Well, here we are on the home stretch of our journey. We left Croatia last night at 8:30 and are now passing along the southern coast of Sicily, which you can see faintly on the horizon. I know many of you reading this are students about to embark on the fall 2008 voyage. I will be writing an entry specifically for you soon, answering all of the questions I had before I departed along with some miscellaneous advice. It should be up within a week or so. I'd love to do it sooner, but I am inundated with schoolwork over the next few days. Everyone has a global studies essay due tomorrow - I have several papers due soon and the amount of work I have to do is intimidating, but all of us are in the same boat (no pun intended).
Some professors seem to have become quite irritated that students have all "waited until the last minute," this final stretch of classes, to do their assignments. However, many of the papers I have to write are comparative analyses of the countries we visited, and although we can select any of them to compare, I didn't want to leave out any potential relevant experiences by writing prematurely before we had been to all ports. Regardless, you have to use every last bit of time wisely when in port for the few short days you are there if you want to get the most out of it, and this requires planning. The point is that when you only have a day or two to absorb everything you learned in one country and do all of the preparing for the next, there really just isn't time to do schoolwork until the last leg of the journey when the stresses of travel planning have subsided.
Several students I know felt so overwhelmed by schoolwork they spent entire days in port not even getting off the ship because they felt pressured to finish work. While I felt the pressure too - it's sort of inevitable. It is apparent that faculty and administration as a whole are still working on finding an "appropriate" amount of schoolwork for the voyages.
Moving on, I am combining the Greece and Croatia entries since I'm on a pretty strict time budget, and since both countries were quite tourist-friendly, my experiences there (although fun and interesting) were way less "intense" than those I had in countries like Russia and Egypt.
Greece was a welcome change from the scorching heat and cultural mind-boggling-ness of Egypt. We docked in Piraeus to find that it is a modern and mostly clean port city, lined with sidewalk cafes and various shops. It is as maritime as a city can get, with about half the visible businesses having to do in some way with port industry. If you were to venture further into Piraeus, which most students did not do, you would find a shopping district with stores like Burberry and Lacoste along with many local boutiques. While I'm by no means big on shopping, the American-esque streets offered a welcome familiarity, especially after coming from the foreign bartering culture of Egypt. On the first day, I did the SAS trip to Athens and the Acropolis. It was a magnificent sight, but didn't get the credit it deserved in my memory as a whole since it was dwarfed by the pyramids and Rome which I had seen all too soon beforehand. On the second day, I took the trip to Delphi. I was glad to see Derrick and some of my other friends were there as well. Aside from our tour guide, who was so overly informative that she talked the entire three hours to Delphi, it was an awesome and almost relaxing trip. At our lunch at a restaurant near the site, we were seated with a girl named Sam. Her brother, Wes, was best friends on the ship with my good friend from Cornell, Henry, on the recent spring 08 trip. What a small SAS world!!!! On the third day of Greece, which happened to be my 22nd birthday, myself, Zach and Sam went to Aegina, the closest island where we wandered around, enjoyed some beaches and talked to some locals. We had a great time and were surprised at how reasonably priced everything was. On the last day, I got up early and headed into Athens (about a 30 minute train ride) to explore some more and get some gifts for friends back home. Many students spent the entire time in Greece on the islands- while they had a blast, I'm glad that I had a good balance of fun and historical education in a country that prides itself equally on both.
Croatia was short-lived, as we were there for 3 days instead of 4, and time flew by. We had an interesting situation there as we had to use the tender boats (lifeboats) to get from the ship to the shore and back. The ship had o stay anchored in the harbor as SAS was unable to secure a berth to dock at. Scheduling plans around the tender boats, which ran every ½ hour from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. (although not always on schedule) was really a pain, but the tender boat crew was extremely efficient. The tender boats hold 90 people each and going on them was cool at first but got very old very quickly. In addition to the 20-minute ship-to-shore boat ride, the harbor was a 45 minute walk (or 15 minute bus ride) from the old down-pretty much where everything in Dubrovnik is-so getting around was a lengthy and tiring process.
Anyways, Dubrovnik was a cool little town, but painfully touristy to the point where walking around was almost unenjoyable because of the sheer volume of people there. On the first day, I went on a random adventure with Derrick, Dan, and Lisa to find a restaurant about an hour from Dubrovnik where Dan's parents had gone a while ago. It was a beautiful bus ride and I'm glad I was able to see some "off the beaten path" areas of the country- doing this, as I've tried to do in every port, has never been less than a rewarding experience.
Friday night I missed the last tender boat, and got stranded on shore until 7 a.m. the next day with at least 20 other semester at sea students- not a fun situation to be in although I guess it makes for a good story. On Satuday, I got back to the ship shortly after 7 a.m.and was able to get a few hours of sleep. That afternoon, Sam and I walked around the old city and went to a beach to swim for a while before getting dinner out (because it was our last night EVER in port L !!). Just about every SAS student went out to an amazing outdoor beach dance club called EastWest to celebrate our last night in port. I didn't stay out too late because I was determined to catch the last tender boat back to the ship. While I don't recommend staying out until 7 a.m., no voyage would be complete without living life as the locals do and interacting with them, and in Europe, this just happens to occur really, really late. Anyways, I got on one of the later tender boats back to the ship and was able to get a reasonable amount of sleep.
On the last day, yesterday, I woke up early and headed out with 13 other students- Zach, Carrie, Andrea, Ellen, Richard, Megan, Patrick, Meredith, Chris, Anna, Sam, Alissa, and another Chris-for a kayaking trip I had set up a few days beforehand. We kayaked around the old city and then around the island of Lokrum, where we stopped to swim and explore for a while. We had an amazing time. It was physically exhausting but a great way to spend the last day in port- the scenery was incredible. I was able to get a discount for the group so it was only $30 per person- a great deal for an almost 6 hour kayak trip. I'd love to write in greater detail about my time in Greece and Croatia, but my global paper and my econ paper are already fighting for my time as is. I'll write again as soon as I can with a special entry for those of you about to embark.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Eqypt: Part 2
Day 2 - 8:00 a.m.
We were dropped off at the Mona Hotel - our driver for the night later informed us that this was the location of Camp David for the signing of peace treaties between Egypt and Israel. After battling with a stubborn ATM, we were able to withdraw some Egyptian pounds. When we tried to figure out how to get to the light show, the hotel pointed us in the direction of one of the hotel's drivers to take us there. He offered to take us to the show, wait for us during it, and then take us to our hotel (which was a good 20 miles away) for 120 pounds (about $22). As it turns out, Kushusu (who gave us his business card) has been a taxi driver for 47 years. He speaks perfect English and has never gone to school a day in his life - he learned it all from tourists. It seems like he is the person to know around town - he knew every cop in the village.
After the light show, which I will get back to later, he asked us if we had ever seen papyrus. He took us to the local papyrus shop where a friend of his who also spoke English gave us a free demonstration of how papyrus is made. Then he took us to out hotel, which, wit the traffic, was quite a ways away from Cairo. The free-for-all traffic system is like the 8th wonder of the world. The streets of Cairo make New York City seem like a graveyard. Our hotel, the Hilton Pyramids Golf Resort, turned out to be AMAZING. After a day of in-your-face intense culture shock, it was nice to have an English speaking staff. Our room overlooks the pool which is awesome - we plan on going for a swim this morning as soon as Sam wakes up. I'm sitting next to it now. We both agreed this is one of the nicest hotels we've ever been to. It wasn't that expensive either, since I booked it last minute and it's not in Cairo. There is a perfect breeze and it's not too hot in the shade - I'm surrounded by palm trees and a swim-up pool bar. I could spend several days just at the resort but that would defeat the purpose of SAS.
So, back to the light show. We arrived early and went to a restaurant across the street. We sat up on the 3rd floor which had an outside deck and had a phenomenal view of the Pyramids and the Sphinx. We were both speechless. Every restaurant that claims to have a nice view is now kind of a joke to me. We ordered pita bread and hummus - neither of us were very hungry. We could have seen the entire show from the restaurant but since we had already purchased tickets we went back across the street and got seats. The light show was informative, albeit cheesy at times (like when it made the voice of the Sphinx), and was an hour-long presentation on the history of the Pyramids. The lights were awesome. I'll try and explain how I felt being there, but there are no words qualified enough to fully describe it. Sitting in the desert, the cool Arabian breeze blowing - a welcome change from the scorching heat of the sun - watching the last colors of the sunset fade away behind the Pyramids made me feel like the little guy on the camel in the opening scene of Aladdin. To boot, the night sky was perfectly clear and you could see all of the stars above the lit-up pyramids.
In preport, we were told that a historian in the year 500 B.C. wrote about how old the Pyramids were; 2,500 years later, they still stand. They have seen countless sunrises and sunsets, dynasties, rulers, withstood wars and weather, watched civilizations rise and fall. They were there for 2,000 years before Jesus, in a time when doubts were few and far between - the gods Anubis and Osiris existed by sheer virtue of belief - a belief strong enough to erect these mountains out of dirt. So, there it was, the epitome of history staring me in the face. Saying any more about it would be doing it unjustice, so I will leave it with a simple remark - it makes everything in life and life itself seem so incredibly small.
Moving on, I woke up a bit before 8 today and went to the concierge. There's a 10:30 shuttle to the Egyptian museum. After that, we are either going on Nile cruise or to the Bazaar.
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It's now Sunday morning and we are in Greece. The sunrise this morning was beautiful. To get back to Egypt, it was a great experience - I never would have wanted to see it independently of SAS. I am glad I got to see the Pyramids but I don't think I'll ever be going back, there are so many more places in the world I'd rather go to first.
It's time to get of the ship and go explore Athens!!!!!!!!
We were dropped off at the Mona Hotel - our driver for the night later informed us that this was the location of Camp David for the signing of peace treaties between Egypt and Israel. After battling with a stubborn ATM, we were able to withdraw some Egyptian pounds. When we tried to figure out how to get to the light show, the hotel pointed us in the direction of one of the hotel's drivers to take us there. He offered to take us to the show, wait for us during it, and then take us to our hotel (which was a good 20 miles away) for 120 pounds (about $22). As it turns out, Kushusu (who gave us his business card) has been a taxi driver for 47 years. He speaks perfect English and has never gone to school a day in his life - he learned it all from tourists. It seems like he is the person to know around town - he knew every cop in the village.
After the light show, which I will get back to later, he asked us if we had ever seen papyrus. He took us to the local papyrus shop where a friend of his who also spoke English gave us a free demonstration of how papyrus is made. Then he took us to out hotel, which, wit the traffic, was quite a ways away from Cairo. The free-for-all traffic system is like the 8th wonder of the world. The streets of Cairo make New York City seem like a graveyard. Our hotel, the Hilton Pyramids Golf Resort, turned out to be AMAZING. After a day of in-your-face intense culture shock, it was nice to have an English speaking staff. Our room overlooks the pool which is awesome - we plan on going for a swim this morning as soon as Sam wakes up. I'm sitting next to it now. We both agreed this is one of the nicest hotels we've ever been to. It wasn't that expensive either, since I booked it last minute and it's not in Cairo. There is a perfect breeze and it's not too hot in the shade - I'm surrounded by palm trees and a swim-up pool bar. I could spend several days just at the resort but that would defeat the purpose of SAS.
So, back to the light show. We arrived early and went to a restaurant across the street. We sat up on the 3rd floor which had an outside deck and had a phenomenal view of the Pyramids and the Sphinx. We were both speechless. Every restaurant that claims to have a nice view is now kind of a joke to me. We ordered pita bread and hummus - neither of us were very hungry. We could have seen the entire show from the restaurant but since we had already purchased tickets we went back across the street and got seats. The light show was informative, albeit cheesy at times (like when it made the voice of the Sphinx), and was an hour-long presentation on the history of the Pyramids. The lights were awesome. I'll try and explain how I felt being there, but there are no words qualified enough to fully describe it. Sitting in the desert, the cool Arabian breeze blowing - a welcome change from the scorching heat of the sun - watching the last colors of the sunset fade away behind the Pyramids made me feel like the little guy on the camel in the opening scene of Aladdin. To boot, the night sky was perfectly clear and you could see all of the stars above the lit-up pyramids.
In preport, we were told that a historian in the year 500 B.C. wrote about how old the Pyramids were; 2,500 years later, they still stand. They have seen countless sunrises and sunsets, dynasties, rulers, withstood wars and weather, watched civilizations rise and fall. They were there for 2,000 years before Jesus, in a time when doubts were few and far between - the gods Anubis and Osiris existed by sheer virtue of belief - a belief strong enough to erect these mountains out of dirt. So, there it was, the epitome of history staring me in the face. Saying any more about it would be doing it unjustice, so I will leave it with a simple remark - it makes everything in life and life itself seem so incredibly small.
Moving on, I woke up a bit before 8 today and went to the concierge. There's a 10:30 shuttle to the Egyptian museum. After that, we are either going on Nile cruise or to the Bazaar.
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It's now Sunday morning and we are in Greece. The sunrise this morning was beautiful. To get back to Egypt, it was a great experience - I never would have wanted to see it independently of SAS. I am glad I got to see the Pyramids but I don't think I'll ever be going back, there are so many more places in the world I'd rather go to first.
It's time to get of the ship and go explore Athens!!!!!!!!
Egypt: Part 1
Day 1 - 10:00 a.m.
Last night in preport, Randy said that SAS can be like trying to drink from a garden hose. The past few days have felt exactly that way. On Saturday, I was in Italy. On Sunday, we thought we were going to Turkey. Monday we turned around in a flurry of chaos. Today I'm in Egypt, and in a week I'll be leaving Greece. The past 48 hours have brought out the best in the entire SAS community. They have proven what it takes to be a SAS student: resiliency - the drive to make the most of a less than ideal situation, community - trust that others will make the best decision for you, and the understanding that the agendas of a few must sometimes be sacrificed in the interest of a larger group (as was the case for the interport parents), and a sense of spontaneity, which needs no explanation.
