MV Explorer

MV Explorer
My new home for the next 2 months!

Monday, July 4, 2011

The rest of Spain and Sea Olympics!



Spain was so much fun, I am so sad that it is already over. Let me just tell you about everything I did after Montserrat...

We had our first tapas after we all got back from our different day trips. We ordered two things we thought sounded good, and two things that the professor recommended and one liter of Sangria to split between 3 of us. The tapas were small portion appetizers and very interesting. One was chorizo, sausage with an interesting flavor to it, croquettas, which is bread and I think cheese that has been deep fried, bread and tomato, which I thought would taste like crostini and bruchetta, when really it was just a couple pieces of bread with a tomato rubbed on it, and a spanish omelet, which is potato and egg. We were glad we ordered them, to say that we did, but did not feel compelled to try them again during our trip.

That night we all went to a discoteca (dance club) and we waited until midnight because they said that the night life didn’t begin until 11:30. We soon found out that they weren’t joking. We got there and we were the 10th or so person in line, with no one else inside! It got very busy about an hour later and we soon learned that they do not seem to have a maximum capacity limit. None of us wanted to pay for the expensive taxi ride back so we walked the 2+ miles to the ship where we then watched the sunrise since it was so close to that time.

Tuesday, after not much sleep, we went out on Las Ramblas, a huge street that has every type of souvenir, store, person or outfit that you can think of. It took a few hours just to see a little bit of it. After we walked on Las Ramblas for a good 4-5 hours, we rushed back to the ship to get ready for the Flamenco show. The dinner was buffet style with plenty of options, they just were not labeled which made me a little hesitant. I stuck mostly to cheese and bread type items and some paella after I was told one of the items I thought looked good was rabbit. The show started after dinner in a quaint little theatre in the restaurant. We had front row seats which was really neat because we could watch how fast their feet were dancing, and when the women dancers would dance near us their dresses would hit our knees. Flamenco is a dance where the women do not need men and they tell you that through their dancing and singing. We had a really great time and I am so glad I made sure to include that in my trip.

Wednesday we went to lunch at a cute little restaurant we found down a small alley. There were about 10 of us together that day and after lunch we went to park juelle which is a “park” designed by Gaudi, a famous architect. The park was a large gravel area that was located on top of columns and cement so it felt like we were floating in the air. We were above all of Barcelona so we were able to get some really pretty pictures of the whole city. There were little vendors everywhere selling little interesting trinkets and there was even a live performance. The performance was by a man in leopard tights, high top shoes, a leather jacket, and guitar shaped sun glasses. He sang classic songs like Rock around the Clock, however he put them in a rock beat and threw in multiple unnecessary obscenities. After park juelle we went to Las Ramblas to explore some more. After another couple hours we still hadn’t seen all of the strip, but needed to get back to the ship to get ready for the “concert” (which was really just a house DJ playing music).

That night I never went to sleep, I just got back from the concert, got ready and went out again. That day I went on a hop on hop off bus with a friend where we were able to go all around the city and see the places we hadn’t been able to get to. I am really glad we did that because Barcelona is just so big it was impossible to see it in just 4 days. Time flew by, and before I knew it I was having to run to a cab to get back to the ship for an FDP (Faculty Directed Practica) on Doctors without borders, which I needed for class. As soon as that was over a basically went to sleep for the rest of the day and night.

The next day was Sea Olympics, in which we participated as a team with people from our deck against the other decks. We all were given a color to represent our “sea”, ours was green, and then there were different events through out the day that people participated in. Events included, jeopardy (which I competed in), tug o war, volleyball, soccer, pull ups, stand up comedy, musical chairs, poker, and synchronized swimming. The synchronized swimming was by far the most entertaining, especially when they consisted of the all male teams. One all male team performed to the song single ladies, in which they rolled up their shorts to be really short and right before they jumped in the pool they took their shirts off to reveal bikini tops they were wearing, it was extremely entertaining! After the long day we were all exhausted. I went to my room and packed for my week away from the ship in Italy, so excited to see my mom, that it was hard to fall asleep.


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