Location: Walvis Bay, Namibia
Hey everyone! It's me again! Well, a lot has happened since my last post about Lisbon, Portugal. I have been to Spain, Morocco, Ghana, and in a few days will be arriving in Cape Town, South Africa. At the moment the ship is stopped in Namibia refueling, which pretty much just means that we can look out the windows and see city rather than ocean, but we aren't allowed to disembark, so nothing much to report there.
I'm going to change pace a bit; since I would like to no longer be behind in my blog, I am officially putting Spain and Morocco's stories under the "Stuff to ask Lindsey about when she's back in the States" category. Someday I will probably post something, but until then you will simply have to enjoy the pictures and wonder what I've been up to! I will however get around to posting about my four days Ghana very soon (maybe even tonight!) and I'm sure I will be able to find time during the 12-day crossing across the Atlantic Ocean from Cape Town to Buenos Aires, Argentina to post about South Africa, so hopefully there won't be such large gaps in my posts any more!
Also, for those of you who keep track, I am back to being 9 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time.
Anyhow, yesterday was the official 50th anniversary of Semester at Sea, so tonight they will be telling stories about the voyages and giving out cake on deck 5, so I'm going to head up there and try to get myself a spot and a slice!
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Octopus Salad and Vasco da Gama!
Location: Off the coast of West Africa
Wow, that was a bit of a leap, huh? Anyone still reading this? It has been 13 days since my last post, and I have now been to Portugal, Spain, and Morocco, as well as completed an essay, two midterms, two quizzes and approximately 150 pages combined readings for my World Literature, Medical Anthropology, and Cross-Cultural Psychology classes! So there was basically a marginal amount of time left over for sleep and no time for blogging. But since we're still a couple of days away from Ghana (and I don't have my third midterm until the day after tomorrow) I thought I'd try to catch up a bit and let you know what I've been up to since Ireland!
Lisbon, Portugal: 9/27-9/28
When we were briefed on Portugal at Logistical Pre-port, we were informed that there was a 100% chance of rain for the first day and a 71% for the second day. Sunny skies were not in the forecast––thunderstorms were. That night the ship was rolling a bit more enthusiastically than usual, and they actually closed the portholes of the folks living on the lower decks. Those whose portholes were not closed (and who actually have them; remember, I'm in an inside cabin, so no porthole) reported seeing lighting over the ocean that night.
Thus the stage is set for my first day in Lisbon, Portugal! We were only going to be there two days, and on the first day I had a field lab for my Mixed Media Visual Journal class. If you recall, field labs are day-long field trips in one of the countries which are a required component for each of our four classes. They tend to be really fun/interesting, and the cost is included in tuition so it feels like a day of everything being free. This would be my second field lab, and the last before I reach South America (yes, I have no field labs on the continent of Africa and two in Brazil alone. Not sure what's up with that.)
Looking out the windows of the ship as we waited for it to clear for disembarkation one could see a swirling and slightly foreboding mass of gray clouds hovering over the whitewashed face of Lisbon. The forecast also said that it was supposed to be in the 70s, a fact which I had trouble reconciling with the view out the window. But sure enough, when we finally stepped off the ship we were buffeted by strong, salty, and very warm winds as we made our way toward the bus.
Strangely enough, it did not rain on us at all that day. It would make up for it the next day, but more on that in a minute.
The field lab was technically supposed to be focused on tile art over Lisbon, but our first stop was actually a non-tile related one: Jerónimos Monastery! We had a quick tour around part of it, and then we each found a place to sit and draw in the main cloister. It was gorgeous, and would have been really fun, except that our teacher insisted we spend the entire time using the continuous line technique (basically after you start drawing you are not allowed to lift up your pencil, so no erasing or moving to another part of the page without drawing yourself a line to get there.) That was really frustrating. We were there for about an hour and I was already exasperated with the technique after about thirty minutes. But the place was beautiful enough to make up for it, even though I had to draw instead of taking a bunch of pictures like I wanted to.
