Dragons, Snails, and Caterpillars...Oh My

July 1, 2009

We arrived in Civitavecchia, Italy (pronounced chiveet-ah-vek-ia) at sunrise the next morning. As usual, the rumbling sounds of the slowly maneuvering boat woke me up too early in the morning, but I did get a pretty awesome picture of the sunrise before going back to bed. I woke up and got ready for the day before breakfast because I had to meet my traveling group at 9:15 a.m. to start our journey to Siena and San Gimignano.

From Civitavecchia to Siena is a three and a half hour bus ride which, in other words, means a three and a half hour naptime. Something about those buses just puts everyone to sleep, even if it’s only a 20 minute ride. In my defense, I did try to stay awake because everything looked so beautiful and I didn’t want to miss it. There were sunflower fields everywhere, and every so often there would be a cute little stone village perched on top of a plateau or high cliffs, elevated above the vast fields of flowers. We also saw a couple of old Roman aqueducts. Tuscany really is gorgeous; my eyes just couldn’t stay open.

When we finally reached Siena, everyone was relieved to finally get off the bus. Our guide just seemed to have no idea where we were or how to get into the main part of the city. You would think the tour guide wouldn’t need to stop to ask for directions, but after we went around in a circle…twice…we finally found the entryway. Everyone was starving, but like all SAS tours, they have to take the entire group to the meeting point first so that everyone knows exactly where to meet up at designated times. Along the way we strolled through narrow streets lined with tall medieval stone buildings that had been decorated with colorful flags. As we walked, we scoped out the restaurants for future reference.

At the meeting point, the guide told us to take 40 minutes of free time. Everyone dispersed looking for the nearest restaurant. Claire, Sam, and I almost went to a couple of sidewalk cafés, but they would take too long and were a little pricey. Eventually, we returned to this pizza place we had passed on the way and had some delicious Italian pizza for one Euro per slice. It was awesome. I had a prosciutto and mozzarella slice which was delicious. After pizza we prowled for the best gelateria (aka- ice cream place). I had a scoop of hazelnut and it was fantastic. I don’t know what they do to Italian ice cream to make it so much better, but everyone should make it that way. We sat on a bench by the window and polished off our cones before meeting up with the group.

After meeting up with the guide and the group, another local guide led us to the Piazza del Campo which is the main square of Siena. It hosts a series of shops and cafés that line the exterior along with the city hall. In the center of the piazza was a fountain and a large blocked off space which would host the crowd that would ensue the next day for the shortest horse race in the world, the Il Palio. Siena is actually known as the “City of Il Palio” because of this race.

The Il Palio is held on July 2^nd and August 16^th of each year, and we were actually in town on July 1^st to witness the preparations. Basically, the city is divided into 17 neighborhood districts which all compete against each other in this horse race. They each hire a jockey to lead their neighborhood to victory, and each neighborhood has a specific flag displaying their quirky mascots. Some of the mascots include: the snails, dragons, rhinos, geese, turtles, and caterpillars. Apparently, the geese hold the record for the most wins, but the dragons were favored to win this year. Flags of each district were hung everywhere, and people were representing their ‘hoods by wearing the flags as scarves around their necks. After the race, the winner’s flags are the only ones that are able to remain flying.

The tightly packed sand that is brought in to cover the piazza is a very specific kind of dirt that coined the name “Siena” for the town. The yellowish-tan color of this dirt is referred to as the color “Siena” to the rest of the world. On the day of the race the horses are blessed in neighborhood churches, tourists and locals crowd into the center ring of the square as well as on the outside skirts of the piazza, and a series of parades march through the streets. When it comes time for the race, the favored horse and rider are able to start whenever they please. This year the dragons decided to make everyone wait an extra hour and a half before starting. This medieval horse racing tradition consists of only four laps around the square of the Piazza del Campo, and it usually lasts less than two minutes time. The race is anything goes- no rules. Jockeys can use the whips on each other, and even if a horse finishes the race without its jockey it still wins the title for the neighborhood. Later on, I heard that the towers had taken the victory and that the jockey of the favored district (the dragons) had to be carried out of the area because I guess a bunch of people were angry about how he wasted time before starting the race. The race this year only lasted 72 seconds.

After viewing the piazza and hearing the history of the race we took a walking tour of the city where we saw a number of medieval buildings, narrow winding streets, and churches- some with really interesting frescos on the ceilings. One of the banks we saw had these creepy little sculptures of heads of old men poking out from the top floor. The sides of buildings still had large metal horse loops from the middle ages that were used to tie horses to the buildings. At one point, a parade of the dragons strolled past us with some guys decorated in green, gold, and purple drumming on big bass drums while carrying their district’s flag.

Funny story: On the side of one building I saw one of those yellow caution signs with a stick figure man slipping off of a ledge. Someone had taken a sharpie and written in “This is Sparta,” as well as another stick man kicking this person off the ledge. I found it pretty entertaining. I’m it was an American who wrote it.

The coolest thing we saw on the tour was The Duomo, an Italian Romanesque cathedral which was striped in green and white on all sides except for the front façade which was intensely decorated with sculpture, frescos of the Virgin Mary, and elaborate arches. The intricate architecture of the building was topped off by a large dome which came to a point with a golden sphere holding a gold cross. When this gold structure was last cleaned last month, they found a small note hidden inside the sphere that basically said, “We were here and cleaned this steeple,” and listed two names and the date, which turned out to be from about 300 years ago. Our guide said stuff like this happens all the time in Siena. People will move a brick or something and find notes or artifacts from hundreds of years ago.

History Lesson: St. Catherine of Siena was the first woman to show stigmata and actually be accepted by the community for having these holy marks on her skin. Most women would be considered witches instead. She would routinely perform public exorcisms which was an extremely uncommon occurrence for her time. The stairs leading up to The Duomo have a painted cross on one of the steps where it is believed St. Catherine fell and knocked out her tooth. I know, it’s a very random fact.

