While I spent the first day simply roaming around and exploring, the rest of my stay was much, much more structured because I was on an SAS-sponsored trip for three days and two nights where we visited Sevilla (Seville), Cordoba (Cordova), and Granada. These are basically the three major cities in the Andalucian region of Spain (the southern region along the Mediterranean). So it began that, in the early morning of my second day in Spain, I exhaustedly stumbled onto a tour bus headed for Sevilla.

After falling asleep for an hour or two (or three…), I woke up to a view I had never really bothered to anticipate– the Spanish countryside. The landscape was, quite simply, indescribable, though I feel obligated to try. Imagine Kansas farmland. Not the mundane virescence of fields of soybeans or corn, though. We’re talking vibrant fields of golden wheat, amber waves of motherfucking grain, the kind of flora that makes Kansas almost enjoyable as far as the eye can see. Now superimpose this color and texture onto some of the hilliest, nay, the hilliest terrain you can possibly imagine. This was like seersucker to Kansas’ flat, silken topography. There were hills that looked like they were created only to make the view that much more insane. I took pictures, but even they won’t be able to do this landscape justice. Even more than the natural beauty of this environment, the hills were dotted with all kinds of manmade structures. The whitewashed, rundown farmhouses were the very definition of quaint. The olive orchards stretched in perfectly straight, evenly spaced rows far past what I could see. I couldn’t help but relate the surprisingly large numbers of wind turbines (which Spain is supposedly leading the innovation of) to the ever-present windmills in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. That some would describe a nation powered by wind as a quixotic fantasy is now much more than ironic to me.

And the sunflowers! I don’t know how the hell Kansas gets away with being called the Sunflower State. We don’t have shit on the Spaniards. Almost as prevalent as the olive orchards were vast plots filled with sunflowers bigger than I thought it possible. Later, in Sevilla, I would see a little girl walking around holding a sunflower head that was as big as her torso, picking out seeds to much on. I had never heard that sunflower farming was so prevalent here, but between the fields of wheat, the sunflowers, and the hot Summer weather, I couldn’t help but be reminded of home, which was nice.

Once in Sevilla, we went straight to the Alcazar. Wikitravel describes the alcazar as follows:
The Real Alcázar is a beautiful palace in Mudéjar (Moorish) style, built in the XIV Century by Pedro I the Cruel. With its myriad of rooms, extravagant architecture, lavish gardens with many courtyards, ponds and secrets to be explored, it is a fascinating place to visit. Be sure to check out the room where Christopher Columbus’s journey to the Americas were planned. You can see his coat of arms embroidered on the wall along with many other royals. In the heat of summer it offers a cool retreat from the suns glare and can quite easily keep you occupied for a few centuries, if not all of your life.

I found this especially enjoyable (as with many things in Spain) because I learned about the Alcazar during my four years of Spanish in high school. This didn’t illuminate the experience to any meaningful extent, but it was kind of reassuring to realize that the things I learn in class don’t only exist in books and on tests. The Alcazar itself was magnificent. Every single room had a different geometric pattern covering its floor, walls, and ceiling. The Koran explicitly forbids images of Allah or of human forms in general, so this was one of the only options they had for decorating their holy places. They also had a very advanced system of calligraphy. Whereas Christian faiths depict scenes from the holy text in art, Muslim artists can’t do this. Instead, passages from the holy text are the art, and each bit of decoration and detail goes into creating glorious calligraphy. I found this distinction interesting. I also found it funny that, though the palace was built in the Moorish (Muslim) style, it was lived in by Catholic Kings. All around these rooms with walls covered in calligraphic “Praise Allah” were plaques and signs saying “God is Great” or “Christ is our Savior”. The opposition was ironic, but I found it more captivating when I began to wonder if, aside from the languages, the statements really said anything different. How is “Praise Allah” any different than “Praise Jesus”? For as much blood was shed between the Catholics and the Moors, it seems they didn’t really disagree on much. The gardens of the Alcazar were also amazing and beautiful.

We ate lunch in the Jewish Quarter of Sevilla, described here: The Jewish Quarter (Barrio Santa Cruz) is located around the Cathedral. It is filled with small winding streets and is generally regarded as the most charming part of the city, but it is also fairly touristy.

It was touristy, but not annoyingly so. The lunch we had was AMAZING. Whoever planned this lunch really did their job well. All 40+ of us tired, hot, and generally boisterous students noisily assaulted this charming, quiet cafe, and they managed us very well. There was bread, water, and bottles of wine waiting at every table. Lunch consisted of about five courses of random tapas, all of which were unique and tasty. I even enjoyed an olive, which is probably a first for me. I also enjoyed about half a bottle of wine, which made the rest of the tour much more enjoyable and helped by ignore the 110F+ degree weather.

After lunch, we proceeded to the Cathedral of Seville. Wikipedia describes this as follows:
The Cathedral of Seville was once judged the third largest church in the world after Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s in London, it is now arguably the largest church in the world when compared using the measurement of volume. Seville’s fifteenth century cathedral occupies the site of the former great mosque built in the late twelfth century. The central nave rises to an awesome 37 metres over a total area of 11,520 square metres. The Cathedral is the final resting place of the remains of Christopher Columbus.

Straight up, Cathedrals aren’t my thing. I think I’ve seen enough so far for two lifetimes. The size and grandeur of this one in particular was impressive, but that’s about all I can say. It was just too hard to focus on any one aspect of the interior. The coolest thing about this Cathedral was that in looked like the palace from “The Beauty and the Beast” from the outside. I can see, however, that for the more Catholically-inclined this would have been a very interesting place.

We left Sevilla in the mid-afternoon, much to the dismay of those who had heard of the amazing nightlife there. The plan was to arrive in Cordoba, check into the hotel, eat dinner at the hotel, and then have the evening to ourselves there before going on tours of the highlights of the city the next day. Our hotel was interesting to me. You wouldn’t think the hotels in Europe are any different, or at least I didn’t, but they are. It took some of us an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to turn on the lights because you have to insert your room key into the light switch. This saves energy because you can’t leave the lights on when you leave the room. The bidet in the bathroom was unexpected, though not unsurprising. The best part of the hotel was that it was called the “hotel de gallo”, which I’m pretty sure means “chicken hotel”.

After a mediocre, but not unsatisfactory, dinner, a couple of us walked down the street to a kind of shopping district just to explore the city. Eventually, we returned to the hotel with plans to dress up and go out. Spain, for those that aren’t aware, operates with different norms of time than Americans. We were looked at funny by some for leaving to go out at about 11:30pm. We had vaguely heard of a strip with some bars and clubs all in the same location, but honestly had no idea where we were going with our group of about 10 random SASsers. We first went in a direction which led us to a pretty ghetto part of town. I was a little worried, but probably without warrant. The area looked shady, but was literally empty except for our group. No one else was outside walking. No lights were on in the buildings. This made things kind of ominous, but it meant there was no one around to shank me. Things were relatively calm. That is, until I almost got arrested…

I now say that just to sound exciting, but at the time I literally thought I was going to go to Spanish jail and never be heard from again. Here’s what happened: after walking around for an annoyingly long time, a couple of us decided to hop into a liquor store to buy a couple beers. The owners of the store spoke a little English, but almost no Spanish whatsoever, which I found weird. They were Asian immigrants, and I’m pretty sure they were new to the area because they couldn’t give us directions to anywhere. So I buy a Heineken or two, and walk outside back towards my friends. All of a sudden, I feel a hand on my shoulder and a big guy shows me a badge and says “Policia!” I almost shit my pants. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, but when you’re a stranger to a country, barely speak the language, and two people dressed in uniforms approach you shouting angrily and in another language, reason goes out the window. Fortunately, there were a couple people in our group from South America who spoke excellent Spanish. After a couple minutes of frantic uncertainty, they told me that the liquor store I bought the beer from didn’t have a license to sell alcohol past 10pm. Basically, I hadn’t done anything wrong. They just wanted my information to give the store a citation. We were all pretty suspicious, though. Apparently it’s not uncommon for random people to pose as cops in order to take passport information from people. The cops kept asking me for my passport, which I left at the hotel, and were seemingly not content with the Kansas Driver’s License and KU Student ID I gave them. With that terrifying but hilarious experience over, we continued on in search of a bar or disco.

