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Published: March 18th 2022
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Maggie had a wonderful time in Portugal! She adored all the brightly colored buildings, got to see a bright yellow castle, and had fun climbing thousands of stairs on the
Paiva Walkways. She definitely wants to go back to Portugal someday.
Life on the ship has also been more positive, thankfully. Now that the weather is warming, she and her friends are able to spend more time on deck soaking in the sun. As a thank you to her friends for all the great care they took of her in Spain, we treated them all to pedicures at the ship's spa, after which they splurged on "fancy dinner" in the ship's fancy dining restaurant. It was a fun, memorable night - and exactly the kind of experience Maggie's been craving for over two years. It's incredibly gratifying to hear her so happy and truly being able to relish this unique experience.
They are on their way to Brest, France. Maggie and her friends have big plans for Disneyland Paris (she will always be a Disney princess girl no matter she is in the world, apparently. She also has another field class, though she is not looking forward to it. Instead
of scuba diving, as they do on the Fall cruise, apparently, they will be going to the mud flats of France near Mont St. Michel. Maggie plans to sacrifice a pair of shoes for this field class.
She is also starting to make plans for post-voyage. It's hard to believe, but disembarkation is April 20, only 5 weeks away! They still have a few ports between now and then, and instead of going to Poland (for understandable reasons as well as the fact that Poland requires cruise ships to have 0 COVID cases), they'll be going to Denmark. But once she is off the ship, the "current" plan (which tends to change almost weekly) is to go to Switzerland to go hang gliding in the Swiss Alps, then head to Ireland to catch an Ed Sheeran concert with some Semester at Sea friends, hop on up to Iceland because it's so cheap to fly from Ireland to Iceland and then head home. ;-) We'll see how long this plan lasts.
But this week Maggie got some absolutely fantastic news - she was admitted to the nursing program at George Mason University! She is over-the-moon excited, as are we!
It's a fairly competitive program, and we were not confident she would be admitted. But starting this Fall, she plans to find a group of other nursing students to live with off campus in Fairfax and buckle down for 2 years to get her degree. It is wonderful to see her on track to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse, and to have a specific plan in place for the next couple of years.
That's all the news we have for now. Thanks to those who are still reading along. We'll post after France and hopefully cajole some pictures out of our wandering daughter!
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