September 3 2010 ? MV Explorer

Last night Ellie and I set a new record, staying up until four in the morning working.  I’m definitely taking what my mom said to heart, which is “you can sleep when you’re home,”  which I’m taking as “I can sleep when I’m dead.”  Being as that I love sleep so much, it might be good for me to get used to being a little tired, especially when I’m waking up in the early morning for ports (and dinner in Spain is served at 10pm, and nightlife starts at midnight or one!)  It wasn’t too bad, because I woke up around ten for my morning class.  For once Ellie didn’t get up at 0700 for yoga, which I thought was because she was tired—turned out her alarm hadn’t gone off AGAIN, and she had slept through a good part of global studies.  No worries, I gave her my notes. 
1040 was World Poetry, in which we had a lovely time with Dean David as we talked about the two different translations we had read of this poem, Azul (Blue), and discussed about the ethics of translation, like putting your interpretation into a translation, liberty you could take with making it sound better at the sake of eliminating the same grammar or words or etc.  It was extremely interesting—for some reason I never thought about the things that literally get lost in translation, and take for granted that a translator will be as close to the original as possible.  For my writing, I think I’m going to try lots of different styles based on my experiences in port and see what I can come up with, it seems like if I just try lots of different things and don’t be bland and superficial, and spend a lot of time on it, I should do pretty well.  :)
Today was TACO DAY in the caf for lunch.  I’ve never seen so many people excited about tacos in my life.  I accidentally got three of them but ended up eating them all anyway, ceremoniously dipping my entire cuff of my sweatshirt into the guacamole while I was at it.  As laundry day was yesterday, I washed out the sleeve as best I could and hung it in the shower—I don’t think I’ll need it for the heat of Spain anyway. 
Speaking of Spain, we get there TOMORROW and I am SO EXCITED.  But I’ll get to that later.
Anthropology of Tourism was lovely, though we just kind of watched the rest of Holi Day (about the crossing over of modern pilgrimages and tourism) which was kind of terrible because of the horrible cringe-worthy sound quality.  I don’t think I’ve ever been to Las Vegas before—the fake Paris and New York and stuff, that was nuts.  We also did a bit of the history of tourism, which started in ancient Greece, but that was kind of boring, not gonna lie. 
I sat out in the piano lounge with Dasha reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded, which is still awesome, and discussed its focuses a little in class today.  We focused a lot on overpopulation and poverty/inequality.  It was kind of a downer class, but that’s what you get for being a sociology major.  I honestly think my major might be one of the most stressful in the world, not just because of the grades factor, but because it feels like the future of the world really rests on your shoulders.  Immigration came up, and we talked about why it was necessary in our economy today, which is funny because my professor was the mayor of Charlottesville and right now serves on Virginia House of Delegates, so he can’t say things like that often in his political profession. 
After class I was just excited to go downstairs and flop down on my bed for a while.  Ellie wanted to go to the Shabbat service (religious studies is part of her major) so I elected to come with her, as I’ve never been to a Jewish service aside from like… a Bat Mitzvah years ago. To be honest I enjoyed it far more than the Christian service I went to on the ship—Hebrew is a beautiful language (especially the songs, which I sort of la-la-laed through), and the prayers were very poetic and beautiful.  Afterwards we ate dinner together, which was fun getting to know some people—Josh is a Chapman student who lives on my floor and is doing the Berber Village trip with me, and Aaron was the guy I met on the first move in day.  It was fun talking to a new group of people.  I feel like I’m doing a good job getting networked. 
Afterwards it was the LOGISTICS MEETING FOR ESPANIA!!  Also known as “How to not die in Spain.”  Everyone packed into the Union to listen to the typical thing—carry a money belt, travel in groups, etc.  TONS of people are going to Ibiza, which is this Spanish island that is basically “party island,” for American college tourists, there’s always clubs and music and drinking.  I don’t know why you would do that on a voyage like this, but anyway, some guy going on that sold me his ticket to the Grazalema Natural Park hike for $23 less than what it would have been from SAS.  So that’s awesome.  Ellie and I were planning on going into Seville, and some other girls want to go too, so we’re probably all going to go together on Tuesday, get a cheap hostel, and come back on Wednesday in the morning to be back on the boat.  I wasn’t originally going to be staying in a hostel, but I feel like we should enjoy the Seville nightlife, and by then the buses won’t run ‘til the morning.  We just have to make sure we don’t get back later than 1800.  We’ll leave on an early bus. 
I read a chapter in my global studies textbook to get ahead in the class (a chapter on work and globalization.  It made me feel really antiglobalist, which was uncomfortable).  But yay!  Glad to be ahead. 
You know it’s “Friday” on the SAS ship when, instead of staying up, late everyone is excited to go to bed early.  We dock at Spain tomorrow morning!  Speaking of which, I don’t know how regular updates will be while in port for the next twelve-ish days (Spain and Morocco).  I will definitely try to blog at the end of each night, but it might be hard if I am exhausted.  But anyway, much love!