Day 39 - Santa Cruz

We woke up on a little piece of paradise today, also known as Santa Cruz.  I had breakfast outside on the deck with a background of tall mountains, cliffside villages, and the entire city of Santa Cruz.  I wanted to visit the opera house built by Santiago Calatrava, but it was already visible from the ship.  I couldn’t wait to go exploring.

The city instantly deviated from my expectations.  To begin with, we wandered off the wrong way; the signs to City Center actually led us to the middle of nowhere.  It was Sunday and siesta (nap) time, and the whole place was dead and eerily quiet.  We righted ourselves and eventually found the main city market.  This was a large outdoor space with everything you could imagine for sale.  There was a two-story building selling exotic flowers and other tchotchkes and was lined with booths for groceries – pastries, meats, fishes, and produce.  Several blocks surrounding the building were lined with booths and tables selling anything and everything: clothes, books, new shoes, old shoes, batteries, toys, power cords.

The most striking thing was something we soon termed “awkward rain.”  The weather was continuously sunny, but sometimes it would sprinkle for a little while.  The interesting thing was that the breeze would blow the drops over sideways, so it would rain even when there were clear blue skies above you.

After lunch (on the ship) we caught a bus to a black sand beach.  It was also not what I expected, although we probably did not pick the best tourist beach (we were advised away from that one because of weather).  The “black” sand was more like dirty white sand.  It was probably better known for its wind, and there were dozens of wind surfers off the coast.

Day 37 - Cadiz

Finally explored Cadiz!  We walked around, got an interview for our project, saw the coastline, tested the wi-fi, and got on board in time to watch a phenomenal sunset.

Day 36 - Gibraltar

 Today was the next most incredible day of my life.

At breakfast, I find that it is raining outside.  Pouring, actually.  When we get enough courage to brave the weather, we run outside to the bus stop.  We were not in Galway anymore; it was raining hard and not letting up anytime soon.  After a clumsy 2-hour transport, we pull up to La Linéa, the border between Spain and British-owned Gibraltar.  The site was incredible; all we could see was the base of an enormous rock topped by clouds.

We walk across the border, which entailed a guard briefly glancing at our passports as we walked by.  There was no actual line, and we did not get our passports stamped.  Suddenly, we were transported back to a little English corner of the world, where there were red telephone booths and nice people speaking with an English accent.  It was lovely!

We inquired at an information booth about the best way up the rock (we were still in the city on the flat section).  We found out about tours, taxis, and the cable car, but we decided, We’re young, we’re spry.  Mostly, we’re cheap, so we’ll go it on foot!  The nice lady told us it was a 30-minute walk uphill to the park.  She blatantly lied to us; the gradient of the roads leading up to the park were roughly equivalent to that of a Stairmaster.  We were panting and staggering almost immediately, but forged ahead.

We finally reached the park and began exploring all of its attractions.  There was a Moorish Castle on the edge of the hill with spectacular views of the city and the port.  A little farther along the path and we saw wild monkeys!  They were just chilling on the edge of the road, also enjoying the view.  The park ranger warned us not to touch them, or else they bite.  Otherwise they were harmless.

We continued to tunnels built and fashioned for World War II and survival during sieges.  There were caves built into the mountainside and openings for cannons.  There were also some exhibits with models depicting what life was like (boring and disease-ridden).  The weather had cleared from its earlier rainy state, but it was fogging up again quickly.  As we were in the tunnels, we could actually see a cloud entering through the cannon windows.  By the time we got back outside, the fog had settled and our view was all but gone.  We were determined to walk the 3 km around the park and up to the top of the rock.  We walked right into the newly-forming cloud with all its mist and rain, and today I got to use ALL of my raingear: an umbrella, rain jacket, and two ponchos.

Even before we reached the Ape’s Den, we encountered more monkeys.  We found them along railings, under the cable car, and jumping on and stubbornly clinging to someone’s car as he drove past.  In the Ape’s Den (just an open area where the monkeys tend to gather), we didn’t see any monkeys.  They were likely hiding from the on-and-off rain.  But a minute later we saw dozens of them camouflaging into the surrounding vegetation.  Next thing we knew, we were surrounded by them.  There were large alpha males and pregnant females and even some moms with their babies hanging from their bellies.  Then one jumped on Emily.  Her initial excitement quickly turned into panic when it wouldn’t get off.  It climbed from her shoulders to her head, played around with her headband, and eventually jumped off when it was bored.

We became cautious when approaching the monkeys; we didn’t want them to jump on us.  Luckily, they didn’t, they only jumped on Emily – two more times.  One also tried to take a bite out of Sarah’s arm; she was wearing one of the rain ponchos, and the monkeys thing crinkly things are food packages.  An Ape Management man arrived on the scene.  He was very friendly and informative and told us the best way around the park.  We asked why the monkeys would only jump on Emily.  He told her, “Now don’t get offended – you’re too tall, they think you’re a tree.”  Emily was, in fact, very tall.

We eventually grew weary of the monkeys closing in, last of which was Sean the Rapist, so we continued on our way to the top.  We considered taking a shortcut to the top via some stone stairs we found going up the cliffside.  The “Queen’s Staircase” disappeared somewhere in the clouds, and after straining our necks to look up the steep angle, we decided to stay on the path.

