I N D I A ! ! !

This was written very quick so hopefully it’s not all over the place! Sorry its so late!

Planes, Trains, & Rickshaws
India was nothing what I would have imagined and I don’t think I can even explain half of the stuff I saw and experienced in words. Some of the stuff there really is no words for. I really wish there was some way that everyone at home could experience the past five days that I just did. It was the biggest culture shock of my entire life and I can now see why so many Semester at Sea students have said that this trip changes their lives. I’m so happy that I got to experience being in India, but it is absolutely not a place I would ever see myself coming back to. I’ll do my best trying to capture everything I saw and experienced in my blog, but like I said some of it you can’t explain.
So when I woke up as we were pulling into port, I could already smell something horrible. As I walked up a couple decks, the smell got stronger and stronger. It was the smell of India – not explainable, just horrible! Since I was leaving for my Semester at Sea trip at 2:30 in the afternoon on that first day, I decided not to get off the ship until then. My trip was a group of 70 students and we were going to Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi. The bus ride was just about an hour to get to the Chennai Airport. While waiting to get our boarding passes I went to the bathroom. As one of my friends put it as I was walking back out of the bathroom, “You have the most mortified look on your face right now!” And yes, it was mortifying. I walked into the stall and literally it was a hole in the floor. And thank god I brought my own toilet paper because apparently I don’t think they believe in it. After getting our boarding passes, we went to the gate and immediately boarded the plane. It was a 2½ hour flight from Chennai to Delhi. The flight was really nice and there were TVs in the headrests in front of us. Friends was on for most of the flight so it made it go by quick. Getting to the hotel was a pretty quick bus ride. There were two other SAS groups staying in the same hotel so it was packed. It was Hotel Ashok which was really nice. My room was like a suite with a living room, dining room table, two twin beds, and a bathroom with a separate shower and tub. After dinner I went to sleep since I had to get up at 4am the next day. After our wake up call, we took a bus to the train station. This is where the culture shock really set in. We first had to cross the road to get to the train station from where the bus dropped us off. This was a joke. You know that game Frogger that used to be really popular? Yea, that was us. Literally you had to run and stop and run and stop to get past one car at a time. Not only cars, though. There were buses, tractors, cars, taxis, vans, motorized rickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, and even COWS! As 70 of us mostly American students walked into the train station, local people were staring at us like we were aliens or something. They, no joke, stopped walking around and just stared. At least when we were staring at them, we didn’t let them know it! You wouldn’t believe how many people were sleeping on the floor of the train station with nothing but their shirt or jacket as a blanket. Not even a pillow on the cement floor. It didn’t seem to faze the people here in India since they just walked right over them to get on the train or around the station. Our group was lucky enough to get a first class air conditioned bus on the train. First class in the US is WAY different than first class in India. The first class train we were on is just like the regular seats on any train in the US. It was a two hour ride to Agra which most of us slept. The tiredness was already setting in from having to wake up at 4. I woke up just before we were getting the train station. As I was watching out the window, I saw person after person squatting down in the middle of fields, on the side of the road, anywhere. It took me a while to realize and to comprehend that they were actually squatting because they were pooping just like that. They didn’t care who went by them, who saw them, who was around them, where they were, anything! Getting off the train, we were bombarded with beggars; both young and old. Little children would come up to any one of us and put their hand to their mouth asking for food. We were told to just ignore them and not say or do anything to them and they would go away. Our guides told us that if we even attempted to give one beggar a drink or something to eat that we would immediately be swarmed with many others. Once again, the people in the airport stared at us. From the airport, we went to a hotel for breakfast and then set off to see an abandoned city. Driving in India is chaotic! The bigger the vehicle, the more right-of-way you have. There is no such thing as staying in your lane and actually not even a correct side of the road. As other vehicles wanted to pass you or wanted you to know that they were coming, they would beep. If something was in the front of them and they wanted them to move, they would beep. Beeping was a constant noise while on the streets of India. I don’t understand how there aren’t more people hit by cars or how there aren’t more accidents. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t see one. After breakfast, we had an hour bus ride to get to this abandoned city. At a certain point we had to get off our regular bus and onto a battery operated bus to take us into the city. We walked around for about an hour there. “Students” would come up to us and ask us if we wanted a tour and that they worked for the tour company and weren’t looking for money. Luckily enough, we knew that they were making this up. When we got back on the bus our tour guide told us that they were all fake and in the end just wanted to get some money. After another bus ride back we went to lunch at the same hotel we went to breakfast at. Soon after lunch, it was time for the TAJ MAHAL! We had to walk down a long road where beggars would attack you, there were so many deformed/crippled people just sitting in the streets with their hands out asking for money. We got in our own special line to get into the Taj which was really weird. Everyone from India, once again, was looking at us like we had 7 heads or something. From the spot that we entered into the complex, you couldn’t see the actual Taj Mahal. As soon as you turned one corner, though, there it was! It was amazing!!! I took