After visiting another church and having some free time to buy souvenirs, we loaded back onto the bus to head towards San Gimignano. But it wasn’t quite that simple. One girl hadn’t made it back to the bus. She had left our group early on in the tour to explore the city on her own, promising to meet up with the group at the end of the tour. We waited about 20 minutes where the bus was supposed to pick everyone up at the outskirts of town before we drove five more minutes down the road to the tour bus check out station. I guess SAS had been trying to get in touch with her in the meantime and managed to talk to her on her cell phone. She had made the mistake of meeting at the wrong church and said she was taking a taxi straight to where our bus was parked. We waited another 20 minutes or so before our guide got a call from the girl. She said she was just going to take a train back to Civitavecchia; so we had waited on her for 45 minutes, delaying our trip, and she just decided not to meet up with us after all. So this made the trip way behind schedule.

It was about an hour bus ride to San Gimignano from Siena, and we reached the city right when it was nearing sundown. The blue skies were slowly turning purple on the horizon as it neared twilight. As we walked up the steep sidewalk to enter the hilltop town we were graced with this amazing picturesque view of the surrounding landscape full of vineyards and green farmlands. It was the stereotypical picture of Tuscany, but so much better in person.

We entered the town of San Gimignano through a huge stone archway and proceeded to explore the streets that were lined with old stone buildings. Occasionally we would stumble upon a really great view through alleyways or around a corner. As we were walking everyone couldn’t help but notice how quiet it was here. There weren’t any cars in the streets or loud noises coming from the buildings; it was just calm and peaceful.

Claire, Sam, and I decided to stop at one of the restaurants in the main piazza for a snack before the ride back. We ate at a table outside and split a bottle of rosé wine as we munched on a caprese salad. It was very relaxing, and even in the more crowded piazza you could still tell how quiet and peaceful the town was. It was definitely a completely different atmosphere from the busy crowds of Siena that were anticipating the Il Palio.

We were running late to get back to the bus, but we kept seeing SASer’s walking back towards the town in the opposite direction from where they should have been headed to catch the bus. Eventually, we found out that everyone was going back to find a bathroom because our driver wasn’t planning on stopping for the entire three and a half hour trip back to Civitavecchia. We turned around and followed their lead, but then got distracted. One of the SASer’s mentioned a gelateria that was just up the hill that was supposedly amazing. It had actually won the award for “Best Gelato in the World” four years in a row…this wasn’t something that could be passed up. We had the choice of bathroom or gelato…and we chose gelato. Haha. I don’t regret it at all either because it was the best ice cream I’ve ever had. All three of us got the tiramisu flavor, and it was amazing- a perfect end to the day.

The guide complained a little bit about us being late to the bus, but it was so worth it. I slept the entire ride back to the ship, and even though Claire and I had planned to go out in CivitavecchiaRome and experienced a pretty intense thunderstorm, but they said it was awesome to see it rain over the Colosseum. I hit the sack after that because I had to meet for another field program the next day at 8:45 a.m. Day one in Italy was very busy, but fun and when we got back, we were just too exhausted to do anything. We did run into our friends who had stayed in town at the gangway and listened to everyone’s different stories from the trips they had taken that day. Most people had gone into definitely beautiful.

I'd Like a Side of Studying With My Tanning Time

June 28-30, 2009

The next three days on the ship were a blur of studying, tanning, and sleeping. Going nonstop in Spain had definitely taken its toll on my body and I caught a cold which kept me up coughing every night between ports. My roommate, Jessica, probably thought I was going to die. I hate feeling like I am keeping my roommates awake when I’m coughing. It seemed as though everyone had caught a little something during our time in port though.

When I woke up the first morning after Spain we were anchored near Gibraltar to refuel. There was a medium sized bright red boat nestled right next to my window, and the scent of gasoline that wafted into the hallway when a member of the crew opened an exterior door next to my room told me that I would have front row seats for the refueling process. It was a little nerve-racking knowing the fuel line was so close to our room.

It was soooo hot when we were at anchor, and tiny bugs invaded the boat and proceeded to bite everyone nonstop as we tried to layout on deck. You could see the coast and mountains from the windows and decks of the boat as we refueled which was really cool.

In my Art History class that day, my professor informed us that we were going to be passing the island of Gibraltar while we were in his class so he was going to let us take a quick break from class to go take pictures up on the deck. I love this professor. We all scrambled to get our cameras and headed up top to take some pictures of this giant rock in the distance. It looked like there were only a small number of buildings near sea level on the island and the rest was sheer cliffs of rock. Patrick: I honestly don’t

know what you did while you were there over Christmas. Haha. I’m assuming you climbed some of those steep cliffs because that seems like a life-risking thing that might appeal to you. :)

Classes were difficult to handle when we had just had this amazing four day vacation in Spain, not to mention that we were already looking forward to our next stop in Italy. It just so happened that this was one of the busiest times of the semester too. We had an essay due as well as a midterm in Global Studies the day before we arrived in Italy. That was brutal. It was only a two page essay, but I feel like those are harder because you have to fit everything you’re supposed to say into just four paragraphs. Because Global Studies has 700+ students we were given the test online so that we could take it at various locations on the ship. People were tucked away with their laptops in the Union, dining halls, stairwells, on the floors in hallways, and in their individual rooms. It was definitely the least stressful environment I’ve ever been in to take a test.

In between studying and classes I was either sleeping, eating, exercising, or tanning. I pretty much lived on the top deck during the daylight hours. My daily schedule looked something like this: I would wake up, go to breakfast, put on my bathing suit, go to Global Studies, layout upstairs for an hour while I read for Ethnomusicology, eat lunch, layout again for another hour until Ethnomusicology, go to class, take my laptop with me to retype Art History notes as I laid out for another hour before Art History class, eat dinner, do homework/email, workout, and then finally sleep. I lived in my swimsuit and got a fantastic tan…I really hope this doesn’t lead to skin cancer. Haha. The sun probably wasn’t good for my laptop either, but it was a risk I was willing to take. :)

The Mediterranean is so darn HOT! I mean it is sweltering outside. I would layout and be sweating after like 5 seconds from places that I didn’t even know I had sweat glands. One day I fell asleep laying on my stomach with my head buried facedown in my arms, and when I awoke I immediately got up to rush to class. I noticed that a couple of people looked at me a little funny and did some double takes, but I didn’t think anything of it at first. Luckily the dining hall has a wall lined in mirrors because I had to do a double take of my own when I walked by it. I had a huge black splotch underneath one of my eyes from where my mascara had melted and stained my cheek. I looked like a football player. I’m kind of surprised no one said anything to me about it. I feel like I would point a giant black makeup stain out to someone if it was all over their face, but maybe that’s just me.

