It’s finally here – the ship will arrive in Norfolk, Virginia early tomorrow morning! I’ve decided that tonight will be my last blog post for the trip – I can’t believe it! It’s difficult to know what to even write in my last post. What can I say that can possibly sum up the summer? I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve spent about 45 minutes staring at my laptop (and also at the ocean!) trying to decide what to write. I keep starting and stopping because every sentence that I type sounds like something out of a Semester at Sea marketing pamphlet.
It’s also difficult to write this because anyone who knows me at all knows that I’ve been tear-ing up every five minutes over the last part of this voyage because I’m sad it has to end! In fact, in the last 48 hours, I’ve been choking up when anyone so much as mentions packing or the fact that we are getting off the ship tomorrow. As much as I am looking forward to getting home, it feels like I’m just getting started here and that there is still more to see and experience in the world! It’s hard to imagine that tomorrow, I will have to say goodbye to all of the people who have become a part of my SAS family this summer. This week of heading back to the United States has been a boat-load (literally!) of mixed emotions.
The past week and a half has flown by. I’ve been trying to jam-pack everything into these last few days on the ship! Turning in final papers, attending final receptions and meetings, waking up early to see the sun rise, soaking in the sun on the pool deck, laying out under the stars to watch a meteor shower, and saying final thank-you’s and goodbyes!
Also, because of how much I complained at the beginning of the voyage, you might be shocked to hear that…I have finally found my sea-legs! I actually have not been sea-sick AT ALL on the entire Atlantic crossing home! Not even kidding – I have been drug-free (from sea-sickness meds, of course) for over a week now! Can you believe it? After all this time! Who knew that my body would really adapt to life at sea? : )
So, because this is my last post, I want to say thank you to friends and family who have been reading along. I’m so glad that I could have shared a little about my adventures with you. Although it was sometimes difficult to find the time to write and I was ALWAYS about 2 or 3 countries behind in my posts, I am really glad to have kept writing throughout the summer. It was fun for me to share my experiences with everyone at home but it was also a nice way to reflect on my experiences in port and on the ship.
Some final thoughts to wrap this up…
I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn and experience so much in one summer. I know that I could write pages and pages of memories, lessons, and questions that I’ve collected over the past nine weeks, but I’ve instead limited myself to this rather-lengthy blog. : ) During my travels, I’ve been touched at the hospitality I’ve encountered. I’ve also been sincerely humbled by the understanding and humanity that I’ve witnessed in the people that I’ve met. It gives me a lot of hope and has helped me to see more similarities between cultures, rather than the superficial differences. I thought that I would be exhausted from this summer, but as I return to the US, I’m filled with a renewed sense of energy and appreciation. As much as I will miss my SAS family and all of the adventures, I’m excited to get back home! : )
What else can I say? It’s been an INCREDIBLE summer! I’ve loved every minute and will always fondly remember the summer of 2010!
With love,
Sarah
Monday, August 23, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Day 4 in Morocco: Casablanca (Tuesday, August 10)
Woke up early today and went to the Hassan II Mosque in Casa this morning. This was the coolest Mosque ever – mostly because I was surprised to find how modern it was – it started being built in 1987 (when I was born!) and was done in 1993. During the six years of construction, the team of laborers worked 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. It is my most favorite Mosque that I’ve visited on the trip…which is saying A LOT because we’ve seen a lot of beautiful places of worship! It’s a giant mosque and it has a large outdoor plaza as well. In total, the whole complex (inside and out) can hold up to 105,000 worshipers. That’s hard to imagine!
The Hassan II Mosque has HUGE lofty ceilings with a roof that is movable – it can open up in under 3 minutes and close back up in 2 minutes. The decorations and carvings on the columns and walls were all done by hand, which is incredible if you look and see how precise each design is. In addition, there are so many interesting details – the sound system speakers are built into the art design, so you can’t tell where they are when you look around. Also, the floors are heated so no one gets cold in the wintertime when the marble gets chilly (although it’s hard to believe that this country ever gets chilly). In addition, the basement of the mosque is a public bath – so everyone can have a place to wash before they worship. It’s a really interesting building and I’m so glad that I got a chance to see it!
After the mosque, we went to lunch at Rick’s Café – yes, like from the movie “Casablanca”! It was not where the movie was filmed, but the restaurant’s design is based on that famous café in the movie. Confession: I had never seen the movie “Casablanca” before last week when they played it on the movie channel on the ship! But it was still fun to go and see how they had translated the atmosphere in the movie to a restaurant. PLUS I had “Rick’s Special Burger” with yummy rosemary fries and THE MOST incredible fig and goat cheese salad. I can’t even begin to describe the goat cheese. So salty and creamy… with the sweetness of the fig… and a tiny drizzle of balsamic vinegar…oh my goodness. Best salad of the trip, without a doubt.
After lunch, I went with Sarah and Kasie into the Casa souk to spend the remainder of the dirhams. And guess what? I ended up getting my…very…own…TAJINE!!! I am so excited!!! Now I can make all of my favorite Moroccan food at home!!!! Horray!
Around 4pm, we headed back to the ship. As usual, I was so happy to get back to the cool, clean MV Explorer…especially in Casablanca – the pollution here was ridiculous. Our berth was right next to some sort of concrete factory and there was dust EVERYWHERE. It looked like a thick fog had descended on the port – it was so thick that the security guards for the ship were wearing those special surgical masks to avoid breathing it in! Yikes.
Anyway, after a glorious shower in my nice, clean cabin, I had dinner on the 6th deck and then went up to the 7th deck (aft) to watch us pull out of our LAST PORT OF THE SUMMER! AHHHH! I’m in denial!!! I’m not ready to leave! We still have ten days left to cross the Atlantic, but I know that they are just going to FLY by. I wish I could make time go slowly so that I could soak up every last second of the summer.
The Hassan II Mosque has HUGE lofty ceilings with a roof that is movable – it can open up in under 3 minutes and close back up in 2 minutes. The decorations and carvings on the columns and walls were all done by hand, which is incredible if you look and see how precise each design is. In addition, there are so many interesting details – the sound system speakers are built into the art design, so you can’t tell where they are when you look around. Also, the floors are heated so no one gets cold in the wintertime when the marble gets chilly (although it’s hard to believe that this country ever gets chilly). In addition, the basement of the mosque is a public bath – so everyone can have a place to wash before they worship. It’s a really interesting building and I’m so glad that I got a chance to see it!
After the mosque, we went to lunch at Rick’s Café – yes, like from the movie “Casablanca”! It was not where the movie was filmed, but the restaurant’s design is based on that famous café in the movie. Confession: I had never seen the movie “Casablanca” before last week when they played it on the movie channel on the ship! But it was still fun to go and see how they had translated the atmosphere in the movie to a restaurant. PLUS I had “Rick’s Special Burger” with yummy rosemary fries and THE MOST incredible fig and goat cheese salad. I can’t even begin to describe the goat cheese. So salty and creamy… with the sweetness of the fig… and a tiny drizzle of balsamic vinegar…oh my goodness. Best salad of the trip, without a doubt.
After lunch, I went with Sarah and Kasie into the Casa souk to spend the remainder of the dirhams. And guess what? I ended up getting my…very…own…TAJINE!!! I am so excited!!! Now I can make all of my favorite Moroccan food at home!!!! Horray!
Around 4pm, we headed back to the ship. As usual, I was so happy to get back to the cool, clean MV Explorer…especially in Casablanca – the pollution here was ridiculous. Our berth was right next to some sort of concrete factory and there was dust EVERYWHERE. It looked like a thick fog had descended on the port – it was so thick that the security guards for the ship were wearing those special surgical masks to avoid breathing it in! Yikes.
Anyway, after a glorious shower in my nice, clean cabin, I had dinner on the 6th deck and then went up to the 7th deck (aft) to watch us pull out of our LAST PORT OF THE SUMMER! AHHHH! I’m in denial!!! I’m not ready to leave! We still have ten days left to cross the Atlantic, but I know that they are just going to FLY by. I wish I could make time go slowly so that I could soak up every last second of the summer.
Day 3 in Morocco: Marrakech back to Casa (Monday, August 9)
When we woke up in the morning, we had a beautiful breakfast out in the courtyard of the riad. It was really special because no one was up yet and it wasn’t even a restaurant – it was just one of the owners of the hotel who set the table with beautiful deep red ceramics. We sat right by the pool and had tea, coffee with hot milk, freshly-squeezed orange juice, crunchy toasted bread, and piping hot crepes served with creamy butter and sweet apricot and strawberry preserves. It was SO simple, but definitely one of my favorite breakfasts of the summer. A funny thing that happened while we were eating was that the hotel employee who had been serving breakfast was doing some chores around the courtyard while we were eating…sweeping the ground, rearranging the furniture, etc…and then he goes over to a corner, picks up the pet TURTLE (which we had not seen before!) and proceeds to give it a little bath in the fountain before sending it on its way again. The turtle was so cute – and it just lives in that courtyard and gets a bath every day! Too funny.
That morning, Shannon and I split up from our other friends (who had to get back to Casa early), and went to see the palaces in the old city…they were amazing. Afterward, we spent all day walking around and taking in the atmosphere. There were markets everywhere and so much to see! We stopped for lunch around 2pm on a rooftop restaurant. We ate pastilla (like a savory baked pastry) with goat cheese and yellow peppers along with a lemon chicken tajine.
One thing that I’ve neglected to mention is that it was sooo hot during the day – someone told me later that it was 118 degrees in Marrakech that day. There was no escape from the heat because it was still at least 100 degrees in the shade. I don’t think I’ve ever been that hot in my life. I must have chugged like six big bottles of water throughout the day. It was almost unbearable. Egypt was hot, too, but in a different, dryer way – Morocco is hot and humid which makes it like a thousand times worse than Egypt. Ugh, I feel gross just thinking about it.
Shannon and I caught the 5 PM train back to Casa – it took almost 5 hours and by the time we arrive at the train station we were tired, hot, hungry, and in desperate need of a shower and some air conditioning. It took some arguing to get a taxi that wouldn’t rip us off on the fare to get back to the ship, which was frustrating, but we eventually made it! Too exhausted to do anything else, I had a quick dinner at the snack bar before showering, doing laundry, and collapsing into bed.
That morning, Shannon and I split up from our other friends (who had to get back to Casa early), and went to see the palaces in the old city…they were amazing. Afterward, we spent all day walking around and taking in the atmosphere. There were markets everywhere and so much to see! We stopped for lunch around 2pm on a rooftop restaurant. We ate pastilla (like a savory baked pastry) with goat cheese and yellow peppers along with a lemon chicken tajine.
One thing that I’ve neglected to mention is that it was sooo hot during the day – someone told me later that it was 118 degrees in Marrakech that day. There was no escape from the heat because it was still at least 100 degrees in the shade. I don’t think I’ve ever been that hot in my life. I must have chugged like six big bottles of water throughout the day. It was almost unbearable. Egypt was hot, too, but in a different, dryer way – Morocco is hot and humid which makes it like a thousand times worse than Egypt. Ugh, I feel gross just thinking about it.
Shannon and I caught the 5 PM train back to Casa – it took almost 5 hours and by the time we arrive at the train station we were tired, hot, hungry, and in desperate need of a shower and some air conditioning. It took some arguing to get a taxi that wouldn’t rip us off on the fare to get back to the ship, which was frustrating, but we eventually made it! Too exhausted to do anything else, I had a quick dinner at the snack bar before showering, doing laundry, and collapsing into bed.
Day 2 in Morocco: Marrakech (Sunday, August 8)
Today, I woke up early and caught a train to Marrakech – about a three hour train ride. Buying the tickets was very interesting because the man in the ticket booth did not speak any English (and I obviously do not speak any Arabic or French, which are the main languages used in Morocco). I went with a friend from Student Affairs at Sea, Shannon, as well as 3 undergraduate students – Sarah, Kasie, and Val.
After the long train ride to Marrakech, we jumped into a cab to get to the Medina, or the walled part of the old city, where our riad (Moroccan guest house/villa) was located. Because the same family owns many different riads across the city, the only address we could find for our particular riad online was “Various Locations.” (Does that seem sketchy? We thought so.) We had to call the owner and let him talk to the taxi driver in Arabic so that he would know where to drop us off. We ended up getting out just outside the walls of the old city because there wasn’t an opening for cars (in that part of the city walls). We waited there for a few moments before the riad owner came to get us and then we had a short walk into the Medina before he led us through a small door. When we stepped through, we were pleasantly surprised that on the inside, there was a gorgeous open courtyard. There were plenty of interesting plants, a beautiful pool, and places to sit and lounge. After seeing our rooms (which surrounded the main courtyard), the owner invited us to have some tea with him, so we sat down to visit for a while. My favorite part of the conversation was when he gave us the secret of making a truly fantastic pot of mint Moroccan tea, which you can be sure that I will be testing out as soon as I get home.
That afternoon, we walked around the maze which is the Medina for quite some time before admitting that we were hopelessly lost. We ended up jumping in a cab in order to get to the center plaza of the city. This was an amazing public space – there were street performers, snake charmers, fresh orange juice vendors, as well as big carts selling dried apricots, dates, figs, and cactus fruit. After having a delicious lunch of “taginia marrakechia” (a lamb specialty of the area) and couscous, we spent the afternoon walking through the souks. I completely underestimated the amount of time that I thought we’d spend there. It took about four hours to get through these overwhelming markets because the process of bargaining for your purchases takes so long! You have to express an interest in something, ask for a price, tell them heck no – you won’t pay that, you have to ask for special deal, then it goes back and forth until someone folds. An interesting observation that one of our deans shared was: you haven’t gotten a good deal unless the shop keeper has to run in the back to ask his mommy if the price is ok. I just thought that was pretty funny, because it actually happened to me once! Anyway, the point is that shopping takes a lot longer – I could have could have gone to Target and been in and out in 20 minutes if I were in the US. It’s just a different way of living – shopping is very much a social activity. While shopping around, I met a really nice Moroccan guy who was helping out at his uncle’s herb store. He showed me all around the shop to see the “black soap” Moroccans use for the haman (bath), a natural perfume bar made of jasmine, as well as a clay dish that you can mix a little water in and it becomes a type of lipstick. Apparently in Berber tradition (which is one of the regional cultures in Morocco), if a man gives this clay-lipstick thing to a women’s mother, it means that he is then engaged to the daughter. I’ve never heard of that…isn’t that interesting that the permission to wed lies with the woman’s mother, rather than the father?