soooooo many pictures, more than I thought I would. My group of 70 took a group photo in front of it also. After taking pictures outside, we wanted to go inside of it. We had to get a pair of booties to go over our shoes or else we had to take our shoes off. I wore the booties. It was a quite attractive look haha. Walking around inside was weird. There were no lights on at all. I got to see the tomb of the lady that the Taj was built for. The entire building was built by hand in marble. People carved out pieces of the marble to be able to put other parts in. When we walked out the back entrance to it, we were overlooking a river. Wild dogs were swimming in the river back and forth. There were a bunch of different men washing the Taj. They were sitting up on what we would call ladders, but they weren’t metal. They were pieces of wood put together and somehow it made a ladder. After being at the Taj for a long while and being able to take it all in, we walked back to the bus and then went on our way to Agra Fort. We walked around there which was beautiful. Finally after the fort, we got to go shopping! We went to a marble making factory. This marble is the same marble that the Taj was made with. We got to see people actually working on the marble and carving it so other pieces could fit in. Finally after shopping, we got dinner and headed back to the crazy train station for our train back to Delhi. The train station was once again a shocker. I remember one small kid, probably around 5 years old holding an even smaller child on his hip. The baby had no clothes on and the little boy was telling us how he had two other siblings. There I was standing with two full bottles of water in my hands, so I gave them one of them. Luckily for me, I wasn’t surrounded by tons of other beggars. Our whole group was surrounded, though. A lot of us were giving away food and drinks to the children. Our train came and we got on it and made hour two hour ride back to Delhi. Once in Delhi, we just went to bed for the night.
On the third day in India, we woke up at 6am and ate breakfast. We left the hotel at 7:30 and went to the place where Gandhi was cremated. There was a slate of marble in the middle of a field that had an eternal flame. Two men were there cleaning up the area around the marble. It was blocked off to visitors, but we could walk up to where the wall was. We then drove around Delhi for a little while and then finally went to the airport for our flight to Varanasi. It was a quick one hour flight. Once in Varanasi, we went to the site where Buddha gave his first sermon. The spot where he stood is now a stupa!!!!! It looks nothing like the one near Mr. Brown’s though Mom! haha I was surprised to hear that it was the same thing. While we were there, there was a bus full of adults from Sri Lanka and they were circling the stupa chanting something. Our tour guide told us to go join, in so we did! It was quite the experience. After this visit, we headed to our hotel which was the Radisson. It made me feel like I was hope since it looked exactly like any other Radisson in the US. I almost forgot that I was in India while I was there. Then I walked back outside and got ready for a bicycle rickshaw ride. I snapped right out of thinking that I was back in America. Our rickshaw ride was about a half hour long until we had to get off and walk a little. We were on our way to the Ganges River at night for a religious ceremony that they do every night. After walking down the street for a couple minutes, we then had to walk down an alley. There were cows all over the middle of the alley and the street. Finally we got to the river. This is where I begin to become speechless for what I experienced. I can’t really explain what I saw but I’ll do my best. I walked down a huge flight of stairs and climbed into a riverboat with 20 or so other students that were on my trip. The ceremony had already started. There were about 6 or 7 priests standing closest to the river and a whole stadium type place filled with hundreds of people. We all got to light candles in flowers and let them go and float in the river. After the river cruise we took the rickshaws back to the hotel and had dinner. After a very exhausting, mentally and physically, we all went to bed. We had another early morning wake up call the next morning.
Waking up early that last day was rough, but so worth it when we went back to the river for another river cruise. We saw people bathing, singing, and even burning on the banks of the river. We went to two of the crematoriums and one person was being cremated right there. There was a dead dog that passed by floating in the river. It was actually quite disturbing. We went up and down the river for about two hours then headed back to the hotel for breakfast. We didn’t have much time before our flights back to Chennai. One group of 20 (the group was 70 people total) were on the earlier flight, and I was one of the lucky ones on that flight. We got to the airport and all the flights were delayed because the Prime Minister was flying into the Varanasi Airport. They have SUCH high security for that. Finally after a couple hours of waiting we were ready to board. As we were walking out to our plane on the runway, the Prime Minister of India was walking off his plane! It was pretty sweet! The flights were good and I completely passed out since I was so tired!
The last day in Chennai, Ananda and I took a rickshaw ride around town and went shopping..LOTS!! = ) We had lunch at a local restaurant where we were the only foreigners in there! It was pretty amusing. We tried to go see a movie at one of the theatres but they were all sold out. We did some more shopping and then went to one of Mother Theresa’s orphanages. It was another one of the unexplainable things of India. The children couldn’t speak and most of them could barely move. They were so happy to see us all though! One lady that worked there picked up one of the babies and put him on my lap as soon as I sat down. If there was a possible way to sneak that poor little baby on the ship for the rest of voyage I definitely would have done it! After being at the orphanage, we came back to the ship and ate dinner and went to sleep early!
India was definitely a huge culture shock and probably some place that I wouldn’t ever go back to. I had an amazing time while I was there, but I’m SOOO excited to get to Malaysia and Borneo in a couple of days!!! MISS YOU ALL SO MUCHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xoxoxoxoxooxoxxo

