Stranded in Cairo?!

Thursday: Day 45
EGYPT: Cairo

We woke up around 9am in our hostel to start another day in Cairo. Did I mention earlier that we stayed at the “American House” Hostel?? Yep. It was pretty entertaining. We slept in the Obama suite!! Hahahahaaaa all the suites on our floor had name plates with president’s names. Of course Clinton was shoved in the back corner by the washrooms :) no joke. After twiddling our thumbs for a little while, we eventually decided to go upstairs and get breakfast.  The breakfast was nothing to write home about (hah!), but I brought a bag of white cheddar popcorn with us and that was DELICIOUS. Haha

We soon discovered we were really unmotivated when it was already 10am and we were still just sitting around.  So we headed back downstairs to get our stuff and head out for the day.  Every time we wanted to go to our suite we had to get the hostel owners to unlock our floor of presidential suites (haha get it? Presidential? :D im so clever.), so we asked him to take us to our room.  We got down there only to discover that the kid had locked the only key to the suites inside last time he went in! After watching them try to break into their own door, we headed back upstairs to wait until they had gotten in.  We think they eventually woke up the other SAS boys that had spent the night in the same hostel because it didn’t look like the had to bust the door down or anything.  Anyways, we eventually got our stuff we needed for the day and headed out in search of the train station to get our tickets back to Alexandria.

Outside of the hostel, we started hailing cabs. The only problem was that we had NO IDEA how to say train station in Arabic! So after the 4th cab looked at us like we were crazy and took off, I started making full out train noises and motions to the 5th cab driver. He full out laughed at me and told us he knew what we were talking about and that it would cost us 20 pounds (4 bucks) so we said ok and hopped in.  A little while down the road he motioned that we were here and told us we had to cross the street to get to the entrance. We took one look at the busy shenanigan of a street and asked him to take us to the other side of the road.  It cost us an extra 10 pounds, but it was totally worth NOT dying crossing the street.

We had to ask people where the actual station was because it was not clearly marked. Eventually we found out that the building with all the construction around it was the train station, and that the only sign for it was in Arabic… and was hidden behind the construction. We felt less silly about not being able to find it after that one. SAS had told us that you could only get tickets for the trains no more than 24 hours in advance and that there were plenty of trains so we could just head there a few hours before we wanted to leave and have no problem… well, we quickly discovered that you could actually get train tickets way in advance, and that the trains were booked for the day and the next day. And that is about when the panic radars started going off in each of our brains.  We started trying to figure out other ways to get back to the ship, and even called the “duty dean” asking if there was any way we could hop on a SAS bus home.  He did not know the SAS trip schedules, so he could not tell us where to meet the buses.  While Kyle was on the phone with the dean, three more SASers showed up with the same problem. I think “help were stranded in cairo” was written across our faces by this point, and after a few minutes of “what are we going to do, what are we going to do” we decided to at least get out of the train station.

We walked down the street and ran into a bus that was headed to Alexandria.  We tried to talk to the driver and found out that it was 25 pounds each, but then he could not tell us exactly where in Alexandria the bus stopped! So we quickly decided that was NOT an option.  The other three girls that we ran into took off in a different direction while we caught a taxi to go back and grab our stuff from the hostel.  We figured that way we would at least be able to just go as soon as we figured something out. Outside our hostel, we decided to go grab some lunch at McDonalds down the street while we tried to figure something out and waited to hear if the dean could get in touch with the field office and let them know what was going on.  Looking at our Green Sheets (information sheets SAS gives us before each country), we realized that another group of SASers were doing the camel and jeep safari that we had done the day before! We got the crazy idea to just take a taxi back to the country club from the day before and see if we could hop on the bus.

So after eating our lunch, we went back to the hostel, grabbed our stuff, and tried to find more information about the country club we were at the day before.  It was surprisingly hard to find detailed directions.  We eventually found the name of the country club as well as the general area it was in.  The man at the hostel translated our English words into Arabic on a piece of paper to give a taxi.  We found a taxi who said he knew where we wanted to go, and hopped in.  Julie had decided to stay an extra day with a friend on another SAS trip, so we dropped her off at the Egyptian Museum on the way leaving just Kyle, Megan, and I to find a SAS bus!

Traffic was HORRIBLE. I mean, traffic is always horrible in Cairo, but this was ridiculous!! It took us over 2 hours to get back to the area we recognized from the previous day, and then we found out that our taxi driver did not really know where we were headed…. So we began asking locals who would either ignore our driver or just point a finger in a direction with little to no additional information.  As we were beginning to think we were really close, we saw them!!! THE SAS BUSES STARTED PULLING OUT RIGHT DOWN THE STREET FROM US!! Half of me was relieved and the other half was like “oh crap!! Were going to miss them!” we started yelling to the taxi driver “those are them! Those are the buses!!” (we had already explained the situation to him, and he was doing the best he could to help us out).  He quickly realized what we were saying and put the pedal to the metal! He ended up literally cutting off the last bus.  Kyle had his door open and jumped out as soon as the car stopped.  He jumped in front of the bus pointing to the sign in the window signaling that we were SASers.  The bus opened its doors and he further explained the situation.  Meanwhile, Megan and I gathered 100 pounds for the taxi driver (the whole thing was supposed to only cost the 3 of us 60 pounds, but he was so amazingly helpful and went really out of his way, so we tipped him very well.).  Kyle waved us to come on to the bus, so we paid and thanked the taxi driver over and over again and stepped onto the safe SAS bus.

Apparently we picked the right bus! It was actually the back up bus. Which means it had followed the other SAS buses all day just in case one of them broke down so that SASers could quickly jump to the other bus and continue on their way.  That being said, they had not needed it, and we found ourselves on an empty bus with only 3 other people that were working for the tour company.  So the three of us got our own seats and got to relax the entire way back to Alexandria.  One of the guys on the bus simply called the passport people at the port and let them know the three of us were on board.  He gave them our QuickTrip number from Kyle’s passport and they okayed taking us back to the ship.  It was awesome! The guy then talked to us for a good half hour about our adventure.  A few minutes after he stopped talking with us, he came back and told us that he had just gotten off the phone with his brother.  Apparently we were not the only SASers stranded in Cairo! His brother was headed to Cairo to pick up a whole group in his van and drive them back to the ship!

The three of us felt very thankful that we had gotten there just in time.  We talked about how crazy it was that we had managed to pull it off, called the dean and told him we were safe and successfully on our way back, took a short nap, and then listened to music the rest of the way back to Alexandria.  Once in port, we again thanked the guys on the bus for letting us hop on.  By 7:30 we were safe back on the ship and eating dinner!

After dinner, Megan, Jenna, Carmen, Kylie and I had some girl time until Kyle broke up the girl party and joined us to watch Aquamarine on the kids channel.  Was the perfect ending to our CRAZIST day yet on the ship. :)

quick note

i totally just beasted (yes, that is a word) my global studies paper due tomorrow. i managed to finish it by 10pm!! holy cow! new record for me? i think yes! no more of this procrastination station and all nighters! ive turned over a new leaf!








and on that note, im procrastinating doing another blog entry until tomorrow.
:D

GOODNIGHT WORLD!

?At least we will have stories to tell the grandkids!?

Wednesday: Day 44
EGYPT: Cairo

After an awesome full night of sleep, my alarm clock rang at 0600 to begin my second day in Egypt! Of course me being me I snoozed for the next 20 minutes before running up and grabbing a real quick breakfast before heading to the buses waiting outside to take us to Cairo for our camel and jeep safari trip.  Once we were all settled on the bus and headed out of the port, our tour guide began talking about the history of Egypt. Eventually, she realized that none of us were really in the mood to hear history at 730 in the morning and she let us sleep. 

3 hours later, we arrived in Cairo, Egypt!! From our bus we could see the pyramids coming into view. Our first stop was at the Giza pyramids.  We were given 45 minutes to roam around and take pictures.  You would not BELIEVE how huge the pyramids are!! I mean, you see pictures everywhere of how gigantic they are, but until you are standing right next to a block and realizing that one block is about the size of you and that the pyramid is made up of thousands of blocks the size of you and and and you get the point. Its overwhelmingly cool. We had some fun taking picture with the pyramids. We made ourselves as tall as the pyramid, put Carmen’s bucket hat on the pyramid, and Kyle’s sunglasses on the pyramid might have been one of my favorites. In general we were being ridiculous and it was probably a sight to see. I wish we had gotten more time at that stop, but alas, we had more stops to make so we headed back to our busses!

The whole time we were driving around places, our tour guide told us history and stories about what we were seeing or what we were going to be seeing.  Some of the information was basic stuff you learned in 6th grade. Like how to walk like an Egyptian. No. not really. But things like hieroglyphics were used and all those little things about pyramids became kind of repetitive.  On the other hand, she also told us some interesting information about topics including the clothing that today’s Egyptians wear.  For example, we found out that women wearing the completely black clothes are either married or betrothed. She also mentioned that most women wore the darker colors with an accent color such as hot pink underneath while men wear browns and tans or generally lighter colors.  We also found out that at public beaches such as those in Alexandria, women have to be fully clothed even while swimming!! They have special swim suits that cover their arms and legs.  Imagine the full body Olympic swim suit. Now, make all of the fabric loose and you have an Egyptian bathing suit.  It is considered unacceptable for women to wear a bikini! Think of that the next time you go to the beach!!

Our second stop was the Sphinx. Once again we got to get out and take pictures for about 30 minutes.  There were all kinds of people trying to sell postcards, stone replicas of the pyramids, papyrus bookmarks, tshirts, and stuffed camels.  These people were not afraid to get in your face to try and sell you something! It was interesting that they were giving prices in US Dollars rather than Egyptian pounds though.  We had been warned not to pick up anything or to let them put anything in your hands because they would then refuse to take it back! These guys were not joking around.  Of course the Sphinx was awesome. We took some good pictures with it and the pyramids in the background, and then headed back to the bus again!

