Spain

Hola from Spain!

AHHH LAST COUNTRY! Shortest blog post ever, ready go. Nothing to do in Cadiz, day 2 we trained over to Seville and have been here for 3 days. We went to the cathedral and climbed the bell tower, we have done lots of shopping, and lots of eating. Met up with SAS friends and every minute is a good one. I'm with Kat, Mere and Linz and I love travelling with them! Lots of funny moments. We're on a mission to do all these things last minute now and make it back to the boat. I cannot believe this trip is almost over. Really, what??? Anyway I love Spain, wish I knew more Spanish, and yeah, I will definitely be back.

Gotta run,

Love,
Hilary

Croatia

Bog from Croatia!

Another country down and only one more to go! Everybody is a strange combination of excited to go home and sad to be leaving all these fun adventures behind. People are in the best mopey mood possible. So what happened in Croatia…?

When we arrived in Dubrovnik it was freezing cold and rainy. It kind of felt like home. Croatia is a beautiful touristy country for about 10 months out of the year…and November is just not one of those months. All the exciting things to do were closed for the season or open and ridiculously expensive…there was nothing to do. For most SASsers, this meant getting completely trashed in the middle of the afternoon and taking over the old walled city. For my friends and myself, this meant finding an internet café and tourist agencies to plan out the rest of our trip in Croatia. Even the tourist agencies told us that there was literally nothing to do – a lot of help they were! So we decided to go to Split, and found a sweet looking hostel that boasted free internet for $20/night/person. We slept on the ship the first night and got up to take a 6 30 AM bus to Split. That was kind of exciting because we got to pass through Bosnia! Check off one more country I can say I’ve been to…and then 4 ½ hours later we arrived.

Once in Split we had to first find our hostel because we were carrying all of our bags. For me this means stuff was heavy because I’d brought my computer and schoolwork. The hostel was amazingly close to the bus station, and it was bigger and cleaner and more perfect than I could have imagined! Western toilets, a kitchen, 2 TVs with DVD players, 3 computers, extra towels….it was wonderful. After dropping our stuff off, we wandered the streets and looked for another travel agency. We finally found one in Diocletian’s Palace and we were like, “just tell us what’s open, we don’t care what we do we just want to do SOMETHING!!!” and he was like, “well, you could go rafting but most people don’t do that in November.” “Is it open?” “Yeah…” “Ok, we’ll do it.”

Oh yeah, my group: I was with Mary, Allie, and Lisa (who is my new favorite person on this trip and I really wish we would have become friends in the first couple weeks instead of the last!!), and a slew of other people that formed our large blob of a group.

With rafting set up, we searched for food. We found a restaurant called the Black Cat that had been recommended to us. We ran into a group of about 8 SAS guys and they told us the restaurant was great and we told them we just signed up for rafting. This is the first country we’ve been in with NO water/health warnings…so we all ate SALADS!! And it was great. And we didn’t have to take pepto beforehand or anything! After dinner we decided to have a quiet girls’ night at the hostel. With free internet, I skyped and uploaded pictures and caught up with lots of people and also watched a movie with everybody. We then went to bed pretty early to get rested for our exciting day ahead.