MAURITIUS *SPRING BREAK*

sorrry its taken SO long to put these up! the internet on this side of the world is pretty much non-existant!!! miss you all so much!!!! xoxoxxo

MAURITIUS - *springbreakkkk = )*

After 5 more days at sea, we arrived in Mauritius on Saturday! I really didn’t know what to expect from Mauritius because I had heard it was pretty much just like a spring break for us. That’s exactly what it ended up being too. When I got off the ship on Saturday morning, a group of us took the water taxi from the ship straight into the city of Port Louis. We did some errands, went to the ATM/bank, did a little shopping and then ate a quick lunch. We had to be back at the ship at noon to catch our taxi. A group of 12 of us rented a villa on “flic en flac” beach about an hour away. The majority of Semester at Sea students rented villas on this beach or another beach around the island. Our hour long taxi ride was interesting. We got to see a lot while driving through the city and then towards the ocean. The mountains are absolutely gorgeous and the city is CROWDED. As you could guess, there is a LOT of traffic! The taxi was made for 11 passengers and we had 12. Oh well! Nothing we could do. One of the kids sat backwards on the floor of the taxi and two guys sat in the front seat next to each other. Plus we had all our bags that were packed for the next four days! Like I said, it was an interesting cab ride. Once we got to the villa, we unpacked and quickly went to the supermarket to get some necessary goods. The villas ended up being much better than I thought they would be. We had three of them for the 12 of us which was MORE than enough room. Each villa had three bedrooms in it, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a huge living room.
After getting settled in, we went to the beach. It was just like being in Cancun or somewhere like that for Spring Break. When we walked onto the beach it was packed with all semester at sea students and a couple locals mixed in. After staying there for a couple of hours, we went back to the villa got ready and headed into town for dinner and then to the bar afterwards. There was one bar that everyone went to from Semester at Sea called Shots. It is a strictly tourist bar so the locals weren’t allowed in. The villa included breakfast all three mornings so we woke up to them cooking breakfast for us. After that we headed back to the beach for a couple of hours but it was way too hot to even sit out there the whole day. Who would have ever thought that I would leave the beach early because of it being too hot?? I would have loved to stay and just stay in the water but we couldn’t leave our stuff on the beach and go in the water. So we went back to the villa and hung out all day in the pool there. After getting ready and stuff again we went to dinner at this restaurant called Chez Pépé. It had REALLY good pizza and awesome Italian food too! After dinner we went back out to the same bar as the night before.
We had breakfast made for us again on the next day. Instead of staying around Flic en Flac beach for the day, Julie, Ananda, Kourtney and I wanted to rent bikes. We walked around for almost an hour trying to find somewhere but they were all sold out everywhere! We did, however, see that there was a waterpark across the island. So we decided that we wanted to go there. We took the hour long taxi ride and arrived at this waterpark. When we got to the parking lot, we quickly realized that it wasn’t a very popular place. There was only about one car in the whole parking lot! The four of us were pretty nervous and joked around about it, but we decided to go check it out anyway. We got our ticket and went inside. We were about four of 12 or so people in the whole park! One of the slides was broken and there were only three others. We went down the slides a couple of times and then went in the wave pool. After about a half an hour of going down the same slides over and over, we decided it was time to go. Luckily, our taxi driver was awesome. He made a few phone calls and set us up to go on a speed boat ride to an island for the afternoon. Once we were on this island, the people made us a meal of fish, chicken, and this homemade coleslaw stuff. It was actually really good! After finishing the meal, we went back on the boat to another island that was very touristy. It was beautiful though. We laid on the beach for the afternoon until the boat came back and picked us up. The taxi was another hour ride home. After getting back to our villa, we made some dinner, and got ready to go out to the bar again. The bar that night, was closing down and having a private party for MV Explorer students only! That was us!!! It was packed with all Semester at Sea students. It was so much fun! The next morning we woke up and did some shopping then all 12 of us got back into the taxi van and made our way back to the ship. Once back in Port Louis, we did some more shopping and walking around, sent some post cards, and then went on the ship before we departed for INDIA! Well my spring break was really fun and now I can’t wait to get to India (furthest possible point away from home! EEEEE)! MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH! LOVE YOUUU xoxoxo

SOUTH AFRICA

Sorry this has taken me so long to post, the internet is VERY slow and annoying while on the ship!! i promise ill write another blog all about mauritius and the INDIAN OCEANN when i get a chance..dont worry i haven't forgotten about it!! MISS YOU ALL SOOOOO MUCH!!! LOVE YOU!

