Markets, Monkeys and Marrakech

Bonjour, mes amies et familie! I cannot believe today’s date is August 17^th. This summer has flown by and it seems like just yesterday that Heather and I were flying to Halifax, Nova Scotia. After 60 days, 9 countries, and countless memories I cannot believe how blessed I am to have had such an incredible summer. This has been the adventure of a lifetime and I am going to be thanking my parents for the rest of my life for allowing me to come on this voyage. Thank you, Mom and Dad!! I LOVE YOU!!!

 

The last country we visited before our 9 day trip across the Atlantic Ocean was Morocco and I wanted to share some stories with you all from my time there. The first day of Morocco, Heather and I got off the ship we went to the city of Marrakech, where we checked into our lovely hotel and ate a traditional Moroccan dinner complete with cous-cous and curry chicken…yummmmm!!

 

A group of us girls decided we wanted to venture out to Djemâa al Fna Square, one of the coolest places I’ve ever been in my life, complete with fortunetellers, snake charmers, monkeys, fire-eaters, and acrobats. It was soooo fun to see everything!! We made sure to dress as conservative as possible when we went out because we heard that Moroccan men were even more aggressive to American woman than Egyptian men. It was also the first time in the entire voyage that Heather and I didn’t have at least one boy with us when we went out, so we were a little nervous. We had to take a taxi that was meant for four people to the square and there were six of us crammed in. Heather had to sit on someone’s lap and we nearly died in traffic a couple times on the way there. When we got to the square we were completely overwhelmed with all there was to see, smell and feel. There was smells of sewage, spices, incense, body odor and food. There were so many people I couldn’t even guesstimate the amount in the square that night and everyone was bumping into each other, invading one another’s “bubbles”. It was a lot like the boardwalk of Venice Beach, California except at 11PM in the evening, African, on crack and with only Moroccan men. There was smoke coming from the square because of the street vendors selling food on the way to the “souks” (the markets that came right after you went through the Square). We saw acrobats, fortune tellers, a man with an owl (which I still don’t understand because it wasn’t that neat), and lots of men holding monkeys on chains and leashes. Well I kept getting grabbed by men in the crowd every time we’d stop and watch a performer. I was feeling very vulnerable and afraid so I just kept praying that it would stop. I was dressed very conservatively but there weren’t too many American girls out so Heather and the rest of the girls had to keep the men from harassing me and another girl we were with. Heather is such a wonderful best friend…she’s so fierce and strong when I need her to be (even though she’s fierce and strong ALL the time). We had two men with monkeys the size of a 7 year-old child thrown on two of the girls we were with. They were both bitten and scratched by these monkeys and I was so terrified of how big there were I paid the man 20 dirhams (about 2 dollars) just to keep the huge monkeys away from me. We made it to the beginning of the “souks” where there were women harassing us to do henna on our arms and legs and crazy Berber tribe witch doctors who were selling all these herbal remedies of everything from crystals to cobra snake skins. We were walking towards a shop and a shop owner had a wooden snake he shook at me and I lost it. I was so freaked out at that point I was frozen with panic. Heather kept shouting and trying to get me to move away saying it wasn’t a real snake but I was paralyzed with fear. I was exhausted from all the aggressive men, performers chasing me down for money since I took a picture of their performance, women with henna, and men throwing monkeys at us. We shopped for a while longer and ended up taking a crammed taxi ride back home, praying to the good Lord we wouldn’t get in a wreck. We made it home to the Imperial hotel to get some sleep and woke up to eat a buffet breakfast downstairs.

 

