Home Sweet Home!!

Hi Everyone

Well I finally made it home!! I flew into O'hare Saturday night and got my Portillos cheeseburger right away :)

It is really hard for me to put the experience I just had into words. In the past few days so many people have asked me "how was it?" or "what was your favorite part?" I could say my favorite part was riding a camel in Morocco or climbing all over the ruins at Ephesus. I could say it was watching the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen in Santorini or traveling around the beautiful country of Italy or seeing the stunning island of Gozo in Malta. I could say it was having a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower or seeing the FC Barcelona Stadium. I could say it was getting a tattoo with my friends in Seville, Spain or climbing to the top of a castle in Portugal. I could say all of those things and they would probably be partially be right, but to be honest there is not one thing in this voyage that was better than the other. Every second that I was overseas I was having new and exciting experiences that will never leave me. I have met the most amazing people in the entire world. I knew I would meet some great people, but I didn't realize in only two months I would get so incredibly close to so many of them. On Thursday morning I cried my eyes out as I said goodbye and left the ship. It is going to be very hard when I use one of our inside jokes and people here look at me like I am crazy. I am so excited to visit with them over the future!!

Now I must thank all of you!! I've talked to a few people since I have been home and I have heard that so many people read this blog throughout my voyage. I was really surprised that so many people were interested in my time abroad. Thank you so much for caring about me and being interested in my voyage. If I have talked to you in the past 10 years you have heard me talk about Semester at Sea and now if I talk to you anytime for the rest of my life you will most definitely hear about this amazing program that changed my life. I cannot wait to see everyone weather it be in a few hours, a few weeks, or a few months. Thanks again and I love you!!

Last But Certainly Not Least

Lisbon, Portugal is our last port of call, but trust me it was definitely one of the favorite countries I have visited. I had no expectations coming into Portugal. I really didn't know what there was to do so I was just going to go with the flow. The day we got into Portugal was a little strange because we did not get in until 4pm. In all of the other countries we visited we ported around 7:30-8am. So the first day we got into Portugal I went out to eat with my friends and then we hit a sports bar. Portugal's soccer team was playing a game against the Netherlands so we wanted to go to a bar and watch. It was a really fun atmosphere. People in Europe love their soccer so it was a lot of fun to watch the game there. I know nothing about professional soccer but I do know one player on Portugal's team and that is Ronaldo. So I did have someone to cheer for. After the game we walked around the city square area. There was a really awesome light show that we were able to catch so that was a lot of fun.

The next day we caught the morning train to the city of Sintra. Someone we talked to when we were in Seville recommended it for us. Sintra is about an hour train ride fro Lisbon. The city has a big national park with a palace in it. Of course since the palace was really cool it had to be on top of a mountain. Luckily we did a hop on-hop off tour so we drove half way up the mountain and only had to walk the other half. It was good exercise for my legs. Once we got up to the top of the palace the view was stunning. We were actually above the clouds and we could see all of Sintra and miles past it. It was also really cool to walk through the castle. We got to see all of the rooms and fanciness of it. 

I'm really glad we asked for ideas when we are in Seville. I found that is the best way to travel. If you are going to multiple places ask you taxi drivers, waiters, or hotel stewards where you should go. They always have the best opinions that a concierge may not know.

Today I spent some time on the ship. We had a very late night the first night so I did not get much sleep and then a full packed day yesterday so I gave myself time to relax a little bit. I did go off the ship for a few hours to walk around the city which was fun and then I went for a run along the beach. Now I'm back on the ship ready to write some papers and get ready for finals. We have our last class day tomorrow while still docked in Lisbon and then we are also docked in Lisbon on Sunday for Study Day. Monday is finals. And then Tuesday is our big Alumni Ball when we get to dress up super nice and have a fancy dinner. Wednesday will be just hanging out with everyone and saying good-bye. And then Thursday morning we will be docked in Southampton and I'll be home by Thursday night Chicago time. I was talking with my friends Sam and Emily and it is so weird how close I have gotten with people on SAS. We have only really known each other for two months, but I feel like it is much longer. I am not looking forward to leaving my SAS friends behind, but I hope to visit them in the future. Some of the friends I have made are in Illinois conference so we are planning to meet up when our schools play each other. The experiences I had traveling to all the countries was great, but the friendships I made made it SO much better.

Seville and Gibraltar

Hi Everyone!!

Sorry I have not posted in awhile. The email system on the ship is very temperamental and it just did not want to work the past few days. But it has finally started back up so we are good to go.

