Egypt!

 Sorry my last post was really unorganized :P I'm going to try to do better with this one, but no promises! I'm also going to attempt to post in the middle of Egypt instead of at the very end. but not promises on that one either :P

So! first day in Egypt! we went on the city orientation tour and saw some of the catacombs of Alexandria. they were really cool! We weren't allowed to take pictures but I snuck one with my cameraphone :P It was so neat, we  walked down this 99-step spiral staircase into the site where they would lay the sarcophogi (though those were missing and in museums or something). there were all kinds of cool carvings into the walls and a couple statues and stuff. the more common areas were slightly flooded so they had these wobbly planks raised up on large cement block things to where I nearly brushed my head against the ceiling. I liked that part a lot :P  then we went to this section that was for horses! it was so interesting. the rich people buried their horses very fancily. and they had some of the bones of the horses in a case so we could see them. then we walked outside for a little bit and saw some ruins and old statues and stuff. oh! cool thing: in a lot of ancient places that I've seen so far, they like for their gutters to have lion heads. like to where the water comes out of the mouth of the lion. I think it's fantastic and I've decided that when I build my own house I'm going to steal that particular style of architecture :P

So then we got a tour of the city and stopped at some strategic photographic opportunities, conveniently bypassing the many garbage heaped sections of the city. They do have really really cool art here though. there's one wall that was done up in really amazing paintings and mosaics.. it was an epic moment for the artist in me :P they have huge sculptures in the medians of the main streets, too. we stopped at a hotel that used to be a palace of the kings of Egypt in the 1900s and has some nice gardens, we stopped at the other palace, very close to the previous one, that is now President Mubarak's summer vacation home (the picture that is my new Facebook profile pic!), we stopped at a castle/fortress thing near the ocean, we stopped by the library, and we stopped at a really lovely mosque. At the fortress there was a line of street vendors and we walked down that way looking at things. all the guys kept calling out "good price! good price!" with huge smiles on their faces. charming, but no thanks, said I. it was pretty amusing though. by the mosque it smelled pretty bad, the kind of smell where you crinkle your nose involuntarily.. oh, during this trip, I had been sitting next to Sam, but then this little girl took her spot. So she was my companion for half the trip. Her name is Addie and she wants to be a veterinarian. She also likes music, we discovered that we have a favorite song in common: walkin' on sunshine! and then she had me sing some songs to her, haha :P

we passed by a LOT of beaches. it was the most fascinating thing, considering this is predominantly a Muslim country, and almost all the women I saw were covered, you know. most with a hijab, some with a full on burka. I was intrigued to see women at the beach, they still had their clothes and head coverings on, jumping through the waves. but then the guys all had their shirts off like dudes back home! I just don't get it. if women are required to be completely covered for modesty's sake, why don't men have to as well? if it's because of lust, I'm here to tell you that women are just as capable of it as men are. maybe there's something else behind it though, I don't know.

on another note, I had the coolest Fanta ever on this trip. It was some good advertising, because I mostly got it because it was the prettiest Fanta I'd ever seen. Blackcurrant flavor, and it was tasty.

anyway after that we didn't do anything. I stayed on the ship, ate, and watched the Princess and the Frog before I fell asleep. all before 9pm! I was a sleepy kid.

the following day! which is today. wow. it feels like that was forever ago. I think I slept for like 14 hours last night.

anyway, today Sam, Emily, Pete and I went to the library :D we were there for about 6 hours and we still didn't see everything! and we got there just in time to latch on to an English tour, which was really intersting. the lady took us around the library and then had us watch a nifty thing called Culturama which is dispalyed on 9 huge screens in a row (like a panorama, right? so you get why it's called Culturama..). anyway not only do they have an amazing selection of books, free wi-fi, and a fantastic main reading area--which is completely lit with natural lighting because of how the ceiling is constructed--but they also have gorgeous museums of art and clothing and manuscripts and one dedicated to Anwar Sebat, first president of Egypt. OH! and they also have the coolest device I've ever seen in my life and I almost wet my pants and had a heart attack at the same moment when the tour guide talked about it. it is called the Espresso Book Machine. that might or might not be a mistranslation but that's what it said on the sign. and BASICALLY it has a bunch of books in a database and it's ITS OWN PRINTING PRESS. like, you pick a book and it prints it. right there. in like 5 to 20 minutes. and voila. you pay for it and you're done! apparently there are like, 4 in the world. if that doesn't make you excited, you have no brain. THINK of how amazing that is! ANY book you want! ever! assuming it's in the database. >.> the thing is, it's not up for public use yet because they have to get copyrights from authors and increase their database before it will really be good. So guess who's coming back to Alexandria in like ten years! :DD

l'anyhoodle, we hung out at the library, made use of some internet, and then ate at the little cafe upstairs on the balcony. despite the sun being in my face for half the meal, I quite enjoyed it. the waiter hit on Sam and was joking around with us, it was pretty entertaining. it seems all the men like Sam since we got around to Greece, lol. anyway we had good food and a lot of it and it was only ten USD each! ...I've taken to calling American dollars USD.. I dunno, it's easier. :P So in total I think we ended up spending .. $15 each. for the whole day. including food and taxi rides and the library entry. woo!

so we got back to the ship around 730 -- oh wait. let me just talk about traffic in Egypt really quick. OMG TERRIFYING is what it is. lanes don't mean anything, drivers don't care about pedestrians, pedestrians don't care about cars, the just cross whenever! we thought Italy was like playing Frogger. no sir. Frogger = Egypt-any semblance of organization. everyone just maneuvers around everyone else in complete disarray. no one pays attention to traffic lights or signs, in fact they're barely present.. it's a completely different world. Emily gasps a lot. I always laugh because it makes me think of how mom does. :P

anyway. :) so we got back to the ship and hung out for a bit, then I wanted to go out to the little shops that are right outside the ship. So I commandeered Sam to go with me since Em didn't feel like going and we ended up walking into the first place and staying for the next five hours! we browsed and chatted and had tea and bread and cheese and just sat and talked to these three Egyptian brothers all night! let's see if I remember their names.. Tarik, Waled, aaaand Maher? No promises on the spelling, I did my best. They were so interesting though. and so nice! like I said before, shopping is a completely different experience. Like Turkey, it is the same for Egypt. You just make friends! We talked about all kinds of things. They taught us how to count to ten in Arabic, too. I've been practicing! soon I will be able to in .. six languages, if you count pig-latin :P I really need to find a way to take an Arabic class. it's pretty awesome.

I haven't even seen the pyramids yet and Egypt has been fascinating!

man, Danny commented on the amount of emoticons I use and now I'm self-conscious about it.. :P lol. I can't help it though! they're so expressive. I need them in my life!

CAIRO!
on our third day in Egypt we went to see the Pyramids in Giza :D it was a two and a half hour bus ride out there. I slept for part of it and stayed awake long enough to listen to the tour guide talk about pigeons being eaten on special occasions. I thought that was interesting as compared to the Orvieto catacombs where pigeons were commonly used as food.

Anyway, so we stopped and saw the pyramids first. we also went down into one of the queen's tombs. it was really hot in there. I thought underground was supposed to be cooler! so we snapped a few pictures and got out of there. oh, when we were taking pictures in front of one of the pyramids, we found these convenient rock formations to stand on top of. There was a guy there who was blowing a whistle telling people to get down, but when he saw that we were taking pictures he was like "okay, picture, fine."  and then he expected us to pay him just for that -.- that's how a lot of Egypt functions though, they expect tips for everything. In pretty much any tomb we went in the policy was that we weren't allowed to take pictures. but men would be there cornering you and going "eh, you want a little picture? You can take a picture" .. but they want a tip for it, a baksheesh. so if I wanted to sneak a picture I had to avoid official guys AND those guys. I only ended up sneaking like 2 pictures anyway :P

so after thaaat we went to the desert for our jeep safari! it was hilarious. we ended up getting stranded in the desert for a minute. and then we couldn't get up some of the hills, so we'd be going and we'd get aaaaalmost to the top .. but no, and we'd roll back down. it was quite an adventure, lol.  then we got on our camels! that was fun, I got the hang of it after about a minute. the scariest part is when the thing stands up from kneeling or vice versa. I felt like I was going to be flung facefirst off its back! also, camels make the WEIRDEST noises. it's like.. prehistoric gurgly cows.

