Saving one of the best for last

Dubrovnik, Croatia was our last port of the journey. I think everyone on the ship would agree that two nights and three days in a beautiful country like Croatia is simply not enough time. The city of Dubrovnik was very different from any other city I have been to this summer. The city is surrounded by large city walls making it look like an old medieval city. The stone walls, marble grounds, and green shutters were an incredible site. Another thing that was so remarkable about the city of Dubrovnik was the damage that was done while they were at war in 1991 with the Serbs. There were pictures and books in every souvenir store which showed the snipers sitting on the city walls killing thousands of innocent civilians. The country has been through an immense about of pain and destruction in the last twenty years, but the city they live in now is one of the most peaceful and beautiful cities all throughout Europe.

At our meeting before arriving, we were told that due to the size of port our ship was unable to dock and we would have to use our lifeboats to tender to land. This was rather inconvenient especially with trying to get back to the ship late at night. The majority of the students ended up getting hotels in town so we didn’t have to worry about getting back in time to catch the last tender. My friends and I booked a three person apartment which was quite quaint right on the main strip. Since our funds have been diminishing for the past two months we decided to put eight of us into a three bedroom room. It actually worked out quite lovely with the use of an extra sleeping bag, blanket, and numerous $5 blow up pool floaties from the convenient store used as mattresses. No one was counting on a good night’s sleep in our last port so it was never really an issue. Although, with no hot water it did make it a little challenging for seven girls to shower and get ready, but we still managed.

So after we checked into our apartment Friday morning we dropped off our stuff, walked through the town and headed to the beach. The majority of the ship all flocked to the beach for an afternoon in the sun, relaxing, playing Frisbee, volleyball and anything else we could get out hands on. The only thing which would have made it better would have been a cornhole set. Next time I go to Europe Ill know what I need to pack. After a day at the beach we all headed back to our home to get ready for the night and head to dinner.

After dinner a lot of us headed to a Latino Club called Fuego for the night. It was a hoppin place and I think the regulars enjoyed 500 Americans invading their clubs, considering 90% of them were females.

Saturday morning we grabbed some breakfast around 9am, shopped around and contemplated our day. Unfortunately while we were there it was over 100 degrees so walking the city walls for two hours didn’t seem to appealing to lethargic group in the morning. Half of the group headed back to the beach whereas the others including myself went to an area we heard about from others to participate in some cliff jumping. To get to the cliffs we had to go through a little archway in the city walls which had a sign for a bar called “Cold Drinks.” The bar sat in the cliffs and overlooked the Adriatic Sea; it was an absolutely incredible view. Once passing through the bar the cliffs were off to the side full of people. Luckily there were levels for every person interested. They had some baby 10-25 foot cliffs, as well as a 50 foot cliff, and the big daddy which is said to be a little over 90 feet. I was yet to do anything very daring in Europe so I knew I had to take part in the cliffs. Unfortunately one of my friends Danielle who I was staying with jumped the day before, landed in a slight chair position and has a bruise on her butt and legs the size of the Grand Canyon. Considering ski season is approaching not to mention a twelve day voyage home I decided to go off the 50 foot one. Once I got up there I was still quite a bit nervous, certainly the highest thing I have ever jumped off. I tried to tell myself it was just like jumping off the pontoon like I’d done 1000 times before, but it was actually nothing at all like that. I even made the 35 foot leap in Bloomington at the quarries, but the jagged rocks and the extra fifteen feet or so made it quite a big difference. I had a few safety nets in the water ready to rescue me but after my five second count down I leaped and came out okay. We hung out at the cliffs for the day, a few people did the 90 and I did the 50ft and the smaller ones a few more times.

Later that afternoon we headed to the beach to meet up with the rest of the group for the afternoon. Because it was our last night in port we knew it was going to be a late night, we lounged around at the beach, took naps and later went back to the apartment for more napping and showering. My roommates (8 of us) went to a small restaurant called Wanda in an alley off the main strip. We all concluded it was the best meal we had the whole entire summer. We ordered various bruschetta and other appetizers as well as incredible spaghetti and seafood pasta dishes. The owner also lived in the States for awhile so he felt obligated to give us free dessert and more drinks as well. We of course didn’t want to be rude and decline so we gladly accepted. After our dinner we all headed to the East West beach club to meet up with everyone for the night. Considering the night before at Fuego was literally a heat wave it was great to spend the evening outside in the fresh air. The club had music going outside at the bar and outside club area as well as inside in the dance area. The night continued into the early hours of the morning until we decided to call it a night. When we got back I cuddled up on my floatie for a few hours rest. Our last day in Croatia was spent like the normal last days, spending our last bit of the country’s currency. We bought a few souvenirs and headed back to the cliffs, the view from all of the different landings was too hard to pass up on our last day. We had a few photo shoots with the three guys jumping for the smaller rocks doing dives and flips over each other from 25 feet up. I was a little sore from the previous day’s jumps so I refrained from jumping again.

