26,000 Words Later...

Well, folks, this is it. My last night on the MV Explorer! Last post…so, here goes. (sorry in advance if it gets a little mushy)

I’m full of mixed emotions right now.  I honestly can’t believe how quickly this summer has flown by!  After 68 days, 9 countries, and countless memories, I’m going back a changed person. Cheesy, but true.  I can’t wait to go home and share all my stories/pictures with everyone, though! Carmella and I made this cute video of this summer that I’ll definitely be showing to anyone willing to sit down long enough.

For those of you who’ve stuck around reading my blog all summer, thank you!  It took me awhile to decide if I even wanted to write one of these things, but I’m so glad I did.  Even now, I’ve gone back to read some of my earlier posts and realized how much I’d forgotten about.  If there’s any story you want to know more about, just ask.  For every story I wrote about, there’s probably about a million details I left out.  And for every port, there’s probably at least another few stories…including the ‘not appropriate for my blog’ stories, which I would be happy to tell ;]

Most importantly, I want to thank my parents for the experience of a lifetime.  For the past year and a half, the two of you have dealt with me talking about Semester at Sea non-stop.  For the past two months, you guys have gotten more ‘I need more money’ phone calls than I’m sure you ever wanted.  And for the next two weeks, before I head back to school, you will be subjected to looking at an obscene number of pictures, listening to a ridiculous amount of stories, and pretending to like an outrageous number of gifts.  I appreciate everything more than you know.

Tomorrow, we dock in Norfolk, VA.  From there, I grab my bags (or struggle awkwardly with them until I find some guy who’s only taking one bag home to help me), head through customs (where I’m sure my not-so-subtle last name will get me a lucky “random” check), and say my goodbyes (where I’ll surely ruin my super tough reputation and cry like a baby).

Wow. I can’t believe it’s over. Back to reality…

To Study or Not To Study...

Hello, loyal readers/people with nothing else better to do!

Today was officially the last day of classes…and it was glorious! I’ve still got exams left, but I’m currently ignoring that little fact while I watch 500 Days of Summer on our closed-circuit TV.  We get four movies every day, and most days the movies/weird ass documentaries they choose suck…but today, the day before the Global Studies exam, they decide to play a decent one.  Of course, they would do that to us.  Thank you, evil movie-picker outers, who clearly DON'T have an exam to study for. 

The past few days on the ship have been pretty chill.  Most of us have had a lot of work since classes are winding down, but we’ve had a few activities going on around the ship too.  The other night, we had the Shipboard Auction where people spent obscene amounts of money for things like getting to steer the ship for 30 minutes, blowing the horn as we pull into Norfolk, 24 hours of unlimited internet (which is like GOLD on this ship), and being able to pick the dinner menu one night.  Although I didn’t bid on anything, it was pretty amusing to watch as people spent ridiculous amounts of their parents’ money.  Two guys even spent 400 bucks to pie our Global Studies teacher in the face!  While I’m sure that a few seconds of shoving Dr. Bowler’s face into whipped cream would be rewarding…I think my parents would’ve disowned me for spending that kinda money on something like that.

The night after that, Carmella and I went out on the top deck to watch the meteor shower.  The astronomy professor got them to turn off the ship’s lights from 11pm-2am, so we could see the stars.  In the hour that I was out there, I saw 5 shooting stars!  I’m not quite sure what the rules on the whole wishing on a shooting star thing are, but I sucked at making wishes.  That sounds like a weird thing to suck at, but it's true.  I would think about it for a bit beforehand and decide on what I wanted to wish for, but when I actually saw the star flying across the sky, my thoughts weren’t ‘I want a great junior year!’…they were more like ‘Oh my God! Is that a shooting star!? I think so! Wait, I’m not sure! It could be a plane! It’s moving fast! Everyone else is ohhing and awwing, so it must be a star! Oh….it’s gone.’  Anyways, I’m hoping that my thoughts before and after seeing the shooting star count as wishes.  If not, I need to work on my wish-making skills.

Alright. I’m off to study…or kinda sorta look over my notes and pretend I’m studying so I can feel better about myself.  Home in 6 days! (P.S. I honestly don’t know how Columbus did this whole sail-to-America thing for so damn long. We’ve only been on this ship for 5 days, and I’m already whining. I want LAND already, damnit!)

Morocco, Part 4: 1000 Camels for Your Love

The next day, we woke up early to go to this big shopping square in Marrakech.  We only had three hours before we had to head back to Casablanca, so Kallyn and I split from the rest of the group and power-shopped. Of all the places I’ve been to, Morocco had some of the coolest stuff by far. And it was all so cheap!

As we were walking along, I spotted a really pretty scarf that I knew my mom would love.  I went into the shop and started inspecting it, when the clerk came out from the back and started talking to me.  He asked what my name was and where I was from…the usual questions.  Then, he started saying what a gentle person I was…a little strange…but whatever. If that’s what gets me a good price, I’ll take it. As he and I were bargaining, he grabbed my hand and put in on his chest over his heart and said, ‘Your name will forever be etched in my heart.’ Oh jeez. Not another weirdo. 

It was super hot, so Kallyn and I were both working up a sweat while we were walking around.  As the clerk and I are still bargaining, he wipes something from my forehead. I was slightly embarrassed, but wanted to know what I had on my face, so I asked…and he replied with, ‘You were sweating, my love. I wipe it for you.’ Oh God. Did he just wipe my SWEAT from my face with his bare hands!?! That’s DISGUSTING! Is this how they show affection here? By wiping their beloved’s sweat? Kallyn and I both awkwardly laughed as I muttered something like, ‘Oh…you don’t need to do that’...but despite my attempts to dodge his hand, he KEPT DOING IT! I was sufficiently creeped out/grossed out/wanted to leave….but I wanted the scarf really badly still. Finally, I managed to get him to come down to the price I wanted for it, and Kallyn and I headed out as quickly as we could.  As we were power-walking/running away, he kept yelling, ‘Goodbye, gentle Elaina. I would give 1000 camels to have you forever!’ Aw, shucks. 1000 camels!? For me!? No guy has ever said such a beautiful thing! I was so taken by his flagrant display of affection that I told Kallyn sayonara, and headed back to him. Alright. Not really. But if he’d said 1001 camels…I might’ve.

As we recovered from the awkward scarf-buying ordeal, Kallyn and I wandered around buying souvenirs.  As she was buying a Moroccan CD, the man selling it to her overheard me say how I wanted to get a henna tattoo before we left.  He started exclaiming about how his sister did henna and to follow him.  So, we did, and he led us out into the middle of the square to a lady who he claimed was his sister.  I still had a few things to buy, so I told her that I only had 50 dirham to spend and asked her to show me what I could get for that.  She pulled out her little book of tattoos and pointed to a picture of a scorpion.  Um…I don’t think so. I was thinking more along the lines of cutesy and girly…not a bug.  I started shaking my head and said, ‘Is there anything else? How about a flower?’ She replied with, ‘No. For 50 dirham I can only give you scorpion. It’s nice scorpion.’  Yea right, lady. I’m NOT getting a fricken scorpion on my hand.  I muttered, ‘What about a SMALL flower? It can be REALLY small if you want! Less ink than the scorpion!’ One of the other henna tattoo ladies started saying, ‘Yea, just do small flower!’ My lady, who was clearly not having any of that just kept shaking her head and said, ‘No FLOWER! I only do SCORPION for 50 dirham!’ I turned my head to ask Kallyn if we should find someone else, and while my head was turned, the lady grabbed my hand and started drawing!  After 30 seconds of me repeating, ‘Wait! Can I have a flower!?!’…I just gave up. And before I knew it, I had a scorpion on my hand.  And, because I’m such a smart gal, I had asked her to use the long-staying henna when we had been negotiating. So instead of this thing being on my hand for 5-7 days, I get ‘What the hell is on your hand?’ looks for 2-3 weeks! Lucky me!

After paying for my scorpion, we started walking around trying to find a tajine (this cool pot thing that they use for cooking) for Kallyn. We walked by a clothing store, and the clerk tried to get us to come in.  We didn’t need any clothes, and we were both pretty broke at this point, which we told him…but he replied with, ‘Come in! Take pictures in clothes!’ Hmm…alright. Why not? We’ve got some time to kill…and almost no money to spend, so this will give us something to do for a bit.  We went into the store and as the dude was pulling down an outfit, he said, ‘This one for you, Laina.’ Since I hadn’t told him my name, I was slightly weirded out…until I remembered that along with my scorpion, the henna lady also put my named in Arabic on my hand.  Phew.

The clerk told us his name was Aziz, and started to put the outfit on me.  It was super complicated.  First he tied the top half of the cloth around my chest, and then proceeded to go between my legs with the rest of it, which made for some very awkward few seconds.  All the while, he was muttering, ‘I like you very much, Laina.’…to which I responded with, ‘Umm…thanks?’ Meanwhile, Kallyn spent the entire time giggling and taking pictures of the strange encounter.  After the weird between the legs thing, I put my arms through some random holes.  Then he tied a pink belt around me and that was it. I had no idea what I looked like, but by the look on Kallyn’s face, I knew it was pretty hilarious.
 
At this point, Aziz was getting a little touchy feely.  We took the picture, and he didn’t take his arm from around my waist.  Before I knew it, he started kissing my cheek and saying that I could be his Fatima (who I think was a queen or maybe Mohammad’s wife? Something along those lines…). I managed to pull away and look in a mirror…and boy was I a sight. And even though I’d had no intention of buying it before…I figured it’d make a pretty funny Halloween costume…so I asked if I could have the outfit for free. He looked at Kallyn and said, ‘She can have it for free…if I can keep her!’ Keep me!?! Do I look like a fricken dog to you!? Kallyn, being the great friend that she is, just started nodding and saying ‘She’s all yours!’ Then, I shamelessly proceeded to make sad faces, hoping that would entice him to let me have it.  He said he couldn’t give it to me for free since he didn’t own the shop, but then pointed to his lips and said that if I gave him a kiss, he’d pay for it.  All he wants is a kiss!? SURE!...Okay, not really. Unfortunately for him…and my wallet, I have way more self-respect than that, so I handed him 5 dollars and 50 dirham (about 11 bucks total) and called it even.  Halloween, here I come.  For future reference, I’ll be the chick in the super un-sexy blue drape. 

