Welcome to Shanghai

We had to leave the hotel bright and early at 6am this morning to catch our flight to Shanghai. We arrived at our hotel around noon. We are staying at the Radisson Shanghai New World and it is right in the center of the city on this amazing street. You should google a picture of the hotel to see how cool it is – we have a UFO thing on the top that is a rotating restaurant/bar. I have a room by myself for this portion of the trip which is awesome because our rooms are quite a bit smaller than last time. Shanghai is 1/3 the size of Beijing with the same amount of people so everything is just more compact here. I can already tell that I will like Shanghai much more than Beijing. It is much less “Chinese” and just seems more like New York or a big city you would find anywhere else in the world.

After we got settled in the hotel we went for lunch to our professor’s favorite dumpling place in all of China. It was really cool and it only makes dumplings and you can see the assembly line inside of them making them and then there is a lady frying them at the end out by the street so you can go pick them up after you order them. They were delicious and a great birthday lunch!

We returned to the hotel to meet our tour guide and we took a walk to the famous financial district skyline. We walked through this pedestrian mall with everything you could ever need. That is where I saw one of the huge posters for D.Rose. They had a big Nike store with a huge banner for the Chinese tennis player who just won the French Open so I think they are pretty excited about that here. Then we got to the river which has the financial district across and took some pictures. It has the third tallest building in the world – the one that looks like a bottle opener at the top. Perhaps we will be heading over there for some company visits in the near future.

We walked a little more to meet our bus and drove to the old city which had the Yu Gardens in the center. These are really pretty and used to be the Emperor’s gardens. The old city is just a giant bazaar selling touristy souvenirs but the architecture is just as you would think about the ancient Chinese. Then we went back to the hotel and I showered and we are getting ready to go to a group dinner at a restaurant in the middle of People’s Park. It is supposed to be really cool so I am excited to go and celebrate my birthday! I will fill you in later about how the celebration goes tonight.

Lama Temple, Hutong Tour

This morning we were lucky and got to sleep in until 10am! We just had sightseeing today and no class which was a great way to spend this final day in Beijing. First we went to the Lama Temple which is a compound for a certain branch of Buddhism. Half of it is open to the public and the other half is for the monks to train from the master Lama monks. We walked around the temple and there are several buildings you can walk into with different Buddha statues and they each mean a different thing. For example, you can pray for long life to a certain Buddha and another one helps cure sickness. There were tons of Chinese people around with sticks of incense to pray to all of the Buddhas. You can’t burn incense or take photos inside the buildings because they believe that the picture takes the Buddha spirit out of the temple. So outside all of the buildings there were kneeling places and cauldrons of fire to light incense and lots of Chinese people bowing and waving the incense. Then inside there were also kneeling places with people bowing but no incense. The highlight of this temple is that it has the world record for the largest sculpture carved from a single tree. They brought a tree from Tibet that is 8 meters in diameter and put it in the ground here. I think there is another 8 meters of the tree underground before they started carving. So the overall statue that is carved out is at 18 meters tall Buddha statue that is just HUGE. It is so hard to describe and it is enclosed in a tower so you can’t see it from far away you just have to stare up in order to see the head. All of the Buddhas are decorated with colorful clothes and have lots of fruit and things around that look like offerings. We were touring this place with a guide explaining everything all while these Chinese people are praying so it felt a little weird but I assume they are used to it.

After that we took the bus to lunch which was in a really nice pedestrian mall. We were having traditional hot pot cuisine, which basically means I went to the Chinese version of Melting Pot (aka: it was awesome). We had the usual round table but in the middle this time was a pot of boiling water – I think it had a few veggies in it already for flavor but I didn’t taste much. The tables already had plates of veggies and you could hold them in the hot pot so they cooked and became soft and delicious. My favorite was the sweet potato. Then they brought out the meat and it was plates and plates of thinly sliced meat (I think it was lamb?) that looked like cold cuts, but we clearly had to cook it. So then we could hold the slices into the hot pot and they cook really quickly – much faster than Melting Pot, but also you have to hold it in there with your chopsticks which was definitely challenging. (Yeah did I mention that I have to eat like every meal with chopsticks? I’m becoming an expert I think) Our table got sick of holding everything in the pot one by one though so we ended up putting almost all of the meat and veggies in there to cook and we would just take out stuff when we wanted. And then since we emptied the plates they kept bringing us more food to cook which was awesome. Everything was really tasty and a good change from having all the usual dishes with everything covered in oily sauces. After lunch we had a little free time to walk around the pedestrian mall which had several American brand stores and was definitely more upscale than any place we had been yet.

Our afternoon activity was touring an area of Beijing called a Hutong which is sort of an alley that you will find yourself in if you turn off a certain street. It is original housing from the 12^th century and the government requires it to stay exactly the same on the outside to preserve the history. Everything was just gray brick and there was a lot of construction around to redo the bricks. We walked from our bus to the starting point and then we had rickshaws that took us through the narrow alleys. We rode in the rickshaws for a little bit – everything was just really dusty from the construction and you couldn’t really see that much. At the end of the ride we ended in the Hou Hai district which is a bunch of bars lining a man-made river running through it. The bars weren’t really hoppin’ yet because it was like 2 in the afternoon but they were all open air and you could see in that the decorations were so strange! Everything was brightly colored or wildly printed couches and glittery walls…very strange. We did happen upon one bar that looked awesome because it was the Michael Jackson bar! It plays only MJ tunes and as you can see has some great décor as well.