When we got back to the boat I got to call my parents and talk with them for awhile and tell them about my time in Croatia. I don’t think the 90ft cliff would have gone over too well with them, but considering I don’t have any broken limbs from the smaller jump I think they aren’t too mad.

One main reason I want to come back to Croatia to see the different islands and various cities surrounded Dubrovnik. My cousin, Steve, spent some time working in Croatia and gave me an incredible list of sites to see throughout the country. Due to our time constraints I didn’t make it to many of the sites he recommended. He did reassure I would have a great time just in Dubrovnik for the weekend, which I surely did, I guess Ill have to come back to see everything else he recommended which I missed.

Sunday night we had our last BBQ on the outside deck before setting sail. The photographer on our ship took a picture of the entire community (nearly 1000) as we stood on the back 4 levels of the boat and he stood on land. The rest of the night we all hung out on the pool deck listening to the house band play music and reminiscing about our last eight weeks.

Its hard to believe the voyage has come to an end. In one way it went by in a blink of an eye but it also seems like forever ago when I said goodbye to my parents in Halifax. Im happy to say I took a thousand pictures, kept a journal, and wrote a blog so I can go back and relieve this journey as often as needed. And I think come February in Bloomington when my basketball team is in last place and I still don’t have a job after graduation I will look back over all of my memories from Europe. Im also very glad to say that I’ve made friends from all corners of the country and will look forward to road trips and reunions in the very near future.

Its now Tuesday, our second day into our 12 day trip home. I’ve completed one global studies paper, three anthropology papers, and have two more final papers and two tests to work on in these next few days. Im excited to get the work done and relax for a few days before we get back to Virginia.

I better get back to my studies, I hope you all have enjoyed my blog as much as I have writing it and hearing from everyone. I’ll put up a post later next week after my finals. Hope everyone has a great last few weeks of summer, cant wait to see everyone so soon!

-ANM

ps. Keep the emails coming, being at sea is when I get lonely. :(

It’s all Greek to me

We got to Piraeus, Greece Sunday morning. I walked around the city in the morning waiting for my tour to begin in the afternoon. Around noon a large group of us boarded busses to head into see the sights of Athens and the Acropolis. After seeing the structures in Rome and Egypt it was really cool to see how they all compare. Athens is the largest city in Greece and dates back to 3,000 years. Our first stop was the Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian’s Arch which was actually built by a Roman emperor in 131AD. We later saw the ruins of the Parthenon and Temple of Athena. The Acropolis was cool to see but our tour guide was a little disappointing and the majority of the site was under construction, so in every picture there were scaffoldings surrounding the different structures.

My favorite part was seeing the difference between the stadiums where the ancient Olympics and Olympics in 2004 took place. We got to see Panathenaic Stadium which is the only stadium in the world made of marble. It was used for archery and the marathon in ’04 as well as other events in the ancient Olympics.

When we finished our tour I got to call home and catch up with my parents and Nick and Ted at the lake. After the phone call I called it an early night as I had had a very tiring day out in the 100 degree sun for hours.

Monday I woke up early like a kid on Christmas morning. I was finally going waterskiing! Another girl from the ship and I took an hour long ferry to the island of Poros to spend the day there. Once we got to Poros we took the bus to the ski school. It was a really different from every other place I’ve skied in the past considering it was part of the Aegean Sea and the water was very salty. The place was much more low key than the ski camp I worked at in North Carolina but still had a lot of different activities available. They had three different slalom courses throughout the area and I found the smoothest water and got skiing. I ran the course a few times and the coach helped me kick a few old habits.

After a long afternoon we headed back to Piraeus for the evening. I was trying to get to Mykonos Island to meet up with my roommate and other friends but the ferries were sold out for the rest of the week so I found someone else to go back to Poros with me on Tuesday. I skied a little better the second day and enjoyed the beach for the rest of the afternoon. One of the instructors at ski school was from Melbourne, Australia and lived in Indianapolis last year working for an Australian racing team. I told him I went to IU and for the rest of the afternoon he was telling me stories and showing me pictures of him in Indy and Bloomington with him and his friends at the Kirkwood bars and tailgates. Quite a small world. Tuesday night we headed back and went out to see the night scene in Athens. It was pretty cool as we found a bar on the beach playing live music all night.

Thursday I woke up and headed to the beach for a few hours. The day turned out to be about 110 so we headed back early so we didn’t melt. I found some free internet, did some research for my classes and caught up with a few friends at home.