on a side note, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/user/ViralVideoFilmSchool#p/u/2/idxbvD2V5YU
because it made me laugh. :D

so after we ate and saw some more pyramids and tombs, a bunch of us signed off the trip so we could stay the night in Cairo/Giza :D one group already had reservations at the Grand Pyramids Hotel, so the rest of us just tagged along and hoped for an available room. the bus dropped us off like, a mile down the road from the hotel and told us it would just be a five minute walk. -.- dumb. so we finally arrived and waited in line at the reception desk for 15 minutes just to find out that they were completely booked. so we walked back down to the other Pyramids Hotel and hoped for better luck there. On the way, I'd decided that if we couldn't get a room, I was good with just going back to Alexandria. Giza is pretty gross. But we did manage to get a room for the six of us: Emily, Sam, Nick, Patrick, Amy, and me. and since it was the six of us, we got the suite! which actually turned out to be not so sweet. but at least it had AC! and a cool cool dining room/office with a fancy table that called for bowties and cigars. otherwise, the door to the balcony didn't close all the way, there were creepy stains on the comforter, the shower didn't work, and the floor below us was dark and creepy! :D but it was a place to sleep. the company was good. and at least it didn't smell too funky. :P

we walked down the street for a minute after dropping our stuff off and got some drinks at a grocery store. CHEAP! but the streets were gross. and a little creepy cause we stick out like a sore thumb. needless to say, we promptly headed back to the relative safety of our hotel.

we had dinner there, too. it was pretty good. they were playing jazz music during dinner. on loop. lol. and one of them was the Titanic song. and they played the same songs at breakfast the next day!

the next morning we woke up at 5 to get to the pyramids in time to see the sunrise. we made it all the way down to the lobby and asked for a taxi, but the concierge pretty much told us it was impossible. which is dumb, because plenty of people have raved about seeing the sunrise by the pyramids. and SaS had that as part of a trip. but everybody just went along with what the guy said... I was pretty mad. I took some time to myself for a minute to get over it. I think that made them think I was uber pissed or weird or something, but whatever.

finally I went up to the room and we watched the sky lighten from our balcony. we could see the tops of the pyramids from there, so that was .. kind of similar to being there >.>   the view from the balcony was really interesting though. the pyramids in the distance, unfinished buildings in the city skyline, rubble-filled lots across the street, more unfinished buildings, a huge garbage heap directly below us, and to the right a large, functioning raised highway. the contrast between such a great symbol of an ancient, prospering civilization and the way the Egyptians live today is pretty drastic.

oh btw, the unfinished buildings. they're forever being built taller (or at least looking like it, with iron sticking out of the top and random stairways to heaven) because as long as it's under construction, no taxes have to be paid on it. woo tax evasion!

after breakfast we checked out and took a taxi to the train station so we could go ahead and get tickets back to Alexandria. first class for like 7 bucks!

then we went on a leisurely Nile cruise for an hour or two. :)

then we went to the Cairo museum, which is full of all things ancient Egyptian :D we saw the Narmer palette, really cool ancient boats that had been put together from pieces found in the Nile! (that was one of my favorite things in the museum :D) there is also a very very large part of a palace floor that is older than Moses. a lot of the old statues have been restored. I feel like that's kind of cheating us, because then we don't really know what's real. there was one set of statues where the pieces were just held up by metal rods in the places they would be if the
statue were whole. I liked it much more that way than if they had filled in the gaps with plaster. we saw sculptures of Nefertiti, a random relief of a person sucking on the udder of a cow .. it looks pretty questionable until you see the 2nd udder there.  OH. and we saw the sarcophagus of the son of Ramses II. potentially the child who died in the 10 plagues?! there was a section for King Tut, a section for Jewelry, and a section for mummies! :D:D you had to pay more to see the mummies, but it was totally worth it. there were 12 of them and one was Hatshepsut and one was Ramses II!

After that we took a taxi to the bazaar, which was PACKED. from the highway it was just a sea of people. you couldn't even see the street there were so many. I bought a pretty orange bag with a peacock on it :) and two copies of the Qu'ran! one really pretty and just in Arabic and the other one has an English translation. it's my favorite souvenir from Egypt. :)

the vendors in Egypt are similar to ones in Turkey. some of the more memorable things they said: "how can I take your money?" got called out to us and made us laugh. and one came up to us and told Sam she was beautiful and then said "you like sex?"  ....I'm sorry, what?! it took a minute to process what he said, but then we were like, ummmm. no. >.> and walked away quickly o.O

on an unrelated note: did you know that the aztecs called the avocado tree a word meaning "testicle tree"? yeah. cause they look like balls.

We took a taxi back to the train station after we finished at the bazaar. the train station is covered in large green tarps and looks like a very questionable building from the outside. inside it's not so bad. except for the bathrooms.

the taxi ride from the Alexandria train station to the port was interesting. pretty sure the car had no headlights. the guy would flash his brights every once in a while though. when we got to the port I went to pay him 20 pounds and he was all like "no, fifty. five zero." and I was all like "no way man! you said fifteen." and handed him the cash and got out real quick. he didn't try very hard to convince me that it was fifty, I wonder how many people just fall for that. we got warned about cons like that at the preport briefing, but that was my first experience with anything close to that. people are generally pretty nice.

the last day we spent at the library again and then with our friends at the shop right outside the port building. :) I bought a ring, a lamp, a dress, and two shirts from them. :)

then we got on the ship to say goodbyyyyye!

today was Sea Olympics! our Sea came in 3rd place overall. not bad. :) I played Extreme Musical Chairs! and Jeopardy! (I sucked at that one) and I did the Relay Race! :D  it was a lot of fun. everyone was all decked out in their sea colours and cheering like crazy! I lost my voice a little bit from being so loud! oh, haha, and the medals for the top three places were made of some paper glued to paper plates. lulz.

tomorrow class starts again.. for the next five days D:

oh, so about that whole blogging in the middle of Egypt ... I did type stuff out right after stuff happened more than I had been. I just didn't post.... sorry!

Go to Istanbul!

the "best" place in Istanbul

So now I have all of Istanbul to talk about! my goodness it's a lot. The city definitely treated us well! :D Seriously, there are so many things that I'm going to mention, you might want to go ahead and take a potty break. you could put a cake in the oven, too. It'll probably be done by the time you finish reading this. :P Also, some things might be out of order, I'm just going to say everything in a big blurb.. it's not really necessary to have it chronologically, I guess.

Firstly, the big thing that is different about Istanbul is that there are mosques everywhere! minarets as far as the eye can see. It's impressive. my favorite things about all these mosques though is the call to prayer. It's so different than anything at home, I loved it.

So behind the one mosque closest to the ship were like, twenty hookah bars. most of them have cool cool beanbag chairs, too! my favorite ones were shiny and silver. pretty ridiculous, haha :P

Sam and Emily and I went browsing around and found this pastry place that had this raspberry cheesecake that rivals Cheesecake Factory! It was so delicious! They had chocolate fountains, too. Around that area was also this cute cute pastry shop that was like cafe and pasta, and that was confusing at first because we associate pasta with noodles, but then we look in there and it's cakes and cookies! and I was like pasta.. PASTRIES! lol.

later Sam and I kept walking and ended up meeting up with friends at one of the hookah bars and we gave it a shot! and we had our first taste of Turkish apple tea, which is SO GOOD. (I got some from the Grand Bazaar. along with my very own tea set :D)

When we left there we walked to Taksim square, where the nightlife lives. It was so weird, we had to walk through a bunch of dead streets to get there but once we got up there it was crazy! There are lights all down the street, like a city festival.. but all the time! It was really pretty. we went into this club called Quba and danced a little bit. it was so funny, there was this guy there who was doing craaaazy stuff, he reminded me of Haspop (this french guy who tried out for America's Got Talent. Youtube it, dudes). people in Europe do more rave style dancing than booty dancing. it's interesting. and so fun!

The next day (or maybe the third day) I had an FDP for my Energy and Society class. we had a talk about what Turkey's doing with transportation to save energy and get people together and whatnot. the lady who talked to us was from the nearby university and she took us there for lunch :) we were going to go to the Princes' Isles but it started raining and so that fell through, but we ended up sitting in the little cafe, having Turkish coffee and chatting. It was pretty neat :)

The rain cleared up within a few hours and I went walking with Jessica and Tomara. we walked by a cute park by the water and the Dolmabace palace and down some random streets where we went in a little market. nearby we saw these three little kitty houses lined up along a wall. three strays could fit in a house. they had food and water out there too, they're pretty well taken care of for strays!

so .. one of these days was the day that we went to the bazaars! we woke up, went to lunch, and promptly walked all the way across the bridge to the spice bazaar. we walked through there pretty quickly, seeing as we didn't really need a whole lot of spices. not to mention.. I didn't know what half of them were! It smelled good though :)

walking around in Istanbul is practically hiking. there are a bunch of hills and the cobblestone roads are not conducive to sandals or fancy shoes! we had to hike a good 10-15 minutes to get to the grand bazaar, but it was worth it! the shop owners are always asking your name and making conversation and offering you some apple tea.. it's a totally different shopping experience. They had told us at the debriefing about haggling and stuff, so I expected it to be just like chinatown. but it's not! The first little shop that we went in we were looking at scarves and not really sure what to think about everything when the guys there came up to us and asking us which colours and patterns we liked.. one of them had me try out 3 or 4 different ones and he put them around my neck for me and everything, haha. we chatted with them for a while, one's name was Muhammed, he spoke better english and asked us about American politics.. that was fun.

