Pictures!!! (hopefully and after a long process of uploading them)

I hope these pictures are visible. I have been sitting on the pier by the ship for about an hour now trying to upload just three pictures. Theres about 50 students all trying to use a free wifi connection and everything is tremendously slow. We leave for Morocco in about two hours, so everyone is either back on the ship or getting back on. Of the three pictures that are hopefully below, one is of me and Daniel Dorfman and our friend Molly from Highland Park at a club in Sevilla, one is of me and a bunch of Semester at Sea people at the FC Sevilla soccer match that we went to, and the final one is of me, mom, and Mara in Nassau before I got on the ship. We have one day at sea tomorrow before we dock in Casablanca. Spain was absolutely amazing. We went spent about two days in Sevilla and one and a half in Cadiz. I expect a long and detailed post about everything we did in Spain sometime tomorrow.

Spain Tomorrow...

Today is Tuesday, January 27, our last day at sea before we dock in Cadiz, Spain tomorrow.  The past few days on the ship have been great.  Everyone is getting used to life on the ship and getting very excited to get to Spain tomorrow.  Classes have been going very well, with the exception of the mandatory Global Studies class.  Its topics are all over the place.  One day we learned about the suns energy and how weather changes around the equator.  Another, we talked about ancient civilizations in Spain/Europe.  Today and yesterday they talked about current, relevant, Spain-related stuff.  There is one head teacher who essentially delegates lessons to others, so the class has no real overall focus.  But all my other classes are great.  The work load for all of them is nothing unbearable and all three teachers are very nice, understanding, and FLEXIBLE. (The word FLEXIBLE has been burned into our brains since getting on the ship, making us understand that with everything that goes on this semester, we need to be flexible…) 

The food on the ship has not gotten any better/worse.  All of my meals consist of a salad, some kind of pasta and/or potatoes, vegetables, maybe some kind of meat/protein, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dessert (there’s pbj only at dinner for some odd reason).  Today, for lunch, however, we had mac and cheese and terrific French fries, probably the best meal yet.  To help curb the poor choices at meals, I’ve learned that the snack bar I talked about before has great chicken sandwiches and burgers for ONLY $2.25 and $2.50.  Such a deal!

The weather and seas have changed significantly the past couple days.  While I haven’t had any real problems with waves and the ship being too rocky, it has significantly picked up since Sunday night.  Probably comparable to the worst cruise choppy-ness I’ve encountered. We are hearing that this is typical when getting closer to Spain.  Also, the weather has gotten significantly cooler, also due to the fact that we are getting nearer to Spain and farther from the equator.  We’ve also had 6 one-hour time changes now, which has made it more and more difficult to get up for class in the mornings.  All of these things, however, are problems with minor significance that I am having no problems dealing with.

When we get to Spain tomorrow, we will be docking in Cadiz, which is in the very South-Western part of the country.  From there, me and several people are going to take the train to Sevilla (about an hour and a half).  We’ll stay in Sevilla for two nights (Wed and Thurs).  Several of us have a bunch of friends studying abroad there, so it will be nice to see them for a couple days.  We are hoping/planning on going to a F.C. Sevilla soccer match Thursday night.  I think this would be a very cool thing to experience.  After Sevilla, we’ll go to Cordoba (only a half hour train ride) for the day on Friday.  We’re planning on coming back to Cadiz for Friday night and then spending our time touring on Saturday before we get back on the ship in the afternoon.  Note, however, that all these plans are tentative, and that for the most part, our “group” is going to be playing things by ear.

We are about to have our first “Pre-Port” for Spain.  This is the mandatory information session given to all students before arriving in each country. 

I’m hoping to have an update to what we did in Spain on Feb. 1^st, our day at sea in-between Spain and Morocco.

A Third of the Way to Spain

Today is Thursday January 22, our third full day at sea.  Since we haven’t done much worth writing about since my last post besides finishing orientations and our first two days of classes, I’ll focus this entry on some things about the ship and ship life.  Before continuing, however, on Tuesday, we had the opportunity to watch the inauguration live, which was very cool.  Everyone watched together in the “Union” (like the theater on a cruise ship).  The only way for us to be able to do so, however, was to shut down all internet activity to maximize the satellite’s bandwidth; and the feed was still choppy.  We’ll also hopefully do the same thing for the Super Bowl in a few weeks.  Reuben, I hope you enjoyed the experience and weren’t too cold. 