Along the way, we stopped into St. Michael’s Cave, which is a place I still can’t believe really exists.  It is a large limestone cave bursting with stalactites and stalagmites, believed to be bottomless.  The limestone formations on the walls and all around were unbelievable.  The space was prepared as an emergency hospital in WWII, but never had to be used, so it is now used as a concert hall.  Seats and speakers are installed around the limestone stage.  We left in awe, not quite ready to face the 1.3 km hike uphill we had yet to go.

We kept climbing uphill, passed some more monkeys, found the top station of the cable car, and passed it using a shady set of stairs.  At the top of the stairs, we were in a little lookout tower quite high up.  We could see…nothing, absolutely nothing.  We could not see 9 miles over to Morocco, we could not see the city of Gibraltar below us, we could not see anything past the stone walls of the tower.  There was only whiteness around us in every direction.  But we were at the top!

We took in the moment, then hurried down.  We had to make sure not to miss the last bus, for which we thankfully bought tickets in advance.  We followed the advice of the Ape Management guy, who told us to follow a set of stairs down to the exit; that would be the fastest way.  We backtracked to a stone staircase that extended out into a cloud then down to oblivion.  This was no doubt the top of the Queen’s Staircase we had so resolutely avoided earlier.  I wanted to object, but we were very, very late.  I clung tightly to the railing and after a short eternity landed at the bottom.  At the landing, we found out that was the first leg of four, and we hurried down three more sets of equally steep steps into oblivion.

At the bottom, with shaking legs, we tried to orient ourselves toward the exit.  We heard a car coming, and Sarah half-heartedly stuck her thumb out for a second, then put it away.  But that was enough, and the car stopped.  We were hesitant and looked at each other while the driver gave us an expression that said, “Well, are you getting in or what?”  Decision made: we got in.  Ignoring the smell of marijuana, we made pleasant small talk with Karl, who saved the day.  Gibraltarians are a very nice people.  He spent 10 minutes driving us down the loops of the rock, which would have taken us at least an hour on foot, and dropped us off in the city near the border.  As soon as Karl got stuck in traffic, we said our thank you’s and bolted out of the car to the bus station.  We ran the entire way to the border, ran passed the border guard with our passports out, and ran to the bus station to join a long line of SASers also returning to Cadiz with us that night.

Day 35 - Cordoba

I woke up to the sound of rain.  Emily and I spent the day exploring the city.  There were no other major sites besides tapas bars.  We got lost in narrow streets between white buildings with flower pots hanging off the walls.  The streets are all short and run diagonally, and the longer ones change names every block.  Getting oriented was very hard.  When packing, I seriously considered packing an umbrella or some of the other rain gear I had.  Then I decided that I wouldn’t need it in Spain.  Wrong.

We got held up at a restaurant (getting the bill takes an eternity in Spain) and ended up running to the train station to catch our train to Cadiz.  At 6:18, Emily asks in frantic Spanish if we can still get tickets for the 6:15 train.  She gets a negative response.  The next train to Cadiz isn’t for another two hours, so we cross the street and check out the bus station.  Buses to Cadiz typically have to go back to Sevilla for a connection, but we were lucky to find a bus to Cadiz-San Fernando leaving in 30 minutes.

We bought tickets and relaxed.  The bus showed up, and we got comfortable for our 4-hour ride.  We both fell into a deep, deep sleep.  I woke up only briefly when we started making stops toward the end of the night.  During one of these moments, I saw something about Cadiz outside the window.  I asked Emily, and she said that Cadiz was on that island over there, and I went back to slumberland.

We get out at the last stop, and we were definitely on the wrong island.  We had ended up in San Fernando, and it was about 11 at night.  We stopped the few passerby’s on the street for help.  When we said Cadiz, they widened their eyes and said, “ahora?!”  And San Fernando seemed to be some sort of transportation wasteland with no train station or bus station or stations of any kind.  We walked down totally deserted streets, following train tracks that soon dead-ended.  In final desperation, we asked a barman who was closing up for the night.  He used a lot of hand gestures to point us to a bus stop where supposedly there was a bus imminently departing for Cadiz.  We powerwalked the whole way.

After a left turn, a right at the turnaround, and a walk past the police station, we saw a bus with “Cadiz” on it.  We got on, and 4 minutes later, it departed.  We were relieved, but we still weren’t sure where we were.  We knew only the major bus station right beside the ship, but these buses stopped on the streets which we haven’t explored yet.  I saw some signs for “Puerta” and we stayed on.  The bus made a turn, and suddenly the bright lights from our ship were visible.  Emily cried out, “The ship, it’s our ship, I see the ship!”

We get off, tell our story to a few students we pass on the way, and finally get onto the ship we call home.  

Day 34 - Cordoba

We wake up for (free!) breakfast at the hostel and find Henri cooking pancakes.  He dramatically shows how sad he was that we weren’t at the pub crawl with him.  I find out he has a car and ask him if he would drive us to Cordoba.  He makes excuses and changes the subject.  We focus on the toast and cereal and Nutella substitute.

We check out, but stay in the lobby looking up tickets and routes for our trip to Cordoba.  Henri passes by again.  He says it is a three-hour drive to Cordoba and that he has to work tonight and that he’s very sorry.  I guess he looked into the matter after all.  In any case, he was of no help.  But it turns out that the man sitting next to us on the computers was from South Africa.  We quickly got to talking, and he was very eager to tell us all about Cape Town and all the adventurous things to do there and show us the view from his house.  Unfortunately, he will be out of town when we arrive there, otherwise we would have been welcome to stay with him.

