The World According to Alexis

She must paint the tile. She will need a paintbrush, colors, and instructions in Portuguese tile painting. Then she will ask you to pass the stencils (because she is no Van Gogh) and will decide on one another person is using. As she waits she will pray that the woman will hurry up already so she can start her own masterpiece. Then she will ask the woman to pass the stencil only to be told that another person has it (This was actually pretty annoying since she asked first. Really, people these days...). When the girl finally gets the stencil she has forgotten the instructions and will ask you again because she’s a perfectionist. Once she understands she can finally begin… My friend Sidney and I in front of Lisbon Cathedral After tile painting, I went outside and saw this. Beautiful right? Today in Lisbon I learned about Portuguese tile painting. The buildings in Portugal are very colorful but not all are painted with pastels or bright colors. Some are covered in patterne...

Today in the beautiful country of Portugal I went to Belém and spent too much on public transportation. Two of my friends and I joined a large group going to Belém. Part of the reason we did so is because we thought she knew exactly what she was doing. She did not. We took the Underground to Cais de Sodre and then had to get a ticket for the train to Belém. We were told that there were many museums that are free to the public on Sundays until 2pm, which is true, so we got in line for the Mosteiro Dos Jeronimos (a Monastery). It is not a museum. I was not sure what we were standing in line for; I assumed it was a free museum or something of the sort because that is what the majority of the group wanted to do. We got to the ticket counted and paid five euros with our SAS student ID and after an hour-long wait, got into the Monastery. Thankfully it started pouring right after we were admitted into the Monastery. I’ll post a picture below because I’m not sure I could tell you about the ar...

These past few days I have been in Lisbon, Portugal and I must say that I’ve developed a fascination with the buildings here. It’s not that the buildings all have amazing architecture, because they are all a Pombaline-like style. Think of the cookie-cutter buildings you see in suburbia, add some Portugal flair, and that is essentially Pombaline style. What makes these buildings so unique though is that they do not come in only four colors like suburbia. No, there are so many colors—magenta, turquoise, robin’s egg blue, sunflower yellow, sunset orange, bright yellow, pink, cobalt blue, cream, white—that I’m sure I could never name them all. When I finally get around to posting all my photos on Facebook, and there will be hundreds of them, you will all get to see my obsessions with buildings in Lisbon and probably wonder if there is something wrong with me. One thing that a person cannot miss while in Lisbon is how dirty the sidewalks are. While I was on a class field lab (like a fi...

We left England 3 days ago which means we all had to get used to the constant rocking of the ship. All of us walk as if we have been drinking a fair amount. None of us can walk in straight lines and often we run into walls, poles, and other people on our way to other parts of the ship. I’m curious to see if this will happen up until the end of the trip—I hope not. We also had our first drill. An alarm goes off and then we all have to grab our life jackets, put on long sleeves, long pants, close toed shoes, and a cap if you have one. I had a cap in my backpack at some point but I think it got lost either in my England hotel room or when I unpacked? I’m not sure. But hey, it gives me an excuse to buy a Semester at Sea hat. The hat I borrowed actually belonged to my sister, Anya. So, sorry about that Anya. But if no one tells her I lost it, she’ll never know. She won’t miss it. Anyway, the campus store opened today and I went a little bit crazy. Just a little. I bought two shirts: one da...

Hello! For those who are new here, welcome! For those who are visiting again, welcome back! For those who understand the reference I've made in my title, if I could somehow mentally send ice cream to you, I would. Usually this blog is a collection of random musings coupled with heavy doses of rant and sarcasm. The next couple months will be a little different as I post from my Semester at Sea trip. I was introduced to this program by my friend Katie, and a year later I am lucky enough to be a part of a trip I'm sure will be like no other I'll ever experience. Tomorrow morning my fellow students and I leave from London and over the next 2 1/2 months we will make our way to Portugal, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Finland, and Poland before heading back to London for ship departure and our flights home. Because I only had this afternoon in London, I did not expect to do much more than shower off the plane smell and go to sleep (the power of jet lag neve...