I've Fallen in Love

Over the past week and a half I feel head over heels in love....with
Spain. Someone had to force me to get back on the ship yesterday evening
because all I wanted to do was stay. I don't know any Spanish, or anyone
in Spain, but I wanted to stay. It is a beautiful, amazing country, and
I really think that I'm going to make a new life goal to learn Spanish
over the next few years and move back.

We started our time in Spain in Barcelona. Barcelona is a beautiful
large city with some pretty amazing sights and architecture. It is
however a large city and if you have been keeping up with my blog you
know that on this trip I've really enjoyed the smaller towns to large
cities. That is still the case, but Barcelona was great. I started the
first day there on a field program which was a city orientation. We
basically did a driving tour of the main touristic points in the center
of the city and then went on a bit of a walking tour through one of the
older districts in the city. We made a stop at the Barcelona cathedral
which was beautiful and was having a mass in one of the small chapels
while we were there. After the cathedral we headed up the mountain
passing the Olympic stadiums and headed to the Spanish Village. This was
one of the my absolute favorite places that we visited. The Spanish
Village was created as an outdoor museum representing the different
styles, architecture, and culture of the different regions of Spain.
Aside from beautiful buildings and a gorgeous view of the city, the
Spanish Village is filled with little restaurants and shops full of
different types of artisans from painters to jewelery makers and a whole
lot more in between. I wasn't feeling very well the first day so I
didn't get to explore as much as I wanted to. After the orientation I
went back to the ship to rest and then spent a couple hours before duty
over at the mall near where our ship was docked. Duty was a breeze the
first night in Barcelona which amazed me due to how close we were to the
city center and all the bars.

The second day I went on another field program to Montserrat which is
about an hour away from Barcelona. Montserrat is located on an amazing
mountain which is hard to explain so until I'm able to post pictures,
you should google image Montserrat to get an idea of what the mountain
looks like. On the top of Montserrat is a monastery which has between 30
and 60 monks who still live and worship there today. It is also the home
of a famous boys choir who sound amazing and were unfortunately on
vacation while we were there visiting. What Montserrat is most famous
for though is the black Madonna statue that was found in a cave near
where the monastery sits today. People from all over the world go on
pilgrimages to touch the hand of the Madonna. The line was way too long
to wait to touch the Madonna but we were able to see the shrine from
inside the church. We spent the majority of our time in Montserrat
exploring the different areas and going through an interactive
multimedia museum with the history of Montserrat which ended with a
video performance from the boys choir which was amazing. In my opinion,
we didn't really get enough time in Montserrat. There was so much more
that I wanted to do, like going to the top of the mountain, but our free
time just didn't allow us to do that. It was still great to be there and
explore what we were able to. The rest of the day I spent wandering
around Barcelona and doing more shopping. This was also the day that I
made the rash decision to chop all of my hair off at the Barcelona mall
near the ship. That was an interesting experience for sure. Luckily, at
this point my short hair is growing on me, but when I first got it done
I thought I had made a huge mistake.

The second night was our "big night out" in Barcelona, or rather it was
supposed to be our big night out of the trip, but we were all so
exhausted we only lasted until about midnight or so. We found a little
restaurant in the Gothic Quarter and had amazing tapas and homemade
sangria. Have I mentioned how much I love sangria?? After dinner we met
up with some other friends and started our night out. We found a tiny
little bar, had some drinks and then headed to the bar that Ernest
Hemingway used to frequent in Barcelona. It is this tiny little hole in
the wall that if you weren't looking for, you would walk right by. The
bar is very very old and you can tell by the cobwebs, dust, mold, and
bottles that are over 200 years old sitting behind the bar. The bar is
known for selling absinthe, so for the first time in my life I had some.
It was a very interesting process. They brought us the glass of absinthe
along with a small spoon, two sugar cubes, and a bottle of water with a
hole punched into the cap. We were shown the process of what we had to
do. Basically, you lay the tiny spoon across the top of the glass and
put the two sugar cubes on the spoon. Then you squirt the sugar cubes
with water and let them slowly dissolve into the absinthe. Once the
sugar cubes have dissolved you squirt a little more water down the side
of the glass and then the absinthe changes color. I had about two sips
and couldn't have anymore because I didn't like the taste. It was a
really neat experience and as a lit major, was pretty cool to be at the
same bar that Hemingway used to come to (even though he is not my
favorite writer at all). We headed back to the ship after the bar, so
our night ended much earlier than any of us originally thought it would.