After we walked around this area for 15 min we got back in our rickshaws and rode around a little more until the end of the ‘tour.’ At this point it was too early to go to dinner so we walked to the farmers market. It was huge and had tons of crazy fruits that you never see in normal US grocery stores. I obviously didn’t try anything but it was cool to see all of it. Then we walked back to our dinner spot which was a really great experience – we went into one of the Hutong homes and had a traditional home-cooked meal of Beijing food. First, the wife told us a little about the family and then let us look around the house. The house consisted of a room for the parents, room for the son, kitchen, and bathroom. All the rooms were separated by a tiny outdoor courtyard. It’s hard to explain but it was all very small. The kitchen definitely only had room for one person to stand in it. They were so proud of having this house and it was apparently a big deal for them even though it seemed so small to us so it was interesting to hear their story. Then we sat down for dinner and we were all packed into the parents’ room at round tables with tiny metal stools to sit on. We had tiny plates and tiny chopsticks and I felt like I was visiting a little person’s house! The food was really good though! We had sweet potato chips, rice, chicken, some sort of pork meatball dish, dumplings, broccoli, and a few other dishes. I really liked everything, probably because it was supposed to be “normal” food and not trying to be fancy or anything like that.

After our delicious dinner we headed back to the bus which brought us to the hotel. It was a great last day in Beijing and I really liked all the sightseeing that we got to do instead of having class (of course, haha). I can’t believe we are already leaving Beijing tomorrow and there are so many things I still didn’t get to see! I’m not sure if I will ever be back here but I have definitely been able to get more comfortable with the city over the past 7 days. This was our longest stop of the journey so I think the rest of this experience might just fly by. Time to pack and get to bed early for our departure flight in the morning.

Finally, Some Delicious Dumplings

This morning we had our usual meeting time of 8:25am to get to class by 9am. I ate a little more for breakfast – some toast, rice, and a little croissant. The class topic was supposed to be about marketing and the Chinese consumer (something I would have found interesting) but it turned out to be pretty difficult to understand our professor and he talked a lot about theory and QA which was not very exciting. At least today was our last day of class at Peking U and we got a certificate of completion and everything, haha. We had our usual cafeteria lunch and I kept to a small bowl of rice and lo mein. Maybe this will turn out to be the best diet ever?

After lunch we went back to class with the same professor and this session was slightly more interesting than the morning. I heard that our professor talked to him and asked for less theory and more specific content to China. We looked at some popular Chinese websites and talked about a lot of different aspects of growing internet usage in China. Paid search marketing came up for a little bit, of course. We had the rest of the evening free from Peking U planned activities so after class at 4:30pm we all headed back to the hotel.

We had a little while to relax at the hotel and then we all met at 6:15pm to take the subway to our professor’s favorite dumpling restaurant. Now this was by far the best meal in China so far!! I LOVE dumplings and they are my favorite thing to get for Chinese takeout and now that I’ve had the real thing I might not be able to go back! This place is all hand-made dumplings with any kinds of meat and herbs you could mix and match. Our professor just ordered a large variety for the group and I tried a little bit of everything. I’m not sure of all the combinations (we were just guessing) but there were some like pork with cilantro and beef with fennel. You could tell everything was just so fresh like the fillings and dumpling melted in your mouth. There was a sauce on the table that was really spicy that lots of people liked but I of course didn’t try that. I was content with my dumplings and used a little bit of sauce from the appetizer we got. I didn’t even mention the appetizer! It was an eggplant dish in some sauce that was just absolutely delicious. So dinner was pretty amazing and if we could have that for dinner every night I would be one happy student in China!

Now I am back in the hotel to get some good sleep before a long day of sightseeing on our last day in Beijing.

Pictures!!

Great Wall of China:

Peking University campus landmark:

Night market with bugs and weird things to eat:

Summer Palace:

Tiananmen Square:

View of Forbidden City gate From T-Square:

Inside Forbidden City:

Marathon Day of Class

Today I woke up feeling a little better so I got ready for class and managed to eat a piece of toast for breakfast. We left the hotel at 8:25am and had a morning class session about the Chinese economic environment. It was a really interesting lecture because most Chinese citizens will not be so candid about all the problems that China has but this professor was really upfront about all the issues going on and how China should be dealing with them. We had our usual lunch break in the cafeteria – I only ate a tiny bowl of rice as I slowly get back into the swing of eating things.

After lunch we had a guest lecture from a lady who is not a professor but runs some sort of executive education (I think?) and used to work at McKinsey in Beijing for a while. She gave a lecture on the labor crisis in China – despite the massive Chinese population businesses have trouble finding the right talent due to various issues. After that lecture we had another session on the Chinese macroeconomic environment with the same professor as the morning. It was very interesting again, just a very long day. Overall we ended up having class from 9:00am – 5:30pm except for our lunch break (a longer day than any of us Americans are ever used to!).

After class we took the bus back to the hotel but it took a while because it was rush hour. There is a reception tonight with the UVa Club of Beijing at a Mexican restaurant (I could really go for some guacamole right now, but not sure how good Chinese guac would actually be?). As good as it sounds, I probably wouldn’t be able to eat anything there and I am just starting to get better so I am taking one night off to not over-exert myself. There is still a lot of trip left so hopefully I’ll be better for the rest of it!

