Wrapping up an amazing summer

I realize that there’s probably no point to writing this post now, since I’ve been back from SAS for almost a month, but I think this blog needs closure and I also really need a place to write my thoughts. I might return to this blog randomly throughout the semester or I might forget about it completely. All I know is that this journal I’ve been keeping religiously for the last two and a half months is feeling lonely and needs a post. I also know that this is going to be a very random post as there are a million things going through my head right now. But I should probably start off with a recap of the last few days of the trip?

After auction day, we had four days of classes, basically just wrapping up the semester. Then we had the Global Studies final, which I did well on (too bad Global Studies doesn’t transfer!). The next day was a study day for the finals the following day, but since I didn’t have any more finals, there wasn’t much to do. The night of finals day was the Alumni Ball! We got all dressed up for our 5:30 seating, then proceeded to wait in line for 20 minutes while people were seated in the main dining hall. We were greeted with champagne and were taken to our table. Steve, Shaara, and I signed up to sit together, but tables only came in 2, 4, 6, or 8. We were put randomly with another group of 3 at a 6-person table. Once we got to the dining hall, we were surprised to be sitting with the ship’s doctor (Dr. Tanya), her husband (Dr. Dave), and their two sons! Even better, the doctors live and work in Pittsburgh! Dr. Tanya is a doctor for the Steelers and Dr. Dave works in hospital medicine at UPMC. Better YET, Dr. Dave graduated from Pitt with a degree in neuroscience! It’s a small world. While enjoying our decadent dinner of bruschetta, minestrone soup, Caesar salad, and delicious filet mignon, we talked about the Steelers, Pitt, football, and medicine, among many other things. When dinner was over, we stopped to get a picture with the captain of the ship. We then headed over to the Union for our “program” while the other half of the ship ate dinner. The program consisted of a newlyweds game with really weird questions. I understand they were trying to be funny, but asking, “what song would your partner say defines your life” is a bit too much. After the program, we waited in yet another long line to get to the dessert buffet. Yum! Lots of chocolate! =) There was a dance that night up on the pool deck, so we went up to check it out, danced for a while, then decided it was way too hot and muggy and left (and the music they were playing was way too slow to dance to!)

The next day was a packing/reflection day. We went to a lecture in the morning given by some SAS alums who returned for this voyage, and they talked about what to expect when returning home. One of them made a comment that I finally fully realized during my first few days back at Pitt. She said that everything goes so fast on SAS—one day you’re in Greece at the Parthenon and two days later you’re in Istanbul marveling at the Hagia Sophia—that we kind of get desensitized from seeing so many amazing things in such a short time period. Usually trips are rushed in order to see everything, and there’s really no time to sit and think, “what am I really seeing?” Everywhere we went was, “here’s this famous thing, you have 15 minutes to take pictures before you have to be back on the bus.” Wash, rinse, repeat. I realize now that by the time we got to Egypt, I was so accustomed to seeing new wonders that seeing the pyramids was not as exciting as I had expected. When I got to Pitt, I was printing out a picture of me and Steve on a camel in front of the pyramids, and I thought to myself, “I can’t believe I did this this summer. I actually rode a camel with my boyfriend in front of the Great Pyramids of Giza.” Few people can say that, and I feel like I could have appreciated it then much more than I did. All the more reason I have to go back someday and move slower, taking everything in and TRULY appreciating everything I see. Less pictures, more memories.

Anyway, the rest of the day we pretty much spent packing, and if you’ve seen my pictures on Facebook you can probably imagine the devastation of our room. That night we had a humorous “cultural pre-port” on America, in which the art history professor talked to us about Virginia, how to speak Starbucks, how to locate a KFC, and other things that may come in handy in our last port. It was a lot of fun looking at America from a tourist-y perspective!

Our luggage had to be packed and ready to go the next morning, so thankfully that cleared up some room in our tiny cabin. That afternoon was convocation, where we recognized about fifteen students who were graduating off the ship. We also got to watch our voyage video, put together by the ship’s photographer and videographer. The video is absolutely amazing; I think I have watched it about 30 times and I tear up every single time! We then grabbed our passports (last time!), had dinner, and met back in the Union for our logistical pre-port. We had these pre-ports before every port, and they usually consisted of warnings about traffic, taxis, medical issues, stuffed animals with bug eggs inside, and occasionally syphilis (a word which, unlike team, contains two i’s). This one was just for fun and consisted of inside jokes from the entire voyage. The best part was the fashion advisory: leggings are NOT PANTS! HA! After this, we went outside to get some last-minute pictures and to watch the last sunset. It was a rather bittersweet night.

