Another Shipboard Update!

Well, it is officially Day 63 and I have already completed two of my three classes onboard!  I just got out of my Global Studies exam and it went pretty well.  One of the questions asked if I wanted the extra credit points (answer A said "yes") and where would you most likely find a tajine (since I ate 3 of them in Morocco and hadn't heard of them until I got to Morocco, I wonder what that answer must be).  I hope it went well. Considering I could make a 50 and still get a high enough grade for it to transfer, I am not too worried about it. 

I still have a paper to write for my International Economics class, which is due tomorrow, over various parts of the economies we noticed in each of the countries we visited on the voyage.  I shouldn't be very hard, but it must be about 6-7 pages long.  It always takes me forever to write papers!

The seas are a bit rockier today due to some tropical weather, so I had to take my first anti-seasick pill today since we left Morocco.  It has been so smooth that you don't even realize we are on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic!  It is so weird though not seeing any form of human or animal life in days!  We have not seen a ship, island, bird, fish, anything.  (I did see a bunch of dolphins a few days ago, but just for a few minutes.)  That will be totally different when we get home...

I also get to have cheeseburgers with my extended shipboard family on the pool deck tonight!  I can't wait to have a little something different, as I have had pasta for lunch and dinner everyday since we left Morocco!  I can't believe that this will be our last family meal together too.  Time flies on this ship!!!!  Then after that we have our pre-disembarkation meeting in the Union.  They will tell us all about how to get through customs quickly and efficiently, as well as the process for getting off the ship (where we take our bags, what we are allowed to carry off, etc.) 

I still haven't wrote the blogs for Morocco!  I have been very busy with all of my school work and instead of writing blogs, I am getting everyone else's pictures from our voyage.  Instead of all of taking the exact same picture on 50 cameras, we just take it on one and then share them.  That process is taking a little bit longer than expected...

Thanks for being such great readers over the past two months!!!  More will be showing up soon...

SHIPBOARD UPDATE!

Many of you have been wondering if I am alive and well.  The answer is yes...but sad that I just left my last port on this voyage yesterday!  The last task of the ship is to travel all the way back across the Atlantic Ocean to Norfolk, Virginia.  Morocco was amazing and I will be telling you all about my adventures over the next few days.  Today was the shipboard auction that I worked so hard on.  WE RAISED $30,981.00  for the shipboard drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The money goes to all of the service visits, shipboard student life events, scholarships, and much more!  It was absolutely AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!
It was the most money ever raised in the history of SAS for the auction!  I still can't believe it!  I have a paper to write for Art History tomorrow, so you probably won't be hearing much from me as it already is midnight and I have to be up at 07:00.  Goodnight!

P.S. Happy Birthday Dad! I wish I could be there to celebrate!

Day 53...What...I spent the day in Gibraltar?!?

Day 53/C18, August 6th:

Just another day in the neighborhood, but this one is pretty sad!  Today is the last pre-port of the voyage!!!  We arrive in our last port tomorrow morning and then we are headed home on an 11-day trip across the Atlantic.  I bet you didn’t know this, but we actually were in Gibraltar all day!  We were anchored right off the shore refueling for about 10 hours.  It was very weird being on the ship and seeing land on both sides.  We don’t see that very often! 

I finally got to get rid of that stupid Global Studies paper!  It felt great!  Now, I only have the final exam left in that class.  However, I have two papers, a test, and a final to complete in International Economics and a paper and final exam in Art History.  The paper for Art History is due the day after the auction (second day on the ship after Morocco).  I don’t know how all of this will get done, but it will get done one way or another.  I am telling you that living on a ship and taking classes while seeing the world is not easy people.  WE ARE BUSY!  I won’t trade places with you though…I love it!!!

I am excited to see Morocco!  It should be very different yet again from all of the countries I have seen so far.  I have two SAS trips: a visit to the SOS Children’s Village and an evening with a Moroccan family.  Both should be fun!  The evening with a Moroccan family will be a unique experience nonetheless.  They pick us up at the ship and take us in small groups of 3-6 students back to their homes for dinner and conversation.  I really don’t know what to expect! 

We also learned at pre-port that we can be much more relaxed with what we can eat and drink that in Egypt.  We are still not advised to drink the water, but we can eat produce that has been washed and brush our teeth using the local tap water.  We also don’t have to take pepto tablets before each meal unless we feel that we should.  I know I will be taking them just in case!  I don’t need to get sick from my last port!  This allows us to try much more of the unique Moroccan cuisine.  I can’t wait!  Are we there yet? 

Rough plan:

Day 1: Wait for passports to be cleared, train to Marrakesh, explore, spend the night there at a hotel.
Day 2: Explore Marrakesh some more, train back to Casablanca, sleep on the ship.
Day 3:  SOS Children’s Village in the afternoon, Evening with a Moroccan Family.
Day 4:  Explore Casablanca, cry as we step off the last piece of foreign soil on the 102nd Voyage of SAS. 

Noon Report for August 6th:

No Report from the Bridge, since we were anchored in Gibraltar.  We change our clocks to +5 hours from EST tonight and then again to +4 hours from EST on August 7th (Day 1 of Morocco).  YEAH!!!!  I love 25-hour days!

Day 52...CREW APPRECIATION DAY!!!