We walk into the breakfast line and see our friend Shannell in line at the buffet and she saw us and ran up to us, throwing herself on Heather and I. Our other dear friend, Rachel saw us after Shannell and did the same. The night before was horrific for them, including taking a crowded Moroccan train from midnight to three in the morning to Marrakech, and finding out that our hotel had no rooms left expect the “Presidential suite”. To add onto this, the girl they were traveling with was craaaaazy, so that didn’t help things. We decide they would stay in Heather and my room that evening to save them some money. Even though having 5 girls in a room with only two twin beds would be a little squished, we knew how to make it work from our time in Cairo with seven of us in one hotel room…yet again, to save money. The girls went off to do zip-lining and go on a Moroccan “ropes course” that day while Heather and I did sightseeing with our tour. Our guide, Latif, was amazing. He showed us everything: the mosques that housed all the tombs of the previous Moroccan kings, queens, princes and princesses, the palace of Moroccan royalty, a traditional Berber tribe pharmacy (a little more legit than the Berber witchdoctors that we had seen the night before but it was still sketchy…with their jars full of animal parts including a jar holding a hedgehog which apparently did something to help with the sinuses) and then a traditional Moroccan meal complete with sitting on pillows and washing our hands in the middle of the table from a man pour water on us into a ceramic bowl. It was fun. After lunch we did some shopping in the “souks” and we made it out to the square which was much more manageable during the day, even though daytime was when the snake charmers were out. I really wanted pictures of the snake charmers and all the snakes they had on carpets but I was terrified to get anywhere near their tents because I knew if I showed any interest in them the snake men would come and throw snakes on me like they were doing to all the other tourists. I gave “backsheesh” AKA: tip money to Heather and my camera and told her I’d stay a safe distance away while she took pictures for me. Well, Jocelyn and Christen go towards the tent and two men immediately throw snakes on their shoulders and force them to take pictures with them. Watching this, a woman doing henna approaches me and I tell her I’m not interested and about a minute later her henna friend comes up to me and says, “Hurry we have to get away from the snakes!” and I was terrified immediately because I was thinking she saw a man with a snake coming up to me from behind. She grabbed my hand and I ran away to her tent with her and she immediately started drawing henna all over my fingers and right hand. I didn’t want it but she kept drawing away and in about 25 seconds, my entire right hand was filled with “traditional Berber designs” and I was told I needed to pay her 100 dirhams (about 12 bucks). I was furious and started yelling at her because I didn’t even tell her it was alright to start putting henna on me and now I was supposed to pay her. Meanwhile, Heather was yelling at a snake charmer to keep the snakes off of her and we met in the middle and the henna woman attacked Heather with henna on her hand. We decided we’d just give her 50 dirham each, and she would just have to deal with it. We later found out from our guide, Latif, that we over paid by about 30 dirhams so I was mad at myself. We approached a man with a little baby monkey and this time I was very stern with him. “I want a picture with your monkey and I will not tip you if your monkey scratches or bites me.” He was kind of afraid of how forward I was so he just nodded in agreement and I grabbed him baby monkey and handed it back. My friend, Christen, who was taking my picture was ambushed by another monkey that was gigantic and I finally just screamed at the man, “You can’t just throw monkeys on people and expect to get paid!!!” The whole situation was ridiculous. I’ve decided Djemâa al Fna Square reminded me of the first Indiana Jones movie where Indiana was in Egypt and Miriam was put in a gigantic straw basket and they were running through the markets and squares. I think Steven Spielberg got the idea for that part of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark from this square. The rest of the trip was pretty mild after we got out of Marrakech, filled with lots of bus rides and truck stops. I’ll never forget my time in Marrakech, Morocco though: complete with snake charmers, monkeys and Berber medicine men. Morocco was constantly busy and overwhelming but as chaotic it was; I want to return. The pandemonium that ensued on our trip to Morocco was something I would love to experience again. After all, if everything went smoothly and safely, I would have no good stories. ;)

 

Thank you all for reading my blog/e-mails. I appreciate your loving thoughts and prayers more than I can ever express and I love you all dearly. My friend, Tristan on the ship made a speech at Convocation saying that “The Semester at Sea Summer 2009 voyage wasn’t the adventure of a lifetime, it was the beginning of a lifetime of adventures.” I could not agree more. While this truly was a summer I will treasure dearly for the rest of my life, I know that this voyage has only left me thirsting for more countries to experience, cultures to explore, people to love on and journeys to take. I have always loved three things: Jesus Christ, people, and traveling…and I know I’ll continue pursuing those three things for the rest of my life. My dear friends and family, thanks for all your love and support!! Can’t WAIT to see you all!!!

 

Angie Blattner

 

Riding Through the Desert on a Horse with No Name....My Egypt Experience

Hello everyone!! I write to you at sea, the first day of the many days at sea that I will be having before I get home to the USA to see all you lovely people!!  I have been terrible at blogging and I need to write about the last two countries we visit so I thought I would first start by sharing some of my experiences about Egypt with you all.

When we docked the first day in Alexandria, we went on a city orientation tour all day, visiting the catacombs and the new library (the ancient library of Alexandria unfortunately burned down and used to be one of the 8 Wonders of the World) that was built in 2003. We visited the palaces and made our way back to the boat.

