Day 14 (02-01-09)

 

Wow. It's currently 4:15am here on the ship. The Super Bowl just ended. We were able to watch a live feed from a German television station somewhere in Spain or Morocco or something. But seriously, that game was nuts. There are about 30 students onboard from the University of Pittsburgh (it's the second highest represented university behind CU Boulder's 80) and our Union was going crazy. We had about 500 people packed in at the start of the game and only about 50 by the end, but that 4th quarter was so good. I was pulling for the Cards, but to no avail. I don't even care though because that was the best half of football I've seen in a long time.

 

Anyway, we actually got some important and unfortunate news today. Last night, we left Spain and we were scheduled to make a stop in Gibraltar to refuel. Choppy seas made it impossible for us to do that in the morning, so we just floated around the Rock of Gibraltar for awhile waiting for something to happen. Finally, sometime in the afternoon, our refueling boat came up beside us and it appeared as though everything was going well. Sadly, this was not the case. The rough water made fuel line connection impossible, and we never got the fuel. So, instead of sailing on towards Morocco and getting there in the morning, we are still floating around Gibraltar waiting for fuel. They're estimating that we'll make it to Casablanca by tomorrow evening at the earliest. This has a few implications for me, because I have a 4 day/3 night trip planned and paid for in Casablanca, and one of those 4 days has now been taken away. As of now, I still don't know what's going to happen. They might shorten the trip to become 3 day/2 night if it's possible, or they'll just scrap it and give me my money back. If it's the latter, that means I have no plans and can wander Morocco at my leisure. Which would be pretty cool. But I was definitely looking forward to riding a camel through the Sahara Desert. I suppose I'll find out what's going to happen tomorrow afternoon. It's a win-win: one way I get at least a version of the trip that I planned, and another way I get more time to wander aimlessly around Africa with some refunded cash that I hadn't expected. C'est la vie. I'll let you know what happens.

 

On a lighter note, a group of 6 of us created a scavenger hunt today out of sheer boredom and we took an hour trying to knock some things off the list. In a 3 vs 3 battle of the sexes, the males lost, tragically, by a mere 3 points. But I did kiss a girl that I had never met before. I guess hippies wearing tye-dye aren't very threatening.

 

Well I'm going to go to sleep so I'm not entirely dead tomorrow. But there's no class tomorrow anyway, since it was supposed to be a port day. So I think I'll sleep in. Also, to any of my friends that are currently students and might be reading this, I'd just like to point out that we have had a grand total of 7 days of class so far. The first 2 of which were the intro classes that got out early and gave basic overviews of the courseload. So instead of being a full 3 weeks into a semester at Boulder, I'm about a week into a semester on a cruise ship and I've also spent some time in between in the Bahamas and Spain. Seriously, look it up. Semester at Sea. Do it. Love it.

 

Christopher