We get the info we need and head out for the bus stop.  We get almost a block away and hear someone calling after us.  It is Henri, actually running to catch us.  He pretended to be very offended that we left without saying goodbye and asked for our contact info.  Oh, the French.

A couple hours later, we arrive in Cordoba.  We wander toward big streets, follow some ancient ruins, and find the Mezquita, the mosque-cathedral that is the main attraction of the city.  We go inside to find a maze of candy cane pillars filling an enormous room.  The unusual decorations of the Islamic influence are very different from all the previous art we have seen throughout Europe and, in my opinion, far more interesting.  The room is dark and in shadows except for the huge center section, which is a mixture of Christian and Islamic architecture and is also huge.  It is lit up brightly by natural light, and the room contrasts sharply with the dim, less ornate space around it.

When we finally pulled ourselves out, we walked into the first hostel we found.  Free wi-fi, affordable prices, candy at the counter, and the fact that we were exhausted and still had our backpacks compelled us to book it immediately.  We find that we have a fantastic room on the roof overlooking a historic bridge behind the Mezquita.  What’s more, there are towels included!  (Previously, we either shared towels or would forego them altogether to avoid paying even an extra euro.)  We took full advantage of the candy and wi-fi before going out to explore the city at night.

Day 33 - Sevilla

We started the day with a walking tour, where we learned about all sorts of tidbits about Sevilla.  We found a statue dedicated to Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, a woman of more than 40 titles.  She and Queen Elizabeth will never be seen together because she is the only person the queen has to bow down to.  She is very unpopular lately, and the square in front of her statue is now boycotted.  We ended in the Plaza de España, a semicircular plaza built in 1929 to attract commerce and wealth to Spain.  The stock market crash hit soon after and the place was a complete failure.  But it was very pretty nonetheless.

Right on schedule, we scurried off in search of tapas, traditional small dishes made to share.  They are great because they are cheap and you can order several different things to try.  But they are also horrible because you will be hungry again about 10 minutes after you leave the restaurant.

We then visited Triana, the part of Sevilla located on the other side of the stagnant river.  Later on, Emily and I broke off to go to a flamenco show hosted by the hostel.  Our guide was the ever-so-charming Henri from France.  I practiced what was left of my high school French telling him how much I hated smokers.

Emily and I settled into the front row of the flamenco show with our sangrias.  The show was not at all what I expected, but it was amazing.  The performers consisted of a guitarist, a singer, and a male and female dancer.  They performed a song with an intricate clapping pattern.  Then the male got up to dance.  I didn’t realize how much of a tap element there was to flamenco.  This guy was tapping away very emotionally and quickly.  His feet literally looked like cartoon animals running.  The woman danced later, too, but she did not meet the bar he set.  They danced together at the end and left the stage with the audience in awe.

 

After the show, Henri had returned.  I find him smoking.  He is leading the pub crawl next and pleads for us to come with.  We can’t decide and eventually opt to get more tapas on our own.  We find a place and order fried Camembert in the most unexpectedly scrumptious strawberry sauce.  We also ordered some sort of garlic pork.  It took me a while to find the garlic cloves because they were cooked somehow so they didn’t taste quite like garlic anymore.  Whatever they did to it was amazing.  Part of the charm of Spain is that every restaurant or store is local and has a unique menu.

We wander in the direction of our hostel, running into dozens of SASers partying in the bar street along the way.

Day 32 - Sevilla

 One month anniversary of being on the ship all together!  We hug it out at breakfast.

The first thing we do in Cadiz is book a train to Sevilla.  Many SASers are on the same train, and we see many of them getting kicked off.  It took us a while to understand, but it turns out the seats on Spanish trains are numbered.  I find this odd and inconvenient, and in the end it was useless.  Halfway through our journey, a number of people start walking through the car looking for seats.  A kid in the neighboring car vomited, and now all the people in that car were looking for new places.

We arrive in Sevilla and search for a particular hostel that is as difficult to find as Platform 9 ¾.  We circle the square where we know it must be several times in search of building #29 ½.  Buildings in Spain aren’t numbered.  We are carrying overnight packs, and we are tired and frustrated and running out of options.  As we are about to give up hope and make camp on the street, we see a sign – a tiny sign – for the hostel tucked away behind a corner and down an alley.  We get checked in at last and explore the best hostel I have stayed in yet.  We book a room for 10 people.  There are three of us; the rest of the beds are vacant.  We have the whole place to ourselves, including the fridge, washing machine, and bathroom, complete with bidet.

We rest up and take care of business – food!  We find a table outside and order paella, a tradition Spanish rice dish usually served with shellfish.  Because Emily is allergic to shellfish, we order a variation: short pasta with meat prepared in the same style.  It is strangely reminiscent of Rice-A-Roni.

Next up, a bullfight!  We had a little drama, but finally managed to get tickets to the bullfight at the last minute.  We had arrived just in time, as the season was closing today.  We were a smidgen apprehensive, but mostly very excited!  By the end of it, we were horrified.  Abby and I could not condone a bit of it, but Emily could find the art in it.  I will not try to convince one way or the other, but it is a very controversial subject, and bullfighting is now banned in several regions, including the Catalonia (Barcelona) and the Canary Islands.

For those that are interested, here is what goes on: First the bull is presented to the matador, who does a move or two but is then quickly joined by other toreros, like assistants.  The group waves their capes to prompt the bull to charge and begins to tire him out.  I was previously under the impression that bulls charge readily, and the art was in avoiding them.  In reality, it is difficult to get the bull to charge, and the art is in motivating him.