The second day a bunch of us went on a SAS trip to the Giza Pyramids, Sphinx, Step Pyramid of Zoser, mummification tombs and the tombs of the high priests. We also went on a jeep safari in the sand dunes near the Sakkara pyramids and a camel ride in the desert. It was awesome!! After we got back from our adventures in Cairo we decided to be brave and venture out into Alexandria for the evening. Heather wore a he jab (a head scarf) and I was basically dressed like a boy because the two of us didn’t want to get harassed by the Egyptian men for being American girls. We also brought two of our guy friends out with us for an additional safety factor. Well, we get out of the port and about 25 taxi drivers bombard us with “Taxi Ride!! Taxi Ride!! Where you want to go??” and this crazy guy with a gimp and an arm cast hobbles over to us and tells us this taxi driver will take us anywhere in the city for 10. Well, we’re thinking since we’re in Egypt he means 10 Egyptian Pounds (the ratio is 5 Egyptian Pounds for every American Dollar) and so we’re sooo excited! We have him take us to the boardwalk where all the cafes are. He expects 10 US dollars. We get in a fight and say there was a miscommunication and he got his gimpy friend on the phone and they were yelling at us in Arabic…it was a mess. So we give him the money and tell him to leave us alone. Well, the only problem was that the taxi driver dropped us off on the wrong side of the street and we had to get to the cafes, which were on the other side of the 6-lane highway. There were no stop signs, crosswalks or pedestrian crossings of any kind. Egyptians don’t believe in that stuff. They also don’t believe in lines on the road. Cars are barely stopping in front of this guy and everyone’s honking and waving their hands. What?!!? Well, this café waiter sees us struggling to get across the road and literally acts like Moses, parting the Red Sea and some how miraculously leads us across the crazy six lanes of traffic to the other side of the street. It was like we were the Jews getting out of Egyptian slavery. Well, we HAD to give him our business after he risked his life for us. We were sitting at the café and all of a sudden an entire wedding party walked in and everyone was cheering and applauding. Apparently after you get married in Egypt, you have your reception at a café. The taxi ride home was confusing because we thought we told him to take us to the port in Arabic but he looked at us really funny and took us to the Alexandria library at 1AM instead. We were having such a language barrier that I just took our a pen and paper and drew him a picture of a bunch of boats sailing and he finally understood and got us to the boat. Thank God for Pictionary skills.

The third day in Egypt Heather and I went with our two guy friends, Will and Cheyenne, on a train to explore Cairo independently and meet up with some more of our friends who were already there on a SAS tour. Well we get to the train station in Alexandria and it seriously looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, very 1930’s. There is a sign for a “telegraph” and the trains look like they could have been from a movie like “Casablanca” or something. We buy our tickets for Cairo and we realize our “ticket” is this guy just writing some Arabic scribbles on a tiny little piece of paper; I’m keeping the ticket forever because it’s so ridiculous. We walk to get on our train and pass this train wreck on the side of the station. The train was completely destroyed and there was rubble and debris and I’m thinking either this train wreck has been here for years and no one’s cleaned it up or it just happened. Well, come to find out it had happened the day before and one of our friends from SAS that speaks Arabic told us later that he was in the train station and one of the workers shouted, “Hey, we found the arm!!” in the debris. Apparently someone lost their arm and there was a big search party for it. WHAT!?!?! At this point I am really praying hard for the good Lord to keep us safe on our journey to Cairo. We get on the train and its really nice, and it’s AIR CONDITIONED which is the biggest blessing ever in this 120 degree heat. Once we make it to Cairo safely, PRAISE GOD, we check into our five star hotel! We have been mainly staying in hostels for the majority of the voyage and so we decided that if enough people share a hotel room with us we can all split the cost of a nice hotel room. There were seven people in our suite at the Safir Hotel Cairo and it ended up only costing us 19 US dollars a person to stay the night. Yessss….we go to the Egyptian Archeological Museum and see all King Tut’s possessions they found in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings. We met up with our friends Sayble, Rachel and Shannell at the hotel after that and decided to eat dinner on the Nile River for Shannell’s birthday. We get to this restaurant and the owner comes out and is so excited that Americans are eating at his restaurant. He gives us a tour of his restaurant, which turns out to be not only a restaurant but a bowling alley and a pool hall too. Then he proceeds to make us all bowl a couple of rounds with him while they are cooking our food. I never thought I would go bowling on the Nile. After dinner we went back to the hotel and hung out until bedtime. I decided the next day I wanted to watch the sunrise over the pyramids. Well…it didn’t exactly go as planned.