Disembarkation day finally arrived. The two months that we spent on the ship flew by like two weeks and we were preparing to set foot on home turf. I woke up at 5am to get a good spot on deck and to watch the last sunrise, and I was surprised to only find two or three other people out that early. Everything was still pitch black except for the lights that came from the ship, which was always really eerie. We could see the lights of Virginia in the distance and watched the last pilot jump on board to guide us into Norfolk. Steven joined me around 6am, and we watched as the black sky slowly turned blue and then pink as a gorgeous red sun rose. It was probably the second best sunrise of the entire trip, the first being the one as we sailed into Istanbul, and I was glad I dragged myself out of bed to watch it. We went inside to grab a quick breakfast and then perched ourselves at the deck railing to sail into the port. I talked to my sister and my mom on the phone for the first time in months! We were crawling along, but finally we got into port and saw all of the waving, excited parents. The deck was a mess of people talking on their cell phones, trying to locate their families. We had to wait a few more hours before we were docked and could start disembarking, which was supposed to start around 10am. I believe one of the crew members didn’t show up for customs, so they spent time trying to find him. Finally, the first sea (Caribbean) was called off, followed quickly by Steven’s sea. My sea was supposed to be next so I got all of my stuff ready and went out into the hall. It was crazy. The Voice, who was on deck 5, could not see the chaos ensuing on decks 2 and 3 as he was calling seas to disembark. My sea was called, but by that time there were about 4 lines converging onto one staircase, and movement came to a halt. To our dismay, Tom called two more seas before I had moved two feet. The other lines, which contained seas called after ours, were moving faster than ours. I finally made it to the staircase, which is rather hard to stand on when carrying three terra cotta tajines and many other (heavy) souvenirs, to see that some rude people were taking the elevators down and cutting in line. They finally remedied that problem and we moved a bit faster. The deans and LLCs were waiting by the door, and after many hugs and goodbyes, I handed my ID card to security and left the ship I called home. By the time I got off the ship, I was so tired from carrying all of my bags that I literally inched to the terminal where our luggage was. Thankfully most of my bags of souvenirs could be stacked on top of my luggage, so that made transportation much easier. I finally got out of the terminal and greeted my waiting parents! We packed up the car, I said some last minute goodbyes to people, we grabbed lunch at a tavern in Norfolk (spinach salad! Yummy!) and we headed home.

So here I am in the United States, the last port visit of the trip. The day before disembarkation, I was all packed and ready. I knew I would miss the ship and the people I met, but I was also really ready to get home to see my family, friends, and my dog. I was excited to share my pictures and my treasures since all anyone has been seeing was my words and the pictures on the SAS website. Life on the ship was hectic; we were either preparing to enter a port, in port, leaving port, taking an exam, or writing a paper. How else can you cram in 7 countries and 22 class days in a summer? I thought I was ready for an “extended” port stay and for things to die down a bit before I would be thrust back into the fall semester. Boy, was I mistaken.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I was so happy to come home, sleep in my own bed, spend time with my family, move back to Pitt, and get started on my junior year. But there was still a subconscious part of me that thought I would be getting back on the ship soon to sail on to the next port. There was that part of me until yesterday, when I finished uploading all my Semester at Sea pictures to Facebook. Writing that seems really silly, but there was something about having shared the entire trip, passing it on to whoever wanted or cared to see it, that finalized it for me. It’s over. I just had the most amazing two months of my life and it’s over. I won’t be getting back on the ship (at least not anytime in the near future) and there are other people—strangers—living in my cabin and sleeping in my squeaky bed. I have no one to talk to in the dark at 2am about random stuff when I can’t sleep. No more sunsets or sunrises over open water. I can’t just walk outside whenever I want and look at the vast expanse of ocean that surrounded us. As much as I love Pittsburgh, there’s nothing as calm or beautiful or peaceful here as being surrounded by nothing but water. I want to be traveling or at sea so badly, but I also know that I have a place here. Too bad Pittsburgh isn’t near the ocean =(

Anyway, I realized that I needed to move ahead and focus on Pitt now instead of daydreaming about the summer, so I came up with two “goals” or things to add to my bucket list to keep myself looking forward. The first is that if I ever go on a cruise, I am not going to miss a single sunrise or sunset; they are just too amazing to miss, and each one is so unique. The second is that I will someday return to Semester at Sea, whether it be as a staff member (doctor!), a lifelong learner, or as a partial voyager. I’m pretty sure I belong at sea. (That is, when I don’t belong in Pittsburgh…because I like it here too…)

So that’s it. Thank you to everyone who read my blog! Since I got back, several people told me that they had been following my blog, and here I thought it was only my parents, my sister, Steve’s mom, and a couple of friends. I only got feedback from those people, so I thought they were the only ones reading! So I thank everyone who read, whether you commented or not, (although I really really really liked getting comments!!) and I’m glad you put up with my obscenely long and detailed posts!!!

I also wanted to thank my parents for making this dream trip a reality for me, and my sister for telling me about Semester at Sea in the first place. My family has always been so supportive of everything I do, and there is no way I could have done this without them. Thank you and I love you!!!



I leave you with lyrics to the song “Down River” by The Temper Trap…

Finally we have seen some things
Some awfully nice
Some dreadfully bad…

But we will sing, cast our hopes out to sea
Though our hearts break, through violent winds our ship will sail
And I don’t understand how this world would work
Cause time will tell us nothing
I’ll take a chance on something

Feeling old, feelings this time take you
Down river, down river, down river, down
Walk these stairs, put the pieces back together
Go, don’t stop. Go, don’t stop. Go, don’t stop.
Go, don’t stop now, GO….

<3