We finally emerged from the souks around 8 PM and we were OVERWHELMED to find that the plaza had completely transformed. Sometime between 3 and 8 PM, over 100 food vendors had set up shop in the middle of the plaza. (For everybody in White Oak, think International Village times a bazillion!) There were rows and rows of food stands. Each stand was like a little outdoor restaurant with long communal tables. All of the places had huge displays of street foods – cold vegetable salads, fresh meats, grilled vegetables, soups, breads, etc. It was an amazing sight – it was like something straight out an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations on the Travel Channel, I’m not even kidding! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s already been there. Of course, I was so excited to be there, because I just love adventurous eating!!! After much persuasion, I convinced the other people in my travel group to sit down at one of the stands. I had a hunch it would be a good decision and I was right! After squeezing between people on the long benches, we ate meat kebabs, bread with fresh cold tomato pulp, spicy marinated olives, grilled eggplant, and some potatoes. Everything was cooked to order and delicious. An interesting thing to know is that there was a little dish on the table (about the size of a tea cup saucer) that had a mix of spices and salt. You could add as much or as little of the spices to your dish! Ah. So cool. I felt so good about our dinner choice that I even risked the fresh squeezed orange juice on the street. It was completely refreshing and I didn’t even get sick! (Yay!)
After getting our fill of the madness of the plaza (there must have been over 1000 people crowded in there!), we got a taxi back to our riad. Our day in the old city had made me appreciate our riad even more. It was such a peaceful oasis from the hubbub of the city that I felt so secure once I got into our riad. I was so happy about the success of the day that it didn’t even matter that we found a COCKROACH in the bathroom before bed. Now, you KNOW I don’t do bugs, so I’m embarrassed to say that Shannon took care of it while I pretty much hopped around, waving the trash can uselessly while trying not to scream. (Why the trash can? Can’t say for sure, but it made me feel better - Jill and Kristin – I totally needed the Princess Flashlight!!! That’s my JOB!) Oh well…no pasa nada…it was a humorous end to a long day of new cultural experiences. : )
After the long train ride to Marrakech, we jumped into a cab to get to the Medina, or the walled part of the old city, where our riad (Moroccan guest house/villa) was located. Because the same family owns many different riads across the city, the only address we could find for our particular riad online was “Various Locations.” (Does that seem sketchy? We thought so.) We had to call the owner and let him talk to the taxi driver in Arabic so that he would know where to drop us off. We ended up getting out just outside the walls of the old city because there wasn’t an opening for cars (in that part of the city walls). We waited there for a few moments before the riad owner came to get us and then we had a short walk into the Medina before he led us through a small door. When we stepped through, we were pleasantly surprised that on the inside, there was a gorgeous open courtyard. There were plenty of interesting plants, a beautiful pool, and places to sit and lounge. After seeing our rooms (which surrounded the main courtyard), the owner invited us to have some tea with him, so we sat down to visit for a while. My favorite part of the conversation was when he gave us the secret of making a truly fantastic pot of mint Moroccan tea, which you can be sure that I will be testing out as soon as I get home.
That afternoon, we walked around the maze which is the Medina for quite some time before admitting that we were hopelessly lost. We ended up jumping in a cab in order to get to the center plaza of the city. This was an amazing public space – there were street performers, snake charmers, fresh orange juice vendors, as well as big carts selling dried apricots, dates, figs, and cactus fruit. After having a delicious lunch of “taginia marrakechia” (a lamb specialty of the area) and couscous, we spent the afternoon walking through the souks. I completely underestimated the amount of time that I thought we’d spend there. It took about four hours to get through these overwhelming markets because the process of bargaining for your purchases takes so long! You have to express an interest in something, ask for a price, tell them heck no – you won’t pay that, you have to ask for special deal, then it goes back and forth until someone folds. An interesting observation that one of our deans shared was: you haven’t gotten a good deal unless the shop keeper has to run in the back to ask his mommy if the price is ok. I just thought that was pretty funny, because it actually happened to me once! Anyway, the point is that shopping takes a lot longer – I could have could have gone to Target and been in and out in 20 minutes if I were in the US. It’s just a different way of living – shopping is very much a social activity. While shopping around, I met a really nice Moroccan guy who was helping out at his uncle’s herb store. He showed me all around the shop to see the “black soap” Moroccans use for the haman (bath), a natural perfume bar made of jasmine, as well as a clay dish that you can mix a little water in and it becomes a type of lipstick. Apparently in Berber tradition (which is one of the regional cultures in Morocco), if a man gives this clay-lipstick thing to a women’s mother, it means that he is then engaged to the daughter. I’ve never heard of that…isn’t that interesting that the permission to wed lies with the woman’s mother, rather than the father?
We finally emerged from the souks around 8 PM and we were OVERWHELMED to find that the plaza had completely transformed. Sometime between 3 and 8 PM, over 100 food vendors had set up shop in the middle of the plaza. (For everybody in White Oak, think International Village times a bazillion!) There were rows and rows of food stands. Each stand was like a little outdoor restaurant with long communal tables. All of the places had huge displays of street foods – cold vegetable salads, fresh meats, grilled vegetables, soups, breads, etc. It was an amazing sight – it was like something straight out an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations on the Travel Channel, I’m not even kidding! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s already been there. Of course, I was so excited to be there, because I just love adventurous eating!!! After much persuasion, I convinced the other people in my travel group to sit down at one of the stands. I had a hunch it would be a good decision and I was right! After squeezing between people on the long benches, we ate meat kebabs, bread with fresh cold tomato pulp, spicy marinated olives, grilled eggplant, and some potatoes. Everything was cooked to order and delicious. An interesting thing to know is that there was a little dish on the table (about the size of a tea cup saucer) that had a mix of spices and salt. You could add as much or as little of the spices to your dish! Ah. So cool. I felt so good about our dinner choice that I even risked the fresh squeezed orange juice on the street. It was completely refreshing and I didn’t even get sick! (Yay!)
After getting our fill of the madness of the plaza (there must have been over 1000 people crowded in there!), we got a taxi back to our riad. Our day in the old city had made me appreciate our riad even more. It was such a peaceful oasis from the hubbub of the city that I felt so secure once I got into our riad. I was so happy about the success of the day that it didn’t even matter that we found a COCKROACH in the bathroom before bed. Now, you KNOW I don’t do bugs, so I’m embarrassed to say that Shannon took care of it while I pretty much hopped around, waving the trash can uselessly while trying not to scream. (Why the trash can? Can’t say for sure, but it made me feel better - Jill and Kristin – I totally needed the Princess Flashlight!!! That’s my JOB!) Oh well…no pasa nada…it was a humorous end to a long day of new cultural experiences. : )
Day 1 in Morocco: Rabat and Welcome Reception (Saturday, August 7)
So, the rough seas were not too bad last night – we were definitely rocking more than we normally would, but it wasn’t too bad at all. False alarm…whew!
Early this morning, we docked in Casablanca. After a diplomatic briefing, my friend Christine, and a few other students from the ship (Sarah, Rochelle, and Denny) rushed down the gangway and jumped on a train to get to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. It was about an hour train ride away and only cost about 70 dirham ($9) round trip! Rabat was an interesting city – not necessarily a tourist destination – but it was a nice way to ease into the Moroccan culture. We walked around inside the Medina, went to the Kasbuh Café overlooking the ocean for our first mint tea of the trip! It was really hot outside, but the hot tea actually seemed to stabilize my body temperature somehow…I’m still not really sure how that works…
We spent the afternoon walking through the Souks – there are so many stores and everything is for sale everywhere you look. The people in Rabat were much more laid back than the people at other markets we’ve been to this summer – we could look around at the goods without being mobbed by sales people (or hit on, to tell you the truth)! It was nice! It got busy around 3pm, so we had lunch in a restaurant that looked like a hole in the wall, but actually had some delicious Moroccan food – I had a tajine (a special Moroccan cooking thing – basically a clay platter with a cone lid). My tajine had chicken, vegetables, and lemon…YUM.
Christine and I had to leave Rabat far too soon to get back to Casa (that’s what we call Casablanca now…it makes me feel like a local!) for our evening FDP trip to meet with Moroccan university students. We got on these scary little vans/buses and drove about 45 minutes through the city. The reception took place at a country/tennis club outside of the city. We sat down at big tables and had mint tea, cookies, freshly squeezed orange juice, and this special spicy Moroccan soup (it had big chunks of chicken and meat and plenty of chickpeas – mmmmm….). It was a nice, chill evening because we got to sit down and chat with a few local students. It was funny – I ended up sitting with Kathy, my professor, along with Greg, Kestral, and Christine from my Student Affairs at Sea program. We were so interested in asking about the student’s education and their experience in college, I think we may have overwhelmed them just a bit. The conversation was interesting and at one point, we found out that one of the students we had been talking to was a poet so she read us one of her pieces. Kinda random, but cool, I guess. : ) Headed back to the ship afterward around 10 PM for an unusually early night in port.
Early this morning, we docked in Casablanca. After a diplomatic briefing, my friend Christine, and a few other students from the ship (Sarah, Rochelle, and Denny) rushed down the gangway and jumped on a train to get to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. It was about an hour train ride away and only cost about 70 dirham ($9) round trip! Rabat was an interesting city – not necessarily a tourist destination – but it was a nice way to ease into the Moroccan culture. We walked around inside the Medina, went to the Kasbuh Café overlooking the ocean for our first mint tea of the trip! It was really hot outside, but the hot tea actually seemed to stabilize my body temperature somehow…I’m still not really sure how that works…
We spent the afternoon walking through the Souks – there are so many stores and everything is for sale everywhere you look. The people in Rabat were much more laid back than the people at other markets we’ve been to this summer – we could look around at the goods without being mobbed by sales people (or hit on, to tell you the truth)! It was nice! It got busy around 3pm, so we had lunch in a restaurant that looked like a hole in the wall, but actually had some delicious Moroccan food – I had a tajine (a special Moroccan cooking thing – basically a clay platter with a cone lid). My tajine had chicken, vegetables, and lemon…YUM.
Christine and I had to leave Rabat far too soon to get back to Casa (that’s what we call Casablanca now…it makes me feel like a local!) for our evening FDP trip to meet with Moroccan university students. We got on these scary little vans/buses and drove about 45 minutes through the city. The reception took place at a country/tennis club outside of the city. We sat down at big tables and had mint tea, cookies, freshly squeezed orange juice, and this special spicy Moroccan soup (it had big chunks of chicken and meat and plenty of chickpeas – mmmmm….). It was a nice, chill evening because we got to sit down and chat with a few local students. It was funny – I ended up sitting with Kathy, my professor, along with Greg, Kestral, and Christine from my Student Affairs at Sea program. We were so interested in asking about the student’s education and their experience in college, I think we may have overwhelmed them just a bit. The conversation was interesting and at one point, we found out that one of the students we had been talking to was a poet so she read us one of her pieces. Kinda random, but cool, I guess. : ) Headed back to the ship afterward around 10 PM for an unusually early night in port.
Bunkered in Gibraltar (Friday, August 6)
Today was an odd day because we were “bunkered” in the bay by Gibraltar (between Spain and Morocco). It was strange because we were anchored all day for “refueling operations.” Another ship came to refuel us while we just bobbed in place all day.
These past 3 days have just FLOWN by…there’s been a ton of stuff going on, but I’ll just give you the highlights:
On Wednesday (August 4), I ran around like crazy trying to get caught up with everything…but also somehow found time to volunteer to help with the Alumni Ball registration which will take place on one of our last nights on the ship. The theme is going to be “A MED-Summer Night’s Dream.” So adorable, I know. I also helped to proctor the ship-wide Global Studies exam at 8 PM in the union. Later that night, we had a Mediterranean Sea Bronze Medal Celebration! We had chips and salsa to eat which was a huge hit (you would not BELIEVE how much I have been craving some good Mexican food…I need to go to Don Pablo's/Chevy's asap when I get home!). I also made everyone a “bronze” medal out of paper and yarn so that everyone could remember their awesome performance at the Summer 2010 Sea Olympics.
One interesting thing that happened on Thursday (August 5), was that we had an awesome guest lecturer in the Global Studies class named Ruth Sutton, professor and author, who has written a piece called “Living Between the Question Marks.” She was an excellent speaker and she explained all about what happened to all of the Jewish people who had been living in Morocco and in the Mediterranean area. The Global Studies class is taught from a “conqueror” perspective (which is a pretty controversial topic in itself), so it was nice to (finally) hear about a culture which has struggled to exist in this region of the Mediterranean. It was an interesting lecture and quite moving when Ruth talked about her roots as a Moroccan Jew.
On a lighter note, one of the cool things that happened on Thursday night was the much-anticipated Crew talent show. It was so awesome! A ton of the crew worked really hard to put a bunch of acts together and the union was PACKED. There were dance routines, vocal acts, and musical instruments performances. It was crazy to see the crew out of their uniforms and in “real clothes.” The dance routines were the best, because you think you know someone’s personality when you see them every day, but you really have no idea what they will be like on the dance floor! I cheered especially loud for my cabin steward, Achilles – he is the absolute best and can really shake it on the dance floor! Another memorable performance was from Allan (who’s a part of the dining room crew) doing a bartending/bottle twirling act (of all things). He was really good, though, and I think he should sign up to be on those competitions that they have on the Food Network. : )
Today (August 6), the coolest thing that happened was that I was eating lunch with some friends in the dining room and I saw dolphins right outside the window! (Ok, so at first I saw one and THOUGHT it was a shark, and yelled “SHARK!” but it was actually a pod of dolphins! Oh well…) Dolphin sightings have actually been pretty common this summer (REALITY CHECK PLEASE!), but this was the first time that I had been the first one to spot them! Usually, someone yells “DOLPHINS!” and everyone jumps up and trips over everyone else running to that particular side of the deck. It was soooo cool. They are adorable – they just look so happy to jumping through the waves. : )
Tomorrow, we dock in Casablanca. It’s definitely bittersweet because it’s the last port left before home! I’m excited to see everyone again soon, but there’s no way I am ready to leave this ship!
Everyone is saying that there are rough seas ahead this evening…YIKES! Before I went to bed, I saw the crew tying ropes across all the books in the library to secure them to the bookshelves. Hmm…I’m going go out on a limb here and say that’s probably not a good sign… Not to mention, Tom (the assistant dean) made an announcement before bed saying that everyone should take things off of their shelves and put everything in drawers/closets if they are not secure...Oh boy…I think I am going to take some Dramamine as a preventative measure. I want to be ready to go tomorrow morning in MOROCCO!!!