Sick Day

Wednesday I woke up and still felt really sick. I started taking my medicine when I got back on Tuesday night but I wasn't able to eat all of Wednesday either so I just stayed in bed at the hotel all day. It was a pretty good day to be sick because all I missed was the second class session on supply chain and manufacturing and a company visit to sina.com that apparently didn't go very well from what everyone said. I spent the day just sleeping on and off and managed to eat a few bites of a protein bar that I brought to try and get some nutrients.

Forbidden City

Tuesday we got to sleep in a little because we didn’t have class, so we didn’t have to be at the bus until 9:30am (which was definitely needed after the late night). Unfortunately I woke up with a really bad stomach ache and couldn’t eat anything for breakfast. I thought it might have just been from some drinking the night before but it lasted for the next two days so it must have been some sort of food poisoning. For most of the day Tuesday I felt fine, and just had a mild stomach ache so I still had a good time at all the activities.

At school in the morning we had a session to meet with Peking U students and just talked with them and asked questions back and forth about school life, etc. Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not a Chinese kid. Then we went on a tour of the campus. It was really beautiful and they have a cool lake in the middle with a path around it and a lot of greenery for being in the middle of such a smoggy industrial city. After the tour we ate lunch at the cafeteria again and I ate two bites of rice and then felt awful so I didn’t eat any more. After lunch we went back to the hotel for 10 min for people to change if they wanted to and all I did was throw up the rice that I had for lunch. I still felt fine at this point though so I left with the group to head to the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City is near the city center of Beijing and is such an interesting historical point in the middle of the city. First of all, it is HUGE. We were following our tour guide and keep walking in the same direction (from the North gate to the South gate) and it seemed to be never ending. First were all the living quarters for the females then the males and Emperor. Then we looked at more of the concubine living quarters and learned some interesting facts about how the emperor would have 3,000 13-17 year old girls running around as his sex toys! Then we moved on to the palaces for working and business and there were several pavilions and squares for official government business. After about 3 hours in the Forbidden City we made it to the South gate which is the main gate with the portrait of Mao facing Tiananmen Square.

After the Forbidden City we walked under the roadway and went to Tiananmen Square. It is bordered by giant impressive looking buildings – Chinese government building, Chinese modern history museum, Mao’s tomb/memorial, and the Forbidden City. It is definitely a cool sight to see and they have a giant Chinese flag in the middle with a guard who stands watch at all times. They have all kinds of special police around in the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square who are apparently trained in kung fu and are pretty scary. There isn’t really anything to do in the square but it is cool to see.

By then it was around 5:00pm and we headed to the restaurant famous for Peking duck for dinner. I really wanted to try it and everyone said it was really good, but I wasn’t feeling very well so I didn’t even try to eat. After the dinner we were headed to the Peking opera but after all the walking around I started to feel really sick. I think it was just from having such a full day and not being able to eat at all so I tried to push through but I ended up talking to our teacher and he took me back to the hotel in a cab where I immediately went to my room and just passed out at like 8:00pm.

First Day at Peking University

Sorry for the lack of posting, we were pretty busy the first few days here and then I got some nasty food poisoning or something so I was a little out of commission. Lots of updates to come all in a row now, here is Monday:

This morning we had to leave the hotel at 8:25am to go to our first day at Peking University. We are studying specifically at the Guanghua School of Management with a course called “Doing Business in China.” Everything was set up really nicely when we got there and we have some nice Peking U swag to take home. We got a bound book of all the notes and schedule and everything we will need for the whole week. We had a short introductory session first where they try to teach us a little Chinese (everything except Ni Hao still pretty much goes over my head though) and we also watched a promotional video about the school. There were a bunch of exchange students talking about the school and there was one group from Miami of Ohio!

We get lots of breaks at school during the day and it is pretty nice and a new building so there is a snack/tea area right outside our room and this lady just restocks it and cleans up after us all day which is pretty sweet. We had our first class after that which was about supply chain and manufacturing in China. Nothing too revolutionary, but interesting to hear things from a Chinese perspective. After class we went to lunch in the school cafeteria. Nobody really knows what anything is so it’s a big mystery. I had some sort of mild beef & broccoli looking dish and lots of steamed rice and lo mein.

After lunch we had our first company visit which was at a really nice hotel. It was a bunch of private equity executives (one of them is the father of the Chinese student on our trip) and it was also completely in Chinese. We all went into a meeting room and everyone had a little headset in front of them and channel 1 was for Chinese and 2 for English. There was a lady sitting in a booth in the back of the room who did live translation for everything. It was still a little hard to follow (especially since I wasn’t really familiar with the topic) and I think some questions from our class and their responses were lost in translation but I guess that’s how things go in China. We had 2 formal presentations followed by Q&A. All the presentations were shown on 2 screens, one for each language, so at least there was always stuff to look at.

After the presentations we went to the hotel restaurant downstairs for dinner with the executives. They brought out this rice liquor called Mautai that he said was like $200 (US$) and it came in a bottle that looked like lighter fluid and they kept making toasts and we were all supposed to take shots but it tasted so nasty I only had 2 of them. The whole group went through an entire case of the stuff; I think the Chinese executives took down a bunch of it. The meal was similar to the lunch we had the day before with all the cold dishes brought out first followed by hot ones and nobody knew what anything was. The round table with the lazy susan seems to be the common trend here for our group dinners. I ate a lot of rice, seems to be my favorite food here in China.