 The next morning at 4:45 I wake up Heather and Cheyenne to travel to Giza to watch the pyramids at sunrise. Sayble, Shannell and Rachel had done it the morning before through SAS and it looked sooo beautiful. We get in a taxi that doesn’t understand any English so I have to draw him a picture of the pyramids. Whoever said Pictionary was a wasted skill was just lying to them selves. We show up and the gate to drive to the pyramids is closed off and there is a police officer that says we can’t go in until 8AM. Well, the sun will be up by 8AM so I’m frustrated at this point. All of a sudden this Bedouin guy comes up to us and says, “Hello. I can take you in the desert to see the pyramids for only 80 Egyptian Pounds.” I’m thinking that’s way to much money and that it sounds really sketchy so I tell him no about a thousand times. Well, it turns out it’s a business all these local Egyptians do for tourists who want to watch the sunrise but can’t get in by car. They ride you around the road and gate to see the pyramids. Well we go to the stables this guy has and there are all these donkeys and horses and camels and I’m thinking this is probably what the manger scene looked like when baby Jesus was born. I try to haggle with him to get the price down but he won’t budge and so we decide to take a taxi over to the Sphinx to watch the sunrise over there. Well we get there and we realize the sun won’t rise over the Sphinx and the pyramids but behind them. We didn’t want to watch the sunrise over the Pizza Hut by the Sphinx so we see about 10 more guys who are wiling to take us on camels and horses to see the pyramids at sunrise and we find a guy who can take us all for about 6 US dollars a person. We hop on horses and apparently since Cheyenne is a boy he didn’t have to have a guy leading him on his horse so he was up ahead of us doing his own thing. I had a nine year old boy leading my horse and Heather’s guy was a paraplegic man on a donkey smoking a cigarette and singing some song in Arabic. I’d always wondered where the men who are pestering you at the pyramids and other various touristy sites lived and hung out before this morning. Well, we got to ride through their Arabian horse and camel jockey village that morning and everyone was waving to us and dancing to really loud Arabic music. I felt like Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom movie when he’s riding into the village in India on the elephant. There were little four-year old kids holding their baby brothers and sisters with no shoes on and orphans sleeping in the hay next to the camels. It was absolutely devastating to see all the poverty. We were definitely not in the touristy part of Egypt anymore but we were in full-on third world Egypt. We notice that there are two different types of people out; the really impoverished people and the rich guys who own a lot of oil from Dubai who were riding around in Escalades and Hummers. It was such a striking contrast. All these Egyptian Arabian horse riders and passing us  in the village and galloping off into the desert. Then our horses start galloping too and I realize that it’s 6AM and I’m in Egypt galloping on an Arabian horse through a village of horse and camel jockeys on my way to the desert with a nine year old Egyptian boy and a paraplegic on a donkey and I realize I need to start re-evaluating my decision making paradigm. Well we get to the desert and pass this horse carcass that’s been completely deflated with the skull peeking out and a pack of desert jackals surrounding it and Heather shouts to me on her horse, “Hey Ang, this idea surpasses all your other great ideas.”  We get to the top of this sand dune and the boy and the paraplegic say, “We are here.” And I look out and can barely see the pyramids because of all the smog and pollution covering them and I look all the way to my right (no where near the pyramids) and I see the faint image of the sun coming up through all the smog and pollution. Thank you Egypt! So we take pictures anyway, even though we didn’t get to see the sunrise coming up over the pyramids, we got a much better story.

We got back to the hotel and told the rest of the gang what happened and we decided we’d go to the Citadel Mosque and the bazaar that day and try to keep things simple. Four of us get in a taxi with the craziest taxi driver ever. This guy sees Rachel taking out a Vanilla Mint from Starbucks and he says, “Can I have one??” and then pops it in his mouth and says, “Sleepy pill?? Sleepy” and I whisper to Shannell, “Why would a taxi driver willingly take a sleeping pill while driving through Cairo traffic??” At this point I’m so used to this stuff happening I can only laugh as the driver proceeds to laugh and swerve through traffic explaining that he can get a ticket for not wearing his seatbelt but “he no get in trouble for driving with swerving back and forth.” We get to the Mosque and it’s so hot we can barely walk. We buy 2 liter bottles of water to stay hydrated because it’s about 120 degrees out and we’re all sweating more than we’ve ever sweat in our lives. We leave the Mosque and are approached by this Police officer who wants to take us on a tour. Well, he takes us to this Police Museum near the Mosque and proceeds to take us to all these old cells of prisoners that died there and keeps telling us to “shhh” and “be quiet” even though no one’s around. He shows us a cell where eledgedly a bunch of American journalist were hung…grrrreat. After the “tour” he keeps saying “hasheesh” which Heather knew meant “tip” so we all had to pay this Police officer for the weirdest, freakiest tour everrr. After this we got to the bazaar and only stayed for an hour because we were so exhausted from our adventures.

The last day in Egypt Heather and I visited a privately run orphanage where we found out was much better than the governmentally run orphanages because apparently some of the state run ones had people working in them just to steal the children to kill them and sell their organs to local hospitals. The orphanage we visited had a man who ran it and cared deeply for the kids. He made sure all his workers went to social work school after high school and gave them all an extensive interview before hiring them. We got to color with the children afterwards, which was really neat. We got back to the boat and I was so tired I wanted to sleep for days but I knew that we had five days at sea coming up which meant a whole lot of school.

Well, I hope you all liked my Egypt stories and I know you were all probably freaking out while reading a couple of them but don’t worry, Jesus always protects me through whatever crazy situation I’m in. ☺ I love you all and I can't WAIT to see you in like 9 days!!!!