Day 52/C17, August 5th:

Well now that I conquered the Global Studies test, I get to write a 6-page paper on public spaces in two of the countries we visited and compare them to the United States. Exciting?  Not really!  I chose to write my paper on Spain and Egypt.  I discussed their public recreation areas (like the beaches) and their public transportation systems.  Since the paper was boring, I decided to make it more fun for me and included the MV Explorer as well.  The ship’s elevator acts as the only public transportation system; however, everyone walks onboard the ship.  The various decks on the aft of the ship are our public recreational areas.  It made the paper much more entertaining and exciting for me to write.  As you can probably tell, I am really beginning to get tired of writing!  After writing to the blog everyday for 52 days, I really remember why I wanted to be a math major!  I wish I had the extra pizzazz to make them more entertaining and funny.  Oh well…

At 21:15, everyone flocked to the Union to see the infamous CREW TALENT SHOW!  It was such a great event and you could tell how much the crew enjoyed performing for us.  Those guys do so much for all of us and some never get the chance to leave the ship (even in port).  They don’t have a lot of room down in the bottom of ship, so I know they enjoyed hanging out with us during the show.  It also was Crew Appreciation Day!  My roommates and I made our beds for our cabin steward, took care of our own plates in the dinning room, told all the guys cleaning the railings that we appreciate their hard work, and told everyone how much they mean to us!  The Crew on the ship is AMAZING!!!!! 

I also spent a few hours working on the PowerPoint presentation for the Live Auction!  We now have over 130 items that were donated!  It is freaking awesome!  There will be 32 live items and the rest are all in the silent auction.  We hope to raise $20,000 and it should be possible with this many items. I can’t believe it is coming up so soon. 

Noon Report for August 5th:

1563 NM since Alexandria with average speed of 13.92 knots, 343 NM since last noon with average speed of 14.29 knots, 244 NM left until we reach Gibraltar, closest land to the ship is 44 NM NW of Cape Ivi (Algeria), sea depth is 8764 ft, sea water temperature is 78.8 degrees, air temperature is 77.0 degrees, sea swell is slight, sunset tonight at 21:13, sunrise tomorrow at 07:32, currently +6  hours of EST.

Day 51...Studying the sea away!

Day 51/C16, August 4th:

Another busy, yet fun, day onboard the MV Explorer!  I got to study for and take the second Global Studies test tonight.  It went much better than the first test, so I hope I did really well.  We should find out our grades in a few days.  One thing I love about tests on the ship is that you have a great excuse to study out on the pool deck! It is one of those things that you don’t even realize is a luxury anymore because we have done so many new and exciting things in the last 51 days! 

I also had to read some articles on India for a test in International Economics today too.  It was super easy!  We just had to write one page on what developments in the world economy made India’s economic model begin to look less politically acceptable in the 1970s and 1980s.  Basically everything created this, so you just had to pick something and elaborate.  It was a piece of cake.  It just sucks having two tests on the same day, especially while you are sailing around the Mediterranean.  I wish we had some extra time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fact that we are sailing in the big blue sea!  

I know this is short and sweet, but there wasn’t much going on today besides studying and taking a tests…sorry!

Noon Report for August 4th:

1220 NM since Alexandria with average speed of 13.82 knots, 348 NM since last noon with average speed of 13.92 knots, 568 NM left until we reach Gibraltar, closest land to the ship is 30 NM N of Cape Bougaroum (Algeria), sea depth is 9158 ft, sea water temperature is 75.2 degrees, air temperature is 75.2 degrees, sea swell is 6.6 ft, sunset tonight at 20:48, sunrise tomorrow at 07:04, currently +6 hours of  EST.

Day 50...Student/Faculty Talent Show

Day 50/C15, August 3rd:

Today was so exciting!  I spent the entire day studying and studying and studying for both of my tests tomorrow.  Now, I had to throw in a little bit of fun, so I did study for my economics exam on the pool deck.  It was such a beautiful day…I couldn’t pass it up. 

After dinner, we had the Student/Faculty/Staff Talent Show in the Union.  The first act was both of the Deans dancing and singing to the Music Video of “I’m on a boat!”  It was soooooo hilarious.  Imagine two old guys dressed up in suits with sunglasses, throwing food, spraying champagne and singing a rap song in front of 739 college students, faculty, and staff.  What a hoot!  All of the other acts were really amazing too.  Some sang songs, played the piano and/or guitar, danced (including an Indian ritual), performed magic tricks, and even had skits performed by the kids.  Only one act was not good at all!  They were sooo bad that William Hung looked amazing.  Everyone else was fabulous!  It was a lot of fun!  I can’t wait for the crew talent show in two days. 

We also met for the Auction to determine which items were going to be in the silent auction and the live auction.  We have over 100 items donated so far from the shipboard community.  Items include trips to the Big Apple Circus in NYC with backstage passes, vacation homes in California, Ohio, Arizona, Canada, chance to attend a training event for the Pittsburg Steelers, and be apart of a sailing regatta while sailing with the world-winning team (I forget where it is).  Other items include Girl Scout cookies, jellybeans, jars of chunky peanut butter, miscellaneous souvenirs from port, etc.  The ship is giving items like first to get off the ship, blow the ship’s horn in Norfolk, steer the ship, pick the dinner menu for a day, have dinner with the Captain, have a bubble bath in the Dean’s Office, a signed navigational map of our voyage signed by all of the Bridge Crew including the Captain, and many more.  It is going to be exciting.  We have so many cool items! The proceeds benefit the SAS Scholarship Fund, general maintenance for the ship, as well as provide supplies for the service visits for upcoming voyages. 

Noon Report for August 3rd:

873 NM since Alexandria with average speed of 13.79 knots, 337 NM since last noon with average speed of 14.04 knots, 932 NM left until we reach the Straights of Gibraltar, closest land to the ship is 34 NM SSW of Licata (Sicilia-Italy), sea depth is 2034 ft, sea water temperature is 75.2 degrees, air temperature is 73.4 degrees, sea swell is slight, sunset tonight at 21:21, sunrise tomorrow at 06:32, at midnight tonight we change our clocks to +6 EST.