By that time, it was past noon and we were HUNGRY. Good thing we headed to the country club from there! They had set up a huge buffet for us, and it was pretty tasty.  It was slightly frustrating because we had been told to be careful of so much food that we had to keep to just the simple things at the buffet, but they had AMAZING pita bread!

At our next stop, we got to explore a tomb!! It was so cool!! We had to basically crawl down this dark, crazy slanted walkway that was so short none of us could stand up straight!! Eventually we reached the bottom where we could stand (though kyle was too tall and still couldn’t!) and we got to duck into two little chambers one of which had the (empty) tomb inside.  There were hieroglyphics all over, and some had still maintained their color surprisingly. It was so cool!  After a few minutes, we headed back up the tiny tunnel and back to the bus to head to the step pyramid!!  There we had some free time again to explore and picture take by the pyramid.  Next thing we knew, we were making human pyramids beside the step pyramid!! Hahahaha! We got some awesome pictures! We started with a small 6 person pyramid, but then we decided to make one that had about 12 or 14 people! It was so awesome! We all had a great time.  Of course there were jumping pictures to be taken too… :)

After jumping around like hooligans, we headed back to the country club where they had 4x4 jeeps ready to take us on a safari through the desert.  Our group got kind of separated, but in our jeep was Kyle, me, Carmen, Julie, Megan, and another guy (who I just realized I never found out his name… oops!).  After our jeeps were all loaded, our drivers took off into the desert! This was hands down THE COOLEST part of the entire day.  We hit one of the first bumps in the jeep and laughed and got excited. Our driver quickly caught on and thus proceeded to give us the ride of our life.  He took us up and down sand dunes that I never thought we would have made it up!! In fact, one was so huge that we didn’t make it up!! Hahaha our driver had to back up and go down the hill! It was so funny! He was having so much fun with us.  I am so glad we were so happy and in such good moods from the beginning! There were some jeeps that we were pretty much doing circles around. It was cool to watch them check up on each other though.  For example, when we had to back down and turn around it took us a little longer so another of the jeeps looped back to check up on us and make sure everything was a-ok! We drove by a few pyramids and got some great panoramic views of the city as well as the desert. 

The jeeps dropped us off by a huge group of camels.  As soon as the door was opened, we were being pulled and pushed towards camels by Egyptian boys.  I thought riding a camel would be a lot like riding a horse, but I was definitely wrong! The saddle only had one foot holder which was slightly odd, and in general there was no specific seat on the saddle. More of just a big blanket with an area to sit on.  You had to lean way back as the camel stood up.  It was a crazy feeling!  The camel was so tall! The guys leading our camels all wanted to know if us girls had boy friends. It was pretty funny. We all lied and were like “oh they are up there” and pointed to the group of camels in front of us! Hahaha we might have crushed a few hearts in Egypt ;) we rode around for a little bit and took a few pictures then rode the camels all the way back to the country club.  We said good bye to our camel drivers, gave them a small tip, and left.  Tipping was very intense.  Our taxi driver from the previous day had told us that we should only give between 5 and 10 Egyptian pounds as a tip but that they would want more.  And boy did they want more! No matter how much people gave them, they were ALL trying to get more money.  Kyle’s driver would not accept his tip at first, but when Kyle started walking away he quickly accepted it though not without a few mumblings.  Others gave 4 or 5 US Dollars and STILL got begged for more.  One of our friends was silly and did not have the money already out, so the camel driver grabbed an entire wad of 70 pounds out of her wallet! (that’s about 14 US Dollars)  It was definitely an experience. 

Back on the buses, we headed into Cairo.  The bus stopped and let a bunch of us sign off the SAS trip to stay an extra night in Cairo.  Julie, Megan, Kyle, Molly, Daniel, Heather, and I had all made reservations at the American House Hostel for the night. (believe it or not, it was actually one of the highest rated hostels in Cairo and it only cost 12 bucks each a night!) We took a taxi, eventually found our hostel, and checked in.  It was actually pretty nice compared to the hostels we had previously stayed in, however it still did not cut it for Molly, David, and Heather who chose to leave us in search of a better hotel.  They ended up staying at the 5 star hotel with the rest of the SASers. The other 4 of us decided to stay in our cheap hostel for the night and began exploring.  First thing on our agenda was DINNER. 

*****A slight diversion:
Cairo as a city is, well, memorable.  It is definitely not the prettiest city we have seen this voyage. Far from it really.  It is sad to see that both Alexandria and Cairo are literally covered in trash.  I thought of my mom the whole time because she is one of those people who picks up any piece of trash she sees when walking around and throws it away or recycles it. Well, she would have a hard time here because I am pretty sure she would have to throw away the entire city.  From cigarettes and candy wrappers to soda cans, food wrappers, and even dirty clothes, everything can be found on the streets.  Its quite sad really because you can tell that the city hidden under the trash could be beautiful.  Makes you want to adopt a highway or in this case adopt a city… and take lots of showers. It is not even just the roads! There is a stream of water that I should really call a stream of trash that ran all through Saqqara (where the country club and step pyramid are).  The stream is literally full of trash.  We started counting the tires but lost count after about 15 because we were distracted by the dead horse (no, really. There was a dead horse in the water).  And this whole time there are people walking around and kids playing.  OH, and there was irrigation systems pumping water out of the stream of trash and into the crops… and THAT is why SAS told us not to eat or drink so many things… It was a little hard to watch.  Even worse was that there was a girl getting beaten by a man while our bus drove past.  I am really glad I actually did not see this, but I do not know how I missed it because our entire bus saw it and was talking about it.  Apparently he was hitting her to the ground and picking her up by her hair to beat her again and again.  Now that is scary. Egypt was definitely a different world compared to the other places we have been on this voyage.  Up until these cities I felt pretty darn safe and comfortable with my surroundings, but in Cairo and Alexandria I was NOT comfortable.  You know me too, I am not a little pansy. It takes a good bit to scare me, and there was one time later on in particular that I was extremely uncomfortable.  But lets get back to the good stuff. I just wanted to make sure I included the fact that this is definitely an extremely different lifestyle and environment. 


OK NOW BACK TO THE STORY :)

After a short walk down the street, we decided to try and get dinner in a shopping center we passed.  There were some American favorites like KFC and pizza by the slice as well as a couple of coffee shops and what looked to be some local dishes.  Still wanting to play it relatively safe, Megan and Julie got food from KFC. Kyle and I tried to order chicken tenders from one of the local places, but when it came out it was like fried chicken only it was not fully cooked and in general did NOT look appetizing. So we eventually gave up on our first meal realizing that it was only 4 bucks, and we got meal number two from KFC.  We were much more successful with round two, and afterwards we headed back down the street towards the hostel.  We decided to stop and grab some munchies so we could just hang at the hostel and people watch.  We originally had three rooms in the hostel for the 7 of us and even then there was room for 11 people to sleep. So with David, Molly, and Heather gone we had even MORE free beds. Yet, in the end we all shared the suite downstairs because it was the coldest and quietest by the time we wanted to go to bed. :) We all wanted showers before bed, and that turned out to be an experience when we found out that we had no shower curtain! Add a broken shower faucet that we literally had to hold together while showering and you had quite an adventure. Needless to say, the bathroom was pretty soaked after the four of us each got our showers. Our motto for the night/next day became “at least it will be a story to tell the grandkids” hahahahaha

It was really fun getting to know Megan and Julie more.  Kyle and I had hung out with Megan in Santorini with Briana and Hannah, but besides that we really had not known each other long.  All four of them are awesome.  Since then I have started hanging with them a lot more frequently. We discovered that Briana has a whole bunch of movies on her external harddrive, so we have been having movie nights recently! Its funny how much I have missed just chilling watching a movie with people. Of course we always end up talking or going through our half a million (literally I think by this point) pictures ranging from baby pictures and family and friends back home to pictures we have taken so far on the ship.  So awesome.  I am so happy I have met so many completely different people on this trip.  Its nice always having someone to hang out with.  Its fun to also see who we get to hang out with at port vs who we hang out with on the ship too. For example, Kyle and I are pretty much always together at port and we just add to other groups depending on who is doing what which day at port, but on the ship we do not really hang out as much.  Instead I hang more with Jenna and Carmen or Briana, Hannah, and Megan.  We had an AWESOME time at Sea Olympics the first day after Egypt, but now I am getting ahead of myself. You will just have to wait to hear those details :)

Now it is time to get to work!! I have a Global Studies paper due tomorrow. 6 pages long, and so far I only have 2! Better get crackin’!

walk like an EGYPTIAN. no really. do it. :)

Hey guys!! Back on the ship after an AMAZING time in EGYPT!! Yay! Now I have a few sailing days before Morocco.  Hopefully that means I will be able to get a good chunk of days updated on my blog! Though I also have a test as well as a paper for global studies due before morocco so we will see how much I can accomplish!

So without further ado here is Egypt day one!!

Tuesday: Day 43
EGYPT: Alexandria
After the longest preport of our lives, we went to bed ready to wake up to EGYPT!! Kyle, Kylee, Molly, David, and I planned on meeting and exploring Alexandria in the morning, but we soon discovered that getting off the ship in Egypt was a lot more complicated than the rest of the ports had been.  Each of our passports had to be stamped with a “quick stamp” and then handed out to every one on the ship… while in Italy, most of us had to get our passports, so they called us up to collect them sea by sea. However, this time they were not as organized.  It was weird.  They called a few groups up, but then it was just mass chaos as they called the ENTIRE ship up to get passports.  Needless to say, that took a little while.  By the time the whole group was ready to go, we looked at our watches and it was 1100.  So, we decided to just hang out for another half hour and play it safe by eating lunch on the ship. 