I bought a belly dancing outfit! from a lady that had an intense smoker's voice.

I bought some jewelry from a guy named Ziya who hit on me and gave me his email address. he was real nice.

I bought a really prett orange scarf since our Sea colour is orange!

I bought a pair of purple Chuck Taylors! The kid that helped me with them was super cute, too. He was probably like 15 lol. when we left he blew me a kiss. teehee :3

I bought a tea set, which I already mentioned. :)

....I bought a lot of stuff, haha.

In one shop we went in Sam bought some genie pants from this guy who was super nice and super hilarious! he was trying to convince me to get some too, but I think those pants look silly :P He had me try a pair though, he just looked at me and said "give me one chance! just try! you don't like, you don't buy. but I think you will like!" so I laughed and said okay and he went to the rack of pants and started doing eenie meenie miney moe in Turkish! I was like WAAAIT wait wait! what are you doing?! so I had him teach me :D  that might be my favorite souvenir, haha. oh, and I tried the pants. I secretly liked them, but I didn't get them :P

we saw a lot of the same hand painted ceramic stuff that we saw in Santorini. we didn't even want to ask the prices! D: 

Turkish men are hilarious. They are always making eyes when you pass them, winking or making kissy faces.. always asking where you're from, how old you are.. comments like "will you change my life?!" yeah that happened in the bazaar for real!

That night, after we'd dropped our stuff off on the ship and eaten dinner, we had a Turkish bath! basically you go in and they give you your own panties to change into (yes, they're new and clean) and give you a little towel. then you go in this sauna room where there are places for you to wash yourself, or you lay up on the large marble slab and start sweating out the yuckies. The best way to get a Turkish bath is to have one of the ladies wash you and then get an oil massage! that's what we did. :) so one of the ladies tells you to come over and they pour water on you and start scrubbing! and they scrub all the dead skin off. you can see it! it's gross! and awesome, haha :P so they scrub you and then they plop some suds on you and give you a wash/massage. it is SO NICE. then they rinse you off and wash your hair and dump water on you again. then you get to go sit in a cool water jacuzzi. and whenever you're done there you go out and grab a warm towel, relax, and wait for your massage! which is pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself. It's pretty cool that the first massage I ever got was in Turkey. woo!

One of those days that we were in Turkey..I think it was the 2nd day actualy, we went on the Ballikaya hike. We got up early and had a 2 hour bus ride to this village where our hike began. there were little kids running around, the little girls had their headscarves on, it was so cute. There were also cows, dogs and manure everywhere, alllll down the street. mmm. This hike though was way way better than the Vesuvius hike, which didn't really count as a hike at all. On this one we actually got to wander through some woods and go up some cliffs and over some streams. it was really nice :) where we stopped to eat lunch was so cool, we climbed up these rocks to overlook the little pool where the waterfall would have entered had the water level at the top been high enough..

our tour guide's name that day was Erkal. *giggle*

at lunch we saw pretty blue dragonflies! and water spiders whose shadows look like Pintsize from QC!

on the ride back Sam and I talked about boys :P

we stopped at this random little gas station in the middle of no where and I tried some pear soda that ended up being really gross! I was sad.

in the bathrooms there are mothballs everywhere. like, piles of them in every corner.

being in these countries is making me want to learn languages even more!

I realized that I didn't have any hummus while in Greece, so we had some after our turkish bath and it was soooooo tasty C:

One night I went on an SaS trip to see the Sufi Dervish ceremony. It was .. interesting. they wear big long skirts and black cloaks and tall brown hats. they spin around in circles as meditation to get closer to God.
this is what the colours mean:
white: symbol of death, the burial cloth
black: symbol of tombstone
brown: symbol of Muhammad's tomb

One day Sam and I went to the Dolmabace palace and the flower market that wasn't really a flower market at all! on the plus side, I found my deck of cards for Turkey! :D we did get some cherries from a fruit stand though, which we later shared with our taxi driver. he was pretty nice, too. he offered us cigarettes and some water, which we politely declined :P

On the last night we got fancied up and went out! I borrowed some high heels from a friend of a friend and my feet hated me :P but I had fun :) we went to a place to eat and meet up with some guys who grew up in Turkey, Chris and Josh. later their friend Mo showed up. and then we went to this really popular club/lounge called anjelique that wasn't really that fun. we did meet some cool people though, a couple from Vancouver and apparently the owner of the place. after that we went to a funner place called joyfull and raved til 4am! I learned the turkish version of the Jersey shore fist pump. lol.

The last day Sam and I went to the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and the Topkapi Palace! The Palace was totally awesome! they have the jewels of the Sultans there! it was so extravagant. When we left there we went into this shop and tried on a couple things. when we were leaving we asked the guy where we could go to eat and he decided he would just take us to the "best" place to eat.. which ended up being this little dingy street vendor (see the picture at the top) three blocks away. I definitely thought he was kidding at first. it ended up being pretty tasty, if a little sketchy. Sam and I decided if we got sick it wouldn't matter as much since it was the last day and we could just be sick on the ship, haha. luckily we were fine. :)

 and that's about it for Turkey! I love Istanbul :)

the next two days were class days and sleep days!

random thing:
so you know how there are musicals based on a certain band's songs? (i.e. Across the Universe and Mamma Mia) Well last night I had a dream that there was one based on Blink 182's songs.

on another note, I'm team captain for musical chairs for the sea olympics! :D

Greece wasn't my favorite place

things I forgot!
I played dodgeball! it was short. also I attempted one of the Insanity workouts, I got through the warmup and gave up. don't judge me! it was rough, and I haven't done any kind of workout since like... March!
I got some gum in Croatia, it's black mint flavor. based on what it tasted like, I think it's licorice and mint. it's weird.

two more days of class down! now we're in Greece! my first day I have spent doing approximately nothing so far. I was up late to watch us dock at like 230am. it takes aaaages. but coming into port at night is really nice. it's a lot easier to stay awake at night than it is to wake up at 6 in the morning to watch :P  So anyway Sam and Emily abandoned me to go on an SaS trip and I am chilling. I might go roam around Piraeus in a bit, apparently it's a pretty nice city. :)

I went to fill up my water bottle a few minutes ago and there is like, no one left on the ship.

At the diplomatic briefing this morning it was pretty empty in the union. I think people are starting to think that all of them are pretty much saying the same things. which they are.

Ice Age 2 is on today. <3 Scrat! :3

and now to catch up:

I went out by myself for a little bit and ended up catching up to Amanda and Casey. we walked around and browsed some shops and generally had a pleasant time :) I bought a pretty blue dress ^-^

that night I went out and had some fun with friends, it was crazy!

Delphi Day
I went to Delphi! and a  monastery! I was really tired that day, so I don't have a lot to say about it. It was really pretty, and there was a cool museum at Delphi. and there was a mummy in the monastery. woo!

Also, there were GIANT spiders at Delphi! they looked practically prehistoric.

that night I slept for a very long time.

The Next Day
We went to the sea turtle protection society of Greece! I learned about sea turtles and rehabilitating them and I got a cool t-shirt and I hung out with Peter :)

THEN! Sam, Emily and I took an overnight ferry to Santorini :) It was a good adventure, but pretty awful during the experience :P first of all, we were nearly late for the ferry because we had the wrong gate, so we RAN to the right one and juuuust made it! so then we had to find a spot to sleep and we ended up in this hallway on the floor right where the door to the deck was and also the guys' restroom. so that was awesome with doors opening and closing and sending drafts all night. AND we had an old dude right next to us that was like, sick or something and kept gurgling mucous and talking in his sleep. bluh. and that morning the couple that was also in the same hallway started talking loudly at like 630. >:| needless to say, I was not a very happy camper.

