what to do in spain?

hi all, i'm back on again.

we have plans for spain! six girls and i are heading to sevilla. we will be in spain from wednesday through saturday. the game plan is as follows:

weds 28 jan : arrive in port @0800. we have no idea when we will be off the ship, but the plan is to head to the train/bus station as soon as we can. we will probably buy our tickets to sevilla, make a stop at the mall and walk around cadiz. from 1330-1830 i have the city orientation of cadiz. we will be walking around and seeing all the sites. i'll be on this tour with a girl named andrea who goes to university of san diego. we will be sleeping on the ship.

thurs 29 jan : up early, possible breakfast on the ship. bus/train to sevilla, which will take under 2 hours. a large number of sas kids will be heading to sevilla, so i'm sure we'll run into people. spend the day in sevilla, seeing the sights and taking everything in. stay over night in the oasis backpacker's hostel. the hostel is 15 euro a night which works out to 20 USD and includes lockers, breakfast & free internet.

fri 30 jan : possible day trip to cordoba. david, our interport lecturer, said this is a must. it takes 45 minutes to get from sevilla to cordoba so we will try to make it over there. spend the second night in sevilla; same hostel.

sat 31 jan : up early & head back to cadiz. return to the ship and then spend some time in cadiz before on-ship time at 1800. hopefully we will make use of an internet cafe and i can finally upload a picture or two.


it is so very hard to believe how close we are to spain! the dean's memo today announced that we had less than 800 miles to go as of 1200. everyone on the ship is definitely getting excited and we are ready to go. after the presentation about food in spain, we are all so ready to get off the ship and eat! we have lists of places to go and things to do, but i know we will have fun no matter what we end up doing.

after spain we only have one day on the ship and then we have 4 days in morocco! i don't have plans there yet, but most people don't. there are independant travel groups forming already, so i'll see what they have to offer. i think a night in marrakech is a must, but i would definitely be okay staying in casablanca.


today we had another global studies lecture with david, who is fast becoming everyone's favorite lecturer. he said that it was tough to get up and that it is "death by one hour a night," which is definitely the sentiment on the ship at 0900. but then we just remember exactly what it is we are doing and we all quit the complaining. i did lots of reading for my nutrition class which is becoming a full on biology class, which i wasn't completely expecting. sure, i know nutrition has to do with science, but he uses such big words! we had a nice dinner and chatted with the videographer who gave us good tips so that we'd end up on the videos. :P . i also caved and got a small soft serve cone from the snack bar. i wanted to hold out longer but i just needed a little pick-me-up. it definitely fit the bill, i just don't want to make it a habit and spend perfectly good money on snacks all the time. as a result the girls and i have decided that grocery shopping is a must in spain & morocco so that we can have snacks to hold us through the 8 day journey to namibia.

tonight marked our first cultural pre-port presentation. starting the night off was david, who we will all miss. his jokes keep us all awake! all the presenters talked about different aspects of spain and the culture. david discussed the different autonomous regions and then played jeopardy with some of spain's most famous festivals. turns out he was actually on jeopardy! then came a man who was so nervous and monotone that no one could follow. i know he mentioned francisco franco but thats about all i caught. the final presenter was a man who discussed flamenco and played some music for us. it was interesting, to be polite. all in all, everyone learned something. tomorrow we will have our last day of classes until after morocco and our logistical pre-port meeting. during that presentation we will learn what to do, which atm's to use, shopping etiquette and a list of don'ts.

all in all it has been a long day and we are now a whole 6 hours ahead of east coast! so its, uh, 2330. it has been much much more rocky and i think it is because we are going much slower, so the ship is lower in the water. regardless, i am feeling a little under the weather. i didn't get to nap today since i was doing homework, so its off to bed now. lets just hope nothing goes flying off the night table with all the rocking.

miss you all!