San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Past Posts: Massive San Juan Post, and Puerto Rico Photos

Sunrise



The Streets of San Juan

From Left to Right: Lisa, Me, Kindle

Ice Cream Shop

Nassau, Bahamas

Nassau, Bahamas

Previous Posts: Before I Go

Ah, Nassau. I wasn’t too enamored by this country. There was too much of Charleston in it, though it did have some of its own charm in other ways. My parents came with me to see me off though I’ve decided to not put their photos up here.

The weather was not co-operative for a nice long weekend. This is a picture from our hotel, right on the beach and about a mile or two from where the ship was docked.

View from the hotel room. As you can see there was a bit of a storm brewing at that moment.

Warm, muggy, stormy. That was the Bahamas. Ironically, I had at least one person trying to find me because they knew I was in the area but I was elusive and wasn't found until the first night on ship.


On one of the nice days, though, we did get out and visited the Atlantis Hotel. Beautiful place, but somewhat gaudy and fake looking in my opinion. I loved looking around, but I'm glad we didn't stay there.

Long time, no posts

So as assumed, I got bogged down around Asia and never did get around to updating my blog from then on. I did work on it, I have pages of notes, but I don’t want anyone to have to dig through those for any sort of logical information so I’m going to be editing them and posting them as soon as I can possibly finish them.

Until then, I’ve decided to go through my photos and do a whole new photo posts from each country with little bits of information to tide people over. I’m going to do those all today, most likely, so keep scrolling down if you haven’t seen anything.

Honestly, this may be more up more people’s interest level too—these will be short, sweet, and to the point. You won’t have to sludge through my pages and pages of descriptions or ramblings of whatever suits my fancy at the time. Either way, hope you enjoy! We’re starting at the beginning and heading back.

I survived Malaysia and Terengganu

I survived Malaysia and Terengganu and so I have a single message:
I have something to tell you
I ? m really sorry
BUT I LOVE you

I love engrish t-shirts, even if this one makes some sense

Mauritius

I read a lot of blogs before going on Semester at Sea. At least one, and I want to say more the one, asserted that Mauritius seemed kind of like a wasted port, or wasted time. Two or three days were all that was needed for it—and though I would definitely trade a day in Mauritius for a day in Japan or some other country with only four days—it is definitely not a waste. Perhaps it is for some of the students who bought villas and slept, partied, and drank the four days away it was a waste—but I don’t think it was that so much for me.

I arrived, as can be seen in the previous post, expecting not to have much to do. I received perfectly full days and some experiences I hope to always remember—and at least one I want to forget.
For those of you who don’t know Mauritius is a tiny country near Madagascar and off the far coast of Africa. It’s considered one of the most peaceful countries with all its diversity. To paraphrase the disembarkation speaker-- the Dutch Colonized it but pretty much killed off the Dodo and left, the French colonized it and brought the slaves, the British took over, freed the slaves, and brought the indentured servants from India. There is a large Hindu population, some Sikhism, Muslim, Catholic, etc. Most people still speak French, though English is the official language, and everyone speaks a sort of Creole of all the languages.

The first day started at 9am. This, I fear, to me is an ungodly hour that I barely pull myself out of bed for because like every other port—I couldn’t sleep the night before we got there. This will be a problem in future ports, though I hope it won’t be too terrible as my body gets used to it.

My first venture was learning about conservation of Mauritian Corals, which have been destroyed in some areas by anchors. The conservation group has been trying to save them by placing posts in areas so that boats can tie up to the posts instead of dropping anchor and crushing the corals. The second was just wading around a beach, waiting for my groups turn with the submarine.

We, meaning Amy, Kelly, and I, ended up going with the first group after the first group had already left. Apparently, they needed at least 15 students in the first group, didn’t have them, and had to snag some of the others. So… we shoved our shoes back on, grabbed our lunches, and hopped into a van that was meant for 20 people instead of the four it ended up transporting.

Apparently, they should have grabbed four because half an hour later—they were sending for another person to finish up our designated number. Regardless, we soon found ourselves in a small boat skimming along towards the smalls ship that housed two submarines—one small one that seated three to five, and a larger one that seated the rest of us.

I am very glad I woke up and did this Semester at Sea program. Not only did I get my first view of sugar fields(which I find really cool looking but never did get any pictures of), but I also got to go 115 feet under the ocean. My redshirt, long sleeved since I wasn’t sure what was appropriate for the area, turned brownish purple as we dove and before long gray corals were visible around the pure white sand. Schools of bright yellow fish, silver fish, angel fish, clown fish—which played in the sea anemones—and so on filtered through the small round portholes. I can’t even name all the fish, though I do remember baby clownfish swimming through the sea anemones again and again as we turned around the corals.

I don’t really have pictures of this. My photos didn’t really turn out. However, other people’s did so I’m going to try to grab them sometime.

Another thing we saw was an old Japanese fishing boat which was sunk to make a home for fish. The front and back were still intact and colored rusted brown, though the middle had already broken into pieces. Corals will have covered it in 40 years.

The corals were hard corals mostly, by the way, which explains their lack of color, though here and there a bright purple one would appear among the gray, or white.

After everyone got a look at the corals, the ship, and the fish—twice, we climbed back to the surface and received a drink on the upper deck of the small ship we were on before heading back to the smaller boat which would take us back to the buses. Had I known I would never get back to the beach, I would have wanted to go back to the beach and just soak it in. As it was, I didn’t know, was tired, and wanted to go back to sleep before the multicultural evening.

That is exactly what I did.

I also forgot that we would be fed while at the multicultural evening and thus had dinner before going.

The Multicultural dinner was not entirely as they described. I don’t believe we reached a sugar mill, but we did go to what looked like an old southern plantation studded with lights around a front garden. We didn’t get to look too much at it, through, because we were quickly ushered inside, given fruit cocktails (not the frew-frew drinks that many had been expecting but just a fruit drink, no alcohol that I could detect), and settled at the tables. I sat with Professor Millerstrom---one of the Anthropology Professors, Nakita, Kindle, Rachel, at least one lifelong learner, and one of the guides named Francesca, who was very kind but also spoke very softly.

Nakita and I proceeded to ask her questions, discuss random topics, explain what other conversations at the table were about (mainly another global studies test and the ranting that ensued because of it), and get suggestions for what else to do in Mauritius during our stay. Over the course of the evening she gave us some phone numbers to call to try and get a one-day beginners lesson in how to do some of the traditional dances on the Island. Unfortunately, later, we found out that those numbers no longer worked, or at least weren’t working for us so we were unable to learn any traditional dancing.

Regardless, we did see some dancing and I took video (not very good video perhaps) of every single one of them. Like the Bahia by night, it was a little touristy but it was still very fun. We also tried a lot of local dishes and, in the end, got up and danced ourselves. Now, I don’t like going to clubs all that much, but I did really enjoy dancing with Rachel, Kindle, Chasti, Nakita, and Kim. Francesca joined us too sometimes and it was just all good goofy fun. I’m pretty sure I saw one of the guides jokingly booty dance with someone at some point.

We got back later then anticipated but I tried to get online anyway—looking for wireless that was close to the ship so that I could figure out my sleeping arrangements for Japan. I failed miserably. There was no close wireless. Or, if there was, it was impossible to hook up to it.

Before I slept, however, I was informed that Professor Millerstrom, Chasti, Nakita, and Kim were going to the Sacred Lake the next day to see the pilgrimage and the Hindu festival. I decided that if I woke up early enough the next day, I was so going to do that.

Once again—the ‘f’word comes into play and destroyed the loose outline of what I wanted to do. I was supposed to sleep in and go to the beach with Kindle and Rachel…but this won out. I was not planning, this, however, so I didn’t feel comfortable inviting people without asking.

The next day I drug myself out of bed (after falling asleep around 2am) around 7:30am. My roommate was a bit noisy, and I supposed that it was just a good time to go ahead and get up. I found the rest of the group and we all headed out—picking up Lynn (I believe), a life long learner, and Michael—the assistant librarian—to join us so that all the cars were filled.

