July 2005
11 posts
4 tags
Le Photos
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How you say....large head
I was strolling the streets of Le Havre, checking out the architecture, wandering in and out of the small shops (and yes, a Footlocker, where inexplicably they don’t have a single pair of shorts in the entire store; so much for France being the center of fine fashion), when I came across an impressive hat store. It was a small, very fancy boutique with a window display that probably had enough...
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Bye Bye London
Two blog posts today, including a report on Belgium, but first an update on our voyage. Due to the recent bombings in London, Semester at Sea has decided to switch our next port of call away from the UK, choosing instead Le Havre, France. Le Havre is located in Northern France, and is about 2.5 hours away from Paris by train. I try to stay away from editorializing too much in this blog,...
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A Taste of Belgium
If you were to start a city and choose a couple of foods upon which your local cuisine would center, I have a feeling you would probably end up selecting ones very similar to Belgium’s specialties. It’s hard to argue with the delicacies here: Belgian waffles, Belgian fries, Belgian chocolate, and Belgian beer. Our first night in Antwerp started off with dinner at a cozy little café, where I had...
4 tags
A Taste of Belgium
If you were to start a city and choose a couple of foods upon which your local cuisine would center, I have a feeling you would probably end up selecting ones very similar to Belgium’s specialties. It’s hard to argue with the delicacies here: Belgian waffles, Belgian fries, Belgian chocolate, and Belgian beer. Our first night in Antwerp started off with dinner at a cozy little café, where I had...
3 tags
Scenes at Sea
First of all, thank you to those of you that sent your birthday wishes to me, even if I was thousands of miles away. It was great to hear from all of you. Secondly, thanks to all of you for posting comments, it’s nice to see that people are reading the blog and I’m not just writing to the great abyss of cyberspace, and I enjoy hearing your thoughts on my stories and photos. As I’ve said many...
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Leaving on a Midnight Train to Moscow
After two days of seeing the sights in St. Petersburg, I (along with about 70 other Semester at Sea kids) jumped on a night train to Moscow. The train itself was 20 cars long, featuring private berths of 2 or 4 beds depending on what class you’re in. I signed up for 1st class, not wanting to test secondary status in the Russian train system. As it turned out, even in 1st class (which wasn’t...
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Hail to the Hills of Moscow
A quick story to share with you for now, but keep on the lookout for an update of my experiences in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Outside of nearly every touristy place in Moscow there are the inevitable tables lined with “traditional” Russian souvenirs: fake Soviet snow hats, USSR pins, McLenin T-shirts, and rows and rows of Matryoshka (nesting) dolls. Whenever we would have time after seeing the...
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Do you know the way to Norway?
First of all a note: internet on the ship is finally back up after being down for a whole week, so not only am I almost halfway across the globe from home, I also felt quite isolated with communications. So, now that it’s up, I’ll try to respond to all of your emails as soon as I can. For now, here are a couple of blog entries about my time in Norway! Enjoy. I spent my last day in...
4 tags
Do you know the way to Norway?
First of all a note: internet on the ship is finally back up after being down for a whole week, so not only am I almost halfway across the globe from home, I also felt quite isolated with communications. So, now that it’s up, I’ll try to respond to all of your emails as soon as I can. For now, here are a couple of blog entries about my time in Norway! Enjoy. I spent my last day in...
5 tags
Whitewater Rafting
As soon as the Norwegian customs officers cleared our ship, we headed to the train station to purchase tickets for our train ride to Voss, where we would spend the afternoon whitewater rafting. The train is a small commuter that only seats 100, and my group of friends numbered 20, so we didn’t want to take any chances. By 9 AM we purchased our tickets and had a few hours to kill before our 1 PM...