Haha. I’m just glad I caught it before I walked into class…that would’ve been embarrassing.

Months, days of the week, and dates in general really mean nothing to me on the ship. I have totally lost track of the normal labels of measures of time. We brand the days with titles such as “the day before Italy,” “the second day in Greece,” “the day we get back from Croatia,” and so on. It’s so much easier that way. I doubt most people on the boat would know the date or day of the week if you asked them, or they would at least have to think very hard before giving you an answer. I asked one of my friends what time it was the other day, and she said, “10 minutes until dinner.” Priceless :) . It’s crazy that our daily conversations consist of questions such as, “What are you doing in Rome tomorrow?” It’s pretty surreal.

As we prepared for Italy, I debated on whether to forego one of my preplanned trips to the Renaissance Gardens of Villa Lante & Tuscania in order to visit some of the ruins and monuments in Rome that I had been learning so much about in my Art History class. I have been to Rome before, but it was under unusual circumstances. During my sophomore year in high school we just happened to be in Rome on the day of the Pope’s funeral, so we were able to witness history and attend the funeral ceremony at St. Peter’s Square, but that also meant that everything was closed. So I didn’t get to go into a lot of the churches, the Roman Forum, or the Roman Colosseum. Eventually, I decided to try to make it into Rome for the last night or at least travel there for a day trip on our last day in port.

Amid 2,000,000 Liters of Sherry

June 27, 2009

 

I was straining to keep my eyes open for the bus ride to Jerez de la Frontera the next morning. The tour guide was rattling off some facts about the region and its unique climate with 300+ sunny days a year allowed for the growth of certain types of grapes which could produce three different kinds of sherry, but I eventually lost the battle with my heavy eyelids and woke up in a small vine-covered Spanish village. There was a huge sign that read “Tio Pepé” next to a figure of a small wine bottle dressed in a red Spanish bullfighting jacket and a wide-brimmed sombrero staring back at me. From this I gathered that we had arrived at the sherry producing vineyard.

 

When we entered through the gates of the winery, a tour guide immediately steered us towards a large circular structure which was just an open, covered space lined with wooden barrels full of sherry. They were stacked four levels high and each barrel had the flag of a different country designating where the sherry was routinely exported. In the center of the wall of barrels, the surfaces spelled out Gonzalez Byass (the name of the vineyard).

 

After taking pictures outside for a few minutes the guide led us into the dark wine cellar, and the second we neared the door we were immediately overcome with the scent of cedar and sherry. The dark, musty cellar had aisles upon aisles of wooden barrels containing fermenting sherry. They were again stacked four levels high and stretched the length of the cellar in all four directions. When we had reached the central point of the cellar, the guide informed us that we were standing amid two million liters of sherry. There are about 40 million liters in all of Jerez. You felt as though if you stayed in that cellar for too long you would get tipsy just from breathing in the aroma emanating from the barrels.

 

After exploring the aisles and receiving a mini history lesson about the vineyard from out guide, we were escorted to a makeshift theater at the far end of the cellar where we watched a short film about the history of Tio Pepé and the fermenting process. The vineyard and sherry producing business were named after the founder’s Uncle Pepé. Tio Pepé sherry is shipped all over the world, and back in the day it was a staple for long ship ventures. One sea captain insisted on taking 300 barrels for his voyage.

 

We then entered a large room lined with larger than normal barrels of sherry that was being prepped for a wedding reception. One of the barrels was actually the world’s largest barrels of sherry and was built for the queen of Spain before she visited the vineyard; it even had her crest on it. The room had a number of round tables set up covered with an unnecessary number of eating silverware, dishes, and glasses. It appeared as though they would be treated to at least four different kinds of sherry for their meal, not to mention the overwhelming fragrance overflowing from the cellar next door.

 

On our way to the next building where we would learn about the fermentation process there was a beautiful canopy of vines creating a bright green picturesque ceiling above us…perfect photo opportunity. When sherry is fermenting the barrels are not fully filled to the brim so that a solid layer can form on the surface creating a barrier between the wine and open air. After a few years of fermenting and soaking up flavor from the cedar, it is finally ready for bottling. As for the barrels, they last up to 70 years. Sometimes the barrels are used to produce sherry for around 70 years before they are sold to production companies in Ireland to make certain types of whisky. They can actually last longer than 100 years.

 

When the Tio Pepé vineyard was first established, the owner often found mice drinking sherry out of the barrels in the cellar so he started a tradition of leaving a full glass of sherry and some treats for the mice on the floor of the cellar. To this day the employees still set out a fresh glass of sherry for the mice everyday equipped with a miniature ladder leaned up against the side of the glass. There were a few pictures on the wall documenting the mice actually perched on top of the ladder enjoying the sherry. The vineyard claims to have the happiest mice in the world. 

 

Next, was the tasting portion of the tour. We were seated three to a table at these tiny round tables in a warehouse. On the table were glasses, a bottle of dry sherry, and potato chips which was kind of odd. The guide educated us on the types of sherry that we were tasting; there was a dry bottle as well as a sample glass of sweet sherry made from raisins. This particular sherry was 13% alcohol by the way. This was definitely too much for three people to drink in the 15-20 minutes we had in the tasting area, however, some tables managed it. The sweet sherry almost tasted like syrup, not my favorite beverage. We stopped by the gift store before loading the bus to travel to Hierro del Bocado, the farm where the original Carthusian Horses were bred.

