The French Wine List: From England to Portugal; The Beginning of Adventures

At Buckingham Palace

Okay, this is great. I won't lie to you, traveling the world for work is not a bad gig at all. It's something I seriously want to continue in a multitude of ways, but one for sure. I want to do Semester at Sea again.

We're not even a full week into this program, including orientation, and I'm in love. I'm surrounded by creative, innovative intellectuals that have the same passion I do: travel. Plus, it's mixed with education.

(Side note: All my London photos are getting thrown in here since I didn't have them for the last post.)

Buckingham Palace gates

There are already so many things that have happened that I will never have the words to do justice to, but thankfully I'm a photographer. We left Southampton on Monday, June 16th at 9pm, pulling away from the docks with the help of a tugboat that proceeded to spin us 180-degrees into the channel to send us on our way. For those of you who have never seen a ship dock or sailaway, it's really significantly less exciting in actuality than it is metaphorically. Personally, I love it. However.... When one realizes that it takes 15 minutes to pull away from the pier, it's not quite as "woohoo" as say.... A jet plane. But, it was the beginning of something wonderfully new.

London's Eye

Big Ben

Proceed to multiple days at sea and hundreds of students, faculty and staff orienting themselves with EVERYTHING. In this, I was so happy to have been on ships before, though it is completely different. I at least understand which way is forward, that theaters are located forward (aka the Union) (and my office as well, in a little cave. No panorama deck 12 windows on this ship) and that dining halls are located in the aft. Basics... That put me ahead of everyone else. That, and the initial sea sick that everyone felt.... Nada for me. We got our assignments per port, as well as the class field labs that we'll be covering. Pretty much, everything I've been assigned is amazing, and I'll write plenty more about them later.

Thursday afternoon began with the announcement that we were 19 nautical miles from Portugal, and though we weren't supposed to be in port until the next morning, we would be arriving at 2:30 pm. Friday was a planned academic day, where no one is allowed off the ship, regardless of us being in port. So we spent Thursday night and all day Friday looking over Lisbon from our outer decks, lusting after land. They made the announcement in Friday night that we would have early departure for this morning (6 am, no thanks) and late all aboard on Tuesday night (10 pm). The days in between are to do with as we please.

Westminster Abbey

So last night, I didn't feel fabulous, took some NyQuil and woke up this morning with a horrendous head cold and decided it was better for me to spend a day in bed at the beginning rather than be miserable for the next week or so. I'm already feeling better and really looking forward to my next few days in Lisbon. Tomorrow I have a free day, and then I start my assignments!

On Monday, my first assignment will be an Impact trip, where myself, hopefully Kara and her family, and one of our amazing psychologists will be taking students on a mission to the Casas do Gaitato, which is a private institute for educating and integrating young children and infants without families back into society. We will be there to be assisting with upkeep to the casas, including gardening, painting and maintenance to the grounds.

The Mall. Just look at all those flags.

Tuesday, I will be on assignment with Dr. Emilie Rissman, one of our amazing biology professors, for her Hormones and Health field lab. Her students and I will be going to the Lisbon Zoo and guided around their by one of their biologists. The students will be studying habits among primates, but we will be taken on a private tour of the zoo and into the veterinary section as well (though I don't know if I'm allowed to photograph there). Dr. Rissman will then be giving a talk at the zoo while I get to supervise (I can't believe they actually put me in charge of things!) the students while they continue to study the primates.

Big Ben. Again.

Seriously, even if I just ended up doing my assignments in every port, they would be absolutely amazing! The classes I've already been able to attend make me sort of (not quite enough) want to go back to school, and I'm so loving being in an educational community again. It's also a seriously different educational community than SCAD. Next week, in Spain, I will be documenting with the photography class as Professor Robinson takes his class to museums and towns nearby Bilbao and lectures on the Spanish Civil war, and I'm excited to sit in on that class... With my degree in photography and all.

The Eye

I've been approached multiple times about teaching a photo seminar.... And we'll see. I don't know how well I would do at teaching. Maybe a small one... But nothing on the scale that I think people want me to do.

So, more stories soon, more adventures happening in the next few days and then assignments like crazy!

Ciao!