The shock of being here is so intense it almost feels like I'm just imagining it. It was unforeseen, unplanned, unexpected, and yet here I am on a bus to Cairo. Already, I feel like I've seen so much - trying to take in every last detail of being in a foreign country is exhausting. Describing this feeling as culture shock would be an understatement. We are literally on a desert highway, passing cars, trucks, and caravans of camels on the side of the road, along with the occasional palm tree. The streets of Alexandria are like the filthiest streets of Naples to the power of 10. The buildings, signs and windows are all caked in layers of sand and dirt. Our convoy of three buses is escorted by armed tourist police.
Already, I can sense the male dominance of the culture here. I have only seen one female driver in all the cars that have passed us. I haven't seen many women out, but most of those who I have seen have been wearing the traditional Islamic dress - showing only their eyes. Our tour guide said that married women wear black, and unmarried women wear colored dresses, because Islamic culture does not use wedding rings.
The scenery looks like Texas with less grass, more palm trees, and roadside stands selling pottery. The signs are in Arabic but some also have English or Greek.
This morning on the ship, you could feel the energy pouring out of the students on board. The excitement of traveling to a new place not on the itinerary on such a sudden notice was unparalleled. The nervousness of having no clue how to get around or how to communicate in Arabic leaves a feeling like that of the first day of high school, except much more unfamiliar. Less than 2 days since we were heading to Istanbul, here I am about to ride a camel near the great pyramids. If this isn't adventure, I don't know what is.
Day 1- 6:00 p.m.
I have never felt so dirty in my life. We started off at the Great Pyramids of Giza. It was remarkable to see - I was surprised that there weren't fences - you can just walk right up to the pyramids and touch them. The vendors there sell every item imaginable, and men try and force you to get on their camels so they can charge you for a photo on them. They are all VERY aggressive. Next, we stopped at the Sphinx, where I bought a hand-carved scarab beetle for $1 after bartering with a vendor for a few minutes. We went to the Sakkara country club where we met up with our other two buses. They served an amazing authentic Egyptian buffet lunch of mostly stuff I couldn't identify if I had a multiple choice, but was good nonetheless. After our hour-stay at the club (which had separate restaurant facilities and swimming areas for men and women), we got on the buses and went to the step pyramid, which we went underneath via a small passageway where we had to practically crawl for about 50 yards. The burial chamber, lined with hieroglyphs, and the coffin were still intact although everything else had been removed. Right next to it was a tomb which we toured.
When you're a kid in elementary school, you learn about Egyptian culture and mummies with skepticism and intrigue. But being there in person was a beyond-words surreal experience. To stand in a tomb and touch the hieroglyphs on the walls is an experience that you can't inherit from Indiana Jones or an Omnimax film. These monuments to the tenacity and perseverance of people who worked so intricately at preserving the dead, thinking someday the soul would come back to find the body, that have withstood millennia stare you in the face reminding you how small you really are - just a grain of sand in the history of a world which has been turning day in and day out long before you or the civilization you know has existed.
Our buses brought us back to Sakkara country club where we were split into groups of 8 or so and got into Jeeps. The Jeeps took us on an off-roading Safari adventure which was one of the most fun things I've ever done. Most of my SAS field trips have left me feeling like I could have done it on my own and more efficiently, but today was an anomale. To speed up and down the sand dunes behind pyramids was pure exhilaration. Our jeeps delivered us to a designated place in the desert where a GIANT line of cames awaited us. We each jumped on a camel and were off! Camels are much higher off the ground than you'd think, but after a few minutes we got used to it. Of course, I had to pick the maverick of the group - they named him Michael Jackson because he does a funny sideways moonwalk dance - humorous to see, scary to be a part of. The camels took us on a half hour ride back to the country club where our buses were waiting.
The way of life here is so different I don't even know where to start. Mostly, I'm in awe that I'm actually here. Everything is in Arabic. Last, and certainly not least, the heat.
Wow.
There is nothing quite like this on Earth that I have experienced. Its like the only things in existence are you, the earth, and the sun beating down on you. Sam said it feels like in the summer when you leave your car parked in the sun all day and then get in. We are all exhausted from the heat, covered in sweat and dirt. Most students are sleeping on the bus although it's only about 6:30 p.m. The bus is taking us to a central location in Cairo to let off the students who want to stay overnight - this includes me, so I'll finish writing later.
Last night in preport, Randy said that SAS can be like trying to drink from a garden hose. The past few days have felt exactly that way. On Saturday, I was in Italy. On Sunday, we thought we were going to Turkey. Monday we turned around in a flurry of chaos. Today I'm in Egypt, and in a week I'll be leaving Greece. The past 48 hours have brought out the best in the entire SAS community. They have proven what it takes to be a SAS student: resiliency - the drive to make the most of a less than ideal situation, community - trust that others will make the best decision for you, and the understanding that the agendas of a few must sometimes be sacrificed in the interest of a larger group (as was the case for the interport parents), and a sense of spontaneity, which needs no explanation.
The shock of being here is so intense it almost feels like I'm just imagining it. It was unforeseen, unplanned, unexpected, and yet here I am on a bus to Cairo. Already, I feel like I've seen so much - trying to take in every last detail of being in a foreign country is exhausting. Describing this feeling as culture shock would be an understatement. We are literally on a desert highway, passing cars, trucks, and caravans of camels on the side of the road, along with the occasional palm tree. The streets of Alexandria are like the filthiest streets of Naples to the power of 10. The buildings, signs and windows are all caked in layers of sand and dirt. Our convoy of three buses is escorted by armed tourist police.
Already, I can sense the male dominance of the culture here. I have only seen one female driver in all the cars that have passed us. I haven't seen many women out, but most of those who I have seen have been wearing the traditional Islamic dress - showing only their eyes. Our tour guide said that married women wear black, and unmarried women wear colored dresses, because Islamic culture does not use wedding rings.
The scenery looks like Texas with less grass, more palm trees, and roadside stands selling pottery. The signs are in Arabic but some also have English or Greek.
This morning on the ship, you could feel the energy pouring out of the students on board. The excitement of traveling to a new place not on the itinerary on such a sudden notice was unparalleled. The nervousness of having no clue how to get around or how to communicate in Arabic leaves a feeling like that of the first day of high school, except much more unfamiliar. Less than 2 days since we were heading to Istanbul, here I am about to ride a camel near the great pyramids. If this isn't adventure, I don't know what is.
Day 1- 6:00 p.m.
I have never felt so dirty in my life. We started off at the Great Pyramids of Giza. It was remarkable to see - I was surprised that there weren't fences - you can just walk right up to the pyramids and touch them. The vendors there sell every item imaginable, and men try and force you to get on their camels so they can charge you for a photo on them. They are all VERY aggressive. Next, we stopped at the Sphinx, where I bought a hand-carved scarab beetle for $1 after bartering with a vendor for a few minutes. We went to the Sakkara country club where we met up with our other two buses. They served an amazing authentic Egyptian buffet lunch of mostly stuff I couldn't identify if I had a multiple choice, but was good nonetheless. After our hour-stay at the club (which had separate restaurant facilities and swimming areas for men and women), we got on the buses and went to the step pyramid, which we went underneath via a small passageway where we had to practically crawl for about 50 yards. The burial chamber, lined with hieroglyphs, and the coffin were still intact although everything else had been removed. Right next to it was a tomb which we toured.
When you're a kid in elementary school, you learn about Egyptian culture and mummies with skepticism and intrigue. But being there in person was a beyond-words surreal experience. To stand in a tomb and touch the hieroglyphs on the walls is an experience that you can't inherit from Indiana Jones or an Omnimax film. These monuments to the tenacity and perseverance of people who worked so intricately at preserving the dead, thinking someday the soul would come back to find the body, that have withstood millennia stare you in the face reminding you how small you really are - just a grain of sand in the history of a world which has been turning day in and day out long before you or the civilization you know has existed.
Our buses brought us back to Sakkara country club where we were split into groups of 8 or so and got into Jeeps. The Jeeps took us on an off-roading Safari adventure which was one of the most fun things I've ever done. Most of my SAS field trips have left me feeling like I could have done it on my own and more efficiently, but today was an anomale. To speed up and down the sand dunes behind pyramids was pure exhilaration. Our jeeps delivered us to a designated place in the desert where a GIANT line of cames awaited us. We each jumped on a camel and were off! Camels are much higher off the ground than you'd think, but after a few minutes we got used to it. Of course, I had to pick the maverick of the group - they named him Michael Jackson because he does a funny sideways moonwalk dance - humorous to see, scary to be a part of. The camels took us on a half hour ride back to the country club where our buses were waiting.
The way of life here is so different I don't even know where to start. Mostly, I'm in awe that I'm actually here. Everything is in Arabic. Last, and certainly not least, the heat.
Wow.
There is nothing quite like this on Earth that I have experienced. Its like the only things in existence are you, the earth, and the sun beating down on you. Sam said it feels like in the summer when you leave your car parked in the sun all day and then get in. We are all exhausted from the heat, covered in sweat and dirt. Most students are sleeping on the bus although it's only about 6:30 p.m. The bus is taking us to a central location in Cairo to let off the students who want to stay overnight - this includes me, so I'll finish writing later.
Italy: Perfect Place on Earth
The past 24 hours have been a rush of disappointment, excitement, stress and energy. After being told we were no longer going to Istanbul, we had a meeting in the union where dean Jill Wright told us that we were going to Alexandria, Egypt. She got as far as "Alex" when the union erupted in screaming and cheering. A lot of students are still disappointed about missing out on Istanbul, but excited for Egypt. The biggest downer is that we lost another day in port because we needed it to travel the 1000 miles to Egypt. Administrative offices definitely needed the extra day as well to arrange the field program options and put together a logistical and cultural pre-port.
Today we had to decide on our field trips, figure out what we wanted to see in Egypt, find what students we were traveling with, and make hotel reservations if necessary. To make the situation more complicated, we have limited internet (most students used all of their minutes a long time ago) and there are maybe three books on Egypt in the library (nobody bought travel guides for Egypt, thinking we were staying in Europe). So, this should be an interesting port stay. I decided to travel with Sam again- we are doing a camel and jeep safari tomorrow to Cairo, where we will leave the group and head to our hotel near Giza. Before I get too carried with Egypt, I'll backtrack to Italy. But I do have to give credit to SAS - the sudden change of plans showed that they were able to pull together a small but decent list of field programs and successfully align the many other measures needed to dock in Egypt.
Anyways, Italy was amazing and definitely my favorite port. To make a long description short, Italy has it all - great weather, good public transportation, great food, and unbelievably friendly people. Shortly after docking, Deb, Chris and Mike (both from Pitt) and I headed to Rome. I learned the hard way to pack lightly! After checking in at our hotel (where a ton of SAS kids were staying), we saw a good bit of Rome including the Forum and the Parthenon. At night, we walked by the Coliseum which was lit up and quite awesome to see.
On the second day, Deb left and met up with some other friends. Chris, Mike and I went to see the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. It took an entire half a day to see but was worth the time it took. We met up with a bunch of SAS students at the Spanish Steps who were going out, but Chris and I were too tired and decided to head back early after seeing Trevi fountain, which was awesome albeit touristy.
On our third day, we left Rome early and came back to the ship just for a few minutes to drop off our bags and grab some new clothes. We got on a late afternoon ferry to Sorrento and the ride there was breathtaking. When arriving in Sorrento, we ran into Steph and her friends. We went to the beach for an hour or so which was one of the best memories I have from SAS so far. To stand in the Mediterranean, look down and be able to see your feet because the water is so clear is an amazing feeling. Later that night, we all went out to dinner, which in Italy, is a several hour ordeal, and we had a fantastic time. Sorrento is one of my favorite places and I wish I spent more time there. In a way, I wish I hadn't gone to Rome. There is so much to see and do there and is such a phenomenal place, it takes at least a week if not two to see everything in its entirety. I loved it, but I wish I had spent my 4 days there seeing Sorrento and Capri fully instead of just spending a few hours there.
On Saturday, I had a SAS trip to Pompeii but it left the ship at 8:30 a.m. I stayed overnight in Sorrento and thought I could just meet up with the trip at the entrance to Pompeii around 9. I left Sorrento really early and hopped on a train to Pompeii. It was an awesome feeling to be sitting on a train going through the hills, overlooking the gorgeous Italian coastline, drinking a cappuccino which was the most amazing drink I've ever had. I got to Pompeii and found the entrance to the ruins at just about 9. After waiting an hour for the SAS trip to show up (and talking to many Pompeii employees who assured me the group hadn't yet arrived), I figured they had to have entered the ruins by that point and was able to get in without paying by showing them my SAS Pompeii ticket. Luckily, I ran into some SAS kids I recognized and was able to see the last part of the tour of Pompeii. It was remarkable to see and I wish I was able to see the entire city - another reason I wish I hadn't spent so much time in Rome. I got on the SAS tour bus back to the ship, luckily. I loved Italy and can't wait to go back for longer than 4 days. It may well be the most perfect place on earth.
Today we had to decide on our field trips, figure out what we wanted to see in Egypt, find what students we were traveling with, and make hotel reservations if necessary. To make the situation more complicated, we have limited internet (most students used all of their minutes a long time ago) and there are maybe three books on Egypt in the library (nobody bought travel guides for Egypt, thinking we were staying in Europe). So, this should be an interesting port stay. I decided to travel with Sam again- we are doing a camel and jeep safari tomorrow to Cairo, where we will leave the group and head to our hotel near Giza. Before I get too carried with Egypt, I'll backtrack to Italy. But I do have to give credit to SAS - the sudden change of plans showed that they were able to pull together a small but decent list of field programs and successfully align the many other measures needed to dock in Egypt.
Anyways, Italy was amazing and definitely my favorite port. To make a long description short, Italy has it all - great weather, good public transportation, great food, and unbelievably friendly people. Shortly after docking, Deb, Chris and Mike (both from Pitt) and I headed to Rome. I learned the hard way to pack lightly! After checking in at our hotel (where a ton of SAS kids were staying), we saw a good bit of Rome including the Forum and the Parthenon. At night, we walked by the Coliseum which was lit up and quite awesome to see.
On the second day, Deb left and met up with some other friends. Chris, Mike and I went to see the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. It took an entire half a day to see but was worth the time it took. We met up with a bunch of SAS students at the Spanish Steps who were going out, but Chris and I were too tired and decided to head back early after seeing Trevi fountain, which was awesome albeit touristy.
