June 28th, 2009
Today we stopped for fuel in the Strait of Gibraltar. This is literally the crossroads between Africa and Europe. Let me explain to you my morning. I got up to have breakfast and I sat on the outside deck to eat it. To my left was the Rock of Gibraltar, I hope you all have heard of this place, if not google it, and on my right was Morocco. I was looking at Africa. I was in between Europe and Africa. Like, I have seen Africa. This doesn’t even make sense or sound real to me. The ship was so close to Gibraltar and Morocco I could have jumped out and swam to either continent. I keep using the word amazing and keep saying everything I see is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life, but all this stuff just keeps getting better so I can’t help it. I just want you to visualize standing on a ship with Spain and Gibraltar about 500 yards away from your left side and then Morocco, Africa 500 yards from your right side. It’s breath taking. It’s surreal. We are now officially in the Mediterranean Sea now and the sun is so so so so so so so close and so so so so so so hot. Everyone knows that I don’t tan easily, but I sat outside to read and I had my book on my lap and now I have a book tan line across my legs. I look like an idiot. The water is greener than green and as a clear as a pool. Well, I have two papers I need to write so I’ll write more later in the week! Bye.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Spain
June 27th 2009-Im in my room with Grace and Kyla watching Wall-E! This is the best movie ever fyi…anyway lets talk about ESPANA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AMAZING…BEAUTIFUL…CULTURAL…NOT SO GREAT FOOD…HOT AS HECK…AMAZING! I have only been in Europe for about 4 days and I am in love with it. I can now completely understand why some people come over here and never come back. America seriously has it all wrong. We actually suck in a lot of ways. Don’t get me wrong, I love my country, but we have almost everything backwards. All the buses here run on natural gas, the trash cans are all equipped with recycling bins and glass bins all in one, so there is no excuse to litter. The streets are so clean, people leave work in the middle of the day to actually spend time with their families and pick their children up from school. Imagine that. From 2-6 pm its siesta time and everything shuts down and people go home to nap or just sit and relax and have tapas which are little tiny food platters that are extremely cheap. It’s a beautiful thing. Also these people party so hard. NYC sit down. The clubs DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 3 IN THE MORNING! At midnight everyone is just sitting and relaxing and talking in the plazas with their little half naked children and dogs without leashes running around. Its beautiful. I love it. Spain is absolutely gorgeous. I had the most amazing time here. I can barely find words to tell you about it. So it all started like this….a whole group of us…about 10 or 11 stayed up alllllllllllllllll night and when I say all night I mean all night. We were awake for the ship pulling into the port of Cadiz….pronounced CadiTH…..it was beautiful. We literally watched the sunrise over the city and even in the port where all the ships and tugs boats go, the water was clear blue. The air here is so different and all the colors on all the buildings are so vibrant despite them being hundreds of years old. The first day here me, Grace and this other girl hopped on the bus to head towards our first destination: Cordoba…pronounced Coor-Dough-Ba…say coor really fast then doughba together…does this make any sense? Anyway, this city was amazing. It is a small town about 3 hours away from Cadiz. I have never seen so much remnants of Islamic, Jewish and Catholic art and influence as intermixed as this city had. There were so many monuments and statues and buildings and Mosques, or Mezquitas en espanol, and they all had different styles of art mixed into the same structure. I don’t really know how to describe it but it was amazing. It was beyond amazing. Grace and I wandered around this Alcatrez/castle thingy where there were about a million rooms and all these orange trees and flowers and old paintings. It was craaazy. We have 100090989798797986 pictures…people will see them eventually. We stayed in this gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous hostel….please throw out the whole stereotypes about hostels because they are not true. This place had tiled floors and a private enclosed courtyard with those little booty cleaners in the bathroom. It was just amazing. After we saw all there was to see in Cordoba we headed to Seville which aside from New Orleans is my favorite place I have ever been to in my 22 years of life. Ew that sounds so old. Buuuuuut speaking of OLD!!!.....
