Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Spain, day 4

It was our last day in Spain so a group of us went out to purchase stamps, gifts and a few general groceries. The grocery had just put out a bunch of fresh rolls so we took the opportunity to have a cheap and easy lunch. Picture it, case of soda, a few warm rolls, a package of ham and group of Americans right outside the store. We all had a good laugh knowing that the locals must have thought we were ridiculous.

Hanna and Ann decided to go to the beach but Ana, Grant, Eddie and I continued our exploring. I’ll let you guess what we did next. No, not a bullfight, ok yes we people watched but that’s not the answer I was looking for. We got a final round of sangria before heading back to the ship to begin staffing the re-embarkation process. To take an excerpt from my co-worker Bridget’s blog:

Nothing compares to the versatility of Student Affairs folks. As a Living/Learning Team, we expect to be a part of any process, procedure, event, or issue. We rarely question late nights, we loathe early mornings because of the late nights (but we'll do it anyways), and the best part of it all is that we are damn funny and have the best stories. We're in the trenches, so not only do we have our fingers on the pulse of what's happening in students lives, we are part of the heartbeat. We set the rhythm and serve as the pacemakers. We can speed you up, slow you down, and if necessary pull the plug if it's just not working.


Based on feedback from previous voyages the hours before all passengers must be on the ship prior to setting sail is a mess for the security team. All bags must be searches and all passengers are patted down leading to pretty long lines. Tom our SAS security officer is determined to make this, the 100th voyage better than those before hand. So, two hours prior to on ship time, the LLCs got into place and like we did in Halifax further developed our skills as future TSA baggage screeners. We did our best to welcome students back with a smile as we diligently searched for any contraband. This time we included to our list of those items previously mentioned any twist off beverage bottles and packaged meat. While students were encouraged to try the ham in Spain, we could not allow them to bring it on the ship for health and safety reasons. Some students were disappointed but none of them gave us much of a hard time. A few even took the opportunity to open the packaging and devour the entire package before boarding and to be honest the staff took care of the rest.

No one was late and we set sail as scheduled. The waters were pretty rough last night and they are warning us of another bad night ahead tonight. The entry to Morocco was so bad for the summer voyage that they were delayed an entire day, and had to cancel all the first day excursions. I really hope this is not the case tomorrow as I am scheduled to leave for my Marrakech and Sahara camel trek excursion tomorrow.

I hope all is well back in the states. Thanks for following along,

P

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