So when we finally got to the island we went out on the deck to look at it... what a disappointment. Santorini is an island of cliffs. the ferry port is not very attractive at all, it's all of about ten buildings advertising accomodations and taxis and rent-a-car services.. along with a couple restaurants and like 2 souvenir shops.

we thought we were going to be hiking to the beach, but that would be a bad idea given the cliffyness of the area and also the lack of sidewalk along the tiny switchback road up to the next town. and yes, cliffyness is definitely a word. :P

anyway so we took a taxi up to Messaria, which was a cute little town. from there we walked to Fira, which was a slightly larger cute little town. there we found what was, to us, the best part of the island. A little shop with handmade and hand-painted ceramic plates and bowls and the nicest lady I met in Greece. I even got a picture with her when were leaving :) we bought some stuff there and she wrapped it all in bubble wrap to make sure it didn't break and even gift-wrapped it :) she was SO NICE. ^-^

after that we got some noms and had some fun with the guy who worked there, he kept picking on Emily. it was pretty entertaining. and next to us was this german guy who was trying to talk to us in very, very broken english. at one point he said "I am speak like.. Tarzan.. yes?" or something like that. we laughed pretty hard. :P

then we went to Monolithos beach, which was my first experience with black sand.. it was HOT. and the water was gross and filled with debris. pretty sure I saw a fish head floating in the water. XP I got the heebie-jeebies! definitely the grossest beach I've ever been to. I promptly got out of the water and off the sand.

then we went back to the port and had a smoothie and got on the ferry back to Piraeus! this lovely 8 hour trip wasn't much better. I pretty much read the rest of Life of Pi as I sat, uncomfortable, in a small chair in a narrow hallway.

we were glad to get back to the ship and shower and sleep.

Last Day in Greece!
We walked around Piraeus a little bit and internetted a little bit, then got on the ship and took off for Turkey. woo!

Turkey Day
I don't know why they decide to host a bunch of programs when they know that all the students want to do is catch up on sleep. I went to some though. one about Turkish music, which was interesting, one that was just to meet other people on the ship, which was fun, I went to the bible study on the ship for the first time, which was good, and that night they showed a movie called Midnight Express. It was pretty scary. Mom, don't watch it, at least not until I leave Turkey. After that movie, since most of us were horrified, we decided to watch a happy movie. It ended up being like, 9 girls in one cabin and we were singing and chatting and we didn't actually watch a movie at all! we bonded until like, 3am though, haha.

Today!
we had the diplomatic briefing. they stamped our passports! out of all the countries I've been to now, I only have stamps from Canada, Greece, and Turkey. LAMESAUCE. I have other proof of being there though :P

I had an SaS trip today, it was for my Energy and Society class. We had a lady from the University here come and talk to us about Turkey's transportation issues and stuff. then we actually went to the University and had lunch there, which was pretty tasty. :) we were going to go to the Princes' islands (a car-free place!), but then it started raining (for the first time in a month!) and apparently it's pretty open on the island and half of us didn't have umbrellas or rain jackets on us. So we stayed and had Turkish coffee instead!

We came back to the ship and got some rain gear and I walked around the city with a couple other girls. Now I'm just waiting for Sam and Emily to get back from their city orientation! I really like Istanbul so far, I have high hopes for it. :)

There are probably a dozen things I forgot to mention, but I wanted to get you updated real quick on the important stuff.

love and kisses!

the days in and surrounding Croatia

I knowww I have a thousand things to catch you up on from the past week! I really meant to type things up while I was in Dubrovnik, but the water was calling me! I spent a couple hours almost every day hanging out by the water, swimming and soaking up some sun.. instead of typing a blog. :P but I did make notes for myself about the things that happened, so I won't leave out any interesting bits! Though my stories may be shorter because I have so much to catch up on!

So. Where did I leave off? All the way back in Capri! that seems like forever ago. So yes, we left Capri after spending some time on the beach and we got dropped off right next to the MV Explorer! It was super convenient because I did not feel like carrying my bag for another mile to get to the ship.

That night there was a barbecue for supper to celebrate 4th of July! it was nice, Sarah said "mm! smells like America!" and I laughed. The cheeseburger I had was pretty good, and they had some baked beans. nom. :)

Later I ended up joining up with some people who were halfway studying for the upcoming Global Studies exam. Then Margo came over and really made us concentrate! Margo is a teacher in ..Michigan? Minnesota? something like that, and I think she is sort of a life long learner on the ship. But she saw that we had a study guide (which was just something that someone had left on the public computers and it, of course, ended up getting printed out 900 times... it really wasn't even that good of a study guide) and she started talking about what was on it and just stayed til we were finished going through it all! So that was nice, and I got to be social for a while, which was fantastic because I'd been feeling like I only had like 3 friends and I just can't deal with that! I like people too much.

C8 -
it's weird getting on the ship from a country and being exhausted and still processing and then having to be in class in the morning.
Global Studies, nap, lunch, homework/study, Poli Sci, Energy and Society. In my Comparative Politics class we had a student group presentation on Croatia, since that's where we were going next, and this girl =.= could not pronounce cuisine correctly .. and (I don't remember if it was the same girl) she mispronounced Croats.. it should not rhyme with boats, dudes. it is a disyllabic word, okay?

Anyway so a lot of work was packed into those two days! Global Studies exam, which I did okay on, and Poli Sci exam, which I did alright on.

Random thing I read: "A recent study found the average American golfer walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found American golfers drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means, on average, American golfers get about 41 miles to the gallon.
    Kind of makes you proud."

Random thing I heard: "have you heard about the three holes in the ground? ...well well well!"  it made me giggle. :P

OH. C8 was taco day for lunch. It had been a while since I had some sour cream. it was delicious!

C9! after all the class work and whatnot we were coming into Dubrovnik, woo! So Sam and I went out at 11ish to watch the pilot come on board. it was a little bit anticlimactic, I expected him to actually *jump* onto the ship, but it was a very leisurely step. It took at least an hour for us to get to parallel park the ship. it's a relatively complicated procedure from what I can tell. and Sam and I stood out there the whole time and chatted with Maniates and Kevin for a bit and then talked to Danny for the rest of the time. He's got a great vocabulary, I'm jealous.

The following morning.. where are we now? the 8th? I think so. So that morning we had, as usual, our diplomatic debriefing, and this guy was pretty cool. in fact, we saw him later just out and about the town! It was kind of funny. But he was really nice and stayed after for those of us in politics classes to ask questions. It made me want to be a foreign diplomat :O  maybe I will.

that day for lunch we had bowtie pasta! :D just like mama makes. kind of.

At 130 we went on the SaS City Walls orientation. Apparently the city walls are a must-see in Dubrovnik. and it's true! it's awesome. I got some pretty amazing pictures :D and I got to hang out with more people, like Jeff, who is one of the nicest dudes I've met on the ship. :)

When we got done walking around the walls we met up with Emily and Sam and had some pizza that cost 107 kune :O it was weird getting used to the currency exchange because a pack of gum is like 6 kune and at first it about gives you a heartattack! but then you divide by like 5 and it makes you feel a little better. haha. :) oh! and with lunch I had this drink that was like orange soda, but more like carbonated orange juice. it's called Orangina. anybody heard of it before? I never had, but apparently they have it in the states, too.

We went back to the ship for supper and got wrangled into joining a group going on a glass boat tour, which ended up being pretty entertaining. we went swimming too, but it was SO COLD! the sun had set already and we were in the shade and it was my first time just jumping in the Mediterranean! I took my camera and underwater case with me too ^-^ but I didn't get a lot of good underwater shots because I didn't have enough light. :(

thennnnnn we went to the grocery store! it's called Konzum. I got some noms. some foreign noms!

the next morning I had an SaS trip to Desa-Dubrovnik, which is a place that helps women out who had suffered from the war, which was only resolved in the 90s! It's really impressive that Dubrovnik is so put together. So anyway Desa helps women learn skills to help support their families :D it's a really awesome NGO, which is the kind of stuff I hope to work with in the future. :) I bought some jam made from dubrovnik's sour oranges and some sort of candy coated almond things that I am officially addicted to.. and I bought some silk stuff :D  yay supporting women!

Anyway that afternoon we went Kayaking and cliff jumping! :D best thing in Croatia for sure. don't jump from too high though, that's dumb. some girl sprained her ankle and got all bruised just from the impact on the water. I was safer than that, you should be proud of me. ALSO. it is a workout to kayak to the next island on the ocean with a partner who has never kayaked before. :P Kevin learned relatively quickly though :P so our group was me, Kevin, Emily, Sam, Megan, Jeff, Colleen, Kristen, and Allison. 4 kayaks of awesome. ALSO. the Mediterranean is very salty. the salt dries on you. you end up looking like you have bizarre dandruff all over your body.

So when we got back to the ship I showered, of course. And for the first time I read the back of my shampoo bottle. they have some good writers. and little fun fact questions on the back. the answer to the shampoo question is on the conditioner and vice versa. I was amused that I hadn't noticed before. I guess I don't normally make time to read the back of my shampoo bottles though.