After about half an hour, we arrived at a really, really chic bar close to the clubs. The entire building was made of glass, and we could see random lasers and strobes flashing inside. We could hear techno music blasting from inside from about 100 meters away. We found a couple tables to post up at outside, where the temperature was perfect. Enjoyment ensued. Everyone in the group got to know each other, since we really only met on the bus the day before. I tried about three different kinds of Spanish beer, most of which were pretty good. We bought a bottle of some unbelievably delicious honey rum, which I want to find again sometime. It started with an A… After about an hour of hanging out outside, laughing and having a generally good time, some Spanish homies took notice of us and came to talk. We were excited to try our Spanish and they were even more excited to speak English. The group of people around our table eventually swelled to 20+, and this was when the owner of the bar took notice (in a good way). He emerged from inside with a big smile on his face and invited all of us to go upstairs (through a really badass secret doorway) to the VIP lounge and he started giving us free shots. Being a little tipsy, and thus friendlier than normal, I struck up a conversation with the DJ and he let me pick a couple tracks to play. Daft Punk means awesomeness in any language.

After awhile here, our new Spanish compadres invited us to follow them to una discoteca, which we eagerly agreed to. We got lost for awhile… I think. After about a 20 minute walk, we arrived at this tiny-looking dance club. We debated whether or not to go in, but then decided that we couldn’t turn down the potential stories that could come from the experience. Inside, the disco was HUGE. Two floors, about as big as a gymnasium, packed to the brim. I danced horrendously (if you can call it dancing) for about an hour or so before we decided to leave. At about 5am, I stumbled back into my hotel room and passed out on the bed. Needless to say, I had had a great night.

Two hours later, my roommate shook me awake. I had about 15 minutes to shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, and pack up before we had to be back on the bus for our tours in Cordoba. Somehow I pulled this off without injuring myself too badly.

I don’t have much to say about what we saw in Cordoba, because it really wasn’t much. We saw another important Cathedral I had learned about in High School. The coolest thing about it was how many pillars it had. The Moorish architects used hundreds of domes and pillars to create an amazingly expansive open area. I found the Cathedral enjoyable, but not amazing. From what I recall, this is all we really did in Cordoba that day, which was kind of disappointing. I think a lot of people would have preferred to spend the first night in Sevilla, and then briefly stop at the Cathedral in Cordoba on the way to Granada, but we clearly at a great night in Cordoba anyway.

After we were done in the Cathedral, we set off for Granada. The views along the way started off identical to the ones I had seen the day before, but, as we traveled further East, they began to change. The colors began to fade. Foliage became more sparse. Lush beds of grass were replaced by dirt and sand. The whole environment began to resemble more of a desert than a farmland, but in a distinctly Mediterranean way. I remember the change in scenery vividly because I had just read a chapter on the ecology of the Mediterranean for Global Studies. After several hours, we pulled over a hill to see Granda below, settled in a large, flat valley surrounded by tall, snow-peaked mountains. Our hotel was on the edge of the city, where the terrain became more steep as we moved closer to the mountains. From there you can see out over the top of the entire city.

After settling into our hotel rooms, a couple of us walked down the touristy road towards the Alhambra, the most famous and largest Moorish fortress. This was another thing I learned about in Spanish class, but never really bothered to conceive how amazingly large it is. The Alhambra is essentially an entire walled city, with dozens of square miles worth of gardens, palaces, shops, and homes. We only walked along the outside of one of the walls that night, but I think we were all astounded by how big the entire complex is. We returned to the hotel for dinner, then hiked back up the hill behind the hotel to enjoy the view of the entirety of Granada. We spent over an hour here, watching the sun set over the city behind the mountains. At the point in the trip, this was the most amazing view I’d ever seen. I took a very large number of pictures and videos to remember it by.

I didn’t do much that night. Mostly we just hung out in the hotel lobby and mourned the death of Michael Jackson. After awhile, I went back to the room to enjoy free wifi. We all knew the next day would be exhausting. The plan was to spend several hours in the morning walking around the Alhambra before driving six hours back to Cadiz.

In short, the Alhambra was amazing. There were so many aspects to it that I’m not quite sure where to begin. I expected it to be as simple as visiting a Cathedral or something, but describing it is really as complicated as having to describe a big city in just a paragraph or two. The first part we visited were the gardens, which were beautiful. There were all kinds of fountains and pools that were fed with mountain spring water by a stil-functional aqueduct. There were flower trees, fruit trees, topiaries, and tunnels made out of rose bushes. All of the buildings had the same type of Moorish geometric designs I saw in Sevilla. We walked through the royal chambers and saw where the Moorish kings (e.g. Boabdil) sat on the thrown. We strolled through the part of the city where the regular people lived and you could still clearly see the foundations and cellars where the houses used to be. We walked past the back gate of the city, where Boabdil ran from when the Alhambra was finally seized by the Catholics. We saw the palaces constructed by the Catholics once they inhabited the fortress and then walked back through the gardens towards the exit of the complex. There was so much I could describe, but I’d rather just share the pictures instead.

The six hour drive back wasn’t as painful as people expected, except that the people behind me on the bus talked loudly literally the entire way back so I couldn’t get any of my reading done for class the next day. It wasn’t a problem, though. I just slept the entire way back.

The four days I spent in Spain seemed like a week at the very least, probably because I did so much. Still, it wasn’t nearly enough time for me. I especially wish I would have spent more time in Cadiz, and I very much want to go back and stay there for at least a week or two.

We arrived in Cadiz (cAdeezth) on the morning of the June 24th, and I woke up to see the area around the port from my cabin window. This was especially exciting because it was the first time I’d seen Europe first-hand. I was immediately stricken by architecture I could see and the obvious influences from other cultures. After all, Cadiz is the oldest city in Western Europe, as it was founded around 1200 BCE by the Phoenicians (Global Studies is useful!). I began to marvel about how some of the buildings were 300 years old, how they had been around over 10 times longer than the oldest American historical sites. I could see Moorish domes and towers as well as a modern bus station.

It was about 7am when I woke up, and far too early to leave the ship. In my groggy excitement, I ran upstairs to the sixth deck to get a better view from outside. My mood shifted from good to great as I toured around the upper decks enjoying the view and looking for things that peaked my interest, but there really wasn’t that many interesting things going on around the port, so I decided to enjoy breakfast, which I rarely get to do. I piled my plate high with eggs, sausage, ham, etc., found a great spot outside with a view of both the Ocean and the city, and popped in my headphones. Kanye really made my first meal in Europe that much more exciting, I kid you not. A couple of my friends joined me and we all talked about our plans for Spain and what we were looking forward to.

After breakfast, I returned to my cabin to shower and prepare for an early FDP (SAS-sponsored field trip led by a professor, usually more educational than other trips). I was drying off when Erik yelled at me that my bags had arrived. I had forgotten that they were coming, and was so excited for Spain that the inconvenience of not having them wasn’t even on my mind. Needless to say, though, I was fucking thrilled. Some crew members wheeled them into the cabin while I rocked out, playing air guitar in my excitement. Yes, that actually happened. Needless to say, I was in probably the best mood I’d been in for a long time. All the misfortunes I’d experienced since leaving home had been reconciled. I had clothes, camera chargers, deodorant, candy, and, on top of everything, I was in Spain! Everyone was actually in a great mood because we could finally get off the boat and enjoy land.

I threw on some of MY CLEAN CLOTHES (they’re still luxurious, even a week later), and made plans for the rest of the day before grabbing my passport from the Purser’s desk and proceeding outside and down the gangway. As I stepped onto firm ground for the first time in a week, I was again overwhelmed by the amazingness of this trip. I thought not of what was to come so much as what had already occurred. I had only been gone from home for a week, and yet it felt like a month. I had learned so much (in class, but especially out), met so many amazing people, and even changed so much, and only then was I even stepping foot in another country. SAS has already proven to be an amazing experience, even without the amazing opportunity for cultural understanding and travel.

