Olivia's Blog

Last Days Onboard

Olivia — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:13:49 +0000

66 days, 8 countries, 3 continents, 2 Atlantic crossings, 7 time zones, and almost 15,000 nautical miles. I missed home every step of the way, but I also wouldn’t give up my SAS friends for anything; I’ll miss late-night card games in hallways and the dining hall, shared adventures in port (this one time in Athens … ), and ill-advised double feature movie nights on school nights (yes, watching Finding Nemo until 1 AM will definitely help me write this paper!). On the upside, now that we’ve all traveled through a bunch of foreign countries, figuring out how to have mini SAS reunions in the States should be easy! Pictures below from our Alumni Ball, a couple of days before we got off in Boston.

Casablanca

Olivia — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:09:50 +0000

Casablanca was by far the most intense and least touristy city which we visited; a fair number of people spoke some English (and we got by the rest of the time on our group of friends’ collective French and Arabic abilities), and there were some tourist attractions to check out, but for the most part I felt like I had been dropped into the middle of everyday Moroccan life, probably particularly since it was Ramadan. Also, I’m a complete broken record, but it was hot there – we’re talking 110 degrees in the shade hot. I also don’t think I had a real understanding of the word “desert” before we actually got out to Marrakech and stood in the dust and sand and blazing heat in the middle of Jemaa al-F’na square, which reaffirmed my love for trees and nice, temperate climates where 110 degrees is not something that happens in real life. Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy Morocco – I’m very glad to have been there, to get a little window into what life is like in North Africa. But it also made me even happier to come home.

Istanbul

Olivia — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:05:21 +0000

I unfortunately spent the first couple of days in Istanbul stuck in bed with some very exotic Bulgarian food-borne illnesses (yes, I got more than one kind at once), but on our subsequent three days there I began to recover and was able to get out and explore with my friends. Istanbul is an amazing city; we had more than enough to do for three days in Sultanahmet alone (the old neighborhood, which is home to the Hagia Sofia and Blue mosques, along with the Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar, and various other major sites), but we could’ve filled a couple of weeks easily, and I really hope to get back to Istanbul eventually to check out the rest of the major sites and the many other cool-looking neighborhoods which we didn’t see. Pictures are below, some from a boat tour up the Bosporus which we took one afternoon (which marks the first time I’ve set foot in Asia), and a few others from the city itself and the lovely sunset as we left the harbor on our way to Morocco. Hard to believe we’ve only got one more port – and so we go!

Varna

Olivia — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 16:14:17 +0000

I don’t have too much to report about Bulgaria, because I unfortunately spent most of our time in that port battling a head cold, so I didn’t get out nearly as much as I have in other ports. On days when my head didn’t feel like a bowling ball, I was able to get out and see Varna’s Stone Forest (pictures below), among a few other sites, and a couple of my friends and I took advantage of the presence of no less than 3 malls with movie theaters in Varna to see the final Harry Potter movie on one of our nights in port. Being sick and stuck on the ship has really made me miss home—I know that Istanbul and Casablanca are going to be awesome, but I’m also really looking forward to heading back to the States and returning to my regular life; it’s hard to believe that I’ve been gone for over 6 weeks, and that we’ve only got 2 ports and a little over 3 more weeks to go til we hit Boston. Ah well, I’ll have time to process it all once the voyage is over; in the meantime, I have two more countries and the last days of classes and finals for all four of my courses to distract me. See you all soon!

Athina

Olivia — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 06:23:41 +0000

We’re en route to Bulgaria from Greece today. I found myself being very grateful that we had several ports before Greece while we were there, because Spain, Italy, and Croatia effectively helped to prepare me as a traveller for the challenges that Greece presented. To wit: the first thing that was announced when we pulled into port in Piraeus (the port of Athens, which is about 20 minutes from Athens by metro, or 45 by bus) was that the metro was shut down due to strikes. OK, we had some fun with language and cultural barriers while attempting to acquire bus tickets, finally got some, and took the bus in. My group of friends spent the day trekking around Athens, and saw the National Archaeological Museum, the New Acropolis Museum, and the Acropolis itself, all of which were really cool (we also inhaled a ton of awesome Greek food, which we were also quite happy about). When we headed back to the bus stop to get back to the ship, we were told that the buses in Athens were now down due to protests (like, tear gas and stun grenades protests), so we should take the metro out of the city and take a bus from there. There was no bus stop at the metro stop where we were directed, so we finally crammed 5 of us in a taxi and got back to the port that way. The next day we got up and found out that the taxis were now on strike, the metro from the port was still down, and the buses weren’t running into the city. Long story short, we hung out in Piraeus for the day, then headed out to Aegina (a beautiful, conveniently close Greek island, which was a lovely break from Piraeus/Athens) for a day, and waited to go back into Athens until things calmed down a bit (read: the metro and buses were actually running everywhere on day four, hallelujah). Anyway, looking forward to Bulgaria as a nice, relaxing port Pictures below as usual, drop me a comment or an email if you’d like to say hey!

