EGYPT

Egypt was INCREDIBLE! 

We arrived in Alexandria at around 8 in the morning, but it took a couple hours before Egyptian officials could clear all of our passports. Once everyone got off the ship, there were about 20 buses waiting to take us to Cairo. Angela, Halle and I were on the same trip in Egypt, luckily. Emily had gone off on another one, so I didn't see her the entire time. Once we got on the bus, it was about a 2 hour drive to Cairo, through the desert. It was really cool to see the countryside of such a different country. Once we arrived in Cairo, we were taken to a hotel to have lunch. They tried to feed us "American" food, so we had a buffet with chicken nuggets, french fries and some cheese.  I was disappointed that we were not getting a chance to try Egyptian food, but everyone was so worried about food poisoning, so maybe it was for the best. After lunch, we went to visit the ancient capital, Memphis. 

After Memphis, we were taken to see the first pyramid built in Egypt, along with another pyramid that we actually went inside of. The tunnel to go into the pyramid was so small, but luckily I am only 5 feet tall. Inside the pyramid, the hieroglyphs were still perfectly intact. It was amazing. After roaming around in the desert for a few hours everyone was exhausted from the heat. We went to go check in to our hotel, and wow were we in for a surprise. The name of our hotel was the Mena House Oberoi and it was right by the pyramids, and from the balcony of my room I had a beautiful view of them. 

After everyone had time to settle in, we met down in the lobby to go to the night bazaar. It was pretty far from our hotel, so we had a long ride to the bazaar. We drove over the Nile river, and it was soooo much bigger than I ever thought it would be. We passed many mosques, but these mosques had, what looked like, christmas lights hanging all down them. When we finally arrived at the bazaar, I was really surprised at how many people were everywhere. We wandered around and shopped for a couple hours then headed back to the bus. It was already about 10 pm by this point, and everyone was so tired and hungry. We arrived back at the hotel around 10:30 and the hotel had dinner waiting for us, another buffet of "American" food. Finally, around 11:30 I got back to my room to shower and go to sleep.

We had a 3:30 am wake-up call, so really we only got a short nap in. We had to be at the buses by 4:30 am and arrived at the pyramids at 5. Since the pyramids do not open to tourists until 8 am, we were the only people out there. It was sooo quiet. We all just sat around and waited for the sun to come up. It was the most breathtaking experience I have ever had. The pictures I took just don't do it justice. Around 8 am, a bunch of camels arrived and we took camel rides around the pyramids. Afterwards, we went over to the Sphinx, which is literally just behind the Great Pyramid. After the Sphinx, we went to the Citadel and looked around the mosque up there. From the top there is an amazing view of Cairo. The rest of our day was spent on a river boat down the Nile. We had lots of food and belly dancers for entertainment. It was so crazy to be on a boat floating down the Nile. We returned to the hotel so everyone could rest and shower. Then, we went to a sound and light show at the pyramids about the history of the pyramids. After the show we went back to the hotel and went straight to sleep because we had another early morning. We had a flight to Luxor at about 5:30. Upon arrival, we went straight to the Valley of the Kings. No cameras were allowed inside, so I didn't get any pictures :( We went into a few tombs, but King Ramses II tomb is closed off, unless you are of royal blood or a head of state. After the Valley of the Kings, we went to see the Colossi of Memnon. They are basically still intact, which is amazing. Queen Hatshepsut's temple was our next stop. The temple was also in amazing condition, and almost perfectly intact. Incredible. In the late afternoon, we went to check in to our hotel, the Sofitel in Luxor. That night we went to see the Luxor Temple, and walked around for a little while. Afterwards, it was back to the hotel and time for dinner. 

Again, we had an early morning. We were going to see another ancient temple before our flight back to Cairo. The short 45 minute flight back was not bad at all, but our groups got separated so we had to wait for a couple hours in the airport till everyone arrived in Cairo for the bus ride back to Alexandria. We arrived back in Alexandria around 6 and I went straight to take a shower and go to bed. Egypt was like nothing I had ever seen before. Luckily, we were able to visit before the country erupted. The SAS voyage for this upcoming summer will not be visiting Egypt for that particular reason. 

On to Morocco! 