ANYWAY. Emily and I slept in that day and we were sore from kayaking when we woke up. we worked it out though by walking the 2.5km to the old town so we could lounge on the rocks and swim :) a lot of dudes wear speedos in Europe. it's kind of gross sometimes. and on at least 3 occasions I have witnessed them changing, with their towels wrapped around them, out of their speedos into their normal clothes. I was very scared that the towel would fall off. >.<  we saw some tiny men, not midgets, just like 5 feet tall, and they were pretty buff. it was kind of amusing. we also saw a really good looking guy who plopped down right next to us. we were like hello ;)  he looked at us a lot but he never said anything. even when a puppy dog came over and sat its wet self down on Emily's towel. she was petting it and getting fur everywhere! it was cute though :)

we returned to the ship and internetted at a pizzaria for an hour or two.

then we went OUT! with Danny and Sami. it was the first time Emily, Sam and I had experienced the night life since Halifax. about time! and it was the beginning of Dubrovnik's summer festival, so that was awesome. I was out til the sun came up and they turned the street lights out!

the next day we slept til lunch and went out to the beach again. this time it was a beach in the more classical sense of the term instead of just cliffs, but I definitely like the cliffs better! I swam for a while and I was going to swim out to the little rope they have that marks the swimming area, but the water is SO CLEAR and I saw a big dark spot and it freaked me out! it was probably just sea grass or something, but I got skurred. So I swam away rather frantically until I could see the much less menacing rocks and fishies under me. :P  oh we also saw a greenish blob floating in the water that kind of looked like a giant whale loogie. but might have been a jellyfish? at any rate, I steered clear of it.

Then we went souvenir shopping and grocery shopping for more snacks and back to the ship,  woo! my souvenirs for each country have been a deck of cards. weird? useless? maybe. but I discovered that I like getting cool decks when I was in Williamsburg and I got the Abraham Lincoln deck. SO. I'm getting one from every country. I think it's kind of awesome. :P

so that pretty much catches you up on events! it's just been class today and tomorrow is the same. I have a test in Energy and Society to study for and then we'll be in Greece the next morning. :)

kthnxbai!

The rest of Italy!

Addendum:
So one night in Civitavecchia after we'd had dinner, I heard some music coming from the old fortress thing near the port. So I looked in the gate and saw flashing lights and I just HAD to see what was going on. So we walked in there and it was a little local production of an adorable Italian musical! We stayed and watched a couple songs, but since none of us speak Italian we couldn't really be involved in the character development. the little bit of Italian that I know was not particularly useful for the understanding of the plot.

The place that Emily and I found to get internet while we were in Civitavecchia was called the Seamen's Green Turtle. It smelled really bad inside, like dead fish and wet dog. We quickly got our wifi cards and left to go sit on a bench in the nearby piazza.

So. Achilles is our Cabin Steward. He comes in and makes our beds, changes our towels, takes out the trash, etc. Except the past few days that he has tried to come in, Emily and/or I have been in the room! used to he would come once we went to breakfast, but then I think he got used to one or the other of us being in the room til lunch time so today when we were both out hiking mount Vesuvius, he didn't come at all! until we got back. and he decided to knock on our door after lunch. Silly Achilles. (really he takes good care of us and we like him :D)

On another note, in Rome, Trevi fountain is my favorite. I dunno if I said that already, but it is.

OH. here's an interesting story. in between Spain and Italy, I turned my phone off airplane mode so it could pick up some signal and maybe get the right time. Well, apparently that part of the Mediterranean is a time machine, because my phone said it was October 16th, 1999 at 3am! It was kind of ridiculous for a few days, lol.

Pompeii
There was an SaS trip that went to Pompeii, but Emily and I decided to go on our own. We caught the train out of Naples after walking to the station. Naples is creepy as mess. Its one redeeming feature is that it has some neat domes that sit atop the city skyline. It is dirty and sketchy in Naples and on the way to the station, Emily and I decided that nothing would convince us to go out there at night. even the taxis are kind of sketchy. I mean, I'm okay with you looking for business, Mr Taxi Driver, but please don't pull over on the side of the road because two pretty girls are walking down the sidewalk. That's a little excessive. Also, there's a lot of construction going on between the port and the train station. There are a lot of barriers and it makes navigating streets a little more complicated. and creepy.

Anyway, so we got on the train. I've decided that in Europe, the place to see the most graffiti is when you're on the train. They've got some cool stuff. 

Oh wait, before we got on the train, we had to get tickets right? obviously. (unless you just decide to hop a train anyway, which is easy in some places, as we discovered when we went from Rome back to Civitavecchia. o:D) well, we went to go get tickets and Emily was like "to Pompeii, 13:40." or whatever time it was that we left.  and the guy at the booth apparently didn't even speak that much English. so he called this other dude over, who was quite helpful and asked us if we wanted round trip and got us our tickets and told us where to go to get on the train, etc. And he took us to this room to get a train schedule and a map really quick, but to get in this room, he had to like, put a laser pointer up to a sensor to make the sliding glass door move. And apparently it's a little dysfunctional because it took a minute for it to work. So we walked in there and the door closed behind us, as sliding glass doors usually do. But when we were leaving, it didn't open again. >.> There's a button on the side to push to open it, but that didn't work. So the guy hit a button under the desk to open it, but that didn't work either! meanwhile Emily and I are standing there giving each other looks like "whaaaat is goin onnnnn?!" Finally he went over to the system thing in the next room and did something to make it open. and it opened, finally. at a snail's pace. We had to stand there for another thirty seconds just for the gap to be wide enough for us to get through!

That was an amusing anecdote for you, yes? good.

So anyway, at Pompeii, we walked out the train station, took a right, and the park is directly on the left. very easy. We walked around the ruins for about an hour or two. It was really neat, you should go. I mean, really there's not much to say, except there a LOT of ruins. There's some art left on the walls, the streets are pretty much in tact, there's an amphitheater, which is cool... It's a city. A really really old city that got buried by volcanic ash. For me, it was amazing to see the city because I kept thinking about how all of it had been excavated. I mean really, pretty much everything we saw had been painstakingly dug out of the ground. It's amazing the work that archaeologists have done, and are still doing.

I really wanted to see petrified people. But we didn't. we walked all over up and down that place and we somehow missed that one little garden where they have the plaster casts of the bodies. I was highly upset. See, we thought they were in a museum somewhere or something. They're not, apparently. I discovered this because when we came back around to the park exit, I asked the lady where the museum might be, and she replied that there isn't a museum, it's a garden in the park. on the other side of the park. needless to say, we didn't want to walk all the way down there and back again.

There are puppy dogs who live in Pompeii still. :) It was a happy dog town in it's hey-day, and the doggies still live amongst the ruins. It's so cute. and they're taken care of by the park, and you can also adopt a dog from Pompeii! that would be awesome. "oh, hey, that's a cute dog! where'd you get it?" "oh thanks, I just got it from Pompeii.. ^-^" yeah. awesome.

When I check my email late at night, I have to remind myself that it's only late afternoon/early evening where you guys are and that I shouldn't think that you just don't want to talk to me. (that's a plea for some emails, guys.)

Mount Vesuvius and Capri
It was surprising to remember that this was the 4th of July. woo, America! not really, I was way more interested in Mount Vesuvius that day. :P

This was an SaS trip that we went on, hiking Mount Vesuvius! we got up at 645 to get ready and have breakfast and be on the bus by 715! It was an alright bus ride, except for we had to stop at one point and wait like half an hour for some STUPID girl who missed the bus! we were all PISSED. if you miss the bus for an SaS trip, you are NOT supposed to be able to do that. freaking making everyone wait on you. there were some choice words and death glares for that young lady. Except for some of the guys didn't care because she was pretty -.- Seriously, there was one dude who said, when she got on the bus, "eh, it's okay, she's cute, it doesn't matter."  stupid. =.=

Also, I have decided that I HATE hearing Italian women speak English. Have you seen Phantom of the Opera? you know Minnie Driver's character? She adds an -uh to every other word. "yes-uh. You can-uh see-uh, here on your-uh left-uh.." Yeah, it's like that, but about twenty times worse in real life. It is especially unbearable when heard through a bus microphone droning on about unnecessary things. like how we should stick together and follow the guide up the mountain. (which, by the way, was not required.) And somehow it's just the women who are annoying. they have this way of smacking their mouths in between sentences, like a tsk but more exaggerated. and really obnoxious.

okay now that I'm done ranting... we took a bus up most of the mountain, which was a little disappointing because I was ready for some hardcore hiking! HOOAH! but even when we got most of the way up, it still wasn't real hiking, there was a wide path that zigzagged up to the crater. It was a nice walk, the view was gorgeous and there were flowers and butterflies all over the side of the mountain. In particular, shout out to Gramma Judy! I saw a bunch of Queen Anne's Lace and it made me think of going to gramma and papa's and walking with them as they showed me all the plants growing in the yard. :)

Seeing the crater was so cool, there is steam coming out of some of the crevices! Some idiots wanted to get closer though and climbed over the fences keeping us back. really? why would you do that? They got yelled at by angry Italian men and the rest of the SaS group felt embarrassed and apologetic.