I scuttled down the pier, anxious to hop on our tour bus for my FDP, which was called “Churches of Cadiz”. It was a requirement for my Faith & Doubt class, and was accompanied by our professor. I didn’t really know much about the itinerary, just that there would be a bus tour of Cadiz followed by a walking tour when we would visit some churches. I boarded the huge tour bus (I don’t think I’d ever been on a chartered bus before this), and quickly met the people around me, one of whom had also just received his bags and was in almost as great of a mood as I was. The bus headed out from the port, and our tour guide introduced herself. We then traveled all around the edge of old Cadiz, which is basically on a small peninsula. We saw the old walls that used to protect the city, the new lock-shaped monument symbolizing free press, and the old lighthouses on the beach where part of James Bond: Die Another Day was filmed. This was pretty funny, as the tour guide repeatedly referred not to James Bond but to “Bond James Bond”, and I got a kick out of that. We eventually returned to an area near the port and exited the bus to begin the walking tour of Cadiz towards the two major Cathedrals, the so-called Old Cathedral and the New Cathedral.

First was the New Cathedral, and we began walking in its general direction. Fortunately, Cadiz is tiny. As in, you can walk across the town in about twenty minutes max. The streets of Cadiz are cobblestone and very narrow. I didn’t even think they were streets, but just alleyways. Because the town is so tiny, few people have cars, but there is actually underground parking nearly everywhere for people who do. I thought that was a great solution to parking in an old city instead of tearing town buildings. We also passed by a group of people make all kinds of annoying racket, and the tour guide explained that these were people protesting outside of city hall about how there were no jobs in Cadiz. Apparently they have been protesting like this every day for quite some time, but there really isn’t much that the municipal government can do about it. We quickly arrived at what I expected to be a fancy church, but was actually quite plain in appearance. This is firstly because it’s so old, but also because many of the outside decorations were removed when they built the new Cathedral and transported there to save money. We went through a museum just next to the Cathedral and saw some pretty neat artifacts, most of which I took pictures of. Apparently Catholics make up over 95% (one tour guide said 99%) of the population of Spain. I didn’t realize how predominantly Catholic the country is, but the religious reverence was definitely evident as we proceeded through the museum.

Apparently depictions of Mary have special significance to Catholics of Cadiz, and we saw a lot of paintings of her, some of which were at least 8 ft tall! Other neat things I saw were choir books that were really large and ornamented with awesome calligraphy. They had the entire collection of choir books the cathedral had used over hundreds of years, and I found that pretty cool. This was the first time I’d ever really seen really old Christian artifacts, and I never actually realized how embellished they are. Nearly everything was made of pure gold or silver, and most had a crazy amount of precious gems too. The monstrances, which are used to hold the Host for communion, were especially intricate, and I took plenty of pictures of these.

Eventually we moved into the actual Old Cathedral, which wasn’t anything like what I expected. The center of the inside actually seemed quite plain, but there were little enclaves all around the outside edge, each displaying a different scene that people would pray to. Many had what were essentially ornate mannequins of saints or other figures, but others had scenes from the Bible and even sarcophagi. At the front of the church, there was a very elaborate altar and background to the altar that stretched to the ceiling. I don’t remember much of it, just that it was quite impressive. Apparently people are able to be married in this Cathedral, but the waiting list at least 3 years long, so many women sign up before they actually meet someone. I found this not at all surprising.

We next walked toward the New Cathedral, which wasn’t far at all away. Passing through some especially tiny streets and alleys, I began to realize that there was graffiti EVERYWHERE, not just in these alleys, but on the main streets and buildings, too. It’s not that graffiti was new to me, but this was a whole new level and something I could never have expected. I also noticed that a lot of the graffiti was politically inspired, and I saw more than one large tag of the symbol for anarchy. Throughout my stay in Cadiz, I noticed a lot of political graffiti, posters, and general activism. There were posters for a “concerto de libertad”, flyers and signs supporting communism or at least anti-capitalism, and quite a few animal-rights posters opposing bull fighting. I found this prevalence of passion and activism inspiring, especially considering the apathy with which many Americans treat politics.

After the tiny Old Cathedral, I was amazed when we arrived in a giant plaza with the ginormous New Cathedral towering above it. The plaza had a Ben & Jerry’s in it, which reminded me of home, and all kinds of people enjoying meals at cafes and children playing with each other. We walked into the Cathedral and I was immediately stricken by it’s grandiose scale. I remember my chest becoming heavy as I looked skyward and barely saw the ceilings hundreds of feet above. The Cathedral as a whole is really beyond words, not because it was particularly exciting for me, but just because of its scale. I really am speechless in coming up with ways to describe the architecture, design, and ornamentation. Particular things I remember being surprised about were the towering pipes of the organs, which I didn’t expect to be so lavish. I also thought the layout of this Cathedral and, as I would see later in Spain, most Cathedrals, was kind of odd. The buildings themselves are huge, open spaces, but the altars and pews are right in the middle and don’t take up a particularly large amount of room. I could completely relate, though, with what the designers of the church had in mind. I imagine that they wanted people to be awestruck by the immensity and grandeur of the building, and I certainly was.

The tour proceeded into the crypts of the Cathedral, and as we descended the steps I saw a Spaniard exit with tears streaming down his eyes. For Catholics, I imagine that the feelings inspired by such an ancient and powerful place would be overwhelming. I had some serious goosebumps, and I’m not even Catholic. In the crypts, there were three wings. One had the famous composer Miguel de Falla buried in it, who actually composed the tune that the bells of the church play. One of the other housed the graves of saints, and the last held tombs for noblemen that donated a lot to the church.

After looking around a bit more, we left the New Cathedral and exited back into the Plaza, where there was now a street performer playing some very Spanish-sounding music on the guitar. I recorded about a minute of it. We then walked back toward the boat, through the main shopping district. There were all kinds of street vendors and shops, but also big stores like Lacoste. I enjoyed walking through the narrow streets and seeing the bustle of everyday Spaniards shopping. It provided some great people-watching opportunities.

We finally emerged from one of the streets to see the ship. It’s really interesting how you have no idea where things are with the streets so narrow and the buildings so high and close together, but it’s kind of fun to get lost. Before returning to the ship, we stopped by a really large fountain and monument dedicated to the Spanish constitution, which the Spanish will soon celebrate the 200th anniversary of. I thought this was another cool example of reverence for political activity and, being myself a strong constitutionalist, I found the monument particularly interesting.

After seeing the monument, the tour was over and we were free to either go explore Cadiz or return to the ship. I headed back onboard to relax for a little bit, and wait to meet up with a friend to go explore town. This friend, let’s call her Rachel, had arranged to meet up with a local she met from the website couchsurfing. Basically people can list themselves here to either house people for the evening or just show people around town and grab a drink or meal with them, and it’s all free.

After about an hour, I met up with Rachel and her roommate, and we headed into Cadiz. We were supposed to meet the local, named David, at the beach on the other side of Cadiz, but we had a lot of time, so we took the long route. After cruising through some of the streets and exploring a couple of the large Plazas (the concept of which I wasn’t really familiar with before this trip), we walked through some botanical gardens along the coast. I had passed by these gardens on the bus tour earlier in the morning, and so I knew a little bit about them. The gardens housed all kinds of trees and plants, some of which were native to Spain. A lot of them, though, had been imported from South America when Spain held a trade monopoly with the Americas in the 1500s. There were trees here that I had never even seen pictures of before and a lot of spiral-shaped and cylindrical topiaries, too. There were dirt paths that wound threw the gardens, but the ocean was usually in sight. We ran into some pretty cool things in the gardens, including a giant pigeon cage that pigeons were free to visit and leave whenever. I guess it was a pretty cool place for pigeons to hang out, though, because there were hundreds of them all in this once small space. We also walked past a miniature waterfall and walked underneath and over the top of it, where we had a great view of the ocean and of the city. The wildlife in the gardens was also really awesome. Firstly, and I noticed this throughout Spain, there were stray cats EVERYWHERE. I probably saw twenty in the gardens alone, and they were just chilling, taking naps on the ground. I’m familiar with the idea of cities having lots of stray cats from some of the stories and movies I watched when I was little, but I’ve never actually witnessed such a situation, and it was kind of startling. There were also wild parrots and parakeets flying through the trees, and I thought that was really cool. There were also a lot of different fruit trees around, including a ton of oranges and cacti with prickly pears.