SOUTH AFRICA
Okay this may be long, but all of the stuff I write won’t even explain how amazing South Africa was!
This place was by far my favorite port so far! And I sort of have a feeling that it will be my favorite out of all the places I’m going to. Who knows now though! I definitely plan on going back there some day!! The past 6 days were probably the busiest days of my life and I ran on very minimum hours of sleep possible. All of it was well worth it though! So Tuesday morning I woke up at 4:45 to watch us pull into port into Cape Town. The pictures were awesome that I took of Table Mountain and the city in front of it. The sun finally rose at around 6:30 just before we started eating breakfast on the back of the 6th deck. After breakfast I quickly got ready and then went to the diplomatic briefing that everyone was required to go to. Originally I was supposed to go skydiving on Tuesday but, lucky for Mom!!!!, plans got messed up and I wasn’t scheduled to go anymore. Don’t worry Mom there are still plenty of other spots on my trip where I can go skydiving and I most likely will before I get home!! I’ll just send you pictures of me jumping out of the plane after the fact!!! I went on an SAS trip instead. I went to the Rastafari Community Township with a program called Operation Hunger. They work with children in these township communities to reduce the amount of malnutrition going on in South Africa. Only a half an hour away from where our ship was docked in an upper scale part of the city, were thousands and thousands of township “houses.” If you could even call them houses. Driving through and finally getting to the community we were going to was a shocker in itself. Who knew that there could be SUCH wealthy people only 30 minutes away from SUCHHHH poor people? When we finally arrived at the community we got off the bus and went into the community center. All the buildings, including this one and the tabernacle we also went into, were made out of different pieces of wood, cloth, tin, etc. We found out that we were actually going to be weighing the children in the community and plotting them on a chart to see how far along they have come with their weight. It’s also to see if the program is helping to fight malnutrition or not. We went around to the houses with a tour guide (he was someone from the township) and weighed the children. We did more interacting with the people rather than weighing the children. We took pictures with the children and gave them little toys and stickers. Even the parents were excited to get their picture taken as well. For people who have pretty much nothing, they were so happy the entire time. They were always joking around with each other and always having a good time! When we left, we made our way back to the ship and Ananda and I met up with this kid Daniel that lives in South Africa. Ananda knew him from a mutual friend. He took us out and drove us around for a tour of Cape Town and then we went out to dinner on Long St. It’s the main street in Cape Town that has all the restaurants and bars on it. Dinner was really good and afterwards we met up with some friends at a bar. We stayed for a couple hours and then took a cab ride home with a bunch of other semester at sea students!
Since it was already one o’clock in the morning by the time I got back to the ship and I had to leave at 4:30 in the morning for my safari I decided to just stay up and not go to sleep. If I had gone to sleep I probably wouldn’t have woken up for leaving. I called home and talked for a while to my parents, took a shower, packed all my stuff, and then went up to the Union to meet my group. We finally got on the bus and made our way to the airport. Our flight was at 6:50. It was a quick 2 hour flight that was pretty smooth the whole way. Originally we were supposed to then take a 5 hour bus ride to Manyeleti Game Reserve to the Honeyguide Tented Safari Camp. Since there were only 19 of us in our group though, we ended up taking a 50 seater propeller plane to an airport just an hour bus ride away from the camp. That flight wasn’t bad at all; I just hate those small planes! The airport was the smallest thing I have ever seen though! There was only one runway and the actual building was about the same size as my house at school! The waiting area in it looked like it could be someone’s living room in their house. We were met there by the van drivers that were taking us to our camp. It was an hour ride where we actually saw a giraffe!! When we finally arrived to camp, I was pretty much speechless. It was absolutely amazing! The people there immediately took our luggage to our tents which were absolutely unreal. They weren’t really tents. They had concrete bases for the floor. One room in the front was a couch, desk, and our two beds which were SO comfortable. When you went around the corner to the back of the tent, the whole room was the bathroom. The two shower heads came out of the wall right next to the counter with the double sinks. They had a complementary laundry service if you wanted! (I didn’t get that done though!) The tent was awesome! After settling in, we had lunch. They had a long table set up for all of us to sit at. All alcoholic drinks were included the entire time on the safari and we ate SUCH good food. We had an appetizer, main course, and a desert every lunch and dinner! One dinner I actually ate asparagus!!! And I ate ostrich for the main course! You all should be proud that yes, IM TRYING NEW FOODS! (It’s very hard to do that though!!! Haha) Breakfast was crazy too! They pretty much gave you anything you wanted for breakfast! But anyway, after we ate lunch we got ready to go out on our first game drive at 4:30. I saw so many animals on all the drives put together, it was crazy. I saw buffalo, elephants, giraffes, lions and their cubs, baboons, impala, waterbucks, so many different types of birds, etc. They were all pretty much within 20 or 30 feet of the vehicle I was in. it was absolutely unreal! We were trying to track a leopard and her baby, but we never ended up finding it! The schedule for the days I was at the safari pretty much went:
5:30 wake up by the staff bringing coffee or tea and biscuits to our tents
6:00-10:00 morning game drive
10:00-11:00 breakfast
11:00-2:00 anything you wanted (I laid at the pool one day and took a nap the other day)
2:00-3:30 lunch
4:30-7:30 afternoon game drive
8:00- dinner
After dinner we could either sleep or pretty much do anything you wanted again!
On the morning game drive we would usually stop around 7:30 or 8ish for some coffee or tea and some sort of snack. And on the afternoon drive we would stop for “sundowners.” The driver and tracker would pull out a table and cooler full of all sorts of drinks and snacks for us right in the middle of the safari! It was unreal. At breakfast after the morning game drives, we had all sorts of cereals and then we could order eggs anyway we wanted and pretty much with whatever in them! At breakfast one of the days I saw the bushes moving and there was an elephant right there!! It actually walked to the pool and started drinking the water out of the pool while we were all sitting there eating! It was the coolest thing ever! Luckily it wasn’t the day before because a bunch of us would have been sitting there at the pool. The guides told us that one time a girl fell asleep and woke up and the elephant was drinking water. They had to tell her to slowly and quietly get up and walk to the building. I would have died if that was me! Hmm...What other cool things happened on the safari! OH on the last night there after dinner we stayed up playing “card” games until 2:30ish in the morning with our safari driver that was our age. We still had to wake up at 5:30 the next morning which was pretty rough. Totally worth it though! I think all of us were half asleep including our driver! I kept putting my sunglasses on incase I fell asleep no one would know! Ha-ha I wouldn’t trade sleep for any of the activities I did on the safari, or better yet anything I did in South Africa at all. After our last game drive in the morning we had a couple hours to do what we wanted and to get ready to leave. Finally at noon time we left to go back to the airport and make our way back to Cape Town. The security in the small airport was insane...the lady asked me if had any sharp objects or if she should take anything away from me and I said no and that was it! On the second flight back to Cape Town, the cockpit door was open for half the flight including a good portion of take-off!!! I was thinking of what mom would be like if she was on that flight! VERY different from the US. But I made it back! I was completely exhausted when I got back so I just went to the waterfront for dinner at this brick oven pizza place with some people from my safari. I then came back to the ship and passed right out! The safari was definitely one of the best things I have ever done in my life and the 6 days in South Africa were probably the best 6 days of my life ever! Sitting at the camp on my safari I couldn’t really think of anything better!
On the last day in South Africa (Sunday) I got up again at 4:45 in the morning to go with 11 other people SHARK DIVING! We had to drive two hours and then take a 45 minute boat ride to shark alley...since it was the slow season we only saw one shark and it took about three hours for the damn thing to actually show up! It was worth it though!! We sat there in our wetsuits which were absolutely hideous for those three hours trying to get some tanning in. Once the shark showed up though and we got to go in the cage, it was SOOO unexplainable! The 7 and a half foot shark went literally right by the cage; I could have touched if I wanted to. It was really scary at the same time but the adrenaline just made the fear go away! The water was FREEZING and some people went in without a wetsuit on, but not me! There was no way in hell I was going in 55 degree water in just a bathing suit! I would have been numb if I did that! After our journey back I did some shopping with Ananda and then went to bed VERY EARLY to try and catch up on all the sleep I didn’t get in South Africa.
We didn’t leave South Africa on time because the fog was way too dense. We left around noon the following day, but the captain is just going to up the speed so we still make it to Mauritius on time. The weather has been kind of sucky since we left and I guess it’s supposed to thunderstorm until we get past Madagascar. Apparently there was a cyclone there a couple weeks ago so we are hitting the aftermath of it. The waves and swells aren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be, but it’s a different type of rocking. The boat goes up and down now instead of side to side so we all have to get adjusted again on how to walk and not lose our balance. I’m just looking forward to my “spring break!” Well that’s about it for now! I MISS YOU LOTS!! Oh Yea I figured it out when I’m in India, I’ll be half way around the world from home! EEEEK! LOVE YOUU!!!

crossing the Atlantic!!!!

