Finally getting to Belgium and Portugal. Spain and South Africa will come before Argentina I promise! Maybe... there's a lot of classwork during my 11 days crossing.
BELGIUM!!
I went to this country with absolutely no expectations and no idea what I would do! It's Belgium for christ sake what the hell is there?!
Most people while in Belgium took the opportunity to go to Amsterdam, Germany and France. I really really really wanted to go to Germany since it's literally the only place I could go and speak the ONE second language I sort of have. Ich spreche kleine deutsche.
I ended up staying in Belgium for the entire 6 days we were there. Note: 6 days is a long time to be in a country for Semester at Sea!
Since I was in Belgium for such a long time Im just going to give you the highlights of my experience there rather than a play by play.
Let it be known that Belgium has a very good and cheap transportation system if you know where you're going and how to get there. That being said the group of people I was with didn't speak dutch or french and we didn't know where we were going.
I believe it was the second or third day (I slept off a cold the first day) it was just POURING rain and we got lost in Mechelin Belgium. We were trying to get to Fort Breendonk and there were buses that said they were going to Breendonk, but apparently that's not where FORT Breendonk is located... We waited and looked for a bus for about 2 hours while sitting in the rain. Eventually we decided to get on the next bus and see where it took us. WE WENT IN THE ABSOLUTE WRONG DIRECTION! We ended up in Boom Belgium....
-.-
If you don't know where that is don't feel bad, we didn't either. At first some of us were like awesome we're in a small town in Belgium let's make the best of it! That didn't happen because the town was essentially a junction between Mechelin and Antwerp, and most things were closed. We quickly found someone who spoke English who could translate directions to the train station for us and we headed back to Antwerp.
By that time the sun and all the people had come out in Antwerp and I did some shopping and people watching.
The next day I decided I was going to Fort Breendonk NO MATTER WHAT!!! So I bought a ticket for the SAS trip =)
Best decision I made in Belgium! I didn't realize that Fort Breendonk is basically on the outskirts of a very small town in Belgium, still don't know which town, and people don't exactly like to talk about it, which is understandable! I don't want to tell everyone too much about Fort Breendonk because there is so much to say about it, yet no words can describe the feeling that you have while you're there. I suppose you would like a little history on this place though.
Fort Breendonk was an internment camp during WWI. Thousands of people stayed there, hundreds died and fortunately less than 100 were executed there. yes fortunately this is WWI we're talking about!
The history that the fort is steeped in is too much to give justice to in a few words. Look it up on Google because you can and I can't! Or go there and give respect to the people who were imprisoned or executed there.
Fort Breendonk= a very profound experience that I will never forget.
Another highlight while in Belgium was the Antwerp Zoo! It is the first or second oldest zoo in Europe. It was established in 1843. During that year they also thought the world was going to end, set out on the Oregon trail, and Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was published. Fun year.
The Antwerp zoo is a must see.
After the zoo my friend Brooke decided to go on the Ferris wheel in Antwerp. It was a beautiful day so I was more than willing to go. However, Brooke didn't share with us that she is scared of heights!!!! She was freaking out 90% of the time and it was hilarious. We make fun of her all of the time and I made a video. Ill share it with you all one day =)
The next day we went to Ghent. Beautiful town. Lots of canals and bridges and churches with really weird carvings on them. We walked around Ghent and shopped while taking in the sights. Later we went on a trek to a street that apparently has the most bars on it, but we went really early and it looked incredily lame. It was also under construction, so we opted out.
That night we went out drinking in Antwerp. Had a ton of fun, ate too many AMAZING waffels and not nearly enough french fries! I had no idea Belgium was known for its french fries, but they're pretty tasty. They're just like steak cut fries, but the put a mayo like sauce on them. You should try them if you're ever there.
The last day I went and used wi-fi to load pictures. I also ate some chocolate, because that's a requirement for doing in Belgium, bought souvenirs and then headed back to the ship for dinner.
While we were leaving we had a band playing music for us! And a lot of people came to a walk way which was level with deck 5 to wave goodbye to us.
So we all sat outside on deck 6, waved goodbye to people and wished we could have more waffles!
Portugal
As with Belgium, I had no expectations for Portugal. I honestly had the idea that Portugal was just going to get in the way of more time in Spain, but I ended up wishing for more time in Portugal and less time in Spain.
Portugal was absolutely beautiful. It was the first port I was fine with just walking around the streets looking at the tiles on the buildings. However Portugal is REALLLLY hilly and it was REALLLY hot outside so that put a damper on that.
The first day in Spain we set out some what early to wander the city. We got lost really quickly and decided to come back to the ship to meet up with some more friends. Once we all met up we decided to go to the castle because we heard it was a good place to sit down enjoy some lunch or dinner and look out onto the city. It was a glorious view and the castle was a lot of fun to explore. When we were done exploring the castle we found a restraunt with seating on the roof. We ended up staying at the restaurant for 4 or 5 hours. We had great food and conversation, but honestly the fact that the waiter never came with our bill till we asked for it made us stay quite a bit longer. There wasn't even any wi-fi there!!!!! The sunset was gorgeous, but once the sun was down it got cold fast.