We had boxed lunches from the ship out in front of the monastery, and then headed to a tile museum. We were toured around and then had a little free time to explore the museum on our own or sit and sketch (of course now that I'm tired of drawing we no longer have to use the silly continuous line technique!) Then we went to another museum, and to a workshop where local woodcarvers demonstrated how they craft and restore chairs, tables, desks, and other wooden objects. That was very neat to see, and the guys who did the carving were very friendly and happy to answer questions (most of them spoke English.)
After that we went into another room where we were each set up with our own tiles to paint! There was the option of either using a stencil or making our own design––I chose the latter, and I'm not sure if maybe I ought to have used a pattern, because as usual I was the last person rushing to finish.
We then took a neat, roundabout route through the Alfama district to get back to our bus, and I liked it enough that I took pictures of street signs so that I could navigate myself back there when I explored on my own the next day (I needn't have bothered, because as it turned out it was pretty close and easy to get to from the ship, but I was prepared just the same!)
After we got back to the ship I joined a small group from the class who were headed out to find dinner, and I ended up having a tasty but odd dish of Octopus Salad.
And that was my first day in Lisbon, Portugal!
On the second day I wanted to head out on my own to explore more of the Alfama district. The ship was really docked at an ideal location; it was only about a seven minute walk to get to the area I had wanted to go back to.
Incidentally, did you guys know Lisbon was actually the first port Christopher Columbus's ship returned to after he came to the Americas in 1492? Vasco da Gama also left from Lisbon on his voyage to India (he's actually buried in the monastery I went to on the first day), and while Ferdinand Magellan began his circumnavigation of the globe in Spain, he was originally from Portugal. The country was actually once a major colonial power in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it even signed the Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain in 1494 to divide up the world along an imaginary line in the Atlantic ocean, with everything to the East belonging to Portugal and everything to the West (i.e. the Americas) belonging to Spain. Either by chance or not, that line happened to go right through what is now Brazil, which is why nearly all of Central and South America is made up of Spanish-speaking countries, but Brazil is Portuguese-speaking (because the Portuguese could lay claim to the part of it that was on their side of the line.) I thought that was pretty interesting!
In any case, my second and last day in Portugal was spent exploring Lisbon! After a few hours of meandering around I stumbled upon a huge flea market, which contained an odd mixture of booths: from those that looked very similar to what one might expect to see in the US, with bags, necklaces, artwork and pottery, to a jumble of makeshift areas where people (mostly immigrants, I think) had set out blankets to display garage-sale-esque wares which included second-hand clothes, household items, and old movies. Of course about every other seller had a stack of Portuguese tiles for sale. I walked around and looked at everything for a little while, but then my perusing was interrupted when the heavens opened up and the promised downpour of the previous day was finally unleashed! I tried to huddle beneath my umbrella as I darted from booth to overhang, and eventually ended up sitting outside a little restaurant trying to Skype my mom over a very fuzzy Skype connection.
And since the ship only had two days in Portugal, that was it! I went back to ship and ate dinner out on deck to a lovely panoramic view of the city, and then we set sail for Cadiz, Spain!
Wow, that was a bit of a leap, huh? Anyone still reading this? It has been 13 days since my last post, and I have now been to Portugal, Spain, and Morocco, as well as completed an essay, two midterms, two quizzes and approximately 150 pages combined readings for my World Literature, Medical Anthropology, and Cross-Cultural Psychology classes! So there was basically a marginal amount of time left over for sleep and no time for blogging. But since we're still a couple of days away from Ghana (and I don't have my third midterm until the day after tomorrow) I thought I'd try to catch up a bit and let you know what I've been up to since Ireland!
Lisbon, Portugal: 9/27-9/28
When we were briefed on Portugal at Logistical Pre-port, we were informed that there was a 100% chance of rain for the first day and a 71% for the second day. Sunny skies were not in the forecast––thunderstorms were. That night the ship was rolling a bit more enthusiastically than usual, and they actually closed the portholes of the folks living on the lower decks. Those whose portholes were not closed (and who actually have them; remember, I'm in an inside cabin, so no porthole) reported seeing lighting over the ocean that night.