In pre port, we were heavily warned of the wonders of E Coli. And basically determined that there was little to no Egyptian food worth the “side effects” of eating.  They told us to stay away from all veggies and fruit, all forms of dairy, and even the meats are up for skepticism in any of the restaurants. (and trust me. By the end of our stay in Egypt, we knew why they had warned us of each and every one of those.)
Also during preport, they discussed Egyptian Dress codes.  Like Turkey, men can wear normal shirts and shorts while women are advised to pay even more attention to wearing long pants and long shirts that fully cover all cleavage, stomachs and backs.  This time they meant business.  All throughout our stay women were fully clothed, and most wore the traditional Habibs (not sure exact spelling).  Even to swim at the public beaches women wear special bathing outfits that cover their full arms and legs.  It was intense.  All these clothing restrictions also meant that we stood out even more as a shipboard community.

So with full bellies from yet another shipboard meal of repetitive fashion, we finally headed down to the gangway to step onto North African Land: ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT. Also during preport, they told us that we would need to rely on taxis to take us everywhere during our stay.  As soon as we got off the ship and went through security, we saw a whole line of shops down the port as well as a whole bunch of taxis ready to take us away.  We met a man named Rafti who offered to be our personal chuffer around Alexandria for the day for 50 pounds each (that is equivalent to a little less than 10 dollars for an ENTIRE day of taxi service. 1 Egyptian pound=5.56 US dollars.) We decided to take him up on his offer and hopped into his 1973 Peugeot (complete with a furry dashboard, roll up windows, and no AC) ready for a full day of adventure.

Our first stop was the Citadel of Qaitbay.  The castle was so cool! It was located right along the coast line with the water splashing against the rocks beside it.  I got some pretty cool water pictures there.  We got to go inside the castle for 15 Egyptian pounds (about 3 bucks) and it was totally worth it.  It was fun to see all the Egyptian tourists also there.  We got a group to take our picture and then tried to return the favor! Was pretty hysterical. They got so excited over us! Especially Molly. Hahaha  They all wanted pictures with us!! We took a few, learned some names, and continued on our way back to the taxi who was waiting right outside for us as promised!

We hopped back in the cab and headed to the Mosque of Abu El Abbas.  Rafti dropped us off right at the entrance of the Mosque so that we could get a few pictures.  As we were taking pictures, a tourist police man came up to us.  We had been warned in preport to be careful taking pictures, but they had said that mosques were ok.  Slightly confused by his motions to come towards him as well as the gun wrapped around him, we followed his orders and followed him to the back of the mosque.  Turns out he wanted to take us to spots for good pictures and then try and take our money as payment for showing us these spots… he was NOT happy when we did not have any change. Kylee gave him a pound and a half, but he was still not happy.  That was all the change we had, so we fled as fast as possible back to the safety of our taxi.  It was actually one of the scariest moments for me yet this trip.  We had been warned about the corruption among Egyptian policemen, but to actually witness it was really unsettling in a way.  As Americans, we are used to being able to go straight to a policeman for safety, and here if anything I think it is the opposite.  Almost all of the tourist policemen we ran into were trying to trick us into giving them money, and the other policemen did not look any safer.  That’s a scary concept to think about.

Back in our safe taxi, Rafti had bought Kylee, Molly, and I each a flower from a man walking around. Haha he was so nice.  Then he took us to the Bibliotheca Alexandria. One of the coolest libraries ever!! The place was massive.  It is shaped like a tilted hemisphere and has millions of books as well as a cool exhibit of old manuscripts.  We did not have time to go see the manuscripts, but I heard they were really awesome.

Next up in our grand Alexandria tour was the Alexandria Museum.  The museum was interesting, but really not that big. Within 30 or 45 minutes we had seen the whole place and were ready to go. 

Rafti took us to a small shopping area near the huge mall (that is very Americanized. More details later about that one) where we all got a nice cold Coke-a-cola for a few minutes.  We then walked around a jewelry store and a papyrus store for a little bit before heading to our final stop: a market.  Picked up a few snacks for the ship, and then headed back to the ship for dinner. 

Back at port, we thanked Rafti for the ride and the awesome tour and gave him 60 pounds each to add a little tip in appreciation.  He actually passed us a journal he uses as a “guest book” of sorts.  We saw a whole BUNCH of SASers throughout it!! They ranged from last summers voyage to summer of 05! Was sooooooo cool to read. We were happy to know we picked a great, reliable taxi driver and told him so as we added our names to the guest book.  Maybe future SASers will see our names :)

Ate another safe meal on the ship, and then I headed to bed really early after packing for Cairo the next day.  I cringed as I set the alarm clock for 6 am, but knew it was totally going to be worth it, and it DEFINITELY WAS. :)

but you will have to wait to hear about that until tomorrow.  Now I have to pack up my laundry because it is LAUNDRY DAY finally for deck two!!! Thank goodness because I am down to about 2 pairs of underwear and 1 t-shirt!!!

Turkey day one!!

Day 36

Location: starbucks right off the ship in ISTANBUL TURKEY!... and later all over the ship to finish this entry!
Song stuck in head: Istanbul (not Constantinople)-- they might be giants


So I decided to try a new technique.... skip getting everything updated for Italy, Croatia, and Greece. Instead jump to where I am right now and then go back and fill in the blanks!! Hope that’s all right with you! :)

The other day we arrived in Istanbul, Turkey!! The pilot boarded the ship at around 6:30am, and by 8:00am we were alongside! The boat was cleared around 10:00am.  I, however, was still cuddled under the covers until 10:30am because I was up until 4:30am the night before finishing my art history paper :( I had two papers due by the time we got to turkey: global music and art history.  Both of which I did in under 48 hours.  Papers and tests on the ship are actually a lot more stressful than at school.  I think it is because we spend as much time off the ship as possible while in the countries and explore for as long as possible (this leaves little to no time for silly school work. that’s over rated.).  Therefore, by the time we get back on the ship and set sail, we are WORN OUT. Solo the days at sea traveling between countries are our recovery days.  However, when there are papers and midterms to worry about, recover turns to chaos as we all quickly found out on "Turkey Day." pretty much every student had at least one of those two if not both to worry about. 

And so I found myself typing, printing, and finally turning in my second paper at 4:30am. So I quickly decided to skip the "mandatory" diplomatic debriefing (such a rebel, I know) and sleep until I absolutely had to get up. Aka 10:30am. 

Kyle and I wanted to jump on a SAS trip to the Grand Bazaar and learn some bartering skills, and that was not until 12:30, so we decided to just stay on the ship until then and avoid getting lost and missing the trip.  So we got lunch at 11:30 on the ship with Carmen and Daniel, and headed out to meet the Grand Bazaar group. 

We lucked out! They had one free ticket and one more that someone was trying to sell! So we just split the price and got to go on the trip for only 10 us dollars.  The professor in charge is awesome.  He’s actually Kyle’s international trade teacher, and we run into him and his wife accidentally in pretty much every country.  They are such a cute pair.  His wife is actually a middle school special education teacher!

We met our tour guide outside the ship, and she guided us through taking the tram from the ship to the bazaar.  Once we reached the bazaar, she gave us a little bit of a tour.  The bazaar is HUGE. There are 7 main gates, 67 roads, and over 4 THOUSAND shops inside.  And that is only inside the grand bazaar! There is still another whole spice bazaar as well as small shops all up and down the side streets outside. 

The FDP was really cool because we got to see some behind the scenes action.  For example, we got to go talk one shop that makes rugs.  The man in charge directed us up these spiral stairs to the top floor and we sat down on small benches all around the edges of the room. He then began having his workers start throwing rugs all over the rectangle of carpet in front of us! He explained to us the different ways they are made, how to tell a “new” rug from an “antique” rug, and showed us many different sizes and styles they came in.  The whole thing was very interesting, and the rugs were absolutely beautiful! CRAZY expensive though! Just a tiny one for like inside the door runs about 150 US$ if it is new, and ranging from 200-400 US$ if it is an antique.  It can be even MORE expensive based on the fabric used to make the piece. None of us were ready to buy a rug, so we thanked the man for his time, picked up his business card, and headed back out into the mob of people.

After wandering around a few minutes, our tour guide took us outside the bazaar to a jeweler.  According to her, many of the jewelry shops in the bazaar use this particular jeweler.  When we walked in, the room was FULL of smoke despite there being a “no smoking” sign.  There were several men each working on separate pieces of jewelry.  Most that I noticed were working with gold.  Some were linking chains together while others were forming rings.  Finally, one man at the front was putting gems into the rings.  It was very cool to watch each of them working!! The man that appeared to be the big kahuna walked around telling us about what each man was doing.  Of course we could not afford a single piece in the place, but they were all beautiful.