TURKEY!

The morning we arrived in Turkey, Em and I woke up at 6 am to watch us come into port. On the way into this port was amazing. We had great views of the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. We were soo excited to get off the ship to see everything. I went on a city tour of Istanbul the first day. We saw and went inside the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, the Cistern, and went to the Hippodrome.   I was amazed by all of these places. It was super cool to be in a Muslim country and hear the call to prayer, and be inside a mosque. I thought the Hagia Sophia was interesting because it was originally a Christian church, which was eventually turned into a mosque. There is evidence of both religions still inside.  That night, we decided to go to Taksim Square, which we were told had great nightlife. We ended up at a Turkish pub first, with live music. We had a great time, and then headed to a hookah bar. These hookahs were soo good.  We went to a couple more places, and then finally ended up back at the ship, at who knows what time. Emily and I had a tour of the palaces of Istanbul the next day and were supposed to be up early. To say the least, it was a rough morning. But, we didn’t care because that first night in Turkey was one of the best nights of the entire summer. The first palace we saw was the Dolmabache palace, which was really cool to see all the oriental decoration inside.It was raining right when we got off the bus to walk to the palace, but luckily I had some ponchos in my backpack. We were told on the ship to wear as little United States paraphernalia as possible. These weren’t just any ponchos…they were burnt orange with longhorns all over them. We wore them proudly, but looked ridiculous.  We also saw where the harem lived, also super interesting. The next place we stopped, Emily and I were in the bathroom and apparently our tour group left us. So we decided to get a cab and go back to the ship and take a nap.  The third day, we went to the Grand Bazaar. It was AMAZING.We were there for about 4 hours but it felt like 20 minutes. We found so many beautiful scarves, tapestries, and jewelry. I’m obsessed with the Grand Bazaar.   We had lots of apple tea in different shops, and met prospective baby daddys (according to the Turkish men who apparently loved me)  Of course, me and Emily ran away at this point. That night we went to dinner with some of our friends to a really cool restaurant. We sat on the floor, and I had some delicious lamb and rice. We had some more hookah then returned to the ship. The following day we saw more of Istanbul. We took a cruise through the Bosphorus. Istanbul is the only city in the world situated on two continents. While on our cruise, we had the Asian side to our right and the European side to our left. That night Amanda, Angela, Halle, Mackenzie, Emily, and myself went to dinner at this super cute restaurant in the old town that our friend Caroline had told us about. It was amazing, and my mouth waters just thinking about the food we ate.  We went back to Taksim afterwards and wandered around before returning to the ship. The last day in Turkey, we went in search of wifi. We ended up at a starbucks in Taksim square and hung out there for while before getting lunch and heading back to the ship. We never made it to a Turkish bath, which I am soo sad about. Everyone who went to one loved it. I guess I’ll just have to go back :) 

GREECE!

While in Italy and Croatia, Emily had met some girls who she thought would be fun. So the first day in Greece, we went sightseeing with them. The port city of Piraeus was about 20 minutes outside of Athens. We took a bus into Athens and decided to get on one of the red double-decker tour buses to see all the main sites. Our first stop was the acropolis. The Parthenon was absolutely amazing!We walked around at the top for awhile, where we had great views of Athens below. It is HUGE. Of course, it was extremely hot outside, so we stopped on the way back down for some frozen lemonades. After getting back on the tour bus, we saw the original Olympic stadium, and went to the archaeological museum. We saw some really cool stuff in  the museum, but then we went back to the ship because we were all so tired. Emily, Amanda, Mackenzie, Angela, and Halle were taking a ferry to Mykonos that night so they packed their stuff and headed to the ferry. My ferry ride wasn’t until the morning so I went to bed and prepared to wake up at like 4 in the morning. We took the 3-hour ferry to Mykonos the next day. Mykonos is one of the many Greek islands.  Apparently it is the gay capital of Europe too. I checked in to the hotel I was staying at, and attempted to find Emily and the girls. Miraculously, I found them having lunch at a café right on the water in the main town. I had a delicious greek salad, and we were given free Limón cello shots from our waiter.  We spent the afternoon walking around the main town and shopping. I went back to the apartment the girls had rented on the beach and rested for a while before we went down to the beach. We walked around the beach while the sun was setting, and then had dinner. That night we decided to go the paradise club. BUT, before we went out that night, we went to the supermarket to buy some champagne. We thought we were getting a great deal on a bottle of champagne, but when we got back to the apartment to pop it…there was no pop. Apparently we bought sparkling water. We are RIDICULOUS. But we ended up having a GREAT time that night. We got some great stories out of that one night in Mykonos.  The following day we spent at the beach…. the whole day. It was so relaxing, and the water was so amazing. I had to catch a ferry that night back to Athens, but didn’t realize that there are only like 30 cabs on the entire island. I almost didn’t make it to my ferry, I was definitely stressing out. But I made it back to Athens, completely exhausted. The following day, I went to a Greek cooking class. It was sooo much fun and I learned how to make some delicious Greek food.  The last day in Greece, Emily and I had to have one last gyro (euro). We found a little place, with the nicest people. We had lamb euros, and we were satisfied. Back to the ship, and we were on to ISTANBUL!