The toreros then try to get the bull to charge his horns against a wall while they hide behind it in a space too small for the bull to get through.  An additional feature is that the entire ring has a step built along the bottom so the toreros can hop over the wall to escape from a charge.  A short while later, two men enter on horseback with long lances.  The horses are blindfolded and heavily padded.  One of the men stabs the bull in the neck with the lance, paralyzing the muscles that the bull uses to charge his horns up.  This is done twice and by the same horseman.  This understandably angers the bull, who will usually charge the horse violently.  Once the bull downright lifted the horse off the ground and refused to let it down.  The toreros come in with their capes to try to distract the bull away, then the horsemen leave.

The next step involves stabbing the bull in the back with barbed sticks.  The matador trades in his cape for two sticks, runs up to the bull, and jabs him in the back.  Then he runs for his life.  The other toreros try to distract the bull, but during this stage the matador often hopped over the wall to safety.  Two or three pairs of sticks are jabbed into the bull’s back in this manner.  By this point, the bull is very tired, breathing hard, and bleeding rather heavily from his injuries.  Finally, the matador takes on the bull by himself.  He tries to get the bull to charge as many times in a row as he can.  This is especially difficult because the bull is exhausted.  When there has been enough of a show, the matador brings the bull in close and stabs him in the back with a sword.  The sword punctures the heart or aorta of the bull, who then falls to his knees, then to the ground.

Immediately upon the death of the bull, a train of horses with bells on them is brought in, the bull is roped to them by his horns, and they parade him around the ring.  The entire process is repeated for five more bulls.  The meat is donated to children’s orphanages.  If a matador performs particularly well, the crowd will wave white handkerchiefs at the president of the bullfight.  This entreats the matador to keep an ear from the bull.  The crowd waved their handkerchiefs a couple times while I was there.  Two waves lets him keep both ears; three, the ears and the tail (this is very rare).  The president also has the power to pardon a bull, which spares his life so that he may breed.  I did not see any bulls spared.

Day 31 - At Sea

I wake up with no voice.  I resort to miming instead of speaking.  Emily can translate my motions better than anyone else, and she gets a kick out of our game of charades.  I am convinced people like the silent me better.

Day 30 - Lisbon

I woke up to find that my roommate never made it to her bed last night.  Her friend had called around 2:30 am looking for her and waking me up.  I was not really worried.  Actually, I was thrilled that she might go missing for a while; I had been losing the silent thermostat war.  Then while getting ready, there was another call to the room.  She had not shown up for a field trip she signed up for, and the trip coordinator was looking for her.  At this point, I turn the thermostat up and get slightly concerned.  I check with the Purser’s Office to make sure she made it back to the ship.  She checked in around 2:30 am.  I decided she must be in the Drunk Tank, a room where students get locked up if they return to the ship obviously intoxicated.

Over breakfast, I met a girl who freshly released from the Drunk Tank.  She blew a 0.23 when coming aboard the night/morning before.  Being thrown in the observation room is accompanied by a $100 fine, a required Life Decisions course, and dock time (amount of time detained on the ship when in port).  This girl was given dock time until 8:10 pm.  We were to leave Portugal at 8.

Emily and I prepare for another romantic day together.  We plan to go to that one statue with all the people, something else we saw on a postcard with a Portuguese name we can’t ever seem to remember.  We look on a map of the Belem neighborhood and pick a tram stop that looks promising.  We catch another “free” tram and take in the sights.  While waiting for the tram to move, I look around and see a couple of friendly-looking men coming around the tram.  They are nicely dressed and smile at the passengers.  They are checking tickets.  I frantically push the button on the door, hoping it is not too late.  The door opens and I jump out, hoping Emily will follow.  She is confused, but jumps out after me.

We find ourselves in front of some big cathedral with no admission fee, so we go in.  The room is huge and cavernous, like all cathedrals.  As we walk around, we stumble across Vasco da Gama’s tomb.  We exit, and right across the street we see the statue with the people.  We cross the street and find ourselves in a large garden with hedges intricately shaped into designs like shields.  We reach that one statue, homage to the Age of Discovery.  We take plenty of photos, refuse to pay the entrance fee, and walk farther down the coast to the Tower of Belem.  It is like a miniature castle used as a defense point.

We go back to the ship for lunch.  A waiter tells us we probably will not leave until the next morning (departure is set for this evening).  We do not know yet what decision has been made about Morocco – will we go or won’t we – and what the alternatives are.  There are rumors that we may go to another port in Spain or to the Canary Islands or to Italy.  The delay in Lisbon makes us suspect we will skip Morocco after all.

After lunch, we rush off in the eternal search for wi-fi.  This proves very difficult.  We search for a café in the Bairro Alto neighborhood recommended in Emily’s travel book.  After many failed inquiries, we find a path of sorts hidden off the side of a green patch.  We follow it to the roof of a building, go down some steps, and end up in the very café.  Not only did it have wi-fi, but it also overlooked the whole city.  We could see our ship, and glanced up often while working until the last minute.  We arrived on the ship just in time to not get penalized.