We split into two cars. My car had Jacque—our fantastic driver—, Michael, Chasti, Nakita and I. We never did meet up with the other car again and the other cab, apparently, beat us there and left as we arrived.
The price for this was about $28 us a piece—round trip. This may seem expensive to you but you must understand we were gone from about 9:30am to 5pm give or take some. Similarly it took three hours to take what is normally a 45 minute drive because of all the pilgrims on the road.

Imagine this: people traveled in clumps and streams carrying alters made of bamboo and tinsel bands, or hollowed out papier-mâché. Some walk for days, others a few hours, all under the heavy, near equator, sun. Those not traveling, set up stalls and created purry (light flat bread made with flour with orange curry and potatoes) that was free for the pilgrims journeying to The Sacred Lake—a Lake in a creator which the Mauritian Hindus believe is sacred to Shiva.

We stopped half way there to buy bottles of water and watched a family stir the paste that would become the Purry bread in a large black pot over and open flame. Later, we would watch the older women roll finished dough into balls, flatten, and fry it in the festival grounds (see previous post for pictures).

When we were 10 Kilometers away the traffic was at a stand still. People trudged on in brightly colored saris and dhoti kurta, or simply in light white clothing. Children slept against their parent’s shoulders or stared wide-eyed at everything—who knew how long they had been walking. The number of shrines being brought increased, causing the entire area to ring with bells, honking horns, and sung prayers. Some people set their cars up on the side of the road with retro brown speakers and blared Hindu prayers and songs to encourage the travelers on their way.

The first view we had of the festival itself was the giant statue of Shiva that towered over a red-brown slab of marble and who sprayed water out of the top of his head (see previous post for pictures). Of course, that’s a bit of a lie—the first view we really had were the swarms of people all heading in the same direction, the lines of people in what looked like their Sunday’s best standing in lines a mile long for the local bus.

Still, the image of the large, bronze colored Shiva growing in the distance was impressive. The thousands of people in the festival area was even more so.

Tented areas house seats for rest, contemplation, and food. All but the first were also the areas to sleep in and people piled in covered in the thick incense, scarves, blankets, or sheets. There were only a quarter of the people sleeping, maybe less, then there were praying but they lounged in packets on blankets or matting. Some slept outside on the cemented sidewalks, others on the grass.

Purry was cooked by dozens of women—the older ones made the larger pieces and rolled the off-white paste into balls while children worked at a separate table. Men helped hand it out—and they were all working for free in designated areas.

There were also temples for worship. One was down by the lake—a pink and white building in the traditional lotus shape. There were four statues housed inside and people took off their shoes and burned incense or left flowers at the alter in front of them. One was Shiva, we believe another was his wife.

Most people were at the edge of the water giving offerings there. Small alters were placed every two feet or so and men and women waded in the water with small metal disks full of offerings—a small jar of water, a coconut, some green leaves which were burned along with incense, and yellow or orange flowers. My favorite view I had was when I saw a young boy—not quite 15 I’d guess—broke one of the coconuts against the alter. He hit it too hard and the top snapped off and it tumbled into the water when he gave the universal sheepish grin while fishing it back out so that it could be place on the alter with the rest of the offerings.

We followed the path around the lake and the buoys which marked off how far the followers could go into the water all around, under another tent with rows of seats, shrines, and enough incense to choke someone, to the line of pilgrims going up a hill towards another temple vested in red and white. The line was nearly at a stand still, but it was a great vantage point and seemed to be a place we should go. It was worth it. People were pushing to get up. They crowded around, juggled bottles of water likely from the lake, more leaves to burn, incense, coconuts, or other fruit. Pairs of shoes were left all along the side of the path, forgotten, and children climbed over the railing or slid into open spots only to be left separate from parents.

We did not go in to offer a prayer at the temple. None of us knew enough about the customs to feel comfortable doing so. Instead, we watched people splash water on the statues, give prayers and offerings, or burn incense. We walked around the temple, careful not to knock anyone least they loose their offerings, and took in the green hills around us and all of the thousands of pilgrims who were praying in their own way.

On our way back, we tried Purry. Now, it may be because we were so hungry but it was fantastic. I really liked it a lot, and I don’t typically like Indian food, but I’m beginning to think that that is because of its Americanization.

From there we left. We spent two hours there and then decided to leave the rest of the ceremonies to the locals. We were obviously outsiders, we didn’t want to intrude or be ‘cultural tourists’ too much.

We took a different rout back. I only saw half of it because I started nodding off in the middle and slept until just before we arrived back in Port Louis. Our taxi driver, Jacque, was exceptionally cool and gave us a couple cokes for free. He also gave us many tips and suggestions about things to do and what not to do and so on. As such, because he really was a nice guy, we tipped him on top of what was the original fare.

Though I was, again, supposed to go out that night—I decided to sleep instead. It was a good choice.

The next day, like the day before, I was supposed to go to the Beach. Chasti told me that we would be leaving at 9, then after I fell asleep called and changed it to 8:30. I was not ready by 8:30, and once 9am rolled around Chasti left with Kim and another Sarah. Alas, Nakita and I were told that Sarah was going to be going with us so once I finally got out of my room we waited outside the gangway for about a half an hour before we deduced that Sarah was not coming.

We said screw it, and decided to go to the water front instead.

We went off via Water-taxi and spent most of the morning getting our barrings. Wandering around the streets, buying postcards, wandering around the market where poultry and garbles were sold openly—housed in cages near dried octopus and fish. The market, much like every other place, has a large open air market. Bartering is normal, expected in many situations, and inevitably leads to many people getting screwed over.

The shops are all piled up on top of one another—packed into crevices and hanging on makeshift walls. Tea, incense, bangles, clothes, watches, battery chargers, sunglasses, poultry, dried objects of unknown origin…you could have found nearly anything there. There were a lot of things that were typical souvenirs, of course, things that have been found in every single port so far… and then some things that were unique or in some way seeming suitable. Clothing—sega dresses, pants from India, saris and dhoti kurta … its all there.

I ended up buying a Sari later that afternoon. I got it down about $60 american dollars from its original price and it really is a beautiful length of cloth—Dark blue with gold inlets (and I’m not one for gold, remember). I’m pretty sure I got it for a decent price, and my rationalization of buying a large piece of cloth: the woman was nice, interesting, full of interesting information. The sari could be what I wear to the ambassadors ball, or if I decide I fail at folding it, I could get it made into a dress in Vietnam—there is more then enough material here. Similarly, I’m going to be in a homestay for most if India, I don’t know if I’d have the time to buy a Sari there or not.

Similarly, the Sari made me think about the pilgrimage and being at the Sacred lake with the swarms of people in their colorful wraps and folds.

From there we went to the most amazing Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to. It was fantastic. Right on the water front with light red curtains and the best Indian food I’ve ever had. I got Chicken with Cashew paste and buttered naan bread. Fantastic.

We also saw Professor Millerstrom there and my Gender professor, Donna LeFebvre and we discussed our plans in other countries—most notably India—and beyond. It was interesting and informative. It also made both Nakita and I feel much better about not doing the Taj Mahal trips. Nakita is doing the Art Of Living, a yoga retreat of a sort, and everyone already knows I’m doing a homestay.

From there we finished up our shopping—I actually bought the Sari that afternoon instead of in the morning—and then hit up a local internet café in an attempt to set up my Japanese hotel reservations. We were not the only ones with this idea and within 20 minutes there were so many people in the internet café that it was impossible to load a simple page, much less try to make reservations. Kurt decided to come to my rescue online and helped me out. We later found out that hotel was booked solid (--this is the Kansai region during Cherry Blossom season, after all) and he’s continuing to try to help me out in my lack-of-net status. I should have done this before I left the US.

So that was my third day in Mauritius. Nakita and I were thinking about going to the beach the last day, but decided against it at the last moment, though I do think we should have just stuck with the original plan in the end.

Nakita had to get a camera. The wonderful shipboard community they keep spouting about? Someone on it took her camera after we left South Africa—she had it before then—and no one returned it. They did make an announcement about someone elses camera at some point but haven’t made any mention about Nakitas. Nakita is, understandably, a bit pissed off.

