A little about this blog:

Unless you're my mom or grandma you probably stumbled across this page accidentally and are wondering, what am I reading? (That is...if you bothered to read at all). This is a blog about my Fall 2014 Semester at Sea Voyage. As you may imagine traveling around the world in a cruise ship with 600 other college students was a decent experience. Inside these rambling paragraphs I try to pass of as blog posts you'll find some cool stories, travel tips, and general insight on life (world travelers are incredibly wise, just ask us).

Disclaimer: You'll find some mild foul language in the posts. Cut me some slack, it's nice to write something I don't have to hand to a professor.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

A final farewell from yours truly

I figured I should write one last little reflection type blog now that the voyage is officially over and I'm sitting at home with full access to internet, cellphone, and food other than potatoes. Tomorrow is actually the one year anniversary of the day I decided to do Semester at Sea and told my mom (almost made her crash the car whoops sorry mom). It's unbelievable that now I'm sitting here back from the most incredible journey of my life. I'm gonna give a few lessons I learned, maybe some future study abroad student will read them and learn something, or former abroad people will read them and relate, or somebody will read it and think I'm really stupid, I don't know. But here are some of the main things I learned the semester I peaked.

1. FLEXIBILITY- That was the motto of the Fall 2014 Semester at Sea voyage and it was definitely fitting. Whether it's something small like trying to figure out which attractions to visit in Paris or our entire voyage being changed and losing the chance to go to Senegal and Ghana, you gotta be flexible. Sometimes you are travelling with a group and people want to do different things, it's okay to split up and it's probably worth it. I've learned that unexpected things happen but you just gotta go with it, if you dwell too much on certain trivial things you're not going to enjoy the chances you do have. I was super bummed about not going to Senegal and Ghana but we went to Italy and Barcelona, yeah it wasn't what we expected but I can name a hell of a lot of people who have never been to either of those countries. Enjoy the ride folks.

2. Technology is actually not as important as you think- To be honest I thought there was a pretty high chance I was going to die without internet. I may or may not have had a slight panic attack when I shut my phone off on the plane to London since I knew it wasn't coming back on until Florida. Social media is my life, I mean, let's be real my actual job was social media back at Bentley. It ended up being one of the greatest parts about being abroad. Sitting at dinner with people and getting to know them and looking people in the eye, it's a novel concept, I know. I'm glad I got to spend all that time away from the internet. Not knowing celebrity gossip for a few months was definitely worth all I got out of it. It is a little inconvenient to send the "I'm leaving wifi hopefully I'll see you there" text but it was so freeing. You also learn how to read a paper map which is a great skill.

3. Budgets are always a good idea- I actually came home with money still in my bank account, not much, but some. Chances are you will go over your budget and that's okay, I gave myself a kind of low budget just because I expected it. There are some things you don't really factor in when you're preparing to go abroad. Hostels, as cheap as they are, add up. Taxis are expensive. You do have to eat, and you will want to eat well. Splurge sometimes, don't miss out on experiences because you didn't factor it into your budget but be smart about what you are splurging on.

4. Journal- It's really hard to keep up with a journal when you're traveling so much. I'm guilty of falling behind on mine and I'm really upset with myself. I did better than a lot of people I know but I wish I had written more about the random nights on the ship when we were just hanging around or when something stupid or funny happens. It's those little things that are my favorite memories but I forgot to write them down.

5. Talk to locals- Locals are cool, they know shit. Plus they'll tell you all the sick places to visit and are usually really friendly.

6. Do stupid shit- Sorry adults you can skip this one. Don't get arrested or hospitalized, that's really stupid. But enjoy yourself and do stuff you wouldn't normally do that maybe isn't the best idea but it seemed like it at the time...

7. Make friends- If it wasn't for the incredible people I met along this crazy ride this experience wouldn't have been even close to as amazing as it was. Especially on the ship, but abroad in general, you have the chance to meet new people and create new friendships. Whether they're from your school and you weren't friends before or they live all the way across the country, you can meet some really great people. You get to know more about these people in under four months than you know about a lot of your friends from home. I can't thank my friends enough for the memories we've shared. WARNING: Leaving your new friends might be one of the top saddest days of your life. But on the bright side you have new places around the country to visit.