After Cordoba we went to Seville ON MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! This place is breathtaking. It has so much culture and art work and sites to see and I think I went everywhere!!!!!!!!!! My favorite place was the THIRD largest cathedral in the whole entire world, the Cathedral of Christendom , which had so much Islamic design to it which I thought was funny. Europe is so interconnected and I find it amazing. Anyway. This was the MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE I think I have ever seen. Please google this place and look at the pictures. I don’t know when ill have time to upload the pictures on the internet so please just go look them up now. Every single inch of this place was detailed in different scenes of the Bible, different Saints, and one part was, from ceiling to floor, dipped in GOLD! Well I think it was gold, the people who worked there didn’t understand my broken Spanish and I couldn’t remember how to say gold, soooooo I don’t really know what it was covered in but I swear it was gold. Anyway, this place was unreal. It was built in 1400 something and guess who’s tomb is in there, being held by these 9 foot tall men on all four corners, CHRISTOPHER FREAKIN COLOMBUS! I don’t really know if I believe he is really in there but it was amazing to see. We stayed in another cool hostel that night and the people there were soooooooooooooooooooooooooo nice. I met people from Ireland, south Africa, germany, Italy and France. We ended up all traveling together to the sites in Seville and I learned so much from these people. Its awesome to hear the perspectives of people from completely different cultures than me. Anyway, I partied my heart out in Spain. I don’t think they will forget me and the people I was with. I promise you all I wasn’t crazy and dumb but I don’t think I have danced so hard ever. We got made fun of by some of the Spaniards because we left the club at 530 and they were just beginning to party. I’m sorry but I could not hang with them. I need to sleep sometime before the sun rises.
Um, side bar, I can not believe Michael Jackson died. So, im not even going to speak on it too much. Its just crazy that he died on my birthday and its even crazier how I found out from two girls from Sweden who spoke NO ENGLISH while standing in line for the bathroom. I guess that just shows how much he impacted the world. RIP Mike.
Ok, back to Spain, there is just so much to tell, but I think ill wrap it up. I was thoroughly disappointed with the food here. Im going to give the country the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the fact that Im on a budget and couldn’t buy a really nice meal, but I really don’t think that was it. Everyone said the food was no bueno. And also, these people are not the friendliest in the world, I guess it’s because they knew we were Americans. But despite that I LOVED SPAIN! ILL BE BACK! Next stop: Italy.
AMAZING…BEAUTIFUL…CULTURAL…NOT SO GREAT FOOD…HOT AS HECK…AMAZING! I have only been in Europe for about 4 days and I am in love with it. I can now completely understand why some people come over here and never come back. America seriously has it all wrong. We actually suck in a lot of ways. Don’t get me wrong, I love my country, but we have almost everything backwards. All the buses here run on natural gas, the trash cans are all equipped with recycling bins and glass bins all in one, so there is no excuse to litter. The streets are so clean, people leave work in the middle of the day to actually spend time with their families and pick their children up from school. Imagine that. From 2-6 pm its siesta time and everything shuts down and people go home to nap or just sit and relax and have tapas which are little tiny food platters that are extremely cheap. It’s a beautiful thing. Also these people party so hard. NYC sit down. The clubs DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 3 IN THE MORNING! At midnight everyone is just sitting and relaxing and talking in the plazas with their little half naked children and dogs without leashes running around. Its beautiful. I love it. Spain is absolutely gorgeous. I had the most amazing time here. I can barely find words to tell you about it. So it all started like this….a whole group of us…about 10 or 11 stayed up alllllllllllllllll night and when I say all night I mean all night. We were awake for the ship pulling into the port of Cadiz….pronounced CadiTH…..it was beautiful. We literally watched the sunrise over the city and even in the port where all the ships and tugs boats go, the water was clear blue. The air here is so different and all the colors on all the buildings are so vibrant despite them being hundreds of years old. The first day here me, Grace and this other girl hopped on the bus to head towards our first destination: Cordoba…pronounced Coor-Dough-Ba…say coor really fast then doughba together…does this make any sense? Anyway, this city was amazing. It is a small town about 3 hours away from Cadiz. I have never seen so much remnants of Islamic, Jewish and Catholic art and influence as intermixed as this city had. There were so many monuments and statues and buildings and Mosques, or Mezquitas en espanol, and they all had different styles of art mixed into the same structure. I don’t really know how to describe it but it was amazing. It was beyond amazing. Grace and I wandered around this Alcatrez/castle thingy where there were about a million rooms and all these orange trees and flowers and old paintings. It was craaazy. We have 100090989798797986 pictures…people will see them eventually. We stayed in this gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous hostel….please throw out the whole stereotypes about hostels because they are not true. This place had tiled floors and a private enclosed courtyard with those little booty cleaners in the bathroom. It was just amazing. After we saw all there was to see in Cordoba we headed to Seville which aside from New Orleans is my favorite place I have ever been to in my 22 years of life. Ew that sounds so old. Buuuuuut speaking of OLD!!!.....