So after leaving brazil, I have to be honest, I was not looking forward to 9 days on a ship with no where to go but hmm the dining hall a couple times a day, classes, laying out getting tan = ) and hmm what else? Talent shows, Neptune day. I don't know a whole bunch of stuff! But as the time went on and the more and more I went to class and to the dining hall and got to lay out and get a good tan I actually enjoyed it…however 9 days is a little too long and I have to admit that I'm getting a little bit of cabin fever! Thank god ill be in cape town in TWO DAYS!! So classes started again, they are going well…global studies is awfully boring and is just so hard to actually pay attention! The only good part is that I’m learning a lottt of really interesting things about the countries that I’m going to! Tuesday I went on a tour of the bridge of the boat! It was really cool to see all the computers that monitor everything. I actually understood some of the things that the guy was saying thanks to Dad!! = ) The guy told us, however, that the captain doesn’t actually steer the ship except going in and coming out of ports. I thought that was pretty interesting! I took pictures and when I get to an internet café or this internet isn’t SO FREAKIN SLOW, ill upload those pictures! I went to pub night on Tuesday night which was pretty fun! Lots of people were there, it’s nothing like the parties at UNH though! I definitely miss some of those! Wednesday night there was an animal dance where you were supposed to dress up as a jungle animal...I put together my costume at the last minute and was a tiger! It actually came out pretty good for putting it together in about 10 minutes! On Valentine’s Day we had no classes because it was Neptune Day! It’s the celebration of crossing the equator even though we did that before we got to Brazil! Everyone got woken up by the stewards around 7:30 in the morning! They ran around the halls banging on drums and our doors to make sure we were awake! When I finally made it outside to the pool deck there was a big crowd! Most everyone was in line to get “fish guts” poured on you! So I got in line! It was SOO cold out that morning (actually still pretty warm since I was standing in a bathing suit- but cold compared to what we have been used to! Haha) – it was really rough out and the wind made it even colder! Finally it was my turn to get the stuff poured on me! I walked over and they poured this disgusting smelling bluish greenish colored liquid over my head and then jumped in the pool. When I got out I had to kiss a fish and then kiss King Neptune’s ring. All just part of the tradition! Soon after people went through that line, the head shaving began! NO WORRIES I DIDN’T SHAVE MY HEAD!! A lot of people did though, and I heard that this voyage broke the record of the number of girls that shaved their heads (that could be a rumor though!). The rest of the day was pretty relaxing since there was nothing else scheduled and we didn’t have classes. The ship was SO rocky that day, although I found out later in the week that it was only a 6 on a scale from 1-14!! I can only imagine what a higher one will be like. Stuff was flying all around our cabin, drinks were spilling in the dining hall, chairs and tables were sliding all over on the back decks. It wasn’t as scary or I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be! It did freak me out, however, standing on the back deck and watching the horizon go so far up and down when the boat rocked! It’s only going to get worse too. I guess the day we leave South Africa is the roughest day of the whole voyage! I’ll let you know how that day goes...I’m not too worried though! After Valentine’s Day and Neptune Day classes began just as normal again. Saturday night there was a Captain’s Challenge for the Sea Olympics. The Sea Olympics is a challenge between I believe 9 different seas on the ship that determines the order in which we get off the ship back in Miami. So last night there was the Captain's Challenge. They had to come up with a skit or a song and make it all about Semester at Sea and the MV Explorer. Our captains rewrote the song to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. It was really funny, as were all the other skits! We didn’t win; actually, we didn’t even come in the top three spots! Oh well! We still have the actual Olympics which everyone participates in to catch up! Well that’s about it for now, I have a really busy week for South Africa coming up so I probably won’t write again until I’m back on the ship! I hope everything is well with everyone!! LOVE YOU MISS YOU ALL LOTS!!!! xoxoxoxoxox

BRAZIL = )