Only 8 more days until we're back in the US! I'll be sure to keep you all posted on anything interesting!

Morocco, Part 3: Camel Toe? More Like, Camel Crotch.

Alright. Time to finish telling you about Morocco!

After our night at the nomad camp and our breakfast of tea, hard-boiled eggs, and bread, we made our way to the bajillion camels waiting for us outside of the camp.  I wasn’t particularly excited to be going on what we were told was a 2 hour camel trek after my uncomfortable 10 minute camel ride at the pyramids in Egypt. Thankfully, though, these camels were much smaller and the saddles, at first sit, were substantially more comfortable than the other ones had been.

We had a little caravan of four camels. Sarah up front, Pete on the second camel, I got the third, and Alex, wearing his turban-type thing and looking pretty legit, holding up the back. My camel’s name was Azuzu, and he was pretty good. He didn’t make one noise. Pete’s, on the other hand, was going nuts and crapping every two seconds, which I got to watch the entire time.  After about 20 minutes of camel trekking, I was beginning to realize that despite the increased comfort of the saddles, the fact that we were going to be riding the camel for 2 hours was going to leave us pretty damn sore. About halfway through, I decided to break the rules of Camel Riding 101 and sat Indian style on the saddle.  That was probably really dumb, but I didn’t fall off so it was a success!  Our trek ended up lasting about an hour and a half in all, and we were ready to be off of it by the end. 

We got back on the buses, camel-stench and all, and headed back to Marrakech, with less stops this time since we told our tour guide we wanted to get there as quickly as we could.  As we were riding along, I began to see droplets of rain on the windows. All I could think was, is it seriously raining in the SAHARA DESERT?! First palm trees, and now rain?  Did I get jipped on this whole desert thing or what?
Once we got to our hotel in Marrakech, I made a beeline for the shower so I could wash away all the nature/camel nastiness.  From there, my friends and I headed to the supermarket down the street to pick up some snacks.  As we were heading to the register, a Moroccan man approached us with a 100 dirham bill in his hand.  Oh jeez.  Why is he waving his money at us?? Does he think we’re prostitutes?!? Boy, put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and all of a sudden you’re a whore. 

Before we could walk away, though, he asked if we would buy him beer. What the hell? Why does he need us to by him beer? Then, he pointed to the men guarding the alcohol section and muttered, ‘Ramadan.’  Ohhh.  We’d seen them checking people’s IDs before they went into the alcohol section to make sure that they weren’t Muslim because Ramadan was the next day, and they weren’t allowed to drink. Gosh, that sucks.  So, we grabbed his 100, bought him some beer, and went back to his place where we converted to Islam and celebrated Ramadan.  Okay. Not really. More like, we muttered our ‘Hell no’s’ and headed to the register.  It’s not like Ramadan came out of nowhere. If this crappy Muslim didn’t stock up on contraband booze before the religious holiday, then he doesn’t deserve to get any now!  Dumbass. After our supermarket stop, we headed to Pizza Hut, grabbed a couple pizzas, and headed back to the hotel where we spent our last night in port hanging out. 

HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY, DANIEL!

I hope Mom got you strippers like I suggested! If not, don't worry...when you come visit me in Providence this year, I'll be sure to take you to this great little place called Foxy Lady. Word on the street is that when they're not busy having Bible study sessions (which is the only reason I ever go), they turn into a strip joint. News to me. Never say I wasn't a good big sister!

More about Morocco when I finish my bio paper!

Morocco, Part 2: When Wine Replaced Water in the Sahara

The best part about the camp…it had a BAR. Yep. A well-stocked bar…in the middle of the Sahara. Do these nomads know how to cater to college students, or what? Before we got off the bus, they told us that under no circumstances were we allowed to bring alcohol to the camp because apparently some crazy shit went down last year when people snuck alcohol in. Apparently, though, we were allowed to drink if the alcohol was from the nomad bar. Woohoo! 

Despite the bar, I got a coke while everyone else was getting beer and bottles of wine to split. I’m not a fan of either, and the only other options were buying an entire bottle of gin or tequila. 1) Ew. 2) How the hell do I drink an ENTIRE BOTTLE by myself? Bad idea. So, responsibly again, I stayed away from the bar.

As the night progressed, though, and my friends were getting happier and happier by the sip, my coke was looking less and less appealing. Everyone seemed to be enjoying their wine… so I figured, why not? Besides, if I was gonna be sleeping with bugs and sand and God knows what else, it’d probably be best if I was knocked out. So, I manned up and split a bottle of wine with a friend of mine. Half a bottle and many disgusted faces later, I was good to go.

As we were sitting out by the bonfire area nursing our nomad alcohol, all of a sudden, techno music starts blasting and strobe lights turn on. No joke. COOLEST NOMAD CAMP EVER! Who knew that when we all signed up for “Nomad Camp and Camel Trek in the Sahara” that we were gonna get “Booze and a Dance Party in the Middle of the Nowhere.” I had to give myself a little pat on the back for picking this trip.
 
None of us had eaten since about 1, so we didn’t have much in our stomachs. At about 9:30, they told us it was time for dinner. Perfect timing for drunken munchies. Like I mentioned before, there were two dining tents. One was huge with tons of tables…the other was a tiny little thing on the other side of the bonfire area that was essentially a sleeping tent, but with two tables in it. We slowly sauntered over to the main dining tent, but found that we were too slow…so we got the boot and were sent to the tiny one. The 9 of us grabbed one of the tables and dug into the bread within seconds. Halfway through our desert meal, the lone light bulb that was hanging in our tent went out. Thankfully, one of my friends had deemed her two glow-sticks a nomad camp necessity, so we made do.

After dinner, we all went to our tents and dragged our mattress pads out by the bonfire because we decided to sleep out there. Before we knew it, everyone was dragging theirs out of their tents too. Hell yea. SAS sleepover under the stars. It was so beautiful out! A little cloudy, unfortunately, but such a cool experience to be sleeping outside, under the stars, in the Sahara. That, alone, made the uncomfortable 12 hour bus-ride and obnoxious tour guide 100% worth it. 

We all settled down for the night, and, just as I’d hoped, the wine put me out. I woke up the next morning after a good night’s sleep, bug-free, to the sunrise and the loud snoring of the kid sleeping above my head. I was so tempted to throw my pillow at him, so he’d shut up, but I was in a good mood, so my pillow stayed under my head. I seriously don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do if I get a snorer as “The One.”  Please, fate, don’t do that to me. Even I don’t deserve that kind of punishment. 

So I’ll fill ya in on days 3 and 4 tomorrow!

Morocco, Part 1: Palm Trees in the Desert?

Hi all!

I’m back on the ship and sailing for home! I still can’t believe that I’m done with my last port!

Anyways, I have four days of stories to tell from Morocco. Here goes…

On the first day, I headed out on my trip to Marrakech and the nomad camp. It took us four hours to get from Casablanca to Marrakech by bus. As we were driving through Casablanca, I realized there wasn’t much there, so I was glad I wasn’t going to be spending any time there. I do wish that I’d been able to go to Rick’s Café, though! Yep. It exists. Apparently some woman who used to work for the US Embassy in Morocco quit her job and opened it.  Pretty cool.  Some of my friends went and said it was awesome, so I was pretty jealous.

When we got to Marrakech, I was so surprised by how gorgeous it was! There are palm trees everywhere and all the buildings are painted this pretty pinkish-red color. And unlike Alexandria and Cairo, it was so clean! That sounds like a really weird thing to notice, but after seeing how congested and dirty Egypt was, I was expecting Morocco to be similar. Not one bit, though. Most Moroccans can read and speak both Arabic and French because France occupied Morocco for a period of about 50 years in the 1900s. Also, the culture is so much more liberal than I expected! After Egypt, I figured that Morocco would be super conservative, but they’re not nearly as conservative as the Egyptians. I mean, some of the women were covered up fully, but for the most part, we all felt comfortable wearing whatever we wanted.

Our first night, we went to dinner and got to see a belly-dancing show, which was cool. After that, a lot of SAS-ers went out to this club called Pasha, which was supposedly the biggest club in Africa.  My friend Kallyn (who I met/hung out with in Mykonos) and I thought about joining them…but then opted to drink a couple of cokes and hit the sack early, forgoing the possibility of a hangover on the next morning’s 7-8 hour bus ride to the nomad camp. I felt lame at time…but was grateful for my brief lapse of responsibility the next morning when half of the people on the bus felt like shit.

Our 7-8 hour bus ride turned into a 12 hour bus ride because our tour guide liked to stop what seemed like every half an hour for the bathroom or to take pictures. I appreciated the picture stops, but the bathroom breaks were unnecessary. If one person expressed their need to pee, we stopped. If, twenty minutes later, some asshole that didn’t get off the bus at the stop before expressed their need to pee, we stopped. Then, after about 8 hours, one chick told the guy she needed to find an ATM…so, obviously, we stopped. I honestly wanted to ask her if she realized that we were going to a NOMAD CAMP. Where the hell did she think she was going to spend it!? Little did I know…

The drive was beautiful.  There’s one road that goes down the entire country and weaves its way around the mountains, so the view was amazing the whole time. After the mountains, we went through a town called Ouarzazate which has a bunch of movie studios, including the biggest one in the world. It’s where Sex and the City 2 was filmed! (We also passed by the hotel that was in the movie back in Marrakech. So cool!)  Before we got to the nomad camp, they told us we’d have about a half hour walk through the desert to get there. Our 30 minute journey through the desert turned into a 5 minute walk down a sand dune.  Glad our tour-guide was so well-informed.