We did get her a camera but we were also harassed in the market. I won’t go into details but the end result was me shoving money at some pervy assholes so that we didn’t prolong the negotiations and we could leave quicker. Because of this, I’m highly considering making the Sari into a dress in Vietnam. I still love the material—but the joy I had in buying it in the market is a bit sour now. Making it a souvenir that represents two countries, two experiences…I think will be better.

Now before everyone starts thinking something really bad happened—I’m fine, Nakita’s fine. There are some just creepy bastards out there and I know exactly why it’s suggested that you travel with at least one guy in some of these countries now. I’m pretty sure had we been traveling with a guy this would have never happened.
Still, regardless of assholes, I did enjoy Mauritius. One short experience shouldn’t color an entire area even if I stewed about it for most of the last day. I saw some amazing things there, I experienced some amazing things, and I met more wonderful people then I did creeps. That’s acceptable.

The rest of the day we grabbed a cheap lunch, hung out on the steps of a shopping center picking up free wi-fi, which is why you can see some of the photos in the previous post. We also went to the post office to buy stamps, went elsewhere to buy a few souvenirs for people, bought a camera for Nakita, and so on. It was a useful day, though I do wish I had just gone to the beach instead.

To repeat myself, though I did have one bad experience-- I didn’t have as bad of a time as some others. About half the student body seemed bent on getting shitfaced in bars—semester at sea on land, apparently. Another girl got hit by a bus and drug about 30 feet (she’s fine as far as I know), another boy I heard about rented a vespa and got into a major wreck soon after probably because he was likewise drunk (he too is fine as far as I know). A lot of people never bothered to talk to a local and didn’t leave the beach. This just might color other peoples perceptions about Mauritius. You be the judge.

Regardless, in my opinion—one interaction with jerks is better then all of the above.
And that’s Mauritius. Next stop: India.

On a related note—I love reading comments on my blog. I’m unable to respond to the individually without putting the responses in my main blog but I will attempt to respond to them as I can when I have internet to actually respond with. The alternative is to leave your email so that I can send you a free e-postcard response.

Similarly, I hope everyone enjoyed the photos. Most of the Hindu festival were taken by Chasti as I felt uncomfortable taking photos of the worshipers out of respect. However, I apparently have no qualms with having photos of it—just taking them myself.

Mauritius

Why blogs might be slow

No updates for a week, then two in one night (or perhaps day for most of you). Amazing, isn’t it? Well, I just wanted to put a little update on what I’m planning on doing over the next part of the Journey. I have the lofty goal of continuing this Blog, but unlike Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, and Mauritius—I won’t have five days to write up my experiences and thoughts(and, as you might have noticed, I don’t have tons of free time on the ship to do so so they’re a little slapped together already). Now, hopefully, I’ll be right on target and still be able to write up my blogs…but if not I want to put up a post that summaries what I’m planning on doing so you might understand WHY this might happen.
I don’t fear for Mauritius but it’ll be up here anyway.

Mauritius
(This one likely won’t be a problem but regardless): March 1st-March 4th

March First


Mau04: Blue Safari: Undersea World and Marine Conservation (0930-1230 Saturday, 01 March): Enchanted by Jules Verne’s novel, filled with wonder by Captain Cousteau’s documentaries, or just to satisfy your taste for exceptional adventures, here is an opportunity to travel 114 feet under the sea. This possibility is offered to you in only ten places in the world. During one hour, sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned cabin, discover the undersea world: corals, different species of fish, and the wreck of the “Start Hope”. Then visit Marine Conservation Pointe Canonnier before returning to the ship.

Mau06: Multi-Cultural Evening (1930-2345 Saturday, 01 March):
Located ten minutes from Port Louis, the Domain Les Pailles recreates an old Creole and colonial estate including a rudimentary sugar mill, horse-driven carriages, a spice garden, a small train, and a rum distillery. Guests are greeted at the Sugar Mill Mauritian Creole-style and enjoy a traditional Sega show, complimented with a fruit cocktail and snacks. Participants are then lead by Sega dancers, through an alley of torches, to La Cannelle, a Creole restaurant. Here a Mauritian multi-cultural dinner show features four dance performances (Indian, Chinese, Oriental, and Creole). Afterwards, a DJ provides music for your listening and/or dancing pleasure.


March Second


Look around Port Louis, hang out, maybe check out beaches. Just a relaxing day.
Solidify plans for Japan—hopefully get hotel reservations there.


March Third


Visit local temples and Mosques/other places of worship.
Whatever else sounds interesting


March Fourth—Leaving Port by 11pm


One last look at Port Louis.
Send out post cards and call home if there is a home phone anywhere close by and the time zone allows for it.
Make sure all plans for Japan are solid.



~~~~~Six Days Between Port Luis, Mauritius and Chennai, India~~~~~



India
March 11st-March 15th

March 11h


Find things to do with Chasti, Kim, and Nakita. Explore.


March 12th


Home Stay: This homestay, hosted by a Rotarian chapter in Chennai, has been rated very highly by past SAS participants. It is your chance to spend two nights in an Indian home and to exchange views on various topics or aspects of Indian/US culture. During the time with your host family, you will visit the temples of Mamallapuram and participate in other activities. To meet your host families you will travel by coach to the hotel Taj Connemara. Each pair of participants (two males or two females) will be met at the hotel by their host family and accompanied back to the ship after their homestay. Be prepared with a modest gift for your host family.



March 13th


Home Stay


March 14th


Home Stay




March 15h


Find things to do with Chasti, Kim, and Nakita. Perhaps use a suggestion from Homestay?

CHE38: Making Movie Art [FDP: Pennell]:India has one of the largest film production industries in the world, and Chennai is India’s second largest film-making center (after Mumbai’s “Bollywood”). Here, movies are made in several languages. At one of the major film studios of Chennai, we shall tour the studio lots and, depending on the studio’s schedule, visit various departments, including sound dubbing facilities, mixing rooms, and editing facilities. If a film is being shot on the studio sets at the time of our visit, there is a possibility of observing some of the actors.


~~~~~Three Days Between Chennai, India and Penang, Malaysia~~~~~

Malaysia
March 19st-March 23rd

March 19th


Explore Penang


March 20th

PEN12: Terengganu (0530 Thursday, 20th March—1830 Saturday, 22nd March) : Transfer form the pier to Penang Airport for your one hour flight to Terengganu. On arrival, transfer to the hotel and proceed for a heritage town tour of Terengganu. Take a drive along the ‘long roof’ China Town and visit the colorful Central Market. Then take a water taxi to the picturesque Seberang Takir fishing village, dotted with brightly painted fishing boats. Drive along Princess Hill, the waterfront, Maziah Palace, State Mosque, and then proceed to the State Museum which is the largest in South East Asia with outdoor and indoor exhibits. Then proceed for a visit to the unique boat building fishing village of Duyung Island. After lunch, stop at Batu Buruk Beach Brassware factory to see the process of making Terengganu brassware. Then view the beautiful floating mosque and visit a Batik factory. In the late evening, transfer to hotel for dinner. The rest of the evening is at your leasure.

March 21st

PEN12: Terengganu (0530 Thursday, 20th March—1830 Saturday, 22nd March) : Following breakfast, depart the hotel for a half-day Terengganu countryside tour. Take a drive along the picturesque countryside of Terengganu. Visit Kampung Pasir Panjang which is famous for songket weaving and keris making. Witness the traditional lifestyle of Terengganu villagers with stops to view several cottages industries like mengkuang and pandnus weaving. Kampung Gong Nangka is where mengkuang bags are made, mainly by housewives. After lunch, continue the journey to visit the fishing village, where charcoal is produced and then stop bythe traditional woodcarving factory to learn more about woodcarving technique with flora motif. Return to the hotel for dinner. The rest of the evening is at leisure.

March 22nd

PEN12: Terengganu (0530 Thursday, 20th March—1830 Saturday, 22nd March) : Take a cruise up the Marang River for a river safari. Along the mangrove swamp, look for wild animals like monitor lizards, monkeys, crabs, colorful birds, eagles, and otters. Witness the traditional lifestyle of Terengganu villagers and stop at one of the riverside villages to visit several cottage industries like Attap leave roof weaving and coconut sugar making. This coconut sugar is mostly purchased by city folk for which can be used to make traditional cakes, porridges, drinks. Down the road, you will visit the 74-year old Pak Uda and see his monkeys plucking coconuts. Through signs and special language only understood by the master and his primate, the monkeys can pluck some 100 coconuts a day. Return to the hotel for lunch and check out before transferring to the airport for a return flight to Penang.