BRAZIL
It’s a miracle that I even got off the ship after all the scary stuff that the people on the ship were telling us. However, I did get off the ship obviously and had an awesome time in Brazil. Since we were here for 5 days I’ll go day by day and hopefully catch you up on my travels J
Day one: I woke up at 5:15 to see the sunrise as we were pulling into Salvador, Brazil. It was gorgeous and I got some awesome pictures! I ate breakfast and then went back to sleep for a little while the disembarkation process was going on. We had a meeting with the Tour Office before we could all get off the ship, too. Finally around one-thirtyish I got off and did a walking tour of the upper city in Salvador. We walked from the ship through the Mercado Modelo and to the elevator that took us to the upper city. That thing was hugee and it was SO hot! The first thing I did notice as I got off the ship though was the smell. Walking down the road to get to the Mercado Modelo it smelled SOOOO bad of pee! Everyone apparently in Brazil pees in public on the streets. It then sits there in the hot hot sun and smells awful! I even saw a business man type man doing this. And its not just men. I heard a story of a woman just walking in between two cars and pull down her pants and pee right there. It didn’t matter who was around or anything! Once up to the upper city, it was all decorated because Tuesday was the last day of carnival in Brazil. People were dressed up as pretty much anything. There were lots and lots of cross dressers, actually! Anyways we got the tour of the old city and some churches and good restaurants to eat at and so forth. The tour was ending just as carnival was starting so we got to see a lot of the parades go by with big floats and awesome costumes. The music was really loud and really good music!! We followed the parade back to the elevator to go back to the ship for dinner. After eating dinner, I wanted to go back to carnival but we had to be in a group and have at least one guy with us. Ananda and I weren’t in a camarote. It is a group that actually goes in the parade and has its own security and everything. The people on the ship kept saying that it’s not safe to go to carnival unless you’re in one of these. Of course, since we weren’t in one, we were terrified. The old city, though, is much more mellow than the new city. We decided to go up to the old city with a couple other people (three of which were boys) and watch carnival for a little while! It definitely wasn’t as insane as I had heard it was or as I thought it would be, but I can see how it could get very crazy! I heard some pretty crazy stories from the people that did go to the new city. One girl got her camcorder cut off of her shoulder (don’t ask why she even brought that in the first place) I didn’t even bring my disposable camera because the people said it would just draw attention to you in a bad way. So I just wore my money belt and only kept some money and my ship ID in it. I also The night ended up being pretty fun; we came back earlier than a lot of people but I still got a taste of carnival. If I ever come back to Brazil during carnival I would definitely get into a camarote cuz everyone that was in one said it was probably one of the best times of their lives!!
Day two: Since Carnival was now over and Wednesday was the first day that everything was opening back up again, our tour guide from the day before said it was going to be pretty crazy. He said the lines in every store, the banks, etc were all going to be very long and most likely the people working were going to be miserable. They were most likely going to be completely hung-over and not happy at the fact that they had to be at work again. This day was kind of a laid back day with nothing to do. I ran some errands and stuff in the morning with Ananda and went to lunch at the restaurant in the Mercado Modelo (market place). It was interesting. The “grilled cheese” was a bun...Not toasted...with somehow melted cheese in the middle. It was still good though, and it filled us up. Then we came back to the ship for the afternoon and laid out. We were going to go to the beach, but by the time our errands were finished it was too late to go. It was okay though, still a fun afternoon. After getting ready, we walked up to the upper city to meet a group of other girls for dinner at a restaurant the tour guide suggested. It was delicious! In Brazil there are drinks called Caipirinhas and Caipiroskas. They were both made with lots of limes and lots of sugar and then the caiprinha has rum and the caipiroska has vodka in it. They were SOO good! We actually got a caipiroska with strawberries instead of limes and it tasted like you had a strawberry candy! SOO GOOD! Im bringing that drink back to the US!! After dinner we just all came back to the ship and hung out for a while!
Day three: SHOPPING DAY!! Ha-ha the upper city has awesome shops! Not that I bought a lot of things, but there was just so much to look at! I walked around with Ananda shopping pretty much all afternoon! I bought some cute jewelry and some cute flip flops of course, also some post cards. I decided that I am going to buy post cards in all the countries, but im not going to send them until I get to Hawaii since it will be the cheapest. I’ll still write them in the countries though so it will be just like you get them sent from that country. And you will still get them before I get home it will just have the Hawaiian postage on it. Oh wellll! Deal with it! Ha-ha anywayss..after shopping and having a pretty good lunch we came back and got ready for the Bahia (the state of Brazil we are in) soccer game!! We had to wait in line for them because the original 200 tickets that Semester at Sea bought were already sold out. Thank god we got tickets! The 8 buses from Semester at Sea left at 6:30 for the hour and a half ride to the game. We got stuck in a little traffic because there was a dump truck that had been flipped over on the highway. Don’t know exactly what happened though…It was really funny when we pulled in, I don’t think the people there ever saw 8 coach buses pull into the parking lot all at once like that. The game was really good. Bahia won 2-0. The fans there are CRAZY. It wasn’t even a big game, but they are nuts. They have more chants and cheers than imaginable. One guy was sitting on the fence in the front of the bleachers and waving his hands singing, etc. When the goals were scored it sounded like it was a championship game every time! At one point I looked over and a Brazilian guy was taking a picture of me on his phone. Afterwards him and his friend came over and sat with us and one of them understand/slightly spoke English so it was good to interact with the locals. Although when the second goal was scored, everyone jumped up and everyone was kissing everyone. Both him and his friend kissed all of us (the group I was with) on the head..it was kind of weird. Haha during the whole game there were 24 armed guards surrounding the field and at both half time and the end of the game 10 of the guards plus 3 dogs ran out onto the field and walked the refs off the field. I guess they stood there in case of riots! Weird…and nothing like any of the soccer games I have been to before! Also during the game, guards would walk throughout the bleachers and make sure no one was rioting or anything. The bus ride back seemed quicker than the one there because there was no traffic!
Day four: Our plan was to go to Itaparica Island by ferry, but the only ferry was at 12:30 and it was PACKED with locals. Ananda and I decided to go to the beach instead. We took a taxi and mannn now I know where you got your driving skills from Dad!! Ha-ha juust kidding. These people are maniacs! They are definitely multi taskers switching in and out of lanes and just beeping when they get close to another car or another car gets too close to them. Don’t worry Pop, I held on to the “oh shit” handle the whole time!! And mom definitely would have been pounding the dashboard if she was sitting in the front seat of this taxi!! Haha love youu! We finally made it to the beach which was gorgeous! Very different from beaches at home though! First of all the bathing suits in brazil might as well be nothing! Most of the women’s bathing suits were pretty much thongs! And the top wasn’t much bigger. No matter how big or small the lady was, that is what she was wearing! It is pretty much the same for men too…the smaller the bathing suit, I guess, the better! After being at the beach for a while we got some lunch at a local restaurant and then walked to the supermarket. Finally we took a taxi back to the ship and got ready to go out to dinner in the upper city again! We went to dinner with Julie and her roommate Kourtney and then this kid Forrest. This dinner was probably the best meal I had in all of Brazil! The walk home was interesting and ran into some pretty sketchy locals, but that was no different than any other night in Brazil I guess.
Day five: Today I went to Praia de Forte to the Marine Turtle Project. It wasn’t what I expected because all the turtles were in tanks that were too small for them. It was really cool to see how they hatch and to see baby turtles. We saw 16 day old turtles, they probably weren’t much bigger than the palm of my hand. The big turtles were HUGEE though, they were really cute!!! I got some good pictures and if I can ever upload pictures on the internet ill put them up, but its so god damn slow its insane! (also the reason I haven’t written in my blog for a while!) After the turtles we went to a local restaurant for lunch and go to walk around the town before coming back to the ship. Once back I started typing this until the cookout we got on the top deck! It was FINALLY good food on the ship!!! Its been pretty bad lately! I think this is the first dinner in a while that I didn’t eat pb&j! They had our own little carnival performance and our interport lecturer Javier had all his family and friends come on the ship for the last night! I hope they do that every time we are leaving a port cuz it gives us some good food to look forward too!!! Now im just finishing typing this, doing some homework and getting ready to set sail for CAPE TOWN!!! I’m VERY excited!! Although 9 days at sea seems like a long time, im actually excited to be at sea! I loved Brazil, but I think I would have liked it more if the people on the ship didn’t scare us about it so much from the beginning! I had lots of fun and learned/saw lots of new things, although ill miss the pee smell walking to the market! NOTTTTT! Now im off to cross the Atlantic and go shark diving and on a safari! Cannnt wait! I’ll be sure to write again before I get to cape town! I MISS YOU ALL LOTS AND LOTS! LOVE YOUUU!!! xoxoxoxoxoxo

PUERTO RICO!!