After Cordoba we went to Seville ON MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! This place is breathtaking. It has so much culture and art work and sites to see and I think I went everywhere!!!!!!!!!! My favorite place was the THIRD largest cathedral in the whole entire world, the Cathedral of Christendom , which had so much Islamic design to it which I thought was funny. Europe is so interconnected and I find it amazing. Anyway. This was the MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE I think I have ever seen. Please google this place and look at the pictures. I don’t know when ill have time to upload the pictures on the internet so please just go look them up now. Every single inch of this place was detailed in different scenes of the Bible, different Saints, and one part was, from ceiling to floor, dipped in GOLD! Well I think it was gold, the people who worked there didn’t understand my broken Spanish and I couldn’t remember how to say gold, soooooo I don’t really know what it was covered in but I swear it was gold. Anyway, this place was unreal. It was built in 1400 something and guess who’s tomb is in there, being held by these 9 foot tall men on all four corners, CHRISTOPHER FREAKIN COLOMBUS! I don’t really know if I believe he is really in there but it was amazing to see. We stayed in another cool hostel that night and the people there were soooooooooooooooooooooooooo nice. I met people from Ireland, south Africa, germany, Italy and France. We ended up all traveling together to the sites in Seville and I learned so much from these people. Its awesome to hear the perspectives of people from completely different cultures than me. Anyway, I partied my heart out in Spain. I don’t think they will forget me and the people I was with. I promise you all I wasn’t crazy and dumb but I don’t think I have danced so hard ever. We got made fun of by some of the Spaniards because we left the club at 530 and they were just beginning to party. I’m sorry but I could not hang with them. I need to sleep sometime before the sun rises.
Um, side bar, I can not believe Michael Jackson died. So, im not even going to speak on it too much. Its just crazy that he died on my birthday and its even crazier how I found out from two girls from Sweden who spoke NO ENGLISH while standing in line for the bathroom. I guess that just shows how much he impacted the world. RIP Mike.
Ok, back to Spain, there is just so much to tell, but I think ill wrap it up. I was thoroughly disappointed with the food here. Im going to give the country the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the fact that Im on a budget and couldn’t buy a really nice meal, but I really don’t think that was it. Everyone said the food was no bueno. And also, these people are not the friendliest in the world, I guess it’s because they knew we were Americans. But despite that I LOVED SPAIN! ILL BE BACK! Next stop: Italy.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Day Before Spain!!!!!!!!!!!
June 23rd, 2009 the day before we dock in beautiful Espana!!!!!! Right now I’m sitting in my room on the floor, of my own room mind you, with three people on my bed, two people on Graces bed, two people in the two chairs in our room and Grace is sitting on the floor, of her own room mind you, and I’m just going to type away. My birthday is in two days FYI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is so surreal that this time tomorrow I’ll be in Spain. Ill be in the oldest city in all of Europe. Cadiz. It is located in the southern part of Spain in the region of Cadiz. The proper way to say it (because you know I’ve been practicing my espanol) is Cadith….stress the “th” hard core. Anyway, this is crazy.
In the class that the entire ship has to take, Global Studies, we are learning all the history about the countries we are going to and I am now a borderline expert in Spain. Ok not really, at all, but I know some stuff about some stuff now. Its soooooooo weird to study these countries in the classroom and the textbooks and then to be able to go actually see them is unreal. But hey im not complaining. Ill have tons of stuff tomorrow. I don’t even know why im awake right now. Goodnight. Happy Early Birthday to me!