On our third day, we left Rome early and came back to the ship just for a few minutes to drop off our bags and grab some new clothes. We got on a late afternoon ferry to Sorrento and the ride there was breathtaking. When arriving in Sorrento, we ran into Steph and her friends. We went to the beach for an hour or so which was one of the best memories I have from SAS so far. To stand in the Mediterranean, look down and be able to see your feet because the water is so clear is an amazing feeling. Later that night, we all went out to dinner, which in Italy, is a several hour ordeal, and we had a fantastic time. Sorrento is one of my favorite places and I wish I spent more time there. In a way, I wish I hadn't gone to Rome. There is so much to see and do there and is such a phenomenal place, it takes at least a week if not two to see everything in its entirety. I loved it, but I wish I had spent my 4 days there seeing Sorrento and Capri fully instead of just spending a few hours there.
On Saturday, I had a SAS trip to Pompeii but it left the ship at 8:30 a.m. I stayed overnight in Sorrento and thought I could just meet up with the trip at the entrance to Pompeii around 9. I left Sorrento really early and hopped on a train to Pompeii. It was an awesome feeling to be sitting on a train going through the hills, overlooking the gorgeous Italian coastline, drinking a cappuccino which was the most amazing drink I've ever had. I got to Pompeii and found the entrance to the ruins at just about 9. After waiting an hour for the SAS trip to show up (and talking to many Pompeii employees who assured me the group hadn't yet arrived), I figured they had to have entered the ruins by that point and was able to get in without paying by showing them my SAS Pompeii ticket. Luckily, I ran into some SAS kids I recognized and was able to see the last part of the tour of Pompeii. It was remarkable to see and I wish I was able to see the entire city - another reason I wish I hadn't spent so much time in Rome. I got on the SAS tour bus back to the ship, luckily. I loved Italy and can't wait to go back for longer than 4 days. It may well be the most perfect place on earth.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Post from Mediterranean
Many students have approached me over the past week asking what happened to the blog, since their parents read it and said it hasn't been updated since Denmark. I apologize to everyone for the delay in posting: I wrote the Belgium entry late and didn't submit it until last Friday. I used my internet minutes today to check on the blog and it still hasn't been updated - I'm sure the communications employees at S.A.S. have their hands full today with frantic parents calling in about the situation in Turkey, so it's likely you won't see this entry until after we've docked and the chaos that is probably ensuing in Charlottesville has subsided.
Regardless of what happens with Turkey, life on the Mediterranean is pretty sweet. We all had a global essay due today which put a bit of a damper on everyone's enjoyment of the beautiful weather, but I managed to catch a few hours of sun yesterday. We are passing the southern coast of Greece today. The gym on the ship is on the port side, so this morning I was on an elliptical and could faintly see Greek islands if I looked at the horizon hard enough. There are a lot of sailboats close to the shores of the islands we have been passing throughout the Mediterranean. Yesterday a lot of students saw sea turtles right alongside the ship. We are all having a good time- the water has been really calm since leaving Naples and the awful mysterious noise that had been on my side of the ship has stopped. The sun is shining full force (although it's not nearly as hot today as it was yesterday), there is a beautiful breeze and the water is so blue it makes you wonder if you've ever truly seen anything blue before. Decks four and seven are packed with students in swimsuits- some reading, most sleeping. It is certainly hot enough to go in the pool, but after 3 it is usually filled with the faculty's children throwing balls around and playing which is kind of inconvenient because that's when we all get out of class and it's not big enough to have college students in there too.
Regardless, life is good and other than our global studies paper and the fact that we have no clue what country we'll be in tomorrow, it's hard to find anything to complain about. I'm gonna go recharge my loaner laptop before my next class- I'll write about Italy later today J.
Regardless of what happens with Turkey, life on the Mediterranean is pretty sweet. We all had a global essay due today which put a bit of a damper on everyone's enjoyment of the beautiful weather, but I managed to catch a few hours of sun yesterday. We are passing the southern coast of Greece today. The gym on the ship is on the port side, so this morning I was on an elliptical and could faintly see Greek islands if I looked at the horizon hard enough. There are a lot of sailboats close to the shores of the islands we have been passing throughout the Mediterranean. Yesterday a lot of students saw sea turtles right alongside the ship. We are all having a good time- the water has been really calm since leaving Naples and the awful mysterious noise that had been on my side of the ship has stopped. The sun is shining full force (although it's not nearly as hot today as it was yesterday), there is a beautiful breeze and the water is so blue it makes you wonder if you've ever truly seen anything blue before. Decks four and seven are packed with students in swimsuits- some reading, most sleeping. It is certainly hot enough to go in the pool, but after 3 it is usually filled with the faculty's children throwing balls around and playing which is kind of inconvenient because that's when we all get out of class and it's not big enough to have college students in there too.
Regardless, life is good and other than our global studies paper and the fact that we have no clue what country we'll be in tomorrow, it's hard to find anything to complain about. I'm gonna go recharge my loaner laptop before my next class- I'll write about Italy later today J.
Belgium: If Only for the Waffles...
On Monday, we docked in Antwerp. Shortly after, I left on a FDP trip to Brussels for my class, Business, Politics and Culture of the E.U. First, we went to the European Economic and Social Committee where we had a debriefing about the E.U. The man who spoke to us told us a lot about the history and foundation of the E.U. Afterwards, we headed to a park where we had some free time to wander around Brussels, where lots of students bought Belgian chocolate. Our next meeting was at the American Mission in Belgium. After going through an intense security process, we met with a U.S. foreign service officer there who ironically was a S.A.S. alumnus from 2002, and had given us our debriefing that morning on-ship. It was really interesting to hear the stories and viewpoints from someone who could relate exactly to our program. After this meeting, Professor Wilkerson had the bus take us to the Grand Place in Brussels (not on our itinerary but an added bonus), where we had about an hour to try some Belgian waffles, frites, chocolate, and beer for a few adventurous students. After this experience, I would say it's completely justifiable to take a trip to Belgium just to have a waffle. We headed back to the ship around 5, and later that night I met up with my friend from grade school who is not on SAS. He is doing an internship in France this summer and was able to take a few days off of work to meet up with myself and Joel, another SAS student who is coincidentally my friend's roommate at Penn State. We checked out some of the Antwerp nightlife but had a pretty early night since we planned to wake up early on Tuesday to go to Amsterdam.
Tuesday morning we headed to the Antwerp train station where we ran into just about everyone else from SAS, and caught a train to Amsterdam. The ride there was really picturesque, and yes, Holland does still have a bunch of windmills. Upon arrival in Amsterdam we checked in at our hotel, the Golden Tulip, which was quite upscale for a bunch of college kids (I had booked it in April so I luckily didn't get overcharged like some students). Later that day, the rest of our group met up with us- Zach, Sam and Josh from Iowa, who really made my trip to Amsterdam worthwhile; they are probably the funniest and nicest people I've met so far on SAS. Of all the places I've been so far on SAS, Amsterdam is hands down my favorite. Once you get past the extremely touristy areas (which reminded me of Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco), it really is a beautiful city and everyone there is beyond friendly and helpful, not to mention almost everyone knows English. We stopped by the Anne Frank house but didn't go in because of the ridiculously long line. Much to our dismay, the Heineken brewery was closed for renovations- it's a must-see tour in Amsterdam- but we found plenty of other sights to keep us occupied. Moreover, Amsterdam is such a scenic city that you don't really need to find things to do- just walking around is an experience in and of itself. Of course, no trip to Amsterdam would be complete without a trip to the Red Light District, where we briefly strolled through, had a few awkward laughs, and headed back to our hotel.
Wednesday we walked around Amsterdam a bit more before hopping on an afternoon train (which was cancelled, pushing our plans back an hour) and got back to Antwerp around 5. On the walk back from the train station to the ship we ran into Professor Lynch, who gave us a quick spiel on Belgian food and then offered us some of his pizza. After arriving at the ship, we all took a muchly-needed nap before strolling around Antwerp. I was surprised at how big it is; I was half-expecting a small town similar to Korsor (where we docked in Denmark) but there is definitely enough just in Antwerp to keep busy for several days. Lots of SAS girls seemed to spend a lot of time there shopping, as it is one of Europe's fashion centers. I brought more than enough clothes to begin with (sidenote for future SAS students- really take it seriously when they tell you to only bring ¼ of the clothes you think you need), so even if I had wanted to go shopping I wouldn't have room in my bags to take stuff home. I spent Wednesday night wandering around Antwerp with Sam, one of my neighbors/classmates who is from Buffalo, NY where I lived for a few years. We ended up exploring a castle which was right near our ship before calling it an early night.
Thursday, our last day in Belgium, I took a SAS trip to Ghent, a medieval town with several castles. It was an interesting place to see but it came to a point when the tour guide told us sooooo much I thought I was going to explode. It would have been nice to have a little more time there to explore independently of the tour, but either way it was a nice change of pace from Antwerp and Amsterdam to head to a smaller, more laid-back time and learn about Belgian history.
All in all, I loved Belgium and it would be the first place from our itinerary I would go back to (so far) if given the chance because there is so much to see there. I apologize for this entry being somewhat spiritless, but I'm rushing to finish it up as I am currently on the train from Naples to Rome!!
So far, Italy is beautiful. The train is surprisingly nice and you can see the coastline, which is amazing. It is a sunny day and we have 85+ degree weather (not so nice for our hour-long walk to the train station this morning carrying all of our stuff). It's hard to not be happy here - there are palm trees everywhere and everyone just seems to be having a good time, locals and SAS students alike. Last night in our logistical pre-port, our ship doctor's warning for us in regards to health issues was: "The water is fine. You can drink it, you can drink beer and wine, and you can eat spaghetti and cannoli and gelato. But I have to warn you, the ship's scales do work."
Well, we are almost to Rome, so I have to shut down this laptop (which I was able to borrow from the SAS computer lab). I'll write again when we are back on ship.... Provided it can still float after everyone's time in Italy J
Tuesday morning we headed to the Antwerp train station where we ran into just about everyone else from SAS, and caught a train to Amsterdam. The ride there was really picturesque, and yes, Holland does still have a bunch of windmills. Upon arrival in Amsterdam we checked in at our hotel, the Golden Tulip, which was quite upscale for a bunch of college kids (I had booked it in April so I luckily didn't get overcharged like some students). Later that day, the rest of our group met up with us- Zach, Sam and Josh from Iowa, who really made my trip to Amsterdam worthwhile; they are probably the funniest and nicest people I've met so far on SAS. Of all the places I've been so far on SAS, Amsterdam is hands down my favorite. Once you get past the extremely touristy areas (which reminded me of Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco), it really is a beautiful city and everyone there is beyond friendly and helpful, not to mention almost everyone knows English. We stopped by the Anne Frank house but didn't go in because of the ridiculously long line. Much to our dismay, the Heineken brewery was closed for renovations- it's a must-see tour in Amsterdam- but we found plenty of other sights to keep us occupied. Moreover, Amsterdam is such a scenic city that you don't really need to find things to do- just walking around is an experience in and of itself. Of course, no trip to Amsterdam would be complete without a trip to the Red Light District, where we briefly strolled through, had a few awkward laughs, and headed back to our hotel.
Wednesday we walked around Amsterdam a bit more before hopping on an afternoon train (which was cancelled, pushing our plans back an hour) and got back to Antwerp around 5. On the walk back from the train station to the ship we ran into Professor Lynch, who gave us a quick spiel on Belgian food and then offered us some of his pizza. After arriving at the ship, we all took a muchly-needed nap before strolling around Antwerp. I was surprised at how big it is; I was half-expecting a small town similar to Korsor (where we docked in Denmark) but there is definitely enough just in Antwerp to keep busy for several days. Lots of SAS girls seemed to spend a lot of time there shopping, as it is one of Europe's fashion centers. I brought more than enough clothes to begin with (sidenote for future SAS students- really take it seriously when they tell you to only bring ¼ of the clothes you think you need), so even if I had wanted to go shopping I wouldn't have room in my bags to take stuff home. I spent Wednesday night wandering around Antwerp with Sam, one of my neighbors/classmates who is from Buffalo, NY where I lived for a few years. We ended up exploring a castle which was right near our ship before calling it an early night.
Thursday, our last day in Belgium, I took a SAS trip to Ghent, a medieval town with several castles. It was an interesting place to see but it came to a point when the tour guide told us sooooo much I thought I was going to explode. It would have been nice to have a little more time there to explore independently of the tour, but either way it was a nice change of pace from Antwerp and Amsterdam to head to a smaller, more laid-back time and learn about Belgian history.
All in all, I loved Belgium and it would be the first place from our itinerary I would go back to (so far) if given the chance because there is so much to see there. I apologize for this entry being somewhat spiritless, but I'm rushing to finish it up as I am currently on the train from Naples to Rome!!
So far, Italy is beautiful. The train is surprisingly nice and you can see the coastline, which is amazing. It is a sunny day and we have 85+ degree weather (not so nice for our hour-long walk to the train station this morning carrying all of our stuff). It's hard to not be happy here - there are palm trees everywhere and everyone just seems to be having a good time, locals and SAS students alike. Last night in our logistical pre-port, our ship doctor's warning for us in regards to health issues was: "The water is fine. You can drink it, you can drink beer and wine, and you can eat spaghetti and cannoli and gelato. But I have to warn you, the ship's scales do work."
