Category Archives: Travel
Cape Coast Castle and Slave Dungeon
On our first day in Ghana, we hired a taxi driver to take us to the town of Elmina to visit the Cape Coast Castle and Slave Dungeon. It was a very moving experience for us. The injustice and evil of the whole concept of slavery is appalling in and of itself, but to stand […]
Happy Birthday, Nam and Sancy!
On September 21, Sam turned 31. He joined the ranks of the lucky-ducks on the ship who get to have a birthday during semester. Celebrating is a big deal on the MV Explorer, so we had not one, but two parties for him on the ship. The first one was with our shipboard family, pictured […]
Also posted in Family
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Guided by the Best
We need to tell you a little bit more about our fantastic guide, Mohammad, pictured with us and another great guide, Hossein, below. Three guides helped us throughout our trip, but Shannon and I spent the most time hiking with Mohammad (the one with the orange hat). This guy was a walking, talking, joking encyclopedia […]
Tagged hiking, Morocco, SaS, Semester at Sea
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The Hotel of A Thousand Stars
After our time in Marrakech, we spent the next three days hiking and visiting Berber villages in the High Atlas Mountains. We learned from our guides that the term “Berber” actually comes from the word “barbarian” and was a derogatory term given to all non-Arabs in northern Africa. Most of the villagers themselves don’t know […]
Tagged Atlas Mountains, Berber, gite, hiking, Morocco, SaS, Semester at Sea
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Good Luck, Long Life, Good Baby, Good Sex
The bulk of our time in Morocco was spent on a 4-day Semester at Sea trip to Marrakech and then into the High Atlas mountains, and we loved every second of it. We were a little anxious about the logistics of leading a trip with 60 people on it, but a combination of fantastic Chleh […]
Tagged animals, Morocco, SaS, Semester at Sea
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Skype-ing at the Cathedral
One of the students’ favorite things about Spain was the fact that less than a 5 minute walk from the ship, the city of Cadiz offered free high speed wifi in the plaza of the cathedral. During academic voyages, crew and students pay a hefty fee for Internet usage on the ship, so this plaza […]
Tagged beach, SaS, Semester at Sea, Spain, sunset
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¿Who’s Watchin’ You, Cádiz?
The laid-back Spanish beach town of Cádiz, Spain is world famous for its watch towers, many of which were built during its heyday of trade-based prosperity in the 1700s. We spent our first day trekking around the Old Town in search of the official watch tower and highest point in Cádiz, the Torre Tavira. Fluent […]
Tagged Cádiz, SaS, Semester at Sea, Spain
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The Best Flamenco Singer in All of Spain
You gotta love Spanish culture. Machismo, fine wine, tapas, flamenco, Rafa Nadal. We felt very fortunate to get a chance to visit southern Spain, also known as Andalusian Spain, where many of the classic stereotypes originated and are strongest even in this modern era. Everywhere we turned there was stunning architecture, natural beauty, history to […]
Also posted in Uncategorized
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Niceness in the Great White North, eh?
During last winter’s Olympic games we kept hearing coverage about how nice and friendly Canadians are. We’ve met a few over the years and have never been given reason to doubt the stereotype. Visiting a large Canadian port like Halifax, however, gave us the chance to experience Canucks en masse; and they really are nice! […]
Tagged Canada, Halifax, SaS, Semester at Sea
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Working 9 to 9 (am to am)
We want to devote a blog post to the crew of the MV Explorer, the hardest working crew on the seven seas. First of all, let us clarify–we Bloomquai are not on the ship’s crew. We are staff, so we do not wear uniforms, but we do still answer to Captain Roman–ultimately everyone on board […]
Tagged SaS, Semester at Sea, shipboard life
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