Moderate Swell

Here's how the phrase "moderate swell" particularly applies to me:
1) The Atlantic Ocean currently has "moderate swell" conditions meaning the ship is rising and falling in unbroken waves of moderate height. "Moderate" in seaman's terms I think means "a lot."
2) My throat currently has the condition of moderate swell(ing). I just thought I'd squeeze in one more disease before we're done and decided to go for strep throat this time.
3) My emotions are in a moderate swell. Happy to be on my way home, sad to be leaving the ship, happy to see all my friends at home, sad to be leaving my friends from SAS, happy I don't have to be preparing for another port, sad that I'm not going to be preparing for another port.
4) Moderate swell as in to bulge out slightly, as in my stomach after five days of awesome Spanish food.

So Spain. It was great. Terrific port to finish with in my opinion. It was easy to make of it what you wanted. Some people wanted to party and stay up late, it's a great place for that. Some people wanted to just relax and stay near the ship, it was good for that too. Some people wanted to squeeze in more culture and beauty, perfect place. The weather was great except for rain one day. And guess what! I can speak Spanish! Used to be if you asked me if I could speak Spanish I'd say "No way, Jose." But turns out I can. At least compared to most ports where I spoke the language at about what a 8 month old can speak, Hello, Bye-Bye, Thank You. In Spain I can say "Donde esta la farmacia?" And people tell me where the farmacia is and I understand. I can say "Un otro mas por favor," and I get another beer. I can ask for ham and soap... jamon y jabon. I speak Spanish at least at the level of a 2 or 3 year old and that difference means the difference between getting laughed at, and getting laughed at and also getting what you want. There's no peeing in the streets when your with Erika Day, because she can ask for a bathroom and tell you if your a caballero or a damas. Want a table by the window? "Yo quiero un mesa circa la fenetra." Ta Da. It was really like discovering I have some sort of super hero skill. If I had had that level of fluency in every country it would have been a completely different trip.

My friend Marc and I took to the highways. We decided to rent a car rather than be at the mercy of trains and busses (or SAS trips). We ended up with this cool hatchback Citroen Picasso. It was a standard, which I can't drive, so I just got to look at the scenery and navigate. We picked up the car about 1:00pm on Thursday, that was after waiting around in the rental place for an hour for them to finish our reservation and get our car. Then we headed out to Granada.

The scenery on the way was out of this world. Gorgeous green mountains and olive trees as far as the eye could see. Giant modern villas, and tiny farms, and castle ruins. The drive was about 4 hours or so, which was kind of longer than we were expecting, but not too bad. The map I had for Granada was really inadequate so we struggled trying to figure out where we should go to look for a hotel, but ended up settling on a place right by the Alhambra with free parking on the street in front. The hotel was just what you'd want from Spain, lots of wood, lots of red, winding stairways. If you're ever looking for a hotel in Granada I'd highly recommend the Hotel Guadalupe. They have a dining room on the second floor where we ate dinner. I had paella and fried calamari, paella was delicious and calamari was the best I've ever had, tender and flavorful.

The next day we went to the Alhambra first thing in the morning. The Alhambra is a giant Moorish palace complex, including a fort and a little town and exquisite room after exquisite room. Most of the rooms open to courtyards and gardens, and the whole thing sits on top of a hill overlooking Granada so everywhere you look is an amazing view. We wandered around there for a few hours, but one could easily spend a day or even two if you wanted to look at everything. The winding paths and pretty gardens kind of gave me the feeling of going to a zoo. Something weird about Granada is that everywhere you go there's some reference to Washington Irving. There's a Washington Irving hotel, and street, and cafes. I didn't know this at all, but Washington Irving lived at the Alhambra for awhile and wrote a book, "Tales of the Alhambra" and for this he's probably more famous in Granada than anywhere in the US.

We left about 12:00 or so to go find lunch. But the thing about Spain is people eat really late. Wanting to eat lunch at 12:00 would be the equivalent of wanting to eat at 9:00AM in the US. You certainly can't find anything open until 1:30 or so and then it doesn't really get hopping until 3:00 or 4:00. But considering they don't have dinner until 9:00PM or 10:00PM they have to eat a late lunch. Also, you might as well eat a late lunch and take your sweet time at it, because things close between 1:30 and 5:00. The guidebook said that people weren't taking naps during this time, but come on, what else could they possibly be doing? Watching TV? Playing soccer? I think that some of them at least are taking naps. They didn't even get done with dinner until midnight, they must be napping. I'm not making any kind of judgement at all on this, in fact I think I'd probably really like that schedule, but if your tummy is telling you it's time to eat at noon 1:30 is a long ways a way. Fortunately we found a little pub that was open, because 12:00 is not too early for beer. They served us garlic soup (delicious) and I had sauteed ham and mushrooms (delicious). After lunch we went back to the hotel and took naps.

In the afternoon we walked down the hill (the Alhambra hill) and went to the main part of the old city. There was much more hustle and bustle there, than up where we were. Lots of touristy shops and cafes, but all in really fantastic gothic buildings. The cathedral was first on the agenda, and we went to the cathedral chapel first which had the most vivd alter piece I'd ever seen. It depicted tales from the bible and one tale was the beheading of John the Baptist, the second that it happened. The executioner is holding his head in one hand and the sword in the other and poor John is still kneeling there headless showing us an anatomically correct bisection of his neck, complete with gaping esophagus. The big attraction in the chapel though is that this is the burial place of Ferdinand and Isabel. THE
Ferdinand and Isabel. They're buried in a little chamber underneath and in front of the alter, and they have a few steps you can walk down and see their caskets, which are just very plain cast iron. The cathedral itself is very different. It's a huge Renaissance building, and very light and airy and refreshing to be in, and in the sacristy is Isabel's personal collection of Flemish art.

