SOUTH AFRICA

Wine Tasting
Well the M.V. Explorer pulled into beautiful Cape Town about 2 hours late on Feburary 18th! I was bumming cause we were supposed to have a private tour guide take 6 friends and I to the wine lands of Stellenbosch and Franschoek. We were two hours late to meet our guide because I had no way of getting a hold of him :-/ I felt so bad! But he was a really cool guy and we were off to go taste some delicious wines! On the way we stopped at the prison that Nelson Mandela walked to his freedom from. For those of you who don’t know who he is or anything about South African history here is a little tidbit! Up until pretty recently South Africa had an apartheid government. This basically meant that white people were first class citizens, colored people who were Asians and Indians were second class citizens, and black people were not considered citizens at all. Mandela was a fighter for human rights and was arrested for doing so. He was sentenced to prison for life and even at one point almost condemned to death. After 27 years in Prison (most of his sentence being lived out in Robben Island) he was free to leave in 1990. He was then named President of South Africa for 6 years. In South Africa Mandela is looked at as their sort of savior or deliverer, he is kind of like our equivalent of Martin Luther King only more radical. Anyways that’s my little history story for the day!
Back to the wine lands. When we pulled into Franschoek I was immediately astounded. I had never seen any type of vineyard before or anything even remotely similar to it. Everywhere you looked there were rows and rows of grapes and different beautiful buildings that housed the cellars. We stopped at a vineyard called Chamonix. It only cost 15 rand to do a wine tasting ($1.50 American) So we were all very pumped being the poor college students that we are! And they were delicious we started with 3 whites then 2 reds. It was just so fun trying all the wines and hanging out with friends in such a gorgeous setting. We then traveled to the cute little town center where we sat down for lunch. After that we continued to a second winery. This was a much bigger winery that had a restaurant, store, and even a little museum which was an original Dutch house from the 1800’s. We didn’t do a wine tasting here we just walked around a bit and took lots of pictures and relaxed. Next we continued to Stellenbosch. The winery we went to here was incredible. This was the most modern one which had huge windows overlooking the big metal tanks that housed the wine. This vineyard was at the bottom of a hill. Running all up the hill was rows and rows of grapes lined at the top by olive trees. It was amazing. We went to 4 different vineyards in all. After this we went to the town of Stellenbosch which houses the University of Stellenbosch. It was really fun it reminded me of being back at school! Walking around with tons of college students, seeing all the school buildings, dorms, the town even looked like a college town. I really enjoyed it. We did some shopping and got some ice cream then headed back to the ship.
On the way back to the ship I was able to talk with my guide a little bit. We passed tons of townships which are kind of like housing projects in the United States but they are way poorer in South Africa. The houses are literally little shanty shacks built out of random scrap materials that they find in garbage cans. The nice luckier shacks steal electricity and water. The electricity poles have wires sticking out of them in every which direction it looks like a giant spider web in the sky. These townships were lined up all over the highway and they just went on for miles and miles. The only space that the children had to play was in the little grassy area on the side of the highway. They mainly played soccer which lead me to my next question, was football (soccer) popular in South Africa? Well I was shocked to hear that they actually call it soccer as well and yes it is popular but the team is not very good. The 2010 World Cup is actually being played in South Africa. We saw the stadium being built in Cape Town. In South Africa soccer is a predominately black sport and rugby is mostly white.
Cape Town
The next day my friend Kelsey and I were off to wander around Cape Town. We started by going to the aquarium! I love love love aquariums cause I love looking at cool fishies and sharks and dolphins! My favorite display though was the clownfish display. There was a good 100 little Nemo fish in this tank with a hole in the middle where you could climb under the tank and stick your head up in and then it looked like you were in the tank too! It was awesome I will upload pics soon. Other than that we saw so many cool fish that we don’t have in the states. After we bought a bus ticket and went to the green square market. This place was awesome! I love my shopping and I loved this place. It was a huge market that had tons of cool African jewelry, drums, paintings, masks, bowls, and tons more. I went a little crazy but it was soo worth it. After shopping we stopped for lunch at this cute little café. There was a street band performing in front of the restaurant named the Ganga Muffins! Ha they were awesome I went to go tip them 10 rand (1 dollar) and turns out they were selling a CD for that much so I bought that instead! Now I can bring the Ganga Muffins from the Streets of Cape Town to Skokie! After lunch we did a tour of Cape Town. We drove passed the district 6 museum, Table Mountain, the oceanfront which was filled with gorgeous beaches, the capital building, and many other historical sites. After this we headed to our cute little bed and breakfast. It was adorable! It was about 4 blocks from the ocean front and 1 block from tons of restaurants. It had a cute little pool, living room area, and dinging area. Our room was on the first floor which we were a bit nervous about. South Africa has the highest violent crime rate in the world and the worst part is they are usually crimes against people not property. Well our bed and breakfast was aware of this cause there was a locked gate on our sliding door to the patio as well as a cage on the bathroom window, so we rested easy. Kelsey and I got all dressed up and headed to dinner at a restaurant called Africa Café. We decided not to be adventurous that night so we just ordered some good old burgers! After dinner we headed back to the bed and breakfast since we had internet and I went a little crazy uploading pictures as I’m sure all of you can see!
Table Mountain &Township Tour
We had an early morning we were up and ready to go at 8am. We were supposed to do a township tour through a company but we got stood up! They never came to pick us up so we bought another bus pass and headed to Table Mountain. Table Mountain is a mountain located in the middle of Cape Town. From the top you can see amazing views of the city center as well as the coastline. You can hike up it if you are feeling adventurous but we decided to take the cable car. The cable car holds up to 60 people and it take only 1 minute to get to the top! It’s really cool the inside of the cable car rotates on the way up. At the top you can see for miles it’s so beautiful! Our ship looked SO teenie tiny from the top of that mountain. We then headed on down and continued on our tour.