In the evening, the entire shipboard community is called for a mandatory meeting.  SAS has made a decision about Morocco.  At the meeting, we find out that there have been more riots and protests at US embassies across the Muslim world, including in Rabat and Casablanca, our port of call.  We will not risk going to Morocco, but instead will stay an extra two days in Spain and visit the Canary Islands.  In addition and contrary to previous announcements, travel to Gibraltar will be allowed.  I could not be more ecstatic!  Gibraltar was the one thing I had been set on, and I was deflated when we were forbidden to go to the British territory.  Furthermore, because so many students had complained that they weren’t getting their passports stamped, Executive Dean John arranged for our passports to be stamped when we crossed into Gibraltar.  I was still upset about Morocco, though not as upset as all the students who ordered the camel rides.  Morocco would have been our first difficult port, and Dean John knew that.  He warned us that the Canary Islands are not to be Spring Break, but with the stories I’ve heard so far, I am as afraid as he is.

By the end of the day, I can’t speak above a whisper.

Day 29 - Sintra

Today was the most incredible day of my life.

There is a tram stop directly outside the port, and by now we have found out that we don’t have to pay for tickets.  This makes me very nervous, especially with my kind of luck, but we don’t get caught, and I noticed that it’s not just students that hitch rides.  We casually board the tram and get off at our stop without incident.  We walk to a train station we luckily found by accident yesterday (it was by a Starbucks) and took an unbelievably cheap train ride (4€ roundtrip!) to Sintra in search of something we saw on a postcard yesterday.

As usual by now, we wander out of the train station without a map and guess the best direction to go.  Immediately, we are amazed by pretty views and spectacular vistas, and even the cobblestone walkways were more level.  Then we reached a point where we just stopped and went “Whoa.”  Through a break in the trees, we saw a gigantic green cliff ahead, and at the very top was a castle.  That’s where we wanted to go.  It looked so high up, though, that I had doubts we could even reach it.

We kept walking until we hit the town of Sintra, and took in all its charm.  It had all the conveniences of city life without the nuisance of the city.  We picked a cute, hilly alleyway lined with flowers for lunch.  A note about restaurants in Portugal: whatever you order, they will bring out a sampler dish with tempting appetizers on it.  These are not free.

After lunch, we saw a reliable-looking tour bus and hopped on.  As we watched the bus climb up the cliff and take gutsy sharp turns on the winding road, we were happy we did not choose to take on the cobblestone road by foot.  We arrived somewhere, paid an entry fee, and walked inside a gate.  We kept following the signs for “Palace” and eventually reached the magnificent and ornately-decorated palace from the postcard.  We had found Palãcio da Pena.  The palace was colorfully decorated like a candy house adapted from a fairy tale.  It was even higher up than the castle we had seen atop the cliff, and the views in any direction were breathtaking.

We walked under a big stone arch and found ourselves in a courtyard surrounded by a wall of arches through which we could see the whole landscape of Portugal.  We marveled and took photo after photo.  When we could finally tear our eyes away from the view, we saw someone emerge from a small hole in the wall labeled “Wall Walk.”  Naturally, we went inside.  We found ourselves along a narrow path that traced the outside wall of the castle.  Once again, the wall was low and had gaps.  I made an obnoxious scene and kept close to the wall, but there was nothing along the stones to hold onto anyway.  A million photos later, we emerged through a wall on the other side of the palace.

The inside of the palace was far different from what I expected.  The ceilings were low and the rooms were small, a sharp contrast to Buckingham Palace, but there was just as much detailing in the decorations.  The ceilings had ornate stone paneling and murals with stone relief that looked so realistic we almost didn’t notice it was flat.  The beds looked horribly uncomfortable, but the bathrooms were luxurious and spacious.  I was shocked to find electricity, indoor plumbing, bathtubs, showers, and bidets.  The palace was rather new, built in the 1840s and used well into the 20^th century.

We complete our magical day with ice cream and take a train home, followed by a “free” tram to the ship.

Day 28 - Lisbon

Lisbon!  I did not get really excited until I walked out on the deck for breakfast and saw red-tile roof hills all around me.  The view is already spectacular, and we can’t wait to begin exploring.  Adrenaline rushing, we disburse into the city.  Within five minutes, we were panting from walking up steep, uneven steps and skidding down slippery cobblestone sidewalks.  We will soon have calves like melons.

All students picked groups to do an ongoing class project with.  My group and I set off in a different direction than everyone else, looking to interview someone at a hospital.  We found a hospital pretty quickly.  Actually, we found a whole street of them.  We walked into one hospital after another asking, “Fala ingles?” to which the reply was always “No,” and then we would just stand there awkwardly, having used up all of our useful words in Portuguese.  After over an hour of walking in an out-of-the-way part of town, we found no one that could help us with our project, hijacked an open wi-fi network at a clinic, and broke a coffee machine.  It was time to hit the tourist center where we oh so clearly belonged.

On our way, we happened across the Portuguese parliament building, which was adorned with guards much like in Britain.  We had arrived just in time for the sloppiest changing of the guards I have seen yet.  The guards were not in sync and kept glancing around randomly, as if bored or distracted.  Nonetheless it was a pretty neat sight.

On our way toward the center, we passed through a beautiful park with palm trees, fountains, statues of people we have never heard of, and exotic flowers and duck-like birds.  We indulged in a playground for a short while.

We had not been wandering anywhere near the center yet, but we already loved everything we were taking in.  The style was very different from that of the other European cities we’ve seen, and it is a welcome change.  All the buildings are all brightly colored, and even the abandoned ones look cheery.  The sun is bright and the place was full of energy.  When we finally found the city center, we were back in the “Is this our life?” state.  Of course, the first sign that indicates you’ve reached the exact middle is a Starbucks.  We join the other tourists for lunch in the large pedestrian strip running through Lisbon.