March 23rd


Wander around Penang, send post cards, update blog?



~~~~~Three Days Between Penang, Malaysia and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam/Cambodia~~~~~

Vietnam
March 27th-March 28st

March 27th


Visit Chu Chi Tunnels
Explore


March 28th

Pack
Explore
Museum of War Remnants
If possible find the old US embassy for Paula—may not exist anymore

Cambodia
March 29th-31st
March 29th


Depart for the airport for your one-hour flight to Phnom Phen. Visit Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. Enjoy a sunset cruise on the Mekong River followed by dinner at a local restaurant.


March 30th


In the morning, visit the Tuol Sleng Museum, the Killing Fields, and the Russian Market. Transfer for your flight to Siem Reap. Upon arrival, view and explore Angkor Wat until sunset. Check into the hotel for dinner and over night.


March 31st


Early risers may enjoy an optional sunrise tour of Angkor Wat. After breakfast at the hotel, spend the day exploring the area’s massive and elaborate temple ruins and restoration projects, including Angkor Wat. In the late afternoon, transfer to the airport for your return flight to Ho Chi Minh City.


~~~~~Two Days Between Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam/Cambodia and Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai China~~~~~

China
April 3rd-8th

April 3rd


Explore Hong Kong


April 4th


Depart the ship for your three-hour flight to Beijing. Upon arrival, transfer to the hotel for check-in. After dinner, transfer to the university to meet with UIBE students for an orientation and Campus tour.


April 5th


In the morning, visit Tianamen Square, and the Forbidden City. After lunch, visit Temple of Heaven, and Hong Qiao Pearl Market. After dinner, another get-together with UIBE students is planned for this evening.


April 6th


Following breakfast in the hotel restaurant, depart for the Great Wall where you will spend several hours and also have lunch. In the afternoon, visit Wangfuji Street and the Silk Market in the bustling downtown area. Following dinner at a local restaurant, attend an acrobatic show at Tiandi Theatre.


April 7th


Early risers can enjoy a session of Taiji or Kungfu; after breakfast, check out of your hotel. Your day will include a visit to the Summer Palace, Lama Temple, and Several 2008 Beijing Olympic venues before proceeding to the airport for your return flight to Shanghai.