We left the gardens and continued down the sidewalk along the coast and eventually reached the beach (la playa) by the lighthouse where “Bond James Bond” had been filmed. Here we met David, and his friend Julio. David’s english was very good, if a little heavily accented, but Julio barely spoke any at all. We introduced ourselves, and found a nice spot in the sand (la arena). The five of us talked about all kinds of things for a while, and I had a great chance to practice my English. I had David teach me how to say “Sorry, I’m only a stupid American” (Lo siento. Soy solamente un americano tanto) in case I accidentally offended anyone. We found out that David was actually from Argentina, Julio from Chile, and that they really just decided to move to Cadiz because they loved the town and its atmosphere. Julio and I had a really broken conversation, which was sort of awkward due to the language barrier, but it was obvious that we were both enjoying the process of friendly communication and the opportunity to practice our foreign language skillz.

After a while, Julio and I left the group to go play a game right along the shore, with the tide ebbing and flowing at our feet. I should know what the game is; it’s not really foreign. Basically we just had two plastic paddles and a rubber ball that we hit back and forth. I’m going to call it paddleball, even though I’m pretty sure that’s wrong. Anyway, we played paddleball along the shore, and it was a fun experience, but not just because of the game. It was really weird, but I couldn’t help but recognize that the game and sports/athletics in general acted as another way of communicating between the two of us. Even though we could only barely communicate in English or Spanish, the game and our behaviors about it were really a universal language that allowed us to get to know one another and connect. It’s really hard to describe, but I definitely enjoyed the moment, and I think he did too.

After David and Julio went for a swim (I wanted desperately to jump in the ocean, but didn’t bring my swimsuit), we packed out things up and left the beach. David invited us to check out his apartment and hang out for a while, and we stopped at el supermercado on the way, where I got some bomb ass naranja-mango juice for less than a euro. David’s apartment was really quaint. It was different from anything I’d seen before, but not necessarily because it was in Spain. I feel like if I went to an apartment in downtown NYC, it might be similar. Everything was just really cramped, but not in a bad way. Things were obviously old, but not nonfunctional. I actually thought it was neat. We had tea and coffee in his kitchen, and he showed us where some birds had made a nest on top of his kitchen cabinets since he always leaves the window open. Here we also met one of his roommates, Friedrich, who is from Denmark and also moved to Cadiz just because he likes it there. Friedrich works as a bartender in Cadiz, and he told us that we should party there later in the evening. The wall in the kitchen was especially neat because all the people that David had met or housed from all over the world had signed it, and I thought it was really great.

David and I had an interesting discussion about the differences between America and Spain after I asked him what he thought of Americans. He talked about how the overwhelmingly Catholic society has a large impact on the everyday life of the people in Cadiz. He mentioned that it’s frowned upon by the church to build up a large amount of wealth, and so people don’t really have the same drive to work, work, work as they do in America. He said that “in Cadiz, people work to live, and in America it seems they live to work.” He also said that this isn’t necessarily good because people in America are always driven to innovate and discover new things, whereas people in Cadiz are really okay with just being financially secure and having a happy family. He wasn’t really saying that either way of life was better or worse, just that they are different. I really enjoyed talking to him about this and learning about how other cultures organize their priorities.

To my dismay, we eventually had to leave, and we said goodbye to David. Friedrich had to go to work, though, so we walked together towards his bar (Nahu) and our ship and talked to him some more. I found him, too, to be really interesting. We talked about basshunter and he told me how he used to play WoW, which I found funny. He gave us directions back to the pier, and we said our temporary goodbyes until later in the evening before returning to the ship for some more rest.

Later in the evening, Erik, Lauren, and I decided to go get some dinner and meet Rachel and some other people at the bar Friedrich works at. We got lost in the streets of Cadiz for a while (my fault), but eventually found a pretty fancy place to get some tapas. The waitress seemed a little disgruntled with our presence, but I later found out this was probably because USA had beaten #1-ranked Spain in futbol earlier in the day. Erik’s Spanish skills are pretty good, much better than mine, but he still couldn’t tell what anything on the menu was, so we just ordered the bottom 6 items and split them. Some things were really weird (though not bad) and quite a few dishes were actually really tasty. I enjoyed all of them simply because they were new and unique.

After dinner, we headed to the bar, which was packed with SAS students. It was seriously filled past capacity, and it took me about 10 minutes to get from one end of the bar to the other. I said hi to Friedrich and ordered a couple beers, but due to the crowdedness of the bar and a couple other circumstances, I decided to leave early. I wandered back to the boat, enjoying the stillness of the streets at night. As the pier finally came into view, I could see our ship lit up with christmas lights along through the rigging, and it looked really neat. I entered the pier, made the stupidly long trek to the boat, climbed up the gangway, and went to pass out in my cabin.

After a day in Cadiz, I had already decided that I’m going to live there someday.

Here aboard the MV Explorer, I am taking three courses. The first course, which I have somehow managed to attend every day at 8am so far, is Introduction to Political Theory. This is the course I was most looking forward to, because I’ve always been very interested in the philosophy behind government and politics. It’s taught by Melvin Rogers, who has an insanely impressive academic resume (BA Amherst, MPhil Cambridge, MS Yale, PhD Yale), and he is, or at least looks, significantly younger than 30. The class is taught in an entirely Socratic fashion, which most people seem not to like, but I’m enjoying quite a bit. We’ve had 9 days of class so far, and have already read the entireties of Sophocoles’ Antigone, Plato’s account of Socrates’ Apology and Crito, Aristotle’s Politics and Machiavelli’s The Prince. Most of the readings of the class were already on my reading list, so I’m really excited that I get a chance to discuss them in a class setting.

The class has been great for me because it’s giving me an opportunity to reconcile the random political ideas I’ve come up with on my own with those from great thinkers of the past. I’ve already had several moments of amazement as I read an idea from Socrates that I’ve previously thought of in my spare time. It’s nice to know that even if I’m a little politically odd, at least I’ve got some brilliant people behind me who were equally crazy. I’m particularly impressed by Socrates and the way he operates, but I’ll leave that topic for individual discussions with people that actually care. Aristotle was a little painful to read, I thought, and not that interesting. Antigone was short and poignant, and I thought the play teaches some pretty good lessons. We just finished The Prince today, and I thought it was decent. It’s a pretty short and easy read, but you really have to read it with the right train of thought. I think it’s cool that we got to read it just before we arrive in Italy, though, and that’s the sort of thing I think Semester at Sea is uniquely able to provide.

Immediately after my political theory class, I attend a general History/Social Studies course (For anyone from WRHS, it’s basically Humanities 1/2 with not much art) called Global Studies. In fact, EVERYONE attends this. Every student, staff, faculty, child, and lifelong learner is pretty much required to attend this, and so it really brings the entire ship together. Professor Nalbach (who reminds everyone of Jack from Will & Grace, but he’s super smart) lectures in the Union at the front of the ship, but the Union can really only house a couple hundred people. Because of this, they have to videotape the lecture and feed it into every other classroom on the ship. It’s really kind of cool, because I can just stay in my Political Theory classroom to watch Global Studies on the projector. The goal of the course seems to give us a historical background for understanding the Mediterranean and the places we are visiting. We’re proceeding in a chronological fashion, which unfortunately means that we didn’t really study Spain at all before we arrived there. We have, however, learned a ton and the central theme so far seems to be that all the different civilizations of the region were interconnected and shared parts of their cultures and identities with one another.

Global Studies is the only course that really tightly integrates the book that everyone was supposed to read prior to sailing, which is Amartya Sen’s Identity and Violence. No one really read it, though, except for the faculty. In essence, the book was a counterargument to Samuel Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations”, which I read in my Comparative Politics class last Fall. Sen argues among other things that it’s unfair and dangerous to classify people as simply apart of a religion-based civilization, and that individuals are made up of many different identities that help them relate to different people. Nalbach frequently brings up Sen when recounting the history of the Mediterranean, and it’s kind of cool actually. They really did not emphasize how important this book would be, which I think is a bit frustrating. They sent out a few emails mentioning that it was recommended reading, but it really is being treated like it was required. Our first paper for Global Studies was due this morning, and we had to talk about Sen’s argument in relation to Huntington’s and use examples of things we’ve learned so far.

