World Blog 1

Hello everyone! Right now I am in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, almost to Spain. We arrive in Spain on Wednesday. Life at sea is great! We've had classes every day for the last seven days (yes, even Sunday), and everyone is starting to get into the swing of things (literally - the boat rocks back and forth constantly, its impossible to walk in a straight line). My classes are great, I have a professor from USC who is really enthusiastic for my International Entrepreneurship class, and then a woman from Zimbabwe who teaches my International Marketing and Nonprofit Marketing classes. I am also taking a "Global Studies" class that focuses on the politics, history, and geography of all of the countries that we visit.

Most of the people on the cruise ship are really cool, and everyone is very excited. Its good that people actually realize the magnitude of this voyage. The food is pretty good - they have a good variety of options for every meal except breakfast. Breakfast is not very good, I started just eating the prepacked yogurt b/c the fruit is starting to go bad. Other than that, however, lunch, dinner and "10pm snack" are all really good. They always have delicious soups at every meal. You can also buy pizzas, veggieburgers, ice cream, smoothies, chips and candy bars until midnight.

In Spain, me and about four other people are starting to get out plans together. We arrive in Cadiz on Wednesday, and will spend most of that day on our own exploring the city. At night we are signed up for a Flamenco Dinner through Semester at Sea, which includes a bloodless bull fight, food, and a flamenco show. We will stay on the boat that night. The next morning we are getting up and taking a 7am train to Seville (about an hour and a half, and only 9 euros), were we will spend the day. Then we will stay at a hostel somewhere in Seville. The next morning we are either going to Grenada (another short, cheap train ride) or Madrid (a little more expensive, and not more than three hours on the high speed train). We are still trying to figure out where to go b/c we want to see a futbol game, and are trying to figure out which city will have a game going on. Then we will stay at a hostel that night and take the train back to Cadiz the next morning. Then we set sail again, have one full day at sea and then arrive in Morocco!!!!

I look forward to hearing from everyone!

Tomorrow we are catching the 6:45 am train to Seville, and staying in Samay Hostel (look it up, its nice, 15 Euros/night) for two nights. We were going to go to Seville for a night and Granada for the second night, but we decided it wasn't worth it: Its a 9 Euro, 2 Hour train from Cadiz to Seville, a 30 Euro, Three Hour train ride from Seville to Granada, and then 50 Euro, 4 and a half hour bus ride (there is no train, and buses are really unreliable) from Granada to Cadiz, so we decided not to go to Granada and just stay in Seville for two nights and take a train back from Seville on the last day to Cadiz.

Cadiz is sorta boring, we went to a flamenco performance tonight, which was sweet but really touristy, reminded me of Myrtle Beach and the horse stampede Dolly Partan place or something lame like that. Anyway, thank you for setting up my phone, I have to go to bed b/c its really late and I have to wake up in 4 hours for the early train. I will let you know how Seville is and everything. I took a lot of sweet pictures today with my camera.

By Elizabeth Elliott

Pictures from Spain are here.