We found that on one of the busses you can get off and do a walking township tour with a local tour guide. This was an experience that both Kelsey and I were dying to have so we decided to go for it. It was still daylight and after all the bus company was reputable and sponsored this man. So we got off at the township exit and hoped other tourists on the bus would get off with us but no it was just Kelsey and I. We met our guide who was very nice and we began walking in the township. The ground was muddy and full of pieces of glass, stones, metals, and garbage. We walked up hill and saw the formal and informal housing. A few of the houses are made out of real housing materials and were built by habitat for humanity or government sponsored but most were informal and put together made out of random materials. They looked like little forts children would make in the summertime out of tarps and garbage, but they live here year round. Our guide took us to one of the bars in the township so we could interact with some of the people. It was a little sketchy at first pretty dirty and gross but we relaxed and took it for what it was worth. We met tons of people who lived in the townships and learned that so many live there for so many different reasons. Some people choose to live in the townships because they are lazy and don’t want to work, others cannot find work anywhere, some are criminals who steal what little they have, some are refugees fleeing from other countries in Africa. I met two men from Zimbabwe (you should Google what is going on with Mugabe and hyperinflation there) who had moved to South Africa a year ago. They lived in the township and were SOOOO grateful to have their little shanty. It was truly incredible how welcoming most of these people were. Our guide bought us this HUGE sausage it was a local favorite apparently. It looked DISGUISTING oh my god so nasty but we had to be polite and try it. So I hesitated and ate a small piece. I was glad it was just a small piece because it was as gross as it looked. I tried another bite to be polite but no it was not good. All the men in the bar loved it though and they passed it around and ate the whole thing! We talked about politics in South Africa and we discussed Obama and Bush, man they do not like Bush at all, they despised him even more than some Americans. After the sausage our guide took us to some of the houses which are literally the size of a bathroom. It’s a bed a fridge if they are lucky and a stove all in one room. He brought us to a white shanty which was named “the white house”he said that the U.S. should send Obama to South Africa and they would set him up real nice in there haha. Visiting the township was an amazing experience. I am so happy I got to interact with the people of Africa. South Africa is deceivingly beautiful. The tourist areas are AMAZING they are just gorgeous. While there you forget that 70% of the country lives in townships like this.
Cape Malay Cooking Tour
I ventured to the Cape Malay quarter of Cape Town. Here is where the Muslim population of South Africa lives. The buildings here are painted beautiful bright colors as far as the eye can see. I mean lime green, magenta, turquoise, orange, yellow every color of the rainbow! Just walking around the houses put me in a good mood! We made our way to a spice shop where I bought some good spices for my parents and grandparents (but stupid semester at sea confiscated them cause apparently we are not allowed to bring spices on board…it sucked). We then made our way to a local lime green house where we began preparing our lunch. We were welcomed with a drink that was in a shot glass. It was pink and looked kind of like pepto bismal but tasted like a strawberry milkshake it also had seeds in it but it was very good. We then began cooking a traditional South African dish. We had samoosas which are SOO good, curry chicken, flat bread, poppers, and for desert donuts! Everything was so good and we were able to help our host cook and get to know a bit about her and more about the Muslim religion. Muslims pray 5 times a day and over the loud intercoms they have a call to prayer whenever they have to. The first one starts at 3 am! So every night at 3 am beginning at the age of 7 you wake up and pray. That is dedication! Anyways it was a really cool experience and we got to see what a nice house in Cape Town was like.
After this Kelsey and I made our way to our hotel which was located on the bustling Long Street. Long Street is like the main street for bars and restaurants. Our hotel was called the Grand Daddy and boy was it cool. On the roof there were these little RV’s. These RV’s were like little hotel rooms that people could rent out. They were silver and looked like tin cans on fake grass! There was also a bar located on the roof it was really cool. That night we went out to dinner and hung out on Long Street. It was pretty cool but night is when the night beggars come out, majority of which are children. A lot of older people have been training children to commit crimes and beg for money because if they get caught they can’t get in very much trouble because they are minors. It is really sad actually. There are guards all over the street yelling at these kids and even being physically violent with them to get them to leave. After a little bar hopping we hailed a cab to take us back to our hotel…only after we made a pit stop at McDonald’s haha oh they knew we were Americans!
Final ThoughtsFor my last day in Cape Town there was so much I wanted to do. I still hadn’t made it to Robben Island, Cape of Good Hope, or the District 6 Museum, there was still soooooo much to do. Instead of packing it all into one day I decided that South Africa is definitely a place I am going to have to go back to. I took a cab to the beach and I just laid there and watched people. It was a Sunday afternoon so there were many locals there. The tide was so unpredictable, I was sitting about 40 feet from the ocean and when a big wave would come it would touch my toes! It happened about every 20 minutes. I loved just relaxing and soaking in the last few drops of the South African sun!!! I was in Camps Bay which reminds me a little bit of Miami beach. It was lined with swanky hip colorful restaurants. I ate lunch at one of these amazing restaurants and I sat outside and just wrote in my journal. It sounds lame but it was awesome. It was a great way to end an amazing trip. I know I say this about all the countries I have been to but Cape Town was amazing. It was my favorite port by far and the one place so far that I know I will one hundred percent get back to and all of you should as well. The food there is amazing, the beaches are beautiful, shopping is phenomenal, for thrill seekers there is shark diving and safaris, the mountains line the backdrop of the city, just everything was perfect. South Africa is an amazing place and I feel extremely blessed that I got to experience it.