Angie :)

Boats, Brawlers and Babies in BULGARIA

So, while I was in Egypt yesterday I realized I hadn’t written my blog for Bulgaria so I apologize for the delay on this post. Bulgaria was interesting, to say the least. I was kind of hesitant to go to Bulgaria because of the whole post-Soviet satellite state thing as well as the fact that Bulgaria is the human trafficking hot spot of the world but I knew we would be protected by Jesus and it’d be fine. We dock in Varna and a group of us decided to explore a little bit before our field trip Human Trafficking FDP we had at the municipality of Varna with the mayor and the local governmental representatives. We walk for about 5 minutes and we realize that Varna is NOTHING like Istanbul. There was nothing to do, nothing to see and it was dirty, desolate and depressing. We ate at this Italian restaurant because it was the only restaurant we could find within a 10 mile radius and we had a horrible experience. My friend, Rachel ordered a chicken salad and they gave her a salad with eggs, questionable sandwich meat that looked like ham, mayonnaise and tapioca pudding and it was terrrrible. My other friend, Shannell (who happens to be black) ordered pasta but it came a half an hour after our food, because apparently Bulgaria is extremely racist and they decided to discriminate against her. This is our first impression off the boat. Great. Then when we went to our FDP and it ended up being very disheartening because we found out that even though Bulgaria is the hotspot for Human Trafficking, the Bulgarian government hasn’t done anything about it. The entire field trip was basically saying that they were excited to START doing something about fighting Human Trafficking but there were no programs or laws passed yet. Basically I walked out of it extremely disappointed. The next day Heather and I had a trip to Nessebar, a tiny little Bulgarian fishing town that housed numerous medieval churches made of stone and filled with beautiful frescoes. It was beautiful and so much fun. Nessebar definitely made up for the previous day in Varna. The third day in Bulgaria we went to a resort town about a half hour away from Varna called Golden Sands. Caroline, Rachel and I decided to try out some water sports in the Black Sea and we hopped on a giant inflatable couch-looking thing called the “Big Brawler” that was being pulled by a Bulgarian guy on a speedboat. One of the water sports guys approached us and said, “I hope you know the captain will try and throw you in the water. He is going to do it.” I was like….mildly terrified. We get out on this “Big Brawler” and the Bulgarian guy is haulin’ it through the Black Sea at a speed that I am unable to determine at this point (but it was verrrry fast) and he’s swerving back and forth and we’re barely hanging onto the “Brawler” and nearly flying off. Well, Rachel flies off first, and then I followed her shortly and finally Caroline. We were all floating in the Black Sea with our life vests on and we had to have him drive over in the boat and have us climb on the “Brawler” in the middle of the sea. It was kind of the craziest, dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I am not sure why I thought going tubing in a post-Soviet satellite country was a smart but I’m glad I made it out alive. That night I was sore and didn’t want to go out so my friend Cheyenne and I walked to a coffee house with free WiFi and I was able to get on Facebook and upload pictures for the first time this entire trip!! Hooray! The last day we were in Bulgaria I went to a local orphanage that had 50 children between the ages of 3-7 years old. We were able to ask the social workers there any information we had on the orphanage and then we got to play with the kids for an hour and a half. It was a blast! We played with bubbles and we went outside on their two playgrounds they had and we made mud pies in the dirt and scooped sand and ran around. This one little girl was obsessed with my big sunglasses and she kept putting them on but upside down and it was adorable. The orphanage visit definitely made my time in Bulgaria amazing and it was my favorite portion of the Varna port.

My next blog…EGYPT!! Love you and I miss you all!!! Sorry again this took so long to send out. Only three more weeks until I’ll be home!! HOOORAY!!! I hope you’re all having a happy August and staying out of the heat!!

Turrrrkey!!

First off, I want to wish Linda Randolph a Happy Belated 60th Birthday!!!! I love you, Linda!!! I wish I could give you a birthday hug but I promise I’ll give you one when I get home!! XOXOXO….

As I write this now in Bulgaria, I realize I haven’t updated you all on what happened in Turkey and since it was such a wonderful port, I wanted to make sure and do that now. We had one day at sea after Greece and then five days in port in Istanbul. The first day we got off the ship and visited the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. My favorite part of the day was when I was in Hagia Sophia, and I was petting the kitty cat in the mosque (like I always do even though I probably shouldn’t because they’re strays and it’s not sanitary) and this tour guide came up to me and said, “…and this is President Obama’s cat…” and I was like, “PARDON!?!?!” well…apparently, when President Obama was in Istanbul recently, the press caught him petting the SAME KITTY CAT and everyone was putting up the footage on YouTube and saying it was now Obama’s cat because he was petting it and I was ECSTATIC that I was petting the same cat Obama had pet earlier this year. YESSSS….BEST. DAY. EVER. We went to the Spice Bazaar and I was able to haggle at the bazaar and get this beautiful pink and orange patch purse and pashmina for 30 Turkish Lire…hooray! We went out that night to a hookah bar and drank delicious apple tea and ate lamb kabobs.