These past 3 days have just FLOWN by…there’s been a ton of stuff going on, but I’ll just give you the highlights:
On Wednesday (August 4), I ran around like crazy trying to get caught up with everything…but also somehow found time to volunteer to help with the Alumni Ball registration which will take place on one of our last nights on the ship. The theme is going to be “A MED-Summer Night’s Dream.” So adorable, I know. I also helped to proctor the ship-wide Global Studies exam at 8 PM in the union. Later that night, we had a Mediterranean Sea Bronze Medal Celebration! We had chips and salsa to eat which was a huge hit (you would not BELIEVE how much I have been craving some good Mexican food…I need to go to Don Pablo's/Chevy's asap when I get home!). I also made everyone a “bronze” medal out of paper and yarn so that everyone could remember their awesome performance at the Summer 2010 Sea Olympics.
One interesting thing that happened on Thursday (August 5), was that we had an awesome guest lecturer in the Global Studies class named Ruth Sutton, professor and author, who has written a piece called “Living Between the Question Marks.” She was an excellent speaker and she explained all about what happened to all of the Jewish people who had been living in Morocco and in the Mediterranean area. The Global Studies class is taught from a “conqueror” perspective (which is a pretty controversial topic in itself), so it was nice to (finally) hear about a culture which has struggled to exist in this region of the Mediterranean. It was an interesting lecture and quite moving when Ruth talked about her roots as a Moroccan Jew.
On a lighter note, one of the cool things that happened on Thursday night was the much-anticipated Crew talent show. It was so awesome! A ton of the crew worked really hard to put a bunch of acts together and the union was PACKED. There were dance routines, vocal acts, and musical instruments performances. It was crazy to see the crew out of their uniforms and in “real clothes.” The dance routines were the best, because you think you know someone’s personality when you see them every day, but you really have no idea what they will be like on the dance floor! I cheered especially loud for my cabin steward, Achilles – he is the absolute best and can really shake it on the dance floor! Another memorable performance was from Allan (who’s a part of the dining room crew) doing a bartending/bottle twirling act (of all things). He was really good, though, and I think he should sign up to be on those competitions that they have on the Food Network. : )
Today (August 6), the coolest thing that happened was that I was eating lunch with some friends in the dining room and I saw dolphins right outside the window! (Ok, so at first I saw one and THOUGHT it was a shark, and yelled “SHARK!” but it was actually a pod of dolphins! Oh well…) Dolphin sightings have actually been pretty common this summer (REALITY CHECK PLEASE!), but this was the first time that I had been the first one to spot them! Usually, someone yells “DOLPHINS!” and everyone jumps up and trips over everyone else running to that particular side of the deck. It was soooo cool. They are adorable – they just look so happy to jumping through the waves. : )
Tomorrow, we dock in Casablanca. It’s definitely bittersweet because it’s the last port left before home! I’m excited to see everyone again soon, but there’s no way I am ready to leave this ship!
Everyone is saying that there are rough seas ahead this evening…YIKES! Before I went to bed, I saw the crew tying ropes across all the books in the library to secure them to the bookshelves. Hmm…I’m going go out on a limb here and say that’s probably not a good sign… Not to mention, Tom (the assistant dean) made an announcement before bed saying that everyone should take things off of their shelves and put everything in drawers/closets if they are not secure...Oh boy…I think I am going to take some Dramamine as a preventative measure. I want to be ready to go tomorrow morning in MOROCCO!!!
Friday, August 13, 2010
More BUSY days at Sea! (Tuesday, August 3)
Yesterday was the first “back to reality” day – or as close to reality as you can get on this ship, anyway. I spent pretty much the entire day writing papers for my classes.
Today, after my early morning classes, I hit the gym before lunch and then attended a job search in Student Affairs workshop at 2pm. The assistant dean, Tom, did the presentation and it was really helpful to think about all of the things I’ll need to do in the upcoming months.
In the afternoon, I met with a man named Randy Lewis. He’s been on SEVEN Semester at Sea voyages (as faculty and in the dean positions). He was really helpful in answering all of my questions about the Institute for Shipboard Education. Randy also had some horror stories about stuff that has happened. He told me about a time where they had to jail a student who got violent on board and another time when the ship lost power and they had to use 400 students to help set the anchor so they wouldn’t drift ashore! Crazy stuff. Knock on wood, but we’ve had a really safe voyage this far – we’ve been really lucky that there haven’t been any major issues.
That night, the deans hosted another reception in the super-sweet faculty and staff lounge. The theme was Indian food! Yum. No, we are not going to India on this trip, but the rationale was that the fall voyage will be going there, so we are pretty much supporting the people on the upcoming fall voyage. Or, the deans were really just craving Indian food. One of the two. It was really fun though. It’s so nice to get dressed up a little and hang out with all of the older adults on the ship. Plus, the vino is an added bonus. : )
For dessert, there was a birthday celebration for one of the LLC’s (living-learning coordinator), LaCona, after the reception. Have I mentioned that the ship makes some awesome ice cream cakes?! Yum again.
That evening, I helped attended the 8 PM talent show in the union. It was so much fun to watch – there was singing, dancing, a light show, a harmonica performance, a magician, and the deans (John and LaVohn) even did an interpretive dance to the “I’m on a boat” song! SO funny. The talent show made me feel like I was at summer camp or something. It’s nice, though, because somehow (magically) in the past few weeks, this group of students, faculty, and staff has begun to function like a big family or community. It’s such a unique environment to be a part of – one that I think rarely is possible to have on a land-campus – and one that I am so fortunate to be a part of!
Today, after my early morning classes, I hit the gym before lunch and then attended a job search in Student Affairs workshop at 2pm. The assistant dean, Tom, did the presentation and it was really helpful to think about all of the things I’ll need to do in the upcoming months.
In the afternoon, I met with a man named Randy Lewis. He’s been on SEVEN Semester at Sea voyages (as faculty and in the dean positions). He was really helpful in answering all of my questions about the Institute for Shipboard Education. Randy also had some horror stories about stuff that has happened. He told me about a time where they had to jail a student who got violent on board and another time when the ship lost power and they had to use 400 students to help set the anchor so they wouldn’t drift ashore! Crazy stuff. Knock on wood, but we’ve had a really safe voyage this far – we’ve been really lucky that there haven’t been any major issues.
That night, the deans hosted another reception in the super-sweet faculty and staff lounge. The theme was Indian food! Yum. No, we are not going to India on this trip, but the rationale was that the fall voyage will be going there, so we are pretty much supporting the people on the upcoming fall voyage. Or, the deans were really just craving Indian food. One of the two. It was really fun though. It’s so nice to get dressed up a little and hang out with all of the older adults on the ship. Plus, the vino is an added bonus. : )
For dessert, there was a birthday celebration for one of the LLC’s (living-learning coordinator), LaCona, after the reception. Have I mentioned that the ship makes some awesome ice cream cakes?! Yum again.
That evening, I helped attended the 8 PM talent show in the union. It was so much fun to watch – there was singing, dancing, a light show, a harmonica performance, a magician, and the deans (John and LaVohn) even did an interpretive dance to the “I’m on a boat” song! SO funny. The talent show made me feel like I was at summer camp or something. It’s nice, though, because somehow (magically) in the past few weeks, this group of students, faculty, and staff has begun to function like a big family or community. It’s such a unique environment to be a part of – one that I think rarely is possible to have on a land-campus – and one that I am so fortunate to be a part of!
Sea Olympics! (Sunday, August 1)
Today was a great day – not only because classes were cancelled, but also because it was finally the day of the SEA OLYMPICS! The Sea Olympics is something that every Semester at Sea voyage does. Each student can participate in a variety of events for their “Sea” (or residence area) throughout the day. My Sea is the Mediterranean, but there is also the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Yellow Sea, etc. The faculty, staff and life-long learners have their own group which they call the “Diploma-Sea.” : ) All of the Seas compete for the coveted gold, silver, and bronze medals (made from paper plates, of course, in true student affairs fashion). The festivities began at 11:00AM in the Union for the opening ceremonies. At the ceremony, the children on the ship brought in the Olympic “torch” that they had made out of paper then each Sea elected a few representatives to carry in their banner. Each Sea then had 30 seconds to perform their Sea cheer – there were quite a few creative ones! After Captain Jeremy Kingston gave some brief remarks about safety and good sports(man-woman)ship, he declared the official opening of the games allowing the games to officially begin!
The day was a little crazy – everybody wore their Sea colors all day, along with face/body paint, headbands, hair dye, and lots of other creative costumes. There were a variety of events that happened throughout the day including mashed potato sculpting, dodgeball, crab soccer, tug of war, relay races, bagel on a string, pie eating, shave a balloon, a Global Studies trivia contest, and probably the most popular event of the day – synchronized swimming! There was a HUGE crowd standing around the tiny pool on the 7th deck during the event. Some of the teams were actually really good. The Mediterranean Sea team was all male – they did a routine to “Single Ladies” with glittery orange outfits. My Living-Learning Coordinator, Kevin, also participated and I believe he was in charge of most of the chorography. Hilarious!
I participated in the flip-cup competition, but my team (of 11 people) got crushed in the first round! Too bad! We had some rookies on our team who must have gotten lucky in the qualifying round, which I think was our ultimate downfall. Haha It was still fun and it was humorous because the judge for that event was our voyage’s academic dean – Dean LaVohn. You just don’t get that kind of interaction with your dean on a land campus!
Later that afternoon, there was a Barbeque Dinner on the 6th and 7th decks before the Lip Sync Contest began at 7 PM. The routines were really creative…it’s amazing what students will come up with when you are stranded on a ship with limited resources and time. They did an amazing job! After the contest, the results were tabulated and…the MEDITERRANEAN SEA walked away with the BRONZE MEDAL!!! YAY! The gold medalists (the Caribbean Sea) won the prize of being the first Sea to get off the ship when we arrive in Norfolk, VA. The day was a lot of fun, though, and it was nice to see all of the students, faculty, and staff pulling together in friendly competition.
The day was a little crazy – everybody wore their Sea colors all day, along with face/body paint, headbands, hair dye, and lots of other creative costumes. There were a variety of events that happened throughout the day including mashed potato sculpting, dodgeball, crab soccer, tug of war, relay races, bagel on a string, pie eating, shave a balloon, a Global Studies trivia contest, and probably the most popular event of the day – synchronized swimming! There was a HUGE crowd standing around the tiny pool on the 7th deck during the event. Some of the teams were actually really good. The Mediterranean Sea team was all male – they did a routine to “Single Ladies” with glittery orange outfits. My Living-Learning Coordinator, Kevin, also participated and I believe he was in charge of most of the chorography. Hilarious!
I participated in the flip-cup competition, but my team (of 11 people) got crushed in the first round! Too bad! We had some rookies on our team who must have gotten lucky in the qualifying round, which I think was our ultimate downfall. Haha It was still fun and it was humorous because the judge for that event was our voyage’s academic dean – Dean LaVohn. You just don’t get that kind of interaction with your dean on a land campus!
Later that afternoon, there was a Barbeque Dinner on the 6th and 7th decks before the Lip Sync Contest began at 7 PM. The routines were really creative…it’s amazing what students will come up with when you are stranded on a ship with limited resources and time. They did an amazing job! After the contest, the results were tabulated and…the MEDITERRANEAN SEA walked away with the BRONZE MEDAL!!! YAY! The gold medalists (the Caribbean Sea) won the prize of being the first Sea to get off the ship when we arrive in Norfolk, VA. The day was a lot of fun, though, and it was nice to see all of the students, faculty, and staff pulling together in friendly competition.
Day 5 in Egypt: Exploring Alexandria (Saturday, July 31)
During my last day in Egypt, I decided to explore the port city of Alexandria where the ship was docked. I went out with Greg, Kasie, and another Sarah that we had met on the Cairo/Luxor trip. We ended up going to this market area where some tall guy asked if we wanted to look at jewelry at his store. It was only a little sketchy, so of course we said yes. It was fun because while we were there buying kartouches, the whole family came out to hang with us in the one room of the store. It was so funny. The little brother kept playing different music that he thought we would like. The mom was just sitting there reading a newspaper in Arabic, and about 2-3 uncles or cousins popped their head in the door while we were sitting there. One funny thing that happened when we were there is that we needed to get more cash at an ATM to buy our jewelry, so we had to leave the store, walk down the street and around the corner to the nearest ATM. As we were walking through what I had THOUGHT was the produce market, suddenly all of the vendors started FRANTICALLY packing up their goods - throwing everything into boxes and onto carts and shoving things into alleyways. Not even kidding, the busy street we had been walking down was deserted in less than 30 seconds. No people, no animals, no produce. I was looking around in disbelief…wondering what the heck was going ON? When we got to the end of the street, I spotted a few police officers hanging around the entrance to the street. I guess their presence must have scared all of the vendors away. I’m not sure though, because when we left that same way a few minutes later, ALL of the vendors were set up again and doing business. Anyway, the cool part of this story is that now I can say that I have visited an underground produce market in Egypt! Haha It makes me sound so adventurous.
After we bought some jewelry, the older brother helped us get to the main street and got us a cab to get to our next destination. That was nice of him, because we got a really inexpensive price for the drive. There are no meters in cabs in Egypt – you have to argue about the price before you get into a cab. This system is a bit discriminatory for tourists because you don’t really know what to ask for because you don’t have a sense of how far you are going. I’ve found that you can usually judge how much it SHOULD be by taking the original price the driver asks for (say 50 Egyptian pounds) and then cutting that down to a fourth or a fifth of that original price (so like 10-20 Egyptian pounds – or 3-4 dollars for all of us if you do the conversion).
A note about traffic in Egypt: it is super scary and you are putting your life into the hands of the taxi driver everything you get in. I thought it was scary traveling on a bus until I rode in a taxi and discovered exactly what terror is.
Anyway, after the jewelry shopping, we went to have lunch at an Egyptian fast food joint. The café was right across the way from the great Library of Alexandria. This was once the oldest libraries in the world, but is suffered through a couple of fires and other disasters so they had to rebuild. The shape of the building is so interesting – it’s a sundial that is slanted diagonally down toward the sidewalk. There are 11 floors and they have about 1 million items to borrow. The library can hold up to 8 million books, so they have tons of room to grow. As a matter of fact, I saw many empty bookshelves where they must be planning for more books. Another cool thing about the library is that it is also the home to a few small museums. My favorite was the Manuscript Museum, where I got to see original books from the first Library of Alexandria. These books were made of papyrus and represented a wide variety of religious and spiritual beliefs. It was interesting to think about how much value the Egyptians must place on learning about other cultures and sharing their knowledge with others. It’s a cool concept and…what can I say? I’m a sucker for a good library. : ) I loved it.