Day 49...On the Sea Again!

Day 49/C14, August 2nd:

Well, we are back to classes once again!  The ship was still recovering from yesterday as every one lost their voice from cheering and was still scrubbing off the last pieces of paint from their bodies.  Other than the fact that we all were tired from yesterday’s activities, today was just another day at sea.  Classes were just as exciting as always.  I have a global studies test coming up in two days, an international economics test in two days, and a paper for global studies due in four days.  It will be a very busy week!  I am not really worried too much about the tests, but I do need to start my paper soon. 

We also have a lot to look forward to in the next few days!  The faculty/staff talent show is tomorrow night and the crew talent show is two days after that.  It should be interesting! 
The ship is back to rocking, so everyone is starting to get their sea legs back.  I have not taken any seasick meds until right before my Econ class today just to be safe.  We really were rocking up a storm!  Everything has been going well though on my side of the world.  Danielle is not doing too hot with the rockiness, but she is fine when she pops the pills.  Just another aspect of life at sea!  It is nice when you want to go to sleep; however, it is not nice when you are trying to write your blog and the ship keeps rocking you to sleep.  Goodnight!!!

Noon Report for August 2nd:

536 NM since Alexandria with average speed of 13.64 knots, 324 NM since last noon with average speed of 13.5 knots, 1268 NM left until we reach the Straights of Gibraltar, closest land to the ship is 120 NM N of Tulmaythah (Libya), sea depth is 9840 ft, sea water temperature is 80.6 degrees, air temperature is 78.8 degrees, sea swell is 5 ft, sunset tonight at 20:50, sunrise tomorrow at 07:07.

Day 48...THE 102nd SEA OLYMPICS!

Day 48, August 1st:

The 102nd SEA OLYMPICS!

Hey Adriatic!  Hey what!  We’re Adriatic and we’re dark blue.  We’re gonna beat the ship out of you!  This is our chant for the Adriatic Sea!  There are 10 seas onboard the MV Explorer based on where you live:  Red, Mediterranean, Baltic, Adriatic, Caribbean, Aegean, Bering, Black, Albanian and Diploma (faculty, staff, and life-long learners).  We all dressed up in our sea color to represent ourselves throughout the day.  My sea (Go Adriatic!!!) met at 10:00 in the Garden Lounge Dinning Room to get Dark Blue-ified!  We had blue body paint, face paint, makeup, ribbon, hair bows, balloons, an inflatable dolphin mascot and much more.  All of the seas then met in the Union at 11:00 for the opening ceremonies.  The Dean of Students opened the 102nd SEA OLYMPICS complete with a parade of the sea captains displaying their team banners and an Olympic torch carried by the children onboard.  We then went over the rules for the day and listened to an awesome introduction of how the Olympics is an integral part of Semester at Sea, as well as the ports we have visited on our Summer Voyage!  The Captain even came down to share a few words with us before declaring the opening of the 102nd Olympic games!!!!!!!!!!!

We immediately broke into our first event of the day:  the Spirit Competition! Each sea had to create a chant and had to perform it for all over the world to hear.  Since the Diploma Sea was tired from performing their chant, we then had to have a break for lunch before the next events.  The Diploma Sea had a blast this year!  Most of the faculty and staff have sailed on previous voyages so they had an unfair of advantage; however, they did create some very awesome and clever chants and dances.  AFter lunch, many different events occurred all over the ship ranging from a pull-up competition to synchronized swimming to bagel on a string to Jeopardy to flip cup to pie eating contest.  I went to support my roommate Nick at the pull up contest, as it was the first real event of the day.  He got 23 pull-ups!  Some of the guys and girls were impressive!  One girl got 9 pull-ups (she beat out a few of the guys…)!  I then watched tug-of-war and we came in 2nd place overall.  Synchronized swimming won the funniest event of the day, but the lip-syncing and dance contest was a close second.  The guys and girls from each sea did a great job in both of these events!  They were hilarious. 

I participated in the Relay Race.  This event had 5 sections: Dizzy bat (spin around a bat 6 times, hopscotch, and then climb the stairs), hula hoop while someone else throws 5 ping pong balls into a bucket that the hula hoop person is holding, three-legged maze through the 6th deck dinning hall, human wheel barrel, and my event (egg on a spoon down the hallway and down the stairs to the finish line).  It was a great event.  We almost came in first place!  It was pretty exciting! 

For dinner, the crew surprised us again with a BBQ!  We had cheeseburgers, hot dogs, BBQ ribs, potato salad, coleslaw, millions of deserts, corn on the cob, baked beans, etc.  It was AMAZING!!!! 
I wish they would do that for every meal.  After dinner, we had the lip-syncing and dance contest.  It was pretty entertaining!  Each sea put on a show for about 5 minutes.  Everyone dressed up and corigraphed their dance moves.  Some seas “sang” songs like It’s raining men (since there are no men on the ship) and, of course, the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.  Others did music from each country we have visited or music representing things specific to our voyage.  All did a great job!!!!!!  It was sooooo funny!  Again the Diploma Sea did a great job!  The Grand Prize was a one-hour party in the “hidden” Faculty Lounge, first Sea to get off the ship in Norfolk and, of course, bragging rights for the rest of the voyage.  Our sea came in 7th place; however, we were the first sea alphabetically so we were always first and the judges always were a lot harder on us than the other seas to follow.  We did pretty well considering the circumstances. 