The next day was the big independent trip I organized to Cappadocia for three days with thirteen other SAS kids and I was SOOO excited it was finally here! Well, trying to lead a group of thirteen other college students is harder than I thought it would be. Everyone wanted to leave for the airport at a different time and everyone wanted to take a different method of transportation and after I finally begged everyone to stay together I realized I still had a gigantic problem ahead of me. Tyler, one of the guys in my group did not get a Turkish Visa for his Passport and after meeting with the Deans, the Chief Pursers and the Administration I realized that SAS was not budging on allowing him to get a last minute Visa or allowing him to take his Passport off the boat. My friend/partner in crime for this Cappadocia trip, Caroline, found out that its apparently illegal to carry around your Passport without a Turkish Visa in Turkey. If you don’t have a Passport you get a “Landing Card” which only grants you access to Istanbul and the surrounding areas and it’s illegal to leave Istanbul with JUST a Landing Card…however, I found out that from our Cappadocia tour guide that I called that you don’t need a Passport to fly on a domestic flight from Istanbul to Cappadocia so even though it is “kind of illegal” it’s still totally worth it to try and get him to Cappadocia since he already paid for the three day trip. So...I basically just prayed and prayed that we wouldn’t go to Turkish prison and said, “Jesus take the wheel on this one” and it was a GREAT SUCCESS! We made it there and had a fabulous time.

Our guide, Remzi, was phenomenal and he showed us all the cave churches in the rock formations with Byzantine icon painted frescoes inside of Biblical symbols and stories. I was sooo excited!! We saw all the “lunar landscape” that is Cappadocia which I can’t even describe to you (hopefully I’ll upload pictures soon) and visited the “fairy chimney” rock caves and the Devrant Valley and the village in Cappadocia where they filmed all the old Star Wars movies (since Cappadocia looks like a terrestrial planet)…sooo cool!! That night we checked into our Cave Hotel…that’s right, a hotel that had cave rooms in the rock formations. SO NEAT. We felt like we were in castles because the rock was cut so beautifully and everything was so beautiful in the rooms. A group of five of us wandered around the small village our cave hotel was in and played with the children of the village and watched the sunset while the “Call of Prayer” was playing at the local mosque. It was amazing experience. Then we wandered into this “kind of cave hotel” where this family was hanging out and I asked them if the had food or had a restaurant they recommended nearby and they said, “We’ll feed you!! Sit, sit!!” So they played us Motown music by candlelight dinner and gave us plates and plates of Turkish food. We found out that it was a mother and son and they were trying to open a cave hotel but they had only fixed up three rooms so far and they didn’t have much luck with tourists and travelers so far. I promised them if, Lord willing, I’m ever back their that I’d stay at their hotel. Then we sat and talked with them and played with their dog, Nissa. It was like something out of a movie it was so cool. The next day we went horseback riding next to a river and it literally reminded me of something out of a fairytale. We visited more Byzantine cave house churches and the Kayseri underground city of Cappadocia which was the neatest thing everrrr because it’s where they early Christians would flee to hide from persecution and they had everything down there from churches to houses to kitchens to cemeteries to wine cellars. The best part is that they have only excavated 10% of the underground city too, which means there is tons more for them to find!! That night we went to a traditional Sufi Whirling Dervish ceremony that had belly dancing and cultural dance as well. Our group was in the front row so they were constantly pulling us up on stage to dance with them and it was so much fun! Our last day in Cappadocia we went on a hike through a national park/open air museum which combined more cave villages with churches and it was near a river where we stopped and had lunch. This is where things got a little crazy. There were two little kittens under our table and everyone was like, “Angie! Angie! Pick up the kitties so we can take your picture.” So, like an idiot…I did and the cats flipped out and scratched the hell out of me. There was blood everywhere and everyone was screaming and luckily one of the girls on our trip is a part-time Paramedic at home so she doctored me right up and made sure it wasn’t infected. Lesson learned…not all kitties in the world are safe to cuddle with. At the end of the day we made it safely from Cappadocia back to Istanbul in one piece…until things got REALLY crazy and a girl on our trip, Melanie, got her foot ran over by a taxi at the airport. WHAT?!?! It was terrifying but thankfully, nothing was broken and she can still walk on it. There was a lot of blood everywhere though. Caroline and I reunited with our ship family (AKA: Heather, Rachel, Shannell and Cheyenne) and we all went out to this bar outdoors and met some students from the university in Istanbul and danced like they do in Turkey, which apparently means lets just dance however we want/like we’re four year olds. It was so much fun. Our last day in Turkey we went to the Grand Bazaar and I got a lamp, a skirt and some apple tea which was great because it gave me plenty of bargaining entertainment. My friend Shannell and I went to Transformers after that because everyone else wanted to go see Harry Potter (but I’m not really a fan of the HP) so we decided to watch Shia LaBeouf save the world from the evil robots in Turkish subtitles. We all decided Turkey was the best port and we didn’t want to leave for Bulgaria. Now that we’re here in Bulgaria, I kind of wish we were still in Turkey but I’ll write more on that later.