After checking out the library and the gift shop (of course), we got a cab to the new part of Alexandria. On the outskirts of the city, there is a new shopping complex complete with a Carrefour (which I believe is like a French Walmart). Anyway, it was fun to shop in a big store again, even if I didn’t understand anything that I wanted to buy…Also it was so busy, that families would come together and put one person in line with an empty shopping buggy and then each family member had a list of their designated items. They would run around and toss things into the cart as they passed by to get the next item while one person waited with the buggy until it was time to check out. Crazy, but I have to say I am impressed with their strategy.
We got back to the ship around 5 PM – an hour before “on-ship” time. There was a gigantic line in front of the ship because several Semester at Sea trips got back at that time as well. It took about 45 minutes to get past security and get on the ship. I had to hurry up and scribble out my postcards before the last call for mail went out. That night, we set sail for a 5 day stretch to Morocco. The time in Egypt went by so quickly!
After we bought some jewelry, the older brother helped us get to the main street and got us a cab to get to our next destination. That was nice of him, because we got a really inexpensive price for the drive. There are no meters in cabs in Egypt – you have to argue about the price before you get into a cab. This system is a bit discriminatory for tourists because you don’t really know what to ask for because you don’t have a sense of how far you are going. I’ve found that you can usually judge how much it SHOULD be by taking the original price the driver asks for (say 50 Egyptian pounds) and then cutting that down to a fourth or a fifth of that original price (so like 10-20 Egyptian pounds – or 3-4 dollars for all of us if you do the conversion).
A note about traffic in Egypt: it is super scary and you are putting your life into the hands of the taxi driver everything you get in. I thought it was scary traveling on a bus until I rode in a taxi and discovered exactly what terror is.
Anyway, after the jewelry shopping, we went to have lunch at an Egyptian fast food joint. The café was right across the way from the great Library of Alexandria. This was once the oldest libraries in the world, but is suffered through a couple of fires and other disasters so they had to rebuild. The shape of the building is so interesting – it’s a sundial that is slanted diagonally down toward the sidewalk. There are 11 floors and they have about 1 million items to borrow. The library can hold up to 8 million books, so they have tons of room to grow. As a matter of fact, I saw many empty bookshelves where they must be planning for more books. Another cool thing about the library is that it is also the home to a few small museums. My favorite was the Manuscript Museum, where I got to see original books from the first Library of Alexandria. These books were made of papyrus and represented a wide variety of religious and spiritual beliefs. It was interesting to think about how much value the Egyptians must place on learning about other cultures and sharing their knowledge with others. It’s a cool concept and…what can I say? I’m a sucker for a good library. : ) I loved it.
After checking out the library and the gift shop (of course), we got a cab to the new part of Alexandria. On the outskirts of the city, there is a new shopping complex complete with a Carrefour (which I believe is like a French Walmart). Anyway, it was fun to shop in a big store again, even if I didn’t understand anything that I wanted to buy…Also it was so busy, that families would come together and put one person in line with an empty shopping buggy and then each family member had a list of their designated items. They would run around and toss things into the cart as they passed by to get the next item while one person waited with the buggy until it was time to check out. Crazy, but I have to say I am impressed with their strategy.
We got back to the ship around 5 PM – an hour before “on-ship” time. There was a gigantic line in front of the ship because several Semester at Sea trips got back at that time as well. It took about 45 minutes to get past security and get on the ship. I had to hurry up and scribble out my postcards before the last call for mail went out. That night, we set sail for a 5 day stretch to Morocco. The time in Egypt went by so quickly!
Day 4 in Egypt: Luxor back to Alexandria (Friday, July 30)
After a decent wake-up call at about 6:30 (who would have thought I’d ever say THAT!), we ate a normal breakfast (not out of a box) at the hotel and then went to visit the Karnak Temple. The Karnak was similar to the Luxor Temple, but not quite as well preserved. One cool thing was there is this giant scarab statue in one of the open areas. Legend has it that if you run around the scarab ten times in a clockwise direction, your wishes will come true and you will be happy. Now, I’m not a superstitious person, but it can’t hurt to cover all of my bases, right? After running around in ten circles, I was ready for a Dramanine and a seat on our air conditioned bus. Because the group was so big (about 200 people), we had to split up into 2 groups to fly back to Cairo (where we would then take another bus back to Alexandria. I was in the second group, so I got to head back to the hotel for a nice relaxing morning and early lunch. My flight left around 2 PM from Luxor to Cairo and I got back to Alexandria around 8 PM or so. I was exhausted but SO happy with all that I had gotten to see in Luxor and Cairo!
Day 3: Luxor and the Valley of the Kings!! (Thursday, July 29)
So, I thought 4:15 AM was a rough time to wake up, but I was wrong…a 3:30 AM wake up call is much, much worse (especially when you only had 3 hours of sleep!). Anyway, after rolling out of bed, I packed up my bag and grabbed another boxed breakfast in the hotel lobby before jumping on the bus again to the Cairo airport for flight to Luxor. It was so early, I couldn’t even pay attention to the airport – I just went through the motions. I actually fell asleep while we were waiting at the terminal for about 20 minutes – usually I can never sleep sitting up or in public…so that just shows you how exhausted I was! Good thing my friends woke me up when we started boarding!
Again, I found that the early wake-up call (as much as it hurt) was TOTALLY WORTH IT. As soon as we landed in Luxor, we took a short bus ride to the Valley of the Kings. Luxor is right on the Nile River, but after you get a little further away, it is completely desert. The Valley of the Kings was all sand and stone – not a blade of grass in sight. The good news is that the Valley was incredible, but the bad news was that we were not allowed to take cameras into the Valley…we actually had to leave them on the bus so they wouldn’t have a chance of getting confiscated! Yikes. Anyway, I will just have to remember all the details in this blog (or Google image it later…) The best was to describe the Valley of the Kings is that it was “other-worldy.” I’m not even kidding, it reminded me of a scene straight out of those old Star Wars movies that Dad used to make us watch! Remember the scene with the little alien guys in red coats and hoods with just 2 small light bulbs for eyes? Probably they were working for that big worm with the tongue…what was his name? Jabba the Hutt?? Haha I wish I were kidding, but I am telling you, that is exactly what I thought of when we arrived at the Valley.
To get to where all the tombs were, we had to take a short tram ride into the heart of the valley. All of Egypt’s ancient kings are buried in this one valley – they have found 62 tombs so far, but I believe that they suspect there are more to be found. King Tut’s tomb was the 62nd tomb that was excavated in the 1920’s. It’s funny though, because his tomb is not really in great shape. Because they buried him so soon after his death, they didn’t wait long enough for the paint on the walls to dry. There are black spots all over the walls from a fungus that grew after the moisture in the tomb’s paint couldn’t escape. We also had to buy a special ticket to go into King Tut’s tomb. Several people in my group elected not to do it. I felt like saying…are you CRAZY?! We are in EGYPT and King Tut’s MUMMY is about 100 feet underground and two minutes from where you are standing! Needless to say, it was flippin awesome. King Tut’s mummy looked like a child’s body, it was so shriveled up. The middle part of the mummy was covered with a white piece of cloth, but his head and feel were as black as coal. We also saw three other tombs (plus one extra that Greg and I sneaked into after befriending the ticket guy/guard). The other tombs were: Ramses III, Ramses I, and Ramses IX. The other one’s name has slipped my mind for the moment (probably because it wasn’t a Ramses!).
What is interesting about seeing the different tombs is that some are much longer than others. The longer that the king lived, the longer his tomb would extend under the ground. One of them, for Ramses I, was extremely steep and you had to climb down stairs at a pretty dangerous angle to get into the tomb room. Others went down gradually and had much more room. As a side note, I expected the descent in to the tombs to be through small, narrow openings like I climbed through to get under the pyramids…but it wasn’t at all like that – it was like walking down a spacious hallway leading underground.
Another mind-blowing thing was that the paint on the wall was amazingly preserved. I was seriously speechless after seeing the details of painting on the walls. HOW has that artwork lasted thousands of years? Apparently, they used egg whites, vegetable dyes, and a honey glaze to seal in the paint. Who knew eggs and veggies could be so well preserved? There is so much symbolism in the figures that it would take a life time to understand it all (which I suppose is what an Egyptologist does…). Every image would depict a story from the Book of the Dead or other Egyptian literature/text. The paintings were all very flat in the sense that in a painting of a person, you could only see one side of his or her profile and then his or her feet would be flat on the “ground” facing to one side. You can always tell the men from the women because the men in the paintings have orange skin and the women have much fairer complexions. Sometimes, if a female figure was REALLY important, she would be depicted as a king to show her high status. Hmmm….I know! Also there are kartouches (pronounced “car-TOO-shez”) everywhere – these are little ovals with hieroglyphics in a line from top to bottom that symbolize the identity of the person. Also there are ankhs (symbol of eternal life) and scarabs (symbol of existence) all over the walls. All in all, the tombs were awesome and I could have stayed there all day if it hadn’t been 120 degrees when we were there!
After the Valley of the Kings, we drove a short distance to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. It was so cool because from far away, it seems as if it is just a building with three floors built into the mountainside. When you get closer, though, you can see that the temple actually stretches out toward you and each “floor” has a huge flat space you have to cross before you can get to the next set of stairs. It was an optical illusion…and I completely fell for it! haha Another cool thing about this temple is that the Queen had a secret passageway built into the temple that would lead a few kilometers away to the burial site of the queens, which is know as ...you guessed it! The Valley of the Queens. We didn’t get a chance to visit that, unfortunately, but it was ok because we had a ton of other things still to do that day…
We next make a short stop at the Colossi of Memnon, which were two large (maybe three or four stories high?) statues of pharohs that were almost identical. I’ll have to show you pictures to understand the magnitude! After that brief stop, we went to our hotel in Luxor to check in and have lunch. I had my OWN hotel room, which was sweet because usually everyone gets a roommate. You might say…”Your own room? Big deal.” It was, however, quite significant because I realized that it was the first time in almost a month and a half that I had total privacy! Don’t get me wrong, I love being roomies with Erin on the ship, but it was just nice to spread out and make my own mess. Our hotel/resort was really nice – the pool was right by the Nile River and…there was a swim-up bar so that you could sit in the pool and enjoy your beverage. It was sweet. : ) If I ever get a pool in my home, it will definitely have a swim-up bar. haha
After resting up a bit (and letting the hot part of the day pass a little), we jumped on the bus again to see Luxor Temple. Because of the amazing things that I had seen already in Egypt, I wasn’t sure that I would be wowed by “another” temple. Ohmygoodness. I was SO wrong.
The temple was located on a huge complex. When we got off the bus, we could only see the front walls and entrance way (lined with like 30 big lion statues). When we walked inside, we found out how expansive the temple actually was. Luxor Temple is an ancient Egyptian temple built on the east bank of the Nile was founded in 1400 BCE. It had parts added on from various kings throughout history. The columns were humongous and everything was a sandy brown color. Even though the weather had eroded some of the details away, you could still see an amazing amount of carving and painting. Every image told a story, which was cool. It was fun to try to imagine what the temple would have looked like in all of its glory. It would have been spectacular, of that I’m absolutely sure. After spending about an hour there, we headed back to the hotel for a late dinner and bedtime.
On a more serious note, I just want to mention that this trip through Cairo and Luxor really opened my eyes to the severe poverty that exists in Egypt. There are people all over the place who are without homes and jobs to support their families. It is really a sad thing. The most shocking thing that I heard had to do with the City of the Dead – which is a huge complex in Cairo where families have little buildings that act as tombs for their deceased loved ones. In this city/graveyard, over ONE MILLION homeless people take shelter in the tombs. When the families of the deceased come to visit, they bring sandwiches and other food to the people who are living in their family’s tomb. It is hard to justify why it is ok for me to stay in beautiful resorts with swim-up bars, when just outside the walls, there are people who literally have nothing. How can I be ok with that? The short answer is that I am really NOT ok with that…I just don’t know what to do to make it better. Should I not travel? Maybe, but then I wouldn’t know about the problems of the world! It’s just another example of why tourism is a frustrating concept to grapple with when it clearly benefits the rich and takes advantage of the poor. Sigh.
Again, I found that the early wake-up call (as much as it hurt) was TOTALLY WORTH IT. As soon as we landed in Luxor, we took a short bus ride to the Valley of the Kings. Luxor is right on the Nile River, but after you get a little further away, it is completely desert. The Valley of the Kings was all sand and stone – not a blade of grass in sight. The good news is that the Valley was incredible, but the bad news was that we were not allowed to take cameras into the Valley…we actually had to leave them on the bus so they wouldn’t have a chance of getting confiscated! Yikes. Anyway, I will just have to remember all the details in this blog (or Google image it later…) The best was to describe the Valley of the Kings is that it was “other-worldy.” I’m not even kidding, it reminded me of a scene straight out of those old Star Wars movies that Dad used to make us watch! Remember the scene with the little alien guys in red coats and hoods with just 2 small light bulbs for eyes? Probably they were working for that big worm with the tongue…what was his name? Jabba the Hutt?? Haha I wish I were kidding, but I am telling you, that is exactly what I thought of when we arrived at the Valley.
To get to where all the tombs were, we had to take a short tram ride into the heart of the valley. All of Egypt’s ancient kings are buried in this one valley – they have found 62 tombs so far, but I believe that they suspect there are more to be found. King Tut’s tomb was the 62nd tomb that was excavated in the 1920’s. It’s funny though, because his tomb is not really in great shape. Because they buried him so soon after his death, they didn’t wait long enough for the paint on the walls to dry. There are black spots all over the walls from a fungus that grew after the moisture in the tomb’s paint couldn’t escape. We also had to buy a special ticket to go into King Tut’s tomb. Several people in my group elected not to do it. I felt like saying…are you CRAZY?! We are in EGYPT and King Tut’s MUMMY is about 100 feet underground and two minutes from where you are standing! Needless to say, it was flippin awesome. King Tut’s mummy looked like a child’s body, it was so shriveled up. The middle part of the mummy was covered with a white piece of cloth, but his head and feel were as black as coal. We also saw three other tombs (plus one extra that Greg and I sneaked into after befriending the ticket guy/guard). The other tombs were: Ramses III, Ramses I, and Ramses IX. The other one’s name has slipped my mind for the moment (probably because it wasn’t a Ramses!).
What is interesting about seeing the different tombs is that some are much longer than others. The longer that the king lived, the longer his tomb would extend under the ground. One of them, for Ramses I, was extremely steep and you had to climb down stairs at a pretty dangerous angle to get into the tomb room. Others went down gradually and had much more room. As a side note, I expected the descent in to the tombs to be through small, narrow openings like I climbed through to get under the pyramids…but it wasn’t at all like that – it was like walking down a spacious hallway leading underground.