We said goodbye to the out of reach jewelry and continued on our way. Our group split up more, and Kyle and I stayed with the professor to see his bartering skills in action.  That is the main purpose of going to the bazaar: to have fun seeing how low you can get a sale.  They warned us in advance that you will always see someone get a better deal than you in the end, but as long as you thought you were getting a good deal and you had fun getting the deal, you should be happy with your purchases.  Some places the professor tried really hard, but was unsuccessful at getting it down to a good price, but others he was actually able to strike some pretty good deals for students.  One of my friends, Hammed, was able to get a genie lamp and a hanging lamp for 65 lyra.  The original price for the genie lamp was 35 lyra and the hanging lamp was 65 lyra, so he got a pretty decent deal I think! The storeowners really like when you are able to combine products, and will usually give you better discounts.  For example, later in the week I was able to get two smaller stained glass tea-candle holders that were originally 9 lyra each down to 2 for 10 lyra! Go me :)

We searched all over the leather district for a leather portfolio for Kyle, but had no success. We found a few really nice ones, but they were all really expensive even after the professor haggled as much as he could.  Eventually, it was almost time to leave the bazaar.  A group of us at the end were able to barter for Istanbul t-shirts.  By combining all of our purchases: 2 jerseys and 5 t-shirts, we were able to get 140 lyra down to 110 lyra. Thus I got a cute shirt for 16 lyra.  By the way, one Turkish lyra is currently worth 1.54 US dollars, so the 16 lyra shirt (originally 20 lyra) was actually only about 10 bucks.

Happy with our purchases, we headed back to the ship and got dinner at 5:30pm.  Afterwards, Kyle and I went our separate ways.  I went out with ten other SASers to meet a guy that lives in Turkey.  His name was Daniel, and he was originally from Islam, but his family moved to Turkey before he turned 18 and he has been here since.  He met one of the girls on the ship through a study abroad program in their schools, and has kept in touch with her.  So she introduced all of us to him.  We met him outside the port and took taxis to his apartment to drop off her stuff and then another taxi to a part of Istanbul he wanted us to see.  We went right down near the big bridge connecting Europe and Asia. 

While walking around, we ran into a whole BUNCH of street carts selling these huge stuffed baked potatoes!! They literally looked like huge carts of gelato, but when you got up to them you noticed that what looked like gelato was really all sorts of stuffings for these baked potatoes.  For about 8 lyra, they fixed this huge potato full of each and every one of the stuffings you wanted.  This was one of the reasons Daniel had brought us here: to try the stuffed baked potatoes.  According to him, it is a common cheap meal for Turkish people.  It was funny to walk up to these stands when there would literally be 8 of them side by side selling the same exact thing.  They were all hollering at us trying to get us to come over to their particular stand!  A large portion of the group got baked potatoes, and we continued walking.  Some of the group wanted to get actual sit down food, so we went to a restaurant beside the water.

There I experienced my first rip-off this entire voyage.  The people eating placed their orders, and a few minutes later the waiter came back with a tray of Turkish tea.  He started placing them in front of everyone.  We had been advised that in the Grand Bazaar it was very common for shopowners to offer their guests Turkish tea, apple tea, or even water and that we should accept it as a sign of respect and not to mention it was a tasty treat for free.  So, we thought little of the tea being placed on the table and thought it must just be like the grand bazaar.  NOPE! They came back later trying to give us each a second glass of tea and spoke Turkish (knowing full well that we were Americans).  Thankfully, Daniel caught something the waiter said, and next thing we knew, he and Daniel were having a pretty intense conversation.  After the waiter left, Daniel told us that he had tried to up the price of the tea from 3 lyra each to 5 lyra!! Sneaky waiters! So while Daniel got it back down to 3 lyra, we still got charged for each tea on the table… thankfully not many had accepted the second glass of tea, but even then we each had to pay for a tea even though most (including me) had not even touched it.  Oh well. The lesson was learned!! I am glad that Daniel was there to catch it though, because we never would have known how to handle that situation and probably would have just ended up paying 5 lyra for each tea. 

After paying for our teas and meals, we headed down the street.  We saw a Mosque lit up in the dark and that was pretty, though I did not catch the name of it.  We ran into more stands similar to the baked potato stands only they were selling WAFFLES.  And let me tell you. I have found heaven in Turkey: these waffles.  Much like the baked potato stands, they were each trying to get us to come to their stands.  The first stand wanted 8 lyra for a waffle, but another stand down the way offered them to us for 6 lyra because he saw we were at the other stand! Of course we went to them.  Not to mention in general the guys behind the counter were being funny and making us laugh.  Now, these waffles are LEGIT.  They have a Belgian waffle maker and make them fresh in front of you.  Then they  take the waffle and you can pick from all sorts of spreads including: nutella (!!), dark chocolate, white chocolate, peanut butter, banana, pistachio, and a lot lot more.  I had nutella and white chocolate on mine! Then they add fresh fruit: bananas, strawberries, kiwi, and other types of berries. I had banana!! They just piled it on!! I probably had a banana and a half on one waffle! Finally, there are other toppings including: sprinkles, coconut, nuts, dark chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and all sorts of other things I did not even know what they were! My final touches were dark chocolate chips and white chocolate chips.  Basically it was a RIDICULOUS amount of chocolate and banana on a fresh waffle.  They then took your waffle, folded it into a taco shape and placed it in a holder to make it easier to eat on the run.  Was soooooooo good!! We were all absolutely stuffed by the end, and I could not eat the whole thing! The guys behind the stand we bought them from were still entertaining us.  They even turned on their little FLAT SCREEN TV that was in the stand to music videos and tried to get us to dance! Haha oh Turkish boys…

Feeling like Violet from Willy Wanka minus the blue tint, we wanted to be rolled home by the end of our waffles.  So we walked through a few of the street shops for a few minutes. I bought a necklace that I saw earlier and fell in love with as well as a scarf so that I could visit the mosques in the morning, and afterwards we took a taxi back to the ship.  Our taxi driver kept trying to talk to me, but I was having trouble understanding him.  He spoke a little English and seemed nice.  He was definitely nicer than the other group of girls taxi driver! He saw our ship and promptly made a u-turn to drop us off costing us 11 lyra total.  The other girls, however, got ripped off by their taxi driver.  They saw the ship and told the driver to turn around, but instead he kept continuing down the road saying he was trying to turn around but passing all the turn offs.  They were not too pleased when their same drive cost 18 lyra…. We all ended up splitting the cost and it was fine, but within one night in Turkey we realized that we were going to have to keep up a constant guard. 

Back on the ship around 11 pm, Jenna, Carmen, Brittany and I all hung out in Jenna and Carmen’s room (literally right across the hall from me) and had fun heart to hearts and general conversation until after 2:30 am.  I have started hanging out with them a lot more since Italy.  They are a really cool group of girls. 

In general I have been hanging with lots of different groups these days.  I still hang out with the original group of Heather, Lacey, Daniel, Clark, and Kyle, but not nearly as much.  Heather and Lacey got really close during Italy when they had SAS trips together and since then have become really inseparable.  I started hanging with Sarah and Jenna in Croatia and have since then begun hanging out with the rest of the people that are with them including Carmen and Brittany as well as Justin, my shipboard brother, Mindy, a fellow APO member from Ohio State!, Denny, another APOer though I cant remember what school he goes to, Julie, Valarie, and a bunch of other people.  It’s been fun getting to know even more people.  Most recently, I started hanging out with a group of girls Kyle and I ran into in Santorini, Greece.  Their names are Briana, Hannah, and Megan.  Briana is actually in my Art History class! We studied all yesterday together for our test that we took today.

Well, I think that is about it for Turkey day one!! Finally! This is about 5 pages single-spaced on Microsoft word… I apologize in advance! Hope that makes up for the fact that I have not been updating??  Now it is 12:30am and we will be arriving in Alexandria, Egypt in only a few hours!!! So its bed time!!

For those interested, the plan for Egypt as of now is:
day 1: staying near the ship and exploring Alexandria!!

day 2/3: kyle and i both picked up a SAS trip in egypt we are going on a camel and jeep safari in cairo!! it will be nice because for 100$ we will take the 3 hour air conditioned, sas only, safe bus to cairo EARLY on the second day.  when we get there we will get to take 4x4 jeeps and ride camels through cairo!! we get to see the pyramids and a lot of other cool stuff in cairo all with a tour guide.  then they are also taking us to a little city called saqqara which is a little outside cairo and there are some more historical things to see there.  finally, kyle and i along with our friends Heather, Molly, and David are going to sign off the SAS trip back in cairo and spend a night and extra day in cairo!! I just booked a hostel that only cost us 12 US$ each! hopefully we will get to do something cool like take a hot air balloon over the pyramids or take a boat down the Nile!!!!! (jealous yet??) we are going to take a train back to alexandria that night and sleep on the ship.

day 4: i have a service visit to an orphanage in alexandria, and kyle also bought a ticket off of someone to come with me.  I’m really excited because the service visit in Croatia was absolutely amazing.

day 5: we will probably just see more of alexandria!!!! before on ship time at 1800

(yes mom and dad I did steal most of that from the email I just sent you  :) hahaha!)


ta-ta for now! :)

i know i know... why have i not posted an entry in forever?!?!

sorry guys!! i know that everyone is practically on the edge of their seats waiting to hear about where i am and what i am up to!! just think... im only on italy day 3 (i think?) and i still have Croatia, Bosnia (yep! got to add a country to my list!!), AND Greece to catch up on!! i epically fail at this game!!

things have been so busy on the ship! today i have 2 papers due (one for art history and another for global music), so my life has been consumed by them.... in other words, this post was a huge tease because i still have to finish my art history paper, therefore i do not have time to blog!! buuuuut i did want to mention that you can read Kyle's blog if you really wanna know what i am up to! so far we have pretty much been together the whole time... i will eventually be able to catch up and add my own twists and turns and thoughts to the days, but for a general idea of what i am doing and where i am at feel free to check his out!

http://globetrottinsasstyle.blogspot.com/   <-- thats his blog.  if you forget, then i think i included a link to it somewhere on my main blog page too. 

we are almost to Istanbul, Turkey currently!! should be alongside at around 8:30am. 

say hi to the US for me! :)

italy day 4: VENICE!!

now i am only 11 days behind!! yay!!