After the cathedral we walked straight up a very steep hill, to go find the troglodyte quarter in Granada. Troglodytes in this sense refer to people who live in homes that are carved out of the hills around Granada. I think we were both hoping for something a little more Lord of the Rings than what we found, which was just cute little homes that look more like they were right up against a hill than were actually in the hill itself. Though we did spot a couple of places where it was more like a grassy regular little hill but with a big wooden door in it. This area also has a really cool sounding name "Sacremonte."

We were hungry at 6:00 or so, so ended up in another pub that was smart enough to be open to serve the starving Brits and Americans. We ended up with a giant platter of meats and cheeses and bread and we were very happy.

The next day after a great breakfast of meats, cheeses and bread at the hotel we got an early-ish start and jumped in the Picasso and headed for Ronda. One of the professors on the trip made it sound like Ronda was a quaint little Medieval town that at some point in its history had been ripped in two by an earthquake, and that the town still thrived teetering on either side of this big rent. Not quite. It is a medieval town and it does have a big gorge through the middle of town, but I would say the reason for the gorge was the river that was running along the bottom. It
also wasn't this vast bottomless (Lord of the Rings) tear in the earth. It was just a good, pretty deep gorge. At any rate, the town was really pretty and the gorge was cool and we had a great lunch at a restaurant right on the edge of the gorge. I had a bird liver puff pastry. Yum. After lunch we got back in the car and headed for Sevilla. We got in to town just as it was starting to get dark and ended up having a pretty nerve wracking hour of driving around in these teeny tiny windy little streets looking for a hotel with parking. But considering how awry that could have gone it actually was pretty easy and went smoothly. We stayed at the Hotel Europa which was just right downtown, and I had a cool room with marble floors and big wooden shutters over the floor to ceiling windows.

That evening we walked over to where we read in the guidebook was a theater that had subtitled movies rather than dubbed, and we had the option of seeing Scoop or something about Goya. We went for Scoop because it was starting earlier than the other. It was pretty silly, I thought, but not silly good like Purple Rose of Cairo.

The next morning another early start and a trip to Starbucks for my first Gingerbread Latte of the season. Then we went to the Alcazar. I would defy anyone to visit the Alhambra and the Alcazar in such close succession and keep them straight in the mind. The Alcazar is another former Moorish palace, lovely gardens, awesome tile work and ornate carvings. The two coolest things about the Alcazar was 1) running into Larry Silver and his wife in the tapestry room. Larry is the art historian on the ship and his wife is a weaver. We learned A LOT about those tapestries, and one of them had a greyhound depicted. 2) they had a exhibit about these young men who recently recreated Magellan's trip around the world in a ship that was similar to the one he used. Watching the video of the their trip and seeing all of their photos and memorabilia on display, seeing their ship docked right where ours was in Hong Kong harbor, well it was kind of moving. It gave me this sense of really having been part of something momentous and historic.

After the Alcazar we walked to where the Fabrica de Tabacos is. At one time this was the second largest building in Spain and the largest employer. Also this is where the opera Carmen was set. How cool is that? Unfortunately you can't go into the building, it belongs to the University, but it was gated off. Then we walked and walked and walked to see the Plaza de Espana which was part of a World's Fair type thing, I was pretty exhausted and starving at this point so I don't think I truly appreciated it. But then we had actually waited long enough for lunch and had no trouble finding places open. We ended up at a cafe and I ordered something that turned out to be little pieces of cod between two thin slices of fried eggplant. Odd, but delicious. After lunch we saw the cathedral, which is probably the
grandest, most ornate, impressive building I've ever seen. It was dimly lit and cold and foreboding, but splendid beyond imagination. I would have liked to have visited it earlier in the day and earlier in the trip so I would have been fresh to examine every nook and cranny. If you only see one cathedral in your life, this might be the one.

Then in the evening we headed on back to Cadiz. The next day was exploring Cadiz and getting one last crack at some shopping. Trying not to dwell on the finality of everything. There was an enormous line of people trying to get back on the ship at 15 minutes to on ship time. I bet 50 people got dock time for being late on the ship.

The atmosphere on the ship now is subdued. A week from today is our last day at sea.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish I had more exciting adventures to report to you from Croatia, unfortunately, I spent the entire time suffering in my cabin. I had one of the worst cold I can remember ever having. Tons of mucus and coughing and just a really ill feeling. It was miserable.

I did manage to take a couple of walks, and go to the grocery store a couple of times. So I can report on the fact that Dubrovnik was probably the prettiest place that we've been so far. The grocery stores are also very well stocked and convenient. Everyone agreed that Croatia was absolutely stunningly gorgeous, but many found the Croatians to be distant and unpleasant. I didn't experience that at all, but I had a much more limited experience than most.

The past four days have been full of library busy-ness. I've done a couple of instruction sessions, and have been setting up research appointments with students. Yesterday the proxy server was down, which was extremely bad timing. Mary and Diane Klein and I were planning on having a research and writing clinic, but it was pretty pointless with no databases. Things seem to be working better today, and I think we're going to try it again this evening.

Day before yesterday was the Students of Service auction. People on the ship donated things like vacations at their time share, and neat things they picked up in port. The crew donated things like signed copies of the navigational, manually steering the ship for 5 minutes, and first person off the ship privileges. All in all $18,000 was raised for charity. You can get a full report on these goings on at http://johnston9494.blogspot.com.

Tonight is Thanksgiving as observed on the ship. Turkey and dressing, pumpkin cheesecake, hopefully some green bean casserole. I've also heard rumors that they're going to show a football game on TV.

