The World According to Alexis

            Today was my last day in Norway and I’m a bit sad to leave. We’ve just pulled away from the dock and as we pass by the coast and all the little outcrop islands and the city of Oslo has disappeared into the rest of the landscape I realize just how much of Norway I didn’t get to see. I mean there’s only so much a person can see in one day, and the fact that we only had a day and a half in Oslo is not exactly conducive to making day-long plans.             Emily and I went out on our own today since Sidney was on a field program. So, after eating lunch, we got off the ship and headed in the opposite direction of the main part of town. We went into the Fortress across from the ship and walked around a little inside. Mostly though, we goofed around by the cannons and took ridiculous photos. We left the fortress many pictures later and headed toward our main destination: The Norwegian National ...

              Today was the explore Oslo day and boy did Emily, Sidney, and I explore. We left the ship at 9am but may as well have left at 10 because we wandered around for an hour on our quest to find the tourism building that was right under our noses so we could buy our Oslo passes. The great thing about the Oslo pass is that it allows you to get into countless museums and other attractions for free as well as discounts at certain eateries.             Our first museum of the day, out of 5, was the Viking Ship Museum so we hopped on a ferry to get to the peninsula. I never really thought I was one for museums until this trip when I realized that out of my friends I take the longest in each museum we visit and I like taking a long time. I enjoyed myself immensely looking at these meticulously crafted Viking ships and the objects ground from burial mounds and graves. They all came to life...

            What I thought would a remarkably unexciting day actually turned into the best day I’ve had on the ship. I slept in til 11, which is very late for some people (Mom), but is still earlier than I wake up at school some weekends. Many great days begin with me sleeping in (arguably many good days also start with me waking up early, but I’m going to ignore that for now). The reason I was able to sleep in was that, since we are doing two ports in one country, people, many, many people, chose to go from Bergen to Oslo overland as opposed to getting back on the ship. Sidney and I had originally wanted to do some research and see how we could make the trip and how expensive it would be in the most expensive country we are visiting, but, we never got around to it. Some students and professors are going overland with a field program (like my roommate), but many are just doing their own thing. This means that there are very few people actually on the ship ...

              First of all, Sidney’s fine, I know you all were concerned and I’m happy to help you find some peace. Second, Norway in a Nutshell is the name of the most amazing SAS field program I’ve been on so far, that I went on, today. Before getting to the really cool stuff, we had to endure a 2.5 hour bus ride after meeting at 7:45am. I hope you all understand how much transportation is involved to get to fun places and do fun things because then you can also understand why it is so frustrating when public transportation does not bend to your plans and will. In any case, bus rides and I have become great buddies at this point and I would love, more than anything, to dissolve this friendship in lieu of driving myself around. After giving up on napping, I looked out the window and got a great view of all the mountains and waterfalls Norway has to offer. Also, for every roundabout Scotland has, Norway has a tunnel. The road designers recognized that...

            I am now in Norway, home of my ancestors, in the wonderful city of Bergen. We only have one full day in Bergen, but we were surprised by our deans to find out that we would have tonight to explore the city after docking this afternoon. Since we didn’t have much planned, we mostly hit up all the tourist shops and checked out the amazing fish market. One commodity seen in Norway that is not often seen in America is whale. Vendors were selling whale and because I pretty much will try anything once, I knew I needed to try it. I found some whale salami/sausage thing and tried a piece, and I’ve got to say, it was pretty good. It tasted fishy, but also not like fish. Yea, that’s about the only way I can describe it. Next we walked up and down the main drag where there were too many tweenagers for my liking, and for my patience, so we headed back down to the dock area, picked up some fabulous Norwegian gelato which had flavors we could not even begin t...

Today was our last day in Ireland and I think we made it count. We didn’t have much on our schedule for today since the on-ship time was earlier than usual and we wanted to make sure we were on the ship with plenty of time and also because we wanted to have no trouble finding seats at dinner. Finding seats at dinner is difficult sometimes so this is why it is important enough to mention. Emily and I took the 12:30 bus into Dublin because we decided to sleep in. Well, I slept in and Emily got up early like she usually does and did some homework I guess. I spotted a Celtic gift shop on our way to the Guinness Storehouse the other day and knew we didn’t have enough time to see it on the way back to the ship so I made a note to visit it on the last day. I know getting Celtic jewelry is completely cliché but I really don’t care to defend my choices because I am allowed to be a tourist every once in a while. I didn’t end up buying any jewelry though. I bought some souvenirs for other people...