Friday: Day 18
Italy day four: VENICE

In the morning, we went back to Venice by the bus again.  The hotel was nice enough to let us leave our bags there so that we did not have to carry them around.  We ate breakfast at a coffee shop by the canal.  Afterwards, we searched for Italian Leather purses!! I found mine in one of the stores!! :D :D was sooooo excited.  Its definitely the coolest purse I have ever gotten, and I am really excited cause it will work PERFECTLY for my school visits this next year. 

We walked to St. Marks Plaza and we tried to go in the Basilica, but you had to be dressed appropriately, and most of us girls were in tank tops and shorts so we decided not to go in.  The girls had found an awesome pizza place that sold pizza by the slice to go in one of the alleys, so we ventured there and got THE BEST pizza we have had this entire trip.  Even better was that it was pretty cheap!! Kyle, Sarah and I shopped as we made our way back to the bus station.  Sarah left to catch a train with some other friends to Florence while Kyle and I headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags.  Of course we could not resist yet another gelato before we left Venice… our way of thinking was that every day we are literally doing nothing but walking and only stopping for lunch and dinner and therefore deserve daily gelato.  Not to mention it has been SOOOOO hot that the gelato is an excellent cold treat to cool us down. :)

Kyle and I successfully got off at the right stop at the hotel this time! Sweet.  We picked up our luggage and followed the hotel’s directions to catch the bus to the airport.  The bus the man told us to take was going the wrong direction though! So we asked the bus driver how to get there.  He didn’t speak English, but some of the people near the front over heard us and instructed us to get off the bus and go to the stop across the street.  Eventually we successfully found ourselves at the airport around 5:15pm.  The rest of the group was there waiting, and we found out that we could not check in until 6:15 for our flight (which is still 2 hours before our flight was supposed to leave).  So with our free time, we ate dinner at the pizzeria in the airport.  There was actually a sign outside the dinning area that told us that we could only sit in there if we were actually eating something and that we were supposed to leave when we finished.  So of course we did the logical thing and just took turns eating. Hahaha. We checked in for our flight at 6:15 and found out we could only take one bag each on the plane.  Kyle and I both had our backpacks and a small duffle, so we got Daniel to help us out by stuffing my little backpack in his big backpack so that we could check just the one bag.  Overall it worked out. 

We got to our terminal to realize that the seats on the plane are “first come first serve” which was a new concept for us.  We were at the very front of the line waiting to board only to find out that our flight was crazy delayed.  The craziest thing was that we went from literally the first people in line to having probably a good 15-20 people ahead of us… and we didn’t move. People were literally just pushing around and in front of us.  Some even took down the rope things that make up the lines, stepped in front of it, and fastened the rope back in place.  Apparently they REALLY wanted a good seat on the plane.  After going through the line, we actually had to take a bus to get to the plane.  Now, that was an experience! Everyone took one step onto the bus, and then stopped attempting to keep their front door status.  So of course it was ridiculous trying to get an entire flight on a bus.  The bus arrived at the plane, and people literally took off running for the stairs to get on the plane! We ended up getting separated, but Kyle and Amy held a seat for me next to them when I got on. 

That’s when we realized how CRAZY HOT it was on the plane.  They made announcements saying that they were sorry, but they could not turn on the AC until the first engine was running… this of course meant that we had to be ready for take off before we would get some cool air.  So everyone was really really hot.  The plane started to smell, and people were actually starting to feel sick.  People were still fighting over seats and storage space for luggage, though so we could not get moving.  People ended up having to check bags, and in general it was pretty chaotic. We realized just how much we appreciate American airlines, assigned boarding zones, and even assigned seats as well as the general idea of lining up in a single file line and not cutting people in line or even pushing them to get by.

Needless to say, our already delayed flight did not take off until 20 minutes after the time that we should have already ARRIVED in Naples.  Once we were in the air, the flight was fine.  The AC came on and everyone was relieved, and we successfully arrived in Naples 2.5 hours after we should have.  By then it was almost midnight, and we had to find our hostel. 

The people at the tourist desk in the airport were of little help to us.  Eventually, they told us the best way to get where we needed to go was to hop on the bus right outside the airport. We followed their instructions, and we each paid the bus driver and told him where we were going.  Within minutes, we were already realizing what a different place we were in.  The drivers in Naples are CRAZY!  They literally blocked in the bus, so the bus driver was just laying on the horn waiting for the car to move so that we could leave the airport.  Eventually the car moved ever so slightly, and the bus passed within INCHES.  It was so close that we literally found ourselves sucking in and holding our breaths! Now, remember that this is after midnight.  Apparently in Naples it is very common to have TRAFFIC JAMS AT MIDNIGHT.  There were sooooooo many cars on the road! Between the cars jumping in and out of lanes (sometimes lanes going the wrong direction even!) and the Vespas (spelling??) speeding right though multiple lanes of traffic, the 5 of us were in complete shock.  There were also all sorts of people on the streets, and it did not look like the nicest parts of town.  In fact, at one point while we were driving down the road this group of 5 or 6 guys pretty much jumped in front of the bus and started banging on the bus and yelling at the driver.  The driver started yelling back and doing some hand motions (none of which we understood), and the minute the outside guys backed off the bus, the driver floored it to get away! We were a little scared…

We were supposed to get off at a stop in the middle of nowhere and transfer to a different bus that would take us to our hostel.  The bus driver told us the number of the bus that was supposed to be coming, but then said if it didn’t come in a while that we should try going through this dark alley, around a corner, and wait for a different bus number… yep. We knew this was going to be AWESOME.  We asked him for a phone number of a taxi service just in case and he replied with “oh. 8888.” Hahaha. No joke.  The bus driver motioned for us to go wait at the stop, so we very hesitantly walked off the bus.  After we got off though, our bus driver stepped off the bus and literally waved down the next bus that passed.  We watched from the bus stop as he got on the other bus and talked to the second driver.  Then, he waved us over saying “Come! Come!” We quickly walked over to the second bus where he told us to get on and that this driver would take us where we needed to go.  Even better is that he told us “this bus safe bus.” Yep. REALLLLLLL reassuring!! But, from our previous experiences, we decided to just trust the bus drivers and see what happened. 

The way we saw it, we could either get on a “safe bus” with a driver that at least knew the city, or we could stay where we were by a scary bus stop with no idea where we were or how to go from there.  I think we made the best choice.  Especially with Kyle and I’s past bus history, every time we have been lost the bus drivers in places have been the most understanding and helpful people.  We have really come to rely on them.  So while some might say that we were risking a lot by riding this bus in the middle of the night in a city we had no clue about, we think we handled the situation to the best of our ability.  We had debated outside the airport just taking a taxi, but now down from our group of 6 to a group of 5 that would have meant two taxies, one with 3 and one with 2 people, and we really did not want to risk anything happening or risk getting separated.  Not to mention the bus we got on at the airport looked relatively nice compared to most of the other public transportation we had seen up until then.  So, we took the risky bus ride and like real travelers we went on an epic adventure that we still talk about days later. 

Anyways, back to the story, we road the second bus for a good while until the driver asked to see where we were headed.  We showed him the address of the hostel, and he told us that his route did not go there!! There was a moment of panic among us, and I think the driver could see it because he quickly said that he would to his best to get us there even though it was not in his route.  He told us all to take a seat and that he would let us know when to get off.  So, for the second time in that night, we left our “fates” to the bus driver and sat in our seats to observe the pretty sketch city of Naples.  After another hour of driving and pretty much the full driving tour of Naples, the bus driver motioned that the next stop was ours.  It still looked like we were in the middle of nowhere, but we left our trust in the bus driver’s hands and thanked him for helping us as we stepped off the bus. 

Turns out he dropped us off right in front of the little alley we had to walk up to find our hostel! Too bad we didn’t realize that until we had walked up and down the street both ways… We showed up at the hostel at 1:30am (almost 4 hours after we planned on arriving), and at first no one answered the door.  We almost panicked, but after ringing the door bell twice more a man finally answered the door.  Finally, we had made it to our hostel and could sleep for a few hours!  We found ourselves in an 8 person dorm style room with three people already sleeping inside (two in one bed…) over all an interesting experience.  I felt bad cause it was really late, but we were so gross we had to take showers, and then we still had to make our beds up and climb in.  Basically we did not get to sleep until 2:30 or even 3:00am, and I am sure our roommates were not too happy with us for it.  Daniel had to wake up really really early to get back to the ship in time for a SAS trip, so he left before I even woke up in the morning, and the rest of us were up and out of the hostel by 7:30am ready to attempt to find our ship. 

After that day's adventures, we decided that we would not be doing very much sight seeing in the city of Naples… instead, we would stick to places like Capri and Pompeii. :) 

i fail at keeping this blog up to date....

I like that i am still trying to catch up on Italy and Croatia blog time when we are going to arrive tomorrow morning in Greece! sorry guys!!


Thursday: Day 17
Italy day three: VENICE

Ready for an exciting day in VENICE, we woke up and immediately took the bus into the city.  Our hotel we stayed at was actually located right on the outskirts of the city, which meant we had to take the bus, but it saved us a BUNCH of money.  Before we left, the hotel manager suggested a route around Venice that would help us get the most out of our day.  Taking his advice, we took a water bus for 6.5 euros from the bus stop to Piazza San Marco.  From here, the manager suggested that we walked back stopping at basically three major points in the city: the Piazza San Marco, Academia, and Rialto. Taking this route would put us close to where we began at the bus station to catch it back to the hotel at the end of the day. 