Thus the stage is set for my first day in Lisbon, Portugal! We were only going to be there two days, and on the first day I had a field lab for my Mixed Media Visual Journal class. If you recall, field labs are day-long field trips in one of the countries which are a required component for each of our four classes. They tend to be really fun/interesting, and the cost is included in tuition so it feels like a day of everything being free. This would be my second field lab, and the last before I reach South America (yes, I have no field labs on the continent of Africa and two in Brazil alone. Not sure what's up with that.)
Looking out the windows of the ship as we waited for it to clear for disembarkation one could see a swirling and slightly foreboding mass of gray clouds hovering over the whitewashed face of Lisbon. The forecast also said that it was supposed to be in the 70s, a fact which I had trouble reconciling with the view out the window. But sure enough, when we finally stepped off the ship we were buffeted by strong, salty, and very warm winds as we made our way toward the bus.
Strangely enough, it did not rain on us at all that day. It would make up for it the next day, but more on that in a minute.
The field lab was technically supposed to be focused on tile art over Lisbon, but our first stop was actually a non-tile related one: Jerónimos Monastery! We had a quick tour around part of it, and then we each found a place to sit and draw in the main cloister. It was gorgeous, and would have been really fun, except that our teacher insisted we spend the entire time using the continuous line technique (basically after you start drawing you are not allowed to lift up your pencil, so no erasing or moving to another part of the page without drawing yourself a line to get there.) That was really frustrating. We were there for about an hour and I was already exasperated with the technique after about thirty minutes. But the place was beautiful enough to make up for it, even though I had to draw instead of taking a bunch of pictures like I wanted to.
We had boxed lunches from the ship out in front of the monastery, and then headed to a tile museum. We were toured around and then had a little free time to explore the museum on our own or sit and sketch (of course now that I'm tired of drawing we no longer have to use the silly continuous line technique!) Then we went to another museum, and to a workshop where local woodcarvers demonstrated how they craft and restore chairs, tables, desks, and other wooden objects. That was very neat to see, and the guys who did the carving were very friendly and happy to answer questions (most of them spoke English.)
After that we went into another room where we were each set up with our own tiles to paint! There was the option of either using a stencil or making our own design––I chose the latter, and I'm not sure if maybe I ought to have used a pattern, because as usual I was the last person rushing to finish.
We then took a neat, roundabout route through the Alfama district to get back to our bus, and I liked it enough that I took pictures of street signs so that I could navigate myself back there when I explored on my own the next day (I needn't have bothered, because as it turned out it was pretty close and easy to get to from the ship, but I was prepared just the same!)
After we got back to the ship I joined a small group from the class who were headed out to find dinner, and I ended up having a tasty but odd dish of Octopus Salad.
And that was my first day in Lisbon, Portugal!
On the second day I wanted to head out on my own to explore more of the Alfama district. The ship was really docked at an ideal location; it was only about a seven minute walk to get to the area I had wanted to go back to.
Incidentally, did you guys know Lisbon was actually the first port Christopher Columbus's ship returned to after he came to the Americas in 1492? Vasco da Gama also left from Lisbon on his voyage to India (he's actually buried in the monastery I went to on the first day), and while Ferdinand Magellan began his circumnavigation of the globe in Spain, he was originally from Portugal. The country was actually once a major colonial power in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it even signed the Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain in 1494 to divide up the world along an imaginary line in the Atlantic ocean, with everything to the East belonging to Portugal and everything to the West (i.e. the Americas) belonging to Spain. Either by chance or not, that line happened to go right through what is now Brazil, which is why nearly all of Central and South America is made up of Spanish-speaking countries, but Brazil is Portuguese-speaking (because the Portuguese could lay claim to the part of it that was on their side of the line.) I thought that was pretty interesting!
In any case, my second and last day in Portugal was spent exploring Lisbon! After a few hours of meandering around I stumbled upon a huge flea market, which contained an odd mixture of booths: from those that looked very similar to what one might expect to see in the US, with bags, necklaces, artwork and pottery, to a jumble of makeshift areas where people (mostly immigrants, I think) had set out blankets to display garage-sale-esque wares which included second-hand clothes, household items, and old movies. Of course about every other seller had a stack of Portuguese tiles for sale. I walked around and looked at everything for a little while, but then my perusing was interrupted when the heavens opened up and the promised downpour of the previous day was finally unleashed! I tried to huddle beneath my umbrella as I darted from booth to overhang, and eventually ended up sitting outside a little restaurant trying to Skype my mom over a very fuzzy Skype connection.