The last day in Barcelona was probably my favorite day. I was signed up
to lead a field program to the chocolate museum. If you know me, you
know I LOVE chocolate. I currently have a huge stash in my cabin which
probably won't last until the end of the voyage. To start with, our
guide was very beautiful, young, and a lot of fun so that made the field
program even more enjoyable. We started our program with a walking tour
of the gothic quarter which was really nice since I hadn't spent much
time there during the day. After our walking tour, we headed to the
museum where we got to wander around and look at all the amazing
sculptures made from chocolate while learning about the history of
chocolate and the relationship that Spain has with the delicious sweet.
After our tour we had our own private chocolate lesson where we got to
make a chocolate animal (I picked an elephant) and then were given bags
of chocolate and was paper to draw on. Most of us drew the ship. And we
of course got to sample chocolate. I tried the hot chocolate and oh my
gosh, it was amazing. I bought a bag of their cocoa powder so that I can
make some of it when I get back home. It was a lot of fun and our group
only had 10 people which made it an even better experience. After the
museum I decided to do the hop on hop off bus around the city. I managed
to do two of the three lines and it was really nice to sit back, relax,
and see parts of the city that I hadn't seen before. I really wanted to
get off at the Gaudi park, but the line was so long to get back onto the
bus that I didn't want to risk getting off and then not making it to
other places I was hoping to see. I did get off at the Spanish Village
though because I wanted to spend more time there. It was really nice to
walk all of the property this time and go into more of the little craft
stores. I bought a few things that I'm excited to bring back. After the
Spanish Village it was back to the ship.

We had two days at sea between Barcelona and our next stop in Spain
which is when I should have written and posted this, but things have
been so busy with our last ports being so close together that I just
didn't get around to it. Our second stop in Spain was Cadiz. This is
where I officially fell in love with Spain. Andalusia is the southern
region of Spain and it is probably one of the most gorgeous places that
I have ever been to in my life and I seriously want to move to that
region at some point if I can. Our first day in port I was able to get a
ticket for the city orientation which was really nice because we walked
the entire city as it is only 3 miles long. It was great to learn the
history and get a feel for where things were. We also had the
opportunity to go into the cathedral and the crypt of the cathedral. In
the afternoon I went back out, without a map, and just walked around
town. It was so nice and relaxing wandering the little narrow streets
and not being worried about where I was going or what I was going to do.
I ran into a couple co-workers so had a sangria with them at a little
place that sold drinks in giant mugs for only a euro and had cute little
sandwiches that you could order to go along with your drinks. That night
was our girls night in Spain, so about six of us got together and went
out for tapas at a restaurant that had been recommended to us by one of
our friends who had been to Cadiz before. It was probably the most
delicious food that I have had the entire voyage. If any of your ever go
to Cadiz, let me know so I can tell you where this amazing place is!
After dinner, only one other girl stayed out with me but we went to the
main square to hang out and then found a tiny little bar down one of the
small side streets that was a Simpsons themed bar (it was very
interesting) and sat there, had a bottle of wine, and enjoyed chatting
and people watching. It was an awesome night. When I got back to the
ship I stayed up pretty late chatting with two of my favorite security
people which was really nice since we don't have much time left with
them at all.

My second day in Cadiz was actually spent on a field program to Sevilla.
Again, we had a gorgeous tour guide (Spain has some pretty attractive
men for sure). Sevilla is absolutely gorgeous and I really wish I had
been able to spend the night there to do more exploring. We started our
day at a bullring learning the history of bullfighting which was neat.
Then we did a walking tour of the city passing by several different
sites including the cathedral that was built on a mosque, we visited the
royal palace, and also saw the gorgeous Spanish Plaza that was built for
the Spanish exhibition back in the early 1900s as well as a few other
places. The buildings around the city that were built for the exhibition
are all gorgeous and I wish we had done a tour of those as well. We also
got tapas for lunch again and I have to say, I think I'm also in love
with tapas. It is just so good and the perfect portion size as well.
After we got back to Cadiz, I got together with another group of friends
and took them to the tapas restaurant I had gone to the night before so
I had even more delicious tapas. After dinner a few of us went out and
continued to have a great conversation and a fun night.

