I'll start with the good stuff. We sailed past Italy/Sicily yesterday and we were so close we could see houses and cars. I've actually never made it to Italy, so it was pretty exciting! I've also officially finsihed everything and handed it in. I have one final in a couple of weeks, so until then it's smooth sailing... Or so I thought. I found out two nights ago at approxmiately midnight that the US Dept. of Education doesn't recognized Al Akhawayn, the university in Morocco, because it's so new (15 years old). This puts me back in the same exact position [View Full Entry]

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On our lovely scholar boat, the food is, well…frozen, packaged and mushy. Most foods are white and lacking any type of flavor. It’s not the worst food in the world, but after several months, it becomes quite repetitive and boring. However, there is a solution to our food blues. It is the sandwich man. The sandwich man works upstairs outside of the student center meticulously making sandwiches for $3.99. My personal favorite is the chicken and cheese with lettuce, tomatoes and thousand island dressing. Each sandwich has about ½ pound of chicken, 6 slices of cheese, a whole tomato, [View Full Entry]

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I’m definitely in Europe. And I’m definitely having culture shock. It first hit me when I got off the boat, crossed the road and was not almost run over by 15 cars, bikes and tuk-tuks. Traffic laws are something that I haven’t seen obeyed since November. That is nearly 4 months of fending for myself in the road. To be able to cross when the little man turns green and not worry about being plowed down was a nearly new concept for me! The second time it hit me was when I looked around the crowded streets and realized I fit [View Full Entry]

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I am stealing internet right now in a hostel. I have no idea how good our connection is, so I'm going to stop wasting time typing & start uploading pictures! [View Full Entry]

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Today has been a super fantastic wonderful day. We lost an hour of sleep last night which is not super, fantastic or wonderful, but I slept right through my alarm until noon. I missed my economics class which is a-okay with me. (Sorry mom, I’m the one paying the bills now so I can make the rules!) It’s been rainy all day which surprisingly I didn’t mind. In fact it reminded me a bit of being back in Ireland and it was quite refreshing to feel the rain on my face again. Unquestionably, the best part of my day is when [View Full Entry]

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I’ve been traveling the world for four months. I have been to 11 countries on 4 continents since Thanksgiving. I have discovered many things about myself, about the people around me and humanity as a whole. We are all interconnected and so similar yet so different at the same time. I can best describe what I have seen and experienced through Skittles. Yes, Skittles. In America, a pack of skittles would cost roughly 60 cents. The bag would be in English with five flavors: grape, lime, orange, strawberry and lemon. Skittles would be sold at most grocery stores, markets, gas stations, [View Full Entry]

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My apologies for not posting pictures yesterday. The one internet café in Saint Vincent had only one computer with internet & the wireless cost $10 an hour. I just couldn’t justify spending that amount when I’ll be in Barcelona in less than a week. Cape Verde was great…way too quick, but great. I signed up for a shore excursion in the morning because it was cheap and the only way I’d be able to see the island in the amount of time we had to spend there. We visited a vegetable market and fish market, saw an old prison and went [View Full Entry]

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The last two days have been great. March 10 was a free day and it was also wedding day. I had cultural show rehearsal in the morning and spent the afternoon reading and beautifying myself for the wedding. We all filed outside at 5 for the ceremony, which was very multicultural. Not only was everyone dressed in outfits from around the world, but we had a non-denominational ceremony, a reading from the Bible, a Buddhist tradition of tying string on everyone’s wrists, and a Moroccan song celebration. We also had a band made up of people from 4 nationalities, a Bollywood [View Full Entry]

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I remember writing last let that I thought it was my busiest leg & I would have more time to blog in the future. I was wrong. Our first day back my computer charger completely died. I asked IT if they had computers to loan and they did not. I really thought I was done…I don’t know how to function on this boat without a computer. Then, I found out the LRC (library) computers had undergone some changes so that you couldn’t access Microsoft Word, couldn’t print, couldn’t save to a USB and couldn’t access our internal email. Fannntastic. The next [View Full Entry]

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I know some of you have heard that I didn’t go skydiving. For those of you that haven’t heard, here’s the story. The day before skydiving I woke up and didn’t feel 100%. I was hoping I just had a bug of some kind and it would pass. I hiked Table Mountain, which was amazing, and I felt fine. That evening was the ballet, so I got dressed up and headed out. Around intermission I started feeling really sick so I got a taxi back to the ship. As soon as I was in my room I was really ill and [View Full Entry]

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