NAMIBIA, AFRICA

Let me just say Africa is amazing and I am head over heels in love with it!!! We pulled into Walvis Bay at around 8 am on February 14th. Semester at Sea organized a group of school girls to come and perform for us in the port. They were so great. There was around 20 of them ranging in age from 6-14 and they dressed in a traditional African dress they sang and dance for us some songs in Afrikaans and some in English. It’s funny the way they danced would have been considered provocative in the United States it was a lot of booty dancing but it was SOOOOO cool. After they were done we were able to take pictures and talk to them. They were all so nice and sweet they kept saying I know who your president is! Obama! It was so cute.
Next I was off to leave for my Safari! There were about 12 Wild Dog Safari vans waiting for us! I was on bus 6 with 13 other girls we only had 1 guy in our van! Ha our two tour guides names were George and Milner they were both from Namibia and hadn’t been anywhere outside of Namibia in their whole lives. We drove past the giant sand dunes which were so big I can’t even describe the size they were enormous! We drove passed a few townships which were also huge, they would just pop up out of nowhere in the middle of the desert. We made a pit stop in Swakempound which is an old German town in Namibia. It was so cool. You can see the German influence in the buildings and a lot of the shopkeepers were German as well. Namibia was a German Colony until 1990 when they finally gained their independence. Everything in Namibia is SO cheap the exchange rate is 10 Namibian dollars to 1 U.S. dollar so you get a lot of bang for your buck! Although the town was cool I was looking for a more authentic African feel I was shocked at the amount of people who spoke English. I learned later that in the schools they teach Afrikaans and English to them.
We then continued our drive to Etosha Park. We were all under the impression that the drive to Etosha would be 4 hours that was a LIE! It took 8 hours to get there! I think the tour company lied to the woman who planned the whole thing so that we would book it cause there was like 127 SAS kids that did it and I am sure about half of us wouldn’t have if we knew it was 8 hours away!!! Oh well it’s not so bad driving 8 hours when wild crazy animals like warthogs, springbok, and monkeys cross the road! We also stopped a million times for gas like it was ridiculous but it was cool cause we got to have like a half hour in a bunch of little African towns. Someone had the bright idea to buy some bottles of wine for the remainder of the ride and the first night in camp! It was really fun our tour guide sang us the Namibian National anthem and some Namibian songs in return we sang him our national anthem and some classic American tunes!!! He loved it and so did we it was a great way to start off our Safari.
When we pulled into the park it started raining! I mean African downpour! So we are all thinking great time to unpack our gear set up tents and cook dinner in the pouring rain at 11pm. So we decided it was a good idea to change into our bathing suits so we wouldn’t get our clothes and stuff all wet! People looked at us like we were crazy but we weren’t the ones complaining when we had warm dry clothes in the morning! Well for dinner I decided to help out our guides cook so that I could get some time to talk to them. We cooked pasta with meat sauce! It was delicious. After dinner it was straight to bed cause we had to wake up at 5am to start our game drive!
5am rolls around a lot sooner than you think! We woke up and were immediately off. I snagged a front row seat in the van so that I could get lots of good shots of animals! We first saw springbok which are basically like deer and they were everywhere! Same thing with Zebras they were all over. Literally everywhere just running around! It was funny by the end of the trip we would all be so annoyed when the Springbok and Zebra were in the road cause then we’d have to stop! I was like really am I honestly getting annoyed because Zebra are in the road?!?!How cool!!! We saw lots of Giraffes one of them came really close to our van it looked like he was going to try and stick his head into the open top part. We spotted them because their heads stick up passed the treetops. We saw Oryx, Ostrich, Wildabeasts, and a lot more! But we really really wanted to see a lion so we began the mad hunt for them! Our guide would stop every time we saw cars and asked them if they saw a lion and finally we were pointed in the right direction! We saw 2 female lions that were relaxing under a tree after eating a zebra! We saw the bloody zebra carcass next to them it was so cool. After our game drive we had some free time to relax and walk around our campsite area which was located inside the park.
I decided to go to the water hole where some animals stop and drink. It was way more beautiful than I expected. There were trees everywhere and the grasses were so green. They had benches set up for people to sit on and a little hut like bleacher area which I ventured off to. When I got there I saw that there were three young girls sitting there. I asked if I could join them and they said yes. They were very eager to talk to me and I was them as well. They loved my nail polish and my rings and my purse and pretty much everything I had with me. I asked them if I could take a picture with them and boy were they excited! They wanted to model for me so I took some pictures of them and they wanted me to show them! I’ve never seen anyone so excited to see pictures of themselves! They then said they were going to sing and dance for me! It was so cool they were adorable 10,11,and 12 years old. I talked to them for about an hour or so, about their schooling, friends, the music they listen to, and just life in Namibia. It was one of the best moments of my trip.
After this we began cooking dinner. Our dinner made over the fire was the best meal I have had the entire journey thus far! We had lamb, pork chops, corn, polenta or something like that it was a traditional Namibian dish, squash, and for dessert our guide picked up stuff to make smores!!! He bought strawberry marshmallows though and graham cookies instead of crackers it was so cute though cause he didn’t know any better! They were still delicious. We then sat around the fire and played some card games and just hung out. It was a blast. My friend Natalie and I decided to go and introduce ourselves to our camping neighbors. It was a group of 5 Europeans who were actually studying abroad in Cape town (our next port) we were very excited to hear this but then disappointed when we heard they were gonna be in Namibia on holiday for the next 10 days. But they were able to give us all advice on what to do and not do which was very helpful! It was cool they were all studying English in Cape town for 6 weeks, they were from all over Europe. One was from France, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Italy! None of them had the same native language in common so they are forced to speak English with each other and with us! They were all way cool and told us that when they thought of Americans all they thought was Obese and lots of music. All they listen to is American music, all of them. I would hate that so much to live in a country that had no good music. They were saying that they listen to music that they don’t even understand! That would just not fly with my everyday to have to listen to foreign music. Anyways that too was one of my favorite parts of the trip just talking to people from all over.
Overall Namibia was amazing. I loved everything about it. Everything. Africa is beautiful and it is a place that has so much to offer. My safari was incredible I saw tons of animals and stars! Oh the stars were outrageous like looking up at Waubee Lake times a million! The people were so generous and kind half of these people have nothing and offer so much to you. It was just amazing I can’t say enough about it. I hope that everyone gets a chance to visit Namibia!!! Can’t wait for South Africa.