 

At Hierro del Bocado we saw the stallions’ stables, mare’s beds, the veterinary clinic, laboratories, baby colts, and rooms where they kept all of the equipment. After the tour of the grounds which was accompanied by a history lesson of the Carthusian Horses we sat in a small arena to watch the horse show. The announcer switched between Spanish and English when introducing each part of the show. The opening act was basically a stampede of colts that were corralled into the ring. This was followed by an exhibition of horse-drawn carriages, a dancing mare, a carriage race around barrel obstacles, and a reunion of mares and colts. It was cool to see how the colts could almost immediately locate their mothers. The show was interesting, but the melodic music that they played the entire time started to put me to sleep. The horses were cool, but I really didn’t get what made them different from any other type of horse besides the fact that stallions run for about 40,000 Euros. When the show concluded, we were given another free sample of sherry before we loaded the buses to head back to the ship.

 

When I arrived back to the ship I immediately grabbed my laptop and headed out to the Cádiz Cathedral with a friend from the trip to use the free WiFi in the plaza while enjoying some paella at an outdoor café. I hadn’t had paella in Spain thus far, and I definitely needed to try Spain’s most famous entrée before leaving. I split a seafood paella (rice, vegetables, shrimp, and other fish) with my friend as we facebooked and tried to upload some pictures. This proved unsuccessful as my battery died before the slow internet would allow the uploading to complete.

 

I hadn’t been up to the bell tower of the cathedral yet so I decided to climb to the top before we left to make it back to the ship on time. The overlook was located atop a cylindrical stone tower with a lengthy winding staircase. I was a little winded by the time I reached the top, but the view was so worth it. The dark staircase suddenly opened up into this bright open bell tower overlooking all of Cádiz and the gorgeous turquoise blue ocean. The glistening gold dome of the cathedral looked incredible with the ocean in the background. I could see all of the churches I had visited in the city, the beaches in the distance, and even our ship docked at the port. I didn’t realize how many statues and sculptures were at the top of the church and surrounding the dome until I was on the same level with them.

 

We had to rush back to the ship to make it onboard before “on ship time.” If you are even a minute late for on ship time you get “dock time” at the next port where you have to stay onboard for a designated period of time. I know someone who got like 4 hours of dock time for being 24 minutes late. It’s pretty intense. But we ended up leaving at 11:00 p.m. that night rather than 8:00 p.m. anyway because one of the SAS trips to Barcelona was running late due to flight difficulties. On our way out of the port that night, the little Practicos tugboat which had greeted us when we arrived in Spain was at our window again. The crew could actually see us in our room through our porthole from the deck of their boat, so they waved at us as they attached to the ship to guide us back out into the Mediterranean towards Italy.

¿Qué tú bebes? ¿Chocolate?

June 26, 2009

 

The smell of coffee and something baking woke me up the next morning, and just like the night before, as soon as I got up and started moving so did everyone else. After a few seconds we were all like, “Where’s Evan?!” So we jumped up and went straight to the lobby. We clearly didn’t think this through because we were all still in our pajamas, and pretty much everyone who was staying in the hostel was gathered there for breakfast. We were like, “Oh perfect.” I didn’t even have my contacts on so I wasn’t much help in locating him, but right when one girl from SAS saw us she just pointed towards the phone and said, “There he is.” I guess they could read our faces that we were looking for somebody. Haha. Later, he told us that he had gotten back to the hostel like two hours after we did, and he had just as hard of time finding the place.

 

We all just wanted to get back to Cádiz and the boat at that point so we packed up all of our stuff into our backpacks and stopped at the nearest café for breakfast since we had missed the complimentary meal at the hostel. It was kind of cool because you just picked things out of the bakery and ate it standing up at the bar. I was in desperate need of some Euros so I attempted to find an ATM, but the two I tried were really confusing. They asked for my phone number so I figured that wasn’t a good sign. I’d have to wait until Cádiz. Then, we took about 15 minutes to hail down a cab to take us to the train station. We hopped on a train that left pretty much right away, but this time it was a little more crowded. After about two stops we had people complaining about us being in their seats so we had to split up and ride in separate cars in our assigned seats. I utilized the time for postcard writing again.

 

By the time we reached Cádiz we were starving and not about to settle for ship food when paella and tapas were an option. On the route back to the ship we found a little tapas place, and luckily the waiter spoke English so he could explain what some of the foods were. There was a deal where you got a choice of small portions of like four different things, a soft drink, and a coffee for eight Euros. I got some type of eggplant pasta thing (which was really good), sausage, french fries, and chicken on a stick. Very random, but good. Oh and I had melon juice to drink which was like a combination of cantaloupe and honeydew. It was actually very tasty. After a very satisfying lunch, we managed to finally make it back to the ship. I went around and took a few pictures of the ship while there weren’t many people around, and then I took a pretty long nap and uploaded pictures to my computer. I wanted to get them all ready for uploading to Facebook because we had planned on all walking to the cathedral for free internet later that night.

 

While we were walking towards the cathedral we did a little more shopping, getting postcards and magnets from Cádiz. Oh and I’ve decided to collect a magnet from everywhere I go this summer. One: because they are cheap. Two: because they look cool. And three: because I can stick them on my wall on the ship because all of the walls are magnetic. They don’t let you use tape.

 

We hadn’t eaten dinner or tried churros in Spain yet, so the first order of business was to find a restaurant that served churros. I tried asking a store clerk for “Un restaurante con churros,” but he thought I was saying “toros” which means “bull” so he was very confused. We kept repeating ourselves and saying, “Churros con chocolate,” and it finally clicked. He pointed us in the direction of the nearest restaurant, and when we arrived we were greeted by the host who we immediately asked whether they had churros or not. He said “Sí” and proceeded to ask what we wanted to drink. “¿Qué tú bebes? ¿Chocolate?” Hmmm…drink chocolate? That sounded ok to me, so we got two cups of chocolate for the table and two plates of churros. One would’ve definitely been enough. They looked like long french fries, but they were just pieces of sweet fried dough that you dipped in the chocolate. I saw one girl actually pick up the cup of chocolate and drink it like it was water or something. That was too much, even for me, and I love chocolate.