Tomorrow we dock in Spain. I'm feeling much much better and I'm going to try to make up for lost time in Dubrovnik and have some awesome stories to tell in my blog on my return.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Yet another awesome place

You all must be getting pretty sick of hearing this, but Dubrovnik is so amazing. I haven't seen anything but the old town area, but it's just gorgeous. And to think that I almost missed out on it.

We got in this morning at 8:00 AM the captain blew the horn three times as we passed his house. I didn't see it because I stayed in my cabin, I didn't want the cold wind blowing on me. During breakfast I could barely sit up in my seat I was feeling so cruddy. I got back in bed and watched the diplomatic briefing on TV and pretty much decided I was just going to stay on the ship today.

I got cleaned up though just in case, and went to lunch. I talked it over with Mary and Kelly and told them I thought it would definitely be better for me to stay on ship today. I was headed back to my cabin though and caught a glimpse of the city out the starboard side windows and was enchanted. I stepped outside on the deck and it was a glorious sunny day, so I really had no choice but to go.

It was really a low key tour. Just a few hours and most of it was just strolling around old town part of Dubrovnik. We saw a church, saw a palace, saw an old clock tower. The guide pointed out to us places where you could see damage from the Serbian assault, it might as well have been Napoleon, it seems so distant. The city is completely recovered as far as I can tell. Splendid and quaint and serene. It just seems impossible that it was practically demolished less than 20 years ago.

After the tour was over Kelly and Mary and I met up with Tom and Diane Klein and went to dinner at the coolest place right on the water. I had seafood risotto that's probably the best thing food wise I've had on the trip and a glass of local wine that was dynamite. Then we went and saw Borat, which I didn't like that much, but the Klein's liked a lot. I think Kelly and Mary were pretty luke warm on it too.

Tomorrow I'm off for a couple of days up the coast in Split on an SAS trip. If I'm feeling better after that, but more importantly if Kelly is feeling better (since he's driving) Mary, Kelly and I are getting a car and driving around some in the Split area and staying a couple of nights up there.

You can't spell Funicular without F-U-N.

I was sitting here at what I thought was 5:30am waiting for them to put coffee and hot water in the faculty staff lounge, checking email. When it was a few minutes after 6:00 I went upstairs but there was nothing there, I sat down to wait until I realized we fell back last night and it was really just a few minutes after 5:00am. Major bummer. I took a long nap yesterday afternoon and so I woke up early with a sore throat. Tonight I'm taking Nyquil.

So since I'm up and this is always the best time to do stuff on the internet I thought I'd work on my blog.

I loved Istanbul, it's probably my favorite port. First of all the ship was in a fabulous location right on the Golden Horn in the Beyoglu area of Istanbul which is just over the Galata Bridge from old Istanbul. There's a tram that runs directly in front of where the ship is over the bridge and then to the other far side of
Istanbul. You can buy tokens for the tram (there's also a metro and funicular, but more on that later) at little booths at each station for 1.30 YTL (new Turkish Lira).

The first day I went on the city orientation tour. That's one SAS trip that I think is almost always worth it. The first stop was the Suleymaniye Camii (Suleyman Mosque). It was designed by Sinan in the 16th century. Sinan is the Leonardo DaVinci of the mosque, and the Suleymaniye is magnificent. The mosque is part of an entire complex that includes a library, school and cemetery where Suleyman and his wife Roxelana are buried. While we were walking from the buses to the mosque wepassed by many kebap shops and the smell was too much to take, especially knowing that lunch was going to be box lunch from the ship (cold fried chicken, bologna sandwich, apple, hard boiled egg, marble cake, and ritz cracker if you're lucky). I said "I want some of that," and the guy in the shop carved me off a piece and handed out the window.

Next stop was the Basilica Cistern built during the time of Justinian. It's an underground water tank, but you'd think they were planning to host balls in it, it's so elegant. It use to be that you could just walk down a few steps and peek in it, but now they've done a lot of restoration and built platforms all through it, and even put a cafe down there. Right near the cistern is Hagia Sofia. It was built as a Christian Church, also by Justinian, and then used as a mosque, and now it's a museum. It is enormous and grand. It is under major restoration, but no one alive today can remember a time when it wasn't under major restoration. They're meticulously restoring all of the mosaics that were destroyed over the years by moisture and age. The mosaics are all depictions of Christian tradition, Mary and Jesus, and apostles, etc. These were all left in tact while it was being used as a mosque because Jesus and Mary are also revered in Islam. Giant plaques were hung over some of the mosaics and around the interior with the name of Allah and Mohammed. Right across from the Hagia Sofia is the Blue Mosque or the Sultanahmet Camii. This is another gorgeous mosque from the 17th century. The interior is covered in Turkish (Iznik) tiles and stained glass. All of these mosques and basilicas make for the most impressive and unbelievable skyline. I have never
seen anything like the sunsets over Istanbul. Breathtaking. After the mosque was a quick walk around the hippodrome which is where they had chariot races and is really just a courtyard, not a stadium like you might think.