NEPTUNE DAY!!!

So on Tuesday February 10th the MV Explorer crossed the equator! I am now in the southern hemisphere and my toilet water flushes in the opposite direction!!! Haha so on Neptune day it’s been an old sea tradition for sailors who have never crossed the equator to go through a sort of initiation ritual. It was like the sailors were asking permission to cross into the next land. It’s really weird to think about in one of my classes the teacher was saying how you are in the northern hemisphere or the southern hemisphere, when we were crossing over the equator for a few minutes of our lives we were nowhere literally nowhere! Ok so it all began at 8am when the crew woke us up! They ran through our hallways with whistles and drums it was so funny. We were told to head up to the 7th deck where the pool was for further instruction. I was a little nervous at what kind of stuff they were going to make us do! So it all began with the King and Queen Neptune. They were painted head to toe in lime green paint and wore pirate costumes and wigs. As soon as King Neptune began speaking we immediately realized that it was our captain! He is from Britain so we all love his accent and recognized it instantly. We were all shocked to see that he would get so into Neptune day for the students. So after careful instruction this was what we had to do. First we had to have fish guts dumped over our head! (It was actually water, green food coloring, and fish oil but it smelled AWFUL) Then we had to kiss a dead fish on the lips, then kiss the King of Neptune’s rings, bow to the queen, kiss another fish, jump in the pool (which was freezing ocean water), then shave your head!!! I did all of the above…..minus the shaving of my head! A few girls did it though and then immediately regretted it I felt really bad but hey it’ll grow back! Anyways Neptune day was really fun we had the day off of classes and after the little ceremony which lasted like an hour or so we were free to lie in the sun! There was not an empty chair on any of the decks! They threw a BBQ for us for dinner which was SOO good with like burgers and hot dogs and stuff. We never get that kind of food on the ship it’s always meat, potatoes, and a form of pasta. Literally every night. So that was really exciting! Let me tell you the sun by the equator is STRONG! Laying outside so close to the equator for like an hour is like laying out at Waubee for 4! I swear it’s intense. I thought that being on the ship for 8 days straight was going to be awful but it’s actually flying right by! I’ve been getting pretty busy in my classes so that’s been really time consuming and we play a lot of card games to pass the time oh and my guilty obsession on the ship is playing Sardines! It’s like hide and go seek but opposite one person hides and then the group goes looking. The last person to find them becomes the new person to hide! Ha its so lame but on this ship we are literally cut off from the world we have to resort to children’s games to keep us entertained! But hey that’s the way I like it. The water has been really really calm I mean we look out our window at night and it feels/looks like we are on a lake. Well only 2 more days till my African Safari adventure begins! I’ll update after that.

