olympic park with pools and tracks, and the Museu Nacional D’Art de Catalunya, or the Museum of National Art of Catalonia which is housed in a castle from the 17th century. This museum was amazing, very well done, and the castle is fantastic and has survived beautifully through time. In the front of the castle are a ton of fountains, and at night they do shows with lights, so we decided to return later. To kill time we took the metro over to Gaudi’s Batillo house, then had tapas at a little restaurant, and relaxed in a small square somewhere in the Gothic Quarter. Then, we took the metro back up to the castle and found that there was a gay pride rally going on right in front of it. This thing was huge too, with a live band and DJ… so we decided to check it out after watching the fountain show. This was the first gay pride anything that I’ve ever been to and it was so much fun. They started a rave in the middle of this public area… complete with foam. We couldn’t resist, so we joined the soap soaked crowd and ended up surrounded by shirtless, Spanish gay men, and up to our necks in foam! Oh man, it was so much fun! We were still pretty wet when we got back to the ship around 11pm, and were absolutely exhausted from putting in a 14 hour day of adventure!
Today I had an all day SAS trip that took us to Figueres, and Gala Dali Castle in Pubol. Figueres, the town where Salvador Dali was born, has the most spectacular/ strange museums I’ve ever see, completely reconstructed and filled by Dali himself, after a fire burned the original museum. The thing itself is a piece of art, one that I cannot describe if I tried (I promise to upload pictures eventually). Dali is actually buried in the museum and we could go to the marking of his tomb… AWESOME! Oh my little art nerd self was in her element! We went to the town of Pubol after, where Dali’s crazy wife Gala lived, and died. She is buried below the castle in the crypt, next to an empty marker that was supposed to be for Dali, but he decided against it after she died… ouch! But she was a very mean woman I guess! I don’t think I would be able to describe this place either… it’s a castle alright so it’s a given that it is amazingly beautiful! And the town is very small and quaint, and resembles Tuscany. All in all, it was a fantastic day, one that I had been looking forward to for a while. We got back to the ship at 5:45, just in time for on-ship time (the time you MUST be back on the ship on the last day at port, or you get dock time at the next one). And as you can probably tell by my terrible grammar and repetitiveness of words that I am absolutely exhausted… but we only have one day of recovery until ITALY!!!!! YAY!
LOVE LOVE LOVE!
Oh baby, this is going to be a long one!
Living on the Explorer with over a thousand other people has been an amazing experience. We’ve really started to form our own little community onboard, and I’m starting to recognize people from various activities, finally! OK so this ship is absolutely amazing, super clean and friendly… but the food, oh it’s killing me! I mean I have to give the chefs props, cooking for this many people 3 times a day is quite a feat; but being the veggie that I am (though I still eat fish and eggs), I’m surely struggling! Sometimes when they offer meat they don’t offer any fish, so what do I eat? SALAD! And it may be years before I eat a potato again! It doesn’t taste bad, sometimes it’s quite tasty, but there’s little variation…. I mean what else could they possibly do with a potato?! They MUST have something up their sleeves!
Anyways, the first few days aboard were a struggle for a whole different reason. Who would have thought that a ship crossing the Atlantic would rock from side to side the whole time?! Walking through the already narrow hallways is a challenge, the only way to survive is to let the ship move you where it wants to and not fight it! Some people were getting very seasick, and they gave out medicine, which I took as a precaution… it made me extremely tired. What do they put in those things?
Everyday, our steward Crispen comes in and makes our beds, cleans the bathroom, and gives us fresh towels if needed. This freaked me out a little bit at first, not that some dude was in our rooms, but I’m used to cleaning up after myself (yes Madre, I am and you know it!). And after almost two weeks, I still make my bed before he comes in! He couldn’t be nicer, and is absolutely hilarious so it makes the whole thing much more comfortable. The professors and faculty are equally entertaining. The Assistant Executive Dean, Tom, does all the announcements, so we call him “The Voice,” and he has the greatest humor ever. Almost everyday he tells us a “special question of the day,” that is something stupid he’s heard on the ship… Some of my favorites are, “Will we be crossing the Atlantic on the way home?” “Where is the Leaning Tower of Pisa?” and “When we’re in Italy and we want Italian food, do we just have to ask for food?” I hope stupidity doesn’t rub off in such tight quarters! My professors are fantastic as well. Everyone is required to take Global Studies at the same time, so we’re scattered throughout the classrooms on the ship. Our professor is Dr. Bowler and he is extremely hilarious, which he kind of has to be to keep all of our attention at 9:30 in the morning (now 1:30 am in CO!). His humor is extremely immature and he always references movies, usually bad war ones, in his lectures, which I’m sure you all know keeps my interest!