Day two in Istanbul we left Mary on the ship with a hacking cough and Kelly and I set out for the Kariye Museum or the Church of the Chora. It's in my 1,000 places to see before you die book and the Lonely Planet said that many people are surprised that the highlight of their trip to Istanbul is so off the beaten path. And it is indeed off the beaten path. We rode the tram to a place where we changed to the metro and rode the metro a couple of stops then walked about a mile straight uphill. We walked along the old city wall and through a pretty sketchy neighborhood where Kelly saw a flock of sheep in someone's living room. We were greatly rewarded when we got there because the building is beautiful, but unfortunately the museum was closed on Wednesday. It took us about two hours to get there. The cab drivers must lurk around there for stupid tourists who did just what we did, because there was one sitting waiting for us in front of the museum. He charged us an arm and a leg, but zipped us right back into old town in about 15 minutes, to the Topkapi palace. All the sultans and their families lived here until the 19th century. It's a series of courts that are park like, overlooking the Golden Horn, and splendid and opulent rooms like the circumcision room and the turban room. Kelly and I ate lunch at the expensive but worth it restaurant at the palace. Then we stopped at an internet cafe and squeezed onto the tram for the quick trip back to the ship, where we got Mary and went and saw a whirling dervish ceremony at the train station of all places.

Day three Mary joined us for our Kariye museum attempt two. This time we got off the metro one stop early and walked a half a mile or so further than the day before but through a much nicer more charming part of town. The mosaics in the Kariye were
definitely the best I saw in Istanbul, which makes them the best I've seen ever in my life, except for Sarah's. There's was a guy there who had brought binoculars which seems goofy, but was actually an excellent idea. We had lunch at the cafe right across the courtyard. More kebaps. That's really all I had to eat while I was here. Delicious grilled meats. Then I went crazy buying tiles that I then had to carry the mile and a half back to the packed tramway. I barely complained at all, though I was pretty tired. After a rest the three of us walked a ten minute walk from the ship to the funiculer. I didn't know what this was before hand, it's an underground tram that takes you up a hill, basically. This funiculer takes you up a hill to Taksim square which is the modern bustling Times Squarish part of Istanbul. There was tons of shopping, restaurants, pubs, we found a place that looked sort of cozy and it had really nice employees but we were the only ones in there. More kebaps and a good dessert that was like parmesan cheese covered in honey soaked shredded wheat and then fried. Yum.

For day four one of my student workers, April, and I had made plans to see some churches and do a Turkish bath with her friend Stephanie. I had had all the churches I needed for awhile, so instead we did a walking tour recommended in the Lonely Planet where we rode the funicular back to Taksim and then walked the Istiklal Cadessi which took us through lots of shopping, near many consular offices, the Pera Palas Hotel, and a few churches too which surprisingly were still churches. By the time we made it to the end we weren't really feeling up for a bath so we went back to the ship and I just relaxed and wrote some postcards.

Last day was do or die for the Turkish bath. But first I had signed up for the Bosporus motorboat excursion which took us up the Bosporus to the Black Sea and then let us out near a museum that had some cool Archeological findings and clothing and housewares from the 19th and early 20th century. We were back at the ship around 1:00pm. April, Marc and I and another student Brooke met at 3:00 to go to the bath. There had been a SAS trip the previous evening and their reports were very negative. That it was unhygenic and creepy. We were going to try and go to a different bath than the one they went to, but the one that really seemed the best option was the same one, the Cagaloglu Hamami. We were nervous but determined. Here is a detailed account of the bath experience.
When we walked in it was into a large receiving area where women were relaxing and drinking tea and playing games, the receptionist showed us our options for the level of service we wanted and we each made selections and payed then were given keys to changing rooms and little sheets and told to take off our clothes and come down in the sheets. The changing rooms had little beds in them and a mirror and a hook for our clothes. We each had our own room. The sheet was tinier than I would have liked. It was wide enough to wrap all around me, but short enough that I felt like my ass was hanging out. April and Brooke are of course teeny tiny little things. (We left Marc at the door, BTW, he had to go to the men's side of the bath). Then we went downstairs and this really big, nice, smiling Turkish woman took me by the hand and led me through a room with a big marble slab and piles of towels and into the huge hot room. It had a domed ceiling with little cutouts that let in light. The floor was marble and all around the edges of the walls was a marble step. There were probably 20 marble basins attached to the wall with hot and cold water running into them. My lady took me over and sat me down and used a little metal bowl to splash water on me from the basin and then handed me the bowl and indicated I should continue to splash myself. So I did. I wet myself down really good and got a good look at the place. Right next to me was a giant naked Turkish woman with a tiny tourist girl sitting between her legs getting her hair washed. There were a lot of tourists all sort of anxiously eyeing each other. The room was steamy, but not super hot like a steam room. Oh yeah and once you get in there they take your sheet away from you. So you're naked. Some people had their underpants on, most were naked. The women who worked there, the attendants, some were wearing just underpants, some had on one piece bathing suits, a couple had on night gown looking things. After maybe 15 minutes or so my lady came back and led me to the center of the room, under the dome where there's a big marble slab and had me lay down. I was prepared for this, because I'd been watching other women getting the treatment. She asked me my name and if it was my first time and where I was from, and I asked her name, Anaful. I was laying on my back on the slab and she was sitting next to me. The slab is giant and round and several women are on it laying feet to head around the edge. Anaful had a scrubbing mitten on and started scrubbing my chest and stomach and legs, scrubbing all the dead skin away. Then I turned over and she scrubbed down my back, then I sat up and she did my arms and my face. She had me look at my arms where sheets of dead skin came off. She said, "dirty," and I said "I see that." After the scrubbing I was led back to my basin for more rinsing. Then back to the slab where she oiled me up and rubbed me down. It was a vigorous rub down, not like a massage. She did my front first then said turn over, but with the oiled up stomach and the marble slab I was just sliding all over the place. But she held onto me and rubbed my back down. Then she went and got a big bucket that was full of bars of soap and water and a cloth that looks like a dust mop made of loofah. She took that soapy mop and soaped me up front, back, top, bottom over and over and over. It felt amazing. I loved that soapy mop. She was laughing at me because I was smiling so much. Then back to the basin for rinsing and rinsing. Then she had me sit between her legs and she washed my hair and combed it out and then turned me around and washed my face. Then she put her forehead on mine and said, "Beautiful American face, beautiful, you are clean, it is finished." I just sat there for awhile kind of amazed at the experience. Then I went into the room with the towels and went upstairs and dried my hair and took a little snooze on the bed. April, Brooke and I compared stories and all of us loved it and had a great experience. I didn't find it unhygenic or creepy at all. In fact that's probably the cleanest I've ever been in my life. We met Marc at a nearby internet cafe. His experience had been totally different. He just got the self-service version and the men all kept their sheets on through the whole rinsing thing. There were a couple of tourists who were getting rubbed down and that involved a lot of grunting. But there was no talking or laughing or luxuriating like on the women's side. Like in all things it's better to be a woman. Back at the ship after dinner I was starting to feel kind of run down and thinking I should go to bed early, but instead I went out and walked around in the cold and sat outside at a cafe for an hour. Stupid. Now I'm sick again.