MOROCCO

Bus Ride to Marrakech
After our rough day at Sea I was ready to get onto land. I stepped off the ship in Morocco excited to see the country…..and then I was thoroughly disappointed when I saw tractors and cranes everywhere! Our port was less than beautiful. But I remained optimistic. We began our drive from Casablanca to Marrakech. Casablanca was a very industrial looking city. The place we drove through was pretty run down but I was excited when I saw an advertisement for some type of juice. It was written in French and then repeated in Arabic right underneath! Arabic and French seem like two strange languages to pair together but that is what they speak in Morocco. We stopped for a restroom break on the way and I was shocked to see a squatter for a toilet. Now I am all about cultural experiences and trying new things but let me tell you it was NOT easy. Another fun fact they don’t believe in using toilet paper!!! They choose to wipe themselves with their left hand instead. So when you are doing any type of business transaction like with money or a high five or a handshake you must be sure to do it with your right hand because they see the left hand as waste. This is only true for some parts of Morocco. And no worries I carry around a little supply of T.P. for sticky situations like those! We continued our journey to Marrakech and I again was shocked at my beautiful surroundings. When I envisioned Morocco I though desert, snake charmers, basically I was picturing a scene out of Aladdin. What I got was something much different, beautiful colors. The grasses are so rich and full of color. I have never seen so many bright shades of green before it felt more like I was in Ireland than Morocco! There are tons of little villages spread all over made out of stone and clay. A lot of Moroccans live off the land and raise sheep and goats. Moroccans do a lot of strange things in order to earn Dirham’s (their currency) from the tourists, so they put their goats in trees! Literally they place them on different branches on purpose and then the goats have no way of getting down. They charge tourists to take pictures of them but our bus driver sneakily pulled off the side of the road and we snapped a few shots.

Marrakech
Oh my goodness as I got off the bus in Marrakech I was immediately over whelmed. We walked into the main square where all the entertainment is. They have all different types of people roaming the streets trying to make some money. There are snake charmers, henna artists, men walking around with monkeys, dancers (but the dancers are men dressed like women, it would be socially unacceptable in the Muslim world for a female to dance like that in public), there are these men dressed in elaborate colorful costumes with gold funnels all over them they call themselves watermen. You pay them a few dirham and they pour water in their funnels ha it sounds stupid but it was pretty cool. The men with monkeys are really not cool at all though. They walk around and throw monkeys on your back without you asking them to and then demand money for their services. We had a few close calls with these type of people demanding money from us when we never even asked for their services. This was one part of Marrakech that I didn’t really enjoy. After this we went to lunch at a traditional Moroccan restaurant! It was really really cool. This looked like a scene from a royal Arabian palace! The walls were covered floor to ceiling in elaborate tiles, the windows were stain glass, ahh it was just so cool. So as for the food we had lentels, lamb, cabbage, rubarb, and for desert we had an orange. I am not a big fan of Moroccan food but the atmosphere made up for the food ten fold. After lunch we walked around the souks and I used my bargaining expertise! It was really fun actually I never thought that my French skills would come in handy but they sure did! Everyone was looking for me to help them translate to lower the prices. We then headed to the hotel to check in. But of course I had to do some more shopping, so me and 3 girls set out to explore the newer area of Marrakech. It was really interesting as we were walking passed all of the coffee shops and all the chairs outside are lined up facing the street. The only people sitting there were men. Morocco is a Muslim country and a lot of the women are “busy”at home. The other girls and I were going to stop for some tea, mint tea is Morocco specialty but we felt to awkward sitting with all the men so we decided against it. After dinner we all got a few drinks at the hotel bar. Then us and a large group of semester at sea kids were off to find a Hookah bar. For anyone that doesn’t know what that is it is a huge middle eastern thing where they smoke flavored tobacco out of water pipes. I don’t really like hookah but hey when in Morocco! So we finally found one that was right next to the train station. The famous train station from Marrakech Express? Apparently it’s an old song or something but everyone thought it was so cool that we were there ha I just went a long with it. Then it was back to the hotel to get some rest before our busy day of traveling!

