Kevin's Semester at Sea: Spain: Round 2

Valencian countryside

Spain rocked. Literally. After a week long of swaying back and forth on a ship traveling through the English Channel, even as we stepped foot on land, my body was still rocking back and forth as if the ground was moving. This lasted for the entire first day that we were in Barcelona. We arrived about 5 hours later than scheduled due to unexpected weather conditions. As I stepped off the dock and walked

down the well-known Las Ramblas street, memories came flooding back seeing as I was on the same street just over one year ago. Tourists are drawn to Las Ramblas to bargain with the street vendors and find overpriced souvenirs to take home with them. Along with tourists being drawn in, so are pickpocketers. Last SAS voyage in the Spring of 2017, there were 68 reported incidents of pickpockets/theft. This voyage, only 10 incidents were reported. Before each port we enter, we have a mandatory pre-port meeting which consists of port logistics, crime, food, how to get around, and basically everything else in regard to health and safety. Despite the high levels of crime and violence in Spain (primarily Barcelona), I was able to keep all of my belongings with me, thankfully.

The first day in Spain, I participated in a field program through Semester at Sea, called Best of Barcelona: through the eyes of a local student. We started by walking down Las Ramblas until we turned into a wide open square where we found many restaurants, bars, and music. After walking through the streets a bit, we turned down a small alley where we found a chocolate factory. The beauty of Semester at Sea programs is the fact that they often can do so much more than we would be able to had we traveled independently. We went into the chocolate factory, spoke with the managers for a bit, and looked around at the incredible chocolate sculptures. Following this, we all piled into a small room where a fountain was pouring out deliciously warm chocolate. Our chocolate factory tour guide gave us a cone of paper filled with chocolate so we could draw on wax paper. After 4-5 minutes of this chocolate drawing, everything would harden and we would eat it straight off the paper! Below is a picture of the very sad chocolate painting I drew.

After our wonderful chocolate adventure, we did a bit more walking through the city to see some of the local hotspots. Our tour guides consisted of 3 students who were fulfilling one of their own class assignments in tourism, as well as their professor tagging along with them. I spent a large portion of our field program with one of the student guides, Elisa. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture with Elisa, but I did happen to get her contact info so I can send her postcards from South Africa and Mauritius like she asked. We had a steady rainfall on our first day in Spain which held us back from some of the places of which we were to visit. For the most part though, I had already seen many of the places and things that they showed us. One place I did go to this time but not the last was Montserrat. Montserrat is a monk sanctuary and retreat about one hour from Barcelona in the mountains. The name derives from the sawtooth features of the mountains. Hence, mont (mount) - serrat (sawtooth), or Sawtooth Mountains. Montserrat was gorgeous and highly congested with tourists for obvious reasons. I actually lost my group at one point during our short 2 hour stay and wandered off through the town on my own adventure. When I was finally reunited with my group, we watched a short documentary on the history of Montserrat.

After Montserrat, we headed back to the ship to sail off to our next port, Valencia. Personally, I liked Valencia more so than I did Barcelona. It was simply less touristy which made it significantly more enjoyable for me and the people that I was with. Day 1 of Valencia, I was on a field program called ‘Highlights of the Valencian countryside.’ We drove about an hour and a half to a secluded village called Montanejos. We all went to a hot spring where we found crystal clear waters within a small ravine. I didn’t plan on going in the water, yet it is quite clear from a picture below that I did end up giving in and going in at least part way. I was wearing swim shorts and decided to wade into the water to take some pictures of some friends. The water was about halfway up my thigh when I realized I forgot to take my phone out of my pocket. Whoops. Luckily the water only went about a quarter of the way up the phone itself. Upset, I started heading back to dry ground to leave my phone in my bag. I was always afraid of doing something like this and now it had finally come true. As I walked back with my phone, I mis-stepped and actually dropped my phone completely under the water. I quickly reached in and grabbed it, but not before it was fully submerged. Haven’t had any problems yet… Keeping my fingers crossed.

After the hot springs, we went to find some food in the village. We found a small hole in the wall restaurant where nobody knew any English. The village was clearly not set up for tourists. We had to dig deep to remember those high school years of Spanish. Fortunately we made it through without too many issues. We drove back through the city of Valencia on our way back home to the ship. I went out that night with Carolyn, Carley, Amy, Megan, and Melanie to find dinner and a few drinks. From there we wanted to go a beach. We ended up spending hours on a beach only about 30 minutes walking from our ship. The sand was so soft it was absolutely unbelievable. We stayed out until about 2 in the morning talking and getting to know each other. Many of these girls you will see in my Neptune Day blog post. I am so lucky to have met these amazing friends.

The last day in Valencia, I went with 3 other friends for a walk throughout the city. We walked through the Arts and Sciences museum which is pictured below. We found a killer deal at a restaurant about 5 miles in town for a three course lunch for less than $10. It was funny how just about anywhere that we went in Spain, we were within rock-throwing distance of another SASer. When we were walking through a backstreet in Valencia about 5-6 miles from the ship, we happened to run into my roommate and some of his friends! Small world. Usually, on-ship time or OST as they call it, is between 4pm-6pm on the last day in each country. We weren’t able to stay out too late in the day because of this, yet we still did cover a fair amount of ground with the public transportation. There is much more to see in Valencia than the little bit that I visited. I guess I will just have to come back! Here are five fotos from Spain.