Land, Ho!

Last day of classes…for a while! Our next class day is after Italy, which is July 6. Unfortunately that is when most of our first papers and/or midterms are. But…tomorrow is Barcelona! We have a pre-port meeting tonight and a diplomatic briefing early tomorrow morning to inform us all about any problems going on in Spain or general tips on getting around. At 11am, I have an FDP (faculty-directed practica) for my poetry class: a Spanish poet will be coming on the ship and I believe we will be having lunch and hearing a talk from her. At 1pm, Steven and I are going on the Barcelona city tour, and then at 6pm we are going to a flamenco show with dinner! A very fun-filled day! We have the option of “signing off” a trip at the end instead of traveling back to the ship, and we will probably do that at the end of the flamenco trip so we can see Barcelona at night if it is not TOO late. I know “late” in Barcelona means 4am, but we’ll see. We have an inter-port student from Barcelona riding on the ship with us, and he said not to go clubbing (not that I would anyway) tomorrow night because no one goes out on Thursdays. But maybe that means the city isn’t as “happening” on Thursday night so we may not find much to do. That may be the time for churros con chocolate! Delicioso! We got a map of the dock and the area around the dock, and our ship won’t be too far from Las Ramblas! Yay!

Not very much has been going on the last few days, mainly just attending classes. All 738 of us took our Global Studies map quiz on Sunday, that was an event. Easy peasy though! Lots of class work, lots of reading, lots of giving up on reading and just going to bed (my favorite). Oh and we changed our clocks forward an hour again last night… last time until we go to Greece! Spain, Italy, and Croatia are in the same time zone, then Greece, Turkey, and Egypt are in the same time zone, then we just have to go back to Spain time for Morocco. I am really looking forward to 25-hour days on the way back home, even though we’ll be studying for finals.

We saw land yesterday! Africa (Morocco) and Europe (Spain) at the same time while crossing through the Strait of Gibraltar! I tried taking pictures, but it was really foggy and I don’t think that many came out. We were really close to the Africa side and got to see some towns and a fairly large mountain range! I think everyone is ready to get off of this ship and see Spain! We only have about 200 nautical miles until Barcelona, and I believe we will be docking there late tonight or in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. Most likely tonight though, as we’ve been going 400-500 nautical miles a day.

So since my last blog post, I have met with my extended family.  For that, we get placed in a “family” headed by a lifelong learner or a grad student.  I now have a “cool uncle,” Greg! (he’s a grad student). Our family, minus one person, met last night for dinner, and we’re going to meet up after each port to talk about what we did there. He and one of the girls in the family are also going on the Cairo/Luxor trip that Steve and I are doing, so that should be fun too!

I also signed up to be a writing tutor to help people with the many papers we have to write on the trip. Yay!

On Monday, I went on a tour of the bridge (where the captain and officers “drive” the ship). I was surprised to find out that the captain is rarely there (what does he do with his time all day?) and the ship is run by an officer and other attendants. The ship is on complete autopilot, so I think they just sit there and make sure everything is looking okay? I got to get a picture sitting in the captain’s chair, wearing the captain’s hat, though! We learned some valuable information about the ship, like how one of the engines just randomly stopped over the weekend and they don’t know why. That’s comforting! It was also really rocky that day and after the tour I had to go back to my room to take Meclizine (similar to Dramamine, but it doesn’t knock you out). So far I haven’t been really seasick, I have just gotten dizzy twice (I guess that’s part of the seasickness) so I took the medicine just in case. Some people have it really bad! Meclizine makes you have bizarre dreams, too.  I can’t remember what mine was about 2 nights ago, but it was very odd! Who needs hallucinogenic drugs when you can take Meclizine? Juuuuuuuuust kidding!

And now for everyone’s favorite part of the blog: the stupid questions of the past four days:

-“Where is the Leaning Tower of Pisa?”
-“What’s in the Picasso museum?”
-“Are we going to cross the Atlantic on the way back?”
-“Do you change time zones when you cross the Equator?”

The Voice has also started a rumor debunker… the last couple rumors (which are false):

-“The ship is running out of fuel.” (He said that we have fuel-carrying submarines that run along side the ship)
-“We are not stopping in Turkey.” (He said we can stay on the ship when we get to Turkey if we don’t want to go, but the ship will be going to Turkey)

Someday I am going to record one of the announcements. The Voice says everything so seriously, but he’s hilarious!

And finally (I know…long blog post!) I want to share a poem we read in my poetry class. It is very relatable to the trip!



The Sea is Enormous (Aun cuando el mar es grande…) by Juan Ramon Jimenez

The sea is enormous,
just as everything is;
yet it seems to me I’m still with you…

Soon only water will separate us;
water, restlessy moving—
water…only water!



Current location – 37 degrees N latitude, 0 degrees W longitude, traveling at 14.4 knots!