After dinner our bus took us back to the hotel and everyone got ready to go out for the night. We went to this university bar district since it is cheaper than a lot of other areas and went to this bar called Lush which was just chill and pretty much like a normal US bar. It wasn’t very crowded since it was a Monday night and apparently Peking U exams are coming up in 2 weeks. It was a fun night to hang out with everyone on the trip though and we got some late night McDonald’s (delicious!) and got back to the hotel around 2am so I headed right to bed.

Great Wall and Summer Palace

Well I made it to China! My flight was delayed a little bit because we were flying over the North Pole and we had to be re-routed a little more west because of the ash cloud. The airport was really easy to get around in because everything had English and pictures (our teacher told us this was all redone for the Olympics to make sure visitors had a good impression). At first none of the taxis would take me to my hotel but then someone (with authority I’m assuming?) yelled at one of the drivers and they said ‘ok’ so I finally got to the hotel and checked into my room at about 7:30pm (Saturday). The hotel (Crowne Plaza) is pretty much baller status and I am getting very spoiled by the Priority Club accommodations! I got up to my room and checked my email and found out that our group was meeting to leave at 7:00pm so I had just missed them. It turned out ok because I just got to settle in my room and took a much-needed shower and went to sleep.

In the morning I got up pretty refreshed. I woke up really early because of the time change and tried to go back to sleep but just tossed and turned a little. The hotel has breakfast included and it was a pretty impressive buffet of both American and Chinese options. I only had about 15 minutes to eat breakfast and tomorrow I plan on allowing more time so I can explore and fill up for the day! We met in the lobby at 8:20am and had a tour guide and bus to take us to our first stop of the day: The Great Wall. The tour guide is really hard to understand and you have to listen very closely to figure out what he is trying to say so that was difficult. A lot of people had gone out the night before so they really just wanted to sleep on the bus anyway. There was so much traffic on the way to the Great Wall that at one point it was completely stopped and everyone just got out of their cars/buses and were just chillin’ on the highway. We had to park our bus pretty far away because of the traffic which made the walk even farther. We went up the wall really close to the midpoint but that part was really crowded so we walked in the other direction. It was pretty surreal to be on the great wall and thinking about how difficult it would be to build the wall sort of makes the pyramids look like child’s play. It was definitely a workout with the steep stairs and inclined paths. Everything is so foggy (or smoggy) that you can barely make out the Great Wall going up behind me in pictures. The tour guide gave us an hour to hike the wall and then we met back and headed to the bus for lunch.

We at lunch at some place that was a jade workshop with a restaurant in the back. Our group got three round tables to sit at with lazy susans in the middle. Then we all had little tiny plates and they brought out a bunch of different food dishes that we didn’t even know what they were but it was all really good. I know I tried tongue and some eggplant dish (both yummy!). They also had some dishes you would find in Chinese places at home like sweet and sour pork, lo mein, hot and sour soup, and rice. Overall I liked everything I tried and I think there were only a few dishes that I passed on because they looked spicy.

After lunch we headed to the Summer Palace. This was just a huge compound that is the size of the city of Charlottesville with all kinds of buildings, temples, and special rocks. The group had 2 hours to walk around and do whatever we wanted so we walked around for a little while before splitting off. I went with a group of 6 and we rented a paddle boat to go around the giant lake in the middle of the palace property. It gave some really cool views of the larger palace buildings and towers. We also got to go up close to the island on the middle of the lake with some other special building on it. The paddling definitely gave out legs another workout as if the Great Wall hike wasn’t enough – I will definitely be feeling it tomorrow. After the Summer Palace it was about 4:00pm and we loaded up the bus to head back to the hotel.

We all showered and relaxed for a bit at the hotel before meeting in the lobby at 6:00pm to head out to the markets. This part was just led by our teacher and not a tour guide. We took the subway (pretty easy to get around also because it was all redone for the Olympics too) for a while to get to the Silk Market. But before we even went to the market we were all starving and were looking for someplace to eat. Everyone in the group was trying to look for a good Chinese place but the whole area was so touristy that we all ended up at McDonald’s anyway, oh well! Then we finally made it to the Silk Market – I could have spent all day in there just buying up a storm! The market was like a huge mall with 6 stories of people selling stuff similar to the Grand Bazaar in Turkey. All the floors and areas were organized by items so we went straight to the purses floor. You bargain for everything which is fun and I got three designer purses (fake, of course) for a total of $35 US. I probably could have paid even less too but I felt like I was getting a good deal at the time. It is very aggressive and people try to grab you and pull you into their shop but if you know what you are doing it was fun. I was walking around mainly with one other girl (it was too hard to navigate with a big group) and we got the hang of it after our first purchase. I only got the purses but I could have spent so much time exploring all the other floors such as clothing (so much fake Polo stuff) and lots of people got great looking designer shoes (not sure if they would actually have any to fit me though), but I’m sure there will be plenty more markets for me to spend all my money!