There were three little souvenir shops along the way, beginning, middle, and end. At the end I saw this necklace, really really pretty. I debated about getting it for like ten minutes, and finally I did! It's really lovely, it's  a Grecian looking relief of 3 women in hand carved mother of pearl. :) I'm glad I got it.

So that's pretty much it, we walked back down, I managed to not fall on my butt, and we got back on the bus.

After we got back to the ship we showered and packed and went to the island of Capri! :D


Capri
We took the hydrofoil there, it's the fastest ferry across the Tyrrhenian! 45 minutes from Naples to the Marina Grande in Capri. :)

When we got there we didn't know a whole lot about where we were going, so we just walked around with our stuff on our backs.. that wasn't bad, until we started going to up to Central Capri - which is way the heck up the hill! I saw a sign that said Capri - centro, with an arrow, so I said "hey! let's go that way." not the best decision I've ever made. we went up some stairs and up a sidewalk up a hill with walls and gates to houses on both sides.. then we went up some more stairs and another sidewalk with a little tunnel over it. then we got to a street. and there was another sign directing us to the centro. oi. so we hiked up even farther. we saw some adorable little boys who were sitting on their gate step with some little toys and a colouring book or two, presumably selling their wares. it was so cute. Sam wanted to get a picture but the little boy was like "sorry, our mom doesn't like pictures." which makes sense really, I can't imagine my mom being okay with random tourists taking pictures of us either. So then we saw yet another sign directing us to the centro! at this point we were getting out of breath. we passed some girls who were speaking English so we asked them how much farther up it was.. they said we were almost there so we kept going. but those girls were dirty liars because it was still a ways up! more stairs and more hills and climbing upward the entire way! It was more tiring than Vesuvius! D:

When we finally got to the top, it was a bunch of fancy stores and expensive restaurants. -.-  It was a lovely view though, and good exercise I suppose, so it was worth it :) we took the bus back down though. waiting for it though was kind of a pain in the butt. oh, and it's a short bus. it backs into the little parking place and we board and put our tickets through the machine.. standing in line though you can see the back corners of these buses and they are all beat up and have paint scratches on them from where they run into stuff all the time! :O 

So. we got back down to the marina and decided to eat. I had a really yummy caprese panino. mmmm :)

We asked our waitress where a good hotel might be, but she never got back to us. So we decided to just go find one. There were a couple on the next street up (quite literally, up) so we went to the first one and it was 65 each, and the next one was 50 each, with breakfast! woo! so we paid and were immensely relieved to be unencumbered by our bags. There are two keys at this hotel. One unlocks your door and the other you have to insert next to the light switch to make the electricity work! it's amazing. and so efficient! So it's pretty much impossible to leave your lights on when you leave, unless you lock yourself out of your room. And if you go out for anything you have to return your key to the front desk instead of just taking it around with you. It's interesting. and the old Italian men who took care of us were really nice :) they were like sweet grandpas instead of the creepy old men we'd seen in Naples. I really like Capri, I'd definitely like to go back there someday.

When we got settled, we changed into our swimsuits and hit the beach! which was conveniently 20 feet from our hotel. The beach though isn't sand. it's rocks. It's one place where water shoes would be very convenient, even though I generally hate them. Once you're out in the water though it doesn't matter :) and the water is absolutely beautiful and crystal clear. When we were out swimming, it was so clear it seemed like the bottom was much closer than it was. I was like "I'm gonna touch!" and then I almost drowned myself. lol. But then I just put a little more power into it and I touched the bottom. It was only about 9 or 10 feet deep, but it looked about 6 or 7 haha.

Anyway so we swam for a little bit and I found some pieces of sea glass and we saw some other SaS kids and chatted for a bit, then we went back to change because the sun had gone behind the cliff and it was chilly.

After we changed we went back out for dessert and got some gelato and some rose wine at this teeny little wine shop, where they also had jack and coke in a can. it made me lawl.

We hung out in the hotel and played cards and talked for a while and then we went for a walk at night, it was really pretty. we walked down to where all the yachts are. I've decided I want a yacht to live on. It'd be pretty swanky.

Later on we found out that we just missed a bunch of SaS kids partying on the beach right under our hotel. They had left like 20 minutes before we decided to on our walk. boo. I was sad when I heard that.

OH! cool thing about Capri: the taxis! they are convertibles with like, awnings over them for shade. it's so neat! I took pictures. we didn't ride in one though.

SO. we stayed the night and woke up for breakfast, which was great. they gave us some chocolate filled croissants and we had blood orange juice! so delicious. The breakfast room was on the 2nd floor overlooking the water. it was really nice to eat with that view. There were some people out there doing water aerobics, teehee :)

Then we took a bus up to Anacapri, even higher than Central Capri! the bus ride was pretty jerky. and packed like a Japanese subway.

We went to Anacapri because there is this chair lift that takes you to one of the topmost peaks of the island and you can look out over the water and see pretty much everything. The chair lift itself is a one-seater wooden swing contraption without much of a seat-belt at all. I loved it! :D 

At the top there is a little pastry shop and cute places to sit, and some gardens to walk around in. Unfortunately, our decision to go in the morning was dumb, because the fog was still low around the island and we couldn't see ANYTHING down below. I kept looking over and just WILLING the clouds to move.. I could hear the waves crashing and the seagulls calling, but no matter how wide I opened my eyes I just couldn't see that blue water. Even so, Sam, Emily and I all agreed that that was the best 9 Euros we'd spent yet. It was really fantastic. 

We didn't see the blue grotto, but I did get a postcard of it.

The sad thing is, we don't get to see everything. There's just no way. But the things we do see - they're amazing.




and now we're back on the ship on the way to Croatia and I have a Global Studies exam in about twenty minutes!
I'll tell you about being back on the ship in my next entry.
love and hugs!

Rome, Vatican City, Orvieto ^-^

 I know I know, I took forever. SORRY.

ROMA!
wow, today was a full day of walking all over Rome! Emily and I went together, we must have walked ten miles at least! We got on the bus and it took us from Civitavecchia (the port city) to Rome. it's about 80 minutes to get there. It was a nice ride, I took some pictures and then took a nap :P

When we got to Rome we started out at the Piazza del Popolo, with a  big fountain in the middle and statues and benches all around it. There are ancient ruins and old fountains and older statues all over the place in Rome! you can't turn around without seeing something from like 400 BC. It's kind of awesome. :)

A note about the roads: they are not paved like ours. they are straight up uneven cobblestone. pretty much everywhere. outside the city there are paved roads, but inside, no. nada. I can't tell you how many times we tripped today! we'd be walking and looking at a building or something and wham! sudden flailing.

So, what all did we see today? Well, on the bus on the way there we had a nice tour guide telling us about some of the things we'd be seeing and she gave us a map with some of the most important monuments circled and numbered. It was really convenient. So we started out, as I said, at the Piazza del Popolo. From there, we walked down Via del Babuino to the Spanish Steps. Apparently the Keats-Shelley house is right over there, but we didn't find that out until after we got back to our meeting place. I'm sad that  I didn't even notice it! So we walked up the Spanish steps and took some photos, then we went to see the Trevi Fountain. That might be my favorite thing that we saw, I loved it, it's so gorgeous! I got a picture with it, and a picture of me throwing a coin into it! :)

There are so many people in Rome. from all over the place. I heard a lot of German today. and British accents.

Anyway then we went to the Piaza Venezia where the Italian National Monument is. One of the statues there has a really nice butt.

Then we made our way to the colosseum, we didn't go inside though, it was ultra crowded. It was really cool to see it, all the same. Then we had lunch right down the street and while we were sitting there I said to Emily, "We are having lunch, in Italy, within sight of the Colosseum. Whoa."  It sort of dawned on me at that moment how epic the day really was. Oh, btw, I had gnocchi for lunch. :D  during lunch there was a lady sitting near me with bright red hair and an amazingly bright chartreuse lacey-ish shawl. I took a picture of her, very sneakily. :P

A note about our map: There is a section on it where there is a useless map of a Mosaic Art Gallery that we didn't even see, let alone go to. That special little map covers about half a square mile of roads and landmarks that we actually needed between the colosseum and the piazza di San Giovanni. So we ended up roaming in Rome (heheh) for a long time just trying to navigate our way out of that section of the map. Though we did see some neat things hidden away in that secret section. There was a very large wall that we walked up and discovered the entrance to, it required a ticket to get in, so we examined the signs outside and decided that it was an ancient school inside. I have no idea what it was called, my memory has failed me. But it was really lovely inside from what we could see, the grounds were really well maintained and the building itself was interesting.