Tomorrow we are sea for the day as I expect to be cooped up in the library working on my 7 papers I have due in the next 12 days. We get to Croatia on Friday and we’ll be there for a long weekend. No set plans but we are all expecting lots of relaxation before we have to cram for our finals exams and papers.

Hope everyone had a great week, for those I got to talk to online or on the phone it was great catching up with you. Im very excited for my last country in Europe but getting very eager to see everyone back at the lake and Bloomington.

-ANM

Walk like an Egyptian...

Most people aboard the MV Explorer would agree our change of itinerary was a blessing in disguise. Due to the recent attacks in Istanbul the admin and staff had to reroute the ship and set up trips for all of the students onboard in less than 36 hours for Egypt.

Day 1 When we arrived into Alexandria, Egypt, forty of us boarded two busses on a three hour journey into the desert headed to Cairo. On board we had a great tour guide who knew every in and out of Egypt named Eman. Also accompanying us we had two armed security guards with fire arms every few feet of their body. It was a little worrisome that we needed them but reassuring that we were well protected. Our first stop was lunch at a hotel by the pyramids. After lunch we went across town to the National Archaeological Museum in Cairo. Minus the lack of air conditioning the museum was great. We got to see the famous 23 pound golden mask King Tut was buried in, as well as 143 different pieces of jewelry and hundreds of other artifacts found in his tomb. After the King Tut exhibit I got to check out animal and human mummies which dated back over 3,000 years ago. It was amazing to see how well the mummies were preserved with hair, fingernails, and other details still intact.

After the museum we went to check into our hotel and casino at the Marriott in Cairo which sat right on the river. After check in we headed for our dinner cruise down the Nile River full of entertainment with an Egyptian band and belly dancers. We called it an early night after dinner as we had a very early wakeup call on Thursday.

Day 2 The buzzer at 4:30am came a little earlier than expected. We managed to get out of bed and be on the bus by 5:15am. We had a boxed breakfast on the bus and headed to the Pyramids of Giza to see the sunrise. We took 50 different pictures in every tourist position possible. The camels arrived around 7 and we all got to take rides through the desert. They smelled unusually bad and I thought a few of us might get eaten by them, luckily we all survived. After hours at the pyramids we went to the other side to take more pictures with the sphinx.

After leaving Giza we went to the Citadel to see the Mosque of Mohamed Ali, the founder of modern day Egypt to learn more about the Muslim religion. Our morning continued with a two hour shopping spree at the famous Bazaar. It’s an area with hundreds of little shops with every magnet, t-shirt, jewelry, and Egyptian attire known to man. We finished the first half of our day with lunch at the hotel and then proceeded to take a very much needed 2-3 hour long nap. We congregated in the hotel to meet for dinner and then went back to the pyramids to for an interesting but a bit corny sound and light show. We all headed back to the hotel later that night and spent some quality time out by the huge outdoor pool and bar and listened to the live band play Egyptian music.

Day 3 We got to wake up a few hours later and got on the bus to head to Egypt’s first capital Memphis. The drive over was really different as we went through an old Egyptian village. There were more people riding goats and donkeys than there were driving cars. Once we arrive in Egypt we got to see an old temple with incredible drawings and hieroglyphics and an ancient cemetery of Sakkara. After checking finishing up all the sites Friday afternoon we got back on the bus to head back to Alexandria.

My time in Cairo was phenomenal. It’s was nice to cross another continent and one of the Seven Wonders of the World off the list. Unfortunately I didn’t get to check out the Lighthouse in Alexandria, but I didn’t miss much as it has been completely leveled by earthquakes in the 1300s. Egypt was certainly a world apart from the other European countries we have visited. It was great to step out of the common Christianity world and see the lives in the Islam society. It’s hard to believe they watch many of the same television shows as we do every day but when they step out of the house the women have their entire body and hair covered and more often than not are accompanied by a man at all times.

Today was our day at sea where we competed in our own Sea Olympics. The student body is divided into 6 seas (I’m on the Bering sea) and we had games like ping pong, basketball, synchronize swimming, lip sync, art sketch, jeopardy, iron chef, mashed potato sculpting, and many others. It was a lot of fun to take a break and have some friendly competition. Our team didn’t do so hot, but the faculty and staff (The Dead Sea) had some really great performances, especially the synchronize swimming.

Tomorrow we’re getting to Greece and we’re all very excited to get back on land and see some of the sites in Athens, relax on the beaches of Mykonos, and for me most importantly water ski. It will almost be two months since I’ve been on a ski so it will be very nice to get back on the water!
Hope everyone had a great weekend. Home in less than three weeks!