Just as everyone was getting used to ship life, we pulled into port in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Saturday morning around 8. I woke up at 7 so I could go outside and watch us pull in. It wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be, but I’m assuming that will change when we get to some of the other countries. Customs had to come onboard to check all of our passports which went by pretty fast. However, the line to get off the ship was extremely long. I just got breakfast with some people and waited for it to die down. Once we got off, I walked downtown with Ananda and a couple other people. We weren’t sure where we were headed so we just kept going and eventually made it to Old San Juan. Old San Juan is filled with many touristy shops as usual but it also had some really interesting restaurants, old forts (El Morro and San Cristobal), historic buildings, beaches, etc. We ended up eating lunch at a small restaurant that seemed pretty American. I just ate a turkey sandwich – no big surprise there! After lunch, we continued walking downtown and ended up on this little patio that was filled with hundreds of pigeons. If you put your hand out they would all think you had food for them and would land on you. I tried it once just so I could get a picture and say that I had a pigeon land on me. There were some kids in there that loved it and would hold the whole bag of food out so maybe 8 or 10 pigeons were landing on them. It was pretty cool until the damn thing tried to land on my head. I decided that was my cue to leave before they started pooping on me or something. On our walk back to the ship we went into the Capitol building and walked around taking pictures. We stopped at a gas station for some drinks and Ananda and my friend Rachel bought energy drinks called Gasolina (like the song ha-ha). They say that they are like red bull, but it’s actually all alcohol. It is supposed to taste good but both of them ended up throwing them away because they were so disgusting. Once we got back on the ship, we laid out on the deck in the sun for a couple of hours. We ate dinner on the ship that night and then I went on my first trip to Bioluminescent Bay at 7:30. It was about an hour bus ride to get there. Once we were there we were paired up and had a safety meeting. We then got in the kayaks and headed towards the canal. There were about 14 or 15 kayaks in my group. Going through the canal was really dark since it was nighttime and covered by the trees. It was a really narrow canal, but we all had glow bracelets on for light. It took probably 20 minutes to get to the lagoon that was awesome! When we got out there, our tour guide told us all about how the bioluminescent bay worked. When you moved anything in the water, it would sparkle. There are little organisms that light up and look like crystals. The night that I went it was difficult to see them because the moon was really bright. The stars that night, though, were definitely worth the trip. After staying in the lagoon for a little while, we kayaked back through the canal to the base. It was already 11:30 by the time we got off the water and it was still another hour bus ride back so after I showered, I passed right out.
On the second day in Puerto Rico, I went to the beach in the morning. The water was SO warm and it was so nice out! We stayed at the beach for most of the morning until a huge wave came up and absolutely soaked everything! That was the time we decided we should go back to the ship. We wanted to go to a market in Carolina (like 15 minutes away) but the taxi driver had no idea where it was. We drove around with her for a little while until finally she brought us to the place where it was. The only problem was that the market was gone. It was no longer there. So after all that driving to try and find it, we just went back to the ship. Waste of money, but oh well. After showering and getting ready, we went back into Old San Juan to a restaurant where the Pina Colada was invented (or the first one was made). We got dinner and a couple drinks. Ananda was going on the Bioluminescent Bay trip that night so I walked her back to the ship and then took a taxi back into town. I met up with Rachel and Kaleigh; we went to a couple different bars and then made our way to Senor Frogs. Since it was only like 7:30 we were pretty much the only ones in there. We ordered a couple drinks and by the time those were finished, the place was packed. It was fun; we met a couple people from the Coast Guard that were stationed in San Juan. The whole night each of us only paid $12 for drinks and we stayed until after midnight! J . On Monday morning, I went to the First Hospital Panamericano. It’s a psychiatric hospital in Puerto Rico that is linked to a bunch of hospitals in the United States. We had a presentation about the history of the hospital and then a tour of it which was pretty interesting. It wasn’t what I was expecting and we didn’t really get to have any contact with the patients, but it was still worth going. Once we got back to the ship, I walked into Old San Juan again and did some shopping. Nothing great though…I got back on the ship around 4:30. The rest of the night I just hung out since I didn’t want any dock time for being late! I didn’t want to get back off the ship and then not make it back in time! That would not be fun for the next time in port! We left Puerto Rico right at the scheduled 11:00 pm and then I went to bed. The last couple of days have been filled with classes and laying out on the deck getting tan! Yesterday (Thursday) was the first cloudy day that I didn’t lay out. I did lots of reading and homework and just hanging out with new people. I have to say it was nice having a break from the sun. (I never thought I would say that!!) Pub nights started this week also which seem to be pretty fun. You can have two drinks at dinner and then four at the pool bar. That’s plenty for mee! Haha tomorrow we have no classes, not really sure why yet? I know that we are taking pictures of all the different universities and colleges represented here on this voyage. Ananda and I have to go at 5 for the UNH picture. Anyways I miss you all and love you lots! I will probably write again after Brazil!

i tried uploading some pictures and im not sure if it worked or not..if not ill try again later! <3

Bahamas & Life @ Seaa

I just want to begin by saying that this journal/blog is going to be all over the place because I am just going to write things as I think of them. It might jump back and forth a little but I will try and keep it in as much order as possible. Just try and stay with me J