There's loads of little lessons that I could go on about for ages like make travel plans in the country before (shit sells out), wear a money belt, you don't need as many clothes as you think, take an absurd amount of pictures, back up your computer periodically, ship breakfast burritos are incredible..okay I'm done.

A final thank you to my loyal fans for reading this blog, I haven't read any of the posts but I can only imagine that there are quite a few spelling/grammatical errors, run on sentences, and absurdly long paragraphs. Thanks for sticking with me and helping me feel like somebody actually cared.

Peace out.

Cuba Libre

Okay, sorry for the delay I know people have been waiting on this one but I'm just in denial about being home. It's now been two weeks since getting off the ship I can't believe it, I still wish I could go back everyday. Not that I didn't miss home (don't attack me fam) but can you honestly blame me? Living on a ship with 600+ college students visiting a new country every couple days, I think I'll miss it forever.

If I had written this blog a week ago it would've been totally different. Cuba was by far one of my favorite countries I visited, I think a large part of that was based on the fact that I really had no idea what to expect. Any thoughts I did have about Cuba were definitely all wrong. It was the most friendly place we've been. All of the people, regardless of how well they spoke English (seeing as I couldn't speak any Spanish) did their best to make all of us feel comfortable and were willing to answer any questions, show us around, or just have a conversation. When I was leaving I was saying goodbye to some of the friends I had made, and both Cubans and Americans expressed how much we hoped that one day, we could see each other again. For many, communicating through email or other forms is impossible because very few people in Cuba have access to internet, therefore this was a permanent goodbye as far as we knew. Within a few days after returning home to the US, the news broke of the changed relations between our country and theirs. This was really exciting for all of us from SAS because it was one of the countries nearly all of us want to go back to the most.

I've been asked many times by people, "How were you even allowed to go to Cuba?"  Semester at Sea has a special agreement where we are allowed to visit Cuba as an educational visit. We were awoken the morning of the 29th with our Dean beginning to call out seas to go pick up their passports. We then had to go to the union where leaders from the University of Havana came to welcome us to the country, I ended up in the piano lounge because there wasn't enough room in the union.

After the talks, the entire shipboard community filed out onto buses to go to the college for more events. When we got there many students from the school were on the stairs leading onto this part of the campus to greet us. We then walked up the stairs as "Imagine" by John Lennon played over speakers (they love Lennon) and  we then listened to opening remarks on a stage set up in their quad. After they finished talked we dispersed into three groups, we were allowed to choose from 3 different lectures to attend about culture, politics, or the economy. I chose to attend the culture one having studied the politics and economy in the days on the ship leading to our arrival. After the lecture we went back out to the quad where music was playing and everyone was singing. Both SAS and University of Havana students were dancing together, it was pretty cool. Once everyone's lectures got out we got to watch some performances by students, there was some singing and some dancing. I got a chance to talk to some nice University students about what life is like in Cuba and tell them about our voyage, one of them even offered to let me check my Facebook on his computer since he was a computer science student and unlike most, has internet access. Unfortunately, we had to get back on the buses and return to the ship.

To get back on the ship we had to wait in a super long line since everytime we got onto the ship we had to put our bags through a scanner, get our passports checked, then go through ship security and this was the entire shipboard community. They had soup and sandwiches for people to eat for lunch except with the mad rush of people there was not enough food so I continued to starve. At four in the afternoon we went back to the union for our last lecture about Cuba. This time it was from an American ambassador in Cuba. Honestly, he was kind of a douche and was pretty rude.