 

After our nice little snack we planted ourselves on the steps of the cathedral with our laptops for some much needed internet time. The plaza had definitely come alive by this time. It was like 9:00 pm and people were everywhere. All of the sidewalk cafés were open and super busy, people were just walking around and talking in large groups, and kids were running in every direction playing soccer and jump rope. I typed with one eye on guard in case a soccer ball was going to come rushing at my head, or computer screen. I attempted to Skype with my parents again, which proved unsuccessful again…my computer must have like ultra sonic microphone devices in it because they could hear every background noise except my voice. They were hearing the wind and sirens, and I couldn’t even really hear those things and I was actually THERE.

 

Jessica and Amira who had come with me decided to head back to the ship because their batteries were dying so I decided to stay another half hour until mine went dead too. The walk back to the ship was a little sketchier than I thought it would be. I kinda felt like a moving target walking by myself with a backpack on. I took the long way to the boat through the busy shopping streets though so it wasn’t too bad. I thought I was golden when I reached the boat at ten till 11:00. You see in Cádiz the main gate to the port closes at 11:00pm, and if you get there any later than that you half to walk almost as far as the train station to the other gate to get in. I wasn’t about to do that by myself, but with my luck they had decided to close the gates early. I asked the guard if he would just let me in because the boat was literally right in front of me, but he said I had to go the long way like everyone else.

 

Luckily, three other SAS-ers were making their way to the gate too so I took the long stroll around the pier with them. On the walk we were scanning for any break in the barrier, a hole we could crawl through or a fence low enough to climb over, but that was unsuccessful. Some guys managed to climb over though; I was just too short. When we finally reached the other gate we basically had to backtrack the way we came, just on the right side of the fence this time.

 

When I finally reached my room Jess was just leaving to go back out to the town for coffee with Amira. So I switched out of my flip flops, rocking some tennis shoes that labeled me even further as a tourist, and headed back out with them even though I was exhausted and my feet were throbbing from walking all day. You have to take advantage of the time you have in port while you can.

Where were you when Michael Jackson died?

June 25, 2009

 

 

Luckily I had packed my bag for Sevilla last night because I was definitely rushed when I woke up the next morning. I almost slept through breakfast, but I was able to catch the last five minutes before they started taking all of the food away. After breakfast I went back down to my room to finish getting my stuff together, and then I rushed upstairs to get my passport and meet my group that I would be traveling with. Originally, I had planned on going to Sevilla with one girl that I had met in Halifax and a group of people that she knew, but somehow we didn’t end up meeting each other in the reception area of the ship like we had planned. I’m still not exactly sure what happened with that, but they either left earlier or overslept. But it ended up working out for the best because my roommate Jessica was planning on going to Sevilla for the night too with her friends Amira and Evan.

 

So we set out with our overstuffed backpacks to find the Cádiz train station, but first we needed to find a bank to exchange some of Jessica and Amira’s money. Easier said than done. We walked for a solid 40 minutes trying to find a bank with currency exchange. Finding a bank alone was difficult because everyone kept pointing us towards ATMs because I guess that’s what Americans are always looking for. We went into some really random buildings thinking they were banks such as a tourist office, an investment group, and a credit card company. It really did start getting funny what we thought might be considered a bank just by judging how they looked on the outside. Eventually, we did find a real bank and waited at least 25 minutes in line to see a teller. I was the translator for both of them when we finally made it up to the counter. So now that everyone had some funds, we headed towards the train station. We also added three other SAS-ers to our group along the way.

 

The station was much farther than we thought, but eventually we made it to the ticket counter. The teller again didn’t speak any English so I ended up playing translator once again. If anything, I was going to get better at asking questions while using lots of hand gestures. It was only 10 Euro and an hour and a half train ride to Sevilla from Cádiz. We had some time to kill at the station so we strolled straight over to the little café in the terminal for some snacks. Tapas are perfect snacks by the way. Tapas are just small little portions of different kinds of food that you order in Spain. So you can try a couple different things without getting too much food. It makes snacking and eating small meals so much easier. I just tried a little plateful of sausage links with cheese wedges while pretty much everyone else ordered the Spanish version of a “tortilla.” Now, don’t go picturing a taco, burrito, or chips of any kind…it’s actually just like a hoagie roll with fried potatoes inside, and people I guess put ketchup and mayonnaise on it. It looked pretty disgusting to me, but everyone seemed to like it for some reason. I tried it, but it’s just so much bread/starch. I was perfectly happy with my tapas and cappuccino, which is way stronger than American coffee by the way.

 

The train ride was actually really fun. The seats could face each other so that you basically looked like you were sitting in a booth with four people. There was even a little table in the middle of each pair of seats. So we all just talked about a lot of random things that you only talk about when you have a nearly two hour train ride with no entertainment. It was a good way to get to know everyone though, or at least know random facts about everyone. After about an hour people started to pull out the iPods and close their eyes. I took advantage of the down time to write some postcards to send back home. The scenery was so nice too. There were sunflowers everywhere! Just fields upon fields of them. I tried to take pictures, but it ended up just being a blur of yellow across my camera screen.

 

We arrived in Sevilla around 2:30 that afternoon without a plan of what to see, where we were staying, or any idea of what lay in front of us in this much larger and more modern Spanish town. The three girls we had met in the Cádiz train station already had reservations at a hostel so we decided to just check out the situation on getting a room there. One problem: we had the name of the hostel and the phone number, but no address. I was trying to communicate this (in Spanish) to the cab driver, but he had no idea where to take us. He was probably also laughing inside at how dumb we were to not have the address of the place where we would be staying for the night. Eventually, another cab driver came over who said he knew where this place was so he ended up taking us downtown. Right away we could tell this city had a lot more to offer than Cádiz. It was definitely more of an urban environment with restaurants, cafés, and shops lining all of the streets with tall apartment buildings towering overhead.