And since the ship only had two days in Portugal, that was it! I went back to ship and ate dinner out on deck to a lovely panoramic view of the city, and then we set sail for Cadiz, Spain!
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Pubs and Libraries
Location: still headed toward Cadiz, Spain!
Ireland, Day 3 (9/22/13):
I had to head back to Dublin on the 5:30pm bus, and I had already seen the lake, so I decided to dedicated my second day in Glendalough to visiting the round tower and the ruins of the monastic settlement in the ancient graveyard. I asked around town for the best place to have breakfast (which at some hostels is included, but at the Glendalough hostel is not) and was told to head to the Wickalow Heather Restaurant, which was about a mile down the road. I wasn't in a hurry, so I decided to walk there and then come back and view the ruins afterward.
Aside from an impressive number of wasps which eventually drove me inside, the restaurant was nice––I decided to forgo the traditional Irish breakfast on account of its similarity to the traditional English breakfast (seriously, beans are not a breakfast food!) and instead got poached eggs which came with two pieces of toast. Then they brought out another six pieces of toast! Who on earth needs that much toast? I ended up eating most of the toast and then making a butter and jelly sandwich with some more so that I could have it for lunch later.
And then I spent the rest of the day ambling around Glendalough, sketching the monastic ruins and graveyard, and finding a quiet place to sit in the forest and draw while listening to songs from the Lord of the Rings. When it was time to catch the bus back to Dublin I felt very refreshed, and was looking forward to going on the city's famous Literary Pub Crawl, which I had booked a spot on that evening.
There were already a lot of people waiting for the bus, and by the time it arrived the crowd was large enough that I was pretty sure not everyone was going to fit. I quickly established myself toward the front-middle of the line, at which point the driver announced that those with return tickets could get to the front of the queue. Fortunately that is what I had from the day before, so I was able to get on. I knew that the bus was going to be full, so I looked around for someone I'd like to sit next to for the next hour. Then I noticed a girl who I recognized from Semester at Sea, though I hadn't actually spoken to her before, sitting near the front of the bus.
Her name was Kira, and while I was trying to think how I knew her I remembered that it was because she was our student-presenter for Russia––she goes to school in Moscow, but is originally from St. Petersburg. Kira had actually come to Glendalough on the 11:30am bus, done the really long hike up the mountain and all the way around the lake, and then come back to the bus to leave at 5:30pm the same day. She was understandably a bit tired. But when I mentioned that I was doing the Literary Pub Crawl she decided to come with (you can also buy tickets at the door), so after the bus dropped us off in Dublin we headed to the Duke Pub, which is where the Pub Crawl begins from.
So what exactly is a Literary Pub Crawl? Well this particular one is famous because it is led be professional act ors who act out pieces from the works of famous authors from Ireland, and they lead you around to the different pubs that those authors used to frequent. Kira and I arrived a little early, so we went and sat in a side room to wait until we could purchase her ticket and claim mine.
We ended up sitting next to Fernando, a guy interning in Wales who is from Argentina and was visiting Ireland. So the three of us hung together while the Pub Crawl group moved between four pubs and a handful of other notable locations at which one of our guides would fire off a string of facts a mile long which I remember few of now but were really interesting to listen to at the time. In between we would have fifteen minutes or so at each of the pubs for people to hang out and get drinks. Kira and I hadn't had dinner yet and were not really in the mood to drink anything (I don't particularly like alcohol anyhow) and Fernando doesn't like the taste of beer, so our little company consisting of a non-drinking American, Russian, and Argentino made just about the most unlikely group possible to be on a pub crawl in Ireland.
And that is pretty much the gist of my third day in Ireland!
Ireland, Day 4 (9/23/13):
Which brings us to (dun dun dun)... my last and final day! I had one big goal for day four: go to Trinity College and see the old library and the book of Kells. The consensus seemed to be that to get the full experience one should sign up for a walking tour of the college, which includes the entrance to see the book of Kells and is only a couple Euros more.