Bahamas & beginning of S@S 2008!!!
So I finally finished packing at about 11:30 the night before I left. I just about made the two 70 pound bag limit. Trust me; I packed everything I could possibly think of in those bags! THEY WERE FREAKIN’ HEAVYYY! Our flight was on the 21st from NYC. It was a pretty good flight and there a couple of other s@s students and their families on the flight with me and mine. Of course with our luck, when we got to the Bahamas it was pouring rain! We took a cap to the Atlantis where we were staying for the next couple of nights. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Personally, I would rather stay somewhere else. Anyways though, it was a fun two and half days. I got to lie at the pool on Tuesday which I was very happy about! My parents got to go onboard the MV Explorer Tuesday afternoon so Charlie, Henry and I just walked around downtown. We went to dinner with my parents, Ananda and Kyle and then repacked all my stuff and went to sleep.
Wednesday morning we had to wake up way to early! I had to be at the dock and wait in those long lines at 8:20am. They actually went by faster than I thought they would. So I went through, got my bags checked, got to get on board the ship, and got more bags checked. I got my straightener taken awayyyyyy L I know what you’re thinking Kathryn “how is she going to control that hair for 3 and half months without a straightener or bandana?” welllll as I was getting back off the ship that day I asked if I could take my straightener to my parents and they took it out of the box of confiscated items and looked at it again, asked me if it was an automatic shut off, and gave it back to me. I got to take it back upstairs to my room! So no worries, it’s on the ship with me!! After getting back off the ship, Ananda and I went with a couple other girls to meet up with my parents and get some breakfast. We didn’t have to be back on board until 1:30pm when my parents could come with us. Charlie and Henry had rented a moped (yes dumb and dumber could definitely be their new names) that day so they were cruising around and came to say bye to me at 12:30. I got to go on a quick ride with Charlie. It was pretty sweet! After saying bye to them, my parents and I got back on the ship and walked around a little bit. This ship is amazing! It’s pretty much nicer than any hotel or dorm I have ever been in. Yes, the rooms are VERY small and the bathrooms are too but we managed to get everything unpacked and once that is done its really not that bad. It’s just like moving into your dorm freshman year and thinking that was small (only smaller ha-ha). Of course when I was saying goodbye to my parents I cried, but everyone knew that that was going to happen. Once all the parents were back off the ship, we had a mandatory lifeboat drill. I am in B4 and luckily Ananda is in the same lifeboat as me if anything were to ever happen. We’re just going to hope that whenever we have these drills, they are exactly that, drills! We had to stand up on the 5th deck next to our lifeboat for about 45 minutes while the crew member called our names to make sure we were all there. We then had to stand there and wait for the captain and some of his crew members to walk through and check to make sure that we were all quiet and we were all wearing the appropriate clothes. Finally after about an hour, we go to go back inside. FINALLLY we were about to set sail away from Nassau!! It was very exciting watching the dock lines get lowered down and into the back of the ship! We got to wave goodbye to all of the parents that were standing on the dock! Luckily my mom wasn’t the only one that ran off the dock and dove into the water to start swimming after the ship! Haha just kiddinnng! Love you mom!! Actually all the parents moved to the end of the dock when the ship was heading that way so we could wave to each other for just a little bit longer! And no, no one actually jumped into the water and started swimming after the ship! That really would have been pretty funny though as long as it wasn’t one of my parents! Some parents had signs saying bye to their kids and others were just screaming and yelling and LOTS of parents were crying! And that was it; we were off into the open water for the next two days until Puerto Rico! I ate dinner on the back deck and watched the first sunsets of many!! We started right away with meetings after dinner. Ananda and I went to bed pretty early that night since it was such a long night! Falling asleep to the ship rocking is very peaceful and I could definitely see getting used to it. Thursday we woke up early and went to the gym, ate breakfast, and showered all before 9! We had our first meeting in the Union room (the classroom where all the students go every morning at sea for the Global Studies). Since it is in the front of the ship it rocks A LOT! I can honestly say that this was the first time I ever felt seasick. It was a room towards the front of the boat with no fresh air that was moving all over the place. For all those people that said you can’t feel a big cruise ship like this one when it rocks, you guys were wrong! I had to leave the room and go and get the wrist bands AND take sea sickness meds. No worries though, I didn’t throw up like many other people on board! The boat rocking however makes for some pretty interesting run ins with other people. No one walks in straight lines; people fall and walk into walls all the time! So I had Charlie’s SKYLEMAR sweatshirt on and some kid came up to me and asked where I got it! So I told him my brother worked there for the past two years and he asked who. I told him Charlie Domenie and after a sort of awkward look I said Chuck Domenie and he knew exactly who I was talking about! His name was Dan (I think) but I didn’t get much more information since he approached me while I was feeling horrible and just trying to concentrate on not puking everywhere! After the meeting I actually came back to the room and fell asleep for almost two hours. It made me feel better but then we just had to go sit through more and more meetings. It was pretty torturous. At around 5ish that day we got a break until dinner and then more meetings at 8pm (actually 2000 o’clock since this ship runs on military time- that has a lot of getting used to to do!). We took the picture off our wall to see what previous voyagers had written on the back. We were hearing some pretty crazy stories about what was on the back of the pictures, but our notes were pretty boring. They were just about how to have a blast and take lots and lots of pictures, etc. Other people definitely got more interesting notes behind their pictures!
The food isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be but I can definitely see how it will get old really fast. I can see how it is going to be the same thing over and over. Lots of salad and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Breakfast is the best.
We started classes today (Friday) and they weren’t that bad…the global studies class is definitely going to be hard to stay awake. The boat rocking plus comfy chairs plus a boring professor really makes it easy to fall asleep. My weather class and my philosophy classes are pretty interesting also. Thank you so much mom and dad for giving me this amazing opportunity! I haven’t even been to the first port and I already absolutely LOVE it (minus the seasick part)! I’m sure I will be much more excited after Puerto Rico! This weather is awesome too! I love it and I don’t miss the snow in New Hampshire yet! I do miss the people though!!! Alright like I said ill keep you updated I MISS YOU ALL and LOVE YOUUUU!!!!

Loveee,
Lucyyy <3