We all met outside the Silk Market after it closed at 9:00pm and took the subway three more stops to get to the area with a pedestrian street and nighttime food markets. Unfortunately, it was raining when we got off the subway but we toughed it out and walked through anyway. We went down one side street where they had all the weird food and some kids in our group tried the fried scorpions (they said it tasted like Pringles…?). We continued down the pedestrian street which was a nice wide walkway lined with really nice designer stores and was all lit up and reminded us of a shopping area you would see in Europe. When we finally got to the street market that supposedly had the good food (I was really looking forward to some dumplings!) it was closed because of the rain. I hope we will get a chance to go back there another night but it was kind of a hassle to get there and it was tucked away. I’m glad our teacher knows where everything is otherwise I don’t think I would ever find anything. We were all pretty tired from the long day so we just decided to take cabs back to the hotel. It was pretty difficult to find them in the rain but it is nice to finally be back in my nice bed after such a long day. Now it’s midnight and I’m headed to bed; can’t wait for my delicious breakfast and another day full of activities tomorrow!

Ready for a New Adventure

It’s my last day in the USA before I head overseas. I am so lucky to be able to have such an awesome experience like Global Immersion with McIntire. I will be spending about a month in China before meeting up with my family in Europe with stops in London, Belgium, and France. I will be traveling so much it’s almost like being on Semester at Sea again! My itinerary in China is listed below, and I will do my best to update as much as possible!

Beijing May 27 – June 5

Shanghai June 5 – June 10

Xi’an June 10 – June 15

Guangzhou June 15 – June 19

Hong Kong June 19 – June 26

Ambassador Ball

Today was the Ambassador Ball which is basically the ship’s semi-formal that celebrates everyone becoming SAS alumni.  I slept in which was really nice and laid out on the top deck for a little before lunch.  Then in the afternoon I finished my short week of spa indulgences with a pedicure – very necessary after walking through 8 dirty countries in flip flops.  I had the early 5:30pm dinner seating so after we got all dressed up (I wore my brown dress with gold belt), I went to dinner with Kaitlyn, Andrea, and Lauren.  As you walked in they gave everyone a free glass of champagne because they did a group voyage toast which was cute.  And the area walking into the dining room was all decorated with photos so it reminded me of a mix between prom and the senior party.  They brought out all the amazing food at dinner – shrimp cocktail appetizer, French onion soup, salad, and I had filet mignon for my entrée (you also had the choice of chicken or fish).  I was afraid the food wouldn’t be all that good but it was actually delicious and I ate every bite.  Then there was an awkward time period of a few hours with nothing to do while the 8:00pm dinner seating went on so we took some pictures on the deck and then watched National Treasure in my room.  Then dessert was served at 9:30pm and it was so amazing!  They had giant chocolate replicas of all the monuments we visited like the Sphinx, Coliseum, and Parthenon – and that was just to decorate the tables!  The dessert was a huge buffet like when we were eating in Egypt with tons of finger food pastries and cakes.  After dessert it was time for the dance where they turned the Union into a hopping dance party.  One of the kids was the DJ and he was playing all the requests that they took from people earlier in the day.  We thought it was going to be kind of lame and weren’t planning on staying very long but it actually turned out to be fun and we stayed until midnight when it ended.  It was pretty entertaining to watch everyone dancing and making fools of themselves while we were all shoved in the tiny union.  After the party we hung out in the piano lounge with people and now I am headed to bed.  I have to have all of my luggage packed by 1:00pm tomorrow so it can be taken off the ship, so I better wake up with time to pack.  Only one more day left until I’m back in the USA!

P.S. On another exciting note, my Cross-Cultural Psych teacher emailed out our grades and I got an A+ for the course!  Yay!!

Shipboard Talent Show

Today everyone took their final exams and now school is officially over!  For the study day yesterday I indulged in a 50 minute Seven Seas massage at the spa which was amazing and so relaxing.  I spent the rest of the day yesterday and most of today working on my essay exam for Cross-Cultural Psych.  It turned out to be a lot more time consuming to put in all the details than I thought, but I got it turned in by the deadline and now I am officially finished with school for the next 5 days before UVa classes start.  To kick off the fun times for the end of the voyage, we had the shipboard talent show tonight.  Some of it was serious people playing guitar and singing, but other people had really funny acts like a dance to make fun of one of the dances that the crew did in their talent show.  My favorite act was two guys who did a series of ads making fun of the “real men of genius” ads, so it was “real SAS-ers of genious” and they made fun of our assistant dean who makes the intercom announcements, the doctor, the hot IT guy, and the Global Studies teacher.  They were so funny and definitely the crowd favorite of the night.  Tomorrow is another fun day of relaxing before the Ambassador Ball!

No More Classes!

Yesterday was the final day of classes on the ship!  The night before last there was a movie night on the ship and they showed The Hangover which was hilarious!  It was obviously a bootleg copy because the movie is still in theaters, but it was so fun to finally see a new movie.  Other than that we have started our first of two study days leading up to final exam day on Aug. 19th.  Today was the Global Studies exam day and final essay due date.  I turned in the paper yesterday and the exam this morning was the same as last time (just 100 matching questions), so hopefully I did alright to keep my A.  The only thing I have left to do now is a 12 pg (single spaced) essay exam for Cross-Cultural Psych that is due by the end of exam day.  I’m planning on being a little bit of a hermit for the next 2 days until I finish my essay exam, so I apologize for the lack of interesting updates.  However, once exams are over we have the student talent show followed by Ambassador Ball!

Just More Sailing...