There were palm trees scattered everywhere in the desert too! Definitely not how I pictured the Sahara. The nomad camp was so awesome, though! There were tons of 6-person tents held up by big wooden poles and covered with brown cloth…and they had mattress pads!...kind of sandy and dirty but I was content. There were also two dining tents with a bunch of little tables and pillows to sit on. And the bathroom tent had TOILETS. I mean, we obviously didn’t sit on them…and there were basically just holes underneath them…but the shiny, white porcelain that we got to awkwardly hover over was comforting, nonetheless. Privacy was a slight issue, though. There were these weird flaps that covered the top half of your body, so you could remain anonymous, but left the rest of you for the world to see. And you couldn’t pull the flaps together to close it because that would leave your neighbor hanging. We pretty much just took turns standing in front of the flaps so we could all pee in peace.

Stay tuned for the interesting stuff...

Here's to looking at you, kid.

Tomorrow I’ll be in Morocco! Casablanca, to be exact. They’ve had that movie on TV all day for the occasion. Sadly, though, I won’t be spending much time in Casablanca. I’ve got a trip that lasts the whole time we’re in port. I’ll be in Marakech the first night, at a nomad camp the second night, and back in Marakech for the third night. It should be quite a hoot. Especially the nomad camp part. I’m not really sure what I was going through my mind when I signed up for this trip, but I’m starting to think that I might’ve overestimated my tolerance for the outdoors. I mean, let’s be honest…I’m not really the camping type. For me, a mediocre hotel is the equivalent of roughing it.  Camping is just so…ughhhh. Tents. And bugs. And sand since it’s the Sahara. And no showers. And I don’t even want to think about the toilet facilities. They told us to pack toilet paper. Real promising.

Oh well. Not much I can do about it now. I’m gonna toughen up. Maybe I’ll be a changed woman after this experience. Maybe I’ll become a camping freak and wanna go all the time. Perhaps I’ll want to trade in my comfy bed and clean ways for a sleeping bag and grungy lifestyle. Okay. Not likely. Mostly I’m just hoping I make it through. Without getting any weird diseases. Like West Nile. That’s a concern here, right? I mean, we are west of the Nile. Which I guess is true back home too…but doesn’t it count more since we’re closer to the Nile now? Who knows.
 
I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes! Farewell for four days! Keep your fingers crossed for toilets!

Somewhere Above Africa...

We’ve been sailing for four days now! Only two more until we get to Morocco. I thought these six days would go by super slowly, but they’ve been surprisingly fast since I’ve been so busy!

I had an exam in both econ and bio yesterday. Then I went to the Talent Show last night, which was pretty good. It started off with our two deans singing along and dancing to ‘I’m on a Boat’ while the music video played behind them. After that there were some cool acts like an Indian dance, a rapping magician, and some of the professor’s kids doing a spoof of the captain.  There were also a few acts that were excruciatingly painful to watch. There’s always that one chick that clearly overestimates her singing skills and proceeds to butcher a great song. (Boston, anyone?) And because we’re so lucky, we had a few of them. Other than that though, we’ve got a talented-ish ship!

Today, I had classes, and then had a global studies exam after dinner. Since everyone on the ship takes it, you can imagine how frenzied these days are. You can always tell who the kids are that aren’t transferring their grades back to their school because they spend the day chilling while everyone else is cramming. I hate those kids.

Tomorrow is Crew Appreciation Day, so our hall made a big sign for our cabin stewards. Tonight at our ice cream social, we all signed it. I thought we were just signing our names…but most people were writing out long notes, so I figured I’d write a little something to Edwin too. Instead of the typical, ‘Thanks for cleaning my room everyday!’…I went with ‘Dear Edwin, Thanks for being the only guy to come within 5 feet of my bed!’ Good, right? Okay. So I didn’t actually write that. But I really wanted to! Instead, I went with something along the lines of ‘Thanks for cleaning up my mess’ or something lame like that. Oh well. I’m sure he knows he’s the only man in my life. He’s the only man in most of our lives these days. 

Off to write my global studies paper now! Woohoo! Be jealous!

Sea Olympics!

Hi all!

Today, we had the much-awaited Sea Olympics! I think I explained this before, but that was probably awhile ago, so I’ll explain again…The entire ship is split up into seas. My part of Deck 4 is the Red Sea, down the hall is the Bering Sea, on the other side is the Adriatic, and so on. There are 10 seas in all…including the faculty and staff sea, which they so aptly named the Diploma Sea (apparently, they’re usually called the Dead Sea, but that didn’t fly with this group). Throughout the voyage, we’ve had ice cream socials and whatnot with our seas, but today was the big day to show off your sea’s talent. Not only does the winner get bragging rights, but they also get the coveted First Off the Boat spot when we get to Virginia in a few weeks.

There was somewhere between 15 and 20 events including extreme musical chairs, tug-o-war, flip cup, synchronized swimming, and a lip-syncing competition. We all sported our sea’s designated color to distinguish us. Last night, we had a meeting to solidify who was signed up for what event, fill available spots, and come up with a cheer for opening ceremonies.  Our sea was less-than organized. Our Sea Captains couldn’t really seem to get their shit together, and it was looking bad. We nominated two Sea Captains earlier on in the voyage. The guy has a loud personality, but is really nice. The chick, on the other hand, was not exactly leadership material. She’s just got a bad attitude all around and her only words of encouragement were along the lines of, ‘If you guys don’t win this, I’m gonna be effing pissed.’ Does she know how to inspire people or what?

Anyways, it was clear that our sea was less than enthusiastic about today. We went to the opening ceremonies dressed in red, but all the other seas seemed to be 10x more spirited than any of us. To top it off, the cheer that we had come up with was not nearly as good as the others. It was clear that despite the fact that we had the largest sea with the highest proportion of guys, we were definitely not a force to be reckoned with.

After opening ceremonies, we all went off to our various games. In the first round, I was in extreme musical chairs. I was doing pretty well until some chick in the Yellow Sea body checked me off my seat. Damn ho. Overall, though, we got 2nd place for that event. As I was waiting for my next event to start, I walked around the ship to check out how we were doing...and from what I heard, we seemed to be doing surprisingly well. We’d won 1st in the free throw competition, 1st in the pull-ups competition, and 1st at donut-on-a-string (false advertising—it was actually a bagel). I went to my second event, tug-o-war, where we sadly didn’t place. After that, though, they announced how the seas were doing overall…and Red Sea was in first place! I was shocked! For a team that had zero spirit, poor leadership, and a crappy chant, we were kicking ass!

I went to the pie-eating contest after that. The first round was girls. They gave them a huge pie…which we thought was all whipped cream, but under the top layer, it turned out to be this gooey, gross lemon filling. I was definitely glad I hadn’t signed up for that one. Competing for us was our bitchy leader, who I did my best to be supportive of. The contest was no-hands…but during it, the judge told the girls that they could lift the crust on the bottom of the pan so they could get to it more easily. Our chick, though, had already managed to get the crust off the bottom with her mouth…and she was pissed that he let the other girls use their hands. Before I knew it, she was in the judge’s face yelling about how letting them do that was ‘bullshit’ and how he was ‘effing retarded.’ Real classy. After the judge just shrugged and said too bad, she went back to eating her pie…and a minute later, she made a beeline for the side of the boat and threw up. I guess that’s karma for ya. I mean, I wasn’t happy that we didn’t place…but I was secretly satisfied that all her hard work was for nothing.

When they announced how the seas were doing again, Red Sea was down to 4th, which was disappointing since we'd been winning not long ago. We still had one competition left, though, and winning it would put us back into 1st. We had a barbeque for dinner, and then we headed to the union to watch the lip-syncing competition. It was hilarious to watch, and especially funny to see some of the faculty and staff do an interpretive dance. Unfortunately, we didn’t win, and when they announced who won during the closing ceremonies, we learned that we got 4th overall. Not bad out of 10 seas…but not good enough to get us off the boat first.

Later on, I was talking to some people in my sea, and I found out something interesting. Our team leader’s little pie-eating bitch-out cost our sea a whopping 50 points. That’s the equivalent of winning two 1st places and a 3rd place in the events. And guess how much we lost to the other three teams by? Less than 50 points. Yep. If it hadn’t been for her, we would’ve WON! Suffice it to say, I’m a little bitter about it. Miss ‘I’ll be effing pissed if we don’t win’ only has herself to blame. Hmph. Oh well. At least I got the pleasure of watching her puke. 
I’m back to class tomorrow. These next 5 days at sea are gonna be rough. I’ve got an exam in every class, and two papers. Booo. I’ll be sure to update on anything interesting!

Pharoah, Pharoah?Ohh Baby, Let My People Go.

Goodbye, Egypt! We’re Morocco-bound now.

The day before we left Egypt, I went to the Alexandria mall with Caitlin and Lee. We hired a taxi driver for the day named Ali. It only cost us 100 Egyptian pounds (less than 20 bucks) for him to drive us around wherever we wanted all day, so it was a pretty sweet deal. When we got to the mall, we were excited to see that it also had a movie theater since we’ve been deprived of American entertainment for the past month and a half. There were only 3 English options, though: Shrek 4, The Echelon Conspiracy, and the Last Airbender (I think it was called?). They’d already seen Shrek, so based on the movie posters, we decided to go with the Echelon Conspiracy. It had Shane West in it, so it seemed promising even though none of us had heard of it. As we started watching, though, we realized that the movie probably never even made it into American theaters. I’m not sure what’s happened since Shane West’s A Walk to Remember days…but his acting was awful! Despite the crappy acting, the sub-par plot, and the obnoxious Arabic subtitles that kept covering some of the English subtitles that we needed to read, we had a good time. 

After the movie, we walked around the mall for awhile and did some shopping. It was super hot, so I took off the sweater that was covering my shoulders. It seemed like it was a pretty modern place, and I’d seen some other girls baring skin, so, why not? Between my scandalous shoulders and Caitlin and Lee’s blonde hair, the number of ‘you clearly don’t belong here’ looks that we got was plentiful. I could’ve put my sweater back on…and they could’ve covered their hair like some of the other blondes on the ship had been doing, but hey, we like to live on the edge.