April 8th


Explore Shanghai


~~~~~Two Days Between Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai China And Japan~~~~~
Japan is my only port I’m doing without any Semester at Sea trips. I’m planning out what I want to do, grabbing people, and running as fast as I can. It will be interesting. This is not set in stone yet, but this is what I’m thinking. After Mauritius I’ll likely have an even better idea about this space but I think my layout is decent, if not amazing. I use singular because I don’t know 100% whose traveling with me.
Japan
April 11rd-14th

April 11th


Exchange voucher for Rail Pass through Kansai area of Japan
Make sure not to get lost in Train System and go past Osaka to a small town in the mountains to stay in a Buddhist temple over night—this is mainly to give myself some time to reflect as well as experiencing another way of life.


April 12th


Don’t rush out of the town but head out early enough. Get back on Train, head past Osaka and into Kyoto.
Orient myself in Kyoto, find hotel/hostel
Depending on time maybe visit a few shrines:
View Cherry Blossoms/ wander around Gion or any other place that sounds interesting


April 13th

Go see Gaisha and Maiko dance

More shrines, cultural things, museums, etc.
Hit up Lolita(no, not that Lolita it’s a style of dress) and anime shop at some point
Maybe hit a local concert if anything good is going on, or possibly try out a club if I’m feeling up for it


April 14th


Try public baths if I haven’t already
Finish up wandering around shrines/temples/castles
Hit up any shops I meant to before
head back to the ship



So… this might be why I’m a little slow in writing blogs over the next few stops. Added to that, my ship life consists of classes, papers, tests, script writing, GLBTAAQ, the website, and my ship family. One day I will write about that. Until then—scroll down and read about South Africa (its just the post below this one most likely) or check out the website I designed.

http://www.ise.virginia.edu/voyageweb/S08/index.html

South Africa

The long and short of South Africa is, while it’s undeniably beautiful, it doesn’t have that intensity of Brazil. I am in the minority of thinking about this, though. Most people loved South Africa with a passion I can understand—but don’t share. I would have a hundred things to do if I went back to South Africa, but if given a choice between the two I would pick Brazil first.


In some ways this may be because of its westernization. The waterfront could have been any place in the States with a few cultural items thrown in and mixed with an accent and two other languages. There was a mall just thirty steps from our ship, a water front filled with high class restaurants, and it was apparent from the moment you stepped off the ship that they lived for tourists. Boat hawkers stood in front of the Wharf willing to take you almost anywhere you wanted, others tried to sell skydiving passes, shark diving times, and so on.


Aside from that I got the feeling that in some ways a thin vainer was placed over Apartide, history, and culture. Now there was no one denying that apartide happened, there was no hiding the museums they had about the city, or even hiding the fact they had townships. However, everything still seemed separate. They mentioned townships, they even had tours of them, they shared the history in short bursts—but it all seemed separate. Here it is—but wait! We’re putting in new very expensive apartment complexes!


Nakita only had two white people talk to her—one who just barely kept her from crying (keeping her from crying I mean, she was pretty upset), and the other seemed to be talking to her only because it was her job.


But I’ll get to that later, most likely. Let’s start at the beginning.


South Africa began and ended with the ‘F word’. The ‘F word’ on ship is ‘flexibility’ which was greatly needed as Kindle’s Operation Hunger trip got changed and switched not once, but twice, before we arrived. Similarly, the time change between Brazil and South Africa was killer. Why is everyone having trouble in global studies, aside from too fast teaching, lack of understanding just what will be on the exam, and poorly constructed exams? The fact that for the near ten days at sea we’re loosing an hour every-other-night. By the time you reach South Africa, you are 7 hours ahead of the East Coast, you’re trying to go to bed at Midnight and ending up wide awake at 3am. What do you think happens to the morning classes?


This also explains the failed attempt to watch the sunrise over Cape Town. Not only was I sleep deprived, having only been able to squeeze out two hours of sleep before 5am, but my camera simply doesn’t do well in the dark. There is no way for a small, basic—if good—camera can capture a city’s cliché sea of lights or the way the silhouette of table top mountain looms over all of it. Muted colors rising up behind the mountain, the reversed stars, and slivers of moon, similarly don’t tend to turn out. Because of this, I decided I’d ogle other’s photos later and went back to bed a little more then a half an hour after I drug myself out.


I slept until 11am.


So what did I do on the first day? Well, I was supposed to wander around with Kindle as everyone else had Semester at Sea programs…but I ended up snagging a trip out of the Free Box for Robin Island instead because Kindle’s Operation Hunger changed days and everyone else I had hung out with on previous ports had prearranged trips to do.


This worked out wonderfully: Robin Island, by Friday, was completely sold out—there are simply no more tickets.


This also allowed me to sleep in the aforementioned amount of time, which I desperately needed.


Like most day Semester at Sea trips, this trip was mobbed. There had to be at least 80 to 100 people going on this one and kids were just everywhere. It was, unfortunately, obvious that many people didn’t pay a lick of attention to the pre-port because it was stated that respectable, though not overly formal, clothing was preferred considering the content of this trip. Most girls were in short-shorts and tank tops. I was wearing my black skirt that went just below the knees and a red long sleeve, though light, top. This makes a difference later in the day (abet not for respecting the suggested dress code).


Nakita, Kim, Chasti (I believe), Rachel, and Rachel’s friend whose name I’ve forgotten at the moment, were on this trip along with many of my classmates. I ended up in Rachel and the other girl’s group though I’m pretty sure everyone traveled on the same fiery to get there. The fiery ride over was uneventful, though hearing people ask if the small black birds that claimed the jutting gray rocks that were around the entrance to Robin Island were Penguins were amusing. They weren’t, by the way, I’m not sure what they were but they were small, black, and could fly.


The tour starts out with a bus tour of the island and it shows many historical sites. Robbin island has been used primarily for getting rid of the unwanted for a long time. It used to hold the insane, lepers, the Irish, and later convicts—both political prisoners and ‘normal’ ones. You get to see the stone queries, the places of service, where the guard dogs were housed, and so on. This guide is not a former political prisoner but he was just as interesting and lively.


From there you go to the prison where you meet a former political prisoner who explains what it was like to live on Robin Island during the apartide era. The prison itself is made of stones, plaster, and is surrounded by dusty earth and topped with barbed wire. I do not remember my political prisoner’s name but he was imprisoned for protesting with a University, I believe. Up until a little before Robin Island was disbanded completely the prisoners slept on thin mats, though that was changed when world-wide attention was drawn to it. Similarly, the guards of the prison tried to cause issues between prisoners by breaking up what prisoners ate based on race. Indians and coloured got more food, and more options, then those of black, or Bantu, heritage. We did get to see Nelson Mandela’s cell, which has been left as is, and where he buried his second copy of his manuscript. I wish I could think of a way to explain it more, but it was a very interesting experience. I think it would have been better, though, if it hadn’t been such a large group and we hadn’t had to worry about when the boat would leave.


When the tour was over we headed back to the boat and did get to see some Penguins—the only ones I got to see the entire trip. Unfortunately, many people didn’t seem to understand that penguins, like most animals, do not like to be bothered especially while nesting. So… people were crowding in less then a foot from them, they were getting pissed, and people were wondering why. It was a head-desk moment.


Unfortunately I had the most fun on the way back. I found Nakita by this point and we both stood up in the front of the boat as it headed back to the mainland. For those of you who don’t know the water way between Robbin Island and Cape Town is a bit rough.


It was like riding a kneeboard while standing.


Nakita huddled by the side of the ship, I looped a hand around the railing, put a hand to keep my skirt down, and road it. Surely it wasn’t as amazing as I interpreted it but it was so much fun. I was doused with sea water (my camera survived), and it was just thrilling to feel the whole boat buck and sway under my feet. Remembering to move my feet in time with the boats movements so that I wouldn’t get tossed into the sea was just… nice. I loved it.


My clothes and glasses didn’t like it so much but that was okay.


A shower and a change of clothing later, Nakita, Kindle, Rachel, another girl, and I went to eat. Kindle found a Japanese restaurant she wanted to try so we did. It was just in the mall near by too, so it worked out wonderfully. Sadly, they did not have very good Unadon. They doused that eel with enough barbecue sauce to kill it, and it was just not that good. Luckily, Japan is one of our stops so hopefully I will be able to find good Unadon there.


After that we were supposed to go to the Green Dolphin for Jazz. I decided against this because I didn’t know how long we’d be going and I was kind of beat still. So Nakita and I hit up a bookstore, stared in longing, then headed back to the ship to relax and sleep. I never did get to go to the Green Dolphin but I can live with that.


The next day was Wednesday and Kindle and I had decided we were going to go to the wine lands. We didn’t know how, of course, and it was a fair distance from Cape Town in an area called Stellenbosch. While we figured out the cheapest, and best, way to get there we recruited Hika, Alester, and Jay to come with us. Hika had slept in by accident, I’m not sure what Alester was planning on doing, and Jay had been planning on trying to come with us before because his Stellenbosch trip had been canceled. After a little debate—the local trains sounded like the most feasible and interesting way to get there so we headed out to Cape Town City center to pick up some money, grab the local bus, and get to the train station. Like in many places, locals were an immense help. A woman made sure we got off at the right stop, and even helped us find the ticket counter.


I, of course, was the only one who bought the wrong ticket. Instead of buying a two way ticket to Stellenbosch, I bought a one way ticket to Stellenbosch. I didn’t want to go fiddle with fixing it, so instead I decided to buy the return ticket when we got there.