Well, we are almost to Rome, so I have to shut down this laptop (which I was able to borrow from the SAS computer lab). I'll write again when we are back on ship.... Provided it can still float after everyone's time in Italy J
Monday, July 14, 2008
Denmark: The Friendliest People on Earth
Day 1:
We arrived in Denmark to find it much less of a hassle than Russia. Students were allowed to disembark by sea after getting their passports. Although we didn't need to carry our passports with us, The Voice told us that they were necessary if we planned to stay overnight at all. I got my passport to be safe but I never needed it. I had planned to go immediately to Copenhagen on a train with several other students I was staying with. At the last minute, I decided to get on the SAS city orientation in Copenhagen. It was like $80 but I was able to buy a last minute ticket for $25 from a girl selling hers. To correct something I said in an earlier post, students are NOT allowed to get on SAS trips last minute for free. Apparently my friend going on the Norway in a Nutshell hiking trip for free was a mistake by the trip leader. SAS does sell trips with open space at the last minute for full-price, but there is a binder on the field office desk where people can buy and sell trip tickets, and if you wait until last minute you can usually get them cheaply. Train tickets to Copenhagen were like $22, so for about the same price I was able to get the SAS Copenhagen orientation. We took really nice coach buses to Copenhagen, where we got a tour of both Parliament and the Palace. It certainly wasn't comparable to the palaces in Russia but it was nice to see nonetheless. After the tour, we were driven around to see the Copenhagen Opera House and Little Mermaid Statue. It was really nothing special to see but our bus tour guide gave us the true (and depressing) story of the Little Mermaid, as written by Hans Christen Andersen. The bus was nice enough to drop off students staying in Copenhagen at the city central which was in reasonable distance to all of our hotels. Alissa, a girl on SAS who also goes to Cornell (which was an awesome surprise), and I walked about a mile to the Copenhagen Island Hotel where we stayed. We planned to meet our whole group in the lobby at 5:30 p.m. and everyone made it there around that time. We had a group of ten - Jason, Zach, Adam, Mike, Steve, Arielle, Meaghan, Alissa, Marlee and myself- and 2 hotel rooms. I had put the charges for 3 nights on my debit card over hotels.com 2 days before. I am the only one in the group who is 21, which is the minimum age to reserve a hotel in many European countries. Although I got a great last-minute discount, the hotel was still really expensive and I'm in the process of getting everyone to pay me back- easier said than done.
We were all really pleasantly surprised to find out how nice the hotel was. It was built right in the water (hence being called the island hotel) and had a great fitness center with a steamroom and sauna! The one downside is that it was sort of a long walk from the city center, although it was right next to a train station so you could get anywhere in under 10 minutes for about $2. Marla, Julia, and Lauren met up with us later that night and one of Marla's family friends who is currently studying in Copenhagen was kind enough to show us around. We ended up at a cute little pub on Stroget Street, a pedestrian street full of nightclubs and boutique stores. While there, I met a few college students from the Faroe Islands (owned by Denmark) along with a girl from Australia. They were very energetic and made us feel very welcome in Denmark. I think I was most surprised to hear that they were all pro-America. While many Europeans disagree with American politics, everyone I have met says they dream of one day being able to come to America.
Day 2:
On Wednesday, we got a late-ish start. Around 11:30 we headed out of the hotel. The entire group except for Zach (my nextdoor neighbor. I've already met 4 Zachs on the ship!!) and myself decided to take a canal tour of Copenhagen- there was some deal where you could buy an all-day canal pass and take the boat to wherever. I was all toured-out from the day before and just wanted to wander around. We headed to the city center and then found our way over a bridge to the Freetown of Christiania. Take the 1970's and multiply it by about 10....It was like a hippie community, the only interesting thing there was the graffiti-art that's all over the trailer-park-esque neighborhoods that comprise Christiania. Zach and I wandered around some more and ended up in the main shopping district, and ended up at H&M where we saw quite a few SAS students. It was really remarkable to me how easily I recognized SASers. We were 90 minutes away from our ship in a city of 1.5 million people and yet we can all recognize each other somewhat easily. I can tell because SAS girls wear flip-flops religiously and I have yet to see a European woman wear them. Tuesday evening I went to Tivoli Gardens with Jason and Zach. It turned out to be expensive, and I thought it was overrated. Keeping in mind that I am a thrill-seeking roller coaster junkie, Tivoli was okay to spend a few hours at but I wouldn't want to be there for a significant amount of time. While there, I ran into Richard, who is in my econ class. When Jason and Zach left Tivoli to head out for the night, I stuck around with Richard etc. for a while and then headed back to my hotel around 11. I was tired and wanted to take advantage of the free wi-fi at my hotel!!! I hadn't checked my cornell.edu email in like a month and was starting to get concerned that my advisor and/or registrar thought I went AWOL.
Day 3:
I got up at 7 a.m. and did some research on the internet for my plans in the rest of our ports. I was out the door of our hotel shortly after 8 and on my way to Malmo, Sweden! First, I took the train from my hotel to Central Station, where I got a round trip ticket (about $35) to Malmo. The train left around 8:30 and I was in Sweden shortly after 9. I hadn't realized this until my little excursion to Sweden, but prior to Thursday, I hadn't been alone in over a month. Not that it bothered me, I love being social with everyone on SAS, but getting away for just a couple hours by myself made me realized how much I needed to just take some time alone and enjoy the peace and quiet that you don't often find when traveling in groups. Malmo is a cute little city which was just waking up when I got there. I walked around it for a while and saw just about everything there. In fact, I found where all of the watches in Europe have been hiding out. I didn't bring a watch on SAS which was really stupid. Nobody really has their cell phones on them around the ship, and there aren't many clocks. Anyways, I had been looking for a watch in Norway, Russia, and Denmark and found nothing... then I get to Malmo and there are literally 8 watch stores all right near each other. So, I finally got a watch for the rest of the trip!! Yay!!! Around 11:30 I headed back to the train station to head back to Copenhagen (not before buying my necessary Sweden souvenirs). A lot of SAS kids were filtering into Malmo as I was leaving, but I was glad I went alone in the morning and had the entire rest of the day for whatever. I know that as soon as this gets posted I'll have frantic voicemails from my parents asking what on earth I was thinking traveling alone. Well, Sweden and Denmark are the number 1 and 2 safest countries in the world, respectively. I cannot travel alone in any of the other ports we are going to, so I figured I should at least capitalize on the opportunity while I still had it. I was really glad I went- I can now say that I went to Sweden for coffee and was back by noon. I spent the rest of the day checking out the less-touristy parts of Copenhagen. It seems like a really great place to be, especially for the younger crowd, since it draws study abroad students from all over the world. Thursday night I went out with Heidi, Hannah, Lisa and Alaina and we had quite the adventure. We spent over three hours just sitting outside and talking with a large group of locals- including 2 girls from Malmo who commuted to work in Copenhagen every day. I learned a lot about Danish social and political programs. Three of the people we talked to were immigrants from Libya who had really interesting stories as well. Danish people might be the friendliest people in the world- they just saw us wandering around aimlessly and invited us to join them! They spoke perfect English and were probably more grammatically correct than we are. We ran into a lot of SAS kids Thursday night, many of whom went to the Ice bar which seemed highly overrated. I'm glad I didn't go.
Day 4:
We spent most of Friday getting back to Korsor from Copenhagen. The train was quite nice and the ride went by quickly. Many students took advantage of the wi-fi at the library close to where the ship was docked in Korsor. I had some kroner left over and spent it on 2 new notebooks and some index cards so I can study for my Global midterm which is coming up right after Antwerp (aaarghh!). I was on the ship by 5 and took a muchly needed nap after dealing with my whole laptop-breaking incident. That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Denmark, and it was a nice change of pace to have a relaxing port visit where I didn't have too many SAS trips. Right now it is really late on Sunday night and we are already docked in Antwerp but not allowed off the ship until after our debriefing tomorrow morning. I am excited to see the EU headquarters in Brussels tomorrow!! You'll be hearing from me in a few days when we start our 5-day trek to Italy.
We arrived in Denmark to find it much less of a hassle than Russia. Students were allowed to disembark by sea after getting their passports. Although we didn't need to carry our passports with us, The Voice told us that they were necessary if we planned to stay overnight at all. I got my passport to be safe but I never needed it. I had planned to go immediately to Copenhagen on a train with several other students I was staying with. At the last minute, I decided to get on the SAS city orientation in Copenhagen. It was like $80 but I was able to buy a last minute ticket for $25 from a girl selling hers. To correct something I said in an earlier post, students are NOT allowed to get on SAS trips last minute for free. Apparently my friend going on the Norway in a Nutshell hiking trip for free was a mistake by the trip leader. SAS does sell trips with open space at the last minute for full-price, but there is a binder on the field office desk where people can buy and sell trip tickets, and if you wait until last minute you can usually get them cheaply. Train tickets to Copenhagen were like $22, so for about the same price I was able to get the SAS Copenhagen orientation. We took really nice coach buses to Copenhagen, where we got a tour of both Parliament and the Palace. It certainly wasn't comparable to the palaces in Russia but it was nice to see nonetheless. After the tour, we were driven around to see the Copenhagen Opera House and Little Mermaid Statue. It was really nothing special to see but our bus tour guide gave us the true (and depressing) story of the Little Mermaid, as written by Hans Christen Andersen. The bus was nice enough to drop off students staying in Copenhagen at the city central which was in reasonable distance to all of our hotels. Alissa, a girl on SAS who also goes to Cornell (which was an awesome surprise), and I walked about a mile to the Copenhagen Island Hotel where we stayed. We planned to meet our whole group in the lobby at 5:30 p.m. and everyone made it there around that time. We had a group of ten - Jason, Zach, Adam, Mike, Steve, Arielle, Meaghan, Alissa, Marlee and myself- and 2 hotel rooms. I had put the charges for 3 nights on my debit card over hotels.com 2 days before. I am the only one in the group who is 21, which is the minimum age to reserve a hotel in many European countries. Although I got a great last-minute discount, the hotel was still really expensive and I'm in the process of getting everyone to pay me back- easier said than done.
We were all really pleasantly surprised to find out how nice the hotel was. It was built right in the water (hence being called the island hotel) and had a great fitness center with a steamroom and sauna! The one downside is that it was sort of a long walk from the city center, although it was right next to a train station so you could get anywhere in under 10 minutes for about $2. Marla, Julia, and Lauren met up with us later that night and one of Marla's family friends who is currently studying in Copenhagen was kind enough to show us around. We ended up at a cute little pub on Stroget Street, a pedestrian street full of nightclubs and boutique stores. While there, I met a few college students from the Faroe Islands (owned by Denmark) along with a girl from Australia. They were very energetic and made us feel very welcome in Denmark. I think I was most surprised to hear that they were all pro-America. While many Europeans disagree with American politics, everyone I have met says they dream of one day being able to come to America.
Day 2:
On Wednesday, we got a late-ish start. Around 11:30 we headed out of the hotel. The entire group except for Zach (my nextdoor neighbor. I've already met 4 Zachs on the ship!!) and myself decided to take a canal tour of Copenhagen- there was some deal where you could buy an all-day canal pass and take the boat to wherever. I was all toured-out from the day before and just wanted to wander around. We headed to the city center and then found our way over a bridge to the Freetown of Christiania. Take the 1970's and multiply it by about 10....It was like a hippie community, the only interesting thing there was the graffiti-art that's all over the trailer-park-esque neighborhoods that comprise Christiania. Zach and I wandered around some more and ended up in the main shopping district, and ended up at H&M where we saw quite a few SAS students. It was really remarkable to me how easily I recognized SASers. We were 90 minutes away from our ship in a city of 1.5 million people and yet we can all recognize each other somewhat easily. I can tell because SAS girls wear flip-flops religiously and I have yet to see a European woman wear them. Tuesday evening I went to Tivoli Gardens with Jason and Zach. It turned out to be expensive, and I thought it was overrated. Keeping in mind that I am a thrill-seeking roller coaster junkie, Tivoli was okay to spend a few hours at but I wouldn't want to be there for a significant amount of time. While there, I ran into Richard, who is in my econ class. When Jason and Zach left Tivoli to head out for the night, I stuck around with Richard etc. for a while and then headed back to my hotel around 11. I was tired and wanted to take advantage of the free wi-fi at my hotel!!! I hadn't checked my cornell.edu email in like a month and was starting to get concerned that my advisor and/or registrar thought I went AWOL.
Day 3:
I got up at 7 a.m. and did some research on the internet for my plans in the rest of our ports. I was out the door of our hotel shortly after 8 and on my way to Malmo, Sweden! First, I took the train from my hotel to Central Station, where I got a round trip ticket (about $35) to Malmo. The train left around 8:30 and I was in Sweden shortly after 9. I hadn't realized this until my little excursion to Sweden, but prior to Thursday, I hadn't been alone in over a month. Not that it bothered me, I love being social with everyone on SAS, but getting away for just a couple hours by myself made me realized how much I needed to just take some time alone and enjoy the peace and quiet that you don't often find when traveling in groups. Malmo is a cute little city which was just waking up when I got there. I walked around it for a while and saw just about everything there. In fact, I found where all of the watches in Europe have been hiding out. I didn't bring a watch on SAS which was really stupid. Nobody really has their cell phones on them around the ship, and there aren't many clocks. Anyways, I had been looking for a watch in Norway, Russia, and Denmark and found nothing... then I get to Malmo and there are literally 8 watch stores all right near each other. So, I finally got a watch for the rest of the trip!! Yay!!! Around 11:30 I headed back to the train station to head back to Copenhagen (not before buying my necessary Sweden souvenirs). A lot of SAS kids were filtering into Malmo as I was leaving, but I was glad I went alone in the morning and had the entire rest of the day for whatever. I know that as soon as this gets posted I'll have frantic voicemails from my parents asking what on earth I was thinking traveling alone. Well, Sweden and Denmark are the number 1 and 2 safest countries in the world, respectively. I cannot travel alone in any of the other ports we are going to, so I figured I should at least capitalize on the opportunity while I still had it. I was really glad I went- I can now say that I went to Sweden for coffee and was back by noon. I spent the rest of the day checking out the less-touristy parts of Copenhagen. It seems like a really great place to be, especially for the younger crowd, since it draws study abroad students from all over the world. Thursday night I went out with Heidi, Hannah, Lisa and Alaina and we had quite the adventure. We spent over three hours just sitting outside and talking with a large group of locals- including 2 girls from Malmo who commuted to work in Copenhagen every day. I learned a lot about Danish social and political programs. Three of the people we talked to were immigrants from Libya who had really interesting stories as well. Danish people might be the friendliest people in the world- they just saw us wandering around aimlessly and invited us to join them! They spoke perfect English and were probably more grammatically correct than we are. We ran into a lot of SAS kids Thursday night, many of whom went to the Ice bar which seemed highly overrated. I'm glad I didn't go.