Back on the ship

I'm back on the ship after Istanbul. We've been having internet problems all day. And guess what, I'm freaking sick again. I'm coming down with another cold, though I'm trying to get as much rest as I can and drinking plenty of fluids.

Right now I'm in the library and will be here until 9:00pm because all the work study students were invited to a Captain's dinner tonight. This is sort of the primo dinner too since it's a day before we land in his hometown of Dubrovnik. Mary and I will go up in an hour or so and take a picture of our work studies with the captian.

I'm trying to get my email to download, and if I feel up to it I'll try to write a blog tonight in the library.

Internet cafe ın Istanbul

Hello from an ınternet cafe ın Istanbul just steps from the Hagıa Sophıa. Istanbul ıs awesome, by the way. Kelly and I stopped ın here after a day of tourıng to check on the electıon results. There's no ınternet on the shıp rıght now, so thıs could be my last post for a few days. Sorry about that. But, I'm havıng an amazıng tıme. Istanbul really couldn't be more lovely. Tonıght I'm goıng to a Sufı Dervısh ceremony. Sarah, I've been seeıng the most amazıng mosaıcs.

Zooming to Turkey

I guess we're back on schedule. After sitting in Alexandria for an extra 19 hours, they're still predicting that we'll be on schedule for getting into Istanbul tomorrow at 8:00am. That sure wouldn't happen if we were flying. We had the roughest weather thus far last night. I tried to go to the Coptic Christian service, but the priest was feeling ill and they were afraid they'd spill the communion wine so they postponed it until next week. I don't know if I could have made it either. I went back to my room to lie down. As long as I was prone I was fine, but when I tried to sit up or move around I got nauseous. I ended up watching Cultural pre-port on the TV in my room. The bad weather didn't last long though. By the time I woke up this morning it was smooth sailing.

Today, Mary and I cataloged and rebarcoded a bunch of books. What we still have left to do are the P's, the travel guides, the oversized stuff, reference, and I'll have to do something with the videos though I haven't decided what, yet. It's a very time consuming, very tedious process, though the end is in sight. I'm still hopeful that we'll get it done before the semester's over. I also did an instruction session for Tom Klein's Creative Non-Fiction class. This one went better than the others, because I didn't depend on the internet at all. I pre-loaded all of the pages, and while it wasn't as interactive or spontaneous as ideally it could have been, I think the students got more out of it, and I think Tom thought it went well. I had to cancel a session I'd scheduled with him previously when I was so sick.

The students are really gearing up to do research. I've been passing out proxy ids like crazy, and showing people how to set up their browsers. If they turn in crappy papers it certainly won't be the library's fault.

Tonight is logistical pre-port. I'll probably come right back to my cabin after it's over and try to get a good night sleep so I can be up and at'em for sunrise tomorrow.

Breakfast: skipped
Lunch: pasta with garlic and olive oil (left a nasty taste in my mouth)
Dinner: Chicken Milanaise and chocolate cake
Plus: 2 double shot mochas and a snickers bar (naughty, naughty)

I'll introduce four people tonight, Hank Kennedy (left) and Roger Bennet, Hank's wife Patricia Poe, and their daughter Mollie (with Mary). Hank teaches political science and is a professor at Wake Forest University. Patricia is a muckety muck for the Girl Scouts in their area. They're traveling with their lovely daughter Mollie. Mollie was a babe in arms the last time they did this voyage. Hank is an expert in Pakistan, and he has lived for an extended time with his family there.

Roger is traveling with his delightful wife Barb, but I don't have a photo of her. They live in Briny something, Florida and their town is for sale. Sometime in January it will go on the auction block for a starting price of $500,000,000, if it gets any more than that Roger and Barb's share will be $3.5 mil. Roger teaches communications and this is his 3rd voyage. The last time he sailed was in the Fall of 2001, so he was on the ship 9/11.

In port at sea day

As of about ten minutes ago we were still sitting in Alexandria (6:00pm Nov. 5). Then in the middle of dinner they fired up the engines and we took off. There was suppose to be an announcement about the sea conditions, etc. But so far I haven't heard anything. We might be in for a rough night. I'm not even sure when we'll be getting to Istanbul.

Today was a strange day, sitting in port, yet going about business as if we were at sea. Mary and I continued to work on the rebarcoding project. We're more than half way done, but we ran into a large section of books that didn't have any catalog record, and that slows us down. We normally get a range to a range and a half done in a good day, but we didn't even manage to finish a full range.

The big excitement for the day was going to the pool bar and talking them into making us m&m blizzards. They weren't perfect, but they were pretty good.

Breakfast: Cornbeef hash and scrambled eggs
Lunch: Beef Goulash
Dinner: Cream of Tomato Soup

Here in a little while I'm going to the union to the Christian worship service, they're doing a coptic liturgy with communion. I think that'll be interesting. Then later will be the cultural pre-port for Turkey.