 

To get to our hostel, we crossed the busy street, walking in the direction our cab driver had pointed out before he sped away. Immediately I had a good feeling about this place because it was smack dab in the middle of a shopping district. We had to walk through a busy line of shops to get to the somewhat sketchy alleyway which led to the hostel that we hoped had vacancy for four. The alleyway was also undergoing some kind of renovation so there were a few construction workers creeping in and out of a garage. I guess I’m painting a kind of scary picture, but it really wasn’t that bad. The alley was only like half a block off of the main strip.

 

So we walk into this little hole in the wall place called Hostel Nuevo Suizo, and we’re immediately greeted by a room full of SAS’ers. I guess the fact that the only internet resource we have on the boat for researching hotels is WikiTravel, everyone ended up in the same 2-3 hostels in Sevilla. I spotted one of my friends Dustin whose first words were, “They have free WiFi and free international calling, it’s awesome.” You could tell what we had been deprived of during that week of crossing the Atlantic. Luckily, the hostel had just enough free room for all of us to stay there. Evan roomed with Dustin, but with us girls it was a little more difficult. There was only one private room left which had a double bed, so the third person would have to sleep on one of the bunks in one of the big communal sleeping rooms. I volunteered to sleep in the big room because they were pretty much all SAS-ers anyway. I was on bunk number 7, a top bunk. It was just nice that we had a private room that we could lock our bags in while we were out. I was not about to carry that backpack through the city…it was way too hot for that.

 

The lobby of the hostel had a bunch of couches where SAS-ers were sipping coffee and chatting about the trip to Sevilla and what they were going to do later that day/night. Our hostel was also equipped with an espresso machine where you could get free coffee, cappuccino, hot chocolate, etc. anytime of the day. It was awesome. The lobby looked straight up into the open cavity of the building which was lined with wooden railings and hanging plants. Our sleeping quarters were all on the first floor, and luckily my bed was right next to the room where Jess and Amira were staying. Their room was just wide enough for the double bed and a walking path on just one side of the bed. We really just used the room as a locker. Bathrooms were communal, so that was interesting. In the lobby we met a guy from New Zealand and two Texans who were backpacking through Europe. Oh and there were posters and maps hanging all over the walls describing what fun stuff to do around the area like which restaurants, clubs, or sightseeing things to go to. It was really funny because there was a huge map of Sevilla and big blocks of space were circled and labeled “Pubs,” “Bars,” and “Discos.” I guess they knew what we wanted to do. And there was one that said “Marbella: The hot spot for the rich and pretty people.” It seems like Spaniards like to get right to the point. Haha.

 

After getting settled and refreshed we regrouped and decided to go explore the town. Even though we were starving for lunch we went straight into the first store we saw. Poor Evan, he was in for a long day. We walked through the shopping district, going in and out of a couple places as we looked for a good restaurant for lunch. We were wandering right around siesta time so not much was open, but we did find a cute little outdoor café after quite a trek through the streets. Jess and I shared half a liter of sangria. Ahh it’s so good! I decided to be adventurous and try some really strange food. And by strange I mean scrambled eggs with shrimp, tomatoes, and sea anemones. I think sea anemones are definitely an acquired taste. They weren’t too bad, but the texture was just a little too slimey/mushy for me. The rest of the dish was good though.

 

When we finished lunch we wanted to explore the city some more. We came to Sevilla not knowing about any special sightseeing or anything, but we just had fun wandering through random streets. Mostly we just went into a bunch of random touristy shops, but after seeing postcards of Sevilla which had some amazing looking churches and plazas we decided to actually ask the store owners where some of these monuments were. The Plaza de España looked fantastic and I really wanted to try to see it before it got too late so I asked one of the shop owners for directions. It took like five minutes for her to explain how to get there (and it wasn’t the language barrier that caused this long explanation, it was just so complicated to get there). We would have had to go through a bunch of random streets to find the metro and then take the metro to the very last stop and then walk even farther from there, so it was really going to take way too long. I was pretty impressed with myself at how easy it was to follow all of the directions though. I definitely felt more confident that we wouldn’t get too lost in the city.

 

Because the Plaza de España plan failed we decided to look for the Cathedral of Sevilla instead. It’s actually the third largest church in the world after St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London, so needless to say, we couldn’t miss it when we were in the general area. Fun Fact: The cathedral is thought to be the final resting place of Christopher Columbus. The bell tower, called La Giralda, is really cool looking. It was originally meant to be part of the mosque that was previously in that location, but they kept it as the bell tower of the cathedral. The church was just HUGE, there’s really no other way to describe it. It was really intricately decorated too, with tons of small sculptures and decorative details all over the façade and side walls.

 

We were all pretty tired of walking by this time so we got directions back towards the hostel. The cathedral was actually only a couple of blocks from our hostel, but we had just taken a really long route when we were exploring earlier. Evan peaced out and went straight back to the hostel, probably way too tired of shopping and avoiding more stores at any cost. What was really random though was that on our way back Evan ran into this girl on the street that used to be his neighbor in the U.S., and not like a recent neighbor- like when they were in middle school. She used to be friends with his sister or something like that, and she is living in Sevilla now. So it was totally a crazy coincidence. She invited us to go out with her group of friends that night to a bar by the river.

 

On the walk back I was just so amazed with how many different kinds of buildings there were everywhere. The architecture was amazing, like there would be a Spanish style store sandwiched by an ancient baroque cathedral and an Arabic styled apartment building. It was crazy. We did a little more shopping on the way back to our room, but didn’t really buy much. Most of the cool touristy stuff was breakable which made it hard for backpacking and eventually getting back to the states. The ceramics were so beautiful though, and they all had amazing designs or views of the city hand painted onto the pottery. European sizes are weird too. It was just frustrating to have to figure out a new size in every piece of clothing.

 

So all day I had been looking for a post office box to put my postcards in, and was unsuccessful all day long. Apparently they’re all big yellow round boxes so they shouldn’t be hard to spot, well hard for me to spot I guess. I got so excited when I finally saw one when we had almost reached our hostel on the way back.