We also had our first Global Studies test today, which was actually kind of a big deal. UVA has a very special honor code that everyone has to agree to, and they then trust the students not to cheat or anything. Because of this, we could take the test anywhere on the ship we wanted. It was kind of weird to take my test in my cabin on my bed. I read the test from a pdf on my laptop with my study guide minimized right behind it. Clearly it would have been easy to cheat, but they just trusted us not to. There was really no reason to cheat, though, because it was really easy and was all matching. I finished the 100 questions in about 20 minutes. For most of the things, either you knew the answer or you didn’t. I checked my answers before turning the test in, without changing them, of course, and I got an A, so that’s pretty cool. Apparently this was the first time they’ve conducted a test like this, and things turned out pretty well.

My last class is Faith & Doubt, which I originally thought was a philosophy or religion class. I guess it is, but it’s different than I expected. So far we’ve focused on the different types of critiques of religion. One of the things I’ve developed as I’ve gotten older is an avoidance of heated religious discussion, or at least a caution towards it. I used to be a total dick when critiquing religion, but now I just get annoyed when others act that way. In the first few days of class, the professor acted in some ways that I felt were unfair to the believers in the room, so I wasn’t really enjoying the class. Since then, though, she has simmered own a bit, and the class is becoming more enjoyable. The professor appears to be a super hardcore Atheist (people at her home institutions apparently call the class “Doubt & Doubt”), but apparently she privately identifies as a believer. I’m not sure how she reconciles that, but maybe I’ll find out later.

For the first few days, we focused on genetic critiques of religion. That is, critiques proposing why or how religion came about. We read a bit of Hume and Freud to see their opinions, and I found their writings pretty interesting. One of the cool things we’ve done so far is investigate the philosophy of morality because religion plays such a big part in determining morality. In this investigation, we’ve been reading Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals, and I think it’s awesome. Nietzsche is obviously a really sarcastic, weird, but smart guy. Some of his works are actually funny and enjoyable to read, with chapters titles in Ecce Homolike “Why I am so clever” and “Why I write such good books.” I had some very big personal issues I wanted to reconcile on this trip, especially concerning my priorities, goals, and morally rationalizing my behavior, and I think he provides a very sound way of looking at things. This is another one of those things I’d be willing to discuss on an individual level with anyone who wants to. I definitely look forward to reading more of his works when I get back home.

As I’ve mentioned, my favorite part about my classes here (especially the non-mandatory ones) are that they’re helping me develop my outlook on life and they’ve helped me elaborate on thoughts I’ve developed by myself in the past. I also get a little giddy when the classes I take intertwine and relate to one another, and because my electives are both philosophy-related, I’m definitely seeing that. For example, I noticed a particular correlation between Machiavelli’s behavioral recommendations in The Prince and those of Nietzche in the Genealogy. The Symbolic Logic class I took this past Spring has also been very helpful in understanding the arguments presented in all three courses. Hopefully I’ll notice even more trends and connections as my studies continue.

Hopefully this demonstrates to everyone why it’s been so hard to update this blog over the last two weeks. I’m really busy! I have about 70 pages of reading each night, and ship life is exhausting anyhow, but I’ll try to be a little bit better in the weeks to come. It’s kind of odd, but today technically counts as the middle of the term because the rest of the ports are really only spaced by one or two days, and we only have class between ports. It’s kind of scary, though, because it means all my traveling is about to be super fast paced. For these reasons, it might actually be even harder to keep updating, but, like I said, I’ll do the best I can.

After being dropped off at the boat, I jumped in line and quickly began meeting people left and right. I helped a girl and her mother with some super heavy looking bags, and we began talking until the obvious question of my apparent light packing came up. I mentioned that I was bagless, and everyone nearby began to show me tons and tons of pity, which I reveled in as much as possible. The mother ran across the street to buy me coffee and a pastry (despite my objections), and I was thrilled. This just serves as further evidence for SAS Lesson #1 (That people rock).

The line moved very quickly, though, and I proceeded through check-in with blazing speed due to my lack of bags, which I guess was an upside. I met up with Josh and Wan at the end of all the check-in stations, and we went to find our cabins. I found mine first, and noticed the two nametags on the door. Mine, of course, but also Erik Malin’s from Michigan State (get pumped, Mom). He wasn’t inside, though, just his bags. The first thing I noticed was the HUGE window in the room. It’s probably 3×4 feet, which is much larger than the tiny porthole I expected. What’s more, right in the middle of this docked view was a gorgeous lighthouse that made me think of my mom. I took pictures, don’t worry. The cabin itself is pretty cool, though simple. There is a bathroom immediately to the right upon entering with an unsurprisingly small shower. There’s also a pretty sizeable armoire-ish closet on the left with more than enough room for my lack of clothes. Walking forward a couple steps, the room opens up a bit (just like most hotels). There are two beds, one in each of the far corners, with a 6-drawered (2×3) nightstand in between. When facing the previously mentioned closet, there are what appears to be 5 more drawers vertically stacked, though the top 2 are actually a small refrigerator. On top of these five drawers is a small television, which has channels to show the current location/speed of the boat on a map, as well as 4 movie channels with movie selections that loop all day and change each night. Immediately to the right aftering entering into the main part of the room is a built-in small desk area, with three angled mirrors on top of it, stretching to the ceiling. Everything seems new or at least extremely well kept. Nothing is broken, and the furniture is really quite nice. Of course, this used to be a cruise ship, so I’m not surprised. In short, the room is much nicer than I expected, and definitely not as cramped as I thought it would be. I would even say that the room is bigger than it needs to be.

I bumped into four people (two guys, two girls) on the way out of my room who looked pretty friendly, and we proceeded with the usual friendly greetings. I mentioned that I needed to go into Halifax for some clothes and they invited me to tag along with them. We first passed by and shopped at a random second-hand store and got me some awkwardly fitting, but super cheap, clothings. We next stopped at a very homy little pub for some beers and dinner (the fish and chips were exquisite), then quickly walked to nearby downtown Halifax. Unfortunately, every men’s clothing item downtown is at least $60, and that wasn’t very convenient when you’re as cheap as I am. After some serious searching, I found a store with acceptable (though barely) clothes for less than $50, so I quickly grabbed some shirts and shorts for about $90 alltogether (way too much). Quickly, we scurried back to the ship.

We decided to explore the MV Explorer, and after getting to the main deck and looking at the view across the harbor, the vast extent of the upcoming trip became finally real. It had been hard to conceive of what things would be like, having never been on a cruise ship (or even overseas) before, but the stunning views of the lighthouses on the north side of the bay shocked me into realization, and it was awesome. Everything on the decks (all 4 levels of them) was stunning. It looked freshly repainted, and the sun reflecting off the white paint was nearly blinding. Here I ran into a couple people from the flight to Halifax, who were horrified to hear that I was about to endure the first week of sailing without any of my bags, but were more than sympathetic.

Everything then became sort of overwhelming, so I wanted to go lay down for a bit in my cabin. Still unfamiliar with the layout of the ship (and of ships in general), I slowly found my way back to the room, introducing myself to random friendly people along the way. As I opened my cabin door with my Student ID slash room key, I noticed that Erik was finally present, and we, too, introduced ourselves. Because I’m writing this from a week in the future, I don’t really remember what my initial perceptions of him were, but now I’ve realized that he’s quite the badass and we get along really well. He’s pretty quick-witted, and we can give each other plenty of shit and still have a good time. He’s one of my closest friends on the ship, and very similar to me. His girlfriend is also onboard, which is pretty neat I think. She’s super friendly, too, and we’ve had a ton of great meals together. I easily see him as the kind of guy I’d be friends with on land and back home. I’m VERY relieved about this, as I could forsee (and have witnessed already) the SAS experience limited by bad roommates.