From there, Hika and Alester bought breakfast (meat pies), and we went to wait for our train. While there we met other Semester at Sea kids waiting for the same train, and had short conversations with both them, and some other locals. An old woman said something kind to me but I don’t remember what it was, or why a local man said she did so. It was really interesting though.


Instead of sitting in our first class tickets we sat in the normal seats and all nearly fell asleep then and there. Even more so then the ship, trains I suspect are the easiest places to just doze right off.


We survived, though. Feeling a little silly and a little too loud, we road the train for more then an hour and got off at the right stop… where we ended up completely lost and unsure about where we were supposed to go.


So we did what we always do—we wandered and asked for directions when we had the chance. Stellenbosch looks more like a small city then anything else. There’s a highway going through it, a train station, but most of what I saw were houses or small buildings surrounded by green. Regardless, using another persons directions, we found a backpacker’s hostel.


This was not what we were looking for but it looked clean and quaint and if I hadn’t been planning on leaving that day—I would have wanted to stay there. As it was, I picked up some literature, someone asked for wine tours information and directions (and where we could eat), and then we were off down the road again—this time hitting up the wine tour place.


We were just too late for a tour. The last tour was filled, and we didn’t have time to wait for another, so after some debate we decided that getting a cab and going to one winery would be worth it. But which one?


Spiers, the people working there said, so we agreed, made sure there would be someplace to eat, and went—five people piling into a four person car.


We were not disappointed. The winery was beautiful, the restaurant was amazing, and there were more surprises in store.


After wandering around aimlessly for a while we got directions to the restaurant which was really quite close. Our taxi driver told us to go to it and ask for a ‘tree-top’ table. So that’s what we did.


I don’t think there are words that can adequately describe this place. Everything was made out of wood and a mix of middle eastern and African designs. There were tables under light colorful tents with benches that were more like beds. Small pipes sprayed cool water mist on our overheated faces. Manmade waterfalls climbed down towers, and people danced and sang around every corner. All but Jay, who thought he would have to pay for it, got face paint.


Our table was on stilts, surrounded by trees, and without a roof.


The main course at this restaurant was a buffet, but we decided that since we were at a winery we should order some local wine. We chose Rose.


I cannot tell you how much I ate in South Africa. The food was good, and cheap for what you got. This restaurant was no exception. The food was amazing, the wine wasn’t bad either—but I sip so slowly that when it came near the end of our lunch I couldn’t finish it before we had to move on.


After the lunch, which left us all stuffed, we headed to the Cheetah reserve which we hadn’t known about but had to check out regardless. All but Hika, who was going on Safari later that week, went into the reserve and paid to pet an adult Cheetah named Joseph. It was really cool, and the money we paid will go to training guard dogs for farms so that farmers won’t kill the Cheetahs that come onto their land.


After that, there was wine tasting. However, remembering the wine at lunch and how slowly it took me to drink it…I decided against it. I took pictures instead, which are unfortunately still not uploaded.


We had to leave after that. Alester had a Semester at Sea trip and if we didn’t get back in time he wouldn’t have been able to go. So I bought a bottle of water… and realized after I had opened it that it was sparkling instead of still.


This is how I learned my lesson about buying water. ALWAYS make sure its still. I am not a fan of sparkling—it tastes bitter without any flavoring in it—but I ended up with a large bottle of Sparkling anyway and was so thirsty that I tried choking it down anyway.


Not wanting to have to get another cab we walked to the second pick up spot for the Train to Cape Town. During which we thought we were late and started running like mad for the train pick up in a desperate attempt to not get left.


This was not our train.


After our mad dash we simply had to sit and wait for another half an hour.
So we waited and passed around bad tasting sparkling water while locals filtered in. Once again, one or the other of us, not me though, found someone who helped make sure we got on the right train and into the right compartment.


When we finally got on the right train and in the right place…most of us fell asleep. I fell asleep in the corner somewhere—perfectly safe. It was only when Alester woke me about a half an hour to the stop, worried that we had missed our stop, that I woke up. Luckily I recognized a cemetery that was passing through the window so I could tell him that we were fine—almost there, in fact.


We found Kindle and Hika, I believe, talking to another young man who was sharing his experiences in America—working for a carnival which screwed him over. He only had like 5 days off in two years and they kind of… glossed over what he’d be doing in the job advertisement.


We just barely got Alester back for his trip. We all then took a nice shower and a break until about 9pm that night. A group of us then went to check out the nightlife.
Now I’ll admit, I’m not one for nightlife a lot. Most of the time, my idea of a good time is a movie and dinner and that’s about it. I don’t go to clubs a lot, but I figured—another country, should at least try it one night. We, who won’t be listed because this is a public blog, went to Green Point—which is considered part of the glbt district-- and to a small Cuban styled club.


The music was good, the nachos were awful, and the hookah was okay. I don’t smoke much, but I do like hookah because it’s a more social thing then anything else. I’ve only smoked hookah twice, including this time, and the last time was months ago. In any case, it was fun. (btw Hookah is flavored tobacco, not cigarettes, opium, or any other thing).


I don’t, however, like being hit on by strangers. I find it uncomfortable for some drunk ass man to come up and ask to buy me a drink. It probably would have been better if his eyes weren’t glazed, but as it was I was not comfortable with this and told him no and left it at that.


From there we went to a real club—one with a dance floor called Bronx which is a gay club not too far away from where we were originally. I also didn’t care for this one as much. It was smaller then Pantheon, I’m pretty sure someone called the girls in our group bitches, drunk man followed us and hit on every white girl with us, and so on. I just didn’t like the atmosphere. I heard that the lesbian club they went to afterwards was better, but I was pretty much done after that. Half of us left.


The third day started late. Nakita went to get her laundry and seemed to continuously get screwed over. She called at 9am, I was asleep. I called about 11, I want to say, no one answered, so I assumed she had wandered off having gotten tired of waiting.


So Kindle and I headed out to the red and blue tour buses to get an idea of where we were, maybe see Table Mountain, and then see what would happen. The tours were a good idea—we bought a two day pass for the hop-on, hop-off red rout which was about $26 us—cheaper then what this sort of thing would have been with a cab. This showed us where museums were, where long street was, where the greenmarket was located, and took us to Table Mountain.


Of course, we got lost on our way to the bus station, wandered through a few craft markets and stared in awe at a beautiful little loom house on the way before actually getting on the bus, riding it, and hitting Table Mountain.


Originally we were thinking about Hiking table mountain. However, after I saw the beast I knew it wasn’t something to be taken lightly and deduced that we probably shouldn’t hike up it. On this day we weren’t even planning on going up it at all, really, but we did anyway.


As our Tour buss headed to Table Mountain sea fog rolled into the bay and made the ships look like they were floating in the clouds. I talked Kindle into taking the Cable car both ways so we could get a better vantage point—and, after all, we were there, weren’t we?


We got a student discount for a two way pass and headed up.


From the cable car we peered down at the steep, rocky, path that we unknowingly would be trekking down nearly four hours later. We saw the harbor and its ships being swallowed by thick white clouds, and the mountains that grew around us. Going up this way is definitely preferable to climbing.


Though Table Top Mountain, from a distance, looks flat on top…it isn’t. Its rocky and wavy as any other mountain surface. So we wandered around. I took a hundred pictures of the same thing and loved every minute of it.


I loved climbing down more, even if it was an accident.


We were looking at a gorge and Kindle saw a sign that said ‘to lower cable car’. Well, we missed the word Lower and thought that it meant to the cable car and started walking.


By the time we were a half an hour down, we decided to continue.


The path is steep, rocky, unstable in places, and dusty. It opens up Cape town in bits and pieces—in snatches of buildings and silhouetted cliff faces. Kindle and I were tiny beside the giant rock fixtures with only one and a half bottles of water between us and me in a skirt—the same skirt from the first day.


Devil’s Peak was too our right and slowly, slowly throughout the hours we walked we could see the table cloth slowly unfurled around his nose and eyes and then creep over the top of Table Mountain. The Table Cloth was undoubtedly my favorite part of Table Mountain at any time. It changed as though going through moods. It grow, shrank, and no movie can capture the way the cloud mists and moves while it droops over the mountain ledge.


The walk took three hours. We were supposed to meet some people for a hike of Lion’s head mountain, which was to the left of us, for sunset…but that didn’t happen. As the sun set, we were climbing down Table Mountain, stumbling around rocks, looking for signs that assured us we were on the right path, hugging the cliff-faces so that we didn’t topple down the sheer drop to the bottom. I don’t think we would have survived if we fell in some of these places.


But we did.


It took three hours. We stopped twice, chatted to a couple of European girls on Holiday who were climbing down in flipflops, and reached the ground just before sunset really began.


Sadly we thought our bus had stopped so we took a cab back to the convention center instead.
Why the Convention center? We had heard of a good restaurant in the area and we both were starving. Too bad for us we didn’t fit their dress code. We wanted to sit outside, but they wouldn’t serve us food there—only drinks. When we asked to sit inside the woman said, ‘what happened to the dress code ladies?’


Now, undoubtedly we were a little rough around the edges. We weren’t at our most beautiful, but we weren’t horrible looking.


Well, I’ll be blunt. We spent a fair amount for dinner. We had an appetizer, water and a soda, a main course (which were really more appetizers since they were the right size), and dissert. The amount we spent in US would have been double in the US.


So you understand. We hiked down a mountain for three hours. Then walked all the way from about Long Street to the waterfront—a good few miles. We were hungry, disgruntled, and we wanted food—good food.