 

Ok so I kept seeing postcards and even little figurines of people marching through the streets wearing big white capes with tall pointy white hats…yes, exactly like the KKK. I was so confused. I was like “Why would you get a KKK figurine?” So I took a picture of one of them and asked the lady at the desk of our hostel what they were for. Apparently that’s what priests wear at certain times of the year to do processions through the town. She said the outfits don’t have a bad connotation like they do in the U.S. They’re used around Easter and stuff like that. I definitely wouldn’t send one of those postcards back to the states though.

 

At the hostel we met some more SAS-ers that were looking to celebrate being in Spain by getting a bottle of wine to drink on the terrace. Across the block there was a department store that randomly had a supermarket underneath it. There were like a million bottles of wine, and even one that only cost 83 cents. It was so funny. We did take it one step up and get the $1.50 bottle. Side note: Spaniards have the system down- they sell rum as a set with a liter of Coke. Like you can buy Jack and Coke as a bundle package. Crazy. So to make the night a little more classy we also got some strawberries with Nutella :)

 

When we got back to the hostel we got ready to go out and took the wine, strawberries, and Nutella up to the top floor where there was a cool little terrace with tables and chairs set up. Upstairs Evan had obviously been seeking some testosterone because he was up there surrounded by a group of like 5 guys. We went over to meet everyone, and two of the guys were from Australia and two were from Holland. It's crazy meeting people from so many cool places. I felt really lame because one of the guys from Holland actually taught me a word I didn’t know in English. I don’t remember what it was, but I felt so dumb. Haha. Oh and “ferdinkum” is what people in Australia say instead of “really?” Just in case you’re randomly in Australia and need to know that :)

 

The bar we went out to was a very cool setting. It was an outdoor bar next to the river so everyone was mingling outside. Right when I got there this girl from Kansas named Emily started talking to me. She was studying abroad in Spain for the summer and was really really nice. She was just filling us in with everything we needed to know about Spain: what drink to order (a “tinted verano” -basically red wine mixed with sprite), which clubs to go to, how to handle the Spanish guys, and so on. And then we met a bunch of her other friends. It seemed like pretty much everyone there was a study abroad student so that was cool.

 

After being there for a while, one of Emily’s friends held up her phone and shouted, “Michael Jackson just died!” I guess someone had texted it to her. Everyone got silent and was just like “No way.” Then someone looked it up on the internet on their phone and showed us on Google how “the King of Pop had just died of heart complications.” It was just so random. It was one of those “Where were you when Michael Jackson died?” moments. Haha. Well, I was at a bar by the river in Sevilla, Spain.

 

The girls walked us over to Club Buddha which they said was the best club in Sevilla. It was pretty far walk, but it was worth it when we got there. There were four floors: the bottom was a restaurant and the other three had different kinds of music on each level. We went to level two because it had English and Spanish music. It was a pretty cool setup. There was the bar next to the dance floor and then an outdoor area with big booths to just sit with everyone. Not many people were on the dance floor at first, but eventually it got more crowded. Dancing was fun, but a little strange- definitely not like an American club. The guys kind of all stood together in little groups. Most of them weren’t even dancing, they were just standing there looking around. Sometimes they would venture out and dance with a girl, but they danced with each other too. It was weird. And when I danced with some of them it was like they didn’t know what to do. Haha. I guess American dancing is different to them too. It was strange, but still fun. 

 

The club was fun, but got old kinda fast so we decided to go back to the hostel, but Evan didn’t want to leave quite yet so one of the guys from Holland that we met at the hostel walked back with Jess, Amira, and me. Stupid us didn’t write down the address again so we couldn’t take a cab. I thought we were pretty lost, but we did find the hostel soon enough. My feet were killing me so I was more than ready to take off my shoes. We were all really hungry when we got back because we ate such an early dinner so when we got to the hostel we asked the guy at the desk if they had any food. He went into the pantry and grabbed a loaf of bread and some cheese for us. The cheese was so good! They had moved all of the couches and chairs out of the lobby for some reason so we were just sitting there on the floor eating bread and cheese like we were homeless or something. It was so funny! Then, we got ready for bed, and instead of me staying in the communal sleeping room by myself, I scrunched on the doubled bed with Jess and Amira in their room. It was really funny because every time one person would move throughout the night it would be like a domino effect and everyone else would turn over.

 

It was just a very fun and random day in Sevilla. I’m really glad I ended up going with this group instead of the other girls that I didn’t know. It was a really fun, chill group and I got to know my roommate a lot better.

¡Hola España!

June 24, 2009

 

I woke to the rumbling sounds of the engine at 5:00am, and I peered out the porthole to see a small sliver of somewhat industrial looking land covered in construction, tall cranes, and smoke stacks under the pinkish-orange glow of a Spanish sunrise. This was not at all how I had envisioned my first sight of Spain, but it was surreal to finally see land at least. With not much worth seeing I went back to bed. My roommate and I woke up on and off for the next three hours with all of the random noises accompanied by the boat pulling into port. With one particularly loud noise we looked outside to see a small tugboat coming straight towards us. I thought it was going to hit the side of the ship! “The Practicos,” as it was called, pulled along right beside our window. We must be right next to where it attaches to the ship, and we watched it for a few minutes as it guided us towards the port of Cádiz.

 

Everyone was super excited at breakfast because we couldn’t wait to get off the ship. At the table we made plans to meet up with different groups throughout the day as everyone had different field excursions to work around. Around 10:00am I made my way off the boat with three friends and stepped foot on land for the first time in 7 days (168 hours-ish). I didn’t believe I was actually in Spain until I heard everyone around me speaking in Spanish. Everything around the pier looked pretty industrial and modern, but once we started into town, it started to look more like how most people envision a European city. The streets were more like alleyways; everything was so close together. The narrow pathways through the city of Cádiz were lined with tall, brightly colored buildings which boasted cute iron terraces, bold moldings and shutters, and occasional intricate sculptures.