The entire day was full of energy and spirit!  We all had a blast doing it and it brought every one together again.  It was really great to have something like this bring the entire ship back together again right before our last 3 weeks on the ship with only 4 days in port.  Our cabin steward, Angelito, even dressed up to represent our sea!!! He was the only crewmember on the ship to dress up for their sea!!!! WE LOVE THIS GUY!!!  After the closing ceremony and announcement of the final places, I went right to sleep.  It was a long and tiring day!  Goodnight!  GO ADRIATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Noon Report for August 1st:

212 NM since Alexandria with average speed of 13.86 knots, 1591 NM until the Straights of Gibraltar, closest land is 55 NM N of Sidi Barrani (Libya), sea depth is 7708 ft, sea water temperature is 80.6 degrees, air temperature is 78.8 degrees, sea swell is 5 ft, sunset tonight at 20:24, sunrise tomorrow at 06:47.

Day 47...Last day in Egypt! (plus a little extra)

Day 47, July 31st:

Egypt Day 5!

Shopping is the best way to spend your last day in a foreign country!  You have to spend the last remaining amount of your local currency somehow, right?  I woke up around 09:00 and met Brianna, Danielle and Carmen at the gangway for our expedition to Carrefour Mall around 09:30.  We walked just outside the port to try to find Raft, our taxi driver from the first day, but he ditched us for someone else.  We actually got a driver who had a brand new 2011 minivan with air-conditioning.  This is the first taxi in all of Egypt that we saw with air-conditioning. He took us out to the mall and we walked around for a few hours.  The mall is very Americanized as it had a Starbucks, Nike, Timberland, Ecco, Lacoste, Addias, etc.  It was actually the nicest place we have seen in Egypt.  The mall was huge!  It even had a prayer room! All of the stores were name brand minus the few stores I didn’t know, the ones that sold the traditional dresses for Muslim women.  It was really nice!  I really wanted to find a tee shirt that said Egypt on it, but every store said they didn’t have anything.  That was upsetting.  We were really hungry so we ended up eating at McDonalds again.  I know…we ate fast food three times in this port!  I had another Big Mac with only bread and meat, French fries and a coke with no ice.  How delicious!  We then made our last lap around the mall before going into an Egyptian equivalent to Walmart to spend our Egyptian Pounds.  I bought a few more snacks that were not made or packaged in Egypt.  I spent exactly all of my money.  I actually got a lot for my equivalent of 11 US Dollars. 

We meet the taxi outside of the mall again at 13:00 and rode back to the ship.  I bought just a few postcards and stamps from the little vendors right outside the ship to send home before heading back onboard the MV Explorer for the last time in Egypt.  Since Egypt was the port for Parent Trips, all of the parents got to come onboard the last evening and eat dinner with us before we pulled out.  Daniel, Lacey, Mindy and I went to the computer lab and made a sign to welcome Clark and his parents onboard the ship!  We printed it out and stood at the gangway for about 45 minutes while they got everyone onboard.  It was pretty neat to meet his parents and be able to have dinner with them.  After dinner, I went up to the top deck to watch us leave Alexandria.  This was one port that I didn’t mind leaving.  I don’t think I will miss the dirty city anytime soon, nor will I probably ever go back there.  It was very neat to talk with the others about their experiences and their travels in Egypt as everyone had totally different perspectives.

At 21:30 I had my last sea meeting before the Sea Olympics and we practiced our cheer and got all of the logistics down for tomorrows festivities.  I can’t wait!!!  It should be great fun!

Do you speak Egyptian?  No, I speak Arabic.

Egyptians speak Arabic, but English is taught in most Egyptian schools beginning at a very young age.  The following is a phonetic transliteration from the Arabic script. 
Hello (to Muslims) = assalaamu aleikum
Hello (to Copts/Christians) = saeeda
Goodbye = ma’a salaama
Please (to a man) = min fadlak
Please (to a woman) = min fadlik
Thank You = shukran
You’re Welcome = ‘afwan
Yes = aywa
No = la
Buenos Dias = sabaah el-kheer

Numbers:
1=wahid, 2=itnayn, 3=talaata, 4=arbah, 5=khamsa, 6=sitta, 7=sabah, 8=tamanya, 9=tesah, 10=ashara, 100=miyya

Days of the Week:
Sunday= youm il-ahad, Monday=youm il-itnayn, Tuesday=youm il-talaata, Wednesday= youm il-arbah, Thursday=youm il-khamees, Friday=youm il-sabt, and supposedly Saturday is not important because they didn’t put it on our sheet.

Do you see the pattern between the days of the week and the numbers?

Day 46...Alexandria Orphanage

Day 46, July 30th:

Egypt Day 4!

After our awesome and fun filled day yesterday, we decided to spend the little time we had this morning near the port; however, we did want to walk around the city a little to get a true feel for Alexandria.  Around 09:30 I met up with Danielle and we decided to walk outside the gates of the port, as we were ready to explore.  Let me tell you that we explored so well that we stumbled across some really nasty stuff!  As we first walked out of the gates, we walked straight past all of the oldest payphones in the world.  Of course we stopped to see how much a call would cost, but forgot about the language barrier.  We could tell, however, by comparing the numbers on the screen to the numbers on the keypad that it would cost .25 pounds or about $0.05 to place a call.  The phone was covered in filth and looked as if it was 50 years old.  We then kept walking in search of a business district; however, we stumbled across an open-air market (basically a few sheds on a side road that pulled out “merchandise” to sell).  These little vendors sold everything:  meat, cheese, eggs, fruits, vegetables, whole fish, electric fans, grains, seed, coolers, etc.   It was a true eye opener and a great example of why you can’t eat hardly anything in Egypt.  They had hundreds of eggs sitting out loose on a wooden cart pulled by a donkey baking in the hot sun.  They had cheese sitting on top of a plastic box melting away with no form of packaging on the cheese.  Everything was just sitting out in full sun with no packaging or means of refrigeration, as cars drove by kicking up dust, etc.  They had whole fish stacked up on a wooden cart separated by rusty nails drying out in the heat and sun.  Whole animals were being skinned and chopped to pieces as they hung from the ceiling, again outside on the dusty public street. 