The next morning we were up early and met our raft guides at 9 30 AM. The boys came rafting with us, and they were a fun, though extremely hung over, group. The car ride up to the river was about an hour, and I was in a car with Mary and Brett and our driver, Iban. Iban used to be a national rugby team player and had lots of funny stories to tell us. Finally we arrived at the river site. They loaded us up with wetsuits, wet socks, wet shoes, a jacket, a life jacket, and a helmet. There was a funny moment when Tristan put his wet suit on backwards and looked like a goof. Finally we were all bundled up and actually not too cold with all that stuff on. I was in a raft with Mary, Allie, Tristan, Zubin, and Peter (who I’d never met before that day) and Iban was our guide. The rafting experience was sooo cool!! The river wasn’t that difficult and part of the fun was just being so freaking cold. But it felt good to paddle and get a little exercise and Iban’s stories were hilarious and the boys were pretty amusing as well. We had to get out at this one part where people die a lot and walk around it. During that break, they fed us candy bars and bananas and then we got to watch our super star raft guides bring our rafts single handedly down this hard part of the river!!! They were awesome. Then we got back in and did the slightly more advanced part of the river (it wasn’t as hard or scary as I thought it would be). We practiced doing swirlies down the river and also rammed one of the other boats just for fun. Like bumper boats. Tristan and I were in the front for this portion of the river, and at this one part everybody was supposed to get splashed and just Tristan and I did…we got soaked!!! It was Cold. Iban was really good with giving us directions so that we felt like we knew what we were doing. Pretty soon we got to this miniature cliff and he asked if anybody wanted to jump off of it. Our whole plan for Croatia was to be extreme, so we were like…we have to. Most of the boys wussed out, Allie wanted to jump but needed some coaxing, and I definitely needed to be talked into it. Which is when Mary just stood up and was like, “I’m going.” And we were like, “What?!? Now we have to go.” So we climbed up this rock, it was probably only 10 feet high, maybe higher, I don’t know. Mary went first and jumped off like it was no big deal. Then a couple of the boys went and the guides did some neat jumpy tricks. Long story short, I JUMPED!!! It was sooo scary and being in the air was really exhilarating. I couldn’t believe I’d just cliff jumped in Croatia in November….Crazy. When I hit the water, for a split second I didn’t feel anything…and then it hit me. SO COLD!!!!!! I could hardly speak or move when I came up for air. I doggie paddled with all my gear on to the raft and the guys helped me over the side of a the raft…I felt like a dead fish being pulled up. Anyway, that was quite the exciting thing to do. When we got back to land it was a major production getting people back into dry clothes. Finally we were ready to go and headed back into Split, where we defaulted to the Black Cat again and got dinner. We made a grocery store stop on the way back to the hostel and once there watched movies and played card games and hung low until we decided to go out. We wandered the town at night for a while and ran into some other SASsers. It was really fun just being out and about with everybody and walking around the city even though it was freezing cold. Eventually we went to bed, ending a great day.

We had to check out by 10 AM, so we were up pretty early. We ate breakfast (at the Black Cat of course) and then did all of our little touristy shopping. I really wanted to buy a jacket but I couldn’t find any that fit me perfectly so I didn’t want to spend the money on one. Plus I still get complimented on a regular basis every time I wear the jacket Jon got me. So we wandered the town down by the water for a while and decided to go get things pierced. It ended up being way more expensive than necessary, so I didn’t get anything pierced but Allie got her eyebrow pierced. She wins the Extreme award. Her parents are not going to be happy! Hahaha. We took an afternoon bus back into Dubrovnik and got back at about 7 30 – which was too bad cuz that means we just missed free dinner on the ship. We napped and lazed around until about 10 and then Mary, Allie, Jesse and I got 10 PM snack (Pizza and/or burgers). After that we were all exhausted, and crashed.

The last day we took a quick bus ride from the ship to the Old Walled City and started off our day with a really good lunch. Then we did the Walled City tour (self-guided) and spent hours walking around on the walls. Every single view from the wall was gorgeous, so we walked really slowly and took lots of pictures and went all the way around and that was our main activity of the day. After the walls, and even though we were cold, we got ice cream and did some last minute shopping before heading back to the ship.

Being back on the ship on the last day of port is hard, because everybody is getting back and sending last minute postcards and excited about their trip, but then in the back of your head you’re like, “I have so much homework to do it’s not even funny. Do I go work or talk with all these excited people?!” Oh, also people were freaking out because we only have one more port left…which is weird.

So anyway, I spent the next 4 days on ship furiously trying to catch up on reading, writing my psych paper, dealing with leadership and actually going to global studies (which is more than most people can say). We had an auction the other night and people spend RIDICULOUS amounts of money on something that they would not even pay for if it wasn’t in the auction. I’m talking like $750 for a bubble bath on ship. $2000 for dinner for 2 on the 7^th deck. WHAT?!?!? It was crazy. So that was weird. Oh also one of my professor’s step daughters is on the ship visiting from England. Her name is Sophie and she’s been hanging out with Mary and Jesse and I a lot so that’s really fun. The last pre-port meetings before Spain were kind of sad L We’re all into crunch-bonding-time now, so I’ve been having lots of good, fun conversations with lots of good people here. I really like a lot of the kids here and I think I will actually miss them. The next couple of weeks will be especially bittersweet. Also on the last day before Spain Lauren sat me down and made me watch Crash, which was an amazing movie! And other than that…not too much was happening on the ship. Everybody’s a weird combination of excited and mopey; so that’s a little bit strange to feel but completely expected.