Essouria
On the way to Essouria our tour guide made a pit stop at this really cool shop where the women make the product in one room and then they sell them in the room next door. These women work 9 hour days. There were like 4 different stations set up. The first one had 4 women sitting there, these women cracked the shells of the nuts with stones then sorted them. Then the women across were churning the nuts into oil, then there was a woman like padding down the excess nut oil. It was really really cool to see maybe you had to be there I hope to upload pics of it soon. Then they let us try some samples of the almond butter and oil, it was SOOO good and even better because I got to see them make it. After that our tour guide took us to this really pretty overlook that had camels to take pictures with!!! It cost 50 dirham to get on it so I decided to just sneak a picture while holding the camel by the reigns! I got caught but my tour guide fought with the man in Arabic for me and got me out of having to pay them cause they were ripping us all off. SO I got my wish I got to go to Morocco and see a camel but I didn’t hurt my butt trying to ride one! After that we continued to Essouria. I LOVED Essouria. It was gorgeous. It is this little fishing harbor town which was just so pretty. The buildings there were all white with indigo blue shutters and doors! Walking the streets with the locals as they drive their donkeys and carry their raw meat to sell at the markets, I couldn’t belive that I was in Morocco!!! I was in Africa! How crazy! Anyways we went to this really cool silver shop. In Morocco they belive that their children should learn a Moroccon handicraft at a very young age. There education is generally only an option if you already have money. So they start their children working 6 hour days learning a handicraft either before or after school. They start them young so that they have time to figure out what they are good at. The silver shop we vistid was one of these schools which teach Moroccan children how to make jewelry. Its really cheap because all they charge you for are the materials. I got a gorgeous ring from there for 140 dirham (like 20 us). I was soo excited. We then went to lunch in the actual harbor. That was a treat too it was cool because all the boats there are that same indigo blue as the shutters and there are seagulls flying around everywhere. But not the nasty like rat seagulls we have at our beaches they were actually really pretty! After lunch we headed to Safi where we would eat dinner and sleep.

Safi
Safi is where a really big phosphorus plant is. When the wind blows the town kind of smells of it which is a little gross. I stumbled upon this really cool shop with all these water color paintings. It was the first place I had been to in Morocco where the store owner did not harass me to come into his store so I was intrigued. I decided I wanted to pick up a little piece of art in every country so I bought a tiny post card size painting. I gave him a little extra money than the painting cost and I have never seen someone so grateful before. It was awesome and now the painting means so much more to me. After that we headed to our hotel. Man our hotel was cheesy!!! Ha our beds had baby blue velour covers and we watched silly French sitcoms for hours in our room! Ha one really cool thing about traveling with Semester at Sea is that people of all ages are traveling with you. Like some teachers, staff, families of them etc. Our neighbors for the night were the dance teacher and music teacher and there little 3 year old son!!! He was so cute so instead of going out in sketchville like a few students decided to do we stayed in the hotel and watched sleeping beauty! It was really fun and being with people of all ages like that makes me feel a little more like home.

El Jadida
In the morning we left for El Jadida. Here we went to an old Portuguese fort . Our tour guide here only spoke French so most people had no idea what was going on. From my understanding it was a fort that they used to use to gather water. We went inside and the floor was covered with about 3 inches of water. There was a big whole in the ceiling in the middle where the rain and light come down so they could tell the time. I got some AMAZING pictures of this I can’t wait to upload, once I do you’ll all know what I am talking about. We then went to lunch, it was Moroccan again so me and a few other students snuck off to the Pizza shop a few streets down! After lunch we headed back to Casablanca. I was zonked so I slept most of the way. When we got back we visited the 3^rd largest Mosque in the world. Oh I forgot to tell you all over Morocco they have this crazy intercom system like everywhere and like evey couple hours they have pray time and this recording of a man singing in Arabic comes over the loud speaker reminding everyone to pray! It sounds like a crazy siren at first when it went off we were all like what the hell is that? By the end of our journey we were all accustomed to it. One time I was waiting in line to use the washroom when the siren came on. A Moroccan woman who was working at the store threw a rug down in front of me and began praying. The washroom had become a place of worship just like that with the use of a rug. I wondered why she had chosen such an unfortunate place to pray so I asked her in the best French I could “Why here”and she said Mecca. They pray facing Mecca where their holy land is. In Casablanca we also had a chance to visit Rick’s Café which is in the movie Casablanca! We then returned to the ship and I took a nice hot shower after traveling around this crazy, wonderful, different, mysterious land!

HUGGGGGGGGGGE WAAVEESS
Leaving Casablanca the Captain came on the loud speaker and told us to secure our rooms and remain indoors. He said we would be experiencing some large swells as we left the port. The port was too shallow to turn the stabilizers on so the boat would be a rockin. My roommate and I made our way to the room and put all our breakables on the floor. Sure enough the boat started rockin, and rockin, and rockin. We decided to turn off all the lights so we could see the waves out the window. BAD idea!! It was soo scary we turned off the lights to see a wave coming our direction that was taller than our window. (We are on the 4^th floor of the ship which is pretty high up) While the lights were off we heard boom boom bang krrrplonkkkK! Our chairs were on the floor, our beds which are semi bolted to our walls were sliding down towards our dresser and vanity! Our side table which weighs about 50 pounds had fallen! Our TV was sliding on its axis. It was INSANE scariest and most fun thing I had experienced yet. We thought we were safe in our beds but oh no we weren’t!!!! I took a video of my messed up room to show everyone when I got home. Afterwards me and my friend Win decided to go on the deck and find out about everyone elses experiences with the waves. Well what we found was a bit scarier than we had anticipated. A few people were seriously hurt. A TV fell on a professor while he was in his room and he had to get stitches, a boy broke his leg in the piano lounge the piano fell on his leg and like trapped him, we saw a girl icing her neck and face which were cut up and swollen she was in the Union which is at the front of the boat where it is the most rocky. It was chaos in there apparently people had fallen all over each other, furniture was trapped on people it was bad news bears. Everyone is ok but it was a bit scary at the time. We are cruising now though!!! We have clear skies and calm seas predicted for the next few days! Woo hoo. Well I am off to go do some homework and maybe head to pub night. Miss and love you all. Congratulations on your confirmation Anton!!!