Dubrovnik

Olivia — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:14:09 +0000

The pictures below pretty much speak for themselves – Croatia is absolutely beautiful, and definitely my favorite port so far! We spent the first day walking the city walls of Dubrovnik’s Old Town, which offered us some awesome views of the city and the coastline in exchange for our willingness to trek around on a shadeless, elevated set of walls in the midafternoon on a day when it was easily 95 degrees – so basically, like all of our ports so far, Croatia is very, very hot, but it’s too amazing for me to care too much about the weather. I spent my second day kayaking, hiking, and snorkeling on an island right by Dubrovnik, which was fantastic, and spent the last couple of days wandering around the port (which is in the more modern section of Dubrovnik), swimming and wandering and making use of awesomely cheap Croatian internet service and phone cards to catch up a bit with what’s going on at home. I’m having a really good time, and I love my friends on the ship, but I do still miss all of you in the States; it’s 5 weeks exactly from today til we land in Boston, and as much as I’m looking forward to Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Morocco, I’m also looking forward to reentering my life at home. Anyway, we hit Greece yesterday (sorry for the delay – the ship’s internet has been really sketchy, so this is the first chance I’ve had to upload pictures), so I’ll write again soon!

Napoli + Roma

Olivia — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 07:53:20 +0000

I’m going to start out by pointing out that Italy is HOT, and not in the pleasant, 78 degrees/low humidity way that Barcelona is hot. Italy is hot in the 90 degrees/high humidity sense, and being a tourist I’ve spent the last 5 days walking around outside, so I can now confidently report from firsthand experience that if you go to any of the following places during July, your face might possibly melt off: the streets of Naples and Pompeii, the top of Mt. Vesuvius, the streets of Rome, and basically any and all of the major monuments in Rome (the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain – you name it, it’s probably outside and lacking in shade). Crazy Italian uber-heat aside, Naples and Rome have been pretty amazing, due to the awesome food (pizza and gelato in Naples, cannolis and gnocchi in Civitavecchia/Rome, coffee everywhere), and to the fact that you can’t go anywhere without tripping over beautiful cathedrals, classic wind-y Italian streets, and the like. Anyway, I’m off to get some more coffee and make a (probably brief) attempt at putting a dent in my pile of schoolwork before heading out for more exploring; pictures below, as usual

Barcelona, Continued

Olivia — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:53:03 +0000

Today we’re at sea again, having left Barcelona at 8 PM last night; we’ll pass between Corsica and Sardinia sometime this afternoon, and then hit Naples bright and early tomorrow morning (at which point I will immediately head out on an all-day trip to Pompeii). The constant transitions on the ship—between time zones, class days to in-port days, and country-to-country—are making it a bit difficult for me to offer a full recounting of what happens during any particular period, but I’m adding some pictures of my last couple of days in Barcelona anyway. I went on a mountain biking trip early in the morning of our third day in port, and saw some beautiful views of the city in between careening down some very rocky, very steep trails; I’m happy that I got out of the center of the city a few times, as Spain has some really beautiful countryside. We got back in around noon, and a couple of hours later I headed back out with one of my friends to check out Parque Guell, or “Gaudi Park” as everyone was referring to it – pictures below, check out his neat/weird architectural style. We had to be back on the ship by 6 PM on our fourth and last day, so I went on one last walk up Las Ramblas, got some chocolate con churros (got to love a city where a major traditional food is a deep-friend pastry dipped in chocolate) and (very strong) Spanish goat cheese, and headed back onto the ship. And now, suddenly, we’re all trying to orient ourselves toward Italy; with any luck, I’ll have some pictures up of Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, and the Amalfi Coast within the next few days, unbelievably enough. Onward!

Viva Barcelona!

Olivia — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:24:17 +0000

I’m on my second day in Spain, which in practical terms means I’m way sleep-deprived and my legs ache (2 straight days of trekking all over the city, and Catalonians don’t eat dinner until 10:00 PM), but I’m distracting myself from those things with lots of gelato and Gaudi architecture, so on balance I’m pretty happy. Pictures below – I’ll try to write more when I have both free time and energy, which I have to warn everybody is pretty rare on Semester at Sea!

Shipboard Life

Olivia — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:20:12 +0000

I’ve been living on the MV Explorer for 9 days now, which works out to 28 class sessions, 14 hours of work study, and six one-hour time changes (and uncountable naps; there’s nothing quite like getting up for 8 AM classes when your body thinks it’s 2 AM, so pretty much everybody grabs some extra sleep whenever there’s time). In a way it feels like we have all been and will be at sea forever, which is why everyone gets super excited whenever we see land (woohoo, the Azores!), but we’ll actually, unbelievably, be getting to Barcelona in 2 days.
I think I’ll be doing an uncharacteristic amount of winging it in port; I’ve found a fair number of other people who want to wander around on foot in our port cities, so while I’ll definitely be going to some of the major tourist-y hotspots (the Vatican had better be worth it, I hear the lines take about 3 hours), I’m also hoping to spend a fair amount of time just soaking it all in, rather than trying to do some sort of whirlwind tour of every cathedral and museum on the Mediterranean.
On that note, I’m off to do some more homework (unless, of course, anyone else wants to read about “The Ambivalent Feminism of the Italian Welfare State” for me). I miss all of you at home, wish me luck! Annnd here’s a couple of pictures from on the ship, if anyone’s curious