The plan was going great! The water bus is basically just what it sounds like.   A large, bus-like boat that literally acts as a bus would along the roads only it moves through the waters of Venice.  SOOOOOO cool.  We got off at the stop the manager said to get off and began wandering around in search of the Piazza.  Along the roads of shops, we found a little pastry shop where we stopped for a minute.  Kyle got a apple pastry for only a euro, which he said was awesome and I got a chocolate milk cause I have been craving it for like two weeks.  Its all Heather’s fault!! We talked about how delicious chocolate milk was in Barcelona and then never got any… so yes. I got a little juice box size chocolate milk and it was tasty.  We also passed by a fruit stand where Kyle got a banana and I got an apple. So that was breakfast. Haha.

We kept walking and eventually found ourselves… in Rialto.  Now, remember that we were heading towards the PIAZZA. Or so we thought! Instead we ended up hitting what was supposed to be our third and final stop of the evening first! Oops!! Ohhhh well. Instead we decided to pick up some lunch at a place we found a little off the beaten path where we ordered lasagna and spaghetti with meatballs. The lasagna was AMAZING. The spaghetti with meatballs was good too, but it had NOTHING on the lasagna! Haha.

Afterwards, we walked all over the island.  We decided to just take the day backwards and head to the Academia. We got gelato of course, and then decided to see if we could go around all of Venice via the water bus.  We ended up riding around the water bus for two hours. It was absolutely beautiful! Was cool to see the entire city across the water.  The bus went out to Marano island, which we wanted to see more of but did not get a chance to.  We also passed ambulance BOATS! Everything here is perfectly set up for water transportation.  They even have speed limit signs and markers.  Was pretty cool.

We eventually got back to the bus terminal, and from there we walked and found a spot where we could eat by the canal.  I tried pasta carbonara, but did not care for it.  The lemon chicken however was excellent especially since we have not had that much chicken.  I am going through chicken withdrawal!! I was so excited for chicken Parmesan in Italy, but apparently that is just an American Italian dish because they had it NOWHERE! So sad! Kyle and I tried another of the local beers with dinner. 

After dinner, we walked back to the buses and hopped on the one we were supposed to take back to the hotel. We had no idea where we were going, and when we saw/passed the hotel we did not think fast enough to jump off.  We thought it would just loop back and go back to the bus stop we got on at in the morning, however, an hour later we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere at a bus station.  We asked the bus driver where we were and how we should get back, but he did not speak any English. He told us we had to go back all the way to Venice and try again.  He told us that another bus would be coming in 15 minutes, and with that he shooed us off the bus and took off.  About 10 minutes later, another bus pulls around heading towards Venice.  Kyle and I hopped on and immediately asked the driver if he spoke English.  Turns out it was our same driver!! He motioned for us to get on the bus, and then he motioned for us to sit together in the front seat.  Basically, we knew he was going to take good care of us.  After a total of 2 hours on a bus (basically the entire first hour in reverse), the driver told us to get off at a stop, and we finally found ourselves outside of our hotel! We took hot showers, told the others our bus story, and fell asleep safe and sound in our hotel beds. :)

Zdravo from CROATIA!!

Zdravo is how you say hello in Croatian!! :)  our ship got to port early.  we were not supposed to arrive until early this morning, but we made good time apparently and we were able to come into port at 2300.  by 0030 we were alongside Dubrovnik!  kyle and i went up to the 7th deck and watched the ship come in at night. so cool!! this is the only time we will probably be coming in at night, so it was cool to see.

Now i am headed to bed! breakfast at 0800 followed by diplomatic briefing at 0830, and then we are getting off the ship asap to explore the old town portion of Dubrovnik!! :) :) we are literally just going to wander around and see what we can see.  probably will walk all along the city walls.  that is supposed to be awesome.  a good hour and a half hike all the way around the city, but we will probably stop along the way for lunch and to take side roads to see what we can find.  so far thats pretty much what we do every where.  basically just get lost(ish) and see where it takes us! so much fun! being a pro map reader after canada helps too ;) haha!

Planning on going snorkeling and possibly kayaking the next day off of one of the islands?? still have to look into details on that one, but a group of our friends found a place that you can do both and get lunch for about 33 euros! totally sweet!

the third day we are planning a trip to Bosnia.  not really sure of the details there, but this is the only port we are actually allowed to leave the country we are docked in. So of course we want to take advantage of that!! haha

finally, the last day i have a service visit to a local orphanage and hospital from 0815 to 1300 that i am REALLY REALLY excited for! i think kyle is going to try and see if there is any space left that morning.  (for most SAS trips, you can go to the bus when it is supposed to leave and see if there is room to add in.  they said so far they have been able to accommodate all that have come, but this is the first service visit and the service visits are like liquid gold apparently for SASers so we will see!) when i get back from my SAS trip, i will have only a few hours before on ship time at 1800, so i will probably stay relatively close to the ship so as to avoid dock time. 


sounds pretty exciting huh?? :)

sorry i am being a slacker about italy posts!! still working on them.... slowly but surely!! :]

Roming around Rome

Sorry for the delayed post!! had classes and such the past two days! we're officially alongside Dubrovnik, CROATIA!!!!!!! Will be here for 4 days! :) :)


Wednesday: Day 16
Italy day two: ROME

In the morning, we woke up really early (0645) to head to the Vatican.  Before we got off the ship, we had purchased tickets to go in so that we could skip the ridiculous line and go straight in.  I am so glad we did because the line literally wrapped around Vatican City.  It was crazy!! All sorts of beggars were there and people trying to sell “tours” to us.  We got in to the Vatican at around 0830 and began touring the museum.  We got the audio guides because we didn’t know much about what we were looking at.  It was well worth the 7 euros cause it was very informative. While in Vatican City, we also saw St. Peter’s Basilica.  I actually did not realize that the pope holds mass there every Wednesday and Sunday.  That made it a LOT more crowded while we were there. 

Everyone that came on the ship to talk about Rome mentioned this little gelato place called Oldbridge right across the street from the Vatican, so of course we can never turn up a good gelato place! Of course it was EXCELLENT.  Gelato here is awesome, and it is pretty cheap! Most places give you a very generous portion for only 2 euros, and usually that gives you 2 to 3 different flavors in one cup.  In addition to the chocolate and Nutella flavors that I mentioned falling in love with earlier, I should also include lemon because omg it is scrumptious.  It tastes just like those awesome frozen lemonade things (Luigi’s Italian Ice anyone??) you can get only like a bazillion times better.

After our glorious gelato, Daniel headed off on his own while Kyle, me, and the other three girls (Lindsay, Amy, and Sarah sorry forgot to mention them earlier!! The six of us were all together for the next few days) took the metro to see the Tiber River, which is the river that splits the city of Rome in half.  From there, we walked through the Piazza del Popolo, where we saw people setting up a whole bunch of vacuums that they were using for a photoshoot! It was funny cause there were all these guys dressed up in suits pushing vacuums around by the fountain while other Italians sat on the edge of the fountain just watching them.  We walked up a hill and found ourselves in Pincio Park, which was absolutely lovely.  It had an area that looked over the entire city of Rome annnnnd a little stand selling frozen waters.  Those things are the best!! These street venders literally take bottles of water and freeze them to sell for 2 euro.  It is so nice because the ice will last a good little bit, and we have been able to refill them at fountains so that we have cold water as apposed to the warm or even hot water in our water bottles.  Well off of that tangent… we ended up just resting and enjoying the park for a good 45 minutes. 

Then it was time to hit the road.  We headed back to the hostel to pick up our stuff. (the hostel people were awesome and let us leave our bags there even after we checked out so that we didn’t have to carry them all day) We took the train to the airport and successfully got our plane tickets.  Only lame part was going through security I totally forgot and brought my B&BW lotion that I absolutely love, well I should say LOVED, because I got it taken away ☹ ☹ apparently it was too big a bottle.  Sad day!! Oh well. Now I am on a mission to find some more lotion cause that was the only one I brought! Haha.

We broke the rules and ate McDonalds at the airport… before you yell at me I know I know!! Such a bad traveler to eat McD’s, but seriously, it was like THE LEAST sketch place to eat at the airport.  The rest of the airport food just did not look appealing.  And surprisingly enough, for some reason it seems that most McD’s in Europe are actually wayyyyy nicer than in America.  Its actually pretty funny! Like the one in Spain where we stole free internet and got awesome glasses? Yeah. That place was SWEET. It was like three whole stories! It was even decorated all modern and such.  But once again, I digress… so we ate McD’s, felt slightly guilty but savored the French fries and homely feel.

The flight was uneventful.  Kyle and I ended up being able to move seats around, so we sat next to each other, and Sarah sat in the row in front of us.  Me being me, I met my new bff during the flight… the older man sitting next to me.  HAHA. He was really cool.  For the first like 15 minutes Kyle and I were being ridiculous trying to figure out how to say hi to him in Italian (up until that point, pretty much everyone we encountered at least spoke a little English). We finally figured out and said “Ciao!” to the man only to find out that he actually spoke a good amount of English….. I’m sure he had been really REALLY amused at Kyle and I the whole previous 15 minutes when I was literally telling Kyle “All I want is to say HI to him!! Why is it that Rick Steve doesn’t tell us how to freaking say HI?!?!!” hahaha. Anyways, he ended up giving us some good advice and in general being good company.  He lives in Rome, but frequently goes to Venice for business trips.  He loves both places, and told us that he wished we had more than two days in Venice because he said there was soooooo much worth seeing. 

The boys made fun of me for making such good friends with the man when we got off the plane, but I think they were just jealous ;) hahahaha. From the airport, we just decided to take a taxi to the hotel because it was already late, and we really did not want to get lost.  The taxi was a little expensive, and we had to take two because there were 6 of us total, so it ended up being about 11 euro each.