After we’d had enough of the mall, we made our way to Carrefour, which is basically like a super Wal-Mart. It was actually attached to the mall, which was kind of weird, but cool since we didn’t have to go anywhere else. We grabbed a cart, and headed to the station where they put all of your shopping bags in these big sealed bags so you can’t steal anything. It was strange. Then we made our way through the unbelievably crowded a isles. Not counting our time in Morocco, we’ve got 17 total days left at sea…and ship food is getting old. We figured it’d be smart to stock up on food and soda (especially since soda is 2 bucks a can!) When I went to look at snack foods, though, all the stuff I wanted was so expensive! A package of Oreos was 11 bucks! Chips Ahoy were 10. A small bag of off-brand tortilla chips was 9. Off-brand Pringles were 7. It was outrageous! And as much as I wanted them, I couldn’t justify paying that much. So, sadly, I left Carrefour with only soda and a couple candy bars. Looks like I’ll be hitting up the pool deck some more.

After we were done grocery-ish shopping, we headed out and found Ali waiting for us. From there, we went to dinner. We told Ali to take us to a good restaurant...but as we were driving, we spotted a Chili’s so we excitedly waved him in that direction. Who knew they had Chili’s in Egypt? And the food was normal! We got chips, and I had a fajita quesadilla, and life was good. Movies, mall, grocery shopping, and Chili’s…ah, it’s like being home…I mean, if you pretend it’s Halloween, and everybody around you decided to dress up as an Arab. Yep, just like home.

The next morning, we went in search of internet, picked up some souvenirs along the way, and headed back to the ship before all the long trips were scheduled to arrive back. Getting on the ship takes forever on the last day because they are always 100x more intense about checking every single thing you bring on.

We’ve got 6 days at sea until we get to Morocco, which is the longest stretch since our journey across the Atlantic. Tomorrow, instead of classes, we’ve got Sea Olympics, though, so I’m excited! I’ll update on that tomorrow night!

Walk Like An Egyptian

Hi all! Egypt’s been so great so far! Time to catch up on the last few days!

We docked in Alexandria on Tuesday morning. Most people left for long trips early on, but I had a day trip that took us to the best sights of the city. During the trip, we got to spend time at their brand new library…and it was so COOL! That sounds really lame…but it was honestly the coolest library I’ve ever seen. They spent 20 million bucks to build it. The ceiling is this cool tilted glass circle thing, and there are blue and green lighting fixtures embedded throughout it. Seriously…Google it. Bibliotheca Alexandrina. I’m seriously considering going back to get a library card. 

The next morning, I woke up early for a two day SAS trip to Cairo. We drove three hours from Alexandria to Cairo, where we headed to a buffet lunch that was delicious! After that, we went to some museum, where they had a bunch of King Tut’s stuff (thrones, beds, jewelry, etc.). I also got to see some mummified animals, which was, sadly, the highlight for me. Those ancient Egyptians sure did know how to preserve crap.

After our museum visit, we headed to the hotel we’d be staying at. Our tour guide informed us that Obama stayed there during his last visit to Cairo, so I figured it’d be up to standard...and it definitely was! And the view from my balcony was of the Great Pyramid. SO COOL! We got a little bit of time to nap and freshen up, and then it was off to a Sound and Light show at the Pyramids. It was really cool to watch. They used lasers and lighting techniques to write in hieroglyphics and project pictures on the Pyramids and Sphinx as some voice told stories about kings of Egypt while some cheesy music played. After the show, we headed back for another delicious meal at our hotel and then to bed.

The next morning, we got a 4:15am wake-up call and headed to the Pyramids to watch the sunrise. It was absolutely breathtaking! Of all of the things I’ve seen in the last 5 countries, this was, by far, the most INCREDIBLE. After the sun came up, we all got to take camel rides…which was even more terrifying than my donkey ride in Santorini! To make it easy to get onto the camel, it sits down…but then to get up, it quickly throws itself forward…and if you’re not holding on for dear life, good luck. Thankfully, it was just a nice little 15 minute trek…plenty long enough for all of us to acquire this really awesome camel stench, though.

After the camel rides, we went closer to the Pyramids to get some better pictures. As I walking around, one of the many Egyptian dudes trying to sell crap came up to my friend and I. You’re basically supposed to just ignore them so they go away.  He started talking to me and said, ‘Hi! You are Egyptian, yes?’

‘Nope.’

‘Ah, but you look like Egyptian princess.’

‘Uh, thanks?’

‘Yes, you are beautiful princess. You look like the Cleopatra!’

What is this guy, blind? Let’s get to the point. ‘I don’t have any money.’

‘No. No money! Do you have boyfriend?’

Learned my lesson before. Always. Say. Yes. ‘Yep.’

‘Oh…luckiest man in entire world! Are you going to marry him?’

My fictional boyfriend? Oh yeah..there's a real future for us. ‘Uh…maybe?’

‘That is too bad. If you no like him, you come back to be my wife.’ Tempting…but I think I’ll pass.

Then, he pulled out a white cloth thing and a rope and said, ‘I give this to you, free, since you are my beautiful Egyptian princess.’

Free? Yeah, right. ‘No thanks…I don’t want to buy it.’

“No! It is free for you!’

Before I could stop him, he put the cloth on my head, put the rope thing around it, and poof! I had a turban-type thing.

Then, he said, ‘I take your picture!’ Okay. Whatever. Maybe he’ll go away after.

He took a picture of my friend and I, handed me the camera back, put his hand out, and then looked at me and said, ‘Can I get something American?’

Something American? What’s he talking about? I fished around in my purse, and the only thing I could find was a packet of Wet Ones. I pulled it out and said, ‘Look! This is American! I got it at Wal-Mart! Have you ever heard of Wal-Mart?’

He looked at me like I was an idiot (a look that I’ve gotten accustomed to receiving) and said, ‘No, my princess. Some American money. You have one dollar?’ Ohhhhh…that’s what he meant by American. So does that mean he doesn’t want my Wet Ones packet?

Hmph. I thought my cool turban thing was FREE. Apparently, being an Egyptian princess doesn’t get you shit in this world. I handed him 5 Egyptian pounds (less than a buck), and he walked away happy. I got played. Shocker. Oh well. It’ll make a nice gift for Daniel. Get excited, little bro.

After our trip to the pyramids, we went to a small bazaar for a couple of hours. I thought the guys in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul were pushy…but they had NOTHING on these Egyptian dudes. They were SO aggressive! I went into one shop that had really pretty vases and saw one I liked for my mom. I asked to see it and noticed that there was some writing in Arabic on it, so I asked what it said. The clerk replied with, something, something ‘Allah’…at which point, I decided to pass. I figured the Jewish mother probably wouldn’t appreciate a vase with some Islamic saying on it. Unfortunately, that’s not something I could explain to the clerk. So, as I was walking away, the guy kept following me, offering lower and lower prices. It took me forever to lose him.

After our trip to the bazaar, we took a lunch cruise down the Nile. There was even a belly dancing and whirling dervish show. I saw a whirling dervish ceremony in Turkey, and it was super boring, so I wasn’t expecting much. It was basically a bunch of guys in dresses spinning around for a long time. This guy was way more exciting though. His dress thingy was super colorful, and he had this umbrella-type thing that he spun around his head. While he was dancing, he went around to all of the tables so people could get pictures with him while he spun his cool umbrella thing. He stood behind my chair so my friend Caitlin could take a picture of us. Then, before I realize what’s happening, he picked up my water glass with his free hand and starts to shove it towards my mouth. After I awkwardly drink from it, he picked up my napkin and wiped my face off. It was funny, but slightly embarrassing since the whole room was turned around watching. Made for some good pictures though. After our Nile cruise, we got back on the bus and headed back to Alexandria.

It’s past midnight, so I’m gonna hit the sack. Thankfully, no early morning plans for tomorrow!

Egypt tomorrow!

I'm so excited to get to Egypt in the morning!...although, they really did a good job of scaring the shit out of all of us tonight at our Pre-port meeting.

They did a 'What Not to Wear' shindig about our clothing in Egypt. Basically, I better look like a nun tomorrow, or else I'll be harassed like no other. Also, we have to be careful about some of the souvenirs we buy..especially stuffed animals and whatnot..because apparently, it's not uncommon for you to bring your exciting new souvenir home, and after a few days, see a bunch of bugs start popping out of it. Gross!...but it'd make a great gift for someone you hate!

We also got the weather forecast for our 5 days there...looks like it'll be well into the 100s. Yippee! Thankfully, that four dollar, neon green fan I purchased from Walmart before my trip should come in handy! I can't wait to make everyone jealous. Not only will I feel cool, but I'll look cool too. Score!

We dock in Alexandria bright and early, and I've got a day-long trip to see the sights.  I'll update on my first day's adventures tomorrow night!

Confession, Here I Come.

Hi all!

Just left Istanbul! Overall, definitely a great port.

Recap of the last couple days:

After the exhilarating Turkish bath experience, my friends and I took a motorboat tour that through the Bosphorus. The next day was spent almost entirely at the Grand Bazaar. Shopping has never been so exhausting! Having to haggle and bargain for every little thing you buy gets pretty tiring. On the bright side, I had about 7 cups of free tea. When you go into stores and are trying to decide whether or not to buy something, the owners usually offer you and your friends a place to sit and give you each a cup of tea to mull it over. It’s a pretty sweet deal.

While we were at the Bazaar, Carmella bought her brother a hookah, with the intention of sending it home since that was at the top of our prohibited items list for the ship. When we went to the post office, though, we found out that there was no cargo service. She’d paid about 100 bucks for it, so she was really upset about it. We sat down to eat and pulled the hookah out to examine it. We started taking it apart and realized that, although it was large, it was made up of a bunch of small pieces. Since we’d bought so much, we figured we’d try our best to sneak it on. The worst they’d do is make you throw it out, which is what she’d hafta do anyways if she couldn’t send it home. We strategically wrapped the pieces up separately and stuffed them into compartments of our bags.

When we got to the ship, we realized that the man checking bags was the super-intense, look in every nook and cranny guy. And he was even using scissors to cut open everything that was wrapped up. Crap. We were screwed. Nothing’s getting past this guy. As he started going through our bags, we were all holding our breath wondering when he was going to find the first piece of it. All of a sudden, I saw him pull out the long, skinny part that’s really decorated. He asked us what it was and one of us mumbled that it was a candle stick. Satisfied with this answer, he quickly interrogated us about having candles. Then, he went through the rest of our bags, and to our shock, he didn’t find anything else! Success! Getting something like that past ship security was quite the ego boost for us.