So after wandering around Dublin for a while in search of breakfast, that is what I did! Our guide told us all sorts of things about the college (he was actually about to graduate and go to Oxford, so he said to forgive him if he got a bit nostalgic) and about the Book of Kells, which is considered one of the world's finest illuminated manuscripts and a national treasure of Ireland. There is a several-room informational display about the book's history and construction before you actually see it, so by the time I had gotten breakfast, did the college tour, and read all of the information the day was getting pretty far along (remember I have to be back on the boat before on-ship time at 18:00!)
The book itself was neat, but there were so many people crowded around that you couldn't really just stand and look at it for very long, so I think I actually enjoyed learning about it beforehand the most. For example, the Book of Kells actually contains the four New Testament Gospels, but the Celtic monks who created it were much less concerned with the content than with the style and beauty with which that content was presented, which meant that parts of it are hard to read because the monks would skip or forget bits and then add them later completely out of sequence, or they would abridge and abbreviate other parts.
We weren't allowed to take picture in the exhibit, but if you want to see what the Book of Kells looks like I would highly recommend googling it (or using the handy Wikipedia search bar that I put on the right-hand side of the page just for you guys!)
I then entered the Trinity College Library, which consists of one large and very impressive room with shelves of ancient books spanning multiple levels. Apparently it was mostly built to just be impressive, because at the time (according to our walking tour guide) there were only enough books to fill about 1/3 of it. The books were also organized in a most peculiar way: by size, with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on top, because it looked good. No idea how anyone ever actually found the book they were looking for with that system.
I cruised around the gift shop for a little while, before looking at the time, and realizing that while on-ship time is at 18:00, the last shuttle to get back to the ship leaves at 16:30. It was 16:15, and I still had to go and get postcards and a pin (I'm collecting them from each country.) Oops! Fortunately I knew exactly where I was going to get the postcards and the pin (then why hadn't I gotten them earlier? You've got to wonder...), but unfortunately they were in the opposite direction from the shuttle. So I'm speed-walking through the streets, getting everything that I was going to get, and arriving at the place the shuttle is supposed to be at 16:27––––but there's no shuttle. Great. They must have gotten full and already left. I had never actually had to walk back to the ship before, and although there was still technically an hour and a half until on-ship time I was still a bit nervous. I could see the ship waaay in the distance, so I spent the next half an hour speed walking there. Then I spent about ten minutes being lost in the harbor before finally finding and boarding the ship with almost 40 minutes to spare. Whew.
And that was Ireland! Stay tuned for when I get around to Portugal (no idea when that will be), and as always comments are very much appreciated!
Ireland, Day 3 (9/22/13):
I had to head back to Dublin on the 5:30pm bus, and I had already seen the lake, so I decided to dedicated my second day in Glendalough to visiting the round tower and the ruins of the monastic settlement in the ancient graveyard. I asked around town for the best place to have breakfast (which at some hostels is included, but at the Glendalough hostel is not) and was told to head to the Wickalow Heather Restaurant, which was about a mile down the road. I wasn't in a hurry, so I decided to walk there and then come back and view the ruins afterward.
Aside from an impressive number of wasps which eventually drove me inside, the restaurant was nice––I decided to forgo the traditional Irish breakfast on account of its similarity to the traditional English breakfast (seriously, beans are not a breakfast food!) and instead got poached eggs which came with two pieces of toast. Then they brought out another six pieces of toast! Who on earth needs that much toast? I ended up eating most of the toast and then making a butter and jelly sandwich with some more so that I could have it for lunch later.
And then I spent the rest of the day ambling around Glendalough, sketching the monastic ruins and graveyard, and finding a quiet place to sit in the forest and draw while listening to songs from the Lord of the Rings. When it was time to catch the bus back to Dublin I felt very refreshed, and was looking forward to going on the city's famous Literary Pub Crawl, which I had booked a spot on that evening.
