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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