Spain

Visiting the Basque region of Spain has been a dream of mine for a long time. I remember hearing about it I high school Spanish, and being fascinated that the language shared no roots with any other language.

While the weather barely cooperated, the days I had there were pretty amazing, but then again it's hard not to like a place the excels at pintxos, the bite sized food that every bar has. Tiny meals all afternoon & evening long? Sign me up.

Our ship docked in Gexto-a small town with amazing architecture, and since we were just far enough from Bilbao we had a shuttle that took us into the city.

I was also lucky enough to escape to San Sebestian with friends for a quick day trip, however the weather had other plans for our day at the beach. A quick & wicked wind storm kicked up pretty quickly, and we had to run for cover to avoid a fairly intense storm.

Life at Sea

So what's it like living on a ship at sea? It's pretty cool. First of all, our ship the M/V Explorer is beautiful. It's hard to tell from pictures but the ship is much smaller than the cruise ships people normally sea in ports. When we're next to them the Explorer looks like a baby, but it feels quite big when we're sailing. The ship is 7 decks with two dining areas, a faculty/staff lounge, a pool area with snack bar and loads of classrooms and cabins. Second, life is also pretty structured when we're on the ship. Breakfast is at X time, Lunch is at Y. Classes are on a regular schedule and there are always activities in the evening including our mandatory pre-port meetings when we get information about the country and city we're going to visit next. Third, I get seasick at sea. Horribly, horribly seasick. I'm not the norm when it comes to that, so many people can handle the movement like a champ, however I am not in that group. To be fair, I get motion sick on treadmills, but I'm currently taking seasickness pills, wearing the Sea Band bracelets, keeping my stomach full and taking naps. I'm not sure which of those works, but I'm not as green as I was on the way to Portugal. It's the small things, right?

London

London was pretty fantastic.
I got a lot of research done which included receiving a 3 year pass to the British Library.  I don't know about you, but that sets my little geeky heart all a'flutter.  I found what I needed and then some. 

On top of that I got to do some sightseeing. Not as much as I'd like, but I got to explore Shoreditch and Notting Hill thanks to the City Cycling London Guide.  The guide was small & I really liked the design so I picked it up despite my firmly pedestrian status. It's a great little guide. Probably a fantastic one if you were actually traveling around on a bike.

One day I want to return (I only have a day in London after the voyage because the Fall 2014 semester starts almost immediately after the voyage) and actually tour around London for an extended period of time.*

Now I'm in Southampton at a very lovely hotel going through orientation for our voyage. It's been great seeing lots of familiar faces and meeting new people too.  The ship comes to port tomorrow and we'll actually embark on the ship in the afternoon!






*Okay, what I really mean is I want to come back and see everything related to Harry Potter.

And Here We Go

I'm drafting this post on my flight from Boston to London. It's about a 6 hour flight which is just short enough to make sure that we'll all be horribly jetlagged & cranky when we arrive in London at 6:10am.

Despite my impending crankiness, I am very excited to see London again. I've only been to London once before on my backpacking trip 7 years ago. I have nothing but good memories of my time there (cool shop! Delicious tea! Free museums! Pubs!) so I'm excited to sneak away from my research for a few hours each day to really see the city.

Where are We Going

I leave for London in just a few days, which is both exciting and overwhelming. I have some dissertation research to do before the voyage so I'll be working in London for a couple days before heading to meet the ship in Southampton.

Summer voyages mean that the program focuses on a smaller area whereas the full semester voyages go around the world.  As you can see from the map above we're going to some pretty spectacular places this summer! I'm excited to visit some new places (Portugal, Scotland, Norway, Sweden & Poland), and of course I'm always excited to return to Saint Petersburg. 

The voyage is also going to be a little bittersweet since it's the last summer voyage for the MV Explorer.

Let's Sail Away

(Picture via Semester at Sea)

Five years ago I had the amazing opportunity to serve as faculty for Semester at Sea.  I figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I am so fortunate that I was hired again so that it's now a twice in a lifetime opportunity as I once again sail as faculty for the 2014 Summer Voyage.  This time we're sailing around Northern Europe (with stops in Portugal and Spain before we head north).

I'm so very excited to do this again.

Rome

I should confess that Rome isn't my favorite city in Italy.  Since I've only been there in the summer, when I picture Rome I think of intense heat, insanely large crowds and paying 6 euros for a single bottle of Fanta. On this trip I was perfectly happy to skip Rome entirely because I had been there on two previous trips, but I needed to go to Rome to process my Russian visa--twice.  