CROATIA!

Honestly, I

don’t think anyone was expecting much out of Croatia, but I’m almost positive that everyone ended up LOVING it. When we arrived, we decided to rent a beach apartment. After renting one, we went to the Old town, which is completely surrounded by the original medieval walls. We had lunch and walked around for a while. There are no cars inside the city walls and the streets are extremely clean. They are actually pretty slippery because of how worn down they are. Emily fell. After walking around, we went to the top of the city walls to walk around them.  We had the most beautiful views of the Old Town and the ocean. The water was gorgeous.  walking around, we saw some of friends at Café Buza, which is an outdoor café situated on the side of a cliff. There are tons of rocks to lay out on or to cliff jump. So we decided to go meet them at the café. Emily immediately went up to one of the rocks to jump off. I’m a big baby so I didn’t jump.  We returned to the ship to shower and get ready to go out for our friend Cassie’s birthday. We went to an Irish pub in the old town, where I had a good time watching Emily dance with an old Croatian man. Then we headed to Fuego, which had been overrun by sasers. The next day we went to find our apt on the beach. It was sooo cute, and our balcony had the best view of the beach below.  We went down to the beach, which was a rock beach, and laid out for a couple hours and swam in the freezing cold water. That night we went back to the old town to go out. We ended up at a club on the beach called East-West, then headed back to our apt. We had some breakfast champagne and then headed to the East-West beach for the day. That night Emily and I went on a romantic date.  While we were eating, the opening of the Dubrovnik summer music festival was going on, so there were fireworks. After dinner we walked through the old town and watched a Croatian singer perform for a while and then returned to the ship because we were exhausted. The last day in Croatia, I went on a trip to medjugorje in Bosnia. This little village was the place where 6 children in the 80’s saw apparitions of the Virgin Mary. It is the second most visited place by Catholics. To get to the place where the apparitions took place, we had to climb up a very steep, rocky hill. It was extremely tiring, but definitely worth getting to the top. We also attended mass at the church in the village.  having lunch and getting some souvenirs, we headed back to the ship for on-ship time. When we left croatia, we had some great views of the Old Town from the ocean.  

Off to Greece we went!

ITALY!

We arrived in the port city of Civitavecchia, which is about an hour train ride away from Rome, at 8 in the morning. The first thing we did was get off the ship and head to the train station where we caught the first available train to Rome. Once in Rome, jancee kandice and I headed to the Vatican. Luckily, I kind of had an idea where I was going since I was there 3 years ago. We got to the main square without any trouble and they had huge screens set up to watch the mass that was going on inside the basilica. Last time I was in the Vatican, the pope wasn’t. So I was really excited this time to be able to see him on the screen during mass. After wandering around the Vatican for a while, we went to go eat some pizza. That pizza happened to be the worst pizza I have ever had in Italy. Sad, but it was only the first day so there was time for improvement. From the Vatican we took the metro to the Trevi fountain. Of course, we could hardly move because of all the people there. Unlike last time in Rome, there was no crazy man swimming in the fountain.

