Sunday, February 17, 2008
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
Sunday, February 10, 2008
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
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
Friday, February 1, 2008
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
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
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