Another mind-blowing thing was that the paint on the wall was amazingly preserved. I was seriously speechless after seeing the details of painting on the walls. HOW has that artwork lasted thousands of years? Apparently, they used egg whites, vegetable dyes, and a honey glaze to seal in the paint. Who knew eggs and veggies could be so well preserved? There is so much symbolism in the figures that it would take a life time to understand it all (which I suppose is what an Egyptologist does…). Every image would depict a story from the Book of the Dead or other Egyptian literature/text. The paintings were all very flat in the sense that in a painting of a person, you could only see one side of his or her profile and then his or her feet would be flat on the “ground” facing to one side. You can always tell the men from the women because the men in the paintings have orange skin and the women have much fairer complexions. Sometimes, if a female figure was REALLY important, she would be depicted as a king to show her high status. Hmmm….I know! Also there are kartouches (pronounced “car-TOO-shez”) everywhere – these are little ovals with hieroglyphics in a line from top to bottom that symbolize the identity of the person. Also there are ankhs (symbol of eternal life) and scarabs (symbol of existence) all over the walls. All in all, the tombs were awesome and I could have stayed there all day if it hadn’t been 120 degrees when we were there!
After the Valley of the Kings, we drove a short distance to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. It was so cool because from far away, it seems as if it is just a building with three floors built into the mountainside. When you get closer, though, you can see that the temple actually stretches out toward you and each “floor” has a huge flat space you have to cross before you can get to the next set of stairs. It was an optical illusion…and I completely fell for it! haha Another cool thing about this temple is that the Queen had a secret passageway built into the temple that would lead a few kilometers away to the burial site of the queens, which is know as ...you guessed it! The Valley of the Queens. We didn’t get a chance to visit that, unfortunately, but it was ok because we had a ton of other things still to do that day…
We next make a short stop at the Colossi of Memnon, which were two large (maybe three or four stories high?) statues of pharohs that were almost identical. I’ll have to show you pictures to understand the magnitude! After that brief stop, we went to our hotel in Luxor to check in and have lunch. I had my OWN hotel room, which was sweet because usually everyone gets a roommate. You might say…”Your own room? Big deal.” It was, however, quite significant because I realized that it was the first time in almost a month and a half that I had total privacy! Don’t get me wrong, I love being roomies with Erin on the ship, but it was just nice to spread out and make my own mess. Our hotel/resort was really nice – the pool was right by the Nile River and…there was a swim-up bar so that you could sit in the pool and enjoy your beverage. It was sweet. : ) If I ever get a pool in my home, it will definitely have a swim-up bar. haha
After resting up a bit (and letting the hot part of the day pass a little), we jumped on the bus again to see Luxor Temple. Because of the amazing things that I had seen already in Egypt, I wasn’t sure that I would be wowed by “another” temple. Ohmygoodness. I was SO wrong.
The temple was located on a huge complex. When we got off the bus, we could only see the front walls and entrance way (lined with like 30 big lion statues). When we walked inside, we found out how expansive the temple actually was. Luxor Temple is an ancient Egyptian temple built on the east bank of the Nile was founded in 1400 BCE. It had parts added on from various kings throughout history. The columns were humongous and everything was a sandy brown color. Even though the weather had eroded some of the details away, you could still see an amazing amount of carving and painting. Every image told a story, which was cool. It was fun to try to imagine what the temple would have looked like in all of its glory. It would have been spectacular, of that I’m absolutely sure. After spending about an hour there, we headed back to the hotel for a late dinner and bedtime.
On a more serious note, I just want to mention that this trip through Cairo and Luxor really opened my eyes to the severe poverty that exists in Egypt. There are people all over the place who are without homes and jobs to support their families. It is really a sad thing. The most shocking thing that I heard had to do with the City of the Dead – which is a huge complex in Cairo where families have little buildings that act as tombs for their deceased loved ones. In this city/graveyard, over ONE MILLION homeless people take shelter in the tombs. When the families of the deceased come to visit, they bring sandwiches and other food to the people who are living in their family’s tomb. It is hard to justify why it is ok for me to stay in beautiful resorts with swim-up bars, when just outside the walls, there are people who literally have nothing. How can I be ok with that? The short answer is that I am really NOT ok with that…I just don’t know what to do to make it better. Should I not travel? Maybe, but then I wouldn’t know about the problems of the world! It’s just another example of why tourism is a frustrating concept to grapple with when it clearly benefits the rich and takes advantage of the poor. Sigh.
Day 2 in Egypt (Wednesday, July 28)
Freakin’ early wake-up call this morning – 4:15 AM. Ouch. After grabbing breakfast boxes from the lobby, though, we hopped on the buses to go to the Giza Plateau to see the sunrise over the pyramids! What an incredible experience. We got there in complete darkness and within a two hour period, the scenery had undergone an amazing transformation because of the changing light. It was really hazy too (probably from all of Cairo’s pollution), but it gave the entire site a mystical appearance. It was an incredible way to experience the pyramids, though, and I think I must have taken about 300 pictures that morning. The pyramids really are an amazing site. Because we were there so gosh-darn early, our Semester at Sea group were the only visitors, which made picture-taking a dream and the overall experience more pleasant than if we were being pushed around by a bunch of other tourists. Also, although the sun was HOT, it was nowhere nearly as hot as it would be at mid-day. I think someone said it was 110 degrees when we were leaving. Though I might have been grouchy at first, it was totally worth the early morning wake-up for this experience.
While at the pyramids, Greg and I bought an extra ticket to actually climb inside the Second Pyramid! This is my favorite pyramid, for sure - it’s definitely the best one. : ) The pyramids are solid on the inside and the burial chamber is dug underneath. It was similar to the day before when we had to crouch down and climb through a small opening then down a really steep ramp. The climb down into the Second Pyramid’s tomb was A LOT longer than the one the day before. There is a room in the middle where you can stand up a little before you have to climb BACK up the other side to get to the burial chamber. As soon as you get inside, it feels like you are in a cave. (Takes me back to our spelunking days, Kim!) There were fewer details on the walls than we had seen the day before, but it was much bigger. The best thing about this experience, though, was that we were there SO early that there were no other people inside! Greg and I had the entire tomb to ourselves! It was creepy and awesome at the same time.
After getting our fill of the pyramids, we jumped back on the bus for the short drive down the hill to see the Great Sphinx of Giza! SO COOL! It was a great view with the pyramids in the back. It was definitely one of those, “I can’t believe I am here!” moments.
The next stop was the Egyptian Archeological Museum in Cairo where we saw ancient statues and works of art along with all of KING TUT’s burial treasure. AH! KING TUT! It was incredible because he was the only Egyptian king whose tomb was not raided. He was buried so quickly after he died that no one had a chance to see where he was buried – the paint wasn’t even dried on the wall of the tomb when they sealed it! An archeologist named Carter excavated the site in the 1920’s and found the tomb to be completely intact. All of Tut’s treasures now reside in the Archeological Museum in Cairo. We also got to see the MUMMY ROOM! (Rachy, I was thinking of you, Bones, and Booth the entire time!!!) To me, it is difficult to fathom how all of the most famous rulers of Egypt have their BODIES on display in a museum. The bodies were creepily well-preserved. The teeth were perfectly intact along with hair and even eyelashes! There are hardly words – it’s just so crazy to think about the history that is evidenced by the remains of these famous rulers.
The museum was fantastic because we had a guided tour from our tour guide for the trip, Rhem (pronounced Reem). Side note about Rhem: she is an AMAZING lady – I think she was a former archeologist or something. She is also super bossy – which was great because we were always the first bus to get anywhere! She pretty much talked NON-STOP for 4 days on the trip, filling our heads with facts and stories. She did such a great job of telling the history of Egypt and making it sound like a narrative. It was great. I wish I would have had her for my personal tour guide the entire summer. Also, she has this super loud voice, so she would yell “BUS SIX, ANGELS! THIS WAY!” and you knew exactly where to go.
After getting admiring all of Tut’s treasures, we went to the Alabaster Mosque. It was another beautiful mosque – with low lights and beautiful rugs all over the floor. We took our shoes off (of course) to enter into the building. Once inside, we sat down on the rugs and listen to Rhem tell us all about Islam. Such interesting stuff. The mosque was decorated wonderfully and had gorgeous chandeliers hanging all over the place. It was nice and cool and shady in the mosque and I really didn’t want to leave. : ( On the way out, I saw the women’s section – another tragically small area with a crude curtain hung up to shield it from the vision of people in the mosque. I understand that it is traditional for women to pray behind the men, but it just FEELS so oppressive to me and it makes me upset. What I’ve learned in the past few weeks is that I would probably make a very bad Muslim if I had to jam into a little area like that to say my prayers when the men get great seats and all of the room that they need. Oh well, apparently I am still working on my cultural understanding….maybe I will “get it” someday…
After the Alabaster Mosque, the whole group of us jumped on a lunch cruise down the Nile River! I kinda expected the Nile to be this gorgeous, glistening river…instead it reminded me A LOT of the three rivers in Pittsburgh – pretty muddy and like nothing you would ever want to swim in. Regardless of its appearance, though, it is the source of life for many many Egyptian people, which it pretty amazing if you think about it. During the lunch cruise, we saw a belly dancing show as well as an “oriental show” which was like the whirling dervish show I saw, but with more interesting costumes. The whole thing was pretty cheesy and touristy – it was nothing I would have picked to do for myself, but it was a fun way to spend the afternoon and see more of the city of Cairo. : )
After our late lunch, we returned to the hotel around 3:30 PM. We had a few hours to relax and get out of the sun, which was nice. I went out to the pool and sat under a shady umbrella and finished my book (“Girl with a Dragon Tattoo” – it was a crazy storyline, but pretty addicting – can’t wait to read the next two in the series!). Before long, I was feeling toasty again, so I jumped into the pool. By the time I got in there were about 50 other people from Semester at Sea because all of the Cairo overnight trips were staying in the same resort. The pool was magnificent. The bottom of the pool was dark blue and it had streams and waterfalls running into it from the front and back sides. It was incredible! When the sun started to go down in the sky, the water was reflecting so much light, it was almost blinding.
I took a quick shower and then jumped back onto Bus 6 with the rest of the “Angels” to go back to the pyramids at sunset for the “Sound and Light Spectacular” show. What they didn’t tell us was that the word “spectacular” was used quite loosely in this instance. Unfortunately, it had like 1983 special effects and was pretty lame. However, it did have a lot of good information about the pyramids and the Sphinx, which helped to supplement what I had learned earlier in the day.
We had a short drive back to the hotel and our bus driver BOOKED it back. He passed all of the other buses and it was pretty obnoxious because we weren’t exactly waiting our turn – but, that’s the way it is in Egypt! If it’s a 3 lane road, 6 cars would easily fit into one row. There’s just no concept of a safe distance here. Plus, don’t even think you would get a chance to doze off on the bus – the horns on the streets were blaring every five seconds. Egyptian drivers seem so aggressive, which is one reason why I couldn’t live in Egypt – I would never get anywhere! We had a delicious buffet dinner at the hotel and then I pretty much crashed into bed barely holding my eyes open.
While at the pyramids, Greg and I bought an extra ticket to actually climb inside the Second Pyramid! This is my favorite pyramid, for sure - it’s definitely the best one. : ) The pyramids are solid on the inside and the burial chamber is dug underneath. It was similar to the day before when we had to crouch down and climb through a small opening then down a really steep ramp. The climb down into the Second Pyramid’s tomb was A LOT longer than the one the day before. There is a room in the middle where you can stand up a little before you have to climb BACK up the other side to get to the burial chamber. As soon as you get inside, it feels like you are in a cave. (Takes me back to our spelunking days, Kim!) There were fewer details on the walls than we had seen the day before, but it was much bigger. The best thing about this experience, though, was that we were there SO early that there were no other people inside! Greg and I had the entire tomb to ourselves! It was creepy and awesome at the same time.
After getting our fill of the pyramids, we jumped back on the bus for the short drive down the hill to see the Great Sphinx of Giza! SO COOL! It was a great view with the pyramids in the back. It was definitely one of those, “I can’t believe I am here!” moments.
The next stop was the Egyptian Archeological Museum in Cairo where we saw ancient statues and works of art along with all of KING TUT’s burial treasure. AH! KING TUT! It was incredible because he was the only Egyptian king whose tomb was not raided. He was buried so quickly after he died that no one had a chance to see where he was buried – the paint wasn’t even dried on the wall of the tomb when they sealed it! An archeologist named Carter excavated the site in the 1920’s and found the tomb to be completely intact. All of Tut’s treasures now reside in the Archeological Museum in Cairo. We also got to see the MUMMY ROOM! (Rachy, I was thinking of you, Bones, and Booth the entire time!!!) To me, it is difficult to fathom how all of the most famous rulers of Egypt have their BODIES on display in a museum. The bodies were creepily well-preserved. The teeth were perfectly intact along with hair and even eyelashes! There are hardly words – it’s just so crazy to think about the history that is evidenced by the remains of these famous rulers.
The museum was fantastic because we had a guided tour from our tour guide for the trip, Rhem (pronounced Reem). Side note about Rhem: she is an AMAZING lady – I think she was a former archeologist or something. She is also super bossy – which was great because we were always the first bus to get anywhere! She pretty much talked NON-STOP for 4 days on the trip, filling our heads with facts and stories. She did such a great job of telling the history of Egypt and making it sound like a narrative. It was great. I wish I would have had her for my personal tour guide the entire summer. Also, she has this super loud voice, so she would yell “BUS SIX, ANGELS! THIS WAY!” and you knew exactly where to go.
After getting admiring all of Tut’s treasures, we went to the Alabaster Mosque. It was another beautiful mosque – with low lights and beautiful rugs all over the floor. We took our shoes off (of course) to enter into the building. Once inside, we sat down on the rugs and listen to Rhem tell us all about Islam. Such interesting stuff. The mosque was decorated wonderfully and had gorgeous chandeliers hanging all over the place. It was nice and cool and shady in the mosque and I really didn’t want to leave. : ( On the way out, I saw the women’s section – another tragically small area with a crude curtain hung up to shield it from the vision of people in the mosque. I understand that it is traditional for women to pray behind the men, but it just FEELS so oppressive to me and it makes me upset. What I’ve learned in the past few weeks is that I would probably make a very bad Muslim if I had to jam into a little area like that to say my prayers when the men get great seats and all of the room that they need. Oh well, apparently I am still working on my cultural understanding….maybe I will “get it” someday…
After the Alabaster Mosque, the whole group of us jumped on a lunch cruise down the Nile River! I kinda expected the Nile to be this gorgeous, glistening river…instead it reminded me A LOT of the three rivers in Pittsburgh – pretty muddy and like nothing you would ever want to swim in. Regardless of its appearance, though, it is the source of life for many many Egyptian people, which it pretty amazing if you think about it. During the lunch cruise, we saw a belly dancing show as well as an “oriental show” which was like the whirling dervish show I saw, but with more interesting costumes. The whole thing was pretty cheesy and touristy – it was nothing I would have picked to do for myself, but it was a fun way to spend the afternoon and see more of the city of Cairo. : )
After our late lunch, we returned to the hotel around 3:30 PM. We had a few hours to relax and get out of the sun, which was nice. I went out to the pool and sat under a shady umbrella and finished my book (“Girl with a Dragon Tattoo” – it was a crazy storyline, but pretty addicting – can’t wait to read the next two in the series!). Before long, I was feeling toasty again, so I jumped into the pool. By the time I got in there were about 50 other people from Semester at Sea because all of the Cairo overnight trips were staying in the same resort. The pool was magnificent. The bottom of the pool was dark blue and it had streams and waterfalls running into it from the front and back sides. It was incredible! When the sun started to go down in the sky, the water was reflecting so much light, it was almost blinding.