Along with tourists, the city center is filled with some sort of rioters.  At first we only see twenty or so, but then we see large groups, hundreds of them.  They are students, perhaps, all in stiff black uniforms, chanting and yelling and singing.  Among them are also people dressed up in bright orange with pig ears and snouts, and sometimes tails.  We approached one of the girls in her black skirt and black tights to find out what the deal was.  She speaks English!  They were students at the University of Economic, and we were seeing the welcoming (hazing) of the freshman class.  This year they dressed up as pigs, but the animal changes each year.  The upperclassmen “baptize” the freshman with the disgusting fountain water, pour flour on them, sing abusive songs about them, and perform other acts of public humiliation.

Later on, we sat on a historic tram up the hill to the Castelo de São Jorge to watch the sun set.  We ran into many more SASers with the same idea.  The group passed around bottles of wine and sat on a ledge overlooking the city.  We watched the sun get lower, lower, and finally disappear beneath the buildings.  We also discovered that we could see our ship!

When there was no more sun, a few of us broke off to explore the castle itself.  We eagerly scoped out the drawbridge, archer slots, and lookout towers.  We walked along the outside wall, taking note that there were no railings before the age of tourists and the outer wall was very low.  We then toured the inside rooms of the castle, which had exactly zero lights in them, and by this point it was dark.  My friends climbed up one of the lookout towers over the city, where I was confronted with my newly-discovered fear of heights. I climbed back down and planned my escape route.  I waited for my friends to take about 500 more photos of themselves sitting and standing on the ledge, then headed out.  The direction we picked led us to more narrow ledges with low railings leading around the outer walls, but we couldn’t figure out how to get down.  We finally found some steep stairs with uneven steps and stumbled down them.  Rather, I stumbled down while everyone else just walked.

We joked about how many people would get sued if something like this existed in the US.  Americans would put signs, directions, and warning labels all over everything, and still get injured.  Later, we decided it was a way to weed out the tourists, and that Europeans are strong proponents of Darwinism. 

Back on the ground, we walked back to the ship.  Pretty much everyone got ready to go back out except for the sick kids.  I did not go out.  I am not sick, but I will lose my voice in two days.

Day 27 - At Sea

It is warm outside!  After almost a month of gloomy, rainy weather, we have finally emerged from our seasonal affective disorder.  The back deck is full of students studying outside, girls in bikinis, daredevils dipping their toes in the swimming pool (the water is still very cold), and high spirits.  We have arrived in summer, the same way we will arrive in Portugal tomorrow.  Every few minutes, we can’t help but look around and ask, “Is this our life?”

Day 26 - At Sea

The ship is rocking significantly again.  We can tell because we are exhausted in class, take naps all day, and can still barely sit upright at dinner.  The shipboard community is uniformly dreary today.

Between naps, I attempted to tutor my 8-year old student Ryan once more.  I had a very short assignment (if all else fails, lower standards), after which his parents treated us to ice cream.  I tried to spend some extra time with Ryan to get to know him or form bonds or whatever it is I’m supposed to do to connect with an 8-year-old.  He beat me mercilessly at Monopoly Junior, right up until the very end.  When I was completely broke, he finally pitied me and insisted on donating money, god forbid the game should ever end.

Day 25 - At Sea

We are back in class.  It is hard to focus, as usual, but this time because of all the coughing.  It seems everyone onboard is sick and spreading their germs all over the few whose precious immune systems are still kicking.  I am one of those few – for now anyway – but I am definitely paranoid of anyone who even clears his throat.  At times during class, people across the auditorium cough in unison.

Cities have been coming and going, and only now do I have a little (I stress “a little”) time to reflect on what I’ve seen so far in Europe.  Europeans have some twisted idiosyncrasies.  For one, bicyclists don’t wear helmets, ever.  I wouldn’t mind that so much if it weren’t for all the babies on the bikes.  They will ride with a baby either strapped to their chest or in a seat affixed to the front of the bike.  What’s more, they will smoke around their babies.  In fact, they don’t see smoking as a particular risk, nothing worse than eating red meat or not exercising.  I confronted Igor with the low life expectancy for Russian men (59 years old, 72 for women!) and he responded, “Why would I need to live longer?"  Also, if you thought chivalry was dead in America, then it is dead, buried, and stomped on in Europe.

Day 24 - Antwerp

Made it to Antwerp at 8 am.  Got in a minor squabble with the train conductor, but got off easy.  Walked back to the ship in a hurry to catch breakfast.  We were handed free chocolate along the way – it’s going to be a good day!  Got on the ship at 8:31 and all the food was gone.  One of the waiters took pity on us and snuck us some yogurt and cereal from the kitchen.  Jessica and I met up later to enjoy Antwerp at last.

Antwerp is a very pleasant city and had far fewer bicycles than Amsterdam, though still a lot by U.S. standards.  We visited the City Park, a.k.a. Bunny Park, where there were supposed to be hundreds of bunnies running around.  We find the park.  No bunnies.  Anywhere.  We ask someone sitting on a bench, and from his broken English we understood that the bunnies had been overfed and died.