Later that night, we all got ready and headed to dinner at Taksim Square. Although we didn’t intend on doing anything beyond dinner, after a few beers, my friends were starting to think that going dancing might be fun. So, off we went, in search of one of the many dance clubs we’d heard about. We were wandering around aimlessly, so Katie decided to ask one of the hosts standing outside of a restaurant where the nearest club was. He was a nice old guy, and he offered to walk us over to it since it was just one street up.

We followed him to Club Purple, which looked to be pretty hoppin’. When we went in, he decided to have a beer with us. He sat down at our table and immediately took a liking to Carmella. He started asking us if Carmella was single and talking about how he was divorced, but wanted to find love. And this guy was OLD. Like almost Grandpa old. It was hilarious. And the pictures we have of he and Carmella are priceless. Sadly, 'old, creepy, Turkish man' isn't her type. Picky, picky.

While he was taking a break from hitting on Carmella, he pulled out his cell phone and called his uncle, or some guy that he referred to as his uncle. He passed around the phone so we could all say hi to whoever the dude on the other end was. Apparently, our hellos were well-received because, after hearing them, his “uncle” decided to come hang out with us too.  I’d been hoping that he meant that his nephew was coming, and he just didn’t know how to say it in English, but when his “uncle” got there, he turned out to be just another old guy…with a posse of more old guys. And we got the enjoyable task of entertaining them. Lucky us. 

After we’d had enough advances from gross old men to last us a lifetime, we went to the bar to pay for our tab. We had already realized that we didn’t have enough cash to cover our drinks since it was the last night and none of us had a lot of Turkish currency left. We figured one of us would just pay with a credit card, and we’d divvy things up later. When we went up to the bar, though, the bartender informed us that they didn’t take credit cards. What kind of club doesn’t take a credit card!? Crap. What now?

We looked over at all the creepy old men that we’d had to fend off all night, and they started waving, trying to get us over to dance with them. After a couple minutes of mulling it over, one of my friends leaned over the bar and asked the bartender if the old guys had a tab…and, sure enough, they did. What we did next probably should’ve landed us in a Turkish prison…but considering the fact that we couldn’t pay our bar tab…we had no other choice, but to tell the bartender that the old guys would be paying for our drinks. Then, we asked where the bathroom was, told the old men we'd be back...and instead of going to the bathroom, we bolted. And literally started running through the streets of Istanbul trying to get as far away from the club and the soon-to-be really pissed off old guys as quickly as possible. Probably not our finest hour…and I did feel kinda bad about it after… but it was the least they could do for us being forced to deal with their creepy advances all night, right? I’m sure my mother will be proud…

Since I felt so bad about it, I decided to go back to the bar and say sorry…okay, not really. But here it is now…Sorry that you’re out 200 bucks, old creepy Turkish men from Club Purple! Don’t worry…I’ll be heading straight to confession when I get back. After my night of sinfulness, I spent the next day doing wholesome things, like visiting mosques. Also, I uploaded pictures! Only through Spain, though…and not even all of them…but it’s something, at least!

I’m off to study for the economics test that I have tomorrow! Adios!

Elaina Goes to a Turkish Bath...and Second Base!

After a lot of convincing, I managed to get my friends to agree to go to a Turkish Bath. I didn’t really know much about it, but I’d heard it was one of those must-do things when you come to Istanbul, so I figured, why not?

We woke up early and grabbed a taxi to one that was close to our port. We walked down a weird alley and found the bath at the end of it. I mindlessly wandered into the first entrance door that I saw, looking for a reception area. Unfortunately, I can’t read Turkish. If I could, I probably would’ve known that the entrance that I went into said ‘Men Only.’  You’d think I’d have learned my lesson after the accidental men’s bathroom incident in Rome…but, apparently not.

 I peered around the corner of the main hallway hoping that someone official-lookinh would appear, but, sadly, no one did…so, I walked in a little further. ‘Elaina’s an Idiot’ Moment #32418. I found someone, alright. Peering back at me, in all his naked glory, was an old, wrinkly Turkish man with a big, creepy grin on his face. Suffice it to say, I’ve never run faster in my life. Call me crazy, but naked, old men just aren’t my thing. Especially that early in the morning.

As I was bolting out the door, one of the men that worked there, started running after me yelling, ‘No! No! Wrong room!’ No shit, Sherlock. I think I figured that one out already. He came out and pointed us in the direction of the women’s bath. When we went in, the nice little old lady told us that the best bath was the full service for 95 lira or 60 bucks. You got the bath, a scrub, and a massage. Okay, sounds good.
 
She led each of us to our own changing rooms…which were basically glass closets. I was shielded from seeing my friends…but my door and the entire front part of my room was all windows. So much for privacy. I asked the lady what I could keep on and she kept muttering, ‘Take it off. All off. Everything!’…Oh God..Everything?!...I mean, I’m comfortable with myself and all..but EVERYTHING!? Not happening. So I ignored the lady and kept my underwear on, secretly satisfied with myself for strategically picking a cute pair that morning.

I wrapped myself in the towel they’d given us and made my way into the lobby. We were led into the main bathing area, which was this huge marble room with colorful skylights and a big chandelier-type thing. Before I knew it, the bathing lady pulled the towel off of me, and there I was….in my birthday suit. Well, mostly. She directed us to the big marble platform and told us to lie down…face up. Greattt. As if being naked isn’t awkward enough, we all had to lie down next to each other, face up. It was at this point that I started wondering what I’d gotten us into.

After lying on the hot marble for 15 minutes, I heard the door open. In came the little old lady who had been behind the reception desk…and she, like us, was now naked. And holding a sponge and a bucket. Oh dear lord. They scrub and massage you while THEY’RE naked too!? Alright...maybe this wasn’t my best idea.

While my walk to the marble platform was more like an awkward walk of shame, my lady confidently strutted her stuff as she made her way to where I was lying. Then, she started scrubbing. And, boy, was she thorough…really thorough. As in, I definitely got felt up. A lot. And it didn’t help that throughout the whole awkward feel up, she kept muttering, ‘Is good for you?...You like?’ Who knew that getting groped by a naked 70 year old woman was included in the full service option? They really should advertise that more.

After my grope session was over, the lady led me to a fancy looking sink where she rinsed me off…aka threw buckets of water on me as I gasped for air. Then, it was back to the marble platform to get soaped up. During my soap scrub, we took another trip to second base, which was just as delightful as it had been the first time around. For a few brief moments, I tossed around the possibility that my lady swung for the other team…but then I realized the ridiculousness of such an idea. Do Turkish lesbians even exist? Surely not. How would they ever decide the number of wives that a Muslim lesbian was allowed to have? Way too complicated.

When my soap scrub was done, we headed back to the fancy sink for ‘let’s try to drown Elaina with buckets of water’ round 2.  It was swell.  After that, my lady washed my hair using only the finest Turkish products…Head and Shoulders, I believe it was. And then I got a complimentary hair-braiding after. I’m one lucky gal, eh?

All in all…an interesting experience, to say the least. FYI-I went back to the boat and promptly showered. More about Istanbul soon!

Istanbul, Not Constantinople

Day two of Istanbul...and I still love this place. If things keep up like this…Istanbul might end up being my favorite port city.

A recap of my day:

I woke up early for an SAS trip that was headed to the Prince’s Isles, a group of islands off the Turkish coast. We took a ferry over to the biggest island, where we got to take horse-drawn carriage tours around the entire thing. It was super pretty—kinda reminded me of a Caribbean island more than something you’d find in Turkey. We grabbed lunch, and I had a delicious (and cheap) lamb kebab. Turkish food is definitely right down my alley.

After we took the ferry back to Istanbul, I showered and met up with Carmella and Brianna. Then, since they hadn’t been yet, we headed to the Grand Bazaar.  Yessss. I’m estimating that at least 1/3 of the time I spend in Istanbul will be at the Bazaar...which I definitely don’t mind.

I’m not sure if it was because I was freshly showered and looking in tip-top shape or if the clerks were desperate at the end of a long day, but every clerk that we passed went out of their way to get our attention and get us into their shop. As aggressive as I’d thought the clerks were yesterday when I came with my class, they were ten times more aggressive when it was just us three girls.

As soon as we walked into the Bazaar, a guy (who, might I add, was actually really cute) walked up to me and said, ‘Didn’t I see you last night?’…Since I’d been there the day before, I figured maybe I’d come by his shop and he remembered me. So in my usual, witty fashion, I stammered out an, ‘Er, umm…maybe?’ He looked at me intensely as he nodded and said, ‘Oh yes. I definitely saw you last night…I think you were in my dreams.’…Oy vey. Should have seen that one coming. I guess crappy one-liners aren't exclusive to sketchy American guys. Good to know.

We spent the rest of our time in the Bazaar hearing a variety of different things...all along the lines of:

‘Where are you from? America?...American girls are my favorite!’

‘Omg! Are you the Charlie’s Angels?....because, if not, you can be MY angels!’

‘Where are you from? Canada?...Canadian girls are my favorite!’

‘Are you the Spice Girls?! You could definitely spice up MY life!’

…and the list goes on. We were pretty popular…along with every other girl in the bazaar.

After we’d been flattered enough, we headed to dinner…where I got lamb kebabs. Again. And they were delicious. Again. And then we headed back to the boat for an early night. Which is where I am now. My roomie’s gone for the night, so I’ve got the cabin to myself, which is a super rare occurrence. I’m gonna watch a movie and hit the sack...what can I say? I'm a party animal. 

Turkish bath in the morning! Should make for quite the story.

Bargaining 101

Hello from Istanbul!

Yep. I’ve finally made it. I’ve only been here a day…but so far so GREAT! I love this place! Walking down the street, it's normal to see a woman completely covered from head to toe in full Muslim garb standing next to a girl in shorts and a tank top. They weren't joking when they said this place was where east meets west.