We continued walking around for a little while longer until we started feeling uncomfortable with how the locals were looking at us.  Every person we walked by just stared at us and we knew we didn’t belong.  I am sure it is the same feeling many of the fully covered Muslim women get in the US, but I got to experience it in Egypt, even as a young man.  We then promptly returned to the ship for lunch.  Around 13:00, Danielle, Nick and I headed down to the busses for our SAS trip to the Alexandria Orphanage. 

The Alexandria Orphanage currently has 34 children and they all live, eat, sleep, play, learn and grow together.  One family lives with and provides everything for the children.  With the help of many others from around the community, including some of the older orphans that have moved on in their lives, they start trust funds for each child, teach them how to work together, provide them with an education, assist them in figuring out their passions, and support them in learning more about each of their favorite subject areas in hopes that they will be successful in that field later in their life.  Our tour guide told us on the short ride over to the orphanage that you may not adopt children in Egypt, as it is against the law.  As a side note, there also is a law that no one can be homeless and sleep on the streets; consequently, the Egyptian government provides free housing to all of its homeless citizens. 

Once we arrived at the orphanage, we climbed to the third story of the ten-story building to greet the children.  We brought some toys and school supplies with us to play with and then donated them to the orphanage when we left.  All of the children were very happy to see us!  At first they were very shy, but within three minutes they were playing catch with little balls, blowing bubbles, making origami hats and paper airplanes out of construction paper, building various figures out of Playdough and having a good ole’ time.  The best part was the children’s fascination with our cameras. 

Many of them had never seen a camera before and they loved it when you showed them a picture of themselves on the screen.  After a few minutes, they all wanted to go take pictures of everything!  I spent a few minutes showing the children how to use the camera and then they were off taking pictures of everyone and everything.  It was a lot of fun to see who they wanted to take a picture of.  Many of the children wanted to take pictures of all of the caretakers and not of the other children.  Some of the children even wanted to be in pictures with the female caretakers that were fully covered.  That part was a little weird for me because how would you even know who that was in the picture a few weeks later.  I mean all married or engaged women wear the same solid black dress with only a strip of skin showing between their eyes, so that men besides their husbands can’t look at them.  It was a really unique experience!

I also spent a good amount of time talking to a few of the older kids there.  One was 12 (I have no idea how to even get close to spelling his name…let’s just call him Jack) and another that was 23, named Muhammad.  Muhammad was in the orphanage as a child and he is now an Economics Major at Alexandria University.  He is going to be a Junior this year and he spends a lot of his time at the orphanage helping the other children.  Four years ago, he agreed to take Jack from the orphanage and provide for him on his own.  Jack lived in the orphanage since he was 2 years old and has never met his real parents, but he was very open to talk about his life.  He knew a lot about his history, even as a baby, and discussed it with my roommate Nick and I in detail. 

Jack was even telling us stories about what it was like to live in Alexandria.  He had gone to show us around the rest of the 5 stories of the orphanage and we stopped outside on one of the balconies over looking the street.  All of a sudden, he just stopped what he was saying and said, “Please don’t stare or look at anyone that passes by on the street!”  Now, the street was four stories below us, but he wanted to make sure we didn’t stare or look at anyone.  Of course, we had to ask what his reasoning was.  He told us this story about the people that live in the “building” across the street.  It was very weird that he never called it a “house” across the street, always a “building.”  Anyways, he said that the guys who lived there were killers, drug dealers, murderers and thieves.  One day he remembers being on the balcony watching the guys come out of the “building” and steal a car from the side of the road.  He said that he knew that they had stolen the car, but the authorities never punished them because they were part of the mafia and the Police didn’t care.  He vividly remembered the day that they sold the stolen car because everyone on the street wanted to kill them.  They all were in this walled in section of the back yard throwing a party all day and all night with loud music and all of the other mafia members were there too. It was very personal to see a 12 year old boy tell this story so vividly and so openly to people he had just met one hour earlier.  It was a very intense conversation! 

After our very long discussion, we went back down stairs and played with the other children for a few minutes before we had to leave.  We all took a group picture and the family was so happy that we came to visit them and the children.  The children didn’t want us to leave, but of course we had to get back to the ship.  It was a truly unique experience!  I feel as if I could visit an orphanage in any other country in the world and not get the same feeling as I did here.  It was just truly remarkable to see how much that orphanage impacted the children’s lives. 

Once we returned to the port, we went over to the few shops to see if we could find any cool souvenirs or gifts.   This was the only place we have seen that has postcards, magnets, tee shirts, etc.  The postcards were all super ugly and didn’t even look like the place depicted on them.  The magnets were all cheaply made, very expensive and not that cool.  The tee shirts were all discolored from the sun and some of them looked like they have been sitting there for years.  I was very surprised to see that they had no good souvenirs at all.  Oh well!  We spent so much time there that we had to run back to the ship at 19:15 to get dinner before the dinning halls close at 19:30.  We ate dinner and then watched a pirated copy of Toy Story 3 that one of my friends had purchased along the way.  I was so tired that I actually fell asleep during the first 10 minutes, so I will have to watch it again sometime.  It was another very interesting day in EGYPT!!!

