Our last two days in Ireland we decided to stay in Dublin and see the sights. Geno got us some tickets for the hop on hop off bus which turned out to offer a free second day so we were all set. We had a great time doing a whole loop around the city to get our bearings and then we did some sight seeing. Dublin is a nice city but it is VERY crowded with American tourists. I guess that is because it is so easy to visit a place where there is no language barrier...

We arrived in Ireland on our last class day which was Wednesday July 9th. They had warned us that as we docked there would no longer be any internet or intranet on the ship. They weren't joking. Since we have been here we can't even email our students through the ship based system. Ireland doesn't allow it…or something. Normally this wouldn't be that big of a deal right…just walk into the city and find a Starbucks (which is where I am now). This particu...

We have spent the past three days in Edinburgh and today we are heading back to the ship. It was very easy to get to Edinburgh. We took a train from Greenock to Glasgow and then Glasgow to Edinburgh. When we got here we found a tourist information center right outside of the train station where we got a map and decided to walk to the hotel. We probably should have taken a cab, but it was a beautiful walk down Princes Street and we had good weather and only a ...

We arrived in Greenock, Scotland around 7am this morning. We didn't know it but there was a man dressed in a huge inflatable "Scotsman" costume dancing around outside…guess we missed that. We boarded a bus this morning with a group of SAS folks and drove about an hour to a village called Luss. They were holding their annual Highland Games and we were so fortunate to be able to attend. This gathering first took place in Luss in 1882 and has gone on every y...

Today is the fourth day we have been out on the water. The first day we left Spain we actually just went out into the open water and dropped anchor there for 24 hours. This, we believe, is a way that the ship can save money and fuel. Fuel has gotten so expensive so instead of paying money to dock and have all the security at the port the ship just drops anchor for a day. Luckily Geno and I put on our seasick patches when we left because the night we anchored ...