Day 10 (June 24): Estamos aqui!! Port #1: Barcelona!!

Life on the MV Explorer is so much fun - we were a little antsy yesterday, though. I think it was our ninth day on board, and everyone was excited to get out and walk around a little. On Tuesday, we finally left the Atlantic Ocean and sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar. I stood at the front of the ship and watch us approach Spain on the left and Morocco on the right. They are actually eight miles apart, but they look closer when you approach them from far away.

Classes were really taking up a lot of my time lately. We have class everyday, which is quite different then the once-a-week-business that I am used to at Maryland! It is very intense and I feel like I am constantly reading in order to keep up with everything. Because the semester is so abbreviated, on Wednesday (our last day at sea until we got to Europe), I actually gave my final presentation! haha Isn't that funny? It was on Spanish higher education and my partner Megan and I pretty much rocked it. : ) Haha, no really it was very interesting! We have like 22 class days total, and I think we've had about seven of them so far. I am learning really interesting things, though.

For all of you higher ed people who are interested...This week we talked in depth about the Bologna Agreement which was signed in 1999 by a lot of countries across Europe. With the agreement, those countries are required to standardize their higher education programs, so that it will make study between countries easier and will also help educators/employers because they will know that the student had a certain amount of education. (A bachelor's degree is three years under the Bologna, for example) Before, countries had all different requirements - seven years, two years..so it's awesome that they are doing this. It puts a lot of pressure on the US, though. We've got to get our act together because European higher education is really taking over! It will be cool to ask faculty/staff/students about how it has affected them when we visit universities in our ports! (See? For all you who thought I was on a "cruise"...I AM learning stuff - hence the term..."academic voyage"! haha)

Today, we arrived in Barcelona! It was awesome! Barcelona is RIGHT on the water, so we are planning to come back to the ship each night! Semester at Sea has a shuttle bus that takes us right into the downtown area - in like 5 minutes! : ) Spain is glorious. I think it was like 80 degrees today and perfectly sunny - in a way that only a beautiful Spanish afternoon can be. (sigh!) We docked at 8 AM and then we had a "diplomatic briefing" where a officer from the US consulate in Barcelona came aboard to tell us not to buy drugs and stuff...the usual, you know. We were cleared by customs (they have our passports, so they do it all at once!) and then we got to leave the ship. Erin, Haley, Colleen, Amanda - my new friends - and I left the ship and shuttled-it to downtown. We spent the day walking lazily around the city, just exploring and gradually making our way to the sights. We have four whole days here, which is awesome! It's nice not to be rushed. It's also cool because I've been here before (when I was studying abroad in '08), so a lot of things are familiar. It's interesting, though, because today I discovered a side of Barcelona that I hadn't seen before…we walked around, getting lost in the twisting side streets. I was so focused on visiting the main attractions the last time that I was here that I miss out on how much personality the side neighborhoods have! No orange trees like my beloved Sevilla : ( but the streets and sidewalks are exactly the same. We also went into the Barcelona Cathedral today and the smell of incense brought back a wave of memories from Sevilla for me…I remember that the streets smelled like that – especially after the Semana Santa processions (remember Mom and E?!). It made me tear up a little to think about how much I miss my Spanish family and my friends that I made in Sevilla. I WISH there was more time in Spain so that I could visit, but it’s too far… and plus I would miss beautiful Barcelona! I am going out tonight to see a really cool fountain show after dark and then we are going to a tapas bar for dinner around 10:30 PM or so…SO SPANISH! I love it. Today, I drank a café con leche (KB, I thought of you, buddy!) and I thought I was in heaven…then we stopped at a tapas bar this afternoon and it was FANTASTICO – cold beer and delicious tapas…what more could one want??! After tapas tonight, there most likely will be dancing! It should be really fun! : )

For all of you reading - love you all and I am missing you. Please please please write and let me know how things are going. I might not get back to you right away, but I would love to hear!