I took a quick shower and then jumped back onto Bus 6 with the rest of the “Angels” to go back to the pyramids at sunset for the “Sound and Light Spectacular” show. What they didn’t tell us was that the word “spectacular” was used quite loosely in this instance. Unfortunately, it had like 1983 special effects and was pretty lame. However, it did have a lot of good information about the pyramids and the Sphinx, which helped to supplement what I had learned earlier in the day.
We had a short drive back to the hotel and our bus driver BOOKED it back. He passed all of the other buses and it was pretty obnoxious because we weren’t exactly waiting our turn – but, that’s the way it is in Egypt! If it’s a 3 lane road, 6 cars would easily fit into one row. There’s just no concept of a safe distance here. Plus, don’t even think you would get a chance to doze off on the bus – the horns on the streets were blaring every five seconds. Egyptian drivers seem so aggressive, which is one reason why I couldn’t live in Egypt – I would never get anywhere! We had a delicious buffet dinner at the hotel and then I pretty much crashed into bed barely holding my eyes open.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Day 1 in Egypt (July 27)
Today is the first day of a 4-day organized trip to Cairo and Luxor. Normally I’d like to avoid the big tours because you lose your autonomy and end up doing things to please the group, BUT, let me tell you…after 5 countries…I am SO ready to be shuttled about from place to place and stay in nice hotels! Can’t wait! As soon as customs cleared our ship and our passports were released to us, we were ushered out of the ship and jumped on the tour bus for a 3 hour bus ride to Cairo. On the way, we stopped in Giza for lunch at the Meridien Pyramids hotel. It was a HUGE buffet with lots and lots of choices. I tried a little of everything (surprise!) except the cold salad items. They told us to avoid eating anything that had been washed with cold water or had a skin (like tomatoes) because we are not used to the water. It was sad, though, because it was such a waste of food. : (
Our first site-seeing stop was at Memphis. We went to an outdoor museum of ruins and statues from ancient temples. My favorite item from this site was a GIANT statue of Ramses II (an Egyptian king). It was lying down on the ground because the lower part of the statue had broken off. Even without the legs, the statue was truly gigantic and was incredibly well preserved because it had been completely covered with sand. Really cool stuff. I think I’m going to like Egypt. : )
Next up was a trip to the pyramids of Zoser at Sakkara and Lasataba. These were different type of burial monuments – they slightly resembled pyramids, but were more like big piles of sand and stone over a tomb. We got to climb inside, which was SO cool. To get in, we had to crouch down and keep our heads down to get into a very narrow passage. We had to hold on to the railings and head down a steep ramp until we were all the way down. It was pretty dangerous and several of the people on the trip decided that they didn’t want to do it! It was a pretty tight and awkward climb – definitely not for the claustrophobic. It’s really funny, though, because if we were in the US doing this activity, there would have been detailed training session on how to climb AND everyone would have had to sign a waiver to make sure they wouldn’t sue Egypt if they got hurt. In addition, they probably would have had to install an elevator to make sure it was accessible. But no, not in Egypt. It’s enter at your own risk!
After Sakkara, we drove to the hotel in Giza which was a beautiful complex. We checked in and had a short rest at the hotel before the evening activity, which was a visit to the Khan El Khalil Bazaar. The bazaar was an overwhelming experience. For the first time on this trip, I had a few moments when I felt far out of my comfort zone. This was primary the case due to the blatant and persistent sexual harassment targeted toward women which is so common in this area of the world. I was with Greg and Serena (another girl in my cohort) while we were there. The crazy thing is that I know the harassment probably would have been about 10 times worse if Greg had not been there with Serena and I. Two blonde American girls stand out like sore thumbs in an Egyptian market, let me tell you! In addition to the verbal comments, the vendors were much more aggressive with selling their items than they were in the Grand Bazaar in Turkey. The bazaar in Egypt was also much more dangerous because people push carts around in the narrow streets without stopping – it’s up to you to get yourself out of the way. Scary!
But, even in what appears to be crowded and dirty chaos to an unfamiliar eye, there are moments of sincere humanity. I was touched when a young Muslim women reached out, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me out of the way of a man rushing by with a cart. Startled, I turned and tried to thank her. She smiled and I didn’t need words to tell me what kind of a person she was to pull a stranger out of the way of possible danger. It was a really nice moment and it made me think about it’s the little moments such as that one that make this experience special.
Not everyone had a good experience at the Bazaar, though. One girl that I was with complained the entire time about how we were getting pushed and shoved and how she couldn’t wait to get out of there. The way that I look at it, though, is that we were in THEIR way, right? Everyone else around us seemed to know the drill – walk fast and move if there are carts. We were the ones holding up the line by moseying along, right? How can we blame the others there if we were invading their space and not following the protocol? It is interesting (and annoying) how different people can interpret the same situation so differently…
After walking though the market area, we tried to visit a mosque in that area, but the man at the door told us that no women allowed inside, so I couldn’t go in. I think that was the first time I’ve ever been denied entry into a building because of my sex. It wasn’t a big deal (we didn’t HAVE to go inside), but it certainly wasn’t a pleasant feeling. I was more concerned with…WHERE do the local women of the area worship?? How do THEY feel about that? Is that “just the way it is”? I still don’t know. I need to talk to some local people to get some perspective! Certainly, one of the problems with a Semester at Sea trip is that there just isn’t time or opportunity to interact with normal people (and by normal, I mean folks who aren’t guides or trying to sell you something). It is strange because I feel like I’ve visiting Egypt, but there are so many things that I don’t understand and so many questions that are going unanswered...
After the eventful bazaar, we had dinner at the hotel at 10 PM. Dinner was good and was almost identical to the menu we had for lunch. It was buffet style and there were a variety of meats, chicken, rices, and (of course) pasta for the Americans. : ) Bedtime followed shortly after dinner!
Our first site-seeing stop was at Memphis. We went to an outdoor museum of ruins and statues from ancient temples. My favorite item from this site was a GIANT statue of Ramses II (an Egyptian king). It was lying down on the ground because the lower part of the statue had broken off. Even without the legs, the statue was truly gigantic and was incredibly well preserved because it had been completely covered with sand. Really cool stuff. I think I’m going to like Egypt. : )
Next up was a trip to the pyramids of Zoser at Sakkara and Lasataba. These were different type of burial monuments – they slightly resembled pyramids, but were more like big piles of sand and stone over a tomb. We got to climb inside, which was SO cool. To get in, we had to crouch down and keep our heads down to get into a very narrow passage. We had to hold on to the railings and head down a steep ramp until we were all the way down. It was pretty dangerous and several of the people on the trip decided that they didn’t want to do it! It was a pretty tight and awkward climb – definitely not for the claustrophobic. It’s really funny, though, because if we were in the US doing this activity, there would have been detailed training session on how to climb AND everyone would have had to sign a waiver to make sure they wouldn’t sue Egypt if they got hurt. In addition, they probably would have had to install an elevator to make sure it was accessible. But no, not in Egypt. It’s enter at your own risk!
After Sakkara, we drove to the hotel in Giza which was a beautiful complex. We checked in and had a short rest at the hotel before the evening activity, which was a visit to the Khan El Khalil Bazaar. The bazaar was an overwhelming experience. For the first time on this trip, I had a few moments when I felt far out of my comfort zone. This was primary the case due to the blatant and persistent sexual harassment targeted toward women which is so common in this area of the world. I was with Greg and Serena (another girl in my cohort) while we were there. The crazy thing is that I know the harassment probably would have been about 10 times worse if Greg had not been there with Serena and I. Two blonde American girls stand out like sore thumbs in an Egyptian market, let me tell you! In addition to the verbal comments, the vendors were much more aggressive with selling their items than they were in the Grand Bazaar in Turkey. The bazaar in Egypt was also much more dangerous because people push carts around in the narrow streets without stopping – it’s up to you to get yourself out of the way. Scary!
But, even in what appears to be crowded and dirty chaos to an unfamiliar eye, there are moments of sincere humanity. I was touched when a young Muslim women reached out, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me out of the way of a man rushing by with a cart. Startled, I turned and tried to thank her. She smiled and I didn’t need words to tell me what kind of a person she was to pull a stranger out of the way of possible danger. It was a really nice moment and it made me think about it’s the little moments such as that one that make this experience special.
Not everyone had a good experience at the Bazaar, though. One girl that I was with complained the entire time about how we were getting pushed and shoved and how she couldn’t wait to get out of there. The way that I look at it, though, is that we were in THEIR way, right? Everyone else around us seemed to know the drill – walk fast and move if there are carts. We were the ones holding up the line by moseying along, right? How can we blame the others there if we were invading their space and not following the protocol? It is interesting (and annoying) how different people can interpret the same situation so differently…
After walking though the market area, we tried to visit a mosque in that area, but the man at the door told us that no women allowed inside, so I couldn’t go in. I think that was the first time I’ve ever been denied entry into a building because of my sex. It wasn’t a big deal (we didn’t HAVE to go inside), but it certainly wasn’t a pleasant feeling. I was more concerned with…WHERE do the local women of the area worship?? How do THEY feel about that? Is that “just the way it is”? I still don’t know. I need to talk to some local people to get some perspective! Certainly, one of the problems with a Semester at Sea trip is that there just isn’t time or opportunity to interact with normal people (and by normal, I mean folks who aren’t guides or trying to sell you something). It is strange because I feel like I’ve visiting Egypt, but there are so many things that I don’t understand and so many questions that are going unanswered...
After the eventful bazaar, we had dinner at the hotel at 10 PM. Dinner was good and was almost identical to the menu we had for lunch. It was buffet style and there were a variety of meats, chicken, rices, and (of course) pasta for the Americans. : ) Bedtime followed shortly after dinner!
Getting ready for Egypt! (Monday, July 26)
Today in class, the ship was moving so much that I got really sick during class. : ( It was unfortunate because I had to break my drug-free streak. Anyway, after popping a couple of pills I felt much better, but the medicine makes me SO tired. I had to work on my internship and blogging between episodes of dozing off.
By late afternoon, I just gave up and went out to the fifth deck to read. It is quickly becoming one of my favorite areas on the ship because in the late afternoon, you can sit on a comfy deck chair with your legs stretched out in the sun and your upper body in the shade. There is always a nice breeze, too, so it’s the perfect temperature. Not to mention the view of the horizon is incredible. In my case, there is the added bonus that I don’t feel the motion of the ship much at all when I look out at the horizon and feel the fresh air. : ) Anyway, I sat in the sun and read for an hour or two before dinner, then I had dinner with Lynette (the Assistant Dean of Students) and her husband, and then went to inter-port lecture and pre-port orientation about Egypt. I can’t believe I will wake up in Egypt tomorrow!!!! Tonight, I am packing, blogging, and going to bed early so I can get a good rest before my big Egypt trip starts tomorrow!
By late afternoon, I just gave up and went out to the fifth deck to read. It is quickly becoming one of my favorite areas on the ship because in the late afternoon, you can sit on a comfy deck chair with your legs stretched out in the sun and your upper body in the shade. There is always a nice breeze, too, so it’s the perfect temperature. Not to mention the view of the horizon is incredible. In my case, there is the added bonus that I don’t feel the motion of the ship much at all when I look out at the horizon and feel the fresh air. : ) Anyway, I sat in the sun and read for an hour or two before dinner, then I had dinner with Lynette (the Assistant Dean of Students) and her husband, and then went to inter-port lecture and pre-port orientation about Egypt. I can’t believe I will wake up in Egypt tomorrow!!!! Tonight, I am packing, blogging, and going to bed early so I can get a good rest before my big Egypt trip starts tomorrow!
Just another day at Sea (Sunday, July 25)
On Sunday, our first day back on the ship, I had to jump back into student mode really quickly because I had to crank out a paper which was due at midnight. Ah…life on the ship….
We had our regular two classes plus another extra session in the afternoon with my Student Affairs folks. It was funny because it is an extra seminar that is supposed to be a supplement to our other classes, so it is not an official class, but we still have to attend and participate, of course. Because it is not an official class, we don’t actually have a classroom space on the ship (space is limited!). That day, the only space that was available was on the second deck (in the bottom of the ship) right in front of the gangway! We all sat on the floor for the discussion. It’s pretty funny, because I’ve never had a class by a gangway before…
Even though it was a gorgeous day outside, I holed up in my room most of the afternoon to write my paper. That evening, I helped to coordinate the Olympic Sea Tryouts. On August 1, we are having an Olympic competition between the Seas on the ship. There were so many people interested in signing up for the events in my Sea (the Mediterranean Sea!) that we had to have a qualifying round. Hilarious! But guess what? I totally qualified for the flip cup competition! Haha I’ll let you know what happens.
After the tryouts, our Sea had an ice cream social in one of the dining rooms and had a movie night right afterward. I had to be antisocial and sit in the back to finish up my paper, but I ended up turning it in with a whole hour to spare! Then I went up to the faculty and staff lounge for snacks, drinks, and a late-night dance party. Ah…just another busy day on the MV Explorer…
We had our regular two classes plus another extra session in the afternoon with my Student Affairs folks. It was funny because it is an extra seminar that is supposed to be a supplement to our other classes, so it is not an official class, but we still have to attend and participate, of course. Because it is not an official class, we don’t actually have a classroom space on the ship (space is limited!). That day, the only space that was available was on the second deck (in the bottom of the ship) right in front of the gangway! We all sat on the floor for the discussion. It’s pretty funny, because I’ve never had a class by a gangway before…
Even though it was a gorgeous day outside, I holed up in my room most of the afternoon to write my paper. That evening, I helped to coordinate the Olympic Sea Tryouts. On August 1, we are having an Olympic competition between the Seas on the ship. There were so many people interested in signing up for the events in my Sea (the Mediterranean Sea!) that we had to have a qualifying round. Hilarious! But guess what? I totally qualified for the flip cup competition! Haha I’ll let you know what happens.