For those wondering about the ship, let me describe it as a “miniature” cruise ship.  It is essentially decorated and set up just like any cruise ship we have ever been on, just smaller and with fewer rooms.  My cabin is just like any other we’ve stayed in, just without the balcony.  We do have a window, which without it; we’d have no idea what time it would be.  The meals are all served buffet style, like the restaurants by the pool on the Princess ships.  I think we’ve eaten every meal so far outside, which has been very nice.  The food has just been okay, as expected, reminding me a lot of our dorm’s cafeteria freshmen year.  But remember, I’m here for the food in the countries we’re visiting, not on the ship. 

Despite what some of you may think, yes, we do have classes while on the ship.  All 700+ students take “Global Studies”.  Since there is no room large enough to hold everyone, they broadcast the class live on TVs in all of the ship’s common areas.  I am also taking a public speaking class, in which we will focus on speaking about global issues.  My business course, International Strategic Management, will be very interesting.  Half of the class consists of a group competition in which each group creates its own company and has to manage all aspects of it while its actions are simulated by software.  My final course is Asian-American Fiction, the one I worked so hard to get to transfer back to Wisconsin.    I already have 50 pages of some awful sounding Asian novel to read for Saturday.  By the way, days of the week and times no longer have any meaning to me.  Its either an A day or a B day (like we had in high school) and we’ve lost an hour of sleep the past two nights and will be losing one more each night until we get to Spain.  All of the professors are very cool and seem to understand how the teaching/academic aspect of Semester at Sea is supposed to work.

Going back to the ship, as some of you may have heard from me or mom, we do have a fully working Spa.  Like that of which would be found on any cruise ship.  They have a whole menu of massages, treatments, and all the girl things.  And for whatever odd reason, all are “reasonably” priced, ask mom or Mara, they saw the menu when they were on the ship.  Also like cruises, the ship has an “alternate” dining option, where for a fee you can have a nice, sit-down dinner.  The ship also has two snack-shop kinds of things.  All have very reasonably priced “snack” food.  Huge water bottles are only a dollar fifty, pizzas are five dollars, smoothies are three; generally not bad.  The ship has a store with books, school supplies, basic medication, small toiletries, etc. The ship’s bookstore has all the Semester at Sea clothing and merchandise.  Unfortunately, they never restock anything during the entire semester.  So for the past two mornings, people have lined up to make sure they get the right colored sweatshirt they want in their size.  I got a really cool sweatshirt in one of the last mediums they had.  Continuing, the TV’s in our rooms don’t get any live channels.  However, the ship loops 4-5 movies every day.  Today we have Shrek, Raiders of the Lost Ark, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Amadeus. 

Last night was our first “Pub Night”. This is the only opportunity students have to drink on the ship.  I don’t think I have ever seen a more complicated or stricter-run means of serving alcohol.  We are allowed to have a maximum of two drinks at dinner and an additional four throughout the rest of the night.  Without getting into details, it’s a very long process to get a single beer or glass of wine that requires on waiting in gigantic lines.  But, that’s not what this voyage and our time on this ship is about.

All students have the opportunity to take a tour of the ship’s bridge.  I’m planning on doing mine in the next couple days.  It should be very cool, but I can’t imagine as cool as the tour we took of the Golden Princess’s bridge several years/cruises ago.  Also, I should mention that I just found out that is was awarded the position of “Sea Captain” for the Red Sea.  Every sea (each deck of students’ cabins is divided into two seas and each sea will have two Sea Captains throughout the voyage. From my understanding, this means that I will serve as an intermediary/ambassador between the members of my sea and the Semester at Sea faculty and administration. 

That’s it for now.  I’m hoping to have another post up before we get to Spain.

Hello from the Atlantic!!!

We are now on our second full day at aboard the MV Explorer.  Everything is absolutely amazing.  This is going to be an amazing and incredibly unique experience.  Before continuing, let me discuss my voyage to here in the middle of the Atlantic thus far.