We tried to bury our sorrows in Belgian fries and went off in search of a fritture.  The one we found was closed, so we kept wandering until we happened upon a huge open market.  There was everything from clothing to groceries to flowers to stuffed olives of all varieties.  We walked every aisle and tried samples of olives and fruit.  After about an hour, we reached the edge of the market, which was a famous fry stand!  We jumped on the opportunity and ordered ourselves fries with sauce.  Belgian fries are different in that they are thicker, twice-fried, and usually eaten with mayonnaise (don’t ask).  This was definitely the highlight of the day.

We were sadder to leave than usual; Antwerp has been our “home” for longer than any other port.  A nine-piece band came to play on the platform right next to the ship.  We like to think they came out just to serenade us.  As the ship pulled out, many locals came out to the port and waved us goodbye, one man was shooing us out.  We waved back to total strangers on our way back to the Prime Meridian.

Day 23 - Amsterdam

Surprise trip to Paris!  Hopped a train, and in a few hours, I was in the city of lights eating chocolate croissants.  Just kidding, I didn’t really go, but believe me, I was this close!  I decided not to go outside of my Benelux pass, and instead returned to Amsterdam.

The first thing I did was go to the Anne Frank house, which I had missed out on last time.  It was a moving walkthrough of the secret annex with excerpts of Anne’s diary describing how they lived there for two years.  Then I met up with my travel buddy Jessica and showed her around the main sites of Amsterdam (by now I have figured my way around).  I took her to the cheese store I went to earlier, but a group of Russian tourists ate all the samples.

We wandered until it was dark so Jessica could see the Red Light District, then went to the train station to spend the night in Antwerp.  When we searched for our platform on the screens, we couldn’t find our train.  We asked at information, who laughed at us and said there were no more trains to Antwerp until 5:46 the next morning.  We were confused, then realized that we (rather, I) had read the schedule wrong.  The train we were trying to catch only ran on Saturdays!  We were bummed and stuck.

We skulked out, debating our options.  We eventually decided to get a hostel, maybe sneak the two of us into one bed, and get a decent night’s sleep.  Within a block, we changed our minds.  There were a couple of guys next to us at the intersection struggling with a map.  I have been hearing stories on the ship of how people with no plans and no lodgings just meet locals and stay with them.  Why couldn’t that be me, I thought.  I approached them and offered help.  They were a friendly pair freshly arrived from Luxembourg trying to find their friends.  Surely they had a hotel or something booked already.  We helped them read their map and waited for their friends with them.  Their friends showed up, a group of guys and a couple girls, also from Luxembourg.  We didn’t get invited to stay with them, or even to join their plans, but they were friendly enough when we did anyway.

We followed them all the way to a coffee shop.  Note the distinction between a café, a place that sells coffee, and a coffee shop, a place that sells coffee and marijuana.  We hung out with them until my eyes turned red and my head hurt from all the smoke (both weed and cigarettes).

Suddenly my pocket started vibrating and I picked up the call from an unknown number, surprised that my phone could even receive calls.  Sasha’s friend Igor called and invited us to a party.  We couldn’t stay with Sasha, but she apparently pitied us and called up her friends.  Igor said his friends would meet up with him later, and maybe one could offer us a place to stay, but he wasn’t sure yet.  We took him up on his offer and sat down to drinks at an outdoor bar.  I ordered an iced tea (sparkling!).  Lucky for me, Jessica had the energy to stay awake while I promptly napped on Igor’s shoulder.

I may have slept for an hour or two and woke up just before Igor’s friends arrived.  We stayed until the bar closed, and when they took away the table candle and turned off the heat lamp, it became too cold to keep sitting there.  Then we started bar hopping, but only because the boys couldn’t find a decent place.  Either the club was sold out or too full or had a Michael Jackson theme that night or had too high a gay-to-straight ratio or what have you.  It started raining, so they finally settled on a bar.  There were very few girls; all the girls were in the clubs we couldn’t get into.

With my nap and Jessica’s insomniac superpower, we were able to survive the night until 5 am.  We had to leave for the train station, and the group was breaking up anyway.  We were all saying goodbyes when one of the guys came up to us and said something along the lines of “Well girls, we have an extra couch if you need a place to stay…”  Bastard.

Igor walked us to the train station, saying that we were lost and going the wrong way and that we would miss our train.  I knew where we were, but Jessica believed him.  Jessica and I got on our train and fell asleep instantly.

Day 22 - Bruges & Brussels

I kept changing my mind during breakfast and ended up catching a train to Bruges in the morning.  I arrived in a charming tourist town of picturesque houses and streets lined with flowers and Belgian waffle shops.  We walked into beautiful churches and past ever-so-tempting chocolate stores.  There were a few canals that ornamented the town, though not nearly as many as Amsterdam.  We climbed the 338 steps to the top of the famous steeple from which we could see the entire city.  As a reward, we finally gave in to waffles.  As if they didn’t taste good enough, the aroma followed us everywhere.  We also visited St. John’s hospital museum, which demonstrated how the sick were treated before the age of modern medicine.  A little eerie, but pretty cool.

 

I did not want to leave Bruges, but my friends convinced me that I should see Brussels.  I caught a train and arrived in Brussels completely unprepared.  I took a picture of a city map I found on the street as a reference and looked for big streets.  I went down a large street and found what I thought was immigrant central.  There were Russians and Muslims all around me; the first street I found was Stalingrad.  There was not a woman in sight.  I didn’t like where I was headed, so I turned around and asked for directions at a convenience store.  The man pointed me back down the same street.  I reluctantly carried on, but it took me half an hour to find a woman, and the few that I did see had their heads covered.  The streets were lined with trash instead of flowers; this could not be further from Bruges.