On Thursday we woke up in Barcelona, Spain. Such a weird thing to say! We just woke up and we were docked and Barcelona was right there! We weren’t exhausted from taking a plane, we were just pumped to finally be there! I had a SAS trip at 1, so we went into town for a bit before I had to be back to the ship. The major tourist spot here is called La Rambla, and it kind of reminded me of 16th St. in Denver, with the walkway down the middle of the street, but it was a lot busier and there were a ton of vendors. You could buy anything from a painting to a rabbit there… it was crazy! If you turned off La Rambla in either direction, you could easily get lost in the little shops, cafés, and endless towering apartment buildings; and while it was really busy and crowded most of the time, it was still so nice just to experience the culture. I liked the more non-touristy streets, where you can sit at a café or restaurant and hear only Catalan (a mix between Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian, and is the main language in the Catalonia region) and Spanish… but this didn’t surprise me. Anyways, my SAS trip that first day was a Gaudi tour that took us to Parc Guell, La Sagrada Familia, and La Pedrera, and it was AMAZING! Seriously, you should Google these if you’ve never seen them before they’re fantastic… so is his Batillo house, which we were supposed to see also, no idea why we didn’t though because it’s one of the more famous of his buildings… My friend and I went back to the Batillo house and paid the entrance fee, which we think we already paid with the SAS trip so we’re going to try to get our money back for that part of it… and our tour guide was a complete psycho and kept yelling at us and not let us wander around… I mean she wasn’t going to let us on the roof of La Pedrera, which is the reason why you go to see that house, FAIL! I digress… Thursday night was an adventure as I went out with four other girls, with no idea what we were doing. We wanted to find a place to watch flamenco or salsa, but had no luck… so we decided to walk to the beach where we were told is a strip of clubs and bars (full of SASers, oh joy!) so we headed that way. It was dark and a little scary, so we decided to go to a restaurant because we were also hungry. The waiters ushered us upstairs and started bringing us plates of food, which we were scared to eat in case we would get charged, but this one girl just started eating the stuff and opened the fancy, glass bottled water... we thought we were going to have a huge bill! There was about four waiters helping us out, one spoke English very well and the others were OK. (One of them spoke Italian so I got to practice a little!) Two of them were younger and asked us to go dancing with them the next night, Friday, but they were pretty creepy so we didn’t ha ha! They walked us out of the restaurant (oh and we didn’t get charged for all the food either!) and took some pictures with us, probably because we were all dressed up for a bar and not a restaurant… uh yeah. But besides the creepiness, it was a pretty good night.
On Friday, we just sort of hung out around La Rambla and the streets around there during the day. Friday night, five of us girls again decided to go out, and again we had no idea where to go. I wanted to find a cool bar to watch the Spain v. Chile soccer game, but that didn’t happen because the other girls wanted to go on a pub-crawl (but Spain won!). Don’t get me wrong, pubs are cool, and the promoters were two attractive guys, one from Australia (not fair that the sister gets to talk to that all day!) and the other from Wales… but the first bar was packed full of tourists. It wasn’t looking good so one of the girls, Lindsay, and I, decided to find a little place to eat some tapas and drink sangria. What a great night that turned out to be after we split! Maybe harsh, but true! And if you haven’t had sangria, you’re missing out! Saturday was probably the best day in Barcelona, and the last for me, because Lindsay and I spent the day wandering around. We decided to start at the beach were you could get on a gondola type thing that took you from the beach up the mountain. We could see all of the city and far into the Mediterranean from up there, and it was pretty nice to be at a higher elevation again for a while! At the top of the mountain, Mont Juic I think it’s called, is a military fort, the Olympic park with pools and tracks, and the Museu Nacional D’Art de Catalunya, or the Museum of National Art of Catalonia which is housed in a castle from the 17th century. This museum was amazing, very well done, and the castle is fantastic and has survived beautifully through time. In the front of the castle are a ton of fountains, and at night they do shows with lights, so we decided to return later. To kill time we took the metro over to Gaudi’s Batillo house, then had tapas at a little restaurant, and relaxed in a small square somewhere in the Gothic Quarter. Then, we took the metro back up to the castle and found that there was a gay pride rally going on right in front of it. This thing was huge too, with a live band and DJ… so we decided to check it out after watching the fountain show. This was the first gay pride anything that I’ve ever been to and it was so much fun. They started a rave in the middle of this public area… complete with foam. We couldn’t resist, so we joined the soap soaked crowd and ended up surrounded by shirtless, Spanish gay men, and up to our necks in foam! Oh man, it was so much fun! We were still pretty wet when we got back to the ship around 11pm, and were absolutely exhausted from putting in a 14 hour day of adventure!
Today I had an all day SAS trip that took us to Figueres, and Gala Dali Castle in Pubol. Figueres, the town where Salvador Dali was born, has the most spectacular/ strange museums I’ve ever see, completely reconstructed and filled by Dali himself, after a fire burned the original museum. The thing itself is a piece of art, one that I cannot describe if I tried (I promise to upload pictures eventually). Dali is actually buried in the museum and we could go to the marking of his tomb… AWESOME! Oh my little art nerd self was in her element! We went to the town of Pubol after, where Dali’s crazy wife Gala lived, and died. She is buried below the castle in the crypt, next to an empty marker that was supposed to be for Dali, but he decided against it after she died… ouch! But she was a very mean woman I guess! I don’t think I would be able to describe this place either… it’s a castle alright so it’s a given that it is amazingly beautiful! And the town is very small and quaint, and resembles Tuscany. All in all, it was a fantastic day, one that I had been looking forward to for a while. We got back to the ship at 5:45, just in time for on-ship time (the time you MUST be back on the ship on the last day at port, or you get dock time at the next one). And as you can probably tell by my terrible grammar and repetitiveness of words that I am absolutely exhausted… but we only have one day of recovery until ITALY!!!!! YAY!
LOVE LOVE LOVE!
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