There are no pictures of Rome from my first trip there this summer because it was a comedy of errors.  It poured the entire day. And I mean poured.  It started just as Mer and I got to the visa processing center & it was so intense that we couldn't even see the street.  We ended up hanging out at the center for nearly an hour waiting for it to stop, and when it finally eased up we made a run for a cafe to wait it out.  When it tapered out to a drizzle we decided to wait for the bus...for 45 minutes.  When the bus seemed as though it was never going to come we attempted to take the metro only to find out that most of the lines were down & we could only go back to the train station.  Poor Mer pretty much saw nothing of Rome. It was one of those types of days.

Sean and I had much better luck on the return trip to pick up my visa even if I was still not 100% better from my bout of salmonella (I would guess 40% better).  The heat was intense, but we managed to run all around Rome to see all of the big places.  We walked so much. So so much.  

We also got to see quite a few things that I had never seen before. One was a local organic market that was right near the Forum. We got to sample local cheeses and even local beer.  We were also able to go to the Pope's Cathedral which we stumbled upon while looking for the aqueducts.  We just so happened to be there while the Pope's main bishop was saying mass so it was kind of a big deal (apparently).  It was pretty amazing to see, and definitely an unexpected adventure.

Cinque Terre

For my last two weeks in Italy, I was lucky enough to have my fiance join me. It was his first time in Italy, and one of his Must-Do activities was visiting Cinque Terre. Located on the west coast of Italy, the area of Cinque Terre is made up of 5 (in case Cinque didn't fill you in on that) small towns that hug the coast.   First of all, the towns are each incredibly beautiful.  Coming out of the train tunnel out of La Spezia and catching that view for the first time was surreal. It's better than my pictures can show. It's better that you can imagine.  Unfortunately, I barely saw any of it.  I had the incredible misfortune of coming down with salmonella almost as soon as a we got there.

Our goal was to hike a bit of the trails, but the famous (and easiest trail) Via dell'Amore was closed due to landslides, and as we started to head up to the higher trails I started to feel awful-cold sweats, shooting pains in my stomach and queasy.  To be fair, this is normally my reaction whenever someone tries to get me to hike something that takes longer than 20 minutes, but I could tell this wasn't going to be good.  The more we walked through the first two towns Riomaggiore and Manrola, the worst I felt.  Every time I caught a whiff of the area's famous fried fish, I wanted to toss myself off the cliffs.  By the time we reached our rental apartment in Corniglia (and the massive stairs that you take to reach the hilltop town) I was done.  I spent the next 12+ hours puking my guts up and wondering if it was possible to die from puking because it sure felt like I was.

One important thing we found out was there are no pharmacies in Corniglia. My fiance ran around town buying bread and water, but there was no medication to be found.  A waitress at a cafe (we were under the mistaken impression that fresh air and some mint tea would help---it didn't--I puked on my fiance on the street in public. Another proud moment in my life) confirmed the lack of pharmacies but was sweet enough make a mixture of lemon and warm water which she promised would help.  I did seem to feel better afterwards so I'm crediting her with my recovery.

I did feel well enough the next day to continue on to the next two towns of Vernazza and Monterosso. I wasn't well enough to eat, but Vernazza did have a pharmacy where I paid $14 for one box of anti-nausea medication. I have to say it might be the best $14 I've ever spent.  It meant that we got to have a mostly normal day, and enjoy the views the area has to offer. Vernazza was, by far, the most crowded of the towns we had visited thus far.  While the others had a sleepy feel to them Vernazza was hopping with tourists, cafes and tourists shops. It also had the prices to match.

Our final stop was Monterosso which was completely different than the other four towns. Rather than cliffs there was a beach lined with small cafes and outdoor bars (I can't tell you how upset I was not to be able to sit there and relax with a snack and a drink).  We stopped by a nice hotel and asked if we could possibly leave our bags there. For a fee of 3 euros the lady said we could check our bags and change into bathing suits in the restroom. For another 2 euros we were able to rent towels.  That's a pretty great deal in my mind.

We swam at this beautiful beach for a bit.  My fiance was good for two swims, I decided to play it safe with just one and rest on the beach. Monterosso seemed to have more of a traditional seaside resort feel to it compared to the other four towns. There seemed to be more standard hotels as opposed to apartment rentals that the other towns seemed to have.