After various delays and a cancelled flight, Mom and I safely flew to Nassau this past Saturday (Jan 16) in the comfort of two very large, first class seats.  Aunty Mara arrived safely on Sunday morning.  We had the opportunity to go to the Atlantis hotel and use all of their amenities.  The slides are incredible creative and fun.  Mom and I went on the slide that goes through the shark tank as well as a tube slide that was more like a roller coaster with huge drops and turns than a water slide.  While I didn’t provide any donations, the Atlantis Casino is tremendously decorated, with three gigantic Chihuly glass sculptures scattered throughout.  On Sunday night, Mom and Mara had the chance to tour the ship and attend the parent/family reception.   We had a very nice dinner afterwards and then I went out and met up with several hundreds of my soon-to-be shipmates.  I’ve met two very nice guys who go to Michigan conveniently named “Ari” and “Alex”.  On Monday morning, we got in line to get on the ship at about 10:15 and were on after about an hour and a half waiting in line. Parents were not allowed on again, so I just dropped my stuff in my cabin and went back off the ship for a final lunch at a terrific Greek restaurant with Mom and Mara.  A couple hours later, after performing our first safety/muster drill, all the students were on the side of ship waving to all the parents and families below. 

That was it.  As the distance between us and the pier grew, it became all the more real to me that this journey, which I’ve been waiting for so long now, was real and actually here.  Later Monday, after sailing, we had the first of many orientations and then met with our “Seas” (we are divided into Seas based on where our rooms are. Each has someone like an RA.) After, we had the chance to hang out by the pool and start meeting people. My roommate is named Chris Jones. He’s from Hinsdale, IL.  I can immediately tell that he will be a great guy and that there won’t be any issues.  He goes to school at Santa Clara and has a sister who went on Semester at Sea several years ago.

On Tuesday , our first full day at sea, we had probably six separate orientation sessions, one for everything we need to know (safety, rules, classes, traveling, etc.)  They all were long and mostly extremely boring and we only had breaks for lunch and dinner.  For those wondering about the food, to put it simply, its not any food you’d have on a cruise.  Statesider’s cafeteria would be REALLY appealing right now.  But its fine, there is always something for everyone to eat.  And more importantly, the best food on this trip should be coming from the countries we’re going to, not on the ship.

It is now time for our first class, Global Studies, the one that all students attend.  Since there is no room large enough on the ship for all 700 of us, they broadcast the class live on TVs throughout the ship.  Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have by posting comments on the blog or send me emails WITHOUT attachments or pictures (they’ll be too big and thus discarded) to arirokni@gmail.com. We have unlimited email access, so I will be checking frequently.  Also, feel free to give anyone interested the address of this blog (ari-at-sea.blogspot.com).  

Some fun facts about the ship and our community…

-Fastest passenger ship of its size, with a max speed of 25 knots

-There are 80 students from CU Boulder

-Of the 723 students, 73% are girls

 

Cell Phone

I will have a cell phone that should work in every country we visit.  Its number is conveniently 847-579-5224.  Ask mom or dad about it if you have questions.

You can also send text messages, which are free for me to receive, to +972529613793 (I believe this is an Israeli number).  There are many websites that let you send text messages from them for free. Just google it to find them.

Courses

1) World Geography and the Human Mosaic (Global Studies)
    Professor: Allan Schoenherr
   
2) International Strategic Management
    Professor: Jody Tompson

3) Asian-American Fiction
   Professor: John Serio

4) Public Speaking about Global Issues
    Professor: Jodi Cohen

Detailed Itinerary

Nassau, Bahamas	Depart	Monday	19 January	1700
Cadiz, Spain	Arrive Depart	Wednesday Saturday	28 January 31 January	0800 2000
Casablanca, Morocco	Arrive Depart	Monday Thursday	02 February 05 February	0800 2000
Walvis Bay, Namibia	Arrive Depart	Saturday Monday	14 February 16 February	0800 2000
Cape Town, South Africa	Arrive Depart	Wednesday Sunday	18 February 22 February	0800 2000
Port Louis, Mauritius	Arrive Depart	Friday Friday	27 February 27 February	0800 2200
Chennai, India	Arrive Depart	Thursday Monday	05 March 09 March	0800 2000
Laem Chabang (Bangkok), Thailand	Arrive Depart	Sunday Thursday	15 March 19 March	0800 2000
Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam	Arrive Depart	Sunday Friday	22 March 27 March	0800 0600
Hong Kong/Shanghai, China	Arrive Depart	Sunday Friday	29 March 03 April	0800 2000
Kobe/Yokohama, Japan	Arrive Depart	Monday Friday	06 April 10 April	0800 2100
	(Cross International dateline, add one day)
Honolulu, Hawaii, USA	Arrive Depart	Sunday Monday	19 April 20 April	0600 2000
Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala (Antigua, Guatemala City)	Arrive Depart	Tuesday Thursday	28 April 30 April	1100 2000
	(Transit Panama Canal - Sunday, 03 May)
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA	Arrive	Wednesday	06 May	0800