Once the lecture finally ended we hung around a bit then ate dinner. That night, there was a big gathering in the square in Old Havana, about a five minute walk from our ship. We went out and there was already a lot of SAS kids and locals out in the square. There was music playing and people were performing, it was a really fun atmosphere. I got the chance to talk to a bunch of locals, they were all really friendly and happy to talk to us. Also, luckily for a lot of us, most of them spoke English really well. As the night went on and the crowd in the square thinned out we made our way back to the ship for bed.

The next morning we slept in later than we'd expected to although we had stayed out pretty late and had been woken up really early the day before so it was much needed. Once we got off the ship, we went back towards the square we had been at the night before. Ayah and I went off to go shop in some of the little stores around the area. We wouldn't be allowed to purchase anything to bring back to the US that wasn't "artwork or educational materials" that kind of sucked because they had some really cool things that I wish I could have bought. We also couldn't take out any money from banks or ATM's so I couldn't buy as much or do as much as I would've liked. I was able to get a few cool things though. Cuba had some of the best artwork I've seen throughout the countries we visited.

After some time walking around the square we went to the San Jose flea market which was full of little stalls with people selling all kinds of stuff. There was art everywhere, jewelry, leather products, clothes. A lot of the stuff was the same or really similar from stall to stall but I did find some really interesting things there. It was getting later in the afternoon at this point so we went to this brewery next door to the flea market to eat and get drinks. Cuba had these beer tower things that were awesome, I'm tempted to invest in one back here. After a little while we headed back to the ship to get dinner. It would've been nice to be able to get dinner off the ship but with the whole money thing we had to be smart with our money and try to drag it out for two more days.

That night, we went back to the square again. It was more or less the same thing as the night before. I got a chance to talk to more locals which was cool. My friends and I hopped around a few of the different bars in the area. At the end of the night I was talking to a group of college students about baseball and the MLB, I got the chance to tell them all about how much the Yankees suck, classic. Just like the night before, once everyone started clearing out we headed back to the ship to go to bed.

I woke up the next morning bright and early because we were going to the University of Havana vs. Semester at Sea basketball game. About a week before we arrived in Cuba we found out there would be this game so students could apply and tryout to be on the men's or women's team. As much as I would've loved to relive the old basketball glory days, I decided to pass on playing. The girl's played first, it wasn't pretty on either end and we ended up losing by a few points. The guy's game was quite a bit better but we still ended up losing. It was impressive that it was so close though since our teams had never played together before and their only basketball practices had been on a rocking ship.

When the game ended we went back to the ship and hung around for a while. I went into Old Havana again with my friends Ashley and Ayah to walk around. We went to the Museum of Chocolate which wasn't actually a museum but actually just a cafe. The chocolate itself was gross but their drinks were delicious. We then walked around the streets for a little while. There is a ton of history around this area and a lot of the buildings and streets are pretty broken down but there is construction so they're obviously trying to fix it. After walking around for a while we gave into our exhaustion and went back to the ship for dinner. That night, Semester at Sea was holding a farewell reception in the evening but we're stupid and didn't sign up for it. Instead we found some other kids who weren't going (there weren't many) and figured out what they were doing.

We left the ship that night, our last night out abroad which was really depressing. We went to a bar called Dos Hermanos where Ernest Hemingway used to go to. We were there for a while then we went back to the brewery we had gone to the day before. There were a bunch of SAS kids there and people were dancing and socializing. After that we all got cabs and went to this club that people had been saying was the best club in Havana. We never even went in, apparently a couple kids went in before us and instantly walked out because it was more of a strip club, no thank you. So we decided to go back to the square that we'd spent every other day at. Instead of a regular cab we took a bike cab which are kind of ghetto but also really cool. When we got to the square there weren't many people there just the SAS kids who also forgot to sign up for the farewell ceremony. We stayed there for a while, I eventually headed back to the ship after spending a little time in the square.

The next morning we woke up for our last day in Cuba, and last day in any country at all. After eating lunch we set off to explore the city again. Our budgeting didn't work as well as we'd hoped so between me and my friends Ashley and Taylor we had six pesos aka six dollars. We had wanted to do more touristy stuff but with no money that was out of the question. Instead, we went to walk around the city once more. This time, we went to the Capital which looks just like the United States capital. There were also tons of old fashioned cars around and we went into a few shops.