Overall, what I saw of Cinque Terre was lovely.  I wish I had had the opportunity to try some of the local fare and you know...not do the puking tour of one of the prettiest places on earth.

Dante

The reason I was in Florence this summer was to learn Italian for my dissertation. One of the texts I'm working with is The Divine Comedy. So it seemed like a good idea to have a working knowledge of Italian. Since Florence was Dante's home prior to his exile, there's tons of Dante related things all over the city. These range from historical (his house & the church where Beatrice is buried) to the kitschy (Dante impersonators & cafes named after him).

Siena

My first trip to Siena was in 2009 when I sailed with Semester at Sea. It was an all too brief stop on an all day tour of Tuscany. I had the insanely good luck to be there on Il Palio so the town was filled with people, brightly colored flags and horses. I wanted to dig my feet in and not get back on the tour bus because the town was just that cool.

Lucky for me, Siena is a quick bus ride (ok, that's not entirely true if like me you get car sick. Then it's way too long & leaves you fairly green by the time you get there) away from Florence. Towards the end of Mer's stay in Florence we hopped the bus and headed out to Siena.

It was a great day trip. The town was busy, but there were enough side streets that we didn't feel crushed by people. We went to see the house & various severed body parts of St. Catherine of Siena (I like religious relics. I'm a bit ghoulish), and then we went to the Duomo.

This is where I have to confess that I wasn't entirely thrilled by visiting the Duomo again. I knew Mer should see it, but since I had already been there I wasn't relishing spending another $15 and waiting in a horrendously long line for something I'd already seen.

Within 10 seconds of walking into the Duomo I realized how incredibly stupid that train of thought was. The Duomo of Siena is just flat out spectacular. Worth every penny. Worth every second in that incredibly long line.

After the Duomo we followed the advice of my Brazilian friend and went to Da Divo for lunch. Da Divo specializes in truffle dishes so I was instantly sold. Add in the fact that they bring out a giant cheese wheel to mix your pasta dishes in and they grate they truffle right in front of you, and I was in truffle loving heaven. Mer is not a truffle person, and even she admitted that it was delicious. That's high praise from someone who thinks eating veggies is akin to torture.

I have to confess that Mer and I got on the wrong bus to get back to Florence. We had tickets for the express bus, but jumped the gun when we saw a bus that said Florence and just hopped on. Turns out that bus was the local bus. Ugh. It doubled the time it took to get home (and my level of car sickness). We got back just in time for a horrendous thunderstorm so we had to spend an extra 40 minutes hanging out in the bus depot waiting for the rain and lightening to pass.

Luckily the city decided to make up for the hassle with a gorgeous rainbow right over the Ponte Vecchio. It's hard to stay disgruntled when this is your view walking back.

Fiesole Adventures

Fiesole was another quick day trip for Mer and me. Located just 8km from Florence, the little town's claim to fame is a spectacular panoramic view of Tuscany.

It was another hot as could be day so once Mer and I figured out how to get to the places with the good views (we headed in the wrong direction first, naturally), we took in the slightly hazy but beautiful view, and the headed to a small restaurant for an amazing lunch of pasta and a meat tray.

The real treat of the day, however, was having a drink at the spectacular Villa San Michele. This place was a "Must Visit" according to our friend from Brazil so Mer and I decided to see it.  Our Brazilian friend was right, the place was definitely a Must-Visit.

First I should mention we walked there from the center of town. This would not be a huge deal except we had to walk on the street and dive into the very tiny ditches every time a car rounded one of the curves.

Second, I should mention we had to walk down the hill to get to the property only to then have to walk all the way up the hill that the hotel sat on. Remember I said it was really hot? Yeah, so take a moment and imagine what sweaty messes we were as we rolled up to this gorgeous 900 euro a night hotel. I'm amazed they let us in, let alone were as gracious as they were.

The entire place was like a dream (a very expensive, out of our league, surprised they aren't calling security on these two sweaty lunatics dream) but we had lots of fun sitting at the patio bar drinking our prosecco while checking out the view and people watching.

That's the hotel property, isn't it wild? As we flipped through the hotel property book I saw the same company owns the Grand Hotel Europa in Saint Petersburg which is equally dreamy.

And the bar was pretty awesome too.

Overall, it was an awesome little day trip, well worth the 2.70€ in bus fare.