           After the Cliffs of Moher Mist it was lunch time so we stopped at Fitzpatrick’s Bar, which is a pub with the most Irish name to ever be Irish. Here I had some amazing seafood chowder and had the chance to get out of the very traditional rainy weather for a while. The next stop was actually my favorite stop: Burren. This is an area by the Ireland coast against the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a huge limestone deposit that has crisscrossing cracks known as “grikes.” In these grikes it is possible to see arctic, Mediterranean, and alpine plants all growing together because of the odd environment. Since the area is full of cracks, walking around on the deposit is almost like playing hopscotch because you have to hop from stone to stone to avoid the cracks. It was amazing because the landscape was something so unlike anything I’d seen before, but, it was also the coldest stop we made. Rain was coming down and there was a chill that even my scarf and rain jac...

Prepare yourself, this one’s a doozy. If I say there will be a quiz at the end will you read it? Oh, you thought I was going to show you some poetry? That’s awkward. I’m actually referring to a city in Ireland. But before I tell you about Limerick, I need to tell you how my trip on this stressful third day in Ireland started. I bought a ticket from a girl to go on a non-SAS Cliffs of Moher tour that was supposed to start at 6:45am. But since I wasn’t a part of the Facebook group organizing this trip (and because I’m paranoid) I was ready by 6 and walking around the ship in case they decided to meet earlier. Anyway, 6:45 rolls around and it’s just me, Sidney, another girl, and the bus driver on the bus. Then 7:10 goes by and we have no clue where the other 26 people are so we try to contact the guy who organized it and searched the ship for people going on the trip because we were totally prepared to just go on the tour with the four of us since it was already paid for. I run into ...

Today Emily and I decided to walk around Dublin. Sidney was busy that day and has been to Dublin before so we went off on our own. Dublin was not very hard to get around (praise the Lord) and we made it to Trinity College in no time. I wanted to see the Book of Kells after reading an insanely long article about it for my art history class so Emily and I got in line and prepared ourselves for the wait. We paid the admission price after waiting in line for 25 minutes—not as long as we thought it would be—and then walked around the exhibit, saw the folio (a folio is a term for a vellum page) of St. John at the beginning of his Gospel book, and then went up to Library, also called the Long Room, where all kinds of Old Irish written work is displayed and old books from who knows when line the shelves. There are busts of philosophers, writers, and important Irish men from history that line the bookshelves and face visitors as they walk through the hall. I may or may not have taken a selfie ...

Today was the first day in Ireland! Ireland is one of the ports I was so excited about and I’m not really sure why. Perhaps is it because I was ready for the typical Ireland weather—chilly and rainy. I love getting a little tan, but since I tend to burn more often than I tan, cold weather is a better friend to me. Today I was let of the ship early because I had a field lab (my last one, yay!) for my Foundational Religions of Europe class and we had to meet at 7:15am so we could leave at 7:30 because it was a bit of a drive to the Hill of Tara. I was very excited for this day because we had a real life Bard come with us to tell us a story that was probably one of the weirdest and greatest things I’d ever heard in my life. He dresses like a character from a Live Action Role Playing fantasy game. He also looks a bit like a hippie. There is no way I could describe him to make the way he dresses seem any less awesome than it was. We went to the Hill of Tara and Andrew was our guide so he w...

            I’m writing this on my last day in Scotland, a Tuesday if you’re curious, and my friend decided that we absolutely had to go to the Tesco in Greenock, just so she could say that she went to a supermarket that is so quintessentially British. At the beginning of our short excursion we did not have particularly high expectations of Tesco; we thought it would be just like any ordinary American supermarket but with different brands. Once we walked into Tesco though, we realized just how extraordinary it truly was. Tesco, as my friend Emily said, is like Narnia. You walk in curious, but not overly hopeful, only to be completely amazed by what you find inside. Those average, automatic doors hid a wonderland of aisles as far as the eye can see. There were groceries, a deli section, oh, and don’t let me forget the clothes that take up the entire second floor. One of the first things we saw was Tesco’s escalators (not the step kind, the gradual incline t...

              Day three was the very best day, if by best you mean weirdest. We caught a freakishly early bus to Glasgow (8:45) so I could visit Glasgow Cathedral for one of my classes. After Emily and Sidney dragged me away from taking two hundred photos of stained glass¹, we went back to the bus station to purchase Megabus tickets for Edinburgh (The Megabus is supposedly this great deal because it only has one stop and is 10 pounds for a round trip). We couldn’t connect to the internet long enough to purchase tickets and after hearing that yes we could purchase tickets on the Megabus and no we couldn’t purchase tickets on the Megabus, we were irritated and confused and decided to ditch the Megabus idea after an hour. We caught the Citylink bus around 12:15 and bought our tickets round trip, knowing that we would only have four hours in Edinburgh before going back to Glasgow to catch the last McGill bus to Greenock (I don’t know how my brain did not ...