While we were wandering around lost-ish, we ran into some SaS friends! What are the odds?! at the edge of the city, in a place so huge, two tiny groups of people run into each other completely by accident.

We saw at least 4 people in Rome dressed up like Sarcophagi, just standing there. It was weird.

After that we spent ages wandering around trying to get to the Pantheon. we finally did with aching feet. It was a little disappointing because half of it is covered in scaffolding for either cleaning or repairs or both.

We filled up our water bottles at the public water fountain (not fountain like the Trevi fountain.. fountain like a spicket, sort of). Rome has really good water, and we were dying of thirst. It's much hotter in Rome than it is in Barcelona. Especially in the middle of large Piazzas.

I was a creeper today, I took quite a few pictures of random people and children. they're so cute though, I couldn't help it! Also, I successfully got a picture of a metro Italian guy, woo!

I bought 20 postcards for a Euro. Don't know how much stamps are yet though.

The big main street, Via Del Corso, is full of famous designer's shops and big moeny stores. You could spend a fortune there if you had one. Emily and I went in one store and tried on some pants, because we wanted light linen pants for when we're in Egypt and Morocco, so we can be cool without being indecent, you know. I found some really cool pants, but they were like 60 Euro. sad. (but I have a happy ending the next day :P)

After a long day, we went back to the ship and relaxed. Aladdin was on the ship circuit! that was nice. ^-^


A Day in Vatican City
Buon Giorno, amici! I took Italian freshman year and in the past two days I have been remembering things! it's so bizarre. For example: I would never have remembered how to say "I'm sorry", but when we went in a shop and asked the man if he sold stamps there, he said "no.. me dispiace" and suddenly it was like OH! ha. I totally understood that.  and at the least my two semesters of Italian has helped me with pronouncing things correctly, even if I don't understand what I'm saying.

Anyway today we got up and went to the Vatican! we got train tickets there, 13,50 for the three of us. Me, Emily and Sam, of course :)

We got there and saw that the line was a mile long, so we decided to have lunch first. We ate at a place that was like an italian version of Subway/Jimmy Johns! But it was Italian, so it had some .. interesting ingredients. It was called Panini Espresso. I ended up having a panini with Ricotta, Sun dried tomato, Spinach, and pork that was very salami-esque. it was pretty delicious. :D

Then we went to see the Colosseum because Sam hadn't seen it the day before, so we took the metro there and spent approximately 3 minutes in front of it to take a couple pictures, and then took the metro right back to the Vatican!

I got some souvenirs. :) I got some pretty scarves and a rosary and a pair of pants like the ones I had tried on the day before! except this time they were 10 Euro instead, woo! because they were from a street vender instead of a fancy store on Via del Cavour.

I have trouble pluralizing the word Euro. I vary between adding an S or not.

I'm pretty sure we saw the pope when we were in the piazza del San Peitro.

We waited in line to get in the Vatican Museum for a little over an hour. I read some of Life of Pi. it's good! Then it took just as long if not longer just to walk through it all! Half of it we weren't even interested in, I just wanted to see the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel! However! becaue we were forced to walk through all the rooms and stuff, I saw the Laocoon! (I'm going to guess that you have no idea how to pronounce this word. it's lay-ah-coe-ahn. got it? okay. moving on) Which, I didn't even know it was there. ha. But I got super excited when I saw it, and I got my picture with it. It's so epic!

That was one of the first things we saw. Then we walked through nine miles of museum that had too many bodies and not enough air conditioning. They definitely make you wait for the Sistine Chapel too. It's pretty much the last thing in there! There are a bunch of group tours going through the museum too, and they always get in the way! they're like herds of cattle that are oblivious to the fact that they are in the middle of the road.

One room we went through had a bunch of really huge, really old rug/tapestry things in it, and it smelled like raisins.

fun fact: if you spent 5 seconds on each artifact in the Vatican Museum, you would be there for about 8 years.

When we got to the exit, we saw some SaS friends! What are the odds!? again! because they were the same people we saw the day before. haha. 

After that we caught a very hot and sweaty train back to Civitavecchia.

We showered because we felt so gross, and then we went out for some internet, but the places were closed so we got dessert and wine :) I wore my new pants :D I got some limoncello. that stuff is best served mixed with something, it is really strong!

Then we went back to the ship and Emily and I spent some time trying to figure out what we were going to do the next day. We looked through Wikitravel for some interesting places and also through the SaS trip book to see where they were going. We found a neat trip to Orvieto and then went to find some people who might be selling it. we did and we got ourselves the tickets for the trip! then we found out Sam was on the trip too! So we went to bed excited for the next day.

Orvieto!
We got on the bus at 930 for the two hour drive. I slept most of the way.

Orvieto is a city on a cliff (GREAT views), with a bunch of caves tunneled out beneath it! it also is the home of the Duomo, which is a very fancy church.

We went on a guided tour down in the caves, which are all manmade. people used to use them as workshops and storage space. A lot of people still have caves under their houses, and they are used just like basements or cellars. The tour was interesting but the lady droned on for ages about some things when she could have just been like "alright, this is an olive press, cool right?" Then we went to another set of caves where there were holes cut out in the walls for pigeon nests. pigeons were good resources for people back in the day for food, for selling, and for fertilizer.

After the tour we had a gross boxed lunch. After that we went to a shop and got a better lunch. I was adventurous and got a panini with some duck meat on it. it tasted a little bit like beef jerky. had a lot of fat on it though, which I peeled off.

we walked around for a little bit. Ceramics shops are very popular in Orvieto. we went in a couple places and I got a couple postcards and a deck of playing cards! it's become my thing. I got a deck in Barcelona too. I will have one from every country! to go along with my SaS deck, my Abraham Lincoln deck, and my Tinkerbell deck :P

We left at 330 to get back to Civitavecchia. On the way back I managed to stay awake and saw the amazing scenery!

When we got back we had dinner on the ship and then went to get some internet! which we were finally successful at. I put a new profile picture up on Facebook! :D 

Then we came back and watched the first part of Australia and went to bed early, around 11.

FIN.

now it's a new day and I am catching up on emails and blogs and reading. Sorry I have been late with blogging. Sorry that it is not as detailed as before. I'm going to go through my pictures, they usually help me remember things. I'll try to do better I promise!

It's the last day in Civitavecchia (do you need to know how to pronounce that? CHEE-vee-tah-VEH-key-uh.) tomorrow morning we will be in Naples!

What you've been waiting for, I'm sure

Friday.
wow, okay, I have a lot to catch up on, like 3 days worth of stuff!

okay, so. I'll start with Friday, that's where I left off, I believe.

So. I ended up sleeping really late, until Emily came back from her SaS trip. I didn't even set an alarm that day! we went to lunch really quick and then met up with Sam and Laura to go out into Barcelona. Our plan was to go see La Sagrada Familia and then find an internet cafe or somewhere with internet. We accomplished the first part of said plan, after walking down La Rambla for a while. We ended up walking all the way down to Catalunya square. In between we saw a bunch of street performers. I think I might have mentioned them before. They are like nothing I've ever seen before! The best ones are those that stay perfectly still until someone throws some change in their pail. There was one on this particular day though that was dressed up like Alien, the costume was perfecto. Sam got a picture with it and it groped her face, lol.

OKAY. there are these flag things on some of the poles in the city that advertise portable toilets, apparently there is a problem in Barcelona with people just peeing on the street. >.> also, the flag is pink. like breast cancer awareness pink. It had a little stick figure man on it too.


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/|\
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that's the best rendition of the picture I can do with a keyboard. You get the idea.


Just off La Rambla is a really neat market called la boqueria. It's a fresh food market, it has everything. seriously, fresh meat, fish, fruit, bread.. all the smells mix in such a delicious way.. <.<  the fruit is really good though, and you don't always get a whiff of the fish market area. When we were there I got a kiwi drink, pretty much a cup full of pureed kiwi. It was so good!

After that we walked all the way up to Catalunya square. I knew that La Sagrada Familia was down the road to the north, but not how far down, so we stopped and asked someone. Laura started in English, I followed up in Spanish. It feels SO FREAKING AWESOME to put my Spanish to good use. too bad we're not spending all our time in Spanish-speaking countries. But anyway, so the lady said that we'd better take the metro because it'd be about a half hour if we walked there.

The metro is pretty much the same everywhere. except maybe Japan, where they pack people tighter than sardines.

La Sagrada Familia is really impressive. on the outside. well, I guess it's impressive on the inside, but it's under construction still (due for completion in like 2026 or something) so we couldn't walk around freely, and there were barriers and ropes everywhere. what I'm saying is, if you get a chance to go over there, save the money and just stare at it from the outside. unless you happen to go in 2026 or thereabouts.