The Greek Fisherman on the warf was perfect. The waiter was friendly, kind, and very helpful.


I ate too much, I know. I didn’t really need dessert…but it was soo good. It made up for being slighted at the other restaurant—which really didn’t have that high of prices amusingly enough. Both of these restaurants were comparable, except the other one did Jazz at times.


And so that was the end of the third day. The next day Kindle and I’s legs didn’t want to move and the purse I had barrowed from my mother no longer had a full latch.


The next adventure was to get back on the Red Bus route and ride it all the way through. We figured out where the Green Market was, where long street was, and got off on the stop just before Sea Point to just take a look around on another side of Table Mountain. This beach was beautiful, but the water was icy and the wind pummeled us with sand occasionally. We didn’t stay long.


After we finished the entire route, we rode it again just enough to reach the Green Market and Long Street so we could pick up lunch and just get an idea of where we were. Rachel, who had been on an over night trip, was coming back the next day and we figured shopping then would be a good idea.


We ate at a nice little Irish pub—which I greatly enjoyed if not for the food. It was all wood and high ceilings and it had a nice feeling.


After that, as stated, we went to the Green Market and wandered around. The green market is a giant near flee market a little off Long Street. Tables upon tables upon tables are set up in this area. People are selling rugs, bowls, jewelry, cups, candle sticks, statues, and so on. Everything you can think of—is sold here.


We bought nothing but wandered the stalls for a while considering instead. We would come back tomorrow.


After that we walked back, stopped by the grocery store and didn’t see any small bottles of water, and headed back to the ship. That night we had Rigaletto with Semester at Sea and it was a good time to finish up.


No one knew what to expect with Rigaletto, not even the person who had set it up as a FDP. Regaletto, though, is an opera that was written in 1850. It’s famous for the song La Donna e Mobile—Ie The Woman is Fickle. Look it up on Youtube—you will recognize it.


It ended up being put on in a not exactly grand, but not at all bad, theatre near a Township just around the back side of Table Mountain. Everyone dressed up, we were given very nice snacks and a choice between a glass of wine or Orange juice, and we even got to meet the Director before the performance.


I have nothing to go by in the way of opera much less Rigaletto, but I thought it was very well done. The Director changed the Duke to a Drug lord in a township and the transition, although perhaps odd in a way, worked very well. Similarly, the music was amazing, it was fascinating to watch a pay with subtitles, and most of the people in the production were from the Townships themselves. One was going to be moving onto another group outside of Africa soon. Another, the main female role I believe, was going to Europe later to try her luck.


It also made my day the next day when Nancy, a life long learner, told me I looked beautiful. I felt a little funny in a long black skirt, black shirt, red lipstick…and blue walking shoes but apparently it worked.


I got online when we got back. I tried uploading photos but the internet I could get to was…less then fantastic. However, I was able to touch base with people and do a little tiny bit of research.


The next morning Rachel, Kindle, and I headed to the Green market. I grabbed some more money from the machine—just in case…and did take a little too much. However, I didn’t want to have to worry about cab fairs—as we were planning on taking a cab back and didn’t have a set plan for the next day—and just wanted to be ready for anything. I was, and in the future I’ll remember to take less as long as I know there’s an ATM not too far away.


It took us a while to get there, the walk isn’t for the faint of heart, those with bad knees, or those who are easily tired. But we did get there and we shopped around for an hour or two before having lunch in a nice café near by. Children groups took turns performing not too far away, and though the pizza wasn’t great—it was better then ship food.


After that, we went to check out Jewel Africa—which is a gem and ring place. For this we took a cab because even if we weren’t planning on buying anything it was a fair distance and we weren’t 100% sure where we were going. Jewel Africa has some amazing things, however, I learned very quickly that if I ever bought myself a ring, or someone bought one for me—I soo don’t do the big sparkles. I like small, sleek, and not flashy. I think I’m in the minority there.


So we got a tour of there, learning how diamonds are polished and made into rings, and then wandered around the display area. Most of the diamond rings were in the thousands—of US dollars, not South African Rand.


So that was eventful. I stared, boggled at some, and shrugged. I can see the allure of a pretty ring, but I still can’t imagine wearing one often.


We took a cab back to the ship and took a breather. I needed it. I was getting a bit tired and we were, once again, going to do something that night.


Originally, I was going to go to the Red Party. I don’t think I mentioned it, but South Africa was just gearing up for Pride week the week we were there and I’ve never been to a Pride event so I figured—suck it up and try a party. Might as well, right? I knew people going, they were fun, so I’d go to.


Only I never did buy a ticket and since I’m really not the party type I ended up changing plans and going to Israel’s house instead.


Israel’s dad lives in South Africa for part of the time, as I understand it. He and someone else from his family were staying in a house at Sea Point—not too far away from Victoria Warf and Israel’s father had invited Israel and any of his friends to come for a real South African Dinner.


I’m afraid I just couldn’t resist. I ate too much in South Africa, perhaps paid too much for food there, but I will swear up and down its because I was stuck on a ship for 10 days without any stop from the ship food. The only change I had were the smoothies and hot chocolate I bought to try and clear up the horrible cold I had.


This meal I didn’t have to pay for, and it ranks up at the best ones. We tried spicy South African sausage, some sort of buttered squash, some more South African wine, salads, fruits, watermelon, and cake. It was amazing. It was even cooler to watch the moon rise up over Table Mountain.


The last day was a bit of a bust. I’m never good for much on the last day—I’m antsy—partially because we have a deadline we have to be back by, and partially because I’m often just ready to get going.


Kindle and I got on the Blue bus rout this time and went to the gardens. I know I must have been annoying, my last-day-in-port-agitation didn’t let me enjoy it as much. I also would have enjoyed it soo much more if I had gone on another day, or if I just lived there and went by myself to just soak it all in.


They are beautiful gardens.


Perfect pathways surrounded by trees and flowers. Picturesque ponds. Odd little birds ran around made up meadows. Benches in little shaded areas. I fail at description right now but it was amazing still and I just wanted to sit and soak it in…but I couldn’t. It was the last day, and it was the type of place I would have liked to be alone in. But I wasn’t and I had to worry about getting back on ship at some point so we didn’t spend a lot of time there.


We slept part of the way back to Victoria Warf and split up for a bit. I wandered and tried to figure out how to spend the last of my South African money—I could have exchanged it somewhere else…but it wasn’t enough to really do much. The exchange would have been worse so I figured I’d grab something to drink and buy the one thing I had been resisting the urge to buy for a while.


Every port so far there has been that one thing I’ve somehow decided is the souvenir I want for that port. In Puerto Rico it was a small wind chime---a sun with some bells. In Brazil it was the statue of an Orisha. In South Africa… it was a Cheetah stuffed animal. Yes, a stuffed animal. Don’t ask, I don’t know, but I finally gave in and bought it and it was perfect.


We’re now hitting Mauritius and we’re 9 hours ahead of East Central Time. I’m just hanging for most of Mauritius. Everything has felt like its building—and it is. India I have a homestay, Malaysia I have a trip, Vietnam I’m going to Cambodia, China I’m hitting the Great Wall, and Japan I’m doing Indy. Everythings set up—except for Japan, which I’m going to work on while in Mauritius.


I bought the Japanese Loney Planet to try to plan for this—its my one fully indy country where I want to travel out of the Port we’re arriving in. The reason why I’m planning now, and should have planned earlier, is that I want to hit Kyoto and its in the middle of the Cherry Blossom season so it’ll be slammed and hard to find places to stay. Its also a little awkward because since it is so packed I want to stay in a hotel rather then a youth hostel and that will be a bit more expensive. We’ll see. Wish me luck with planning and Mauritius!

Quick Taste Of Africa before the Massive Post (pictures of Salvador coming soon as well)

The first day isn’t represented here, save for the first photo, but the second day and the third are. Here you will see a bit of our Wine lands adventure and…table mountain.

Table Mountain

Face Painting in the Wine lands (Hika, Kindle, Me, and Alester)

Jay and Kindle in the Wine lands

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border="0"> Pet the Cheetah(Joseph)—Jay, Kindle, Me, and Alester

border="0"> Walking along the railroad tracks

border="0"> The View from the top of Table Mountain (we took the rail car up)

border="0"> The path we took by accident/spontaneous decision

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border="0"> And, yes, I was wearing a skirt while mountain hiking.


border="0"> After three hours of hiking—we made it back to the starting point of Table Mountain!(Kindle and I, of course)

border="0"> Beautiful end to the day


Just wanted to show what we’ve been doing so far and give a little taste of South Africa. Much love—look for my massive post sometime next week.

Salvador Continued

If you’re going to comment on my blog, please sign your name to your comment. I’m guessing, probably accurately, that the anon comment on my last post was posted by Gretchen who was on the facebook as well as MSN group before the voyage. I am perfectly fine with receiving suggestions, but I do not appreciate someone slipping them in without naming themselves. I’m hardly going to be insulted, and since this is a personal blog I would appreciate anyone commenting being as candid as I try to be with anyone who reads my blog. It is my personal opinion, however, that some of the suggestions that were given for Salvador may have done more harm then good—wearing baggy clothes makes you look out of place, look like a foreigner, and though many people had a fine time being pegged as a gringo/gringa others were pegged for harassment because of the same visual impression they gave because of the warnings issued multiple times before docking. I will continue to go to preport, however, I will take what I get with a good dose of consideration.

I put off writing about the rest of Salvador. I shouldn’t have, I should have written it immediately, but not I have to finish the write up before I hit South Africa or many of the details will be lost. This will likely not be as descriptive as the previous entry, but that’s mainly because of my laziness. Nothing can top the feeling of Carnival, but the rest of the trip colors my experiences and expresses a prevalent view that seemed to be expressed by many students.