I’m not sure what happened the rest of the night, but do remember that it involved a lot of meeting new people and a lot of me quickly forgetting names. Oh, I do remember leaving port, and that doing so induced an insane feeling of excitement. I don’t know if the “Holy shit I actually made it on this badass voyage for 70 days and now there is no turning back” feeling is reproducible. As we left port, there were dozens of parents and family members standing on the shore and in the windows of buildings waving goodbye. I shot some pretty extensive footage of the whole departure. Once on the open water, everyone had to do an intense lifeboat drill, which was BORING, but gave Erik and I a chance to talk and bullshit some more. We basically just had to stand still for 30 minutes waiting for the captain to come and approve of our evacuation formations. It was lame.

Sleeping that night in an actual bed for the first time in years (figuratively) was AWESOME. Not only are the beds actually quite comfy, but the motion of the ocean (so to speak) seriously rocks me to sleep. It’s awesome, and my sleeping experiences have been splendid thus far.

The second day was full of random orientation sessions and was also the beginning of my seasickness. The Union (and auditorium) is at the front of the ship and on the sixth deck, so it sways more than anyplace else on the boat. Because of this, I would get super nauseous every time I was in the union for more than 10 minutes. I also decided that I should try to be a hardass and refuse medication. I attempted this feat until I threw up, which was most unpleasant. During the most boring of boring orientation sessions, I had to bolt out and barely made it back to my cabin in time, but escaped without embarrassment. I promptly fell asleep for 3 hours. I slept A LOT the first couple days, but I have sufficiently acclimated. Now I don’t need medication, and have a semi-regular sleeping schedule.

Few super crazy exciting things have happend on the boat so far, with the exception of a couple pretty fun pub nights, which really can’t be that fun because there’s a 3 (and sometimes 5) beer limit. Other amazing things include passing by the island of Corvo (google it), which is part of an archipelago called the Azores halfway between America and Portugal. I never really knew that there was anything out here, but apprently there is and it is badass. Another pretty awesome thing is the occasional site of dolphins trailing the ship, which was amazing the first time I saw it. Pods of 5 or so dolphins will randomly follow the boat for awhile, and I’ve seen a couple whales as well. The views are also FUCKING AMAZING, but they are honestly beyond words. Once I have my bags (tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I’ll be able to charge my camera and take some pictures or video, but until then just know that they are the best I’ve ever seen in my life. Another random fun thing is my friend Annelise (from the plane) lost her homework over the edge of the boat yesterday. I never thought “The ocean ate my homework” would be a valid excuse until now.

I’m tired, and we’re waking up early tomorrow to watch as we roll into Cadiz, so I’ll update on my classes (which are great) later.

Unphased, I walked to the United Airlines baggage claim desk and spoke with a very helpful rep named Ted. I had already noticed everyone’s Canadian accents, but they had an interesting effect on me. Instead of making the communication process more difficult (even slightly), they seemed to just make our conversations more jovial. I really don’t know how to describe it, but everyone I spoke with in Halifax just seemed extremely happy to help and generally easy-going.

Ted obviously sympathized with me, and was fully aware of the trip that the lot of us college students was about to embark on. I didn’t even have to tell him when the ship left in the morning, or our first port was. He actually seemed to know more about the trip than me, and was immediately concerned and motivated to help me get my bags on time. He took my baggage claim tickets (note this) and handed me a lost baggage pamphlet, on which he wrote my issue number. He also immediately put $150 (what he said was the maximum) towards me buying some clothes in Halifax. I just have to send in the receipts when I return. He pointed me in the direction of the main Terminal, and told me he would do what he could to get my bags into Halifax on time, but couldn’t make any promises.

After leaving the baggage claim area, shock began to set in. I kind of just stumbled around aimlessly for a bit, not knowing whether to stay at the airport or to figure out how to get to Dartmouth, the suburb of Halifax where Nicole had generously offered to house me for the night. I spotted an Air Canada baggage office next to another baggage carousel, and decided to bother them a bit to get some more information, since my flight was technically Air Canada operated by United. They helped me a bit more, by telling me my bags were in Montreal (with my earlier flight), and when the next flights would come in from there. This was sort of useful information, but I still felt kind of helpless, because there was really nothing I could do but wait.

On the way out of this office I ran into an equally lost-looking Asian girl named Wan. She, too, didn’t really have a place to stay that night, and was planning on just sticking it out in the airport. I introduced myself, but then ran off to call my dad, just to let him know what was going on. I don’t think he found my greeting of “Guess whose bags got lost?” as funny as I did. That call was short, because I’m pretty sure I was getting charged $3 per minute in roaming charges. I returned to Wan, asking if she wanted to be homeless buddies for the evening, to which she smiled and nodded. It turns out she is from Singapore, and now studies at UC-Berkeley, which I thought was pretty impressive. We had a good conversation, and eventually decided to try to make our way to Nicole’s hotel in Dartmouth to get some rest on a real bed.

But that didn’t work out too well, either (such was the trend). It was almost 3am, and we were waiting outside the Halifax airport in 40 degree weather for a shuttle to the hotel, when an airport worker I had met back inside the baggage claim area (he knew about my baglessness), told us that the “shitty shuttle driver” had decided not to make his last stop for the night. Perfect. The friendly worker did, however, give me a ‘secret’ number to call about my bags in the morning and a couple names to drop to get direct service. This was better, in my mind, than paying for the shuttle. At this point, I was beyond frustrated with my misfortunes and had begun to revel in them purely for the sake of an interesting story.

Wan and I went back inside and upstairs and found some benches to settle into for the night. Fortunately, the airport had free WiFi (why the fuck do so many American airports charge for this?), so I was satisfied for awhile. Eventually, I managed to get a little over 2 hours of sleep, only to wake up at 5:30am freezing cold. Halifax is frigid at night, but warms up quite nicely during the day. I decided to waste time wandering around the airport, but it turns out that Halifax International is tiny. Smaller, even, than MCI. Great. I wasted some time online reading the news, then noticed Wan talking to another student our age.

His name was Josh, and turned out to also be pretty nice, not to mention brilliant. We introduced ourselves, and I asked if he was interested in Physics at all, pulling out my copy of A Brief History of TIme, which I boasted to him that I was reading. He began to spew off all kinds of facts about tachions and time travel. I was in awe, and completely surprised at his knowledge until I found out he will be studying Theoretical Physics at MIT next Fall. We had an interesting intellectual discussion about the whole thing with Wan, which was nice. We also talked about how Josh is from Mexico and what kind of authentic Mexican food is best. I got the sense that he was used to being inconveniently more intelligent than everyone he talked to, which was funny. Eventually he realized, it seemed, that Wan and I were reasonably smart, too, and he began to lighten up. As our discussion grew more friendly, Wan and Josh began to berate me about the American system of currency and measurements. For an hour and a half, we talked about the metric system and how much better it was. The whole time, I was conceding that the metric system is, in fact, more sensible, but Wan and Josh seemed not to listen. They just kept commenting on its shittiness. It was a friendly conversation, though, so I got a kick out of it. One interesting thing I realized from the talk was that American coins have really weird names, and don’t actually print their numerical value on the coin. Seriously, how are foreigners supposed to figure out how much each coin is worth?

Anyhow, eventually they left for the boat around 8am, and I was alone again. I wandered back into the baggage claim office, and made friends with the two people whose names I had gotten from the friendly worker late the night before. They were quite helpful in keeping me updated with the prospect of getting my bags in time. In the end, they discovered that my bags were, in fact, in Chicago, not Montreal. There was virtually no chance of me getting them in time. Great. I gave them the port information for Cadiz and the name of the port agent (with whom they were familiar), and left to take a taxi to the boat at 11am. I was supposed to be on board at 9am.

I walked outside into the sunlight for the first time in literally 36 hours. It was refreshing, and again I reassured myself that things would be okay, not because I needed convincing, but more because I was so amazed that it was the case. The negatives of lost luggage really seem inconsequential when you have 68 days of Mediterranean traveling ahead of you. One thing I have gained simply by beginning this journey is a sense of perspective. Simple setbacks, even week-long ones, are really not worth getting worked up about. I’ve been a much happier person this Summer and on this trip after realizing that.