In the class that the entire ship has to take, Global Studies, we are learning all the history about the countries we are going to and I am now a borderline expert in Spain. Ok not really, at all, but I know some stuff about some stuff now. Its soooooooo weird to study these countries in the classroom and the textbooks and then to be able to go actually see them is unreal. But hey im not complaining. Ill have tons of stuff tomorrow. I don’t even know why im awake right now. Goodnight. Happy Early Birthday to me!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
i saw some freakin dolphins today
Hello world….June 21st my time June 20th your time…right now im listening to Uptown by Drake and Lil Wayne….IM OFFICIALLY IN EUROPE!!!! So today was another beautifully amazing day. It was about 70 degrees with a small breeze and the sky was so low I felt like I could touch it. I slept through my first two classes this morning because 1. The time moved forward an hour YET AGAIN and I didn’t adjust my clock 2. I don’t have a window in my room so there is no freakin sunlight 3. I turned off the alarm clock and 4.the ocean rocked me to a deep deep slumber again. But its ok because my teachers live on the 5th floor so I just knocked on their door and asked them what I missed.After I finally got up, I made it to my last class, bullsh*tted a quiz, got 100 on it and then went to lunch lol. Let me tell you all about the food here. We have potatoes at every meal. EVERY MEAL. I didn’t realize that potatoes could go with everything, but it does. There is always some type of fish, vegetarian dish and brown colored meat, salad and pasta and it all taste ok at first…but you think about it later….not so good. But im surviving, I guess that’s the goal. Um breakfast is from 700 to 830 lunch is 1200 to 130 and dinner is from 530 to 800. It’s a rough life. I don’t eat anything after 6 everyday. Im starving. Its bad.
But more importantly….I saw a cod of DOLPHINS!!!!!!!!!!! Yes cod is the proper term, at first I said a herd of dolphins but I quickly got corrected by one of the professor’s seven year old daughter. It was soooo beautiful. There were about 11 of them and they were all jumping in the air and I was screaming like a lunatic. We saw land today for the first time in 4 days. There were these two random islands smack in the middle of the atlantic ocean. One was called Corzo and the other one right across it was called Flores. They were absolutely gorgeous and they were literally in between North America and Europe. Once we passed through them we were officially in European waters. The population of both islands combined was 400 people. I have no idea how they live there or what they eat or who they reproduce with but apparently it works. It was so surreal standing on a ship looking at these islands that were created by a volcano that was smoking as we sailed past it. There were no roads, no airport, a clump of houses near the coast. No telephone poles, no wires, nothing. We literally saw the entire island as we past it. Every side of it. People actually live there and I’m sure they are some of the happiest people in the world. When I tell you there was nothing there, I mean NOTHING. They were in the middle of the ocean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The middle!!! How the f did they get there? It was so cool.
After all that excitement, I had a meeting…o let me tell you…somehow I am a program assistant on this damn ship. I applied for work study and got it and I thought that I would just be working in the library but noooo me and 7 other people are freakin program assistants. What that means is I am the assistant to one of the 8 living/learning coordinators on the ship who are basically our councelors/ra’s and I help them with whatever they need to do. But my boss is amazing and she lets me do what I want so I got to run my own meeting and do my own thing. Soooo I thought I was going to come here and just be a regular student doing regular things…but no…I ran my own meeting today for students interested in service learning which is a way they can combine what we learn here and do some type of community service in the countries we go to and on the ship… aaaaaand I kinda think I started my own student organization today lol I just cant get away from doing stuff like this!!! But I love it so whatever. Im actually tired and don’t really feel like writing any more so I think ill stop now. Ill be in spain in 3 more days and then the good stuff will really begin. FYI MY BIRTHDAY IS IN 4 DAYS SO I EXPECT SOME “HAPPY BIRTHDAYS” I ALSO ACCEPT GIFTS SO PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED MY ADDRESS. THANK YOU. Oooo and if you love me please email me. It would really nice to hear from civilization. My email here is nscook@semesteratsea.net
Also, the sun didn’t set here until about 10 at night. It was amazing. I think I might sleep on the deck tonight and watch the sun rise from the water. Yeah that sounds nice. Goodnight/good morning world.