It took a little while longer than normal to clear customs than it usually does in other ports, but I got off the ship at about noon and headed straight on a trip for my Econ class. We headed to the Grand Bazaar to learn how to bargain. For those of you who don’t know, the Grand Bazaar is basically like shopping Heaven. It’s this HUGE shopping district in Istanbul that has over 4000 shops! I saw scarves, rugs, jewelry, leather, knock-off bags, lamps, etc. You name it, they have it.

Anyways, my professor, Dr. D, is this cute, little Indian man who’s traveled a ton and knows like 5 languages. For our class, he wanted to teach us how to bargain and help us get some good deals along the way. When we first got there, it was so overwhelming! Not only are there 4000 shops, but there are also 4000 shop-owners who are using whatever tricks they have up their sleeves to get you to come into THEIR shop and not the shop two doors down that’s selling the same thing.
Before we started looking for stuff to buy, Dr. D gave us some rules on how to bargain. Basically, if you find something you like, you ask how much it is. The shop-owner will then tell you some price that’s really inflated. At that point, even if you’re willing to pay that much, you have to pretend that that’s an outrageous price and not something that you could even think of affording. Like clockwork, the shop-owner will then offer you a new, lower price and tell you that since you’re a ‘special customer,’ they’ll make you a great deal.

Here’s where you actually have to think about how much you’re willing to spend. You, then, offer your own price, even if it’s much less than you think they’ll accept. The shop-owner will either accept it or offer you a new price that was lower than the one before it, but still not as low as your offer. A little confusing, but a pretty simple process once you get into it. Also, number one rule—NEVER start bargaining unless you’re actually serious about buying whatever it is you’re looking at. The process, depending on what you’re looking at, can take like 15 or 20 minutes…so it’d just be a waste of time if you weren’t actually gonna buy it.

After his explanation, Dr. D decided to show us how it was done. One of the kids in my class wanted to buy a lamp…one of those antique-looking, Aladdin-style lamps (you know, the genie pops out kinda lamps). The price that the owner first quoted was 45 lira (or $30). The student Dr. D was bargaining for told him that he didn’t wanna pay more than 30 lira ($20) for it. So Dr. D went to work…

Dr. D: ‘Is 45 the best you can do for my wonderful nephew, here, who’s just a poor, poor student?’
Owner: ‘Yes, I’m sorry, but that’s the lowest I can go…’
Dr. D: after a longgggg pause…. ‘Well, does it at least come with a genie?’
Owner: ‘Oh, yes! It definitely comes with a genie! But you only get to see the genie AFTER you buy it!’
Dr. D: ‘Hmm…Are you sure you can’t do ANY lower than 45 lira for my poor nephew?’
Owner: ‘Okay…for you, I make a deal. I’ll give you the lamp..PLUS the genie for 40 lira!’
Dr. D: after another longggggg pause…. ‘How many wishes will the genie grant him?’
Owner: ‘As many wishes as you want! A million wishes…after you buy it, of course!’
Dr. D: ‘Wow! A million wishes!? That’s wonderful! A lamp, a genie, AND a million wishes for only 40 lira!?’
Owner: ‘Yes! For just 40 lira!’
Dr. D: ‘Well, that’s just great!...but, you see, my nephew, here, doesn’t want the genie or the wishes. He just wants the lamp. So what is the price WITHOUT the genie and the wishes?’
Owner: ‘…Okay…without it…I give it to you for 35!’

….Eventually Dr. D managed to get him down to 30 lira…which is exactly how much the kid wanted to spend! Also, the kid wasn’t related to Dr. D in any way haha. He was just kinda dark-skinned. So, you can imagine the look on the kid’s face when Dr. D kept going on about his wonderful nephew.

I didn’t end up buying anything today…which is a BIG deal considering the fact that I have little self control when it comes to shopping. I was too overwhelmed by everything to figure out what I wanted. I’ll definitely be heading back there, though! I'll keep ya posted!

So long, Greece. Part 2

After our donkey ride, we got dinner and headed to the airport for our flight back to Athens. The next morning, we got up early to go to the New Acropolis Museum, which was cool to see. Then we walked around Athens for a little while until we grabbed a taxi to take us to get one last gyros before we had to be on the boat. When we got into the taxi, we told the driver we wanted to go to a really good, cheap gyros place. He didn’t seem to understand English really well, but he seemed to get the gist. He kept muttering, ‘good food, we go to seaside’…okay, sounds good.

On the way, our driver, whose name was Pol, told us all about his 28 year old son named Socrates. Pol asked us how old all of us were, and since Brianna was sitting up front, I decided to gush about what a coincidence it was that Brianna was 28 too! Fyi-she’s 19. Pol thought it was so great that she was his son’s age and continued to tell us about Socrates and how he looked just liked David Beckham—unlikely considering what Pol looked like..but we went along with it. Pol seemed to take a liking to Brianna and told her that his son would really like her. She laughed and gave us the ‘oh God, what have I gotten myself into?’ look as Pol told us that Socrates would be visiting America soon. He asked if any of us lived near New Jersey, and Brianna said she did, since she’s in Connecticut. Pol’s face lit up and said that that’s where Socrates was flying to. He then proceeded to ask Brianna if she would meet him at the airport. At this point, Carmella and I were almost in tears laughing in the backseat. In ten minutes, it seemed as though Brianna had managed to find herself a potential husband.

After passing a billion great-looking gyros places, Pol stopped at a nice restaurant and told us that was where we should go. We all nodded our heads, knowing that as soon as he drove away, we’d walk to one of the other places he’d passed up. Before we knew it, though, he parked the car, got out, and made his way into the restaurant. Is he seriously coming in to eat with us?! The three of us had no idea what to do…so we followed him in. He was weird…but harmless. He asked for a table and sat down with us to eat. Although this wasn’t what we’d wanted, we figured we’d at least get gyros finally. Once we got the menus, we quickly saw that, unlike every other restaurant that we’d encountered in Greece, apparently this one didn’t serve gyros. Great. At this point, we gave up and just ordered food.

Pol kept talking about Socrates and how much he would like Brianna. He also told us how he knew good Greek boys for Carmella and I. Thank God…because I was getting jealous. Pol ordered octopus and insisted that we try it. After a few minutes of cajoling, we all took small bites…and then proceeded to spit it out into our napkins when Pol wasn’t looking. It was absolutely disgusting. When we got the check, Pol told us he’d go start the car…yep, he split. So we were stuck paying for his disgusting octopus. We got back in the taxi, and he took us to our port, and we were all so happy to finally be back. We figured since we’d bought him lunch, the taxi ride wouldn’t cost us much. Before we got out, though, he said, ‘15 euros each’ (fyi-a taxi ride from the main area of Athens to our port was about 15 euros TOTAL)…is this guy SERIOUS!?! We bought him octopus and listened to his stories about Socrates for over an hour, and now he wants us to pay another 15 euros for the stupid taxi ride!?! Ughhhhhhhhhh. We didn’t really have much of a choice, though. Note to self: you’re all idiots.

In other news, we’ll be in Istanbul tomorrow! And I’ll be staying on the ship every night, so I’ll be able to keep up-to-date with this thing way more frequently!  Hopefully I’ll have some good stories!

So long, Greece. Part 1

Hi all!

Greece was so fun! Lots to catch up on!

On the second morning, I woke up to catch a ferry to Mykonos, a Greek island that’s about a four hour ride away. When I got there, I dropped my stuff at the hotel, and left for the beach. We’d heard it wasn’t uncommon to see celebrities there, so we were excited! It was super pretty, and I was thankful for the sand, since the Croatian beaches had been pebble beaches. After hours in the sun, and sadly, no celebrity sightings, we decided to head back and get ready for dinner. Although we’d walked down to the beach, it was all downhill…steep downhill, so we decided to have the beach bar call a taxi for us. Unfortunately, none of the only 30 taxis on the whole island was able to come pick us up…so we started walking up…Let’s just say, I’ll never complain about walking from lower campus to upper campus ever again.

After about an hour of walking and accidentally getting on the wrong bus, we finally managed to snag a taxi and share it with two girls from Australia who were heading in the same direction as us. As I was introducing myself and telling them where I was from, one of the girls looked at me and said, ‘Oh my God! Your southern accent is SO cute!’…my southern accent? You mean, my almost nonexistent southern accent (unless I’m saying ‘ya’ll’)? Hmm…interesting. I said thanks, and she continued on in her cool Australian accent with, ‘Wow! You, honestly, sound JUST like Britney Spears!’…WHAT!? Is she serious!? Wait…should I be flattered or insulted? Regardless...it’s settled.  This chick MUST be deaf. We parted ways with our new clearly hard of hearing Aussie pals and went back to the hotel to prep for dinner and dancing.

The next morning, I woke up bright and early to catch a ferry to Santorini. When we got there, we found a hotel to stay at near the main area of the island, Fira. We got showered, had dinner, and did some shopping around town. Whenever we’d go into stores, people would ask us where we were from and before we could answer, they would say, Canada??....so, we went with it. We told everyone we were from Halifax…which was partially true…I mean, that’s where the boat started from.

On our last day in Santorini, we went up to an area called Oia, where all the pretty white houses with blue roofs are! We found the post office that was in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, too! We wandered around town all day and took a cable car ride down the side of the mountain. On the way back up, we opted to ride donkeys…which was terrifying. It was only 5 euros, so I figured sure, why not? Plus, I went to horse camp in the 5th grade (don’t judge)...how much different could it really be? How about…a lot different. I mean, there was a saddle-type thingy that I got to sit on. And a weird metal bar thing that I got to hold onto. But the donkey driver totally creeped me out. And he smelled worse than the donkey did. When I asked if my 5 euros included insurance, he looked at me like I was the dumbest person to ever walk the planet…so I took that as a no.