Today is the third day at sea after leaving Morocco and there hasn’t really been much going on besides classes and everyone trying to get their papers finished.  Since we left Morocco the sea hasn’t been too rocky – I’ve been surviving just fine without any sea sickness medicine.  We are traveling a little bit more southern in the Atlantic which might be helping the waves.  Tomorrow is our last day of classes and Global Studies finished today so I get to sleep in tomorrow!  Although we are gaining an hour pretty much every other night so it is like sleeping in every day.  Everyone always says they wish there were more hours in a day, and it definitely is awesome to have the extra time for work and sleep.  I’ve been working on all my final assignments – turned in my Stress Management paper today and have my group presentation in that class tomorrow.  Then we have the Global Studies exam day where there is no class and just the exam and papers due.  Then Aug. 18th is a study day before finals day on the 19th.  I don’t have any final exams though, just my Cross-Cultural Psych essay exam due that day.  Last night was the 1st Annual SAS Film Festival where people made short films of stuff on the ship or their experiences in other countries or anything.  Some of them were really good (from those people who were good with their computers) and some were really cute, like the kids on the ship making some videos.  Other than that ship life has been pretty much the same, I can’t wait for all the classes to be over with so that we can all just hang out and enjoy the last 3 days on the ship!

Marrakech!!

I am now back on the ship after the last 3 days in Marrakech!  Marrakech is much smaller than Casablanca but has more of what you would think of as Moroccan culture than Casablanca which is pretty European in style.  We left at 8:00am from the ship for the 3.5 hour drive to Marrakech.  I slept on and off catching some of the scenery which was pretty deserted (not as much as Egypt though) with scattered Berber villages.  Berbers are the native ethnicities of Morocco and there are 3 main tribes from which all native Moroccans pretty much descend from.  Marrakech lies on the edge of the Atlas Mountains which creates some beautiful scenery as you get closer to the city because the mountains get larger and larger in the background.

The first thing we did after the drive was stop for lunch at Le Palais de Jbilates which was a really pretty Moroccan restaurant.  We had “salads” to start which are not at all like American salads.  They have lots of bread and then a huge plate in the middle of the table that had lots of different spreads on it.  The center of the plate was rice and it was arranged like a wheel so you could spin the plate around to get the different spreads that you wanted.  There were like 6 or 7 different spreads I think, including bean, tomato, apricot, and some more that I have no idea what they were, but they were all delicious!  Then they bring out little appetizer things that were like rolls of fried cheese (their version of a cheese stick sort of) and a triangle shaped fried piece that was full of beef and tasted like taco.  For the main course we had couscous with vegetables, beef, and lamb.  The meat was especially juicy and delicious, the couscous doesn’t really have flavor because you are supposed to put a sauce on it but I am boring and like plain things so I thought it was yummy all by itself!  For dessert we had watermelon and a Moroccan cookie which has a nutty taste and is really dry and crumbly.  Then we had some mint tea which is so good!  Sometimes it can have a little too much mint in it and it kind of tastes like you are drinking toothpaste even though it is just water, but if you add some sugar to it, it is very refreshing.

After lunch we drove about 20 min to reach the Palm Groves, which is just a large palmary, for camel riding.  They had 4 trains of 10 camels each for our bus and the trains followed one after the other for our trek through the groves.  Before we left they gave us all blue turbans so we all looked so authentic for our camel riding.  Then we rode around on the camels for about 40 min before getting off at a Berber house in the groves.  The camels were so fun to ride at the beginning because we were all excited but then they definitely started to hurt my butt after a while.  When we got to the Berber house we got a little tour before sitting on the floor cushions and listening to them play music and dance a little.  They also served us mint tea which was delicious but not as refreshing because we were so hot from camel riding.  After relaxing there for a little bit we got back on our camels for the 40 min ride back.  It was getting hot because it was the middle of the afternoon so the ride back was pretty tiring, but the camels were so cute!  They were linked together so closely that the camel behind mine had its head right next to my leg.  The girl behind me named her camel Indy and I pet him a lot and we became friends even though he slobbered all over my foot sometimes.

After the camel riding we went to Hotel Imperial Plaza to check in.  It was a cute hotel but the power went out right after we got there which was kind of annoying since we were all hot from the camel riding.  I took like a 2 hour nap and then we went to dinner at the hotel at 8:00pm which was a buffet but not as much variety as there have been at other hotels.  After dinner we went up to the roof of the hotel where they had a pool and bar and hung out there with people from the trip and played cards for a few hours before going to bed.

Our second day in Marrakech we left after breakfast at 8:00am for a full day of touring the city.  Breakfast didn’t have very much variety but was more Moroccan and I had their version of pancakes and syrup which was pretty good but the syrup was not as sweet as ours.  First we went to the Koutoubia mosque and looked around the outside and took some pictures.  The mosques always have the super high minarets as the highest points in the city so the mosque is always an iconic building of whatever city it is in.  Then we went to the Saadian tombs which were old tombs beautifully decorated with tiles in the Islamic style that were preserved somehow because when people came to destroy the city they were afraid to mess with the graves.  It was just a small little garden area with some graves outside with just a decorated tile slab the size of a coffin while the more important people had entire rooms decorated above their graves.  Then we had some free time for shopping at a giant store in the medina (old city in the center).  That took a while because they had like one cash register for the entire bus to buy stuff.  Next we went to Bahia palace which was a really pretty palace that is supposedly similar to the Alhambra.  It definitely reminded of Spain because both palaces have the Islamic colors and tiles.  Then we went for lunch at another beautiful Moroccan restaurant called Palais Chahramane.  We had the same “salads” as the first restaurant with bread and all the spreads.  Then for our appetizers we had triangle pieces of chicken with rice that was fried.  Our main dish was beef tangine which was just beef and veggies in a sauce with rice on the side.  I loved the rice because it was kind of sweet and the beef was juicy and delicious too!