My last day in Cadiz was actually spent outside of Spanish territory in
Gibraltar. I had really been looking forward to this trip mainly because
I had grown up hearing about Gibraltar and used to have a crown coin
with Gibraltar on the back of it when I was younger. It was a pain
getting there thanks in part to the lovely relationship that Spain and
Britain have with each other over the territory, but we made it there
and had an amazing tour with a great guide named Karen. If you don't
know, the main road in Gibraltar is also its airport landing strip, so
on our walk to meet the buses we got stopped on the road and got to
watch a plane land and another take off. It was really neat because we
were so close to it. Our first stop in Gibraltar was to the World War II
tunnels that were dug out and had men (and women who were nurses)
staying in them for over 3 years. It was really neat to see the tunnels
and the pictures of the armed forces who stayed there. We also got to go
stand on a balcony that they made so that the men could take smoke
breaks when they were working and the balcony is literally cut out right
in the side of the rock. There are over 30 miles of tunnels in the rock
and we only got to see about a tenth of the tunnels which is crazy to me
with how much we did see. Our second stop was to tunnels that were dug
during a war with Spain back in the late 1700s. They were the
inspiration for the World War II tunnels (which by the way, Eisenhower
stayed in during the war) and had a really neat history for us to learn
about how the rock has been a defense system for years and how the rock
itself protects those inside of it from any harm such as bomb explosions
and such. After the tunnels we headed to St Michael's Cave and the top
of the rock. On our way up to the cave we drove the majority of
Gibraltar and it was really neat to see the different architecture which
showed the history of the rock and who had ownership of it at different
points in history. When we got to the top of the rock, we saw lots and
lots of monkeys, including one that jumped into our bus as soon as we go
there. It was really cool to see all the monkeys hanging around and
interacting with the tourists. There were also a ton of baby monkeys.
The neat thing is that every monkey on the rock is tracked and taken
care of. The cave was beautiful and I am looking forward to posting more
pictures so that you all can see it. After the cave we got about 30
minutes to walk around town, find lunch, and make it back to the bus.
During this time is when one of my favorite moments of the entire trip
happened.

On our walk back to the bus I had stopped and bought a bag of my
favorite British crisps and was eating them as we walked to the grocery
store to stock up on food. Most of the monkeys in Gibraltar live higher
up on the rock, but every once in a while, one or two will make their
way down to town. We turned a corner and all of a sudden I saw a group
of tourists looking at a monkey. I didn't think anything of it until the
monkey looked right at me, jumped off of the bridge it had been sitting
on and came to attack me. I panicked as most people would, but instead
of just dropping the bag of crisps, I handed it off to the assistant
librarian who was with me. I have no idea why I did this, I guess I
really just didn't want to lose my crisps. Well, the monkey saw me do
this and then literally jumped on the assistant librarian and wouldn't
get off. She finally had the sense to just drop the bag of crisps and
then luckily the monkey got off of her. So in short, I tried to
sacrifice our assistant librarian to the Gibraltar monkeys to save a bag
of monster munch crisps. It was hilarious and I really wish we had a
picture of video of the entire experience.

After Gibraltar it was back on the ship and we sailed to Portugal. We
had almost the entire next day on the ship since we weren't going to
arrive in Portugal until 4pm and none of the faculty or staff had any
responsibilities while we were sailing, so the faculty threw an RD
appreciation party for us in the Glazer Lounge. I won't go into details,
but it was an amazing night and we closed down the dance party around 3am.

Technically I'm already back on the ship from Portugal, but I'll wait
till my next entry to let you know about my time here. I'll be home
really soon and then I can post pictures of all the things I've been
telling you all about!!