I miss you all and I love you, my dear friends and family!! Be safe and continue having a wonderful time this summer!!!! XOXOXO…

Angie ☺

GREEEECE!!

Today, like every other day on this voyage has been a whirlwind of craziness and insanity. We were in Greece the day before yesterday and today we had our only day “At Sea” where we can unwind, have class and study. I really wish we had more than one day before Turkey to get things done, sleep and catch up on my school work but it’s not really an option. Turkey will be here in less than 10 hours whether I’m ready or not so I wanted to make sure I wrote my blog and let everyone know how I’m doing. We arrived in Piraeus (the port city for Athens) on the 13th of June and the first day I spent at the Acropolis and the Parthenon which was fantastic. The first night we stayed close to the ship and in Piraeus and went out to a Karaoke bar which was the greatest thing ever. I started out singing “Killing Me Softly” and finished with Britney Spears, “Oops I Did It Again” and Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”. All in all I feel like it was a night to remember. The next morning we all walked to the port together since all our friends were going to Mykonos with us. It was early and we realized that Heather and I were on a different ferry than the rest of the group. We figured since they left at the same time we would arrive at the same time. We were WRONG. Heather and I left Piraeus and like I normally do on travel days, I slept. When I awoke, we were three hours into the ferry ride and “supposedly” we were going to be in Mykonos any minute. Well, we found out we had another two hours to go and we were apparently on the “slow boat to China” while our friends were on the fast boat and already in Mykonos waiting for us at the port. This is one of the few times on the voyage that I wished we had cell phones because we had no way of communicating to them that we were going to be late. Fortunately after a lot of prayer, we got to the port and found our hotel and were checking in when the hotel phone called and it was our friend Caroline calling from the other side of the island! Totally a God thing, because I had casually said Heather and I were staying at the “Carrop Tree” hotel but I never wrote it down for her and she miraculously remembered. We met them at the beach and swam in the beautiful Greek water that is surrounding Mykonos. The water was so clear we could see all the way to the bottom of the ocean. After spending hours at the beach we had dinner at our hotel out on the terrace and took in the magnificent Greek sunset. The next day we saw the windmills and Little Venice, ate gyros and went shopping in town. After a fun night out at a dance club on the other side of the island, we woke up early and made it to the port to get back to Piraeus along with the other 300 Miers who were apparently on the island with us and thankfully we did not run into. It was like the last chopper out of Vietnam or something, I have never seen so many people show up out of nowhere like that. Some of the Miers started drinking at AM at the port while waiting for the ferry. I was horrified and embarrassed to be associated with them and I was especially horrified when one of the students on the boat with me got so belligerently drunk he lost his backpack, got in a fight with another student and scratched his body up from doing a backwards summer-salt on the concrete floor. I couldn’t believe how ridiculous the situation was and I have decided to put most of those people in my prayer journal because they need some serious Jesus-healing help. Other than the horrible shenanigans I witnessed on the ferry back to the port, I had an absolutely phenomenal time in Greece. I have really enjoyed doing adventurous independent trips with my friends I’ve made on the boat and it definitely makes me feel like a real “grown up” trying to figure out hotel reservations and ferry tickets. I am so excited about Turkey tomorrow. Turkey is my big independent trip to Cappadocia (as in the book of 1 Peter Cappadocia). Unfortunately I found out that one of the students going on the trip with me did not obtain a Turkey visa for his passport and he came to my room crying because one of the workers at the front desk of the ship said he wouldn’t be able to go with us to Cappadocia. I am asking for all of you to please pray for Tyler because it would be terrible if he wouldn’t be able to go with us, especially because he is going to have to pay for the trip whether he goes or not. I met with the head of the Field Office Department and the Deans tonight about the situation and I am really hoping they can help him out tomorrow morning when we dock at 8AM. I love you all so much and I’ll keep you updated on my adventures in Turkey!! XOXO....

Korcula, Kunas, and Kabobs

Korcula, Kunas, and Kabobs

Croatia…oh, what an amazing time I had. When I found out we were going to Croatia, I wasn’t sure what to expect because the last time I was in Croatia was when I was 15 months old. Last summer when the family and I did a cruise to Eastern Europe we saw a lot of beautiful countries but some of the countries like Serbia were still very war-torn. I was expecting either a broken country or a gorgeous country with lots of beaches (which is what I was told by the student from Croatia on the boat).