There were already a lot of people waiting for the bus, and by the time it arrived the crowd was large enough that I was pretty sure not everyone was going to fit. I quickly established myself toward the front-middle of the line, at which point the driver announced that those with return tickets could get to the front of the queue. Fortunately that is what I had from the day before, so I was able to get on. I knew that the bus was going to be full, so I looked around for someone I'd like to sit next to for the next hour. Then I noticed a girl who I recognized from Semester at Sea, though I hadn't actually spoken to her before, sitting near the front of the bus.
Her name was Kira, and while I was trying to think how I knew her I remembered that it was because she was our student-presenter for Russia––she goes to school in Moscow, but is originally from St. Petersburg. Kira had actually come to Glendalough on the 11:30am bus, done the really long hike up the mountain and all the way around the lake, and then come back to the bus to leave at 5:30pm the same day. She was understandably a bit tired. But when I mentioned that I was doing the Literary Pub Crawl she decided to come with (you can also buy tickets at the door), so after the bus dropped us off in Dublin we headed to the Duke Pub, which is where the Pub Crawl begins from.
So what exactly is a Literary Pub Crawl? Well this particular one is famous because it is led be professional act ors who act out pieces from the works of famous authors from Ireland, and they lead you around to the different pubs that those authors used to frequent. Kira and I arrived a little early, so we went and sat in a side room to wait until we could purchase her ticket and claim mine.
We ended up sitting next to Fernando, a guy interning in Wales who is from Argentina and was visiting Ireland. So the three of us hung together while the Pub Crawl group moved between four pubs and a handful of other notable locations at which one of our guides would fire off a string of facts a mile long which I remember few of now but were really interesting to listen to at the time. In between we would have fifteen minutes or so at each of the pubs for people to hang out and get drinks. Kira and I hadn't had dinner yet and were not really in the mood to drink anything (I don't particularly like alcohol anyhow) and Fernando doesn't like the taste of beer, so our little company consisting of a non-drinking American, Russian, and Argentino made just about the most unlikely group possible to be on a pub crawl in Ireland.
And that is pretty much the gist of my third day in Ireland!
Ireland, Day 4 (9/23/13):
Which brings us to (dun dun dun)... my last and final day! I had one big goal for day four: go to Trinity College and see the old library and the book of Kells. The consensus seemed to be that to get the full experience one should sign up for a walking tour of the college, which includes the entrance to see the book of Kells and is only a couple Euros more.
So after wandering around Dublin for a while in search of breakfast, that is what I did! Our guide told us all sorts of things about the college (he was actually about to graduate and go to Oxford, so he said to forgive him if he got a bit nostalgic) and about the Book of Kells, which is considered one of the world's finest illuminated manuscripts and a national treasure of Ireland. There is a several-room informational display about the book's history and construction before you actually see it, so by the time I had gotten breakfast, did the college tour, and read all of the information the day was getting pretty far along (remember I have to be back on the boat before on-ship time at 18:00!)
The book itself was neat, but there were so many people crowded around that you couldn't really just stand and look at it for very long, so I think I actually enjoyed learning about it beforehand the most. For example, the Book of Kells actually contains the four New Testament Gospels, but the Celtic monks who created it were much less concerned with the content than with the style and beauty with which that content was presented, which meant that parts of it are hard to read because the monks would skip or forget bits and then add them later completely out of sequence, or they would abridge and abbreviate other parts.
We weren't allowed to take picture in the exhibit, but if you want to see what the Book of Kells looks like I would highly recommend googling it (or using the handy Wikipedia search bar that I put on the right-hand side of the page just for you guys!)
I then entered the Trinity College Library, which consists of one large and very impressive room with shelves of ancient books spanning multiple levels. Apparently it was mostly built to just be impressive, because at the time (according to our walking tour guide) there were only enough books to fill about 1/3 of it. The books were also organized in a most peculiar way: by size, with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on top, because it looked good. No idea how anyone ever actually found the book they were looking for with that system.