The hotel was pretty nice.  We had two rooms. Each had a double bed and a twin bed.  So of course I somehow got stuck living with the boys for two days haha. They shared the double while I got my own bed at least :) score! Tired from our full day of excursions, we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows. 

you know you are awesome when...

.... you can fit 66 articles of clothing into one hotel-sized laundry bag.

the list including:
12 tshirts
1 longsleeve tshirt
3 tanktops
2 nice shirts
3 gym shorts
2 cute shorts
1 pair of jeans (really capris but they roll down to jeans so it totally counts.)
29 pairs of underwear/bras
13 pairs of socks.

count it people. 66 FREAKING ITEMS.  impressed? i totally am.

and the bag even CLOSED. mostly. :) 

so the main reason this is awesome is that we pay for laundry PER BAG. meaning that i just got 66 articles of clothing washed for 6 bucks. totally sweet! laundry days on the ship are rare.  they assign them by sea and in total i only have 4 chances to do laundry the entire summer.  and after today my next laundry day is not until august 3rd.  aka AFTER EGYPT. meaning that basically i have an entire month without laundry! glad i packed enough clothes!! :)

well, just had to share that with you guys. 



its the little things in life. :D

a day at sea and a full day in Rome, ITALY!!!!

Monday: Day 14
Italy day!!

With a full day of sailing, we had a day off of exploring as well as a day off from classes! We were so excited, but we definitely had plenty to keep busy with all day and all night.  We went to bed thinking we would get a nice long sleep, but forgot the fact that we had a meeting that morning for SOS (students of service).  At 0920, Heather called me from the meeting… that started at 0900. oops! Ran up there quick fast to catch the tail end of the meeting, then headed back down with Heather to chill in my room.  We discovered that our TVs show the union, so instead of going up there for all the meetings, we just chilled in my room, ate our Barcelona snacks, and fell asleep. Multiple times. Overall very productive day, don’t you think??

Tuesday: Day 15
Arrival in ITALY!! Civitavecchia and Rome!

After getting up early to see the pilot hop on in Barcelona, we decided that we would be completely lazy in Italy and just sleep through it.  We had to wait to pick up our passports by sea because we would need them to get on planes and get into the hostels and hotels.  As soon as we all had our passports, we grabbed our bags and headed into Civitavecchia!   We saw about 10 minutes of that city before we found the train station to catch the first possible train to Rome.  As so I took my first ever train ride!!!! Was pretty cool.  Our windows were really dirty, so we could not get very many good pictures. Except Kyle.  He was like a little kid in a toy store.  He had both of the tiny windows down on either side of the train and was hopping from one window to the other taking pictures. About an hour later, we arrived in Rome!!! From there we walked to find our Hostel: the Rome City Hostel.  Successfully checked in and headed back out to find the metro to Colosseo.  The coolest part was that the metro dropped us off literally right outside the Colosseo!! We literally walked out and had to take a step back because it was so stunning.  We took half a million pictures before heading to find some lunch right near it.  Kyle, Heather and I split penne with meat sauce and a cheese pizza.  Both were very tasty especially the pasta! After lunch, the other three girls wanted to go inside the Colosseo, but since Heather was going to go inside the next day Kyle and I decided to just hang with her.  We ended up heading out just in time to find Daniel and Lacey walking our way!! Was so funny.  We had been trying to walkie talkie with each other with very little success, but finally we found each other!! And thus the 5 of us headed out to explore Rome.  We walked alllllllll around! We saw
*Anco di Costantino
*Foro Romano (the ruins)
*Vittoriale
*Pantheon (hahah oh the Pantheon.  How I miss Charleston.  Unfortunately it was closed. We wanted to go inside, but we were there on a Catholic holiday and thus everything was closed!)
*Piazza Navona
*Piazza Colonna
*Prime Minister’s office (which had armed men some carrying swords others carrying huge guns!! Not someone we wanted to mess with for sure!)
*the Parliament Building
*Fontana di Trevi (this is the famous fountain that everyone knows about.  Supposedly the legend says that if you toss coins from your right hand over your left shoulder, then the following wishes are possible: you throw 1 coin to return to Rome, 2 coins to find love, and 3 coins for a divorce. Yep. A divorce. Haha so we got a picture of the three of us girls throwing 1 coin each into the fountain. Was pretty awesome)
*Trinita Dei Monti (Spanish Steps)  On the steps Lacey had to get gelato and imitate Audrey Hepburn hahaha

and that is just a small list of all the things we managed to see!! We found a cute little restaurant near Trinita Dei Monti where we got an excellent pizza with buffalo mozzarella and Salami on it and heart shaped pasta stuffed with buffalo mozzarella with a basil red sauce that was absolutely DELICIOUS.  Heather, Kyle and I have become excellent meal sharers during this trip.  It is so fun to get a few dishes and pass them around! Daniel and I also tried the house red wine that was from a local vineyard and it was really really good! I had never tasted red wine that I actually liked so I was pretty excited!!

We walked around a bit more and found a gelato place for 2 euro.  It was sooooooo tasty!! I have fallen in love with Nutella gelato! It is an absolute weakness! Haha they also have really REALLY good chocolate gelatos too. It is like eating a candy bar it is so good. At that place we were able to get three flavors all in one cup!! I got the Nutella, Coaco (chocolate), and a carmello (carmel) one.  Gelatos in hand, we walked to the nearest metro.  We said goodbye to Lacey and Heather (shiffle shiffle) as they took the train back to Civitavecchia to catch their SAS trip the next day, and headed back to the hostel for the night.  We all crashed around 11:30 completely worn out but very excited for the rest of our journey. :)

oh my goodness!! can you believe it?? last post for BARCELONA!!

Sunday: Day 13
BARCELONA DAY FOUR! last day :(

With a three hour nap under our belt, we started our morning really early.  At about 9am we were already taking the shuttle back downtown to catch a metro towards the Temple de La Sagrada Familia.  Daniel had mysteriously disappeared again though this time he left Lacey a note saying he would meet us there around 11:30 if we were there still.  We ended up getting there at around 11 and sure enough Daniel was there, so he joined the group again.  We discovered that the night before he had just decided to head into the city by himself and not tell anyone… oh well. Silly boys and their shenanigans.

Anyways, the Sagrada Familia was absolutely AMAZING. I cannot wait to show everyone all the pictures.  It was so colorful on the inside, and it had these stunning stained glass windows from the ridiculously high ceiling to the floor.  The outside was crazy cool too.  The entire front tells the story of the Passion through sculptures on the building.  They started construction in the 1800s, and they are not expected to finish it until 2026.  I REALLY REALLY want to go back then and see it complete.  I think that would be one of the coolest things I could ever see. 

We spent a good long time taking pictures there, and then headed to get some lunch.  We ate at a little pizzeria outside the Sagrada Familia. Like all the food we have had in Spain, it was awesome! So satisfying for our last meal in Spain.

After lunch, we split up again for the last few hours in port.  Clark had already left for his SAS trip, Daniel and Lacey headed to explore a little more since they had been on a SAS trip to Madrid while we explored the other days, and Heather, Kyle and I headed to the other mall to see what it was like across the boardwalk.  We all ended up heading back to the ship only a couple hours later not wanting to say goodbye to Spain, but completely exhausted and ready for a good night’s sleep. 

We all went our separate ways on the ship except Heather and I hung out and watched a movie/ fell asleep watching a movie in my room.  Dinner was hilarious because I am pretty sure we were all so tired we were delirious.  Heather was literally falling asleep on the table.  No joke.  We have multiple videos of evidence.  We also may or may not have stacked all of our snack time trash on her head while she was sleeping then too.  Who us? Never…. We’re such better friends than that!! :D  Eventually, we all got up to leave Sleeping Beauty, and Kyle decided to be funny and pick her up and carry her.  Only she was in a dress, and Kyle totally dropped her.  HILARIOUS.  EVEN BETTER: WE CAUGHT IT ON VIDEO. I am also pretty sure everyone else on the ship thought we were absolutely crazy.  But its ok.  We are crazy. :]  And on that note, we said goodbye to Barcelona, Spain and HELLO TO ITALY!

BARCELONA DAY THREE!! (and the updates keep on rollin')

Saturday: Day 12
BARCELONA DAY THREE!!

In the morning, Heather had another SAS trip, so Kyle and headed into town to go to La Boqueria, which is a fresh market off of La Ramblas.  They had all sorts of stands selling products ranging from fruit to bread, pasta, and all sorts of meats including seafood (fish with their heads on and octopi, live lobsters, crabs, and all sorts of other crazy things), chicken (some with their heads on too), and other red meat including ham and rabbits both of which also had their heads sometimes too.  It was pretty gross. Not gonna lie.  Kyle and I kinda wished we were vegetarian after seeing a rabbit completely skinned but still with its eyeballs.  GROSS. There were men and women literally chopping the chunks of meat and heads off meat left and right.  The fruit stands were so beautiful! All sorts of fruits.  They had real fruit juices that are apparently very popular in Barcelona because EVERYONE was walking around drinking them.  So Kyle and I tried them.  Kyle got a pineapple coconut one that he really liked and I tried a cherry mango one.  Mine tasted pretty good, but I am not really a fan of smoothie things with that consistency.  A for effort though!  Kyle also got a small tray of fruit for a euro, and I got an APPLE! I was so excited. I’ve been craving apples like nobody’s business on this ship! It was delicious.  So delicious in fact, that when we got to the shuttle and the driver told us we could not take our fruit on, I made Kyle wait for the next shuttle so I could finish it HAHA. :)

We picked up Heather back at the ship, then headed to McDonalds to steal free wi-fi.  Kyle wanted to skype his family.  Meanwhile, Heather and I wrote postcards and in general fooled around in the Spanish McDonalds.  During which time we scored awesome world cup glasses that apparently over here come free with any meal purchase.  Over here everyone leaves their trash on the tables. Its kind of weird.  Someone must come and clear it for them.  Anyways, this group of people left like 7 glasses on their table after they left, so I “reused” them.  They were still in their packages and everything and now all 6 of us have glasses (cause we snagged some for Lacey, Daniel, and Clark too because we are good friends like that).