After the tryouts, our Sea had an ice cream social in one of the dining rooms and had a movie night right afterward. I had to be antisocial and sit in the back to finish up my paper, but I ended up turning it in with a whole hour to spare! Then I went up to the faculty and staff lounge for snacks, drinks, and a late-night dance party. Ah…just another busy day on the MV Explorer…
Day 5 in Istanbul (Saturday, July 24)
This morning, I went out for a Turkish cappacino at the equivalent of a Turkish Starbucks. The cappacino came which came with a molded chocolate spoon and chocolate covered coffee beans. Too cute... and the beans were amazingly good!
I spent the morning at Topcapi Palace – the old palace of Istanbul. We saw beautiful jewels and wonderfully well-preserved clothing which is just another example of how much history is here! The palace grounds were beautiful as well. Afterward, I had to go back to the Bazaar (which was close by) for more shopping and bargaining. I also couldn’t help myself – I had to go back to the Spice Market, too! I hung out at the Spice Market for a little while spending the rest of my lira until it was time to hop back on the tram to get to the ship. Once on board, I had dinner with my Student Affairs at Sea family, went to post-port reflection, and then worked like crazy in the Living-Learning Coordinators’ office to put things together for the next two day’s events. Late night, but I got caught up on a lot.
I'm sad to leave Istanbul - I could have stayed here a few extra days, FOR SURE...
I spent the morning at Topcapi Palace – the old palace of Istanbul. We saw beautiful jewels and wonderfully well-preserved clothing which is just another example of how much history is here! The palace grounds were beautiful as well. Afterward, I had to go back to the Bazaar (which was close by) for more shopping and bargaining. I also couldn’t help myself – I had to go back to the Spice Market, too! I hung out at the Spice Market for a little while spending the rest of my lira until it was time to hop back on the tram to get to the ship. Once on board, I had dinner with my Student Affairs at Sea family, went to post-port reflection, and then worked like crazy in the Living-Learning Coordinators’ office to put things together for the next two day’s events. Late night, but I got caught up on a lot.
I'm sad to leave Istanbul - I could have stayed here a few extra days, FOR SURE...
Day 4 in Istanbul: Grand Bazaar and SPICE MARKET! (Friday, July 23)
I woke up later today, had an early lunch on the ship, and then put my game face on to visit the Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is one of the largest covered markets in the world. It’s not the type of shopping that I particularly enjoy because you have to haggle with the vendors, but you can get some pretty cool stuff if you know where to go and what to get. Walking through the Bazaar is certainly an experience because all of the men who are selling things (there were NO women) will call out to you from their stands/stores. It’s completely overwhelming because you never know which way to look! Not to mention, I think I heard more cheesy pick-up lines there than I have in my entire life. It was a little ridiculous, to say the least. Although, the vendors were not as aggressive as I found them to be in Morocco. Also, it is not even funny how much my friends and I stood out in the crowd. We didn’t even have a chance to blend – there are so many Semester at Sea-ers that everyone knew who we were as soon as we arrived.
Erin and I went to Istanbul University for a few minutes in the afternoon, which was cool because it is the “Harvard” of Turkey. It was a HUGE campus and really pretty with tall trees and a big pave shady walk-way. It was funny because we happened to visit on a recruitment day for the university. The security guards thought we were visiting the university (I suppose as potential students) so they let us into the main administration building where each of the faculties (departments/majors) had a table with faculty members ready to talk with students. I got a promotional CD, a bookmark, and some candy! Haha I love it.
On the way back to the ship, we stopped at the Spice Market. Oh. My. Goodness. Let me just tell you how cool it was. As soon as you walk in, you smell a thousand different scents – spices and tea and sweets and dried fruit. It was amazing. I felt like I had finally arrived! For the first time in several weeks, I was in my element. My friends were totally bored after about five minutes, but I walked around for probably an hour just looking, smelling, tasting, buying, and chatting with the shop keepers. It was fantastic. I only wished that I had a kitchen!
That night, we went to dinner at a restaurant called “360” – it was a really nice restaurant on the roof top of a building. The view was amazing and we got to see the Istanbul as the sun went down. Can’t beat that. : )
Erin and I went to Istanbul University for a few minutes in the afternoon, which was cool because it is the “Harvard” of Turkey. It was a HUGE campus and really pretty with tall trees and a big pave shady walk-way. It was funny because we happened to visit on a recruitment day for the university. The security guards thought we were visiting the university (I suppose as potential students) so they let us into the main administration building where each of the faculties (departments/majors) had a table with faculty members ready to talk with students. I got a promotional CD, a bookmark, and some candy! Haha I love it.
On the way back to the ship, we stopped at the Spice Market. Oh. My. Goodness. Let me just tell you how cool it was. As soon as you walk in, you smell a thousand different scents – spices and tea and sweets and dried fruit. It was amazing. I felt like I had finally arrived! For the first time in several weeks, I was in my element. My friends were totally bored after about five minutes, but I walked around for probably an hour just looking, smelling, tasting, buying, and chatting with the shop keepers. It was fantastic. I only wished that I had a kitchen!
That night, we went to dinner at a restaurant called “360” – it was a really nice restaurant on the roof top of a building. The view was amazing and we got to see the Istanbul as the sun went down. Can’t beat that. : )
Day 3 in Istanbul – Excursion to the Black Sea (Thursday, July 22)
By the third day in Istanbul, I had decided (along with some others) that it might be nice to get out of the city for a day. I’ve tried to make it a point to do this in each country I’ve visited, because I think you learn more about the country as a whole if you can visit the rural parts as well. I REALLY wanted to see Cappidocia or Ephesus, but with the FDP (faculty directed practica) to Sanbanci on Day 2 of only 5 days, there just wasn’t time. Oh well…next Turkey trip, I guess… : ) Instead, Amanda, Greg, Erin, and I settled for a day trip to see the Black Sea.
We booked the tickets the day before at a local travel agency in center of Istanbul. Around 9 PM, we got picked up in a mini-bus right outside of the port area (super convenient!). We drove for about 2 hours over to the Asian side of Istanbul. (What? Asia? Yeah, no big, I was there yesterday….omg, REALITY check, please!!). On the way, we saw the Sile Lighthouse (largest lighthouse in Turkey) and the Sile Castle (a fortress built by the Byzantines out on a giant rock close to the shore. This fortress was used to protect the coast from sea attacks). It was nice because we had time to sit and have a cup of tea while sitting on a very Turkish bean bag on the floor. We were able to soak up the view for a few minutes before it was time to move on.
Next stop was the Kabkoz village, which is a traditional little Ottoman village. The town was so sleepy and our brief walk through its street (yes, one street) seemed intrusive. It was interesting to see the houses, though, because they had all been built of wood and clay along with some straw. I also saw a raw walnut for the first time…it grows in a hard green fruit-like coating (it almost looks like a small, hard, sour apple from the outside), but when you cut it open, you can recognize the pattern of a walnut. Before we knew it, it was time to get back on the minibus for another hour or so drive to Kilimli Bay. Here we ate lunch at a beautiful restaurant with a magnificent view of the sea and bluffs surrounding. The rock formations were awesome – there were coves and interesting erosion patterns everywhere you looked. There were also several pockets of sea foam in certain areas of the sea, which I thought was interesting as well. After a delicious lunch of fire-grilled chicken and assorted side dishes, we popped back on the bus for a quick ride down the hill to the Kilimli Beach. It was sandier then some of the other beaches we had been on lately, so the water wasn’t as clear, but it felt so good to swim for a little in the mid-day heat! The beach was nice, but the most interesting part was seeing all of the different people who were there. Next to my American friends and I were two other girls on our tour – one was from Australia and the other was from Ireland. Our small tour mostly consisted of folks from Saudi Arabia. It was an interesting experience to be swimming and sunbathing next to women who were completely covered from head to toe! It made me feel different and a little unsure about my appearance. The beach had certainly highlighted this difference, but even earlier in the day, I felt different from the other women on the trip because I was not so covered up.
On our way back to Istanbul, we stopped at a little café in the forest. I am not even kidding – it was in the middle of nowhere! It was fun, though, because we had some more tea and hung around for a few minutes in the hammocks that were hanging from the trees.
When we returned to Istanbul, we stopped on the ship to shower and then we went up to a different part of Istanbul called Tasxim (or something like that…I actually need to look up the spelling again, because I forget). We stopped at dinner at a funky little fast-food slash cafeteria style restaurant. It wasn’t the best food we’ve had in Istanbul, but it was fast and we were SUPER hungry after the long day of touring. Afterward, we went to a roof top bar on this swanky hotel that Haley and her partner, Adam, were staying at to have a drink. We then went to another bar – which was actually in a street – to watch some live music. It was a fun night, but I was so tired by the time I got home!
We booked the tickets the day before at a local travel agency in center of Istanbul. Around 9 PM, we got picked up in a mini-bus right outside of the port area (super convenient!). We drove for about 2 hours over to the Asian side of Istanbul. (What? Asia? Yeah, no big, I was there yesterday….omg, REALITY check, please!!). On the way, we saw the Sile Lighthouse (largest lighthouse in Turkey) and the Sile Castle (a fortress built by the Byzantines out on a giant rock close to the shore. This fortress was used to protect the coast from sea attacks). It was nice because we had time to sit and have a cup of tea while sitting on a very Turkish bean bag on the floor. We were able to soak up the view for a few minutes before it was time to move on.
Next stop was the Kabkoz village, which is a traditional little Ottoman village. The town was so sleepy and our brief walk through its street (yes, one street) seemed intrusive. It was interesting to see the houses, though, because they had all been built of wood and clay along with some straw. I also saw a raw walnut for the first time…it grows in a hard green fruit-like coating (it almost looks like a small, hard, sour apple from the outside), but when you cut it open, you can recognize the pattern of a walnut. Before we knew it, it was time to get back on the minibus for another hour or so drive to Kilimli Bay. Here we ate lunch at a beautiful restaurant with a magnificent view of the sea and bluffs surrounding. The rock formations were awesome – there were coves and interesting erosion patterns everywhere you looked. There were also several pockets of sea foam in certain areas of the sea, which I thought was interesting as well. After a delicious lunch of fire-grilled chicken and assorted side dishes, we popped back on the bus for a quick ride down the hill to the Kilimli Beach. It was sandier then some of the other beaches we had been on lately, so the water wasn’t as clear, but it felt so good to swim for a little in the mid-day heat! The beach was nice, but the most interesting part was seeing all of the different people who were there. Next to my American friends and I were two other girls on our tour – one was from Australia and the other was from Ireland. Our small tour mostly consisted of folks from Saudi Arabia. It was an interesting experience to be swimming and sunbathing next to women who were completely covered from head to toe! It made me feel different and a little unsure about my appearance. The beach had certainly highlighted this difference, but even earlier in the day, I felt different from the other women on the trip because I was not so covered up.
On our way back to Istanbul, we stopped at a little café in the forest. I am not even kidding – it was in the middle of nowhere! It was fun, though, because we had some more tea and hung around for a few minutes in the hammocks that were hanging from the trees.
When we returned to Istanbul, we stopped on the ship to shower and then we went up to a different part of Istanbul called Tasxim (or something like that…I actually need to look up the spelling again, because I forget). We stopped at dinner at a funky little fast-food slash cafeteria style restaurant. It wasn’t the best food we’ve had in Istanbul, but it was fast and we were SUPER hungry after the long day of touring. Afterward, we went to a roof top bar on this swanky hotel that Haley and her partner, Adam, were staying at to have a drink. We then went to another bar – which was actually in a street – to watch some live music. It was a fun night, but I was so tired by the time I got home!
Day 2 in Istanbul: University Visit and the Best Bath Ever! (Wednesday, July 21)
This morning, I woke up and had a rushed breakfast on the ship before jumping on a bus with my Student Affairs at Sea cohort as well as Kathy and Keith to Sabanci University. The cool thing about the trip there is that Sabanci is located on the ASIAN side of Istanbul, so I got to travel over the bridge from Europe to Asia that morning! My first time in Asia! Yay! : )
Anyway, the visit to Sabanci was very interesting. We got to take a tour, talk with the department of International Affairs, and we even got to eat lunch in their student union! Throughout my visit, I was surprised at how much Sabanci University’s campus looked and felt like a university or college in the United States. The campus was located on the outskirts of Istanbul, in a relatively poor area. I did not expect universities with extensive campuses to be so common in Turkey, especially within a city as large as Istanbul. As I learned more about Sabanci, I realized that it seemed similar to a US university not only in terms of appearance, but also in the variety and quality of student services offered. I was interested to find that many students live on campus and are involved in activities and programming. There are over 60 student clubs at Sabanci. In addition, there is a requirement for all students to participate in a civil involvement project which includes 40 hours of work over a period of one year. In terms of academics, there are three faculties (or areas of study): engineering and natural sciences, art and social sciences, and management. Each student begins their Sabanci experience with a standard first year of classes, moves into a faculty during the second year, and then chooses a specialty within that faculty by the end of their second year. This is a really uncommon model in Turkey – usually student dive right into their area of intended study. All of the classes at Sabanci are conducted in English rather than in Turkish despite the fact that about 96% of students are Turkish.
One component to Turkish higher education that I felt was particularly interesting was the process a student goes through in choosing a university to attend. In Turkey, every student who wishes to pursue some form of higher education must take a national exam. Each student chooses between ten different tests that represent a variety of disciplines. For example, if a student is interested in studying science, they will take the 3 national exams associated with science. After taking the exam, the students receive their grades and then rank the programs and schools that they are interested in attending. They will be placed into a school depending on how many points they score on the exam as well as how it matches their ranking. Although this system is perceived as being reliable, fair, and transparent, there may be some negative aspects associated with this kind of college acceptance system. One issue with this process is the rigidity of the system. If a student chooses one academic track and then changes his or her mind later in his or her academic journey, they must begin the entire process again by taking the appropriate exams to be accepted into a different program or institution. I can’t even imagine not being able to change your mind! With my chronic indecisiveness, I’d be a horrible Turkish student, that’s for sure…
Anyway, the ride home from Sabanci University was longer because of all of the traffic in Istanbul, so by the time that we got back to the ship – around 5 PM, we were pretty beat from the long day. Not wanting to waste any time in port, however, we (Amanda, Erin, Greg and I) ate some quick dinner on the ship and then headed out for another exciting (and possibly the most interesting!) adventure yet – the Turkish Bath!