I cruised around the gift shop for a little while, before looking at the time, and realizing that while on-ship time is at 18:00, the last shuttle to get back to the ship leaves at 16:30. It was 16:15, and I still had to go and get postcards and a pin (I'm collecting them from each country.) Oops! Fortunately I knew exactly where I was going to get the postcards and the pin (then why hadn't I gotten them earlier? You've got to wonder...), but unfortunately they were in the opposite direction from the shuttle. So I'm speed-walking through the streets, getting everything that I was going to get, and arriving at the place the shuttle is supposed to be at 16:27––––but there's no shuttle. Great. They must have gotten full and already left. I had never actually had to walk back to the ship before, and although there was still technically an hour and a half until on-ship time I was still a bit nervous. I could see the ship waaay in the distance, so I spent the next half an hour speed walking there. Then I spent about ten minutes being lost in the harbor before finally finding and boarding the ship with almost 40 minutes to spare. Whew.
And that was Ireland! Stay tuned for when I get around to Portugal (no idea when that will be), and as always comments are very much appreciated!
Glendalough
Location: Southbound from Lisbon, Portugal
Yes, I made it to Lisbon!... and the ship actually left again today to head to Cadiz, Spain. That was fast. Anyhow, I decided to stay with the ship instead of traveling overland from Lisbon to Cadiz––remember how I did that from Antwerp, Belgium to Le Havre, France? Well there was the option to do it again here because the ports are so close together, but I decided not to because it seemed expensive and I had a hard time figuring out train/bus routes that would actually take me where I wanted to go. Over half the students on the ship decided to go overland, so it's pretty quiet here for once, which is nice. Hopefully this means that I can finally get caught up with the present on my blog!
Ireland, Day 2 (9/21):
After spending so much time in cities over the past couple of weeks I was itching to head to the countryside. And where better to do so than in Ireland? So I decided to go to Glendalough (glen-duh-lock), a little former monastic settlement founded in the 6th century by St. Kevin, which is located about an hour south of Dublin in the county Wicklow. There aren't around any public buses or trains to Glendalough, but there is a private bus similar to the Diamond Express (not nearly as cute though) which goes to Glendalough and back twice a day. It leaves Dublin at 11:30am, so on the morning of the 21st I packed a couple of bags, spent a little time exploring the area of Dublin around the bus stop, and then was on my way!
I had actually found out all of the information that I would need ahead of time, during my last day at Le Havre, so I was fairly confident that I knew where I was going and what I was doing. The one snag in this plan was that I wanted to spend two days in Glendalough, and this necessitated some kind of lodging. There is a youth hostel in Glendalough; it is a well-reviewed and generally pleasant-sounding place. It also does not accept debit card reservations online. So having been unable to secure a place to spend the night ahead of time, I boarded the bus with a feeling my mild trepidation. Would the hostel be full when I arrived? Hopefully not, because then I would either need to find the least-expensive B&B I could or go head back to the ship on the 5:30 bus that evening, which would be no fun.
So the bus pulls into Glendalough and drops us all off right in front of the visitor center. Convenient! I get myself a map and ask the woman at the desk where the hostel is located. She instructs me to go back to the main road, turn left, and just keep walking until I find it (apparently you can't miss it.)
It is a beautiful day; the sun is shining, and I have finally left the city! With a spring in my step I meander down the road, past a few stone buildings, over a little bridge, and past a small cluster of food/souvenir stalls. There isn't much room on the side of the road to walk, and I hug the edges as I climb a small hill and find myself passing an area of alternating fields and trees, leaving behind the small patch of civilization in the valley. The iconic round tower of Glendalough and the ancient graveyard at its feet rise up on the other side of a field to my left, and I snap a few pictures before hurrying on, anxious to see whether I will have a place to stay for the night.
My description makes it sound like I was walking for a while, but it really only a few minutes (like I said, the place isn't very big) before I rounded a corner and found myself facing a large and cheery yellow building with the sign, "Glendalough International Hostel" painted in flowing blue script on the sign out front. I had arrived!
The interior of the hostel is very nice; there is a large lounge area with a wall full of DVDs for rent, and down a side corridor is a several-room dining area. I approach the reception desk hopefully. The lady behind the front desk says that yes, there are beds still available (spiffy!), but that check-in is not for another few hours. I could leave my stuff in the side room and take a walk if I wanted, and she would put my name down for when I return. With a feeling of triumph, I march into the side room she is indicating. There are no lockers, and the room itself is not locked/watched like the places that Jazlin and I had left our backpacks while traveling in England had been. Huh. That doesn't seem particularly secure.