Kyle’s backpack looked a little ridiculous after we stuffed all 6 glasses and his laptop into it, but never the less we left the McD’s happy campers.  We headed down to the Gotic area to check out the architecture.  We ran into a group of SASers as well as my extended ship family on the way! So I got a hug from my “ship mother” and some advice of stuff to note while we walked around.  We went through the Picasso Museum.  It was really cool.  They had Picasso’s life though his art work as well as information about each of the time periods.  It was interesting to see him progress and digress in each chunk of time.  They mentioned the times in which his father guided his art work in which you could notice how realistic the paintings and drawings were.  Those works of art were particularly interesting to me because I am only used to the typical Picasso works you think of with all of the geometric shapes and more abstract art.

Afterwards, we got lunch/dinner at a little place called Pleasure 23.  Was kind of touristy, but they had some tasty nachos.  The other two plates we got were just ok.  Kyle and I also split one of the local cervesas to see what it tasted like.  It was also pretty good and went well with the nachos. While we were waiting for our food, a little parade festival came around.  It was obviously a religious festival and included these costumes on stilts.  Later, we actually saw the people taking them apart and snapped some pictures.  I cannot really explain how those worked, so I will just try and post a picture or two.  After we left, we headed down to see the Barcelona Cathedral.  It was also really pretty and located in a neat square.  We walked up one of the side alleys and found this cute little store where we all eventually made a purchase of some sort.  I started my jewelry collection there when I found this awesome necklace made locally.  I am collecting basically three things from every country:
*a postcard (which I am mailing to myself at my school address.  I think it will be cool to have it processed in each country and also it will be fun to get them when I get back to school and relive some memories :D haha),
*a magnet (which is also cool seeing as all our walls on the ship are magnetic so I already have a little collection of them on my wall! So exciting!),
*and a piece of jewelry (which I noticed before I left that I really don’t have much of.  So earrings, necklaces, or anything else that I see are fair game)
Other than those three things, I have found a couple of other things that I picked up for myself or gifts all of which I am also really excited about!

So back to the little store… we made our purchases, and then were summoned out the door because we heard music outside.  Little did we know that we had just stumbled upon another first for the three of us: a gay pride event.  We knew it was Gay-Pride week in Barcelona, but man did we stumble into an awkward situation.   Barcelona people go all out for this apparently, because all of the participants were dressed in little to no clothing and what they were wearing was pretty ridiculous and included whips and thin fishnet tights.  Basically, we each saw wayyyyy more Spanish body than we ever wanted to.  Oops!

Pretty quickly we stumbled back out of the festival and back to the cathedral.  More specifically, to the chocolate store we saw down the street.  We tried churros con chocolate and crema catalayna (or some similar spelling) gelato basically crème Brule gelato.  Both were excellent!

From there we headed back to the ship to meet up with the rest of the gang, who were supposed to be getting in from there SAS trip that evening.

We decided we wanted to go out in Barcelona and see what the nightlife was like, and boy did that turn into an adventure!  Lacey, Heather, and I all got ready and planned to meet up with Daniel and 3 other girls Lacey met on her SAS trip.  Kyle and Clark did not want to come, so they just hung around.  When we realized that there were 6 girls and only 1 guy, we tried to get the other two boys to come so that we would feel a little safer especially if we ended up getting stuck somewhere and needing a cab.  As mentioned from Barcelona night 1, cabs here only take up to 4 people, and we really did not want to have to split up and have a cab with only girls.  Apparently us calling and explaining that to Kyle somehow got misinterpreted to Daniel, because when we went to meet him he was nowhere to be found.  He had told Clark and Kyle he was headed out and they assumed he meant to meet us.  Well, long story short, the 6 of us girls still wanted to go out so we decided we would proceed with our plans.  The two boys decided to be our escorts after they found out we were still going out even if Daniel didn’t come.

By the time we got to the club, it was already 2:30 am.  Even weirder is that clubs in Barcelona do not open until 1 am and most of them close at 8 am!! This compared with American clubs which are open usually around 9 or 10 until 2 am if you are in Charleston.  So really us being there at 2:30 am would be compared to about 10:30 or 11:30 pm in Chucktown.  It was pretty evident of that when we walked in.  There was a good amount of people and the club was cool, but by the time we left at around 4:30am, the dance floors were jam-packed!! Apparently 4 am is prime dancing time in Barcelona haha.  They boys had not wanted to come into the club, so they waited outside with Heather (who also ended up not being able to come in the club because we did not realize that clubs are not smoke free in Barcelona.  Another thing we really appreciate and do not realize in America: smoke free zones.  There are little to none in Spain and Italy so far.  Heather is very asthmatic and did not want to risk going in the club).

We had a lot of fun in the club. They played a huge variety of music.  Mostly American music, though, which we thought was interesting.  They varied from current Lady Gaga hits to old school Will Smith’s “Welcome to Miami.” Sooooo funny!! The 5 of us girls had a great time, but by 4:30am we were ready to crash, so we headed out to meet the other three.  Took the metro back, and promptly tossed off our dancing shoes and hit the sack.  Three hours later we were up and moving again……….

ridiculously delayed post: Barcelona day two!

i know what you are thinking.... "dear danielle, are you alive? are you functioning? where are you? one post about barcelona then just sporadic entries with silly song lyrics from italy??" the answers to all of your questions and more right here, right now.

yes i am alive, yes i am functioning at pretty much full speed ahead, sorry about the single barcelona post... i fail at journal keeping but the next few entries will make you barcelona fans happy, as for the sporadic itallian installments (as i like to call them now apparently), i just discovered that if kyle can update his blog from his phone then i can steel his phone and update mine too! so thats what happens when a particular song or incident happens: i steal his phone. and of course my brain always has songs in it so that is what you get. oops :) ill try to be better i promise!!

so without further ado, here is barcelona day two! (HAH. i'm a poet and i didnt even know it.)


Friday: Day 11
Our second day in BARCELONA!!! And I do not even know how to start!! In the morning, Kyle, Heather, and I took the shuttle bus to La Ramblas where we caught a taxi.  My first ever taxi ride!! Now THAT was an experience! The taxi drivers here are CRAZYYYYY.  I have been taught two very important driving lessons: slow down through intersections and slow down for pedestrians. Yeahhhh these taxi drivers obviously have been taught the exact OPPOSITE! Every time we went through an intersection, he would speed up, and heaven forbid if there was a person walking, he would speed up even more!!! Slightly scary journey, but we got to our destination accident free, paid the cab, and checked riding a cab off the to-do list. The spot the taxi dropped us off was at the top of the small mountain over looking Barcelona.  We took some pretty pictures of the city, and then continued into the park beside it.  The park was BEAUTIFUL. Probably one of my favorite spots we saw in Barcelona. :D

After taking half a million pictures, we headed down a cable car that runs from the top of the mountain over the pier and down to the boardwalk. SOOOOO cool.  Took tons of pictures there too. Haha.  At the bottom, we walked along the boardwalk and got some lunch.  Kyle was craving a cheeseburger real bad, so eventually I saw a little sign that said they had the best burgers, so we stopped and satisfied Kyle’s tummy.  Was a cute little place. We ate outside and got the chance to people watch.  Oh boy did we people watch! Our poor eyes at times! There were some really old men wearing Speedos and some really old women going topless.  Two things we all could have gone our whole lives without seeing!! There were some cute kids and families though, and the food tasted excellent.  Almost like home: in Spain.

With full bellies, we headed to see what a Spanish mall was like.  It was a really cool experience to see the differences and similarities between our malls and their malls.  We even managed to find the wal-mart equivalent inside the mall!! We totally stocked up on snacks all for under 14 euros! Totally sweet! We also discovered a new addiction: Limone (lemon) Fanta. Oh my goodness it is sooooo tasty.  Daniel compared it to liquid crack if that helps. 

Purchases in hand, we took the metro back to the ship, dropped them off, got quick showers, and headed back out to the town in search of the World Cup game.  Spain was supposed to be playing, so Kyle and I searched for a bar to watch it in while Heather went on her “Barcelona at Night” SAS trip.  Bars in Spain are not like bars in America.  In America, their sole purpose is to drink and socialize.  Bars in Spain are not only places to grab drinks. Rather, they are fully functioning restaurants and are usually open all day for any meals or snacks you want.  So Kyle and I tried to find one to grab some dinner and watch the big game.  We epically failed.  We found one place, but when we walked in the place was full of smoke so we couldn’t eat inside.  It was all good though, we just ate outside and the food was delicious!

Heather met up with us after her trip was through and also ordered some food.  Some of the sas trips are turning out to be duds, so she was slightly disappointed.  She signed up for several trips in Barcelona, and apparently a lot of them are practically the same thing.  Pretty frustrating.  Kyle and I have been really glad we did not sign up for many.  We only have a few service visits and I have a trip in Turkey for my global music class that looked pretty cool.  Everything else we have been doing independently, and so far it has all worked out really well.

After dinner, we walked to see the Placa de Espana. There is a fountain that lights up and plays music at night.  We watched it for a few minutes, but then decided to call it a night cause we were completely worn out. 



so that was day two of barcelona... ps these are getting posted as i type them, so yeahhhh sorry if you guys get multiple updates and emails in the near future!!

:]