We threw our coins in the fountain in hopes of returning to Rome again some day, and went in search of some gelato. Of course, there are gelateria’s on every corner so it took all of 2 minutes to find some. After gelato, we went to a liquor and pasta store where we had a limoncello tasting. We then returned to the metro and went to the colosseum. We took a guided tour inside, and even with it being my second time to see it; I was still completely amazed by it.   Then we walked through the Roman forum. While walking through, we saw people heading to a wedding inside the forum. It was the cutest thing ever. At this point, we were exhausted. We had been walking around Rome since 10 in the morning and it was definitely over 100 degrees that day. So we sat down and had dinner and then took the train back to Civitavecchia to stay the night. . The second day in Italy, I went on a trip to Siena to see the preparations for the il Palio festival that is held twice a year. It is a horse race, in which 10 horses and riders dress in the colors of the contradas they are racing for. There are seventeen contradas, or neighborhoods, in Siena. They each have a different mascot. There are the snails, the geese, the forest, and the giraffe (which is the neigborhood we toured).  While walking through the streets there are flags hung everywhere with the mascot of the neighborhood you’re in.  We saw where the horse stable for the giraffe contrada was, and then went to see the main square where the race track was being prepared. Sadly, we were there 2 days before the race so we only saw the preparations for it. The town of Siena is probably one of the most adorable places I have ever been. It looks exactly as I would imagine a renaissance Italian town to look like.  The third day in Italy, I went to Orvieto. It is a tiny little town in the Italian countryside. There is a beautiful church in the main square, and very quiet streets. We went underground to see the old Etruscan caves, and then walked around for a few hours before heading back to the ship. The last day of this port, we went to an Italian cooking class at a farm in tarquinia. This farm is a completely self-sustainable farm with a restaurant and hotel on it. We learned how to make homemade pasta and tiramisu. We had free time to have wine and swim in the infinity pool, then saw down to eat the meal we helped cook. It was absolutely amazing.  That night we returned to the ship, and the ship left this port and headed to the port in Naples!

 

arrived in Naples, we were super excited to go exploring. Little did we know that Naples was pretty disgusting. Jancee, Kandice, and I walked around Naples for a good two hours, but did not see anything impressive. Later on that day, I took a city tour of Naples, which wasn’t very exciting, but I did get a picture with Naples and Mt. Vesuvius in the background. This picture makes Naples look a lot prettier than it actually is. The second day in Naples I was sooo excited to get to the island of Capri. It was even more beautiful than I was expecting. We took the 45-minute ferry there and when we arrived we went to the top of the island, called anacapri. We had amazing views of the crystal clear water below, and then had lunch at the top of the island.  Once back down at the bottom, a few people and I rented a boat from a guy who made us call him pizza man. He drove us around the entire island for about 4 hours. We had a couple bottles of strawberry wine, which is extremely good, and took off around the island. We stopped at a couple of places to swim in the blue water. At one stop, we swam into a cave, which came out on another side with a little beach. We swam for a little while, then got back to the boat to head to the blue grotto. Once at the blue grotto, we had to pay to get into a smaller boat that would actually fit into the cave opening. Depending on how high the tide is, sometimes the cave opening is completely submerged in water. Luckily, there was still a little opening, but we still had to lie down in the boat in order to clear the entrance. Once inside, the water was absolutely beautiful. The sun shines in through the very small opening of the cave and illuminates the water inside the grotto the most beautiful electric blue color you could ever imagine.  After we left the grotto we went back to the shore and had dinner and proceeded to the beach to meet about 100 sasers. Since it was 4^th of July, we felt the need to celebrate. With our 6-dollar bottles of wine, we partied for a couple hours, sang the national anthem, and tried to herd everyone onto the last ferry back to Naples. Best 4^th of July EVER. The last day in Naples, Emily FINALLY returned from her tour of Italy and we decided to try and find the best pizza place in the world, pizzeria da Michele. This is the same pizza place mentioned in Eat, Pray, Love. With our excellent world travelling skills, we ended up right in front of the pizzeria. There are only two options for pizza at this place, so we ordered the margherita pizzas, a couple beers, and a coke. Since we were sitting right next to the brick oven, we watched our pizzas being made and were so excited when they arrived at our table. I can’t even describe how delicious this pizza was. It might be the single, most amazing food I have ever tasted.Of course, we ate our entire pizzas and were too full to even function afterwards. Once back on the ship, they were having a 4^th of July barbeque for us, complete with burgers, ribs, hotdogs, and apple pie. Sadly, we were too full to participate. We left Naples that night, and were excited to see what Croatia had in store for us.

