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.