There are two other people in the room, and a whole pile of backpacks sitting on a fold-out table in the far corner. I ask the people if that is where one leaves ones stuff. Yes, apparently so. Now I look at the little fold-up backpack I had brought with me, which isn't very heavy but I would still rather not have to wear it for the next few hours, and decide that if anyone is really dying to steal its contents then they can go for it (I believe it contained some clothes and a sketchpad.) I transferred everything of actual value to the medium-sized blue satchel I had purchased in England and now carry everywhere with me.
Then I deposited my bag beside the heap of backpacks and set out to explore Glendalough!
I'm not sure my every move is worth recounting from here (if it ever was) so I'll just say that I got some food from one of the street stalls that I had passed earlier, found a the trail leading to the upper lake, and followed it through the forest. As it turns out, Glendalough is a very popular tourist/day-trip destination, so although the town itself isn't very big, there are tourists everywhere––especially during the peak times of day (like at that moment) when you would be hard pressed to take a picture along the path and not have people dotted all along it. Which was fine with me, because they were a generally freindly bunch, and there were a large number of Spanish-speakers to try and eavesdrop on (not that I do that!)
At one point I saw another path diverging in the wood, which everyone else was walking past (yes, I had a Robert Frost moment there, thanks for noticing.) It was mossy and pleasant-looking, so I ambled down the hill and started along it. After about a minute, the path was much less noticable. After a couple minutes, it was almost gone entirely. I kept going for a little while after that, relishing the thick green moss beneath my feet and the feeling of being able to look in every direction and not see any people. This lasted for only a few minutes, before I saw that another small group had also discovered the trail some distance back, and I headed back to the main path and continued toward the lake.
I spend a while exploring the area and sketching the lake before heading back into town. The lady at the hostel had informed me that the hotel in town had free WiFi (you have to pay for it at the hostel), and I was itching to try to call family members who I hadn't spoken to in weeks, so I took out my iPod and the headphone/microphone set that I had borrowed from someone on the ship and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours talking with my Dad and my grandmother in Minnesota via Skype.
By the time I got off the phone it was getting dark, and I still needed to get dinner. The food stalls were now closed, as was the barbecuing that I seen from a distance earlier. Fortunately the bar attached to the hotel was open, so I ordered a bowl of smoked salmon and seafood chowder, which was very tasty and contained what I thought to be a very liberal amount of fish for the price.
By the time I finished that it actually was dark out, and I pulled out my flashlight and I made my way back to the hostel, enjoying the quiet and the feel of the night air (while mentally acknowledging that traveling at night is right up there with traveling alone in terms of the number of warnings we have received in our pre-port lectures. So traveling alone and at night would definitely be admonishment-worthy. Heh.)
So of course I made it back to the hostel. Yes, by stuff was still there, sitting all by itself in the corner of the side room. I had to interrupt the reception lady during her dinner, but she was nice and I got keys and borrowed a plug adaptor to recharge my iPod (yes, I felt very silly for forgetting my adaptor on the ship.) I also figured out the machines to get a couple of internet cards. You see, the reason that I had actually borrowed the headphone/microphone on the ship and was now making sure that I had internet and that my iPod was charged was because the 21st was my grandpa's birthday and I was planning on surprising him with a call at dinner. Of course, Ireland is 8 hours ahead of the Pacific Northwest, so dinner time for them would be about 2am for me. But I was a woman on a mission! So I headed for my room (an 8-bed female dorm to which none of the other three occupants had returned yet), set my alarm to 2am, and went to bed early (well, early for me.)
That is technically the end of the 21st, but I will mention that I did indeed manage to wake up, find a place where my 2am phone call hopefully wouldn't disturb anyone, and say happy birthday to my grandpa––surprising people is always fun, and it was nice talking with my grandparents again.
Goodness––I know I always say this, but I've got to curb the descriptive rambling on my next posts, or I'm never going to get to Portugal!
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
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