We docked in Cadiz,Spain on Sunday! I really did not get a chance to see Cadiz because my friends and I hoped on a train first thing in the morning to go to Seville. Seville is really beautiful! The whole city is made up of narrow streets with beautiful balconies looking over. We spent a lot of time walking around the city and looking at the Cathedral. It was SUPER hot there so once it hit around 100 degrees at 3pm we decided to go inside somewhere. We had booked a hotel for the night because it was my friend Emily's birthday. We spent some time being lazy at the hotel and then we got ready for a really yummy dinner. Here is a picture of me and some of my friends. Marissa and Kate are in the back doing the O-H sign (they go to Ohio State BOOOO), Sam is in the front doing the Louisville "L" , and of course I am doing the best college symbol ever……CHIEF!!!!!!

We went to a tapas bar for dinner. Tapas are basically small portions of meals so you just order a bunch of them and share around the table. My favorite food in Spain (and probably on the whole trip) was seafood paella. It was amazing!!!! It is this really good rice mixed in with pieces of lamb, shrimp, mussels, clams, and sometimes squid. Seriously one of the best things I have ever tasted. Had it about 4 times while I was in Spain because I just could not get enough.

The next day we just spent more time in Seville. I really loved the city, and that night we came back to the ship. On the third day in Cadiz I went on a field program to the Rock of Gibraltar. It was SOOO COOL!!! For those of you who don't know Gibraltar is a British colony so you have to cross the border from Spain. Currently Spain and Britain are having a little fight so the lines to drive across the border were RIDICULOUS so we literally had to walk across which was cool. In the process of walking into the city area you had to walk across the airport. So at one point we had to wait and we got to see a plane land and then another one take off right in front of our eyes. Next we got a tour of the World War II tunnels that were created in the actual rock. It was really neat to see where a lot of soldiers spent years working and living. We then got to go higher up in the rock to see a triage hospital that was created in the rock just in case The Germans  attacked, luckily they never had to use the hospital. Then we saw a tunnel where the British set up guns on top of the rock to shoot down towards people trying to attack from the bottom. It was real awesome to see. But I think the coolest part was the monkeys. The monkeys in Gibraltar hang around like squirrels on the main quad at U of I. They are not scared of people at all and they will grab a bag or anything that resembles food. Here is a picture of my new monkey buddy!!

Now we are off to our last port Lisbon, Portugal. We will get there at 4pm today and then leave on Friday for Southampton. Its crazy how we are already heading to our last port, I cannot believe it. 

Barcelona!!!

Hi Everyone!!!

I am back on the ship after 3 very fun days in Barcelona!!! Our ship was docked right next to the city center and right by the street Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is basically the center of the city with tons of shops and restaurants all over the place. It was really nice to have that right outside of the ship!! 

The first day I did a lot of walking around the city. I went to the La Sacre de Familia which is a gorgeous church. It was really really big and just stunning. I have seen a lot of churches throughout this trip and I would have to say this church was up on the list with the Notre Dame.

The next day I went on a snorkeling program through Semester at Sea. We drove to a small beach town about 2 hours away from Barcelona. The water was FREEZING but luckily we got to wear wet suits in the water so I was not cold at all. We saw a lot of fish and coral which was really cool. Afterwards we got to walk around the town a little bit and then I headed out to dinner with my friends when I got back to the ship. Here is a picture of me and my friends Shay and Kevin.

Today my friends Julia , Kevin, Shay, and I went to Camp Nou which is the stadium for FC Barcelona. It was AWESOME!!! There was a whole museum and we got to to go in the stands and right up next to the field. I am not a huge soccer (or futbol) fan but I still thought it was awesome. They had all the championship trophies and pictures of all of the players all over. I really enjoyed it!!! 

Now we are just back on the ship waiting to leave. I think we are going to leave around 10:30 or 11 tonight. We will be at sea for our last 2 days of class before finals. I kind of have to get my butt in gear and finish up some papers. I have no motivation to do school work while I am in port so I definitely need to be productive over the next few days. Our next port will be in Cadiz, Spain for three days and then right to Lisbon, Portugal for 3 days. We then have 2 class days while still docked in Portugal and then 5 days at sea on our way to England. I cannot believe I will be home 2 weeks from today! I have to start mentally preparing myself to look out my window and not see the sea!! 

France!!!!

Hi Everyone!!!!

I hope that everyone is enjoying the first week of August!!! I know I am!!

We got to Marseille, France on Saturday. Marseille is in the south of France and it is a very pretty city. The the buildings and houses themselves are art! I walked around the first day with a few of my friends and went to a fresh fruit market. It worked out well because it is best to visit the market on Saturdays and that just happened to be the day we docked. That night we went out on the town and went to a few bars along the "old port". It was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to have a really good time.