ROUGH SEAS

So my voyage was halted last night because of some rough waters. We were supposed to refuel in Gibraltar yesterday afternoon and then continue to Casablanca. Well I guess the Sea Gods had other plans! Because of the waves the fuel boat was unable to get the fuel line across to us in time :-( So we were stuck on the boat floating in the ocean for the night. Early this morning they refueled and now we are headed to Morocco. Unfortunately we are not going to get there until really late tonight so we wont be able to get off the ship till tomorrow morning! Bummer huh! And today is the worst day at sea yet as far as the waves are concerned. It's funny though because you can tell everyone from semester at sea feels really bad. At lunch today we had an ice cream stand and they broadcasted the super bowl for us last night even though it was on at like 2am here and it was in German and they made like all the spa services half off today! Oh well just another day to get a little homework in and relax before Morocco.Miss and Love you all.

A BIT ABOUT ME

So all over Spain people stopped me to see if I was Italian, very odd. I had no idea that I looked so Italian but apparently the Spanish people thought I did. The first time I was asked was while sitting at a café with a few friends. We were drinking some wine and eating bread (I know so European I felt so cool!!!) and he came up to the table and asked me in Spanish something something Italian? And my response was “Oui Oui” As most of you know I took French in high school and college and French and Spanish sound similar so all over Spain I was getting confused and busting out my French on accident. My table went into an uproar of laughter and then I realized what I had said. Embarrassed I turned to the Spanish man and said “Ci Ci” by that time he too was laughing at me, oh well. Everyone on the boat thinks I have such a strong accent! I don’t hear it obviously but everyone else does! Whenever I first meet someone they immediately ask me where I am from and I say Chicago and there response is ahh I knew it! I am like huh how did you know? I feel so stupid every time I order a pop on the ship the person working looks at me like I am crazy! Twice now I have ordered a pop and the person behind me corrects me and says, “She means a soda”. Who knew us Midwesterners had such funny accents and strange lingo!I have been trying really hard to upload my pictures but it just isn’t working!!! I will try in my next port to upload some from Spain. Well now I am off to Morocco to see some snake charming and storytelling! I’ll update when I return.

FLAMENCO NIGHT

I LOVE Flamenco dancing. I had never seen anything like it before I arrived in Spain. It is just beautiful everything about it is just eye and ear capturing. The music is fast and slow the singing is strong and sad and the dancing is passionate and mysterious. I just loved it I wish I was a better writer so I could put into words the way I felt watching it. The night began in an outdoor amphitheatre. It kicked off with a showing of Spanish horses. These horses are very rowdy with lots of vigor however they are well trained and remain close to their owner. It was so cool the flamenco dancers came out onto the dirt floor and dance in front of the horses. They stare the horses in the eyes and seduce them into backing down and behaving, it is an odd phenomenon to watch. After that there was a mini bloodless bull fight. That was also really fun to watch. Traditionally in Spain a bull fight is only ended if the bull is killed by its fighter however this one was just a bull in training, so we saw everything leading up to when the bull would be killed. After this short performance we were escorted inside where we had tables waiting for us filled with Tapas, white wine, and delicious sangria! Here we watched the flamenco dance performance. It was so moving. Like I said before the passion that these dancers have not only for the dance itself but for their Spanish culture is so apparent. I loved every minute of being at the flamenco show.

CORDOBA

Once we arrived in Cordoba we checked into our hotel and experienced a bit of a change in culture. Upon walking into our hotel room my roommate for the trip and I realized our lights weren’t working. We figured the electricity was just out in our room so we opened our blinds for some light to find a huge balcony overlooking Cordoba! It was beautiful we were on the 6th floor so we were atop most of the smaller houses and buildings. After about ten minutes of the lights being off we looked around the room a bit more to discover a little slot above the light switch. In order to turn the lights on you needed to insert your room key! A very clever idea and way of saving energy and money, props to the Spaniards for that one. In our bathroom we had a toilet and of course a duvet I think they are called which us college kids being so mature got a kick out of. We ate dinner in the hotel then were off to discover Cordoba. After a few hours of shopping we decided to stop for a drink. What did we find? An Irish Pub! We watched the football (soccer) game and enjoyed a few little snacks. After that we went back to the hotel to change our outfit for the real night. In Spain people don’t start to go out until 12-12:30 at night and then stay out until like 6 in the morning! It’s ridiculous! Definitely was a bit too much for me. I being the Iowa student that I am with the standard 2 am bar close left early. While out we stumbled upon a few club promoters which are typically young men in their twenties who are paid to bring people into their clubs. They gave our group of about 15 or so free drink cards so we were off to Colors. I decided against going cause I was all danced out and wanted to go to a different place. We went to a small little Spanish bar that had darts and pool tables and stuff. The next day I was thankful that I went to the Spanish bar because Colors had turned out to be a gay bar, get it Colors like colors of the rainbow? We all got quite a laugh out of it. I’m sure this club promoter just looks for Americans who don’t have a clue where they are going and decides to bring them to Colors! In the morning we went on a city orientation of Cordoba in the old city district. It was absolutely beautiful. We visited this former mosque that was turned into a church during the inquisition. The church destroyed most of the Muslim features but kept a few out of respect. In mosques the walls that Muslims pray on are the ones facing Mecca. Here there was very elaborate decorations, with gold plated walls, a dome ceiling, and two different rooms housing the Koran. The Catholics dared not to break down this wall, instead they boarded it up with wooden planks so that it was not exposed. I wish I had the words to explain how gorgeous this church was. It was not anything like a typical church. It was MASSIVE! It had many restorations and renovations going on too so it was pretty loud. Overall I loved Cordoba. Today it is a relatively small Spanish town but it houses so much history.