Here's introducing Debbie Clifford. She's the registrar and assistant academic dean. This is her third voyage with Semester at Sea, previously she sailed as an RD and the Director of Student Life. She's a licensed massage therapist and a certified yoga instructor. When this voyage is over the two of us will be driving back to Charlottesville together. She's accepted a position at ISE and will be moving to Charlottesville permanently. She'll also need a place to live, so if any of you know of some nice places available for rent, she'd be happy for any leads.

In which our heroine recounts her final adventures in Egypt

Before I get to the blog there are two announcements:
*Welcome to the world Benjamin Edward Truman Underwood, and congratulation to Elizabeth, Walter, Ethan and Daniel.*
*Hello to Rachel Hoebeke in Japan and Amy Hoebeke in Austria from Erika Day in Egypt*

Today was our last day in Egypt, it was really too bad to only have two days in Alexandria. I don't know why we didn't just have this as our main port for Egypt and launch trips to Cairo from here, maybe too expensive, who knows.

Last night a group of us walked and found a place to eat, there aren't very many restaurants in Alexandria, believe it or not. The place we ended up "Tikka" was not very good. Everything was deep fried, and not in a particularly flavorful way. It gave me indigestion. We walked around some after that, and talked to some people. When we got back to the ship four bus loads of Semester at Sea students zoomed past us right at the gate. Barbie and Ashley will know what this means. It means "You ain't gettin' on the ship." Each of their enormous bags has to be searched for contraband, and all of them have to have an argument about whether or not they get to bring their hookah on board.

So to kill time, Kelly and I walked around and looked at the other big ships that were docked near us. This is the first time since Japan that we've been in a port with other big passenger ships nearby. The ship right across from ours, the MSC Opera, looked about 4 times bigger than ours. We talked to some people from the crew and they said it held 2,000, but it looked like it could hold 3 or 4 easily. It was apparent after a little while that this ship was getting ready to take off. There were a lot of passengers out on deck and people milling about the gangway. A lady came running up with a bag and jumped on the ship, they pulled up the gangway and within 2 minutes they were headed out. I yelled "BYE!" and started waving, and everyone on deck started waving back. It was just the two of us to their 100 wavers, so we were very tired seeing them off. After that we walked down to the ship that was behind theirs. It was a teeny tiny passenger ship, much smaller than ours. They had a lounge singer up on their top deck singing "Proud Mary" and "Waterloo." Hank Kennedy has a theory that there's a international songlist of tunes like "People" and "Delilah" and these are all you're allowed to sing or you get your international lounge singer license revoked.* We talked to some people who were getting off this ship and they said they were headed home to Toronto, that the ship had come from Istanbul and was headed to Bahrain next. That the ship never stops it just cruises around and around and people get on and off wherever it is and can stay on as long as their funding holds out. Sounds like a great premise for a TV show, huh?

There were three parts to the day today:

Part the first
Sally and I left the ship around 11:00 to walk around and do some shopping. She was hoping to find some nice Egyptian cotton shirts and I was hoping to find the yarn store, fabled for it's bounty and cheapness. We walked to the market and went into a shop selling coffee and bought a few bags, then we saw a big Christian church and I wanted to go look at it, so we walked up, but it was surrounded by a wall with guards. We asked if we could go in and they said, "Yes, yes" but the church was closed because they were cleaning it. But the guard told us it was the patriarchate for the Greek Orthodox Church in Egypt which is probably why there were so many guards. Then he took us across the street to another church which was Catholic. We went inside and were looking around, but the guy who was working there told us to follow him, he said "French, Italian, German?" I said "English" he said "Oh, no English" and just talked to us in French instead. I understood enough to know that the tiny room with the weird coffin containing a lit up dead lady was supposedly the real dead body of Saint Sabina. Catholic.org doesn't say anything about her real dead body being in a church in Alexandria, and it did look a little waxy, but who the heck am I to say anything about it? Then the guy gave us an en francais tour of the church and I gave him 50 EL and he was happy. After that I was starving so we walked around and found a little tea shop and ordered coffee and something to eat. The lady said "gatteaux?" Which I know is French for cake and I said "Oui." and she said "Chocolate?" and I said "Oui" and so I came to have chocolate cake and coffee for lunch and was glad of it. When we left there we started to head back toward the ship and almost immediately came upon the yarn store. It was as bountiful and cheap as I'd heard and I bought 4 skeins of yarn and a pair of needles for 25LE which is about $5. I went back to the ship and Sally continued to walk around.

Part the second
Back at the ship I met up with Mary and Kelly and we hailed a cab to take us back to the Library of Alexandria. Because.... Mary arranged for us to get our very own private super-secret librarian tour of the library. Our guide was the librarian for Business, though she was a subject specialist and didn't have an MLS. The people with MLSs work in cataloging she said. She told us about their internet policy: Free for an hour and you can get another hour if you want. Circulation: None, unless they have four copies of the book (so none). Collection size: 500,000 but capacity is 10,000,000. Budget woes: Most funds come from private donations from other governments. Printing policy, copier policy, most frequently asked questions, etc. etc. She took us to the children's library where most adults aren't allowed in, not even parents. To the Arts and Media Library where they have viewing rooms and a piano made out of books. She was with the three of us for an hour and a half. She was so nice, and we really had a fun time. She gave us her email and I hope she wants to keep in touch with us, because how cool would it be to have a friend at the Library of Alexandria. There were a lot of people from the ship there and everyone had some crack to make about librarians at the library. I think my blood sugar must have been messed up because every time someone we knew said a word to me I wanted to punch them in the mouth. Mary is very very popular with the students and EVERYONE wanted to talk to Mary and she had a cold and wasn't feeling well and couldn't have been sweeter, but I thought I was going to have a freak out right there in public.