VERY early the next morning (around 4:30am) I woke up to catch a train to Paris. The train was only about 3 hours long so it worked out really well. I walked all around the city of Paris with my friend Shelly and we had a great time. A lot of people on the ship who have traveled to Paris before said that it was overrated and not worth going to, well I'm sorry but they were dead wrong! Paris was stunning!! There were so many things to see, people to watch, and delicious foods to eat. After our train got in we ventured through the Paris metro system and found our hostel. It was a really cute place right near Montmartre. Once we dropped off our bags we took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe in the Place Charles de Gaulle. This a beautiful French war monument that honors French soldiers who fought and died in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This is also the home of the Tomb of the Unknown soldier from World War I. It was really really beautiful!

After looking at the Arc we walked through the streets and found the Eiffel Tower. It was so cool to be right near such an iconic image that people know all over the world. Shelly and I bought some sandwiches and had a little picnic right on the lawn in front of the tower. We spent some time there just taking pictures and people watching, We also bought some baguettes and had a bit of a baguette sword fight right in front of the tower. I know we are cool kids.

After the Eiffel Tower we walked to see the Statue of Liberty. I learned that Paris is a very walkable city. As long as you have a solid pair of walking shoes you can get most anywhere in the city by foot. So we went and saw the French version of the Statue of Liberty which is almost an exact replica of ours. It is a bit smaller, and it was really cool to see. Our next stop was the Notre Dame which was all the way across the city. Unfortunately, Shelly went with flip flops yesterday so we jumped on the metro instead. The Notre Dame was stunning. I was actually really surprised with how accurate Disney got it in the movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. We were able to walk in and see the whole inside of the church. It was so beautiful in there. I wish there would have been a mass to go to because I think it would have been really wonderful.

Next we wanted to make our way towards the Louve. We were pretty sure the museum would be closed, but the garden area was supposed to be beautiful. We stopped at a restaurant for dinner and it was fabulous. I had to get some authentic French food so I went with escargot!! It was so yummy!!!

After dinner we walked around the Louve and then headed back to out hostel. We stayed there for about a half hour and then walked up the steps of the Basilica of the Sacre Coeur. Once we got up the steps you could see all of Paris. The view was amazing!! It was worth all the steps to see that view. After that we jumped on the metro and went to see the Eiffel Tower because it lights up at night. We went to a cafe to get some dessert and I had the best chocolate mousse ever known to man!!! It was soooooooo GOOD! Then at midnight the Eiffel Tower started to sparkle!! It was really really cool!!

Now I am happy to be back on the ship after a exciting few days. We are leaving in about an hour. We have a really cool neighbor docked right next to us. It is the USS Harry S. Truman which is an aircraft carrier from the U.S. It was pretty cool to pull up to the ship this morning and see that. We will dock in Barcelona tomorrow morning for three days. My plans are up in the air for the first day, but the second day I am going snorkeling!! I hope everyone enjoys their last few weeks of summer before school starts. 

Love,

Kelly

Malta!!

Hi Everyone!!! 

I am currently sitting on deck sailing towards the south of France after 3 amazing days in Malta. If you do not know Malta is a small island country to the South of Sicily. If you look on the map Malta is the little speck right underneath the "rock" that the "boot" is kicking. I honestly knew nothing about Malta until I came on board but according to my history professor and several of my tour guides Malta was one of the most bombed countries in World War II. At a restaurant I ate at one of the waiters proudly claimed that the Allies would have never won the war. So that is pretty interesting!

The first day in Malta I had my last field lab for class. The class is Anthropology of Tourism so we went to a lot of touristy places to observe tour groups doing different things. We went to the Mdina which is an old walled medieval city. The city itself was really beautiful. There were small narrow roads and buildings with really nice balconies that looked out onto the streets. It reminded me a lot of the streets in Italy. The city was on the top of a really high hill (this seems to be a theme in European countries) so we had a beautiful view of the whole island. We also got to tour a really beautiful cathedral before we went to a glass blowing factory. Malta is known for their glassware so we were able to watch the class being created in the factory and it was really really cool.

The next day I went on a tour of the island of Gozo which is one of the five islands that make up the country of Malta. It took about 20 minutes by ferry to get there. We went to an OLD temple that was apparently the oldest free standing structure in the world! My history buff friends are going to kill me (Sorry Jen) but it honestly just looked like a pile of rocks. But then we went to the Azure Window which was absolutely amazing!!!! For all you Game of Throne fans this is apparently  where some character got married int he first season. The Azure Window is a cliff that has been basically eroded in the middle by the waves. It was really cool and the rocks along the cliff has tons of piles of sea salt.