But more importantly….I saw a cod of DOLPHINS!!!!!!!!!!! Yes cod is the proper term, at first I said a herd of dolphins but I quickly got corrected by one of the professor’s seven year old daughter. It was soooo beautiful. There were about 11 of them and they were all jumping in the air and I was screaming like a lunatic. We saw land today for the first time in 4 days. There were these two random islands smack in the middle of the atlantic ocean. One was called Corzo and the other one right across it was called Flores. They were absolutely gorgeous and they were literally in between North America and Europe. Once we passed through them we were officially in European waters. The population of both islands combined was 400 people. I have no idea how they live there or what they eat or who they reproduce with but apparently it works. It was so surreal standing on a ship looking at these islands that were created by a volcano that was smoking as we sailed past it. There were no roads, no airport, a clump of houses near the coast. No telephone poles, no wires, nothing. We literally saw the entire island as we past it. Every side of it. People actually live there and I’m sure they are some of the happiest people in the world. When I tell you there was nothing there, I mean NOTHING. They were in the middle of the ocean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The middle!!! How the f did they get there? It was so cool.
After all that excitement, I had a meeting…o let me tell you…somehow I am a program assistant on this damn ship. I applied for work study and got it and I thought that I would just be working in the library but noooo me and 7 other people are freakin program assistants. What that means is I am the assistant to one of the 8 living/learning coordinators on the ship who are basically our councelors/ra’s and I help them with whatever they need to do. But my boss is amazing and she lets me do what I want so I got to run my own meeting and do my own thing. Soooo I thought I was going to come here and just be a regular student doing regular things…but no…I ran my own meeting today for students interested in service learning which is a way they can combine what we learn here and do some type of community service in the countries we go to and on the ship… aaaaaand I kinda think I started my own student organization today lol I just cant get away from doing stuff like this!!! But I love it so whatever. Im actually tired and don’t really feel like writing any more so I think ill stop now. Ill be in spain in 3 more days and then the good stuff will really begin. FYI MY BIRTHDAY IS IN 4 DAYS SO I EXPECT SOME “HAPPY BIRTHDAYS” I ALSO ACCEPT GIFTS SO PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED MY ADDRESS. THANK YOU. Oooo and if you love me please email me. It would really nice to hear from civilization. My email here is nscook@semesteratsea.net
Also, the sun didn’t set here until about 10 at night. It was amazing. I think I might sleep on the deck tonight and watch the sun rise from the water. Yeah that sounds nice. Goodnight/good morning world.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Im finaly on the ship...my new home
OK everyone!!! June 19th, 2009…1:30 my time…whatever time that is. Im listening to Kanye West Say You Will…The moment you have all been waiting for!!!! I am so sorry for the delay! Things have been quite crazy here in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean :) Ok Ill set the scene for everyone so they can picture my freakishly awesome life right now!! Its 1:30 in the morning here, but really 9:30 where most of you are. I am literally smack in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The last captain report said we are 1000 miles away from the nearest land mass and about 1000 miles away from Cadiz, Spain which is our first stop in this journey. Im stiiting in my little cute room with smaller than small beds, smaller than small tables, a smaller than small tv and smaller than small drawers for both me and Grace…Im actually looking at Grace right now…it’s a little weird. Anyway , this ship is so f-ing awesome!!! Words don’t really do it justice. There are seven decks. Each has something different on it. We have class all over the ship and in the most random places. I sit on the floor next to a piano in one class and then in a little tiny chair with 30 other people in another class and I couldn’t be happier about it. This is truly one of the most amazing things I have EVER done in my entire life and its only day 3. I have met so many incredible people from all over the country and I know that many of these people will be life long friends. Oh I almost forgot to tell you all…the ship is 77% female 23% male. WTF? 43% of the people are from Colorado, 23% are from California and the rest are from somewhere else…needless to say…the whole diversity factor I’m used to in uuuh EVERYDAY LIFE is noooooot here….but its cool. Im learning a lot of random stuff from these West coasters.
