The Nebraska "Skyline" Project: Spain/Italy Trip (Part 6)

This post is dedicated to the time we spent on a ferry from Barcelona to Italy. We went straight from the beach (still sandy and disgusting) to the ferry, where we waited in line to board. Clearly, it was a slightly shady ferry because getting on (and off), nobody checked our passports once. I could have easily gotten from Spain to Italy without any kind of identification as long as I had had a ticket. That seems like solid security...

We were starving by the time we got on the ferry and immediately went to the cafeteria to eat. We had the lowest of the low when it came to meal plans, and the people on the ferry were food Nazis. I took two ketchup packets instead of one, and I had to give it back. I feel like you're packing too lightly in the kitchen if you're worried about ketchup packets... We wolfed down squishy lasagna, fries (what a bizarre side dish with lasagna), and diet coke. It was pretty abysmal food, but you take all you can get when you're that hungry.

After dinner was a lot of showering, unpacking, and waiting around. The cabins were tiny, but could have been worse. We messed around on deck for awhile waiting to leave, but we could tell from the massive line of trucks still waiting to get on the ship that we were definitely not leaving on time. My boyfriend and I wandered around for awhile longer and came back up to the deck (two hours after we were supposed to depart) and watched as we left port. It's was so strange to watch Barcelona get farther and farther away as we left into darkness. I thought that it would be pitch black out at sea, but I had forgotten about the moon. The moon is actually incredibly bright when it's the only thing lighting your way... Unfortunately, the light from the boat made it hard to see the stars.

Soon after we left, I went to bed and slept remarkably well. Something about the pitch black rooms and the vibration from the engine was a great combination for sleep. The following morning we ate a sad breakfast in the dining area and spent the day killing time. I interviewed a few of the kids for a grad school project and started typing a paper, took a nap, paid to use the workout facility, and kind of wandered otherwise. We were all so bored and felt claustrophobic on the ship. It was cool to be out at sea, but a 20-hour trip was too long. After experiencing the ferry, I'm pretty sure that my personal hell would involve working on a cruise ship or ferry. I would feel so confined, bored, and sick of the awful ferry food. The pay would have to be extremely high, that's for sure.

The students had a great time on the ferry, however. There was a group of Spanish students about the same age on the ship, and the two groups quickly bonded. It was funny to hear them talk about how they realized how little Spanish they actually knew when they tried to communicate with the Spanish teens. I don't know how representative that group of kids was, but many of the students in our group said that their English was awful even though they had taken far more years of English than most American kids take of Spanish. I wonder if this group of kids just has a crappy English education program at their school?

Needless to say, I was thrilled to see Italy. The ferry was a good life experience, but life on the sea is not for me...