The bath was a completely new experience for me but it actually turned out to be extremely relaxing. First, you go into the changing room they give you and undress. You have to then wrap yourself in this little towel that barely covers what you would like it to cover – although it doesn’t matter much because it comes off pretty much immediately when you get into the bathing area. (Men and women have separate changing and bathing areas, fyi…) After changing, I steamed for a little in the main room – it was toasty in there, but in a pleasantly warm way. I laid out on a big marble table that sits low to the ground. It was crowded when we got there around 8 PM – there were probably close to 15 women on the marble. Because it was so busy, it was pretty noisy as well. The noise wasn’t distracting, though, because it was sort of muted – with the high, domed ceilings, and the water running, and women chatting (it’s a social event, after all)…the noise sort of all ran together and created a dull constant murmur – like you were hearing with earmuffs on. The air was heavy with moisture and each breath I took felt like it was cleansing my lungs. The warmth of the marble was intoxicating and I almost fell asleep in the 20 or so minutes that I was lying there. Then, before I knew it, it was my turn and one of the women bathers came over and scrubbed me down until all of my dead skin came off in gross rolls. (Too much information? Probably…) After about 5 ½ weeks of traveling in the summer heat and sun, it felt so good to exfoliate the layers of grime and dirt…yuck. Next, I headed to the pools – first the hot pool for a few minutes and then the cooler one (which was still the temperature of warm bath-water). Feeling refreshed, I headed to another small room for a warm oil massage –which was fantastic – before resting in the final, cooler room for a while. What a relaxing experience! It’s funny that the lack of clothes didn’t even really matter! It just goes to show how much of your feelings depend on the context of the situation. Honestly, though, I think that if I got a bath like this every week, I would be a different person. Truly. I left the Bath feeling totally mellow and good from the inside out (and a little slippery on the outside, on account of the oil). : ) It was about 11PM (yes the bath was 3 hours long!) so we decided to stay out for a bit. We found a little café on a side street and drank some delicious Turkish tea. The taxi ride back to the ship was uneventful and I drowsily sank into bed around 1 AM feeling calm and peaceful. I envy the people who live here and can experience this anytime they want. Not a bad way to live…not bad at all!
Anyway, the visit to Sabanci was very interesting. We got to take a tour, talk with the department of International Affairs, and we even got to eat lunch in their student union! Throughout my visit, I was surprised at how much Sabanci University’s campus looked and felt like a university or college in the United States. The campus was located on the outskirts of Istanbul, in a relatively poor area. I did not expect universities with extensive campuses to be so common in Turkey, especially within a city as large as Istanbul. As I learned more about Sabanci, I realized that it seemed similar to a US university not only in terms of appearance, but also in the variety and quality of student services offered. I was interested to find that many students live on campus and are involved in activities and programming. There are over 60 student clubs at Sabanci. In addition, there is a requirement for all students to participate in a civil involvement project which includes 40 hours of work over a period of one year. In terms of academics, there are three faculties (or areas of study): engineering and natural sciences, art and social sciences, and management. Each student begins their Sabanci experience with a standard first year of classes, moves into a faculty during the second year, and then chooses a specialty within that faculty by the end of their second year. This is a really uncommon model in Turkey – usually student dive right into their area of intended study. All of the classes at Sabanci are conducted in English rather than in Turkish despite the fact that about 96% of students are Turkish.
One component to Turkish higher education that I felt was particularly interesting was the process a student goes through in choosing a university to attend. In Turkey, every student who wishes to pursue some form of higher education must take a national exam. Each student chooses between ten different tests that represent a variety of disciplines. For example, if a student is interested in studying science, they will take the 3 national exams associated with science. After taking the exam, the students receive their grades and then rank the programs and schools that they are interested in attending. They will be placed into a school depending on how many points they score on the exam as well as how it matches their ranking. Although this system is perceived as being reliable, fair, and transparent, there may be some negative aspects associated with this kind of college acceptance system. One issue with this process is the rigidity of the system. If a student chooses one academic track and then changes his or her mind later in his or her academic journey, they must begin the entire process again by taking the appropriate exams to be accepted into a different program or institution. I can’t even imagine not being able to change your mind! With my chronic indecisiveness, I’d be a horrible Turkish student, that’s for sure…
Anyway, the ride home from Sabanci University was longer because of all of the traffic in Istanbul, so by the time that we got back to the ship – around 5 PM, we were pretty beat from the long day. Not wanting to waste any time in port, however, we (Amanda, Erin, Greg and I) ate some quick dinner on the ship and then headed out for another exciting (and possibly the most interesting!) adventure yet – the Turkish Bath!
The bath was a completely new experience for me but it actually turned out to be extremely relaxing. First, you go into the changing room they give you and undress. You have to then wrap yourself in this little towel that barely covers what you would like it to cover – although it doesn’t matter much because it comes off pretty much immediately when you get into the bathing area. (Men and women have separate changing and bathing areas, fyi…) After changing, I steamed for a little in the main room – it was toasty in there, but in a pleasantly warm way. I laid out on a big marble table that sits low to the ground. It was crowded when we got there around 8 PM – there were probably close to 15 women on the marble. Because it was so busy, it was pretty noisy as well. The noise wasn’t distracting, though, because it was sort of muted – with the high, domed ceilings, and the water running, and women chatting (it’s a social event, after all)…the noise sort of all ran together and created a dull constant murmur – like you were hearing with earmuffs on. The air was heavy with moisture and each breath I took felt like it was cleansing my lungs. The warmth of the marble was intoxicating and I almost fell asleep in the 20 or so minutes that I was lying there. Then, before I knew it, it was my turn and one of the women bathers came over and scrubbed me down until all of my dead skin came off in gross rolls. (Too much information? Probably…) After about 5 ½ weeks of traveling in the summer heat and sun, it felt so good to exfoliate the layers of grime and dirt…yuck. Next, I headed to the pools – first the hot pool for a few minutes and then the cooler one (which was still the temperature of warm bath-water). Feeling refreshed, I headed to another small room for a warm oil massage –which was fantastic – before resting in the final, cooler room for a while. What a relaxing experience! It’s funny that the lack of clothes didn’t even really matter! It just goes to show how much of your feelings depend on the context of the situation. Honestly, though, I think that if I got a bath like this every week, I would be a different person. Truly. I left the Bath feeling totally mellow and good from the inside out (and a little slippery on the outside, on account of the oil). : ) It was about 11PM (yes the bath was 3 hours long!) so we decided to stay out for a bit. We found a little café on a side street and drank some delicious Turkish tea. The taxi ride back to the ship was uneventful and I drowsily sank into bed around 1 AM feeling calm and peaceful. I envy the people who live here and can experience this anytime they want. Not a bad way to live…not bad at all!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Day 1 in Turkey – Hello Istanbul! (Tuesday, July 20)
Woke up feeling tired (I can never seem to get enough sleep on this darn ship!) and went to breakfast then back to my room. I decided to multitask by doing a load of laundry in the sink while watching our diplomatic briefing on the TV in my room. After the ship was cleared by customs, Erin, Amanda, Greg and I headed out for a day of sightseeing. It was about 82 degrees outside, but the humidity made it feel pretty gross. We headed straight into the city via the tram and made our first stop at the Blue Mosque. It was a beautiful structure. A slight traffic jam at the door caused a wait, because there were a ton of people there and everyone has to take off their shoes before they go into the mosque. Now, you KNOW how I like to be prepared, right? So, I wore slip-on shoes to make the shoe-no-shoe-shoe transfer a little easier in the mosque. I had also remembered to bring a spare pair of socks so I wouldn’t have to walk around barefoot! (I just think that’s not safe at all and pretty yucky. It gives me the chills a little to think about all of the bare feet that have walked on that floor! Ugh…)
Although I was wearing a t-shirt, I was required to put a shawl around my shoulders. I had to use a communal shawl provided by the mosque, which you KNOW is a germ-a-phob’s worst nightmare! It was really fine, though, and it certainly did not detract any attention from the beauty of the mosque. It was ornate, spacious, and the structure had a main dome in the middle and several around it. It seems as if the energy in the room comes from the center, rather than having a head and foot like a church might. The lights were dim and there was less natural light than I expected. The women’s section of the mosque was only a very small portion (about 5 feet by 10 feet) of the huge mosque. It made me a little uncomfortable. I just don’t understand…I’m sure there are many Muslim women who want to worship, too…where do they all go? I’m not sure.
The next stop was Hagia Sophia, right across the way from the Blue Mosque. This massive building was (at different points in history) a church and a mosque, but now it is preserved as a museum and is a UNESCO world heritage site. The original building would have been over 2000 years old – but it’s been remodeled and rebuilt a few times throughout its existence. The inside had almost no natural light in the center main floor – just glowing yellow lighting illuminated the interior. In the upper level that circles the walls of the building, there are a series of intricate mosaics depicting Christian scenes. They were plastered over when the building was changed into a Mosque and despite a rigorous restoration effort, much of the mosaic pieces remain covered. Some of them have been uncovered, though, and the amount of detail is really striking.
After Hagia Sofia, we went out to lunch at a nearby restaurant. We shared a spinach and cheese “pancake” appetizer (sort of like a crepe, but I don’t remember the Turkish name, unfortunately). There was a woman sitting on the floor over a hot rounded griddle who rolled out the dough right there in front of us! It was great. I took a picture, : ) I also had a good chicken kepab and apple tea, which is really just for tourists and not so authentic, but it was still good!
Afterward, we walked through the Topkapi palace gardens and then found ourselves in need of dessert. We stopped at a street vendor for “elastic” ice cream. This special ice cream tastes good, but it has a chewy texture because it’s made with flour. The guys who sell it on the street make a big production out of it, throwing around the ice cream and the cones – it’s pretty nuts.
Soon after, we went back to the ship to refresh and shower and then went out for a Whirling Dervishes show. The show was just about an hour long but was really interesting. It is done in 9 parts and the performers are accompanied by 4 musicians – drums, a lap-harp (sorry I don’t know what that’s called), something that resembled a flute-a-phone, and a guitar which is the shape of half a basketball. There were four dervishes who wore long white skirts and coats. They also wore tall hats with no brim that looked like they were made out of some sort of fur. The performers really do just whirl around and around…but there is a whole artistic style and religious symbolism to it. It looked as if it takes an EXTREME amount of concentration not to get dizzy or sick. Speaking of which, after about 10 minutes of watching them whirl, I needed some Dramamine myself!
After the performance, we stopped into a hotel and got a dinner recommendation for a restaurant called Doy Doy (which means “full full” in Turkish, I believe). Dinner was de-lish. Lamb, eggplant, meatballs, and veggies all spiced up and grilled to perfection eaten with lots of bread and pita. Turkish food is awesome so far. Not to mention, the restaurant had a roof-top terrace which had a FABULOUS view of the Blue Mosque. It was gorgeous, all lit up at night with birds flying all around it! As we were sitting there around 10:15ish, the city came awake as the final call to prayer of the day blasted out over speakers in Mosques around the entire city. It was a great moment at the end of a busy day...the group of us just sat there in silence, listening and soaking in the view as we sipped on our tea. What a great way to end Day 1 in Istanbul!
Although I was wearing a t-shirt, I was required to put a shawl around my shoulders. I had to use a communal shawl provided by the mosque, which you KNOW is a germ-a-phob’s worst nightmare! It was really fine, though, and it certainly did not detract any attention from the beauty of the mosque. It was ornate, spacious, and the structure had a main dome in the middle and several around it. It seems as if the energy in the room comes from the center, rather than having a head and foot like a church might. The lights were dim and there was less natural light than I expected. The women’s section of the mosque was only a very small portion (about 5 feet by 10 feet) of the huge mosque. It made me a little uncomfortable. I just don’t understand…I’m sure there are many Muslim women who want to worship, too…where do they all go? I’m not sure.
The next stop was Hagia Sophia, right across the way from the Blue Mosque. This massive building was (at different points in history) a church and a mosque, but now it is preserved as a museum and is a UNESCO world heritage site. The original building would have been over 2000 years old – but it’s been remodeled and rebuilt a few times throughout its existence. The inside had almost no natural light in the center main floor – just glowing yellow lighting illuminated the interior. In the upper level that circles the walls of the building, there are a series of intricate mosaics depicting Christian scenes. They were plastered over when the building was changed into a Mosque and despite a rigorous restoration effort, much of the mosaic pieces remain covered. Some of them have been uncovered, though, and the amount of detail is really striking.
After Hagia Sofia, we went out to lunch at a nearby restaurant. We shared a spinach and cheese “pancake” appetizer (sort of like a crepe, but I don’t remember the Turkish name, unfortunately). There was a woman sitting on the floor over a hot rounded griddle who rolled out the dough right there in front of us! It was great. I took a picture, : ) I also had a good chicken kepab and apple tea, which is really just for tourists and not so authentic, but it was still good!
Afterward, we walked through the Topkapi palace gardens and then found ourselves in need of dessert. We stopped at a street vendor for “elastic” ice cream. This special ice cream tastes good, but it has a chewy texture because it’s made with flour. The guys who sell it on the street make a big production out of it, throwing around the ice cream and the cones – it’s pretty nuts.
Soon after, we went back to the ship to refresh and shower and then went out for a Whirling Dervishes show. The show was just about an hour long but was really interesting. It is done in 9 parts and the performers are accompanied by 4 musicians – drums, a lap-harp (sorry I don’t know what that’s called), something that resembled a flute-a-phone, and a guitar which is the shape of half a basketball. There were four dervishes who wore long white skirts and coats. They also wore tall hats with no brim that looked like they were made out of some sort of fur. The performers really do just whirl around and around…but there is a whole artistic style and religious symbolism to it. It looked as if it takes an EXTREME amount of concentration not to get dizzy or sick. Speaking of which, after about 10 minutes of watching them whirl, I needed some Dramamine myself!
After the performance, we stopped into a hotel and got a dinner recommendation for a restaurant called Doy Doy (which means “full full” in Turkish, I believe). Dinner was de-lish. Lamb, eggplant, meatballs, and veggies all spiced up and grilled to perfection eaten with lots of bread and pita. Turkish food is awesome so far. Not to mention, the restaurant had a roof-top terrace which had a FABULOUS view of the Blue Mosque. It was gorgeous, all lit up at night with birds flying all around it! As we were sitting there around 10:15ish, the city came awake as the final call to prayer of the day blasted out over speakers in Mosques around the entire city. It was a great moment at the end of a busy day...the group of us just sat there in silence, listening and soaking in the view as we sipped on our tea. What a great way to end Day 1 in Istanbul!
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