Day 4:
We spent most of Friday getting back to Korsor from Copenhagen. The train was quite nice and the ride went by quickly. Many students took advantage of the wi-fi at the library close to where the ship was docked in Korsor. I had some kroner left over and spent it on 2 new notebooks and some index cards so I can study for my Global midterm which is coming up right after Antwerp (aaarghh!). I was on the ship by 5 and took a muchly needed nap after dealing with my whole laptop-breaking incident. That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Denmark, and it was a nice change of pace to have a relaxing port visit where I didn't have too many SAS trips. Right now it is really late on Sunday night and we are already docked in Antwerp but not allowed off the ship until after our debriefing tomorrow morning. I am excited to see the EU headquarters in Brussels tomorrow!! You'll be hearing from me in a few days when we start our 5-day trek to Italy.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Russia: My Venture Beyond the Ordinary
Before I start writing about Russia, I want to explain my writing briefly: I know a lot of people reading this are prospective SASers, so I am trying to incorporate information that you might find useful. I just want to give you a heads-up that details such as hours, prices, and policies may not be exactly the same for my trip as they are for yours so please understand that every last detail might not be accurate. I have already received Facebook messages from future SASers asking about these kinds of things. I would love to answer all of your questions. At some point later in the trip, I will make a blog addressing FAQ's. Hope this helps!
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It’s already Monday night. I can’t believe how quickly this summer is flying by. Tomorrow morning, we will be in Denmark and I’m still trying to gather my thoughts from Russia.
In short, there wasn’t a minute I spent in Russia I didn’t like.
Before departing for SAS, I was most looking forward to Norway and Greece. Norway because I don’t know anyone who has been there so to me, it was kind of exotic, and Greece because I have always wanted to see it. I thought that Turkey would win the “most underrated” award, because Istanbul seems like it has potential to be a really cool port city despite my not knowing much about it.
But I don’t think anything could top Russia. In fact, I think it would be near impossible to have a better time anywhere else. I didn’t really know what to expect. I think that’s part of the reason why I had such an amazing time. When I went to Norway, I had a preconceived notion of just what it would generally be like, and in many ways I was disappointed that it didn’t really match up to what I was expecting. For Russia, I didn’t have anything in mind; I approached it with a blank slate. It’s hard to do, but there was so much other stuff on my mind, I didn’t have time to sit around and think about what Russia would be like. From now on, I’m going to just take things as they are.
I think all of us on SAS are having issues being able to just accept a country for what it is, myself included. Because most of us are American and have always lived in the States, it’s natural for us to compare and contrast every aspect of other cultures with our own (or lack thereof), subconsciously or not. But I don’t want to leave SAS having some sort of list of what ways each country is similar and different to the USA, I want to have an idea of what it means to be Norwegian, Russian, etc.
Wow... already rambling aimlessly and haven’t even started discussing Russia yet. So...
Tuesday, July 1
After our port debriefing, we were dismissed by sea. In Russia, we had to carry around our passports with us which was a pain. So the process of signing out our passports took a while. Originally, all students were to be dismissed, then lifelong learners, and then faculty/staff. I guess some lifelong learners weren’t pleased with this (this seems to be a common trend... many of them are writing official complaints to Semester at Sea regarding their daytrip to Moscow. But it really wasn’t anything SAS had control over. I’ll get to that later). So, they ended up dismissing 2 seas, then the lifelong learners, and then called the remaining seas. I am in the Yellow Sea which was the last to be called. We were asked to go up to the faculty lounge (which we otherwise aren’t allowed in) where we signed out our passports. It was a very organized process- they even had tape lines on the floor resembling a racetrack with different lanes to go in according to student ID #. They asked that all students retrieve their passport at that time regardless of whether or not they planned to get off of the ship immediately. This was easier in theory than in practice- of 583 college students, it is pretty unrealistic that they will all be awake at 9:30 a.m. on a day we don’t have class. Anyways, I got my passport and headed off of the ship to find... a really, really, really long line.
We knew that we would have to go through immigration upon our first entry into Russia, but nobody knew the process would have been so time-consuming. I had a field program trip which was to meet at 12:30 by the buses (which are always parked in a really obvious place right near the ship). We were told by The Voice (I don’t know who it belongs to, but this is the man that does all of the shipboard announcements, pages people, and tells us whether we have to turn our clocks ahead or back or whatever every night) that if we had a field program leaving at 12:30, to make sure we were off of the ship by 11:30 to make it through passport control on time. I got off the ship at about 11:10 since I was one of the last students dismissed. I saw my friends Jeff and Ryan (two of the guys from our late-night hiking excursion on Mt. Floien in Norway) in line and stood with them. One of my professors, Bill Wilkerson, was right behind us so we talked for a good hour and a half before we finally made it up to passport control. Every single time we came to and left the ship, we had to go through passport control. Basically, it was a little building on the pier, and then there was a bridge connecting the building to the mainland. The first time, it was awful because there were only two people working and over six hundred SASers needing to get through security. I got through passport control just before 1, and got on the 3rd of 5 buses leaving for my program: the city orientation via the Neva River. Shortly after getting on the bus we left and got a short tour of the city. We stopped at a few places to take photos and our tour guide was very friendly and spoke English quite well. Then we stopped at a souvenir store and... much to everyone’s surprise/delight, the store was offering very small samples of free vodka! So, of course, we all tried a sample. A few students bought some souvenir items and then we got back on the bus and headed to the dock alongside the Neva River. There were two boats docked side by side, the first of which was already full, so we got on the second boat. After about another half hour, the last two buses showed up and the students from them got on our boat. Unfortunately for them, they did not get a chance to stop at any of the places we stopped at since they had to wait so long at the pier for everyone to get through passport control. The tour just went up and down the Neva River. After the boat ride we got back on our respective buses for a continued tour. However, many students were concerned about making it back to the ship in time to get ready for the ballet, so the bus headed back to the dock. We had plenty of time but rush hour traffic in St. Petersburg is pretty bad, and after having a day that got off to a very late start we all just wanted to play on the safe side.
Tuesday night we boarded our buses on time and got to the Mariinsky theater on time. I was expecting it to be this really gigantic, grandiose theater. It was fancy and pretty big but nothing close to what you find on Broadway. I am not a big theater buff, but the ballet was really fun. It was nice to spend a night doing something out of the ordinary. There is no question that this is a culture that takes ballet seriously.
We got back to the ship around 11. Within close walking distance of our ship, there was a bar -all outdoors- right next to the ship, then an indoor bar across the street. Maybe ¼ mile down the street there was a little place called Café Geo, and across from that there was an outdoor café/bar with a second floor which was a cool place to just sit and watch the river. This is where I went the first night with some friends. A ton of SASers were there just sitting around and talking. Many were interacting with the locals, a few of whom spoke a bit of English. A lot of us were pretty exhausted after a stressful day and headed back to the ship as the sun was setting (which was around 12:45).
Wednesday, July 2
Wednesday in Russia was my day to just hang out and do whatever. Luckily, I have a really keen sense of direction. I just have to look at a map once and then I can always know where I am and which direction I’m heading in. My friend Alison and I walked from the ship to a big park not too far away where we just sat and wrote in our journals for a few minutes. Here’s what I wrote:
* I’m sitting in a park in St. Petersburg - the one with the famous horse statue. Ali and I would both rather enjoy our time as we would if we lived here, so we decided to just come here and hang out for a while. It seems that a lot of local people spend their free time here. I want to experience what it is to be Russian, not what it is to see St. Petersburg as a tourist. In finance, it is often said that great rewards are only derived from great risk. I feel the same goes for everyday life. It is hard to study abroad - to fly across the ocean and plant yourself in a new place and discover a new life. It is harder to sail across the ocean with a group of college students you have never met before to not one but eight different places, and discover eight new lives. You don’t know the language or the culture or how to get anywhere, but taking this risk is the adventure of a lifetime.
It would be easy to be a tourist, but while you may witness culture, you don’t experience it. Semester at Sea lets you see the world without being a tourist. I want to forsake the ordinary - to not watch people in our different port countries as if they were animals at the zoo, but to venture beyond what you can learn and see in the pages of a National Geographic. To hear the casual conversations between street vendors, smell the cigarette smoke and diesel fuel and perfume of old women passing by, and above all else to see - not to simply watch, but to see - the world through different eyes.* I think that really sums up my whole take on what I’d like to get out of my SAS experience.
Ali and I wandered around Nevsky Prospekt (the main shopping street in St. Petersburg) for a while and found a cute little restaurant where we got lunch before taking some pictures in front of the Church of Spilled Blood and perusing a little market right behind it where Ali bought a few souvenirs. After stopping at a bookstore for a few postcards we headed back to the ship to unwind for a few hours. I spent Wednesday night walking around St. Petersburg with Derrick, who I had just met the day before. I know it’s weird but I love spending time with people I don’t already know. I have yet to meet someone I dislike, and by the end of SAS I think I’ll know just about everyone on the ship.
We actually walked right by a Russian military base which was a little creepy but I think it was obsolete. After running into some other SASers on Nevsky, we made it back across the bridge just before 1 a.m. It was cool to watch the bridge go up, it is part of Russia’s white nights celebration. We stopped in one of the café/bars on the way back to the ship because we saw a lot of SAS kids through the window. I met so many people that night, even though we didn’t stay there long.
A lot of kids did a one-day trip to Moscow on Wednesday, which ended up being super chaotic and disorganized due to circumstances outside of SAS control. The traffic in Moscow was ridiculous and some students even saw a man fall off of a billboard and die as he was changing the advertisement on it, and then remarked on how people seemed to not even care and just stepped over him on the sidewalk. I think Moscow would have been a fascinating city to see, and maybe I will make it there someday, but we only had five days in Russia and I am glad I used them the way I did. One of my best friends from Cornell grew up outside of Moscow and told me just to stay in St. Petersburg because it is a more interesting place to spend such a short amount of time, so I took his advice and I’m glad I did.
Thursday, July 3
On Thursday, I got up at 7 to be outside at 8 a.m. for my SAS field program, the Palaces and Owners tour. The bus ride was about an hour to Catherine the Great’s palace. I would go into detail explaining it but I’m sure there will eventually be pictures posted to the website. The palace was almost nauseatingly opulent- every doorway was embedded in gold. Catherine the Great certainly lived a lifestyle with no room for modesty. It was an interesting tour, but I wish the tour guide had given us more of a historical background and context and less detail about where all of the stuff in the different rooms had come from. Next, we stopped at Pavlovsk, the palace of Paul the first. It wasn’t as remarkable as the first palace but it was still interesting. I definitely thought this was a worthwhile SAS trip since those places would have been hard to get to independently, not to mention you would be without a tour guide. After getting back to the ship around 1:30, we grabbed a quick lunch and most students, including myself, took a muchly needed nap. Later that day I ended up just hanging out with a bunch of other SAS kids in the areas surrounding the ship. I met another Lisa too! Our ship was docked on Vasilevsky island, and the bridges that connected it to the island where most of the nightlife was went up every night from 1 a.m. to something like 5 a.m. They came down again for a half hour around 3, but for me, it didn’t seem worth it to get all the way to a fancy club downtown and risk not being able to get back across the bridge at a reasonable hour. So, I spent all 4 evenings in Russia just hanging out at the places near the ship but I don’t feel like I missed much.
Friday, July 4
I woke up at 6 a.m. on Friday to catch my 7 a.m. departure to Novgorod. There weren’t many students on this trip- maybe 25 or 30 college students and 10 or so lifelong learners, and then the nurse and her two kids along with a handful of faculty/staff. I LOVED this SAS trip, because it was small enough where we didn’t have to wait forever to do everything as you need to with large groups, and because it was so out-of-the-ordinary. There was one large bus and one smaller bus. I was on the smaller bus, since I chose to do this trip for fun. The large bus was for students who were doing this trip as an FDP for professor Silver’s class. The bus ride was three hours to Novgorod, and we all slept most of the way there. We had a very talkative tour guide- it was nice that she was so excited, but 6 a.m. and college do not generally mix well. Most of us - faculty and lifelong learners included- would have preferred to sleep rather than listen to her lecture on the different materials used to build apartment complexes since world war two. We got to Novgorod RIGHT on schedule at 10 a.m. While we waited for our new tour guide who knew more about Novgorod, we spent a half hour shopping at a little souvenir market. Then we headed to see some chapels and monasteries- one of which was built in 1119. When we were waiting outside of it, there was a random stray cat that came over and sat right on Charles’ feet and proceeded to roll around on him. I have a video of it- it was really funny at the time, I guess you had to be there.
Next we headed to a replica of a medieval Novgorodian village. It was cool to see because for Global Studies, I watched the movie Alexander Nevsky and it was based in Novgorod- the houses I saw there looked exactly like the ones from the film. I think that the students who did this SAS trip were really privileged to see how the rest of Russia lives currently and how they lived hundreds of years ago- something which students who just stayed in St. Petersburg didn’t get a chance to see. After this, we headed to the hotel where we had traditional Russian cuisine for lunch, and I think we all appreciated it. Then it was onto the rest of the tour, we saw a few more chapels and then got a tour of the Kremlin. In the middle of it, there was a statue that depicted all of Russia’s history and it was pretty remarkable. Every figure on it was important to Russia’s history or symbolic of religion in some way and it would have taken days to understand the entire thing. After an hour or so of free time, we headed back to the bus for our three hour ride back to St. Petersburg. We were originally going to stop somewhere on the way back for dinner but at the request of the students we headed directly back to the ship, and got in around 8 p.m. These were by far the most bumpy roads I’ve ever been on. We all felt pretty shaken up by the time we got back to the ship. On the trip to Novgorod, I met a lot of really cool people. Two girls, Heidi and Hannah, and I went out together later Friday evening (by “out” I mean we left the ship.... I don’t think we left sight of it all evening). Hannah met up with some other friends but Heidi and I sat alongside the river and watched fireworks. The fireworks weren’t spectacular, but what was amazing was that we could still appreciate American freedom and celebrate the fourth of July even in a country with whom the U.S. has had such a checkered past.