ESPANA!

We arrived in Barcelona at 8 am. By 10:30 we were allowed off the boat. The first thing Emily and I did was have breakfast in a little square off of Las Ramblas (the main promenade in Barcelona) with our friends Jancee, Kandice, and Stephanie. We had some Spanish omelet’s, which were way different than what I thought they would be. We also enjoyed a pitcher of sangria together. After having breakfast we went and sat at another outdoor café and had some more sangria. Then, I went on a city tour of Barcelona. We first went up to the top of a hill that overlooks all of Barcelona. It was an extremely beautiful view of the city below. We had views of our ship down below, which was so tiny compared to the other ships in port. After taking a few pictures, we continued on back down the hill, passing the Olympic stadium from the 1992 Olympics and also the Royal Palace in Barcelona. Once back in the city, we took a driving tour of a couple of the main attractions. We saw the two famous houses designed by Gaudi, Casa Batlo and Casa Mila. 

We then went to the Sagrada Familia. We didn’t have time to actually go inside, but we did take a few pictures outside in front of it. The style and architecture of this building amazed me. It is so unusual, but so beautiful at the same time. After spending some time at the sagrada familia, we returned to the boat. That night I went to a flamenco dance performance. We were served a traditional Spanish meal of seafood paella. The performance was amazing. The music was so beautiful and the performers were so passionate about the flamenco dances. After the performance I met up with Emily and some of our new friends to go out to Las Ramblas for the night. The second day in Barcelona, I went to Montserrat.  This is a cathedral that is situated on the side of a mountain. It is a very beautiful cathedral, and the views from the mountainside were breathtaking. As far as I could see was Spanish countryside. When I returned to Barcelona, we went to the market on las ramblas. We walked around for a while just looking at all the brightly colored fruit and interesting meat and seafood they had.  That night, Spain was playing in the world cup so we went out to a bar to watch the game.  The third day in Barcelona, I went on a paella tour. We went back to the market I had been at the previous day. We learned about traditional Spanish cuisine and what ingredients were needed to make paella. After leaving the market we went to a restaurant right on the harbor. We watched the chefs make the paella, and even got to help them make it.  watching them cook the paella, we sat down for our lunch. We were served bruschetta, cured ham, cheese, paella, crème Brule, café con leche, and wine. The food was absolutely amazing. That night tons of sasers flocked to razzmatazz, a huge nightclub. We had a blast, but definitely had to adjust to going out way later than we do at home and being up until sunrise. The last day in Barce I really wanted to go to the FC Barcelona stadium, but we ended up having an extremely long lunch with plenty of sangria and decided to just go to the beach until we had to get back on the ship. I was sad I didn’t get to go to the stadium, but Em and I ended up having a great time on the beach. Right Em? On ship time was 6 pm, and if you’re late back on the ship you get docktime, which means you either cant get off the ship in the next port with everyone else, or you have to get back on the ship at next port super early. Either way, not a good deal. So we returned to the ship around 4 and immediately passed out in our beds from the first whirlwind port. We were soo sad to leave Spain, but super excited to get to ITALY

Shiplife!

This past summer I went on the Semester at Sea summer 2010 voyage through the mediterranean. On June 15, we boarded our home for the next couple months, the MV Explorer, in Halifax, Canada. We spent 10 days crossing the Atlantic Ocean. For the first few days we became acquainted with ship life. Once classes started, I went to class from 8-12 in the morning, normally followed by nap time (which emily informed me 3-4 hour naps cant really be considered 

naps) or laying out by the pool. This was then followed by dinner and then meeting people at pub nights out on the 7^th deck. After 9 days of this routine, we were sooo happy to finally see land when we passed through the strait of Gibraltar. While passing through the strait, Spain was on the port side of the ship while the African coast was off the starboard side. Everyone was so excited to finally be close to our first port of BARCELONA!