HERE WE GO!

The MV Explorer, a floating university, & my home for the next three & a half months.

We are docked in Southampton for the next few hours, setting sail at 1700 hours (5:00 pm), Sunday, August 24th, for St. Petersburg, our first port. We'll travel to fourteen countries.

I'm writing this at a coffee shop facing a pedestrian street with food stands-- my last minutes on dry land for the next week or so.

I've had a couple of days to explore a bit of Southampton, & I particularly enjoyed the Old Town near the harbor. Apparently both the Mayflower & the Titanic sailed from here. Hmmm....
Hope our voyage will be a safe one in all respects.

I was fascinated by the many mentions of Jane Austen, little plaques announcing that she went to her first dance at this hotel, or spent time with her family at another spot... kind of like "George Washington slept here."

Anyway we have all boarded the ship-- that's 620 students from all over the world, 45 faculty & staff, 14 Lifelong Learners, & 330 crew members. That's a full house, my friends. Tomorrow morning, classes begin, & just to give you a sense of shipboard schedules: while at sea, classes follow an A Day, B Day schedule. No weekends, no days off. I'll be teaching 3 courses: 2 sections of Travel Writing, & 1 of Creative Writing: Fiction.

I spent a day in London before coming to Southampton, & while there, got inspired & developed an idea about how I want to structure my first-ever travel blog. More about that in my next post.

Meanwhile it's been all about adjusting to life on the ship again. This is my third voyage, but each one is different-- the voyagers, the itinerary, your own goals & desires during the trip.

 Coming down the gangway for the first time in Southampton.

I look forward to meeting new people, forming new connections all over the world, making new friends & seeing life & our world from different perspectives. Travel is learning about yourself while you are learning about the world. And traveling by sea-- well, there's something about facing that view-- the sea & sky-- that gives you space to dream & imagine new realities & possibilities.

So ... here's to possibilities! I hope you'll travel along with me, & let me know if there's anything you'd like me to write about or anything you'd like to know! Till next time ....

ENTERING YOUR STORY BY SEA

Entering a story is very similar to entering a country by sea.

I imagine it first. Maybe read what other travelers have written about it. But nothing compares to seeing it for the first time with my own eyes. I may be traveling on a large ship, but this is how I imagine myself:

An ancient voyager after months at sea, not sure what country I'm approaching, friendly or dangerous, & what mythic monsters await me.

It's a voyage of discovery that begins before I set foot on land. But now I'm here, and I must navigate from the dock to the city street. Each port has its own unique character that reveals more than you can learn at a generic airport. Even when the landing area is modernized with new buildings and uniformed officials, glimpses of the ancient port emerge, along with smells and sounds, and instantly I'm thrust into another world.

In Alexandria, Egypt, an enormous new port authority complex stands abandoned. The instant you pass through, you are confronted with vendors hawking Cleopatra and King Tut wares, pungent spices, dazzling colors. Not far away, archaeologists dig for fragments from Cleopatra's palace in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea.

Istanbul, with its skyline of the Hagia Sofia, may be the greatest paradox. Leave the long port authority buildings, again with much empty space and unused rooms. Turn right: you move toward the modern city with every convenience, franchise, etc, you could desire. Turn left: you move toward the old city, the Grand Socco-- the greatest covered market in the world-- and the Hagia Sofia, narrow winding streets, a city you can explore by traveling across rooftops or through underground caverns and cisterns.

Would you turn left or right?

My instinct is always to turn left and venture deeper into the unknown depths of the country. Once I've gotten lost in its labyrinth, dug my fingers into sacks of spices, tasted the local food, listened to the voices, and sat at a cafe just watching my people interact-- yeah, by now they've become my people, almost ready to walk across the page -- then I can explore the modern overlay.

This is where I am now. In port, on the deck of the ship. Waiting to disembark and feel land under my feet again. Pen and notebook in hand. The scents of the new world already drawing me in.

God, I love this moment.