Saturday, July 5
On Saturday morning I went to the Hermitage with Ann and Alyssa. We waited in line for about an hour. While we were there, a man overheard us speaking in English and started talking to us. As it turns out, he speaks five languages and works as a translator for the Swiss government. He is probably in his late 60’s and lives half the year in Switzerland and the other half in Turkey. It was awesome to run into someone who is from one of the cities we are going to! We got some great advice about what to see and do in Istanbul and he gave us his business card, so I will probably shoot him an email one of these days when I have a better idea of what I will be doing in Turkey. He seemed like one of those people that has lived an amazing and adventurous life and I would love to hear more of whatever he has to say.
Anyways, the hermitage was ENORMOUS. I’m not an art buff so I wasn’t head over heels for it but it’s still a must-see in St. Petersburg. It was Ann’s 5th time there so she was like our own personal tour guide. Also to note: admission is free for college students, and supposedly if you spent one minute looking at each picture in the Hermitage, it would take several years to get out. After the Hermitage, Ann and Alyssa headed back to the ship but I conveniently ran into Heidi and Hannah- such a strange coincidence in a city of 5 million people. Hannah wanted to buy a book about St. Petersburg so while we were in the bookstore I talked to one of the employees who spoke English (a rare find in Russia). She had just gotten her masters degree in linguistics and makes the equivalent of $625 per MONTH, working full-time. This is why it is important to consider how much people earn in different countries- it’s easy for us to call Norway expensive, but for the kid making $24 per hour scooping ice cream, it’s a much more affordable place to be than Russia.
Later, we took a tour of the church of spilled blood, and then decided to go further back into the city and found some amazing streets jam-packed with restaurants and stores and clubs that we wished we had found sooner.
Then I got pickpocketed. In broad daylight. Hannah and Heidi and I were just minding our business just walking down the street and before I know it I feel a hand in my jacket pocket!!! Unfortunately for the pickpocketer, there was nothing in my jacket because after hearing about 48 million warnings from semester at sea, I kept my passport and other important things in my messenger bag which zips across the top so pickpocketers can’t get in it. So there’s proof, kids, that you are not invincible. That doesn’t mean bad things will happen to you, just stay alert, keep your valuable items out of sight and not in your pockets, don’t ask for trouble and you’ll be fine. It really wasn’t a big deal, the guy just kept on walking past with his other friend. Petty theft is really common in Europe but violent crime is quite rare.
Anyways, we decided to take the metro back since we were quite far from the ship. It was a challenge to navigate the metro system since we don’t understand their alphabet, but we were able to do it by counting the letters of the stop we needed and comparing it to the number of letters of the words on the different signs. I had a map of the metro system so I could just point where we needed to go at the ticket desk. We got back to Vasilevsky island and found that even something as simple as taking the metro can be an exhausting but really rewarding experience. After spending the rest of our rubles on coffee (which was, by the way, the best coffee we ever had), we finally headed back to the ship to recharge for two short days before Denmark.
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It’s already Monday night. I can’t believe how quickly this summer is flying by. Tomorrow morning, we will be in Denmark and I’m still trying to gather my thoughts from Russia.
In short, there wasn’t a minute I spent in Russia I didn’t like.
Before departing for SAS, I was most looking forward to Norway and Greece. Norway because I don’t know anyone who has been there so to me, it was kind of exotic, and Greece because I have always wanted to see it. I thought that Turkey would win the “most underrated” award, because Istanbul seems like it has potential to be a really cool port city despite my not knowing much about it.
But I don’t think anything could top Russia. In fact, I think it would be near impossible to have a better time anywhere else. I didn’t really know what to expect. I think that’s part of the reason why I had such an amazing time. When I went to Norway, I had a preconceived notion of just what it would generally be like, and in many ways I was disappointed that it didn’t really match up to what I was expecting. For Russia, I didn’t have anything in mind; I approached it with a blank slate. It’s hard to do, but there was so much other stuff on my mind, I didn’t have time to sit around and think about what Russia would be like. From now on, I’m going to just take things as they are.
I think all of us on SAS are having issues being able to just accept a country for what it is, myself included. Because most of us are American and have always lived in the States, it’s natural for us to compare and contrast every aspect of other cultures with our own (or lack thereof), subconsciously or not. But I don’t want to leave SAS having some sort of list of what ways each country is similar and different to the USA, I want to have an idea of what it means to be Norwegian, Russian, etc.
Wow... already rambling aimlessly and haven’t even started discussing Russia yet. So...
Tuesday, July 1
After our port debriefing, we were dismissed by sea. In Russia, we had to carry around our passports with us which was a pain. So the process of signing out our passports took a while. Originally, all students were to be dismissed, then lifelong learners, and then faculty/staff. I guess some lifelong learners weren’t pleased with this (this seems to be a common trend... many of them are writing official complaints to Semester at Sea regarding their daytrip to Moscow. But it really wasn’t anything SAS had control over. I’ll get to that later). So, they ended up dismissing 2 seas, then the lifelong learners, and then called the remaining seas. I am in the Yellow Sea which was the last to be called. We were asked to go up to the faculty lounge (which we otherwise aren’t allowed in) where we signed out our passports. It was a very organized process- they even had tape lines on the floor resembling a racetrack with different lanes to go in according to student ID #. They asked that all students retrieve their passport at that time regardless of whether or not they planned to get off of the ship immediately. This was easier in theory than in practice- of 583 college students, it is pretty unrealistic that they will all be awake at 9:30 a.m. on a day we don’t have class. Anyways, I got my passport and headed off of the ship to find... a really, really, really long line.
We knew that we would have to go through immigration upon our first entry into Russia, but nobody knew the process would have been so time-consuming. I had a field program trip which was to meet at 12:30 by the buses (which are always parked in a really obvious place right near the ship). We were told by The Voice (I don’t know who it belongs to, but this is the man that does all of the shipboard announcements, pages people, and tells us whether we have to turn our clocks ahead or back or whatever every night) that if we had a field program leaving at 12:30, to make sure we were off of the ship by 11:30 to make it through passport control on time. I got off the ship at about 11:10 since I was one of the last students dismissed. I saw my friends Jeff and Ryan (two of the guys from our late-night hiking excursion on Mt. Floien in Norway) in line and stood with them. One of my professors, Bill Wilkerson, was right behind us so we talked for a good hour and a half before we finally made it up to passport control. Every single time we came to and left the ship, we had to go through passport control. Basically, it was a little building on the pier, and then there was a bridge connecting the building to the mainland. The first time, it was awful because there were only two people working and over six hundred SASers needing to get through security. I got through passport control just before 1, and got on the 3rd of 5 buses leaving for my program: the city orientation via the Neva River. Shortly after getting on the bus we left and got a short tour of the city. We stopped at a few places to take photos and our tour guide was very friendly and spoke English quite well. Then we stopped at a souvenir store and... much to everyone’s surprise/delight, the store was offering very small samples of free vodka! So, of course, we all tried a sample. A few students bought some souvenir items and then we got back on the bus and headed to the dock alongside the Neva River. There were two boats docked side by side, the first of which was already full, so we got on the second boat. After about another half hour, the last two buses showed up and the students from them got on our boat. Unfortunately for them, they did not get a chance to stop at any of the places we stopped at since they had to wait so long at the pier for everyone to get through passport control. The tour just went up and down the Neva River. After the boat ride we got back on our respective buses for a continued tour. However, many students were concerned about making it back to the ship in time to get ready for the ballet, so the bus headed back to the dock. We had plenty of time but rush hour traffic in St. Petersburg is pretty bad, and after having a day that got off to a very late start we all just wanted to play on the safe side.
Tuesday night we boarded our buses on time and got to the Mariinsky theater on time. I was expecting it to be this really gigantic, grandiose theater. It was fancy and pretty big but nothing close to what you find on Broadway. I am not a big theater buff, but the ballet was really fun. It was nice to spend a night doing something out of the ordinary. There is no question that this is a culture that takes ballet seriously.
We got back to the ship around 11. Within close walking distance of our ship, there was a bar -all outdoors- right next to the ship, then an indoor bar across the street. Maybe ¼ mile down the street there was a little place called Café Geo, and across from that there was an outdoor café/bar with a second floor which was a cool place to just sit and watch the river. This is where I went the first night with some friends. A ton of SASers were there just sitting around and talking. Many were interacting with the locals, a few of whom spoke a bit of English. A lot of us were pretty exhausted after a stressful day and headed back to the ship as the sun was setting (which was around 12:45).
Wednesday, July 2
Wednesday in Russia was my day to just hang out and do whatever. Luckily, I have a really keen sense of direction. I just have to look at a map once and then I can always know where I am and which direction I’m heading in. My friend Alison and I walked from the ship to a big park not too far away where we just sat and wrote in our journals for a few minutes. Here’s what I wrote:
* I’m sitting in a park in St. Petersburg - the one with the famous horse statue. Ali and I would both rather enjoy our time as we would if we lived here, so we decided to just come here and hang out for a while. It seems that a lot of local people spend their free time here. I want to experience what it is to be Russian, not what it is to see St. Petersburg as a tourist. In finance, it is often said that great rewards are only derived from great risk. I feel the same goes for everyday life. It is hard to study abroad - to fly across the ocean and plant yourself in a new place and discover a new life. It is harder to sail across the ocean with a group of college students you have never met before to not one but eight different places, and discover eight new lives. You don’t know the language or the culture or how to get anywhere, but taking this risk is the adventure of a lifetime.
It would be easy to be a tourist, but while you may witness culture, you don’t experience it. Semester at Sea lets you see the world without being a tourist. I want to forsake the ordinary - to not watch people in our different port countries as if they were animals at the zoo, but to venture beyond what you can learn and see in the pages of a National Geographic. To hear the casual conversations between street vendors, smell the cigarette smoke and diesel fuel and perfume of old women passing by, and above all else to see - not to simply watch, but to see - the world through different eyes.* I think that really sums up my whole take on what I’d like to get out of my SAS experience.
Ali and I wandered around Nevsky Prospekt (the main shopping street in St. Petersburg) for a while and found a cute little restaurant where we got lunch before taking some pictures in front of the Church of Spilled Blood and perusing a little market right behind it where Ali bought a few souvenirs. After stopping at a bookstore for a few postcards we headed back to the ship to unwind for a few hours. I spent Wednesday night walking around St. Petersburg with Derrick, who I had just met the day before. I know it’s weird but I love spending time with people I don’t already know. I have yet to meet someone I dislike, and by the end of SAS I think I’ll know just about everyone on the ship.
We actually walked right by a Russian military base which was a little creepy but I think it was obsolete. After running into some other SASers on Nevsky, we made it back across the bridge just before 1 a.m. It was cool to watch the bridge go up, it is part of Russia’s white nights celebration. We stopped in one of the café/bars on the way back to the ship because we saw a lot of SAS kids through the window. I met so many people that night, even though we didn’t stay there long.
A lot of kids did a one-day trip to Moscow on Wednesday, which ended up being super chaotic and disorganized due to circumstances outside of SAS control. The traffic in Moscow was ridiculous and some students even saw a man fall off of a billboard and die as he was changing the advertisement on it, and then remarked on how people seemed to not even care and just stepped over him on the sidewalk. I think Moscow would have been a fascinating city to see, and maybe I will make it there someday, but we only had five days in Russia and I am glad I used them the way I did. One of my best friends from Cornell grew up outside of Moscow and told me just to stay in St. Petersburg because it is a more interesting place to spend such a short amount of time, so I took his advice and I’m glad I did.
Thursday, July 3
On Thursday, I got up at 7 to be outside at 8 a.m. for my SAS field program, the Palaces and Owners tour. The bus ride was about an hour to Catherine the Great’s palace. I would go into detail explaining it but I’m sure there will eventually be pictures posted to the website. The palace was almost nauseatingly opulent- every doorway was embedded in gold. Catherine the Great certainly lived a lifestyle with no room for modesty. It was an interesting tour, but I wish the tour guide had given us more of a historical background and context and less detail about where all of the stuff in the different rooms had come from. Next, we stopped at Pavlovsk, the palace of Paul the first. It wasn’t as remarkable as the first palace but it was still interesting. I definitely thought this was a worthwhile SAS trip since those places would have been hard to get to independently, not to mention you would be without a tour guide. After getting back to the ship around 1:30, we grabbed a quick lunch and most students, including myself, took a muchly needed nap. Later that day I ended up just hanging out with a bunch of other SAS kids in the areas surrounding the ship. I met another Lisa too! Our ship was docked on Vasilevsky island, and the bridges that connected it to the island where most of the nightlife was went up every night from 1 a.m. to something like 5 a.m. They came down again for a half hour around 3, but for me, it didn’t seem worth it to get all the way to a fancy club downtown and risk not being able to get back across the bridge at a reasonable hour. So, I spent all 4 evenings in Russia just hanging out at the places near the ship but I don’t feel like I missed much.
Friday, July 4
I woke up at 6 a.m. on Friday to catch my 7 a.m. departure to Novgorod. There weren’t many students on this trip- maybe 25 or 30 college students and 10 or so lifelong learners, and then the nurse and her two kids along with a handful of faculty/staff. I LOVED this SAS trip, because it was small enough where we didn’t have to wait forever to do everything as you need to with large groups, and because it was so out-of-the-ordinary. There was one large bus and one smaller bus. I was on the smaller bus, since I chose to do this trip for fun. The large bus was for students who were doing this trip as an FDP for professor Silver’s class. The bus ride was three hours to Novgorod, and we all slept most of the way there. We had a very talkative tour guide- it was nice that she was so excited, but 6 a.m. and college do not generally mix well. Most of us - faculty and lifelong learners included- would have preferred to sleep rather than listen to her lecture on the different materials used to build apartment complexes since world war two. We got to Novgorod RIGHT on schedule at 10 a.m. While we waited for our new tour guide who knew more about Novgorod, we spent a half hour shopping at a little souvenir market. Then we headed to see some chapels and monasteries- one of which was built in 1119. When we were waiting outside of it, there was a random stray cat that came over and sat right on Charles’ feet and proceeded to roll around on him. I have a video of it- it was really funny at the time, I guess you had to be there.
