We did it! We planned an independent trip, ventured out on our own and came back on time and in one piece. Yesterday we took a public bus to La Rioja, Spanish wine country. We went to a town called Haro in the La Rioja region. We had a 7:30am bus out of Bilbao so we got up at 5:30, left at 6am walked the 30 minutes to the metro, then took the metro for another 30 minutes and then got our bus to Haro which took about an hour. It took us awhile to figure out w...

Yesterday we went on a trip that SAS had organized were we visited San Sebastian and Hondarribia. We luckily had the same guide that we had the night before on our Field Lab, Maria. Hondarribia, which is literally swimming distance from the French boarder is a gorgeous medieval town with a beautiful fishing village. We explored there for a while and then had lunch and a beautiful restaurant where they served us delicious red wine, a pasta dish that was like a ...

We just returned from our first Field Lab and we are so pumped about how the day went! First, let me explain what a Field Lab is. One of the wonderful things about SAS is that you have the opportunity to experience the things that you are learning about, or in our case teaching, in class. Each class is required to have a Field Lab, where we literally take our students out in the "field" and give them hands on experience in a country on the voyage. The Field ...

Hola Spain! We just finished our second class day/second day at sea and we arrived in Bilbao early this morning, Our first day back to class after Portugal seemed to be a rough day for both students and faculty. Everyone was exhausted from Lisbon and the students were catching up on reading and homework. It was hard for them to stay awake! The ship was doing a little rocking in the morning so there were some queasy students. Geno and I put on our patch and di...

We had quite a variety of adventures in the past two days. Yesterday began with a Segway tour of the Alfama (the oldest neighborhood in Lisbon). Our guide/instructor Peter was wonderful. He gave us a brief lesson in the parking lot by the ship and then we headed out. The Alfama streets are all cobblestone and VERY hilly. We thought it was going to be pretty scary but our guide didn't take us on very busy streets and we spent most of the tour in the alleyways ...