Day 45...Our Egypt Adventure!

Day 45, July 29th:

Egypt Day 3!

Oh what a day!!!  I will go ahead and warn you that this day is not full of sights!  It is full of taxi rides and trying to make our way home to Alexandria.  We began the day by going up to breakfast at our hotel.  Note: the hotel is on 3 levels of a building and you enter each floor by a common staircase, so the hotel attendant must let you into your floor each time with a key.  While at breakfast, the hotel attendant looked the one and only key to our floor on the other side of the door.  When we come down to get our stuff, we quickly realize that we are not getting into our room anytime soon.  We go back upstairs and wait in the fan cooled room, while they work for the next 45 minutes to open the door.  Once inside, we grab our belongings and head to the train station to buy our tickets back to Alexandria for later that day.  Our taxi wanted to drop us off on the other side of the highway from the train station or else it would cost an extra 10 pounds ($2) to get to the other side of the street.  There was no way in hell we were about to walk across the highway, so of course we made him take us around.  It would have been like trying to cross I-20 at rush hour with your legs tied together! 

We get out of the taxi and make our way to this large, filthy building with construction material all over the sides of the building so we can’t read the signage (it was in Arabic anyways…we found this out later).  The interior of the building was just as nice as the outside, so a tourist police asked us where we needed to go.  He directed us to the correct spot and we waited in a very long line.  Once we reach the counter, we learn that only one person speaks English, so we must get in the back of yet another long line.  The only English speaking person then tells us that all trains for all classes are booked completely through Saturday evening (3 days later…the night that the ship leaves).  There is supposedly nothing she could do for us.  We then all walk back out to the large, open terminal to discuss our next plan of action. 

This was all news to us because the interport lecturers and the ship’s crew told us that you can always get on a train the same day and they also said that you can’t purchase tickets more than 24 hours in advance.  Both of these turned out to be completely false!  We immediately decided to call the ship and ask about other ways to get back, as well as if we could jump on a SAS bus that was leaving Cairo all throughout the day if there was room.  I spoke directly to the Dean and he was unaware of where the busses were going to be leaving from and what time they were actually leaving.  He could not get a hold of anyone in the Field Office to ask them either.  He told us to look into alternative methods of transportation; however, the “Greyhound” busses of Egypt are always crammed pack and are without air-conditioning.  We quickly determined that those busses would be our last resort for our 3-hour trip back to Alexandria. 

Since we all were on the SAS camel and jeep safari trip the day before, we knew where that trip ended before it headed back to Alexandria.  We thought it was worth taking a taxi all the way out there to see if we could just jump on the SAS bus back.  We knew that would be the safest way back, probably even better than the train.  We quickly left the train station, took another taxi back to the hotel, ate lunch at a nearby McDonald’s, grabbed our belongings, and got a taxi to the Sakkara County Club.  The taxi driver said he knew exactly where we wanted to go; however, we found out about half way there that in reality he didn’t.  He took us to the town of Sakkara and then asked us how to go the rest of the way.  We obviously had no idea because we were on a bus. 

All we had was the address, in English and in Arabic, and a phone number that didn’t work.  We asked him to stop and ask directions from the locals, but they would only point him in the direction and wouldn’t tell him where to turn or anything like that.  It was ridiculous.  After driving and sitting in traffic for 2 and a half hours, our prayers finally came true!  The SAS busses pulled out just in front of the taxi!  We were so excited to see them!  If we were one minute earlier or later we would have been in for it; however, we told the taxi to go fast and stop that bus.  While the taxi is driving across the bridge and only one of the three busses has not yet drove off, I swung open the taxi door and waited for him to stop in front of the bus before jumping out!  I immediately ran up and pointed to the SAS sign that said it was the back-up bus for the Camel and Jeep Safari Trip.  I told him our situation quickly and he called his boss to see if they would let us ride the bus back to Alexandria.  They said yes!!!!!!!!!!  Our entire day of running, hoping, wishing, and praying was coming to an end!  We caught the last bus!!!!!!!  We paid the taxi driver 40 extra pounds for taking us all the way and doing as we asked.  The 2.5-hour ride was only $20 for all of us.  We were just thankful to be able to get on the SAS bus back to Alexandria. 

The crew on the backup bus then took down our passport info, called back the tour agent company and alerted customs at the port of the additional people coming back.  It worked out perfectly.  The three of us were on a safe, air-conditioned, and empty bus.  There were only 3 crew people, including the driver, and the 3 of us onboard.  They gave us cold bottled water and talked to us for about an hour about our day!  They were so nice!!!  We took a little snooze on the way home, ate some of the snacks we purchased the night before, and listened to some music.  The bus dropped us right off at the port and we were so ready and thankful to be back at the ship!!!  It is our home!!!  We ran up to dinner and ate some real food, talked for a few hours and went off to bed!  We didn’t want to leave the ship again after that!  It was a very stressful day, but everything worked out in the end! 