After lunch we went to a Berber pharmacy which is a place that sells spices and herbal remedies.  They explained all of the spices to us and let us smell all of them before giving people time to buy what they wanted which took a really long time again because there was only one cash register.  Then we finally went to the main attraction of Marrakech – Djemma El-Fna!  This is a huge square that has shopping, food, and everything you could want.  The center is filled with snake charmers and people playing music also some people that had monkeys.  The monkeys looked so sad because they were kept in tiny little boxes and were getting yanked around on their leashes.  We had about 40 min to walk around the square before we had to meet back at the bus.  We took the bus back to the hotel and had another nap before catching our bus back to the square at 8:30pm.

Djemma El-Fna at nighttime was a whole other sight to be seen and was incredible!  There were just people everywhere and was the most crowded place I have seen in all of my travels.  First of all, Andrea and I went to the McDonalds near the square for dinner.  The hotel buffet was even more lacking than the night before so we decided to hit up the McDonalds.  It turned out to be a great experience because it was the most crowded McDonalds I have ever seen in my life and they don’t really stand in lines, it is just a free for all mob to get to the front.  The place is also so crowded with people eating inside and out that there were at least 4 security guards patrolling around the McDonalds.  We also saw a man there feeding fries to his pet baby monkey – it was just a ridiculous sight to see.  Then we went back to the square and walked around, shopped, and people watched.  The snake charmers aren’t there at night but it is still full of ladies giving henna (I got another design on my left ankle and my name written in Arabic on my wrist), people playing music, and fortune tellers and stuff.  There was more food stands open and fresh squeezed orange juice stands everywhere since they don’t really have alcohol.  The shops in the square started shutting down around midnight and then we wandered through the various groups playing music on our way out.  We took a taxi back to the hotel around 12:30am and then went to bed after a great night!

This morning they served the exact same breakfast and then we had to be on the bus at 8:30pm to head back to the ship.  We had a 4 hour ride back to the ship and I was back on by 1:00pm.  We ate lunch on the ship and then I have just been relaxing the rest of the day because there wasn’t really anything to do quickly that was close to the port.  Overall I thought Morocco was really great – it was hard to follow up the amazing Egypt trip but Morocco did a pretty good job.  When we were in Marrakech I really felt like it looked exactly like in does at Epcot center with the colors and everything.  Morocco was also great because everything was written in French and Arabic and people spoke some French so it was easier to communicate since some of French is similar to Spanish.

We have now officially left Casablanca and are headed across the Atlantic for Norfolk.  It is such a bittersweet feeling to be done with the last port because I had been looking forward to going all these places for so long and now it is over, but I am also so excited to get back to the USA and see everyone again!  It will definitely be an interesting 9 days with finals and everyone being so antsy to get home.

Casablanca!!

Today was a great day exploring Casablanca, Morocco!  We arrived in the morning after a pretty rocky night – the first we have had since originally crossing the Atlantic.  Customs took a really long time this morning and the ship wasn’t cleared until 11:00am.  I had a great morning and slept in before getting up around 10:30am to get ready.  I at lunch on the ship around 11:30am then had a SAS tour of Casablanca that left at 1:00pm. 

The first stop on the tour was to a large market that sold fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, and even turtles!  Our guide swore that they don’t eat the turtles and that they are just sold as pets but they were lined up in food crates just like the fish so I’m not so sure about that.  Next we went to the Royal Palace of Casablanca.  We didn’t go inside but we went to see the fancy front gate that only gets opened on special occasions twice a year.  We are back to seeing all the Islamic/Arabic influenced decorations like in Spain which is cool.  Then we went to the only church that still remains in use in Casablanca called Notre Dame de Trapani.  The entire sides were stained glass windows so it was really pretty on the inside.  Then we went to the Hassan II Grand Mosque which is the 3rd largest mosque in the world (after Mecca and Medina).  It was so enormous and beautiful!  It also has the tallest minaret of anywhere in the world and you can see it from almost anywhere in the city.  We spent about an hour touring the mosque and it was incredible how modern it was – including a retractable roof to circulate air, earthquake proof retractor things, and even a laser beam that points toward Mecca from the top of the minaret.  This mosque was the highlight of the trip and is definitely the pride of Casablanca.  Then we stopped at the United Nations Square for about 30 min of shopping.  It was fun to look around but I was saving my shopping for the market in Marrakech where I can use my superb bargaining skills.  The rest of the trip was a driving tour around some of the neighborhoods in the city.  We drove by the public beach which was really crowded and then saw the king’s residence including his royal golf course and race track.  The neighborhood where the king lives (only when he is visiting the city of course) was really nice and pretty while the rest was just pretty average.