After walking for a while we sat on a curb in the square that we'd spent most of our time in. There was a local guy who came over to us and started talking to us for a while. He told us how he had always dreamed of going to the US but has never been able to go. While we were sitting there a local guy came over to us and tried to sell us some of his bracelets, unfortunately we had no money so we told him we couldn't buy them. He ended up sitting next to me and we talked for a while. He told me how he is moving to the United States soon and his brothers already live there. I thought that was really interesting that he was able to move to America but our other friend couldn't just visit. After talking for a while we had to leave, the guy offered me a bracelet again but again I had to decline because I didn't have the money for it. He ended up tying it on my wrist and giving it to me as a gift which was so sweet. I still wear in everyday.

When we left the square we walked back to San Jose, the flea market which we walked around for a while. Then we saw a bunch of our friends in the brewery next door so went in to join them. It was a pretty depressing, a bunch of us sitting at a long table there was even slow music playing, it was literally like a movie. It was our last few hours in a country together after three and a half months exploring the world. When we left there we went up to this little outside area on the second floor of the cruise terminal to enjoy our freedom before we were required to be back on the ship.

It's so weird that this whole thing is really over. I feel bad for my family and friends back at home because I can't help but be slightly depressed that it's over and I think it's all I might talk about for the next 50 years of my life. I guess it's a good thing that I miss it so bad, imagine travelling the world for three and a half months and spending half of it ready to go home? No thank you.


Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Spring Breeeeeeeak...I mean Barbados.

I really don't have much to say about Barbados. It was a beautiful island, even with the torrential downpours we endured on the entire first day. For some reason, I think Semester at Sea didn't expect us to take this port as a pre-Spring Break and just party the entire time. Hey, we are legal.

This one's gonna be a quick one, but realistically the people reading my blogs don't care too much about what we did in Barbados so I'll just give a quick summary.

Day one we got off the ship and after like 2 hours trying to get through customs we were able to go to our villa we had rented. There was some miscommunication between the ship and customs in the country so they didn't think we had permission to stay off the ship which was annoying to say the least. But, in the end, they let us go. We got a cab and he drove us to our place while apologizing the entire way that it was raining out. When we got there we asked him to come back in a little while because some of our friends had rented out a bar to celebrate their 21st birthdays. He didn't even make us pay for the first ride right then, instead we'd just pay him when he took us to the bar. Barbadian's are really trustworthy.

The bar was super fun, it was outside right on the beach. It was still pouring when we got their and we paid our entrance fee which got us free drinks until 7 at night, a meal, and full use of all their activities on the beach which included a rope swing, water trampoline, swimming with turtles (couldn't do that cause of the rain) and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. It was such a blast, it even stopped raining a couple hours in. We left a little before it ended and went to a grocery store to pick up groceries to eat while we were staying in our villa.

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast and the girls I was staying with went to the beach across the street while I waited for my friends Ashley and Ayah to come over from the ship. It was pretty nice out. When they got over we ended up spending the entire day sitting around inside of the villa and it was great. We didn't even walk the ten feet to go lay outside by our little private pool. We literally just sat around. Not one regret. We didn't do anything at all that day, we had homemade mac & cheese for dinner then sat around the table until we went to bed.

Our last day in Barbados we checked out of our place in the afternoon and went shopping a little. I also had to go to a bank to exchange money to take to Cuba. It was our next stop and we weren't allowed to use American cards there so whatever money we came with to exchange was the only money we'd have for our four days there. That took well over an hour, island people are just so slow it's almost painful. Once I had finally gotten my money I grabbed a cab back to the ship. I spent my last hour before we had to be on the ship at the bar outside the cruise terminal enjoying my last bits of wifi with my fellow shipmates before returning to America (no wifi in Cuba).

A little later I got in line and got back on the ship on our way to our last country, Cuba.