True, this was not the city center, but it was not far from it.  The center of the city had the typical grandiose buildings with large columns as wells as modern buildings in the business districts, but it was very small, and two blocks in any direction would lead you back to the same trash-lined, woman-less neighborhoods.  I did not find any of the main tourist attractions, but I had had enough secondhand smoke and multilingual catcalls for one day.  I took the train home as soon as it got dark, and for once I was happy to leave.

Day 21 - Rotterdam

Off to Rotterdam!  (We missed the stop at The Hague and decided to skip it.)  Rotterdam is a very modern city with abstract buildings.  Everything is new, because the whole city was bombed in the war (as anyone will tell you).  In the evening, we met up with Sasha’s friend Sebastian for drinks.  I ordered an iced tea.  I was surprised that it was carbonated!

Caught the last train home to Antwerp and slept on the ship.

Day 20 - Amsterdam

I went to bed early last night and woke up at 5 am for no reason.  The bed above me creaked, and I thought it was strange that I never even met the person (guy? girl?) that was sleeping there.  I went back to sleep and got up at a normal time.  The only other person up was the guy in the top bunk.  We spent the morning trying to avoid each other, but it was impossible in the cramped room.  Finally, we introduced ourselves.  I asked what his plans were for the day.  “I’m going to the torture museum,” he told me.  “Oh,” I said, “I’m going to the van Gogh museum.”  Turns out his name was Vincent, named after Vincent van Gogh, so he changed his plans from torture to impressionist art.

We left the hostel together.  It rained.  It was a miserable wet walk to the museum, and we got disoriented more than once.  We finally arrived at the museum, paid an atrocious 14€, and looked at the exhibits and learned the sad story of van Gogh’s life.  I then met up with Sasha again, and we went to Pancake Corner for lunch.  “Pancake” is what the Dutch call crepes.

At night, Sasha took me to the Red Light District.  Just as she said we were about there, BAM – there was a woman.  And then another one.  And dozens more.  And they are actually framed by red lights, who knew?  Occasionally there are men opening doors to ask “How much?” or “How old?”  Must be tourists; the Dutch go once, perhaps with their friends or father, and don’t return.  I learned later that price is not per hour, but per 20-minutes session.

Day 19 - Amsterdam

When we woke up, we were in Antwerp.  Not like when we woke up in Dublin and had to take a shuttle to the city, or when we woke up in Southampton and had to take a train to London.  We were IN Antwerp.  We sailed quite a bit inward overnight (with the help of a tugboat) and Antwerp lay just outside the security gate.  After a pleasant 30-minute walk to the train station, I was off for Amsterdam to meet my friend Sasha.

The train station in Antwerp was the most impressive I have ever seen.  It was grandiose and beautiful, that goes without saying.  But our train was on platform 22 (of 24), and we were amazed the station could fit so many platforms.  The station was multi-layered, and trains could come in on any of 4 or 5 stories.

There were lots of SASers catching the same train, but I tried to avoid most of them.  I ended up spending the journey with Nic, a fellow student I had just gotten to know the night before.  He was one of those multi-lingual geniuses that made you feel bad about yourself.  I knew that he could speak Russian, but on the train I learned he could also understand Flemish and Dutch (along with all the more common languages) and listened to the train announcements in each language.

A Canadian student sat with us on the train, intrigued by how we were speaking both Russian and English.  Student travelers like to find each other and stick together.

About 2 ¼ hours later, we were in a new country.  We waited for Sasha at the Starbucks at the station – the fanciest Starbucks you have ever seen.  When she finally arrived, we walked into the city, passing by construction sites, countless bicycles, and sex shops.  We toured the entire city (a crowded 800,000 people), laid out concentric semicircular canals that make each street indistinguishable from the next.  Sasha showed us where all the museums and attractions were, and I promptly forgot.  We visited and climbed the “I AMsterdam" sign and saw the narrowest house, about a meter wide.  We explored the Bloemen Market, an entire street of flower stores with seeds and bulbs for every kind of plant imaginable, many of which I’d never heard of before.  We stopped in a cheese store where we filled up on samples.  The Dutch are a very tall people; they like to say it’s the cheese.

The most peculiar thing about Amsterdam is that it is completely overtaken by bicycles, and there are no clear distinctions on where to walk.  Bicycles and pedestrians take the same roads as the trams.  There are bike lanes, sometimes on the road, sometimes where you think the sidewalk would be.  Mopeds, motorcycles, and smartcars also use the bike lane.  The pedestrian lane is virtually nonexistent.  If there is a line of trees along a road, pedestrians are expected to walk between the trees.  Bicyclists get very irritated if you invade their space, expressing themselves by ringing their bells.  I nearly got run over several times.

When Sasha left us to study, Nic and I took a canal tour by boat.  Again, Nic listened to the recorded tour guide in every translation.  We learned that the houses are so narrow that furniture is brought in through the windows, thus each house has a hook protruding from the roof.  Also, housing along the canals is so expensive that many people opt to live in their houseboats.

Shortly after I arrived at my hostel for the night, two other guys sharing my room walked in.  One yelled, “I’m sooooo baked!”  There was much empty talk about how they should stop getting so high every night, then they passed out well into the next day for the third time that week.