My donkey (whose name I never even learned) kept going way too close to the edge for comfort. And when I would tell him not to, he wouldn’t listen…which I figured was because he probably only spoke Greek. I spent the entire 15 minute ride talking about how I was too young to die, but rejoicing in the fact that death by donkey would make for a pretty cool gravestone. I’m sure my friends were thrilled they’d brought me along. When we got to the top, the creepy driver helped me off my donkey, and my foot got stuck in the foot holder thing…which was interesting since I was wearing a dress. Brilliant planning, Elaina. All of Santorini got a free show. At that point, though, I didn’t care. I was happy to have my feet firmly planted on the ground…even if it meant flashing some Greeks. 

It's all Greek to me!

Phew. Day one of Greece was a success, and I’m absolutely wiped!

First, I went on an SAS trip to the Acropolis (where the Parthenon is) with a few friends. After climbing about 2.5 million super slippery steps, we finally made it to the top. It was so cool to see the real Parthenon! I mean, our Nashville replica is great and all, but it’s got nothing on this one. The view from the top was amazing!

After about an hour of snapping pictures and standing out in the hot sun, we made our way back down the slippery steps, which was substantially scarier than it had been walking up. We headed over to La Plaka, an area with a bunch of cute streets lined with shops and cafes. We stopped at a restaurant for some drinks and baklava, which was absolutely delicious!

After our midday snack, we did a little more shopping. When we got to the last store, we looked around for awhile and bought a couple things. As we were walking out, one of the clerks who had been helping us asked me my name. I told him, and then he politely continued to ask everyone else’s names. After we’d all given him our names, he looked back at me, pointed, and said, ‘I like you the best.’ I was a little taken aback, but hey, who wouldn’t be flattered? I looked disgusting and sweaty, and this guy still liked me. Score! I smiled and started backing away when, out of nowhere, he grabbed my arm and proceeded to ask, ‘do you have husband?’ IS HE SERIOUS!? I gave him a wide-eyed, deer-in-headlights look as I so cleverly responded with, ‘er…umm…well…uhh.’ Apparently any wit I may possess flies out the door when a Greek man questions my marital status. Good to know for the future.

As I continued to stammer unintelligibly, he kept shaking my arm and saying, ‘if you no have husband, I will be husband.’ Clever response number two: ‘I…umm…don’t want…umm…don’t need…a husband…’ Clerk: ‘Okay…I will be boyfriend!’ Boy, this guy doesn’t take a hint. Maybe I’d have considered him if he was ten years younger and not already balding, but what can I say? A girl’s gotta have standards. I continued to awkwardly back away, this time having to tug my arm out of his grip.  To his chagrin, I finally managed to wriggle loose. He continued to excitedly say ‘Husband! Husband! I am good husband!’ as I walked away. Once we rounded the corner, my friends and I all started laughing hysterically. A few hours into Greece, and I’d already gotten a proposal!? If this is any indication of how Greece is going to be for the next five days, then I’m excited.

After my proposal, we found a restaurant that promised to give us an authentic Greek experience. We went in and saw that all the waiters were wearing togas! And the waitresses had on pink ones! As I read through the menu, I realized that there were very few entrees on it that I was willing to eat. I wasn’t really in the mood for rabbit, duck, or pig’s liver…so I went with one of the few entrees that I thought sounded safe: a good ‘ol steak. How can you go wrong with steak, right?

When my meal arrived, the steak looked delicious! One problem, though. All they gave me was a spoon and knife. I summoned one of my toga-ed waitresses over and asked for a fork. For some reason, she looked at me like I’d just told her to slaughter her first-born and replied with, ‘We do not use forks here. They are a sign of war. We, Greeks, do not like fighting.’ Is this chick seriously telling me that I’m supposed to use a SPOON to eat my steak? She’s gotta be fricken kidding me. I continued to look up at her waiting for her to crack a smile, and say ‘Gotcha!’…but that never happened. Well, here goes. I wanted an authentic Greek meal…and apparently, I’ve got one. So, I dug into my steak, spoon first. It was an interesting experience. Cutting a bite of steak took more effort than I’ve ever had to spend on eating. On the bright side, by the time I managed to saw off a piece, I’d probably already burned off the calories from my previous bite. After I managed to cut my whole steak, I was absolutely exhausted. Which is where I’m at now. Completely exhausted. Sadly, we didn’t get to go see Eclipse tonight…but I just found out that my roommate bought a boot-leg version of it today…so, I know what I’ll be doing when we leave Greece.

I head to Mykonos bright and early tomorrow morning! I’ll do my best not to get proposed to again, but I can’t make any promises. :]

Opa!

I'm in Greece! We docked into Piraeus, which is the Athens port, late last night around 2am or so. We couldn't get off the ship, though, because we had to wait for customs officials to come check our passports and clear us early this morning. Now, I'm sitting in the port terminal using the free internet with about a bajillion other SASers, or SASholes, as we're so affectionately called. I've got a trip in an hour, so it wasn't worth it to leave the port area. Unfortunately, the internet is superrrrr slow, so uploading pictures on Facebook didn't work out so well. I promise I'll figure out a way to get some up somehow!

I've also been diligently working to figure out times for ferries to the islands and whatnot. We're going to Mykonos tomorrow, and from there, the plan is to head to Santorini. During our pre-port meeting last night, they warned us about ferry strikes and public transportation strikes, etc. Basically, they told us to get our asses back to Athens before the last day because if you don't make it onto the ship by the time they need to leave, then you're stuck here and you've gotta figure out a way to get yourself to Istanbul. Sooooo, the plan for now is to make sure we're back here on the night before we leave...because getting left behind would suck. And I'm sure a plane ticket to Turkey isn't cheap.

Today, the plan is to hit up all the major sites, i.e. the Parthenon, etc. We've also been looking into going to an outdoor theater tonight to see Eclipse. Some people on the ship managed to get it boot-leg in Croatia, and we've heard it's really good. Plus, being deprived of the entertainment world sucks. I miss TV! They broadcast the World Cup Finals the other night on the ship, though! (Yay Spain!) They usually only broadcast super important stuff like presidential inaugurations, so it was pretty exciting that a soccer game qualified as super important.

I'm off to grab lunch before my trip! I'll post more later about my day 1 adventures in Athens!

Dubrovnik or Bust

Hi all!

We left Croatia yesterday and now we’re Greece-bound.

I went to Montenegro on an SAS trip the day before we left, and it was so pretty! I don’t really know much about Montenegro (I probably should’ve listened to the tour guide instead of putting my headphones in on the drive there…), but it was pretty similar to Croatia, except the food in Croatia was better. Other than that, though, Montenegro was nice to see! 

When I got back from my trip to Montenegro, I met up with Brianna and Carmella in Dubrovnik for dinner. We went into Old Town again because it was the first night of their big summer festival. We found a cute restaurant by the harbor and watched fireworks as we ate. Our restaurant had tons of super cute waiters…but, as fate would have it, we got stuck with the one dud of the bunch. Thanks a lot, hostess lady.

After dinner, we wandered around and found a cool bar that sold drinks in BUCKETS! Cheap buckets! And you even got a glow stick with every drink purchase! Whoever came up with such a brilliant idea should be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize or something. While we were there, we met some kids from Ireland who were equally enthralled with the bucket idea. It was kinda hard to understand their accents, but they smiled a lot and remembered our names, so they seemed like decent kids. 

After the bar, we headed to a club called Fuego, which was a lot of fun. As we were dancing, I saw Luis, the cute officer who gave us the bridge tour! To my dismay, he was already occupied with some scantily-clad chick. I must say, though, without the white uniform and the official-looking pins and badges, the intrigue just wasn’t there anymore, so I wasn’t quite as heartbroken as I would’ve been if I’d seen him in uniform.

After we left the club, we were all super hungry, so we stopped at a late-night, sub-par pizza joint. The Golden Crust of Croatia, anyone? Sadly, there was no buffalo chicken pizza to be had…but there were plenty of drunken messes hanging around. And there was even an awkward couple making out in the corner…strangely, though, our waiter was half of that couple. I’m all for young love and crap, but come on…I shouldn’t have to pull you away from kissing your girlfriend to order another soda. I guess that’s just how they do it in Croatia.

We spent our final day in Dubrovnik just walking around Old Town picking up souvenirs and whatnot. We had our last delicious Croatian meal and went to an internet café, where I got my usual Facebook fix and tried to get up-to-date on the most important current events…i.e. that Carrie Underwood finally married that cute hockey player. I spent the rest of the day bumming around and napping since I was exhausted.

Today, we had classes and in bio, we had to get into groups of three. Being the lucky girl that I am, I was with SAB #1. Heck yess. We had to simulate evolution using dry beans and utensils that our professor had stolen from the dining room (which is a big no-no since they have strict rules about taking ANYTHING out of the dining room). It sounds weird, but basically we had to use whatever utensil we’d been given to pick up as many beans as we could in 30 seconds to simulate how those who are given better tools or traits in life had it easier than others. I got a spoon, so I was golden. After a few rounds of evolution, SAB #1 and I got bored and slowly digressed into sword-fighting with our utensils instead. Real mature, I know.

One more day of classes until we get to Athens!

Croatia. Is. Awesome.

Who knew that the place that I was looking forward to the least would be so much fun?

We docked in Dubrovnik, which is on the coast of southern Croatia, yesterday morning. It's absolutely gorgeous here! Cute white houses with clay-colored roofs everywhere. As soon as we got here, I headed out for a kayaking and snorkeling trip for my biology class. (Side note: our kayaking guide was so cute…which is apparently a recurring theme with Croatian men). When we got there, we all had to get into pairs for our kayaks. I didn’t really know anyone, so I was paired with some kid from California. He wasn’t much of a talker, but I figured as long as we could kayak over to the island without any problems, then we’d be good. I got in the front, he took the back, and we were off. Not very gracefully though...we veered to the left. And then back to the right. And then we were turning in a circle. And it was just bad all around. He and I couldn’t seem to get in sync with one another for the life of us. We hit other people’s kayaks about 20 times, and they started to just get out of the way when they saw us coming. Like I said before, he wasn’t the communicating type…so when I tried to figure things out, I would only hear unintelligible mumbling and the occasional grunt. After a few failed attempts at communication, I decided to give up and just start paddling the way I wanted to. And somehow, we managed to get over to the island.