Anyway…we haven’t even gotten to a freakin country yet and I am loving this! The water literally rocks me to sleep every night. Its beautiful. Its amazingly beautiful. Some people have seen dolphins and whales following the ship...I havent seen any but Im patiently waiting. Thankfully, I have not gotten sea sick at all but there have been hundreds of people dying! Some chick threw up in the damn hallway. I was a little pissed about that but I just stepped over it and kept it moving….oook, I helped her out a little…then I kept it moving. Anyway, my classes are the sh*t, these teachers here are amazing! Temple needs to step their faculty game up in a serious way because these professors are on another level. I love you Temple but I have never been challenged like this before. OOOOh so youre allowed to drink on the ship here no matter what your age is right, so of course these 18 19 20 year old kids from freakin Kentucky and Kansas and the little ski towns of Colorado are getting it poooooooooooooooppin out here in the middle of the Atlantic. I went to one of the outside deck food areas around 2 in the morning yesterday to get some water and there was a full blown Maxi’s on a Thursday night or Draught Horse on a Wednesday or a Friday in Old City or a Sunday night in NYC going on! Mind you everyone on the ship has to take the same morning class at 8 am. I really feel like an old hag because I just looked at the foolishness and went inside… Im saving my recklessness for these foreign lands I’m about to divide and conquer..ok not so much divide and conquer, more like observe, participate, absorb and appreciate. Anyways…more to come. Im sory for the delay but I promise there will be more and more as the trip goes on.OMG MY F-ING GOODNESS I FORGOT TO TELL YALL! TELL ME WHY I ONLY HAVE 2 HOURS AND 5 MINUTES OF INTERNET TIME FOR THE ENTIRE TRIP! THATS ALL WE GET. NOTHING MORE NOTHING LESS AND IF WE WANT MORE WE HAVE TO BUY IT! Needless to say I will be using this internet time wisely so please dont curse me out if i dont update as requently as I would like too.
I love you all and I miss you all and I wish and pray that everyone can experience something as amazing as this at least once in their life. Shout out to Antonio lol..mind your business if you dont know who that is and you dont. Later.
Anyway…we haven’t even gotten to a freakin country yet and I am loving this! The water literally rocks me to sleep every night. Its beautiful. Its amazingly beautiful. Some people have seen dolphins and whales following the ship...I havent seen any but Im patiently waiting. Thankfully, I have not gotten sea sick at all but there have been hundreds of people dying! Some chick threw up in the damn hallway. I was a little pissed about that but I just stepped over it and kept it moving….oook, I helped her out a little…then I kept it moving. Anyway, my classes are the sh*t, these teachers here are amazing! Temple needs to step their faculty game up in a serious way because these professors are on another level. I love you Temple but I have never been challenged like this before. OOOOh so youre allowed to drink on the ship here no matter what your age is right, so of course these 18 19 20 year old kids from freakin Kentucky and Kansas and the little ski towns of Colorado are getting it poooooooooooooooppin out here in the middle of the Atlantic. I went to one of the outside deck food areas around 2 in the morning yesterday to get some water and there was a full blown Maxi’s on a Thursday night or Draught Horse on a Wednesday or a Friday in Old City or a Sunday night in NYC going on! Mind you everyone on the ship has to take the same morning class at 8 am. I really feel like an old hag because I just looked at the foolishness and went inside… Im saving my recklessness for these foreign lands I’m about to divide and conquer..ok not so much divide and conquer, more like observe, participate, absorb and appreciate. Anyways…more to come. Im sory for the delay but I promise there will be more and more as the trip goes on.OMG MY F-ING GOODNESS I FORGOT TO TELL YALL! TELL ME WHY I ONLY HAVE 2 HOURS AND 5 MINUTES OF INTERNET TIME FOR THE ENTIRE TRIP! THATS ALL WE GET. NOTHING MORE NOTHING LESS AND IF WE WANT MORE WE HAVE TO BUY IT! Needless to say I will be using this internet time wisely so please dont curse me out if i dont update as requently as I would like too.
I love you all and I miss you all and I wish and pray that everyone can experience something as amazing as this at least once in their life. Shout out to Antonio lol..mind your business if you dont know who that is and you dont. Later.
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