A woman recognized that I was looking for a taxi, and redirected me (with a smile) in the right direction. I jumped in the back of a taxi-van and was on my way to the boat. I wasn’t sure exactly where to go, but he knew where the ships left from, and proceeded in the right direction. As we traveled through the Nova Scotian countryside, I noticed how serene the environment was. The forests, mountains, and sky around Halifax were beautiful. I pulled out my video camera to grab some footage just as the taxi driver began to talk to me.

We had a great conversation. He was an immigrant who grew up in Turkey, served his mandatory time in the Turkish army, left for Greece, and then eventually traveled to Canada, where he had lived for 17 years. I’m almost happier I got our conversation on tape than I am about getting footage of the wilderness. He gave me all kinds of advice about what to do in Greece, Italy, and Turkey, but also general advice on how to live happily, telling me how life is much easier when you avoid trouble and live on the straight edge. These things are seemingly obvious, but had special meaning coming from a complete stranger with such an interesting background. We talked about Bush and Obama, Hillary and McCain, religion and politics of all sorts, and we were both very understanding and interested in where the other came from and what we each had to say.

After leaving the airport in Kansas City, and being shocked by the tumultuous course of events over the last day or so, I was also in a very open, grounded state. I was thinking much more clearly than ever before, and everything seemed to carry more meaning. As we passed through downtown Halifax, and I was admiring its quaintness and picturesqueness, I reflected upon all that happened to me, ultimately coming up with SAS Lesson #2: The minor course of events in life are meaningless compared to the people you meet and the conversations you have. Everyone has heard this type of lesson before, but this was the first time I had discovered it for myself. I had just had probably the most unfortunate 36 hours of my life, but the only thing in my mind was how friendly and helpful (however unsuccessful) the airport staff had been to me, Wan’s friendly conversation and attitude, the intellectual stimulation incited by my conversation with Josh, and the particularly meaningful advice that taxi driver had contributed to a complete stranger, not to mention the great conversation I had with Margo on the airplane to Halifax, the people I met in the customer service line at O’Hare, Megan’s unquestioning willingness to help me find a place to stay, and Nicole’s generous donation of shelter to someone she had only heard of through Facebook.

We arrived at the pier, where an enormous line of students had formed along the street and the towering pinnacle of the MV Explorer was visible from behind the port authority building. I payed the driver more generously than usual, shook is hand, and headed toward the line with an unusually large grin from ear to ear.

Despite the obvious setbacks, stresses, and misfortunes leading up to this voyage, on the fourth day at sea, I can confidently say that things are going well.

I met my first fellow SASers very shortly after the last post. After submitting that post, I packed everything up, left my precious airport power outlet, and headed to the gate for my (new) flight to Halifax. When I set down there, I noticed an abnormally large group of college-age women chattering excitingly. I approached them, asking “Do you mind if I ask why you all are headed to Halifax?”, to which they replied, “Semester at Sea!”, and welcomed me over to sit and meet with all of them. Lots and lots of excited introductions and expectations ensued.

The flight to Halifax was delayed about 45 minutes, but I was used to waiting by then. The plane we flew in on was actually the smallest I’d ever traveled on. There were only four seats per row, and probably only 20 rows or so. However, it was a plane, and thus a way to get to Halifax, and that is the only thing I cared about.

For the second time, I was placed in a window seat, which are my favorite. Even better, my assigned seat was next to those of two of the people I met at the gate: Margo to my right, and Annelise across the aisle to Margo’s right. Margo and I had a great chat over the course of the three hour flight, about all kinds of things: traveling, music, our hometowns and more. I got a kick out of her questions about Tornadoes and her inability to relate to the idea of a small Kansas town like Lawrence (she is from the much-larger city of Cincinnati). The conversation was great, and I was happy I had met some friendly people already, but I had a feeling that things were already too good to be true.

We arrived in Halifax at around midnight EST+1 time, with an impressively smooth landing. At this point, we realized that probably 70% of the plane were SAS students. For the first time in my life, we exited the plane via stairs, straight down to the runway asphalt. I always thought this was something reserved for politicians/celebrities or airports in much smaller nations. It was actually pretty cool, I thought. We entered a long hallway that led to a giant, open, gymnasium-sized room. In this room, there was a faux stream, complete with natural-looking pebbles and rocks and a bridge going over it. It was supposed to emulate the natural beauty of Nova Scotia, I presume, and it was quite impressive. After following the path over the bridge, we had to queue up to go through customs (I think that’s what it was).

After waiting in line, each of us had to individually speak with a Canadian officer about the nature of our stay. This was sort of awkward. As the officer, who was plenty friendly, looked over and inspected my passport, he started asking me questions about Semester at Sea. “What is the name of the ship?” “How many people will be on board?” “Where are you going?” It was interesting because I could tell that he was really just quizzing me for security purposes, that he really didn’t care, and that he probably new the answers to those questions already. He was just doing his job, but it made me feel really awkward knowing that I could slip up and have to endure all kinds of inspections. I was exhausted enough at that point, I hardly needed to endure a cavity search!

But apparently I didn’t feel very terroristic, and the officer smiled, stamped my passport, and encouraged me to have a great trip. I quickly scurried away before he changed his mind, through another hallway and into the baggage claim area, where I met up again with Margo, Annelise, and others.

Again, I began to feel something in my stomach

Unsurprisingly, I put off packing until Sunday night (I left Monday morning). It was for good reason, though. Johnny and I threw a party! It was my ‘going away’ party and his birthday party. It took surprisingly little work to set things up, but the party itself turned out spectacularly. We fashioned a beer pong table out of random pieces of our old bar and plywood, and my dad took it upon himself to smoke some pork. I told him that it was completely unnecessary, and that any food at a party would be considered a luxury, but he still went through all the trouble of cooking that meat, as well as baked beans and cole slaw (which I actually enjoyed, for once!). By 930 or so, there were a few dozen people there, including some people I hadn’t seen in awhile. After it got dark, we turned on the floodlight and the pool light and everyone just had a good time. There was just barely enough beer (n stuff) for me, and other people brought some various drinks. Things got pretty blurry towards the end of the night, but nothing crazy happened and everyone was well behaved. I had an amazing time, and couldn’t have asked for a better ‘last night’ in Topeka.

We also shot the inaugural episode of "We Should Be Recording This", but that’s a whole other story. The most important part is that I got my new Camera! It’s a Canon HF200, which records to SDHC cards (basically SD cards), and shoots 1080p! I’m planning on getting some great shots of the Mediterranean, so everyone can look forward to that.

Packing on Sunday was an adventure, but I made it to the airport with only two mental breakdowns, which I consider decently impressive. I woke up with a massive headache at noon on Sunday after the party Saturday night. I helped my mom move some stuff to a storage facility, and then we went to get some last minute clothing items at the mall (which doesn’t suck as much since the renovation) and TJ Maxx (where true playas shop). Needless to say, I procured plenty of awesome Summertime clothes and an awesome rolling duffel to take on the boat. The miracle of the day was me finding a hat that fits my oddly shaped noggin, which I was pretty excited about.

Shopping essentially turned into me procrastinating about packing, which was dangerous. We finally got back home at around 5, and Katrina and I spent some quality time together as I packed. We started listening to music and were pretty inefficient at first (distracted by bomb corn salsa), but things got rolling eventually. After a couple hours of sorting my clothes (I told you we were inefficient), I started throwing things in my brand new (but awesomely cheap) suitcase. I actually fit all my clothes in it, including some things I didn’t think I’d have room for! I weighed it on a scale afterwards, though, and it came in over 50lbs. I took a few things out, but I’m still very happy about how much I fit in it.

As I began to pack all my ‘utility items’ in the other duffel, I was feeling pretty good. Surely I could fit the simple things like deoderant, notebooks, etc. in the giant bag I had left, right? Not so much. I actually kind of forgot that I was going to have to pack school supplies, but the real reason this became so challenging was because my second bag is only about 60% the size of the first bag. I quickly became stressed out as I thought of more and more things I needed to bring, and the amount of available space became less and less. The second bag was about 3/4ths of the way full when I had packed everything I had around the house. I still had to go to WalMart to grab some shampoo, notebooks, pens, etc, though.