Next we headed to a replica of a medieval Novgorodian village. It was cool to see because for Global Studies, I watched the movie Alexander Nevsky and it was based in Novgorod- the houses I saw there looked exactly like the ones from the film. I think that the students who did this SAS trip were really privileged to see how the rest of Russia lives currently and how they lived hundreds of years ago- something which students who just stayed in St. Petersburg didn’t get a chance to see. After this, we headed to the hotel where we had traditional Russian cuisine for lunch, and I think we all appreciated it. Then it was onto the rest of the tour, we saw a few more chapels and then got a tour of the Kremlin. In the middle of it, there was a statue that depicted all of Russia’s history and it was pretty remarkable. Every figure on it was important to Russia’s history or symbolic of religion in some way and it would have taken days to understand the entire thing. After an hour or so of free time, we headed back to the bus for our three hour ride back to St. Petersburg. We were originally going to stop somewhere on the way back for dinner but at the request of the students we headed directly back to the ship, and got in around 8 p.m. These were by far the most bumpy roads I’ve ever been on. We all felt pretty shaken up by the time we got back to the ship. On the trip to Novgorod, I met a lot of really cool people. Two girls, Heidi and Hannah, and I went out together later Friday evening (by “out” I mean we left the ship.... I don’t think we left sight of it all evening). Hannah met up with some other friends but Heidi and I sat alongside the river and watched fireworks. The fireworks weren’t spectacular, but what was amazing was that we could still appreciate American freedom and celebrate the fourth of July even in a country with whom the U.S. has had such a checkered past.
Saturday, July 5
On Saturday morning I went to the Hermitage with Ann and Alyssa. We waited in line for about an hour. While we were there, a man overheard us speaking in English and started talking to us. As it turns out, he speaks five languages and works as a translator for the Swiss government. He is probably in his late 60’s and lives half the year in Switzerland and the other half in Turkey. It was awesome to run into someone who is from one of the cities we are going to! We got some great advice about what to see and do in Istanbul and he gave us his business card, so I will probably shoot him an email one of these days when I have a better idea of what I will be doing in Turkey. He seemed like one of those people that has lived an amazing and adventurous life and I would love to hear more of whatever he has to say.
Anyways, the hermitage was ENORMOUS. I’m not an art buff so I wasn’t head over heels for it but it’s still a must-see in St. Petersburg. It was Ann’s 5th time there so she was like our own personal tour guide. Also to note: admission is free for college students, and supposedly if you spent one minute looking at each picture in the Hermitage, it would take several years to get out. After the Hermitage, Ann and Alyssa headed back to the ship but I conveniently ran into Heidi and Hannah- such a strange coincidence in a city of 5 million people. Hannah wanted to buy a book about St. Petersburg so while we were in the bookstore I talked to one of the employees who spoke English (a rare find in Russia). She had just gotten her masters degree in linguistics and makes the equivalent of $625 per MONTH, working full-time. This is why it is important to consider how much people earn in different countries- it’s easy for us to call Norway expensive, but for the kid making $24 per hour scooping ice cream, it’s a much more affordable place to be than Russia.
Later, we took a tour of the church of spilled blood, and then decided to go further back into the city and found some amazing streets jam-packed with restaurants and stores and clubs that we wished we had found sooner.
Then I got pickpocketed. In broad daylight. Hannah and Heidi and I were just minding our business just walking down the street and before I know it I feel a hand in my jacket pocket!!! Unfortunately for the pickpocketer, there was nothing in my jacket because after hearing about 48 million warnings from semester at sea, I kept my passport and other important things in my messenger bag which zips across the top so pickpocketers can’t get in it. So there’s proof, kids, that you are not invincible. That doesn’t mean bad things will happen to you, just stay alert, keep your valuable items out of sight and not in your pockets, don’t ask for trouble and you’ll be fine. It really wasn’t a big deal, the guy just kept on walking past with his other friend. Petty theft is really common in Europe but violent crime is quite rare.
Anyways, we decided to take the metro back since we were quite far from the ship. It was a challenge to navigate the metro system since we don’t understand their alphabet, but we were able to do it by counting the letters of the stop we needed and comparing it to the number of letters of the words on the different signs. I had a map of the metro system so I could just point where we needed to go at the ticket desk. We got back to Vasilevsky island and found that even something as simple as taking the metro can be an exhausting but really rewarding experience. After spending the rest of our rubles on coffee (which was, by the way, the best coffee we ever had), we finally headed back to the ship to recharge for two short days before Denmark.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Experiencing Norway
Time flies so quickly on the ship. We left Norway at 9 p.m. on Friday. We had 2 days of class and tomorrow we will already be in Russia!! It can be really overwhelming at times. We barely have enough time to recover from one country before heading to the next and it will be like this all summer!! I don't want to sound too narrative but in the interest of not leaving anything important out, here's what happened each day in Norway:
Day 1:
A lot of students, myself included, woke up at 5 a.m. to watch the ship enter Norway. Bergen is a coastal town but to get there we passed several islands. After being at sea for nine days, you could feel the energy and excitement just for finally seeing land.
Before disembarking, we had a port debriefing lecture where we learned some basic information about Norway, such as how their welfare system works and that marriage is not as common as domestic partnerships since there is no financial incentive for marriage. The ship's doctor told us that healthcare in Norway is at least as good as, if not better than healthcare in the U.S., which was reassuring. After the port debriefing, at around 9, we were allowed to disembark. My first stop was the ATM to get some kroner, and I was very glad that the ATM's also had an "English" language option.
I spent a while wandering around with 2 other SAS girls, Kelsey and Shirley, who are friends from college and came on SAS together. The first thing I noticed is how touristy Bergen was. I know that Semester at Sea tries to take students to less-visited places to get a feel for what "real life" is like in those countries, so I had expected Bergen would not be so tourism-friendly. At first I was almost a little disappointed, but in retrospect it was nice to have our first port in a country that was not only English-speaking but also warmly receptive to us. As it turns out, Bergen hosts some 300+ cruise ships per year in port.
I headed back to the ship around 12 to meet for my city orientation tour. There were four different buses right on the pier which drove us around Bergen, with a tour guide, and made a few stops. Lastly, the tour stopped at the funicular station to board a little train that goes up to the top of Mt. Floyen, which overlooks Bergen. By the time we got there it was 3:30 and I was exhausted, so I just took my ticket and checked out from the SAS trip. The ticket was good any day during our port stay, so it was nice to have some flexibility. It is convenient that SAS lets you leave a field trip whenever, you just have to check out with whoever is supervising the trip. I was so tired, I went back to the ship which was maybe a ¾ mile walk and slept for a while. All in all, I didn't think the orientation field trip was worth the $40 something it cost through SAS. It was nice to get an overview of the town, but Bergen is SO tourist-friendly and easily navigable on foot I didn't really get much out of the orientation. I could see, though, how an orientation would be worthwhile in a much bigger city.
Later Monday night, a group of 18 students went out for my friend Kevin's 21st birthday. We had quite an experience trying to find a restaurant that was not only reasonably priced but could also accommodate such a large group. We ended up just going to a pizza place. I was surprised to find that Bergen had so many different types of restaurants- everything you would find in the U.S. was there- Thai, Indian, Chinese, even Tex-mex. Despite being warned in our port debriefing, everyone still had sticker shock from the high prices in Norway. Anyways, we met up later with some more SAS students and then headed back to the ship. For all of the parents who read this, rest assured that the ship is an extremely safe place- we had to show our SAS I.D. card just to get onto the dock, and the security process is to get onto the Explorer is extremely rigorous- including a metal detector, pat-down and bag inspection- every single time a student re-enters the ship.
Day 2: The second day in Norway was one of the best days of my life. I slept in late, but everyone was still recovering from the 5 on-ship time zone changes, not to mention getting up so early the day before. Zach and Marlee, two of my neighbors and I, spent the whole day exploring. First we walked to the Bergen aquarium but when we got there decided not to go since we have all been to aquariums before and looking at fish didn't seem particularly exciting at the time. We decided to head over the hill into the less-touristy part of town. After taking what seemed like one -hundred pictures of the streets and houses and everything you could imagine, we stopped in a little store and talked to the owner about life in Bergen. Although Norwegian culture often disagrees with the American political system because it so extremely opposite from their own, they were extremely receptive to SAS students and even excited that we were interested in talking to them, at least from what I experienced. Eventually, the three of us ended up at Bon Appetit, a little ice cream place which is a local chain and was recommended to us before disembarking. We spent about an hour talking with the boy who was working there. He was 19 and had just graduated high school. Soon he is going to the military, as it is required that all males join for 16 months upon high school graduation- and evading this is punishable by imprisonment. He has lived in Bergen his entire life and although he has never been to America, he has traveled extensively throughout Europe- and even gave us some travel advice for when we are in Naples! After the military he wants to go to college in Oslo, be an exchange student for a year in Paris, and eventually study law.
Zach, Marlee and I learned a lot just from talking to him and it was probably the most memorable experience in Norway for me.
For my Business and Politics of the European Union class, we are supposed to compare the price of a single item throughout each country that we go to. However, I don't think this says much about the country's economy since it's all viewed from an American perspective. For example, Americans might think that a 70 kroner (about $14) big mac is ridiculously expensive, but we come from a country where minimum wage is something around $7.15 per hour. So, instead of going around comparing prices, I decided I am going to compare wages- that way I can get a feel for what the cost of living is like for residents of the country as opposed to what the cost of being an American tourist is. As it turns out, a high-school graduate who works at Bon Appetit makes the equivalent of a whopping $24 per hour. This is almost four times what someone would get paid in the U.S.A.!!! Now I know why Norwegians don't seem to be too upset by the high prices of everything.
Okay, back to the rest of the day- after getting dinner back on the ship, a group of 7 SASers headed up Mt. Floyen on the funicular at about 8:30. One student, Jeff, is also from Rochester so I was excited to meet someone else from "back home". We continued hiking further up the hill and found an amazing spot with a breathtaking view and sat there and talked for hours. It never got dark though- Norway isn't kidding about being the land of the midnight sun. We decided to hike all the way back down the mountain and got back to the ship around 1 a.m. right as the sun was setting.
Day 3: I had previously signed up for the SAS field trip called "Norway in a Nutshell". We left the pier at 8 a.m. and it was pretty disorganized. Students were under the impression that we were taking a bus somewhere but we all just started walking and nobody told us where we were going, so it was kind of chaotic. We ended up about 20 minutes later at the Bergen train station where we got on the train. Originally, 90 students were signed up for this trip but there were only maybe 80 that showed. If students don't show up when a trip leaves, SAS lets students "walk-on" even if they didn't pay. Despite it being awful to miss a trip, especially since a lot of SAS trips are quite pricey, it's nice that SAS at least gives someone the opportunity to fill up a spot as opposed to just wasting it because someone forgot to set their alarm clock. My friend Marlee as able to go on the trip for free, so we were both excited about that. Everyone slept on the train which went through Voss up to a town called Myrdal where we got off the train. From there, we hiked 7.5 kilometers all downhill past waterfalls, little houses, and even a field of goats. I would say more about it but it's the kind of experience where pictures are truly worth a thousand words, so if I ever find a way to coordinate my blog with my pictures, you can see what I mean.
To make a long description short, it was pretty amazing. I go to school at a beautiful campus and walk over 2 waterfalls every day so I wasn't stunned, but I still appreciated the natural beauty of the hike. What I appreciated even more is how absolutely thrilled the students from Arizona and California were. My friend Jason who goes to University of Arizona accurately said "I never get to see this kind of stuff, so whenever I see green, I take a picture." We hiked at a pretty slow pace for two hours and boarded another train which took us to a very small, rural town called Flam where we got a buffet lunch at a hotel. I'm all up for trying new things but the buffet didn't have labels! So, nobody really had any clue what they were eating- some were able to figure it out by guessing. Norwegians really love mayonnaise- I have never seen so many different foods served in mayonnaise. There were like 8 dishes of potato salad, shrimp salad, etc. Also, I'm pretty sure I saw a tray of reindeer burgers... which I avoided. I guess the little kid in me didn't want to disappoint Santa Claus. We were given 20 minutes after lunch to check out the gift shop where I shamelessly bought a plastic Viking hat. We had buses pick us up in Flam and rode about an hour to Voss, and had a half-hour to explore there. It is way smaller than I thought it would be, just a scenic little town on a lake. Extreme sport week happened to be there that week so there were a ton of tourists at the time. It was another hour bus ride to get back to Bergen, and we got back to the ship around 5:30. I definitely thought the Norway in a Nutshell trip was worth the $174 price tag, although I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at mayonnaise again.
Day 4: For Friday, I had made independent (which means not through SAS) plans to see the fjords. Chris, a UVA student who lives down the hall from me, was also interested in doing this so we were able to find a 4-hour fjord cruise tour for about $80. It went from 10 a.m. til about 2 p.m. and we got a ton of amazing pictures. It was nice to branch out from the group of kids I usually hang out with and really get to know someone new. If you are a future SASer reading this, I strongly suggest you do the same at every opportunity you get. I would much rather leave this trip having met 300 people and knowing 50 very well than leaving here only knowing 6 or 7 people well. I met up with Alison after my tour- not many people are using cell phones on SAS so you have to plan a lot of things in advance. We walked around Bergen a bit more before writing some postcards and heading back to the ship. With the exception of my obnoxious Viking hat, I'm proud of myself for not going overboard and buying a million souvenir items. All in all, Norway was a lot of fun but part of that came from it being so easily accessible to Americans. Russia will certainly be a change of pace, and we'll be there in 12 hours. I don't know how I'm going to manage to keep up with blogging in every port!!
I have an intramural basketball game soon so I have to get going but you'll hear from me after Russia!! Let's keep our fingers crossed that everyone has a safe and enjoyable experience.
Day 1:
A lot of students, myself included, woke up at 5 a.m. to watch the ship enter Norway. Bergen is a coastal town but to get there we passed several islands. After being at sea for nine days, you could feel the energy and excitement just for finally seeing land.