More after Spain’s over.

Love,

Hilary

Turkey

I don’t know how to say Hello in Turkish.

I kind of wish they taught us more helpful phrases for the countries we visit…oh well. In Turkey I traveled with Ellen and her roommate Erica, Adam, Nate, and Bryce. Bryce goes to UW so I was glad he was on the trip. Adam and Nate did all the planning – so they’re champions, because they planned an amazing trip!

When we got off the boat we made our way via public transportation to the airport. We took a plane to a city in southwest Turkey called Antalya. From there we took taxis and busses to a smaller city called Olympos. Olympos has a population of about 200 people. In the summertime, this dream-world Mediterranean town gets about 2000 tourist visitors. So being there in November…means that it was a little bit colder, but we had the place virtually to ourselves! When we arrived it was dark and chilly, but we dropped our stuff down at our lodging (we rented out one tree house and one bungalow!) The difference between the tree house and the bungalow was that the tree house had no heating and you had to climb a few steps to get to the door. I stayed in the bungalow the first night and the tree house the second night. The people working at the resort place home cook all their food, they kind of take turns trying to outdo each other! Thus, our food was delicious and authentic and fully cooked (yay!) We had a yummy dinner and were pretty tired after traveling all day, but decided to go on an adventure! In the dark. We walked down some dark road towards the water, we kept passing by creepy ancient ruins and a dog found us and tagged along with us for the whole evening. Finally we made it to the water…it was gorgeous. The beach was covered in small pebbles, and out in the middle of nowhere there were no lights and no pollution to detract from the brilliant night sky. I saw more stars than I think I’ve ever seen. We saw shooting stars go across the black and it was outstandingly beautiful. We played the ha-ha game on the pebbles and finally us and the dog (Rabes, short for Rabies) headed back to base. We hung out in the lodge-esque building with a heater and cushions and had a relaxing evening.

The next day we got up and ate homemade breakfast (scrambled eggs, omelets, fried eggs with Greek olives, baguettes and cheese). Then we headed out for our sea kayaking adventure!!! We found a guide and went kayaking on the Mediterranean!! The temperature was about 75 degrees, unlike Istanbul which I think was cold and rainy (hah!) The water was clear blue and gorgeous!! Oh yeah, and warm…it was like pleasant bathwater. Adam flipped over in his kayak twice – which was hilarious both times. Bryce flipped over once. I didn’t get to enjoy the excitement of capsizing. We kayaked for a pretty long time and were all feeling it in our arms when we arrived at some sort of far off private beach. We played around in the sea for a little while and then headed back. After that we were all pretty tired. Back on shore we stopped by a little pancake place. This old woman who had only a very few teeth made us potato and cheese pancakes (and by pancake I basically mean a crepe). They were really good and we also had Turkish tea with them. It was awesome because it was a farm-type area so there were lots of chickens prancing about and…and bunny rabbit!!!! I promptly named him Oreo, and for good reason. He was so cute. After that we were all exhausted!!! So we lounged around on the outside cushions and listened to music and napped until dinner time. Part of dinner was stuffed green peppers and it made me miss Mommy’s cooking a lot. After dinner we went on this amazing night hike tour!!! The hike was harder than I expected, but after about 20 minutes we arrived…at this hill…where there are natural pockets in the earth’s crust where methane comes out and is burned. Naturally. Like the eternal flame of life. It was SO freaking cool!!!!! The whole hill side just had little flares popping out of it…so weird. It was amazing. After that we were even more tired and lounged around until it was bedtime.