Part the third
I didn't freak out, though. And Mary and Kelly saw the wisdom in getting me to food ASAP. I'm sorry to say we went to McDonald's. But it was delicious and it was full of Egyptians and Kelly had something called the McArabia (which was like a gyro) so don't be to harsh on us. What's better, to go to an Egyptian place that's full of tourists because the locals can't afford it, or just to go for the Quarter Pounder? At any rate, I felt much happier after that and we walked around some really cool streets and managed to find ourselves back at the yarn store, and I bought 68LE worth. Just then I started feeling like I had to go to the bathroom in an emergency kind of way, but the feeling passed pretty soon and we decided just to head for the ship. Then, when we were so close I could almost see the port, it came upon me again only this time there was no denying. So I ran into what I think was someone's house maybe, but they let me use their bathroom which was just a hole but I was terribly grateful. I think they could see the desperation in my eyes.

We were suppose to leave for Istanbul tonight, but Captain Roman just announced that due to bad weather they've closed the port. So we're going to sit here until tomorrow, and then maybe the weather will improve. Hmmm, so I don't know what that means for getting to Turkey. Also I was told it's going to not get above the mid-50's the entire time we're in Istanbul, so I think we're skipping fall and going directly to winter. Which I guess I shouldn't complain since summer lasted till November 4th.


*When we were at the Rex Hotel bar the act played the song "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" and I thought that was pretty funny so I took a short video of them. Then when we were on the Nile dinner cruise this guy who looked like Borat sang "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," and I snagged some video of him too. So if I can get just one more before the trip is over then I'll have a collection of international lounge singers doing that song.

Alexandria is quite nice

Here I am keeping my promise, writing a blog.

Today we went on the city orientation tour of Alexandria. The contrast between Cairo and Alexandria was apparant immediately. For one the port of Alexandria has a actual port terminal building with lovely landscaping and nice buildings. For two, Alexandria looks like a cosmopolitan Mediterranean city. The water is beeeyutiful. The architecture is gorgeous. And the tour guide even pointed out how clean the streets are to us. And they are. No horse carcasses in the town.

The first place we went was the catacombs, which aren't catacombs because they aren't Christian, but still they call them catacombs (or something like that). These were the underground burial places for later era Egyptians. The catacombs were discovered when a mule fell through the ground into them. This is similar to how they found a famous site near the step pyramid, when someone was setting up a tripod and poked through to a room of buried treasure. (I keep hoping I'll step in a gofer hole and pull out an ankle covered in jewels).

Our next stop was the museum of Alexandria, which had some cool Byzantine and Coptic art and artifacts. It also had a floor of Roman/Greek and Pharaohnic artifacts, which was also amazing. But the early Christian stuff is what really turned me on.

Next up was the kingdom era palace of Mohammad Ali and his descendants up to King Farouk. The 360 acre gardens and palaces have been turned over to the public, and
you can stay in one of the palaces for a mere $2,000 per night. All of the gardens overlook the Mediterranean, which did I mention, is GORGEOUS! The weather couldn't have been nicer to day. A bit of nip in the air this morning and a sunny, breezy high 70's all day.

Lunch was at a great place overlooking the water. Some of us got fish is a lemony sauce the rest got filet in mushroom sauce. Afterward I walked down to the water and stuck my feet in the Mediterranean, it was exactly the temperature ocean water should be, that cool that starts to feel almost warm the longer you're in it.

After that Library of Alexandria. I'm going to write more about this tomorrow, but I will say it was really stunning and peaceful.

The sun was just starting to set when we came out of the library and the air and the light were magical. What a town. I'm going to upload this real quick so I can meet some people for dinner and an evening walk.

More tomorrow.

A real post on Egypt, a tourism pitch and a promise

Hello from the Suez Canal. We went into the canal around 10:30 or so this morning. We're the 4th ship in line and there are more than 20 ships behind us. The canal is a narrow narrow strip of water, maybe 1/8 of a mile wide. On the Africa side there are a lot of palm trees and farm areas and the occasional town. On the Suez side it's desert, desert, guard station, desert, desert. There are no locks, because it isn't necessary for the water flow, though I don't understand this fully.

The library is closed today and most other offices, and many people including yours truly have been taking advantage of the spa. There are only 150-200 people on board right now. If every day was like this I would never come home. The only bad thing is too many flies. Oh, and tonight the crew is making us steaks grilled to order out by the pool deck. I think we shouldn't stop and pick up the rest of our passengers in Alexandria and just keep on going to Istanbul.

Our first port for Egypt was Adabiya. If you want to find that on a map you'll need a pretty detailed one because all that's there is a port. It's pretty much due east of Cairo on the Red Sea. The people who weren't signed up for a trip had a difficult time because there wasn't a regular shuttle into Cairo and it was about a 2 hour drive. And that's 2 hours the way Egyptians drive which is pedal to the metal. I was on the Cairo extended trip which was 3 days and 2 nights. There was almost 150 people on that trip and we were on 4 buses which travelled in convoy with a security detail which included a suited, sunglassed, agent on each bus. Egypt has a tourist police force who is only concerned with the safety of tourists. I think they were particularly concerned with the safety of our particular group of tourists. (Here is a picture of me and the two guards assigned to me).