Well, we get to Croatia and I looked out the window to the most BEAUTFUL site ever. There were red brick buildings along the coast with the white houses and blue water. It was amazing. The first day we exchanged our Euros to Kunas (the Croatia currency) went to the beach near the Old Town in Dubrovnik and we found out really quickly that the beaches are all rocky and painful for your feet. ☹ The water is clearer in Croatia than anywhere else I’ve ever been though so the pain is worth experiencing the Adriatic Sea. After the beach we went to the city walls that go over the old town and look over the red brick roofs but involved a lot of stairs and sweating. I feel like this voyage has allowed me to loose about 20% of my body weight through sweating profusely in the humid summer Mediterranean environment. I’m trying my hardest to stay hydrated with lots of water so I don’t pass out during a day trip somewhere. After the city walls, we saw people cliff diving and Heather and I decided we were too accident prone/smart to cliff dive but we wanted to jump off of smaller “rocks” into the Adriatic. There was a little cliff side bar we found that had a 5 foot jump into the sea which seemed much safer than the 40 feet cliff diving on the other side of the wall so Heather and I “Carpe Diem”-ed it and jumped into the Adriatic sea from the little rocks. Well, jumping INTO the water isn’t the hard part…it’s getting OUT of the water. We realized that even though there were stairs that lead us back up to the bar, the tide was really strong and we had a hard time getting up out of the water. We made it out safely, with the help of many, many sweet local Dubrovnik people. That night I decided to take it easy because I had to get up the next morning at 6AM…ahhh!!

The next day I went on a day trip with my friends Vi-Zanne and Sayble to two small towns in Croatia: Trsten, Ston and we took a little boat to the Island of Korcula, where Marco Polo was born. We all decided that Croatia is charming everywhere, not just in Dubrovnik. That night we all went out for beef kabobs and hit up the bars in Dubrovnik, which was a blast. We ended up in a Latin dance club, Fuego and we stayed there until about 4:30AM. Exhausted, we decided t walk back to the boat, which took longer than we anticipated so we ended up watching the sunrise by the time we made it to the pier.

The next day MY FAMILY GOT TO DUBROVNIK!!!! We met up with Daddy Bob, Momma Mary and Sarah (as well as Sarah’s friend, Ax from home) and we all had lunch and went sight seeing in Dubrovnik. It was sooo good to see my wonderful family. I missed them!!! After my parents left to go back to their ship, I took Sarah and Ax to the ciff bar to jump off little rocks with Heather, Shannell and I. It was a BLAST!! We jumped off little 5 foot rocks into the water and everytime I had a little bit of trouble getting out of the water, there was someone to lend a helping hand. At one point, I was struggling in the water and I swear…my guardian angel came to rescue me. He was a Brazilian man who looked exactly like Jesus in some green swimming trunks. All of a sudden he came out of no where and said, “Hello…I help you.” and I was beyond grateful for him jumping into the water and pulling me out. Jesus has his angels everywhere…it’s a known fact for me. I’ve seen guardian angels all over the world. ☺ After the beach we went to dinner with Cheyenne and Shannell and got kabobs from our favorite little kabob stand. Then we did our laundry and watched Hitch because we were exhausted and we did not want to go out again and have a repeat of a bar hopping, Latino dancing night. We did not regret our decision to stay in, especially when we talked to our friends that DID go out and had to be up early the next morning.

Heather, our friend Vi-Zanne and I decided to go parasailing the last day in Croatia. We found a company that could come pick us up at the harbor and we found a few other SASers that wanted to go with us. It was a BLAST!! I’d never been parasailing before and it seriously was the most relaxing thing I’ve ever done. Heather and I went up together and enjoyed the view and the fact that we were swinging up high about the sea. After parasailing, I went to an internet café with my friend Rachel and I tried to upload pictures onto Facebook but was extremely unsuccessful. ☹ I’ll try again in another port though…I promise!

Croatia was such an amazing experience and I had the best time with all my new and old friends here on the boat. We had so many stories and adventures with one another and it’s weird to think I’ve only known these people for about a month. Tomorrow at 0800 hours we get into Piraeus, the port for Athens and we all are going on an SAS trip to on the sites of Athens and the Acropolis. We watched Mamma Mia and My Big Fat Greek Wedding Tonight to prepare for Greece tomorrow and I am sooo excited!! All of our friends are coming to Mykonos with Heather and I the last three days of the port in Greece and it’s going to be great!

I love hearing from you guys via e-mails and I’m sorry if it takes me a while to e-mail you back. I miss you all and I love you guys sooo much!!!!

Angie ☺

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