SEVILLE

Ah Seville was beautiful. Upon arrival we stepped outside and all you could smell was oranges. There are orange trees all over Seville. It paints the town with beautiful colors. The contrast between the rustic old white buildings and the orange and green trees is just great. I was shocked that so many of the oranges were still on the trees. I asked the tour guide how this was possible and he said it was because the oranges are very sour, they taste like lemons. We visited the Alcazar where we saw a lot of really cool paintings and different style things. We were in Spain during the off season for tourists so majority of the sites we visited were under renovation which was kind of a bummer. After that we went to third largest church in the world after Saint Peter and Saint Paul’s. Here is where the tomb of Christopher Columbus lies. That was soooooooo cool to see. His stone casket is being carried by 4 stone knights. Standing there in front of where the discoverer of our country was definitely surreal and eerie all in one. After that we walked through the long narrow alleys to lunch at a traditional Spanish restaurant. In Spain they believe you eat breakfast like a bishop, lunch like a king, and dinner like a popper. Basically a medium size breakfast, a huge lunch, and a very small dinner. So for lunch we had lots and lots of different foods. It started with some sort of traditional Spanish appetizer of potatoes eggs and cheese cooked in a kind of casserole, next there was calamari, Spanish ham, asparagus, cheese, the works. For the main course we had pork and chicken with different kinds of potatoes. And then there was desert! Was it good I have no idea what it was but it was delicious! All of our meal was of course accompanied by wine. After lunch we had some free time to shop and boy was I excited for that…….and then thoroughly disappointed when I realized it was Siesta! In Spain the local people have Siesta everyday generally between 1-4. Here is where they eat their very large lunch accompanied by a nice long nap. During this time many of the local shops and restaurants close. A few of the larger stores remain open so I of course bought lots of Spanish clothing and accessories! Have to get good use out of my euro! After shopping we continued our journey to Cordoba.

CADIZ

We pulled into port at around 745 am on January 28th. That was probably the earliest I have ever woken up by choice! I couldn’t wait to see dry land! After we docked my roommate and I immediately ran up to the 5th floor to get off the boat. We finally got off at around 10:30 from there we were off to explore the town! We walked all over looking at everything, stopping to take pictures everywhere, talking to random Spanish people to try and find some good cafes, it was just a whirlwind of excitement. We stopped at quite a few cafes I ordered Coca Cola Light and whatever the waiter said was his favorite dish at all of them! We walked all over looking for a place to grab lunch and finally settled on eating at Le Catedral. It was located right in front of the beautiful Cathedral of Cadiz. The Cathedral exterior is made out of all different shades of stone. The bottom half is a dark almost brownish stone and the top is like a white stone. It looks a little awkward at first. I later found out this was because the Cathedral was built over a period of 120 years! They kept running out of money so they would have to halt production then start back up. The result was a cathedral built with many different architectural styles and designs! Pretty interesting. One interesting funny fact about Cadiz is that there are weird lines painted on the floor. All over the town are different color lines painted on the stone alleys. Purple, red, orange, yellow lines all these paths leading to god knows where. Well I found out that they are there for the tourists. All over Cadiz these lines are painted leading different routes to the tourist center! Basically the people of Cadiz decided to paint these ugly lines on the floors so that us tourists wouldn’t get lost! After lunch I went on an orientation tour of the city. We visited all over the city but one of the coolest things was the beach! I was standing in the exact spot that Halle Berry was in the James Bond movie. The scene where she runs out of the water on the beach! Ya that one, they filmed it in Cadiz. They have free internet stationed all over in the public plazas. Local people took pictures of all of us semester at sea kids with our computers in the squares! You should have seen it, very funny site 50 kids sitting on the floors laptop in hands updating blogs, skyping, checking their emails, facebooking! With all those people you can imagine how slow the internet was, that’s why I wasn’t able to upload very many pictures. I tried uploading a bunch and then only a few would work. So the pictures that did work are just totally random they aren’t the best or my favorites or anything!