Alright day 3…we ate breakfast again and used the internet for a little while. Then we went on a self-guided hike through the ancient roman ruins that were, you know, just laying around. We found a roman bath, a roman amphitheatre, a church, a castle, a sarcophagus, some tombs, and some other random old things! It’s crazy just walking around like normal…through ancient ruins. Bizarre. This whole experience is surreal, it’s like we’re all constantly dream walking through some fake fantasy life going, “are we really here? Is this really happening? We’re in Turkey?!?!” We climbed to the top of something and were rewarded by the most amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, picturesque view EVER!!! We went on a picture taking frenzy and could probably get rich off of making postcards out of them. We could see the blue water and the pebbly beach and paragliders and the rocks and trees and ruins and everything!! Then we walked around on the beach, looking at / collecting cool rocks, the boys did some small scale cliff jumping while the girls took a little model photo shoot on the beach J Then we headed back for lunch. After lunch we took a bus to another bus that took us back to Antalya. Then we took another bus, this one was one of the worst bus rides of my life I think (it was crowded and smelly and we had no idea where to get off and ended up getting off way past where we needed to be…and it was just bad). After we back tracked to our hotel we found out that it was way more expensive than advertised online. So we only got one room and planned on all 6 of us crashing there. We went up and set our stuff down and then went out to dinner. After dinner we met some random guy that drove us all around the town and took us to clubs and hotels and it was so much fun. We just ran around everywhere and had a blast! Then we got back to the hotel and they knew our scheme…and made us pay for another room, so that was a huge bummer. Anyway we were slightly too exhausted to care so we paid for it and crashed.

The next morning, after not very much sleep, we got up, packed up and took a taxi to the airport. We flew back to Istanbul where it was rainy and not 75 degrees…boo. We got some food before heading back to the ship. It was so nice to get back and have free food and a sanitary shower (the hotel’s bathroom / everything was disgusting!!) Then I group hopped how I do and met up with Mary, Allie, and Jesse. We went to a hookah bar that had free wireless internet and I tried Turkish coffee. Nobody warned me about how freaking disgusting it is!!!!! EWW. Anyway internet was good, and after that I was ready for sleep.

The next day we got up early and after breakfast that same small group and I headed out for the Blue Mosque. It was big and beautiful and a mosque. I don’t know what else to say about it. Then we went to the palace and saw some sweet expensive looking ancient objects…thrones, jewelry, seals, goblets, knives, wedding headdresses, the works. It was gorgeous! Then we had our Turkish Bath experience!!! We were separated from Jesse and changed carefully into our towels. Then we were taken to a 300 year old communal bathroom and promptly had a woman remove all three of our towels. We sat down on warm tiles and the woman poured bowls of warm/hot water over us. Then one by one we were selected to go into a different room. In this room you lay spread eagle on a slab of marble. Another lady pours more water on you and then brings out the scrubby weapon. It was in between a loofa and the dishwashing sponge you use to get the hard stuff off of skillets. It was a little painful but so worth it. After it was all over I’d never felt so clean before in my life. They scrape LAYERS of dead skin off of you and you can see the black peeling off in clumps. It’s disgusting. After that this pillowy, silky thing washed over my body, no idea what it was other than Amazing. When I opened my eyes I was covered in millions of bubbles. It was like being in a bubble bath without the … bath. They soaped us and massaged us and washed our hair. Then they rinsed us all off and sent us back to the first room where we continued to pour bowls of water over ourselves. Then they wrapped each of us in three towels each and we met up with Jesse and the guys that happened to also be in his bath. We all sipped on apple tea and rejoiced in our cleanliness and finally put our clothes back on. From there we got chicken pitas for lunch and then temporarily separated. I went to go see the cistern (ancient water reservoir for the city…amazing). Then I met back up with them and we wandered the streets and bought fun things. I headed back to the ship with Allie and another girl, Kendra. We grabbed our computers and went back to the internet café. We drank more apple tea (it’s huge here) and skyped and interneted. I made it back to the ship with only 10 minutes to spare! It was a little nerve racking but not too much. I wrote some last minute postcards and then chatted with people and cram-read my politics book that I had to do a book report on.