We never really got to see anything in Cairo, except what we saw from our many taxi rides and our SAS trip.  I didn’t even get a picture of the Nile River because I was watching where we were going.  I did drive over it three times though!  I guess that counts.  I didn’t get to visit the Egyptian Bazaar, where the sell many various items made from Egyptian cotton, etc.  I didn’t get to have my hot air balloon ride either.  Egypt has made me mad because I didn’t get to do anything that I wanted to do, except get on that SAS bus!!!   Oh well!  Finding a safe way home was much more important than the Egyptian Bazaar or the Nile.  WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Just ask yourself, “What did you do today?”  Did you get the opportunity to jump out of a taxi that cutoff a tour bus in Cairo, Egypt?  Did you get to cross the Nile River three times in various taxis?  Did you get to eat a McDonald’s Big Mac for lunch with only bread and meat because you could get E. coli from eating the rest?  Did you brush your teeth with bottled water or shower in a shower with no shower curtain and a broken faucet?  Did you wake up in the Obama Suite of a hotel in a 90% Muslim country?  I would bet that you answered “no” to all of those.  Now you know why Semester at Sea gives you a global education! 

Day 44..PYRAMIDS, CAMEL RIDE, JEEP SAFARI!

Day 44, July 28th:

Egypt Day 2!

This morning I awakened from my awesome night of sleep around 06:00 in order to shower, eat breakfast, and round up the troops before heading to the bus around 07:00 for our Jeep Safari and Camel Ride SAS trip.  Today’s group for the adventure consisted of Danielle, Heather, Mindy, David, Molly, Megan, Julie and Carmen.  What a great group of people to go explore the desert with!  The bus left around 07:30 and we had a long 3-hour bus ride to the Giza Plateau, right outside Cairo, Africa’s largest city.  The entire bus was out like a light after hearing 10 minutes of our tour guide’s history lesson.  She finally realized that everyone fell asleep so she stopped talking to us until we got about 10 minutes away from the pyramids. 

From miles away, you could see the Great Pyramid in all of its beauty sitting on top of the world for all to see.  It was absolutely stunning!  You always see it in pictures and movies; however, you ain’t seen nothing until you stand at the base of the pyramid and look up!  It is massive!!!  On the other hand, it is still short enough that I could touch the top, put my sunglasses on top of it, and even make it wear a hat.  I even have pictures to prove it!  It was so much fun!  There are three main pyramids in Giza and we got to see all three of them.  (In a whispering voice…) “I got to see one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World!!!!!”  It was pretty freakin’ remarkable!  Just think about how the Egyptians got all of those huge @$$ rocks up to the top of the pyramid billions of years before modern machinery even existed!  We then proceeded down the valley to see the Sphinx!  It was actually not as enormous as I had expected, but it was still pretty large.  It sits down in a little valley/hole so that it looks like it is sitting at ground level.  Pretty neat huh!

After getting a glimpse at the pyramids and the sphinx, we headed to the Sakkara Country Club to have lunch.  Since we can’t eat anything with raw vegetables, dairy products or water, our choices at for lunch were slim.  They consisted of rice, pita bread, beef in gravy, spaghetti and baklava for dessert.  What we actually could eat was really good.  It was just upsetting that we couldn’t eat more because the entire buffet looked amazingly delicious. 

After lunch, we boarded the busses again and headed towards the world’s first monumental stone building, the Step Pyramid of King Zoser.  It was pretty cool too!  They weren’t experts at building things back in those days, so you can actually see that they had to change the height and angle of the steps on one side to meet the other side.  It is still an awesome pyramid.  We all also made a step-human pyramid in front of the Step Pyramid!!! Beat that!!!  We had a great time! 

We then headed back to the Sakkara Country Club for our Jeep safari and camel ride.  This was definitely the best part of the day!!!  I have never had so much fun in my life!  The 4x4 Jeeps full of either 4, 6, or 8 people drove all over the desert at high speeds going up and down the sand dunes, while spinning all over the place.  It was sooooo much fun!  Those sand dunes are HUGE too.  I can’t believe some of the hills we went up!  So much fun!!!  We also went up towards the Giza Pyramids again and then over to the Step Pyramid too.  We could see both at once!!!!  It was absolutely amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The Jeeps then took us over to where we meet our camels, which took us for a 20-30 minute ride back to the Country Club.  My camel was named Michael Jackson.  It was actually really easy to ride the camel, but I thought it was weird that there was only a place for your foot on one side of the camel.  It was not really uncomfortable, nor was it as bad as everyone hyped it up to be.  The camel didn’t smell and it didn’t have any fleas!  It was pretty neat.  The coolest part was when the camel stood up and laid down so I could get on and off. 

We then got back on the bus and headed back into the city of Cairo; however, we jumped off the bus there because we wanted to spend the night in Cairo so we could explore the next day.  We walked around the corner to where all of the other SASers were staying and they got us a taxi to our hotel and gave us a map of the city.  We stayed at the American House Hotel in downtown Cairo.  It had a great view of the city streets from the balconies.  All 7 of us got 3 rooms to share; however, Heather, Molly and David decided that they were to good to stay with us in our $11 per night hotel, so they left and went back to the 5-star Mena House with the other SASers.  That means that the 4 of us ended up with 3 rooms that could sleep 11 for the 4 of us.  We all decided we wanted to all stay in the same room for safety so we chose the Obama Suite!  It had 4 beds and an in-suite bathroom rather than a hall bath; however, there was no shower curtain on the shower and it didn’t have a fully functioning showerhead (we had to hold the showerhead together to shower)!!!  Oh well!  That made it more interesting!!!  I mean it was only $11 and it was the highest rated hotel in Cairo besides the 4 or 5 star hotels.  After checking in and discovering that half of our group didn’t want to stay with us in the hotel, the four of us headed out in search of some food.  We walked for a little while and didn’t really see anything, but suddenly we stumbled across a mall so we went in search of the food court.  We ended up ordering chicken fingers and fries from a restaurant; however, they were raw when they showed up at the table.  Danielle and I ended up just going and ordering chicken fingers again from KFC.  This time they were cooked properly, so we ate and headed out in search of some snacks and bottled water (so we could brush our teeth…).  We then took our snacks up to the room and hung out on the balcony because it was much cooler outside than it was in the room.  5 other SASers were staying in the Carter Suite next door to us, so we ended up all hanging out and talking with them for hours.  It was a lot of fun!  We finally went to bed around 1 am.