The next day was equally beautiful and we decided to go to a beach about an hour away. The beach was located in Cascais and the very last stop on the train. The entire train ride was simply beautiful and Cascais was gorgeous as well. I have only seen a small part of the country but I have this feeling it's all gorgeous. Anyway, hanging out at the beach was wonderful. The water was a little cold though and had a lot of seaweed and stuff that shouldnt be in the ocean floating in it so I passed up on swimming. My friends however LOVED it. My friends went swimming and while they were out there they swam out towards the sail boats that were lining the beach. One of the boats asked them if they wanted to jump on their sail boat and I about crapped my pants when I saw them climbing into a strangers boat in a foreign country!!! All I could think was they are going to be kidnapped by these creepy old men in a sail boat and Ill have to go back to the ship and explain to them why all 3 of them are dead/missing. I was so incredibly worried about them! The other people I was with helped me to not freak out as much, but after an hour of them sitting on this boat and not saying anything to us we started to get worried, and we wanted to leave. I didn't want to leave them behind and I also didn't want to just leave their stuff on the beach unattended. Now, here's my side of the story, I called out to them on the boat about 5 times telling them we were leaving. Another girl we were with joined me another 3 times. We got one response where one of my friends on the boat waved and laughed. The rest of the people we were with were ready to go and frustrated that they couldn't get on with their day because of my friends. So we gathered up all their stuff, hid the most valuable things and slowly began to walk away. 2 of my friends on the boat jumped out and looked like they were coming back to shore, but they got back in the boat. So I continued to walk away. Eventually the girls couldn't see me anymore, but I could see them and I could see and watch their stuff. They decided to come back to shore and we told them we were ready to go. They decided to stay and I went and had pizza with my friends who had other plans for the day.
The people my friends got into a boat with ended up being the most interesting people they will probably ever meet. They were the youngest swedes to ever circumnavigate the globe in a sail boat. There was a parade for them when they left! They had dropped everything in their lives to accomplish this dream they had and while they were doing it they just wanted to meet new people. Another one of my friends ended up staying the night on their boat and sailed back to the ship with them the next day. She said it was the most amazing experience of her life, and I don't doubt it in the slightest.
That night I ended up with a group a friends and we went to the main drinking/bar area of Portugal. We had heard great things about it, but honestly it was kind of boring and really not my thing. I enjoy sitting around a table drinking and talking about random crap with my friends. This area is geared toward people who LOVE to bar hope. No one and I mean NO ONE was actually in any of the bars. You order your drink then stand outside on the street with your closest 200 friends and have a drink. Really really not my thing.
The last day we went to the Lisbon Oceanarium, HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend if you are at all interested in wildlife. They had a sea turtle exhibit while we were there and it was AMAZING. Its a huge oceanarium and there it a lot to see there. We spent 4 hours walking around it and we could have spent a lot more time, but it was our last day and we still needed to go buy our souvenirs!
After the oceanarium we had a late lunch together. Half of our group decided to go do more shopping and the other half decided to return to the ship. I was part of the second group. I came back to the ship took a nice long shower hung out with other people on the ship and had dinner. We then watched the sunset as we waited to pull away from Portugal and move onto Spain
And then, we heard the bing bong. The bing bong comes on whenever someone has an announcement. Typically on the last day we here the bing bong about 20 times before we leave the port, but we hadn't left the port yet and we were way behind our departure time. Dean John Tymitz made an announcement asking the entire shipboard community to go to the union in 10 minutes. We all headed to the union.
We then got the news that we were not going to Morocco because of the increasing violence and political unrest in the middle east and Muslim countries. I almost cried, some people did. Morocco was going to be our first port that was truly different from anything the majority of us had known. Many of us were anxious about it, but we were also very excited to have experience Moroccan culture.
It's sad that people can get so angry at each other that they are drove to riot and kill them. I have been very angry with people before, but I always felt like I was in physical pain when I was angry with anyone. It makes me want to say to people who can be that angry for that long, "Aren't you tired?" of fighting, hating, and killing. It doesn't help anything to get that angry and react in that way. I hope that one day the response to events that anger people so extremely will be much more calm and civil.
So our itinerary changed. We ended up staying in Portugal that night, but we weren't allowed off the ship. We ended up staying in Spain for 2 more days and then we went to Santa Cruz de Tenerife which I had never heard of! It was really fun to suddenly be in a place that I didn't know existed, but that's a story for my next blog!
Sorry this one took so long to write, but obviously a lot happened!!!!!! My next blog post will be about Spain and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which is technically more Spain just some islands that they own =D
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