By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
Yahoo! News
HAVANA (AP) - Hundreds of American college students poured off a ship
Wednesday for a two-day visit to Cuba after their world floating campus cruise
was diverted from the Middle East because of security concerns.
The University of Pittsburgh's Semester at Sea program was supposed to take
672 students from more than 250 colleges through the Suez Canal, with stops in
Egypt and Turkey.
"After the September terrorist attacks they wanted us to avoid the
Middle East,'' Edgar Seah, 23, a student at Carnegie Mellon University, said of
the program directors.
"This route is better than the original one. Not only did we get to
come to Cuba, but we went to the Seychelles in Africa, which is a tropical
paradise,'' Seah said. Another earlier scheduled stop on the trip, Malaysia, was
replaced by a stop in Singapore.
Cuban officials were pleased by the floating campus' choice of their country
as a safe place to visit after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and the
war in Afghanistan (news - web sites). Havana has been promoting Cuba as a
secure tourism destination.
Student youth leaders and government officials welcomed the Americans with
speeches and salsa music.
"When you leave here two days from now, I assure that you will have
many good Cuban friends,'' Hassan Perez, head of the University Students
Federation, told the American students inside Havana's cruise ship terminal.
Some of the students said program organizers and lecturers had told them
that Cuba was relatively safe to visit.
"Not like Brazil,'' said Amy Evans, 21, an agriculture student at
Montana State University of the ship's previous stop. "There were a couple
of violent robberies when we were there, but mostly just a lot of
pickpocketing.''
"We understand that there are few security concerns here,'' said
Adrianna Allison, 21, a communications student from Azusa Pacific University in
Southern California.
Allison said her sister came on the same study cruise last year and still
talks about a lengthy meeting the students had with Cuban leader Fidel Castro
(news - web sites).
This is the fifth time that the Semester at Sea has visited Havana since the
first visit here in 1999, when the floating campus came with a special license
from the U.S. Treasury Department (news - web sites).
The U.S. embargo in effect against Cuba since the early 1960s makes it
impossible for most Americans to visit the island because it prohibits them from
spending money there. Exceptions are made under U.S. Treasury licenses. | 