As a side note, I would like to talk a little bit about all of the weird stuff we saw along the way today.  For example, the dead horse in the river full of trash separating the two lanes of the road.  Another example is the man pulling a woman up by her hair next to the side of the road as he kicks her and lets her fall back to the ground before doing it again and again.  It was a very nice place!  I have some pictures to show you how beautiful it was!  I mean I don’t have pictures of the woman or the horse, but I do have many pictures of the dirtiest and trashiest places on the planet!!!! It was so disgusting.  Egypt is the filthiest place I have ever seen in my life!  It is like living in a trash dumpster.  Alexandria is the “RESORT CITY” of Egypt and it is even so disgusting.  As I mentioned yesterday, the water is totally nasty near shore and it is full of garbage.  Even the beaches are filled with trash, but the locals are all hanging out at the beach in their full body coverings.  This is definitely one country I don’t think I will be visiting again! 

They also do not spend any effort on the tourism aspect of Egypt.  There were only two other ships in Alexandria the entire 5 days we were there: a Chinese military ship and one cruise ship.  In the other countries, there were more than 2 ships docked at all times besides our ship.  For example, Barcelona had at least 5 other ships docked at all times and Piraeus had 3 but there also were a lot of ships anchored off the islands.  What a difference! 

Day 43...I walked like an EGYPTIAN!!!

Day 43, July 27th:

EGYPT Day 1!!!

As I rolled over and turned off my alarm clock, I looked out my window and saw the city of Alexandria before my eyes.  My first impression was that it was a very ugly city.  The seawater changed from the bluest you have ever seen to the muddiest, trash filled water I have ever seen.  The ships surrounding the port are all rundown and disgusting.  The beautiful countryside changed to awesome view of dilapidated buildings full of clothes whipping in the wind while hanging to dry.   Alexandria is definitely not a city of beauty and after only a day in Egypt, I already get a feeling that the entire country is the same way. 

Today, I was planning on roaming and exploring Alexandria.   Danielle, Molly, David and Kylie also wanted to do the same.  All of us are going on the Camel Safari trip, so we spent the day exploring.  We were all finally ready to disembark the ship around 11:00, but we decided to just wait until 11:30 and eat lunch on the ship.  I would much rather play it safe then go eat my first meal off the ship on my first day in Egypt. 

After lunch, the five of us left the ship in search of a taxi to take us to the non-existent lighthouse we saw on the Internet.  The taxi driver told us that he would just be our personal driver for the day for a flat rate of 50 Egyptian Pounds (EP) per person.  ($1=5.65 EP) We decided to take him up on his offer and go explore.  He then walked us to his 1973 Peugeot and took us straight to the Citadel of Qaitbay.  It was pretty neat for only 15 EP.  It was a fort right on the coast and was built in the same spot as the Alexandria Lighthouse, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  We climbed to the third floor and looked through all of the little windows at the surrounding views.  The water was crashing upon the bricks along the shore, which produced a very neat spray of water into the air.  The people at the castle were actually all Egyptian minus two Chinese people and the five of us.  As we were leaving, there was a family of Egyptians taking pictures of each other with the cannons.  We asked them if they would take a picture of us and they immediately acted like we were royalty.  They took our picture but then wanted to take pictures with us along with them.  It was so funny.  Our first picture taken by Egyptians progressed into taking about 20 pictures with a local Egyptian family.  The girls were taking pictures with the girls and the guys with the guys.  After all of our pictures, we proceeded back to the taxi to move on to our next destination, the mosques of Alexandria, including the Mosque of Abu El Abbas. 

The taxi took us right to the front door of the mosques, but service was going on so we couldn’t go inside.  We took our pictures and was headed back to the taxi when one of the tourist police motioned us in the other direction.  We thought that maybe we couldn’t go out where we came in, so we followed him.  He just took us around the building to show us three other mosques too, allowed us to take pictures, and then as we turned to go back he demanded a tip.  We didn’t want to give him anything, especially since we all had only bills, but Kylie gave him 1.5 EP.  We then fled quickly back to the taxi.  I guess you can’t even really trust the tourist police!  The ship warned us about this, but when the guy is holding a machine gun it is hard to not follow his directions.  We will definitely try to ignore them for the rest of the trip and not follow them if we know where we are going.  It’s sad that you can’t even trust the tourist police! 

We then got back in the taxi and went to the Alexandria museum.  It was actually a pretty weird museum, but it did show us a lot about the history of Alexandria, as well as many different ancient pieces of art.  For example, there was a rather large vase with a lid that had birds and leaves on it and the sign describing the piece said “large vase with lids with a floral motif and birds.”  How did they know that????  It was so stupid.  All of the signs were like that.  They never told you anything about the history of the piece, just about what it looks like.  We got bored there rather quickly, so we went back to the cab rather quickly.  It only was 20 EP to get in so we were fine with leaving after 30 minutes. It wasn’t very big either, as we did walk around the whole thing. 
The taxi driver then took us to a little restaurant for a coke and then supposedly to a shopping mall; however, it was more like a store full of very expensive souvenirs for tourists.  Anyways, we then asked him to take us by a grocery store before heading back to the ship for the night.