Back on the ship…I spent the whole next day reading and sleeping and trying to write my stupid book report. I had to give a group presentation in my leadership class which went better than I thought it would. My part went really well – I didn’t talk too fast!!! And my professor really liked the examples I used and…yeah I felt really good about that, even though my group is like beyond dysfunctional. I don’t know how we pulled it off. Anyway. I eventually got my book report done, thanks to Joe who is smart and helped me. I went to bed late and got up early to finish it up and go to class. The good thing about that class period was that I got my last quiz back – which I somehow aced. I think he might be grading me easier than everybody else cuz I highly doubt I deserve perfect scores on anything politics related…yeah. Other than that things are fun on the ship. It was stormy and everybody felt sick that night. I’ve been hanging out with Mary a lot and very much enjoying her company. I might be traveling with Kat and Mere again in Spain so I’m pumped for that. Dave, my surrogate grandfather, is taking me out to formal dining, which is where you pay $25 to eat food significantly better than the normal ship food, and you have to dress up to go. So he is treating me and another girl he’s adopted on the ship and his wife is coming and we’re all SO excited!!! Also, the Ambassador’s Ball is coming up and I got my table figured out for that. It will be Ellen, Erica, and Nate (who I traveled with in Turkey) plus two other girls named Brittany and Stevie. That’s the night where everybody dresses up and everybody gets good food and then there’s some kind of dance afterward. Should be really high school-esque and fun. Other ship board news / drama, some kids did a variety of bad things and were supposed to get kicked off, but their rich parents called and got them to be allowed to stay. Captain Jeremy said no, I have final authority on this ship I want these idiot immature children off. ISE said, no, we’re vetoing your power as a CAPTAIN (you are NOT supposed to do that!!!!)….so after this Captain Jeremy will not be participating in Semester at Sea voyages. It’s really sad. He’s been with us for a while and done a ton of voyages. And those kids are just retarded. They wonder why they supposedly don’t get treated as adults…come on. A lot of people are pissed that they’re allowed to stay. Anyway drama drama drama, but I’m not a part of any of it. Life is good, I can’t believe how soon I’m coming home!!! I’m starting to have extremely mixed feelings about all of that…everybody’s shocked we only have 2 countries left…it’s weird.

Alright thanks for reading however much of this you did; take care!!

Love,

Hilary

Egypt + Photo Summary Thus Far

HAWAII: Mary and I splashing around on Waikiki Beach.








JAPAN: Lindsay, Katie, Jenna, Kat, me, Stevie, Ellen - in Nara at the Temple of the Great Buddha.







CHINA: At the Great Wall...duh.










CAMBODIA: At Angkor Wat!!








THAILAND: With BuBu, my elephant!!








INDIA: With the Indian girls I played basketball with!!








EGYPT: Of course, me on a camel wrapped in a turban-esque shawl in front of the pyramids at 6 30 AM.







SHIP LIFE: I see stuff like this every day...be jealous.

FRIENDS: Ally, Kendra, me, Mary, Jordan - some of the girls here that I like.

FAMILY: Surrogate grandfather, Dr. Dave Smith + me dressed like a hippie.







Salaam from Egypt!! Hope you enjoyed some of my favorite pictures from the voyage so far.

Man, we're going to be in Turkey in just a few hours - I'm so behind!!!!! AHHH. But I am caught up on my personal and politics journals, so that's good. But I also feel like I'm going to fail out of school. Honestly I don't know how they expect us to do everything. Anyway here is a super quick run down.

Everybody told us that Egypt was THE place to travel with a boy, with a group, etc. So two girls and I headed out by ourselves. We're all 20, Kat's from Chicago and Meredith's from Wisconsin. First day off the boat we paid $30 to get from Alexandria to Cairo, when it should have cost about $20 or less, and it took 6 hours instead of 2, but that's cool...Once in Cairo, we actually went to Giza and found a little three star hotel. That night we went to go see belly dancing and eat dinner on a Nile River cruise. We made our reservations on time (a huge feat given the cab drivers are INCOMPETENT) only to find that there was no belly dancing that night and also that the boat wasn't actually sailing that night and also that dinner was Chinese food...hahahah. "Adventure time!" is my motto. After dinner we crashed, because on Day 2....

We woke up at 345 AM, had coffee at 415, got to the pyramids at 5 30, and rode horses out to the pyramids to watch the sunrise. It was FABULOUS!!! So many beautiful pictures! We were all so tired and so excited. We rented horses and a man and just spent the morning out there by ourselves. We also hopped on a camel at some point, mostly just to take pictures. Then we went to a perfume shop where they make essences and that was fun. We took a cab to an area of town called Islamic Cairo. We explored on foot, shopped, bought postcards, went to the post office, went to travel agencies, and just kinda bummed around trying to figure out what to do. Our guide book was a useless piece of crap and quickly earned itself a bad nickname that was used constantly over the next 4 days. We finally found an internet cafe and crashed there for a couple hours. After that we were rejuvenated, it was better than a nap. We went to a restaurant and got some super authentic Egyptian food - we had NO idea what it was when we ordered it, but it was good! Yay for trying new things! Then we made our way to the Conrad Cairo and waited for an SAS trip to show up. We lounged around the five star lobby and ended up staying in that night, crashing on our friends' beds for free (illegally).

