With a few blasts of the horn we were off. Saying Adios to Spain and my voyage around the world. Granted I still have well over 3,500 nautical miles to travel back to Ft. Lauderdale I waved good-bye last night to the last foreign port of call. This whole adventure has been amazing. I am still “unpacking” things mentally and I will be for weeks, if not months, afterwards. It is going to be good to have the post-study abroad seminar at North Central when I return, but my experience is going are profoundly different from everyone else in that class.

While in Spain I met an American professor that teaches at an American military base in Spain and I had a very difficult time explaining what I have experienced in the past three months to him. To make my conversation with the professor even more troubling he has traveled much more of the world than I have and it was still very difficult to vocalize what I have experienced even though he has probably seen many of the things I have seen. At this moment I feel it is appropriate to apologize to all of you in advance for my inability to give you succinct summary of my experiences. As a warning to all of you who are going to ask the inevitable question, “how was it,” you will likely get a short answer and if you pry for more you may get a longer answer than you wished for.

Anyway, Spain was very nice. I stayed in the port town of Cadiz. There was plenty to see and do. I have found I prefer depth in experiences over breadth. While breadth is great if you want to see a lot, which I have, but after seeing so much you just want to make some deeper connections. The biggest surprise to me, in Spain, was the hours of operation the whole country works on. Most shops do not open until 9 or 10 am and then they close at 2 for Siesta, every day! They do not open again until between 4 and 6 and they stay open until late. The nightlife in Spain is absolutely insane. Most Spanish people will stay out until 4 AM, regardless of age! While in Spain I could think of a few of my friends from North Central that should move to Spain simply because the times when people are working, playing, and sleeping almost identical, but to us American’s seems absurd.

Right now we are headed a bit southward to avoid the rough northern Atlantic seas, as a matter of fact, we are avoiding a few storms. At the moment we have high swells, which is making life on the ship interesting for many people. Tomorrow (11/29) we have the Ambassador Ball, which is the shipboard communities big dance. It has an Indian theme (the official theme is “A night in Bollywood”) and it will be a night to remember. Currently, much of the student body is scampering around attempting to get papers and projects completed in the 3 days of lectures we have left. Since I am used to having heavy workloads at North Central I have managed my time very well and I am enjoying these last few days. For now I am going to enjoy walking around the ship again and savor the last days we have.

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Turkey was cold, but a pleasant change. We docked in Istanbul, which is the largest city in Europe and spans across Europe and Asia (separated by the Bosporus river). Turkey was cold simply because my 6 month summer ended. Average temperatures were around 50, which isn’t that cold. But since I am used to 90’s, the 50’s are really cold. Regardless of temperature it was very nice to be in an area that felt more like home. Istanbul is very European compared to everywhere I have been thus far. It is sad to think that this voyage of discovery is about to end, but I am very eager to return and see how I have changed and how the changes are going to affect my life in a specific way and more generally.

There was one very strange thing that happened while Semester at Sea was in Istanbul. One morning while a group of friends and I were walking to the Tram station and sirens started sounding. At first we didn’t think much of it because we were used to hearing the prayers being belted from the Mosques across town and in the US there are regular air-raid siren tests. But I soon noticed that something was wrong. So I stopped walking for a brief moment to assess the situation. I quickly said “Stop, STOP. Look…” and with that everyone in the group stopped and we quickly realized that EVERYTHING, yes EVERYTHING (from cabs to trains and people on the street), had stopped. No one in Istanbul was moving or talkin, just standing and looking off into the distance. Many thoughts went through all of our minds. Should we run? Should we hide? What do we do? Are they praying? But we realized that they were not facing Mecca, so it wasn’t religious. We figured they would have been running had it been a sign of impending doom. But one minute later, as quickly as it had started the sirens stopped and everyone continued as if nothing happened. It was like a scene out of a movie. Sirens go off and everything stops. It was the eeriest thing I have ever experienced. We later noticed all the flags were at half-staff and found out that the siren was to honor the death of Ataturk, who is a national hero that took Turkey from a corrupt militaristic Islamic state to the modern, democratic, secular state it is today.

I am now headed to Croatia, the second to last port. It is sad to think that this journey is almost done, but it has been amazing. For now I need to get to my schoolwork and the yearbook as it is calling my name. Luckily I have found the workload to be lighter than what I am used to at North Central so it won’t be too difficult.
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Despite all the rumors on the ship the Explorer docked in Egypt for the full 5 days. It has been an honor to be one of the first SAS students to set foot on Egyptian soil in a number of years. From what I understand SAS has attempted to go to Egypt in the recent past, but have been diverted because of unrest in the Middle East. I also heard that the last time SAS docked in Egypt was a number of years ago. So it has truly been a unique opportunity to travel in Egypt through SAS.

What did I do with this great opportunity? I traveled to the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, tour Islamic Cairo, played games with local people, and had tea with a local man to discuss issues in the Middle East. I am unsure of my favorite experience from Egypt, but two stick out: causing a small disturbance (because of my hair and skin color, I think) at the Pyramids and playing ping-pong and backgammon with local people on the streets of Alexandria.

I have decided that in the coming ports I am going to walk the local streets to experience more depth rather than covering more sights. While on my way to the catacombs in Alexandria I noticed a neighborhood that looked particularly intriguing. So instead of taking a cab or horse cart back to downtown Alexandria my friend and I walked. As a result, we ran into a group of children playing ping-pong, which we ended up playing and later played a game of backgammon with some older men to escape the dozen children that were following us through the streets. There was a large language barrier during this whole time, but it was great to share friendly competition with someone regardless of language.

Egypt has been interesting in a number of ways, but I cannot go into great detail. Many of the generalizations about the Middle East do not hold true in Egypt, while there are people in Egypt that are seeking an easy dollar (usually by cheating or lying to tourists). There are also genuine people who just want to talk and meet with people from another countries. One major generalization about the Middle East is that most Muslims are okay with the Taliban and terrorism. This is not true. I found out by talking to a local man over tea (as well as through lectures on the ship) that most of the Muslim community does not like the Taliban and the majority of the Muslim community looks upon terrorism negatively. I have learned a lot about Islam while in Egypt, which has definitely changed my views about the Middle East. I just hope that I will be able to cultivate some of this change in others. But for now I need to look forward as I will be in Turkey in on Tuesday, which means I will have another culture to experience and learn about.

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