On the island, they handed us snorkels, and we headed off in search of marine life. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see. Actually, I probably saw more beer cans than fish. After about an hour and a half of beer can sightings, we got in our kayaks to head back to the mainland. I’m not quite sure what happened to my kayak buddy…but he was WAY more talkative this time around. This chatty new side to him made it way easier to maneuver our way back. We didn’t hit ONE person this time, and we even managed to get a nice rhythm going. To the shock and awe of our fellow kayakers, we somehow managed to race ahead of most of them. It turned out to be pretty fun…but also unbelievably tiring. My arms were super sore when I woke up this morning.

After kayaking, I headed back and got ready to go to dinner. I met up with my friends, and we headed into Old Town, which is basically…the old part of town. Shocking, I know. It’s actually really pretty though. There are these big fortressy-type walls that surround the whole area and when you go inside the walls, there are a ton of cute little restaurants and shops. We had a really, really good dinner, too. I’m not quite sure what Croatian food is exactly, but so far, the food here has been my favorite. I had zero expectations about this place, so I’ve been really pleasantly surprised. Since we’d all had a long day, we decided to call it a night early…well it was midnight, but that’s pretty early considering some of our other nights.

This morning, Carmella, Brianna, and I decided to do a boat tour that took us to a few islands off the coast of Dubrovnik. (Turns out sky-diving, our original plan, is apparently not something that they do in this part of Croatia much. We were misinformed by some dude on the ship). The island tour cost 230 kuna (or about 50 bucks) for all day with lunch and unlimited drinks included, so it was a pretty sweet deal considering how expensive everything has been lately. After we got onto our cool piratey-looking boat, we saw our Dean of Everything (I’m not really sure what his title is…but basically he’s the main dude in charge of the whole shebang) and his wife and their son and daughter-in-law get on too. My friends and I gave each other ‘this could be awkward’ looks, but we said hi to them, exchanged pleasantries, and went our separate ways on the small boat. As soon as our Dean and his family were out of hearing distance, Carmella looked over at us and in the most serious tone I’ve heard from her yet, whispered, ‘I will not, under any circumstances, let the Dean see me in a BIKINI.’ Fair enough.

We went to a total of three islands. We spent an hour at each of the first two. Both were pretty, but there wasn’t much to do at either of them besides take a few pictures here and there. At the third island, we were given a little over three hours to explore. As we started walking, we realized that we were right behind the dean and his family. Although they were walking super slowly, we didn’t want to be rude by passing them, so we continued to walk slowly behind them. After about ten minutes, the dean’s wife turned back to us and said, ‘We have no idea where we’re going, so you probably don’t wanna follow us.’ Oh gosh. We decided to stop at some random shop to avoid having to awkwardly seem like we were following them anymore.

After delaying ourselves for a bit, we wandered to the path that led to the other side of the island where the Grand Beach was. There were a lot of golf-cart type things that were offering to drive you to the beach for 20 kuna a piece (less than 4 bucks). We looked at a map, and Carmella decided that the beach didn’t look too far, so we’d save a buck and just walk along the path. Talk about an idiot move. We walked. And we walked. And the more we walked, the steeper the path got. And the steeper the path got, the more my body hated me. And the more carts of happy, un-sweaty people that zoomed by, the more I resented Carmella’s decision-making skills. After about 25 minutes of intensely-inclined walking, we finally reached the top and started to make our descent. After about 20 more minutes of walking down, we finally reached the beach. We searched along the beach to find three chairs for us and kept walking until we spotted a few together. Triumphantly, we hurried over to some chairs and plopped our stuff down before anyone else could snag them.

After we disrobed and applied sunscreen, we all sat down ready to get our tan on. At this point, I started to take in my surroundings. It was a gorgeous beach. Pretty sand. Lots of cute Europeans strewn about. And…oh God…is that the dean and his family? In the chairs RIGHT NEXT TO OURS!?!? Please don’t tell me that in our mad dash to get chairs, we’d picked ones that were oh-so-conveniently next to them! I looked over at Carmella and Brianna who had apparently come to this same realization. So much for the dean not seeing us half-naked. We did our best to avoid eye contact and pretend as if we’d never seen them. Which was half-true since we hadn’t seen them at first. Oh well…not much we can do about it now. After laying out and swimming for a couple hours, it was time to head back to our boat. We had yet another awkward exchange with the dean in which he made a ‘following us, again?’ kind of joke. On the way back, we took a cart. It was the best four bucks I’ve spent this whole trip. Our driver was yet another super cute Croatian guy. He was thrilled to learn that I came from Tennessee, where his favorite drink, Jack Daniel’s, is made. I told him he could come visit anytime.

When we got back from our island tour, we headed back to the ship, where we freshened up. We went into Old Town in search of another good restaurant. After walking around for awhile, we found one that had a great view of the harbor and mid-range prices, so we decided it was perfect. After we sat down and were given menus, I took a look at the tables around us. And guess who was there…THE DEAN! And his family. AGAIN! Of all the bajillion places to eat, we just so happen to pick the SAME EXACT restaurant as them!? As if things couldn’t get MORE awkward with them. At this point, we all kind of gave up on caring about whether or not they thought we were following them. We waved hello and tried to ignore the slightly creeped out looks on their faces. Dinner was delicious, and we wandered around for a bit before heading back to the ship.

Tomorrow, I’ve got an SAS trip to Montenegro, which I’m super excited for! Also, we hear that Croatian nightlife is pretty good, so we’ll probably try to hit up a dance club tomorrow night!

Italia, part two!

After we left Venice, we took a train to Naples, where our ship had moved to. From there, Carmella and I grabbed our computers and went into Naples to search for an internet café so we could upload pictures. After a couple hours of walking around, we finally managed to find a McDonalds. We were so excited until we realized that in order to get the internet, you had to enter an Italian cell phone number so they could text you your password. Boo. So much for pictures. We met Brianna for pizza and to catch up on the past few days, and then we all went back to the ship and hit the sack early since Carmella and I had been up about 43 hours or so at that point.

The next morning, I headed to Capri, an island off the coast of Naples, with an SAS trip that I’d signed up for. I went last year with the family and loved it, so I figured it’d be fun to spend the night there. When we got there, we took a little tour of the island. We couldn’t check into our hotel yet, so we were all still carrying our backpacks around. They took us to this chairlift thing where we all went up, one by one, to the highest point of the island. Being the non-skiier that I am, the whole chairlift thing kinda freaked me out…especially since I had to lug my backpack up with me. As I was going up, I looked down and saw a variety of things that people had apparently dropped along the way...a couple hats, a pair of sunglasses, the occasional flip-flop. Psh. Idiots. Why wouldn’t you hold onto your stuff for dear life? When I got to the top, the view was amazing! We spent about half an hour up there until we got into our one-person chairs and headed back down. On the way down, I was holding my backpack in front of me again and focusing on taking pictures. All of a sudden, I heard the girl in the chair behind me yell ‘Oh no!’ and then there was a big bang on the ground below me. Oh. Crap. What the hell did I just drop? I looked down and saw that I still had my backpack. Okay. Check. What else did I bring? A purse. Oh gosh. Please...tell me it wasn’t my purse. Anything, but my purse! I quickly looked to find my purse and was relieved to see that it was still there around my shoulder. Okay. Good. Then what the hell was it? I hesitantly peered over the side of my shaky chairlift and looked down. Is that a water bottle? Wait, it’s MY water bottle! Yes! I couldn’t care less about that! Guess I won't judge people for dropping crap on the chairlift anymore... 

After we got off, we went to lunch where I met up with Carmella and Brianna who had ferried over to the island on their own. The three of us spent the rest of the day just wandering around town before we headed back to their hotel to get ready for dinner and dancing. We’d been scoping out restaurants all day and had decided on a cute one just down the road from their hotel. When we got there, we were ushered to our table by a cute host named Marco. As we sat down, our tables were set by an even cuter waiter. Man, does this place know how to pick ‘em or what? We ordered our drinks, and our waiter, whose English wasn’t great, mumbled something about the specials, so we all nodded our heads waiting for him to tell us what they were. Strangely, though, he proceeded to immediately walk away. We were all a little confused until a couple minutes later when we looked up and saw that he was coming our way. Uh oh, in our poor communication did we accidentally order something already? He plopped the tray down directly in front of me and on the platter was an assortment of dead fish. At this point, I was lingering somewhere between completely disgusted and on the verge of laughter. I looked up at Carmella and Brianna who shared the same grossed out/unbelievably amused expressions as I did.  As if we weren’t weirded out enough, the waiter then proceeded to pick up the fish and flail them around in front of our faces to show them off. Slightly unnecessary, but hey, at least he’s dedicated, right? Suffice it to say, none of us ordered the fish specials that night.

After dinner, we went dancing, and sadly, there is not one noteworthy person to tell you about. The club was fun…but the people were pretty boring. One thing I have noticed in all the European clubs, though, is that there always seems to be a lot more guys than girls. And they all dance! Which surprised me a bit considering the fact that most guys in America have to be forced onto the dance floor. Although, now that I think about it, the European guys were actually all fairly comfortable dancing with one another. Hm. Maybe we’ve been going to gay clubs? Beats me. I’ll pay more attention in the next few ports. 

We left Capri the next afternoon and headed back to the ship to set sail for Croatia. We had classes yesterday and today, which was tough after 13 days of traveling. I got my grade back for my bio test that I took awhile back, and I got an A! Yay! Considering I’m awful at science, I was pretty excited! We also had our first Global Studies midterm last night after dinner….didn’t do so hot on that one, though. There 35 questions total and I missed…14. Yikes. That’s a 60. BUT, that’s one of the highest scores I’ve heard! And apparently all 700something of us did horribly, so they’re curving it. I think I’ve complained before about Global Studies, but basically it sucks. And I’m thinking that after getting all these failing grades, the professor is probably going to realize how much we’re not learning.  

In other news, if all goes as planned, it looks as though I’ll be going sky-diving the day after tomorrow! I’ll keep my fingers crossed that my mother doesn’t kill me when she reads this and finds out (surprise, mom!).

Croatia, tomorrow! Farewell!