Day 3: Up and at it at 7 AM, we spontaneously decided to trek back up north to Rosetta, where the Rosetta stone was discovered. That was a little bit of a hassle, but we made it. We walked around that town, that was super cute and not touristy, before taking a boat ride down the Nile to go see a mosque. Then we ate lunch in an empty room on the 11th floor of the one hotel in Rosetta overlooking the entire city and river...gorgeous. Food took forever (hopefully not because they were killing an animal we just passed on the street, but possibly) and was kind of cold by the time it got to us. It was a good break to just sit and chat somewhere isolated and beautiful. After that we headed back to Alexandria. We used another internet cafe and then went shoe shopping (sucessfully!!!) before going back to the ship.

Day 4: We went and looked for cartouches (jewelry with your name on it in heiroglyphics) for Meredith. Then we tried to reserve a belly dancing show but somehow couldn't find ANY! Bummer. Then we went to the Alexandria Library which was nothing less than fabulous. It was truly amazing. There we met this girl named Walaa.......which led to the collective best day of our lives!! She wasn't busy so we invited her out to lunch. She paid for our transportation and took us around town before landing at a coffee shop with us. We must have been there for two hours just chatting and eating, it was a blast. She was 19 and we all got along great. Then she invited us to hang out with her family later that night...and we were like YEAH we wanna do that!!!! How cool will that be?? So after lunch we went grocery shopping and got some amazing ice cream, went back to the ship, dropped all our stuff off, and headed back to the library to meet up with her. Her dad was waiting for us, and drove Kat, Mere, Ellen, Lindsay, Walaa, and myself around all night. He bought us chocolate and sodas, got us through gates and guards to incredible photo-op places, took us to an Egyptian wedding parties, to the King's Palace, to a beautiful little bridge...just all over! Finally we got to a bike rental place...and he rented us all bikes!! So we rode bikes on the beach for about half an hour (on a cement board walk type thing)...and it was amazing, we were all just smiling and laughing non stop. Then we went back to her house/apartment. We met her two brothers and her two sisters, her mom and her dad's friend. We celebrated 7 year old Mohamed's birthday with the most luxurious cakes (yes, plural) you've ever seen. We danced all night to Arabic and American music. We talked about politics and ate fruit we'd never seen before. It was glorious. It was so hard to leave...but finally her dad DROVE us all the way back to the ship at 3 AM in the morning, so we arrived at 330 and he wouldn't let us pay for a thing. Back safe and sound, we were exhilirated and exhausted.

Day 5: Last day...we went to Pompey's Pillar first, which was awesome, and then walked to the Catacombs. Those tombs were AMAZING!!! So freaking cool / creepy / ancient...after that we went to a nice place for lunch and bought a ton of food. Good Egyptian food. Kabobs, chicken, cheese sambosas (SO GOOD, like fried raviolli), Egyptian rice, Puri bread, like 10 different sauces/dips/hummus things...it was a feast. And after that we got cappuccinos and some sort of doughnut-y with ice cream dessert. Then we headed to a shopping center to buy an Arabic music CD that Walaa recommended to us, and headed back to port. I wanted to find an internet cafe, so Mere and Kat went back to the ship and Jesse came exploring with me. There was one close to the port that was over crowded, over priced, and the internet kept crashing. I was like, no way, I know there's something else close by. I FOUND IT. Probably because I'm awesome. It was nearly empty, half the price (aka what it should be), and worked nearly perfectly. Actually the conversation went like this.

Me: Internet?
Boy: Yeah.
Me: How much?
Boy: (thinks) ... 5 pounds.
Me: No, 3.
Boy: No, 4.
Me: No, I did this yesterday for 3.
Boy: OK, 3.
AND THAT IS HOW I WIN AT LIFE.

And that pretty much sums up Egypt. Walaa and her family took the cake for being a part of my favorite day in port so far. I'm much less afraid of the middle east now and I would absoultely love to come back to Alexandria!! Now on to Turkey!

Love,
Hilary