So after that, it was about 630 I guess, and I had said that I would try to meet up with some friends to go out for the Spain world cup game. Buuuut that didn't happen because it took longer to get back to the ship than I anticipated. so. tragedy. upsetting. also because we didn't actually get around to finding an internet cafe, and Emily had toted her laptop around all day and I cut our time short for what would be no reason. That wasn't such an awesome time.

So we ended up just eating on the 7th deck and hanging out on the ship for a while. uploaded the day's photos. Then Sam and I went out and walked around Barcelona until 2am. It was really nice, Barcelona at night is so interesting! There are all these guys just handing out fliers for parties and bars and clubs and all kinds of night life. It's crazy. Also, there are a surprising amount of older people out and about in Barcelona at midnight. I was definitely not used to that! We walked around and found the beach, it was all littered with garbage though. I don't know if it's usually like that or if it's just because of the partying from the holiday and the world cup.

We navigated our way back from the beach and walked down really cool architectural bridge called La Rambla del Mar. We stayed there on a bench for a while and chatted and talked to each other in Spanish ^-^

When we were walking back to the shuttle to get back to the boat we saw these two guys dragging this girl who could hardly walk. She was hammered. It was really sad, Sam and I decided that we were glad that we hadn't gone out and partied hard. Partying in a country isn't experiencing it. you can party anywhere. it's pretty much the same, as far as I can tell. But anyway one of the professors was there and he helped them out and hailed a cab for them. When we got back to the ship we saw that same girl struggling just to stay sitting in a chair, with puke on the floor next to her. Yeah, she chose a great to remember Barcelona.

On the ship Sam and I watched V for Vendetta and fell asleep. and so ends Friday!

Saturday.
Sam and I got up and went to find the train station to Figueres! We left at about 1030. Emily was on an SaS trip that was due back around 1230 or so, so we were going to get all the info so we'd know what was up. Saves time! so we successfully did all that, with minimal trouble with the lady at the counter at the train station. her spanish was too fast and her english was too mangled. It was a little difficult, but finally we figured it out.

So we took the two hour train ride from 3 to 5 to Figueres! This, my friends, is where the wonderful painter Salvador Dali is from! I adore him. There is a fantastic museum there that he even designed. Thus, the main point in going there was for said museum.  But before I get into all that, I want to mention some things I saw in the train on the way there :)

firstly, there is some really cool graffiti in Spain! and it's generally in pretty controlled clusters, and not all on like, people's houses. just on the concrete barriers near the train where nobody really cares.
Generally the countryside looks like anywhere else. Until you come upon the little towns along the railroad track and they are all very old 4 story apartment buildings with terracotta roofs. so much cuter than Alabama's rural areas. Just sayin'. OH. also, there are a lot of hay bales. I'm mostly saying this for dad's benefit. :)  I saw them and I thought of our story about wild bales of hay! I didn't see any though, they were all secure in their fences.

So anyway we got to Figueres (for 17 Euros, btw, round trip). Once we walked out of the train station I insisted on having a picture by the first fountain we saw (you're welcome, mom :P see how well I'm doing, taking pictures of myself in front of things?). It was a fountain with 3 fish sculptures spouting water out. nearby there were some people sitting on a bench, who were making pretty good use of the fountain. as a cooler. for their beer. it was just chilling in the water, ready for whenever they got thirsty. Emily, Sam and I were all pretty amused by it. lol

On another note, it smells different in Figueres. different than any place I've been.

So we walked to the museum and discovered that it had closed about 30 minutes before. ridiculous! we came all that way. So on the fly, we decided to stay the night! But you probably already know that since you're such an avid reader of my blog. But for those of you who somehow missed that entry, we got a room in a really nice hostel (19 Euros per person), with our own bathroom and a tv in the room and clean sheets and internet! 1 Euro for 30 minutes. way better than the deals we get on the ship.

We discovered this hostel via our waiter at the restaurant we decided to eat at, which was pretty good. we also had a glass of wine with dinner. Wine doesn't go very well with fries, btw. We had a little trouble ordering at first, because "red wine" is not, in fact, vino rojo. it is vino tinto. and I knew this (shout out to Alonso here, pretty sure I knew that because of him), but I had forgotten, so we all felt silly for a few minutes after that misunderstanding. clearly we do not have wine that frequently!

After dinner we had some gelato and walked down La Rambla, where there happened to be an art festival going on! It was called the "Glam Festival" and it was really great! there were a lot of really nice paintings and jewelry, and some hand crafted leather goods. expensive, or I would have gotten something. But the coolest part of this festival was that they had a runway that these people would walk down holding pieces of art, mostly paintings. and they were dressed like 16th/17th century masqueraders! they had big white wigs and their faces were painted up and the ladies had on big poofy dresses! I loved it. It was so fascinating. coolest thing ever. :D (I thought of Hannah and Jess as I was watching!)

After that we were pretty tired and we needed to get up at 9 to get in the Dali museum! So we went to our room and laid around and talked for a while and watched some Spanish tv! I found a music video channel and they were playing songs we knew! from like 2001. lol. and some more modern stuff, and some Spanish stuff. it was a pretty amusing mix.

So this hostel didn't have air conditioning, just an open window. which was fine, until I woke up in the middle of the night with an intense fear that someone could just climb up on the roof ledge and reach their hand in and steal my stuff that was on the table directly under the window. So I got up and moved my bag. :P  It's funny, because later on I was telling someone that story and they said "or they could have just come in!" and I didn't even think about that. I was just worried that they would steal my bag, which had all my important stuff in it. I think it's because our debriefing made us paranoid about pickpockets. (ps, we managed to keep all our stuff, though apparently 60 or so of the students reported incidents by the end of our time in Barcelona).

Sunday.
It is really easy to get ready in the morning when you have nothing to change into. Since we stayed in Figueres on the fly, we wore the same clothes and didn't brush our teeth and felt totally gross. woo!

Dali museum: 8 Euros.
I can't even explain to you how amazing it was. His most famous painting (the persistence of memory) is at the MoMA in NYC, but I saw originals of so many things that I've seen in books! the first one I saw there that I was in love with before was his painting Tristan and Isolde. I almost cried. It was so amazing. I took a lot of pictures, and I had Sam take a picture of me with his painting of the portrait of Picasso! That museum was so interesting. I could have stayed there for longer, but we had a train to catch! I was really tempted to by a mug or something from the gift shop. Actually what I really wanted was a tshirt with Dali's spindly-legged elephants on it, but those were like 40 Euros D: So I just have my photos as souvenirs.

Also at the museum we randomly happened upon a couple other SaSers who had stayed the night on the fly, too. Richard and Rachel, I have since hung out with them and they are pretty cool kids :)

OH. on another note, in Figueres, there are far fewer people who speak English. I was thrilled :)

Anyway, on the way back to the train station we stopped and had some really delicious pastries.

I slept most of the way back on the train, the countryside was less interesting this time around.

When we got back into Barcelona we had a couple hours still so Emily and Sam bought some souvenirs and we went back to the candy shop to get our favorite items.

Then we went back to the ship and I went to a presentation by Doctors Without Borders and that was the end of that day, pretty much! On ship time was 6pm and we sailed out of Spain at 9. ONWARD TO ITALIA!

actually, that night I played a cool game with Richard and Rachel (that I can't remember the name of... something that starts with a C...), then played spoons with a bunch of people, then watched Dr Horrible with the same people, then hung out with Sami until like 4 in the morning. woo! :D

Monday.
Italy Day, a day of seminars that I didn't go to. well, I went to the ones at 11 and 8 that I was required to go to, but otherwise, I hung out and laid out in the sun, jumped in the pool for the first time (cold!), had dinner with my extended family, and just relaxed before the hectic time that will be Italy!

A couple things to address:
you may be wondering, "Hayden, when do you go to class? Do you go when you're in port? Do you have class just when you're sailing?" Well my friend, I do not have class in port. We did not have class for Italy Day. We won't have class for Turkey Day. But we did have class all the way across the Atlantic, seven full days of class, including Saturday and Sunday. When we get back on the ship from Naples and we spend a couple days sailing to Croatia, we will have class again. In fact, the day we get back on the ship, there is a midterm exam in Global Studies. right after the barbecue that we'll have for the 4th of the July. fantastic, right? and Uncle Rex complained about having to go to class for 3 days out of the week :P Though really when it's all said and done, we only have about 22 days of class for the whole two months we're gone. BALLIN!

Thanks to the people who have emailed me so far! I love it :) I don't get to check the comments on the blog very often at all, so if you have the time, an email would be lovely! ehsloan@semesteratsea.net 

I hope you feel sufficiently caught up now on my doings, it took me a long time to type all this up!

if you read all this, holla!

if you laughed at my rendition of the peeing stick figure, holla!

love and hugs dears, I'm going to sleep.
Rome tomorrow!