The third day in Malta was pretty relaxing. All of my friends were on an overnight trip so I went around the city of Valetta on my own. It was a lot of fun to be able to do everything I wanted because I was the only one traveling. I love everyone that I have met on the ship so far, but we live in VERY close quarters so it is hard to get some alone time. So it was nice that I got to take advantage of it. 

We will get to Marseille, France on Saturday and I will be taking a train to Paris early Sunday morning!!

Italy Part 2: ROMA!!!

Hi Everyone!

I am back from 2 very exciting and HOT days in Rome!!

Yesterday morning I started off my day by going to visit an orphanage that is about a 15 minute drive away from the port. When we got there one of the teachers at the orphanage explained that it was very unique because this orphanage creates families with the children that live there. There are 4 houses and 8 kids live in each house. There are 5 boys and 3 girls in each house and then 1 male educator or psychologist and one female educator or psychologist. This group becomes a "family" and it gives the kids more of a sense of belonging. The youngest kid that lived in this particular orphanage is 9 and the oldest is 15. They do not allow international adoption out of this orphanage and adoption is not very common within Italy, so many of the kids will live there until they are into their 20s. Many orphanages have to "kick" kids out when they turn 18, but this orphanage helps the kids get a job in the town and save their money so they can move out when they turn 20 or 21. We got a chance to walk around the orphanage and then we sat in the courtyard waiting for the guide to finish his presentation. I am obviously not one to sit still for very long, so I saw a few of the younger kids were playing fuse ball outside. I tried to signal if I could play (There was obviously a language barrier) and they were nice enough to let me join. Eventually we had a game going, me and another kid from the ship vs. two 10 year old Italian boys. Needless to say the Italians kicked our butts!! It was a ton of fun and I think the kids really enjoyed having us there to hang out with!

Later in the day I took a train to Rome with my friend Sydney. We checked into out hostel and then walked the cobbled streets of Rome for the rest of the night. Our first stop was the Colosseum. We did not get a chance to go inside, but it was really really big from the outside. It was literally right in the middle of the city too. Many of the places I have visited the buildings have been built away from the sites, in Rome they just built everything right along with the sites.

Next we walked through the streets to the Pantheon. Personally I thought the walk to the actual Pantheon was the best part. We got to walk through a bunch of small side street and we came across a massive church. We went inside and it was breathtaking. The paintings on the ceiling and the walls was amazing. I am telling you these Italians know how to build a church!

Next we went to the Trevi Fountain. I think this was probably one of my favorite parts of Rome. It was really large and the sculptures all along the fountain were beautiful! We spent some time just sitting and looking at the fountain, which was nice. I also threw a Euro into the fountain for good luck. After the Trevi Fountain we went to the Spanish Steps. The Spanish Steps were really crowded, but it was fun to sit down and look at all the different people who were traveling in Rome. There had to be families, tour groups, and young people from thousands of countries. I have heard so many different languages spoken over the past few days here in Italy.

This morning we checked out of our hostel and made our way to the Vatican City. Luckily we bought our tickets online a few days ago because when we walked up, there was a line that had to be about 2 hours long. We talked to some other SAS students who were standing in line and they said that they had been there for an hour and they were still outside when we came out of the museum. The Vatican Museum was amazing! I am not usually an art museum person because I get bored pretty easily, but the paintings, sculptures, and oddly enough carpets were so beautiful! We walked through the museum for about an hour and a half and then at the end we went into the Sistine Chapel. I wish they allowed pictures because it was AMAZING!! I swear I almost fell over 2 or 3 times because I kept leaning farther and farther back to see everything on the ceiling. The chapel itself was a lot smaller than I originally expected but the beautiful walls and ceilings made it so much larger. We spent so much time just looking at every part of the chapel making sure we did not miss anything. After the museum and the Sistine Chapel we walked around to St. Peter's Basilica. It was really really cool! They seemed to be doing a lot of construction in the Vatican City area, but it was off to the side so we were able to see everything.

Now I am back on the ship for the night. We have one more day in Civitavecchia and then we leave to Malta on Saturday morning. I hope everyone is enjoying their last few days of July! I cannot believe it is almost August. I looked at the calendar and I come home in exactly 4 weeks from today. I do not know where the last 6 weeks went and I have a feeling the next 4 are going to go by just as fast. I will be soaking up every single minute of this experience!!!  

Love

Kelly