We got back to the ship around 6:30pm and cleaned up a bit and changed before Andrea and I went out to dinner.  We went to Rick’s Café which was a popular spot for everyone from SAS because it was so close to the ship and was built after the movie Casablanca.  For your information, none of the movie Casablanca was actually shot in Morocco, but it brought a lot of fame to the city so they are proud of it.  Rick’s was built after the movie became famous and was definitely a splurge dinner but was really fun.  It was such a classy place with a live jazz band and delicious food.  Andrea and I had appetizers, entrees, and dessert along with our sophisticated martinis.  My appetizer was a goat cheese salad that was absolutely delicious – probably my favorite thing I ate all night!  It was just lettuce with a vinaigrette dressing with 4 HUGE pats of goat cheese!  (Mom, each pat of goat cheese was like equivalent to 3 from Nibbles so it was like having 12 of those Nibbles ones with an even smaller salad!)  For dinner I had the swordfish which was delicious and came with a pesto sauce.  Then for dessert we split a giant warm brownie with ice cream on top.  It was so delicious and our last free night out of America so we are glad we had a nice delicious dinner even though it wasn’t really Moroccan.

We got back to the ship around 11:00pm and now I am headed to bed because we leave for our trip to Marrakech at 8:00am tomorrow morning.  I have heard that Marrakech is amazing and the best city in Morocco so I am very excited to be headed there for the next 3 days!

Morocco Tomorrow!

Today was another thrilling day of classes before we reach Casablanca tomorrow.  We spent pretty much the entire day anchored in Gibraltar to fill up on fuel for the last time.  Now that we have left we are officially finished sailing the Mediterranean which is hard to believe.  Also since we left the Mediterranean we have hit pretty rough seas again and the ship has been rocking quite a bit.  They told us that for some reason the swells are particularly bad coming in and out of Casablanca so we should be prepared.  Tonight was our final preport meeting of the voyage – it is so weird because it seems like everything came and went so fast.  By now none of the information at preport is new and exciting – just the same old safety stuff.  As far as my plans for Morocco, I am spending the first day exploring Casablanca, including a short city orientation trip.  Then the remaining 3 days I am on a SAS trip to Marrakech which includes camel riding in the Palm Groves.  I can’t wait for another port in Africa, and hope it is fun as the last port of the voyage!

School and Sailing

Today was another regular class day at sea.  Everyone is getting all stressed out about the amounts of work that they have to do but I feel like I am in pretty good shape for all my classes.  I got my third and final field experience paper back from Cross-Cultural Psychology and got an A/A+ so I’m feeling good about that class.  All I have left is a final essay exam due at the end that is 12 single-spaced pages so that is long but shouldn’t be too hard since there are specific questions assigned to each chapter of the book.  I also just have a 5-10 page final paper for Stress Management that is just like a final reflection of us over the entire voyage so it won’t be hard at all.  Then there is a final paper and exam in Global Studies.  The first one wasn’t hard at all but a lot of people did poorly on it so they are stressing about this second one.  I’ve just been trying to use my time wisely and I actually go to class (unlike my roommate and many other people) so I feel alright about everything and hopefully it will turn into all A’s for the summer!  Sorry this post was boring and all about school but that’s pretty much all that’s going on these days.  It’s hard to believe that there is only one port left and it’s feeling like it is going to be a long 10 days back to America but hopefully it will be fun once all the schoolwork is done!

No Class Day!

Today was a day at sea without classes – yay!  We all thought there would be a lifeboat drill like there has been on every other no class day, but instead we were woken up with the Price is Right theme song playing over the intercom at 10:00am.  This was to let us know that the shipboard auction had opened up for the day.  They had been collecting items donated by people throughout the voyage and then there was a silent auction throughout the day and a live auction at night.  I just rolled over and slept in a little more in the morning until lunch around noon.  Then I was productive and got a lot of work done for my classes throughout the day which was nice.  Later I went by the silent auction to see what they had and I bid on a pedicure at the ship salon and also for 2 Chicago style deep dish pizzas to be sent anywhere in the country.  I would obviously have them sent to school which would be delicious, but I didn’t win because I didn’t bid very high.  I went into see the live auction at night which was really funny because they had a lot of the teachers auctioning off items.  There was a lot of cool stuff auctioned off and it went for like thousands of dollars (highest being $2500) so I clearly wasn’t bidding, just watching to see the entertainment.  Other than that it has been a pretty relaxing day and I was productive which was cool.  Tomorrow is another regular class day so that will probably not be exciting but it is good to be all caught up on rest.  We gain back another hour tonight en route to Morocco!

Crew Talent Show!

It is the end of our second day at sea in route to Morocco, and I am finally caught up on all of the postings about Egypt.  Yesterday and today were just regular class days, and last night we gained an hour on our clocks which was great.  Tomorrow is a free day to catch up on work and such so we don’t have any class, so tonight was the crew talent show!  This was definitely the most fun night I have had on the ship so far!  We are used to only seeing all the crew members, like the waiters and our cabin stewards, in uniforms and tonight they were dressed in regular clothes and got to show off some talents!  We had everything from the Explorer Band, to some solo singing acts, along with bartending skills, and dance groups.  The dance groups were definitely the most hilarious because my cabin steward, Edwin, was in 2 of them and they do dances to hip hop music and they are all so good!  The Union was completely packed with people in addition to the show being broadcast in other areas of the ship so there was lots of cheering and it was tons of fun.  I have heard rumors that we have a morning lifeboat drill tomorrow, but I am still hoping to get in a good night sleep and am looking forward to the free day tomorrow!