So I set off to WalMart at about 2am, knowing that we would have to leave for the airport at 4. 2 hours seemed like plenty of time, but I made the critical mistake of forgetting that WalMart is FUCKING WALMART, and WalMart has no fucking organizational scheme whatsoever. An hour (and a cartfull of stuff) later, I was ready to check out. I was feeling a little stressed, but still in a great mood as I cheerfully strolled up to one of the two open registers. I greeted the elderly female cashier with a "How are you doing this evening, ma’am?", to which she replied, "Bad." Clearly, she was a cheerful lady. I tried to make her smile a bit and cheer her up, but she seemed determined to be grumpy. That was her decision, though. I wasn’t about to let it affect me… until it did. She wouldn’t let me use my parents card to charge the items (even though I offered to let her call them and I showed her my ID), so I had to call my dad, wake him up, and have him come pay for it. For some reason this just sent all my nerves and stresses over the edge. I just sat down on the stupid WalMart benches that they have around, waiting for my dad, being angry at the world and cursing this cranky old lady cashier under my breath.

Things got payed for, though, and on the way back from WalMart I started to realize how little time I had left before leaving. It was 3:30. I had 30 minutes to sift through 5 bags of WalMart items and pack them in my already too full bag. For some reason, I found this crazy hard. I packed pretty much everything for a reason, and it sucks to have to sit things aside that you know you’ll want on the trip. I managed to frantically pack everything, and was barely able to zip my suitcase (with some help). Yay! Suitcases packed. I needed to take a shower, though, so I took one as quickly as possible. I was ready to go by 4. Mission accomplished.

And then it started raining. Not just raining– straight up MONSOONING all over Northeast Kansas. Awesome…

Katrina was going to drive me to the airport, but she couldn’t find her glasses… or her driver’s license. And she probably would have flipped trying to navigate back to Topeka from MCI in the hurricane outside, so my dad drove me. Things were more or less fine on the way to the airport, with the ‘less’ entailing a second for-now-unspecified freak out on my part. We drove through heavy rain pretty much all the way to KC, and almost died at least three times, but arrived alive at MCI. I ran in with my dad to check my bags, only to find that they were both overweight. Apparently bathroom scales aren’t the best luggage-weighers around. Alltogether, my bags were 14lbs overweight. Awesome… I somehow managed to bring down that weight by taking out only a container of Kool-Aid, some smelly wet black loafers, and Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. Can you even imagine what I did keep? In the end, the combined weight of my bags was exactly 100lbs. Ace.

30 seconds after hugging my dad goodbye and watching him leave, my mom appeared out of nowhere (she had a flight too) to see me off. After checking her bags (which was itself an adventure), we walked to my gate. Things were going to be okay. My bags were packed (barely). I had everything I needed. I was about to go on the trip of a lifetime. I was in the zone. I made it through security without a hitch, other than an awkward inspection of my toiletry bag (you can ask me why). As I finally sat down for the first time in 16 hours, I couldn’t wait to being the adventure. Just 20 minutes until I’m on the plane…

Fast forward an hour and a half, and I’m still sitting at the gate in MCI listening to my headphones. A mechanical failure had delayed the flight. No big deal, though. This had happened to me before. I played it cool, and we got going about 90 minutes late. What followed next was the best nap of my entire life. I fell asleep before takeoff and woke up as people were getting off the plane. Woot. I love flying, but it is kind of boring just sitting in a cramped seat. Again, though, my content was quickly spoiled when I realized what time it was- 10:25. My flight from O’Hare to Montreal was supposed to depart at 10:30! I maintained hope by considering the likelihood that this second flight was delayed just like the first, but I was unfortunately wrong. I sprinted the marathon across O’Hare and arrived at gate C4 (probably the farthest one away) at about 10:35, where I looked outside and saw the plane still docked against the people-chute. I ran up to the United Airlines rep and begain to explain my situation when she quickly and matter-of-factly injected "Sorry, sir. The flight is closed. Go to customer service". Needless to say, I was pretty upset. I’ve never actually missed a flight, though I’ve had lots of close calls. A little frustrated, and way tired since my backpack weighs about 30lbs, and began to trek back across the airport to United Airlines customer service. Ten minutes later, I looked up to see an immeasurably long line at customer service. Great.

The line really wasn’t too horrible, because the other disgruntled passengers were very personable. I kinda-sorta had a conversation with a Chinese guy who had missed his flight to Shanghai. I let him use my phone to call his wife (presumably) and update her with his situation. I honestly couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but he was trying to be nice, so I just smiled and nodded. After an hour and a half, and orange vitamin water, and some roasted garlic chips, I made it to the front of the line. There a very nice man named "Ray Ray" (srsly) hooked me up with a nonstop flight to Halifax, leaving at 6pm CST and arriving at 11pm Halifax time. I was thrilled, and it looked like things were finally going to be okay again… until I remembered something.

Hostels are usually run by only a few people (it seems), so most of them don’t allow guests to check in after 11pm. A call to the downtown Halifax HI-Hostel confirmed by worries– I can’t stay there tonight. This minor disappointment turned to frantic horror as I envisioned myself sleeping on the streets of Halifax garding 130lbs of luggage until tomorrow morning. On top of this, my phone and laptop were almost out of batteries, the wifi in the airport wouldn’t work, and the 3G on my iPhone was unbearably slow. I began to freak, but then decided to just breathe and take things slow. I first found an outlet for my laptop (and, thus, phone). I started looking for other hostels and hotels on my phone, but literally ALL OF THEM were full. Katrina wouldn’t answer the phone at home, and my mom wasn’t near her laptop, so I called Meg to ask her to help find me a place to stay, which she very generously agreed to.

Still homeless, but more under control, I came up with the idea of crowdsourcing my dilemma. I used the brilliant copy and paste of the new iPhone OS 3.0 to send a Facebook chat message to all the SASers I knew that were online. I asked them to keep an eye out for an open bed, couch, or floor that I could sleep on this evening. Within minutes, I had unknown numbers calling my phone. Yay. Nicole Gordan (http://nicolegordan.blogspot.com/) reached me first, and is going to let me stay with her and her friends at the Hampton Inn in Dartmouth, which is AMAZING. I can’t believe that everyone was so generous and willing to help. It seriously helped me avoid so much stress and anguish. I’m so thrilled that I’m calling this SAS Lesson #1: People are so AMAZING!!

So now I’m sitting at gate C6 at O’Hare, charging my laptop/phone from an outlet nearby, watching CNN, and people watching. My flight boards in an hour, and I’ve got wifi to last me until then. This is the good life, but it sure took some craziness to get this far. I can’t even imagine what the world’s got in store for me in the days to come.

My name is Benjamin, and I am about to study abroad through Semester at Sea.

This blog will document my adventures this Summer. Yes, I’ll be visiting 11 countries on 3 continents, but I’ve also resolved to do some legitimate self-discovery and some much-needed contemplation about who I want to be after this Summer and into the future. For the first time in my life, really, I’ll be spending 9 weeks with almost no contact with my friends or family. I know literally no one else going on the voyage, and I’ll be essentially without internet access (this is a big deal for me, as many people will recognize, but it’s one of the things I’m most looking forward to). I’ll be keeping a private journal, too, which I will occasionally post excerpts from. I’ll try not to put too much lame philosophical, self-evaluation bullshit, as I mainly started this blog so my friends and family can keep up with what I’m doing on board the MV Explorer.

This week I’ll be very busy working and preparing for the trip, but as soon as I leave Kansas on June 15, 2009, I will begin posting my expectations and goals for this trip. If any readers have questions or encouragement, feel free to comment anywhere. I’m particularly interested in hearing advice from the people that know me. What should I write about in my journal? What should I think about, and how can I challenge myself, to come out of this experience as a better person. We all know I have room for improvement in that regard. This is the ONE TIME I’ll let people call me the fuck out on all the ridiculous shit I do, and I hope, nay, EXPECT all my close friends to voice their opinions (anonymous is more than fine).

With all of this said, I’m ready to go. I am officially considering now (the stroke of midnight on June 10) the beginning of my experience. Let’s get started…