Our first stop was Sakkara where we saw the step pyramid and the tomb of Meruruka. A few students were yelled at for trying to climb the pyramid, I think they were yelled at because you have to bribe the guard first if you want to climb the pyramid. There were hawkers selling papyrus, postcards, little statuettes of pyramids and pharaoh heads, the usual. But also a new addition which is the hawker selling camel rides. $1 to get on (ah yes, but how much to get down?).

Next stop was a lovely brunch at our hotel. The hotel Le Meridien Pyramids was terrific. My room was luxurious with a view of the pyramids from the balcony. After a rest we had a trip to the antiquities museum where the second floor is entirely dedicated to king tut treasurers. The most memorable was probably the wall full of boomerangs found in the tomb. Who knew that the Egyptians invented boomerangs? What didn't they invent?

We finished the evening with a Nile river dinner barge cruise which was cheesy beyond belief. It was a buffet dinner and show which included a really bad lounge singer and "belly dance" performance. The nicest thing was to go outside and enjoy the air and watch the Nile, but while we were going under a bridge waving at the locals someone threw down a bag of cooked chickpeas. I just heard the thud and someone scream and then the security guys came running outside.

The next morning we got started at 4:15 with a trip to the pyramids to watch the sunrise. They took us to Giza plateau and the wind was blowing and it was freezing. I bet among the 100 or so of us out there there's more than 1,000 pictures of the sun slowly rising over the pyramids. We had about 2 1/2 hours out there to see the pyramids and the sphinx. Who thought that the pyramids were way out in the desert? I certainly did. The pyramids are practically in the middle of town. There's a bit of land around them that's protected, but Cairo extends in all directions around the site. There were camel rides galore at the pyramids and some really pushy hawkers. One of our students had a very unpleasant experience with a camel ride peddler and I escorted her to go turn him in and on my way back to rejoin the group I had a very unpleasant experience with a hawker. I heard a lot of stories of women being asked for kisses and groped or having uncomfortable things said to them. It's left me with a yucky feeling about Egyptian men. And honestly my pyramids experience was probably forever tainted with the sleaziness of it all. Not to mention the entire area is covered in trash.

Pretty much all of Cairo is covered in trash, and by trash I also mean dead rotting horse carcasses.

After the pyramids we went to the Citadel and Mohammad Ali Mosque. That was my first time in a mosque and I was overwhelmed by it's beauty. The inside of the mosque was a very peaceful, lovely place. The outside of the mosque was more of the same peddlers, hawkers and people yelling "pesicolapepsicolapepsicoloapepsicola." Our guide spent a long time on some kind of tirade about marriage and divorce in Islam and how the laws are misunderstood. Then there was a quick trip to the bazaar, which of all the large markets we've been to, was probably my favorite. The shopkeepers were not as unrelentingly pushy as some places and there was some nice variety in the stuff they were selling. The market also just seemed cleaner and more pleasant.

Another lunch on the Nile, this time we were surrounded by police boats.

After that we had a quick trip to American University in Cairo. The person who greeted us was the Vice Provost who apologized profusely for making us sit outside and listen to him on the lawn. (The weather was so lovely, and it was so nice to sit in the grass I don't think anyone really cared.) He said no one had contacted them until two days before we arrived to let them know we were coming so there was no place for us to sit and no students around for us to talk to since they were all in class. He gave us a very interesting talk about the AUC and stereotypes of Americans and Egyptians. Then he took us into the Special Collections library and showed off some of their treasures which was fascinating for me, and not terribly dull for everyone else.

Mary and Kelly and I had dinner at the hotel in the Laredo Tex-Mex Restaurant. I had a chicken quesadilla.

The next day we were free to explore on our own. Mary, Kelly and I went to the Greater Cairo Public Library where we were welcomed like celebrities. All the patrons have to sign in and leave their id to get into the library. We had to leave our passports (scary). When we walked in a very nice young guy came out and asked if he could help us. We told him we were librarians and wanted to look around, and he took us on a very long tour of the whole building. Pointing out all the different parts of the collections and then introducing us to the library director who is also his dad. The director then talked to us for ages and ages about the library and their programs and its history. They couldn't have been more welcoming and gracious.

That was it really. It wasn't the mad scramble that most SAS trips are, but we did get to see a lot, and pyramids can be scratched off the giant to-do list of life events. If you would really like to get the Egypt experience, but you don't have the time or money or ambition to actually go to Egypt, I would recommend a trip to New Mexico. Rent a car and drive around on the desert some, then go see some indian ruins-- Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde (these are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, BTW), then go find a giant flea market and buy some turquoise. If you simply must ride a camel you can do that at the Albuquerque zoo and you can just stand in line and pay $5 and be done with it. While you're there no one will grab your boobs or your ass, or say anything disgusting to you, no horse carcasses and you can get better Mexican food.

I understand if you feel you simply must go to Egypt, but I promise you New Mexico is just as good.

Now, I'm going to make a promise that I hope I can keep, which is: I promise to write a blog entry every day for a week. That means starting today until November 9th I will write SOMETHING every single day.

PS Just Kidding about the two guards, they were just some guys with guns by the market and I just happened to be in front of them when Kelly took that picture.

An interim blog

Bad Erika, no blog.

I've been in Cairo the last 3 days and the two days before that I was miserably ill. So much so that I was afraid I would end up in quarantine and miss Egypt altogether. I got a miracle shot of something Sunday night that cured me and I was able to make my trip just fine.

Cairo was, of course, amazing. And I promise to write all about it tomorrow, but as usual after a port visit I'm pretty pooped and am going to just rest some and digest the experience.

I did want to tell everyone that I'm okey-dokey and back safe and sound on the ship. We're going through the Suez canal tomorrow. Tonight we're sailing out of port and putting down anchor then tomorrow in the morning we'll start the canal.

Here's hoping I'm done with illness for the rest of the trip.