Before disembarking, we had a port debriefing lecture where we learned some basic information about Norway, such as how their welfare system works and that marriage is not as common as domestic partnerships since there is no financial incentive for marriage. The ship's doctor told us that healthcare in Norway is at least as good as, if not better than healthcare in the U.S., which was reassuring. After the port debriefing, at around 9, we were allowed to disembark. My first stop was the ATM to get some kroner, and I was very glad that the ATM's also had an "English" language option.
I spent a while wandering around with 2 other SAS girls, Kelsey and Shirley, who are friends from college and came on SAS together. The first thing I noticed is how touristy Bergen was. I know that Semester at Sea tries to take students to less-visited places to get a feel for what "real life" is like in those countries, so I had expected Bergen would not be so tourism-friendly. At first I was almost a little disappointed, but in retrospect it was nice to have our first port in a country that was not only English-speaking but also warmly receptive to us. As it turns out, Bergen hosts some 300+ cruise ships per year in port.
I headed back to the ship around 12 to meet for my city orientation tour. There were four different buses right on the pier which drove us around Bergen, with a tour guide, and made a few stops. Lastly, the tour stopped at the funicular station to board a little train that goes up to the top of Mt. Floyen, which overlooks Bergen. By the time we got there it was 3:30 and I was exhausted, so I just took my ticket and checked out from the SAS trip. The ticket was good any day during our port stay, so it was nice to have some flexibility. It is convenient that SAS lets you leave a field trip whenever, you just have to check out with whoever is supervising the trip. I was so tired, I went back to the ship which was maybe a ¾ mile walk and slept for a while. All in all, I didn't think the orientation field trip was worth the $40 something it cost through SAS. It was nice to get an overview of the town, but Bergen is SO tourist-friendly and easily navigable on foot I didn't really get much out of the orientation. I could see, though, how an orientation would be worthwhile in a much bigger city.
Later Monday night, a group of 18 students went out for my friend Kevin's 21st birthday. We had quite an experience trying to find a restaurant that was not only reasonably priced but could also accommodate such a large group. We ended up just going to a pizza place. I was surprised to find that Bergen had so many different types of restaurants- everything you would find in the U.S. was there- Thai, Indian, Chinese, even Tex-mex. Despite being warned in our port debriefing, everyone still had sticker shock from the high prices in Norway. Anyways, we met up later with some more SAS students and then headed back to the ship. For all of the parents who read this, rest assured that the ship is an extremely safe place- we had to show our SAS I.D. card just to get onto the dock, and the security process is to get onto the Explorer is extremely rigorous- including a metal detector, pat-down and bag inspection- every single time a student re-enters the ship.
Day 2: The second day in Norway was one of the best days of my life. I slept in late, but everyone was still recovering from the 5 on-ship time zone changes, not to mention getting up so early the day before. Zach and Marlee, two of my neighbors and I, spent the whole day exploring. First we walked to the Bergen aquarium but when we got there decided not to go since we have all been to aquariums before and looking at fish didn't seem particularly exciting at the time. We decided to head over the hill into the less-touristy part of town. After taking what seemed like one -hundred pictures of the streets and houses and everything you could imagine, we stopped in a little store and talked to the owner about life in Bergen. Although Norwegian culture often disagrees with the American political system because it so extremely opposite from their own, they were extremely receptive to SAS students and even excited that we were interested in talking to them, at least from what I experienced. Eventually, the three of us ended up at Bon Appetit, a little ice cream place which is a local chain and was recommended to us before disembarking. We spent about an hour talking with the boy who was working there. He was 19 and had just graduated high school. Soon he is going to the military, as it is required that all males join for 16 months upon high school graduation- and evading this is punishable by imprisonment. He has lived in Bergen his entire life and although he has never been to America, he has traveled extensively throughout Europe- and even gave us some travel advice for when we are in Naples! After the military he wants to go to college in Oslo, be an exchange student for a year in Paris, and eventually study law.
Zach, Marlee and I learned a lot just from talking to him and it was probably the most memorable experience in Norway for me.
For my Business and Politics of the European Union class, we are supposed to compare the price of a single item throughout each country that we go to. However, I don't think this says much about the country's economy since it's all viewed from an American perspective. For example, Americans might think that a 70 kroner (about $14) big mac is ridiculously expensive, but we come from a country where minimum wage is something around $7.15 per hour. So, instead of going around comparing prices, I decided I am going to compare wages- that way I can get a feel for what the cost of living is like for residents of the country as opposed to what the cost of being an American tourist is. As it turns out, a high-school graduate who works at Bon Appetit makes the equivalent of a whopping $24 per hour. This is almost four times what someone would get paid in the U.S.A.!!! Now I know why Norwegians don't seem to be too upset by the high prices of everything.
Okay, back to the rest of the day- after getting dinner back on the ship, a group of 7 SASers headed up Mt. Floyen on the funicular at about 8:30. One student, Jeff, is also from Rochester so I was excited to meet someone else from "back home". We continued hiking further up the hill and found an amazing spot with a breathtaking view and sat there and talked for hours. It never got dark though- Norway isn't kidding about being the land of the midnight sun. We decided to hike all the way back down the mountain and got back to the ship around 1 a.m. right as the sun was setting.
Day 3: I had previously signed up for the SAS field trip called "Norway in a Nutshell". We left the pier at 8 a.m. and it was pretty disorganized. Students were under the impression that we were taking a bus somewhere but we all just started walking and nobody told us where we were going, so it was kind of chaotic. We ended up about 20 minutes later at the Bergen train station where we got on the train. Originally, 90 students were signed up for this trip but there were only maybe 80 that showed. If students don't show up when a trip leaves, SAS lets students "walk-on" even if they didn't pay. Despite it being awful to miss a trip, especially since a lot of SAS trips are quite pricey, it's nice that SAS at least gives someone the opportunity to fill up a spot as opposed to just wasting it because someone forgot to set their alarm clock. My friend Marlee as able to go on the trip for free, so we were both excited about that. Everyone slept on the train which went through Voss up to a town called Myrdal where we got off the train. From there, we hiked 7.5 kilometers all downhill past waterfalls, little houses, and even a field of goats. I would say more about it but it's the kind of experience where pictures are truly worth a thousand words, so if I ever find a way to coordinate my blog with my pictures, you can see what I mean.
To make a long description short, it was pretty amazing. I go to school at a beautiful campus and walk over 2 waterfalls every day so I wasn't stunned, but I still appreciated the natural beauty of the hike. What I appreciated even more is how absolutely thrilled the students from Arizona and California were. My friend Jason who goes to University of Arizona accurately said "I never get to see this kind of stuff, so whenever I see green, I take a picture." We hiked at a pretty slow pace for two hours and boarded another train which took us to a very small, rural town called Flam where we got a buffet lunch at a hotel. I'm all up for trying new things but the buffet didn't have labels! So, nobody really had any clue what they were eating- some were able to figure it out by guessing. Norwegians really love mayonnaise- I have never seen so many different foods served in mayonnaise. There were like 8 dishes of potato salad, shrimp salad, etc. Also, I'm pretty sure I saw a tray of reindeer burgers... which I avoided. I guess the little kid in me didn't want to disappoint Santa Claus. We were given 20 minutes after lunch to check out the gift shop where I shamelessly bought a plastic Viking hat. We had buses pick us up in Flam and rode about an hour to Voss, and had a half-hour to explore there. It is way smaller than I thought it would be, just a scenic little town on a lake. Extreme sport week happened to be there that week so there were a ton of tourists at the time. It was another hour bus ride to get back to Bergen, and we got back to the ship around 5:30. I definitely thought the Norway in a Nutshell trip was worth the $174 price tag, although I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at mayonnaise again.
Day 4: For Friday, I had made independent (which means not through SAS) plans to see the fjords. Chris, a UVA student who lives down the hall from me, was also interested in doing this so we were able to find a 4-hour fjord cruise tour for about $80. It went from 10 a.m. til about 2 p.m. and we got a ton of amazing pictures. It was nice to branch out from the group of kids I usually hang out with and really get to know someone new. If you are a future SASer reading this, I strongly suggest you do the same at every opportunity you get. I would much rather leave this trip having met 300 people and knowing 50 very well than leaving here only knowing 6 or 7 people well. I met up with Alison after my tour- not many people are using cell phones on SAS so you have to plan a lot of things in advance. We walked around Bergen a bit more before writing some postcards and heading back to the ship. With the exception of my obnoxious Viking hat, I'm proud of myself for not going overboard and buying a million souvenir items. All in all, Norway was a lot of fun but part of that came from it being so easily accessible to Americans. Russia will certainly be a change of pace, and we'll be there in 12 hours. I don't know how I'm going to manage to keep up with blogging in every port!!
I have an intramural basketball game soon so I have to get going but you'll hear from me after Russia!! Let's keep our fingers crossed that everyone has a safe and enjoyable experience.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Middle of the Atlantic
It is Friday, June 20th and I am in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Just one week ago I was still in Rochester, getting ready to leave for the airport.
I apologize for not writing sooner. Needless to say, I’ve been busy meeting new people, adjusting to ship life, and starting classes.
I spent both Friday and Saturday nights in Halifax with a really nice group of 20 or so students, also doing Semester at Sea. Halifax was a neat little town. It is geographically and culturally centered around the water. All the locals were very nice. It was surprisingly very warm on Saturday afternoon but because of its proximity to water, the weather changes quickly. If you ever go, take a jacket.
Probably about half of the people doing SAS stayed at the Westin in Halifax, since Semester at Sea’s partner travel agency was able to reserve a lot of rooms at a reduced rate.
On Sunday, a lot of SASers were in the Westin lobby with their luggage waiting for their turn to board. It is done alphabetically by last name and since I’m an S I wasn’t due to board until 11 am. I was really surprised at how easy check-in was. First, you get a pre-printed nametag which also says your cabin number. Then you walk down the line to the next station where you are crossed off of a list. Lastly, you get a ticket with your room number on it for every bag you want to have delivered to your room instead of having to carry them.
There is a rigorous security check inside the port terminal. First, you give your passport to people who check it off of a list--I haven’t seen mine since. I’m glad SAS is holding my passport for me. I would lose my feet if they weren’t attached. Next, you put your “checked” bags on an x-ray belt just like at the airport, and then they are taken directly to your room. Meanwhile, you then go to the next security checkpoint where your “carry on” bags go through a different x-ray belt while you walk through a metal detector.
Then you finally board the ship! You walk up about 30 stairs and then go though the gangway security entrance which is where you enter the ship when it is in port. Then you are directed to the Union, where there are five or six check-in stations. One table involves your class selection where you receive your class schedule, another for your shipboard account where you can double-check that you have not been incorrectly charged for anything, and another for the Field Program where you have one last chance to sign up for any pre-sale trips that aren’t sold out. I chose to do an overnight trip for Turkey/Troy that I had read about. At another table you are given your ID card which also doubles as your room key. Then, at the last table, the SAS staff makes sure they have your medical form on file.
This whole process takes fewer than five minutes. Then you can go to your cabin, where your checked bags are already waiting for you!
I got to my cabin and was pleasantly surprised. I don’t know the exact dimensions, but despite the rooms being small, there is a ton of storage space especially if you don’t mind getting creative with it. All of the rooms come with a small TV and remote, a small fridge, and a hairdryer in the bathroom. The closet had about 20 hangers to split between two people but if you put a few items on each hanger you can definitely fit everything. There is also another cabinet next to the closet with a small electronic safe in it to keep your wallet and cell phone in. The beds are small but surprisingly comfortable. Also, there is a built-in desk, along with a small glass table.
Time for class--I have to get to Russia and the Problem of Economic Development, but I’ll try and write more soon.
I apologize for not writing sooner. Needless to say, I’ve been busy meeting new people, adjusting to ship life, and starting classes.
I spent both Friday and Saturday nights in Halifax with a really nice group of 20 or so students, also doing Semester at Sea. Halifax was a neat little town. It is geographically and culturally centered around the water. All the locals were very nice. It was surprisingly very warm on Saturday afternoon but because of its proximity to water, the weather changes quickly. If you ever go, take a jacket.
Probably about half of the people doing SAS stayed at the Westin in Halifax, since Semester at Sea’s partner travel agency was able to reserve a lot of rooms at a reduced rate.
On Sunday, a lot of SASers were in the Westin lobby with their luggage waiting for their turn to board. It is done alphabetically by last name and since I’m an S I wasn’t due to board until 11 am. I was really surprised at how easy check-in was. First, you get a pre-printed nametag which also says your cabin number. Then you walk down the line to the next station where you are crossed off of a list. Lastly, you get a ticket with your room number on it for every bag you want to have delivered to your room instead of having to carry them.
There is a rigorous security check inside the port terminal. First, you give your passport to people who check it off of a list--I haven’t seen mine since. I’m glad SAS is holding my passport for me. I would lose my feet if they weren’t attached. Next, you put your “checked” bags on an x-ray belt just like at the airport, and then they are taken directly to your room. Meanwhile, you then go to the next security checkpoint where your “carry on” bags go through a different x-ray belt while you walk through a metal detector.
Then you finally board the ship! You walk up about 30 stairs and then go though the gangway security entrance which is where you enter the ship when it is in port. Then you are directed to the Union, where there are five or six check-in stations. One table involves your class selection where you receive your class schedule, another for your shipboard account where you can double-check that you have not been incorrectly charged for anything, and another for the Field Program where you have one last chance to sign up for any pre-sale trips that aren’t sold out. I chose to do an overnight trip for Turkey/Troy that I had read about. At another table you are given your ID card which also doubles as your room key. Then, at the last table, the SAS staff makes sure they have your medical form on file.
This whole process takes fewer than five minutes. Then you can go to your cabin, where your checked bags are already waiting for you!
I got to my cabin and was pleasantly surprised. I don’t know the exact dimensions, but despite the rooms being small, there is a ton of storage space especially if you don’t mind getting creative with it. All of the rooms come with a small TV and remote, a small fridge, and a hairdryer in the bathroom. The closet had about 20 hangers to split between two people but if you put a few items on each hanger you can definitely fit everything. There is also another cabinet next to the closet with a small electronic safe in it to keep your wallet and cell phone in. The beds are small but surprisingly comfortable. Also, there is a built-in desk, along with a small glass table.
Time for class--I have to get to Russia and the Problem of Economic Development, but I’ll try and write more soon.
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