 

We had no idea where we were going, or where we wanted to go for that matter. We were just walking enjoying the city. One of the girls had a map, and we decided on finding a market that was marked in the center of Cádiz. At first we tried to go by street names and find it ourselves, but eventually we knew the first verbal contact with Spaniards would need to be attempted by one of us. Since only one other girl in our group knew any Spanish, that dropped the odds to 50/50 for which one of us tested it out. I went into one of the shops and asked the old man inside, “Donde está el Mercado Central?” (Where is the Central Market?) Now, that wasn’t so hard. Luckily the directions were easy enough to understand. We had actually walked way too far past it. I guess Cádiz was smaller than we thought, or at least the streets were. Shortly we found the market, but it wasn’t what we had expected. It was a food market equipped with a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables and seafood along with other meats hanging everywhere. It did not smell good due to this high concentration of fish in one area.

 

After venturing through the market, we stumbled upon a large plaza lined by outdoor cafés and The New Cathedral of Cádiz. The cathedral was an enormous white stone building with two tall domed bell towers on each side and a large gold dome in the back third of the structure. When we walked inside everyone just said “wow” because the architecture was so incredible. The double doors leading into the building were about five times average size, and the walls were bordered as well as cross-sectioned with Corinthian-styled columns gauged into the wall (Check out my architectural terms now, thanks art history haha. This is a typical Roman style FYI.). These columns guided your eyes to the gorgeous vaults and arches of the ceiling. The central focus being the large dome which was located directly over the main sanctuary. This dome had rows of coffers (square depressions in the ceiling used for decoration) which became gradually smaller as they reached the highest point (the circular skylight at the center of the dome). This design made the dome appear taller than it actually was. This is another technique used by the Romans in the Pantheon. I’m going to have to use this stuff in one of my art history papers- haha. Netting hung about 10 feet below the ceiling to catch any pieces of stone that might randomly fall off of the old building. There were nooks lining the walls containing religious artwork and altars.

 

We found a stairwell leading down to the crypt, so we had to go down and check it out. It was very dark and creepy, just what you would expect of a crypt. There were a few paintings on the walls, gated altars, and a petrified body in a glass case. That was a little freaky. We also discovered that there was a serious echo down there, so we had fun experimenting with that.

 

After touring through the cathedral, we went to an outdoor café for our first meal in Spain. I had a ham and cheese sandwich with a glass of rosada wine. Spanish ham is more like prosciutto, a very thin bacon-looking meat. It’s so good though! Then, I had to rush back to the pier to meet up with my group for the field program.

 

I was going the Cádiz walking tour and archaeological museum. Unfortunately, most of the places we walked to were places I had already been this morning. The museum was interesting though. The Museo de Cádiz housed archaeological artifacts in the ground floor and a variety of paintings on the second floor. Cádiz is actually the oldest city in western Europe, founded by sailors around 3.000 years ago. There were two Phoenician stone sarcophaguses, examples of some burials, cold stone columns, sculptures, and a bunch of small artifacts found throughout the region. After wandering through the museum for a while, we made our way to the flower market in the center of town. I got some gelato (ice cream) and stamps from the post office to send some of the many postcards I had accrued. Then, we went by the same cathedral I had seen earlier in the day, and eventually made it back to the boat around 5:00pm.

 

I had been walking all day, but I still found the energy to go out in search of free WiFi. Apparently the pier was one of these free WiFi locations, but this was too good to be free. I ended up walking a few blocks, around construction, to an internet café where you pay one Euro per half hour. I attempted to call my parents on Skype, but that was a disaster due to the amount of time it took to download Skype and the ridiculous amount of background noise. I rushed back to the ship to change for my flamenco night field excursion.

 

I loaded the charter bus with two of my friends, and we drove for about 30 minutes along the coast to the countryside. When we reached our destination, there was already a crowd of fellow SAS-ers (Yes, that’s what we call ourselves) mingling outside of a mini bullpen. Upon exiting the bus we were greeted with our choice of either dry or sweet sherry manufactured in this region of Spain. Then, we all piled into the stands of the tiny bullpen to watch the show.

 

First, two women came into the center of the ring clad in red and black billowing dresses. They did some traditional flamenco dancing, and eventually a man led a large black horse out into the ring for the women to dance around. It was a little bit odd, and the announcer added to the oddness. He tried to make it way more dramatic than it needed to be. The girls did a series of about four dances before the mini bullfight started.

 

Bullfight isn’t exactly the right word. It was more like a baby bull being chased by a man wearing a really tight overall pantsuit and swinging a pink cloth from side to side. The bull was actually running away most of the time rather than charging. They did take it up a notch towards the end, and change the pink cloth to a red one which had a minor effect on how fast the bull reacted. It was fun though.

 

Then, they bused us over to a large building where we were greeted with again more sherry. Then we were seated in a room with large round tables covered with appetizers and sangria. It was awesome. Then the real flamenco show started. There was a guitarist, a female singer, three female dancers, and one extremely attractive male dancer. The women would do sets together and individually, and the man did a partner dance with one of the women as well as an individual dance. In the individual dances, their feet were moving so fast it looked like they were doing tap at some points. It was really cool. The partner dances were so in sync, and they were just awesome. At the end of the show each dancer pulled a member of the audience on stage to try flamenco, and my friend Brittany was chosen by the hot guy. Everyone was jealous. Eventually everyone was on the dance floor doing a combination of dances. It was almost like a mosh pit of flamenco, if you can envision that. At first I was doubting signing up for all the SAS field programs that I had signed up for back in May, but if they’re all like this, then it’s going to be an awesome trip. The flamenco night was definitely a highlight of the trip. Don’t worry, I took plenty of video and pictures. My memory card is already full.

 

I was exhausted by the end of the day and fell asleep on the bus ride back. When we got back on the boat there was a line of people waiting their turn to exit the boat because they were going to take advantage of this first night in Europe to go out and party. I was waking up early the next day to go to Sevilla and I could barely keep my eyes open, so I passed on that opportunity and hit the sack. It was a full day, but it was amazing. I’m liking Spain so far.