It’s so hard to explain but Salvador is the epitome of Love-Hate. The people are beautiful. The city is beautiful too, in its own way, but there is so much disrepair, so much deprivation of basic human needs, so much need that its hard to simply love the place and its people.

The day after Carnival I had designated as a slow day. I didn’t want to get sick, keep sick, so I slept in, got up at leisure, and planned on staying in that night. I had other things planned for the other nights and it seemed prudent to take it easy and get rid of my cold. I found Rachel, Nakita, and Lisa and we decided to head out to Pelehio.

The elevator was mobbed. There were people lined up outside, it looked like we’d be standing outside in the sun for quite a while so I asked Nakita and we suggested going up the back way.

This surprised most, this made quite a few people in our group uncomfortable but I still love that road. Popmusic filtered out of skeletal buildings, and the view… I wish I hadn’t been scared witless and had brought my camera.

We reached the top with few issues. With all the wandering from last night, however, we were a bit confused on how to get to Pelehio from the road. We knew it was to the left, which was the opposite direction Israel, Kindle, Moe and I had gone the day before, but we went up a few streets and then turned left.

Before I tell what happened here you have to understand something about Salvador. It is perfectly permissible to urinate in the streets. Seeing children, grown men and women, peeing on corners, isn’t uncommon. Even seeing children on their tiptoes digging between building frames for aluminum cans isn’t that unusual. Seeing them use halogen tube lights, however, was a bit frightening—what if it broke? This is Salvador, though.

We ended up in what most would consider a less then nice area of town. The buildings weren’t shacks, but they were in disrepair. Nakita and I were very positive we were going in the right direction, we were just a few streets up and it would take a bit to reach Pelehio. By this time, though, Lisa’s knees were killing her and she was unhappy about all the walking. Rachel too was very tense about where we were in general. We spent about twenty minutes walking until we reached a Military Compound and Nakita went to ask for directions to the ‘fallen cross’. Nakita doesn’t speak Portuguese, she speaks Spanish, however, it seems that most Brazilians can figure out what she’s saying…and Spanish speakers can, for the most part, understand Portuguese. Even I got to the point where mixing the sounds of words, with what I know of Spanish, and a bit of body language I could get by fairly well in Brazil. Not fantastically…but I passed.

The guy gave us the wrong directions, or, we followed them wrong. We ended up in a dead end and that confounded me. We were inevitably just two streets over from Pelourinho but everyone was over heated and half were uncomfortable—which in my opinion is dangerous since your body language betrays this—and so we headed back out of the area we were in and back to the main street we went on originally. No more back alleys in ‘rougher’ areas.

In case anyone’s curious, a favela is the Brazilian equivalent of a shanty town, which are generally found on the edge of the city. They have electricity, but often not formally. Favelas are constructed from a variety of materials, ranging from bricks to garbage. Many favelas are very close and very cramped. They are plagued by sewage, crime and hygiene problems. I don’t think we were in a favela. These were buildings—buildings in various stages of disrepare but buildings in the middle of the city. I could be wrong, though.

So we reached the street, waved a cab, and got a five rel cab to the fallen cross.

From there we decided to find the Gelato place we tried to go to the night before but it was closed. This would become a sort of reoccurring theme.

Get lost, get over heated, hit up the perhaps slightly over priced but WAY too good to pass up Gelato place in Pelourinho.

The Gelato place was painted blue and it was on the corner just before the massive, ornate, church in Pelourinho. There was a purple flower tree in between the two entrances and seating was outside—which allowed you to catch the breeze. Most places in Salvador did not seem to have air conditioning, and it may seem surprising to some but this really didn’t seem like an issue after a day.

Original art was hung in the doorways and around the side—primarily from the art store next door—and it was situated in the perfect place to catch the mild breeze that swept around the buildings near by. I believe the flavors tried that day were Mango (Rachel?), Lemon (Lisa), Chocolate (me), and Acerola (Nakita). Acerola has been designated the best and everyone agrees. It has a flavor all of its own and its extremely refreshing. Acerola is a local fruit from the Amazon—if you have a chance to try one, do it! But it probably won’t be as good as it was there because of freshness.

After drinking water and savoring ‘dolce bolas gelato’ we decided to wander around Pelourinho in the day.

Some people shopped, I was just keeping an eye out. I will say this, though, I fail shopping so far. So many people have bought a lot of cute little nick-nacks for people…I just barely get postcards and one nice thing per country (as of yet). I know I shouldn’t worry about getting people things, but getting something seems prudent.

Regardless, I was just looking the second day because I wanted to figure out prices and see what was suitable… I also really wanted to pick up some Brazilian Films—Olga, Ofeu (2000 version) and another’s which name eludes me but had to find a place that sold them first so I was just looking all over to get an idea for later.

About five something we headed back down, this time taking the elevator. We wandered around the open part of the Market Mercado and then headed back on ship. Rachel was going on a three day trip the next day at 7am, and I wanted to take a breather so that later days wouldn’t kill me so it worked out. We watched 300 and chatted. We had dinner with a lifelong learner who is simply awesome. I think her name is Nancy but I fail at names. We also had dinner with one of my professors which was a bit odd until I got used to the idea—it was a lot of fun and very interesting.

The next day started out oddly similarly to the second day. Lisa wanted to go to this fair or something that was supposed to be about a ten minute walk from the dock. We set out out of the dock about noon and turned left instead of right. We then walked that way for about 40 minutes.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t want to go to the fair, I had a feeling it was a bust and after 40 minutes of walking—watching the city turn into scattered buildings and the waste of unripe coconut husks littering the road I was ready to go back to Pelourinho and see the Afro-Brazilian Museum the way I wanted to in the first place.

Once again, Nakita had to go ask someone where the fair was. We got directions from some security guard and headed out… about ten minutes later I said enough and that I was going to head back the way we came—another girl, who had joined us that morning, decided to come with me while Nakita and Lisa were going to continue.

I’m not sure if I mentioned it but by this time Kindle had headed off to Iguacu—her hand healed enough that the doctor said she could go so she fled in the early morning after Carnival the first day.

So… Hailey and I walked all the way back to the elevator…which, by the time we did, Lisa and Nakita found the remains of the fair which was pretty much over and grabbed a cab back. They beat us to the Elevator but would wait for us at the top until we reached it.

The Gelato place was our first stop—it was a good place to cool off and we knew we liked the food. So there we went. Most of us got Acerola gelato.

So after we cooled off Hailey found another group to go shopping with and Nakita, Lisa, and I went to the Afro Brazilian Museum. Unfortunately for us, we weren’t 100% sure where this was. We were on the other side of the square when a young boy yelled out at us saying, to some extent, ‘Don’t you go into the Favelas!’ he even wagged a finger at us. Nakita responded in Spanish that they were looking for the Afro-Brazilian Museum and he showed us the way.

So you understand, someone helps you in Pelourinho, or other tourist areas, they expect compensation. Similarly, if someone’s showing you capoeira or is dressed up and you take a picture—they too will want money. This boy I didn’t mind tipping since he did lead us right to the museum and he really didn’t have to.

Nakita and I loved the museum. We had an English packet which explained most of the exhibits on the top part, but even without it it was amazing. The top part of the Museum was mostly on Candomble and the Orishas.

Candomble is a mixture of Christian beliefs and traditional African beliefs. Most people are Catholic, or somehow in that belief system, but also practice Candomble which involves ancestors, spirits controlling different powers, and possession.

Lisa didn’t get it, so we tried simplifying and explaining. Everyone has an Orisha, who impacts their personality in one way or another. If you’re a priestess or priest of an orisha then when you are possessed people can ask you for guidance during the candomble ceremony. There is a lot more to it, but this is the basic, simplified, version. I really want a book on them, however, so that I can further understand and explain this interconnected belief system.

Lisa still didn’t get it. I think she thought that Nakita and I were just going to breeze through the museum.

We didn’t. We nearly squealed. We dived into different sections, drank up the information and then moved on, or back, to different parts. We discussed anthropological significance, how cool the museum was, what they had etc. We must have spent two hours there.

Lisa left after the first section. She was bored, she wanted a beer, so she went to a bar as we wandered around and continued to dissect the museum and its beautiful Candomble wood carvings, their funeral vassals, there recreations of shamanic costumes, etc. The second half of the museum was the archeology museum and it was not translated but it was no less amazing. Funeral urns (vassals? Where people were curled up and buried in pottery), a slave tunnel, examples of cave art, recreations of so many things…it was amazing. I’m so happy I found Nakita to squeal over the museums and anthropological things with.

After that we headed back to the ship, with Lisa, and went to dinner. A few days before we hit Brazil Semester at Sea got some tickets to a Soccer game. I, loving soccer, raced to try to get one of the few they had and got it on pure luck because the entire field office was mobbed. They got more, and were selling them at six that evening, so Nakita was hoping to get one too so that she could go to the game that night as well.

I think a lot of people were expecting this to be the Brazilian team. However, this was a game between two local teams—not that it made any less good, but just as an explanation. It was, as far as I can remember, the Bahia team and the team for outside the city.

I got to know Kim a bit better at this time. She is half Asian, I believe, and appears to catch the eye of nearly every Brazilian man she finds herself near by. She’s also very smart and is another person I want to hang out with in future ports—she and Shanti (I am likely misspelling her name) seem to have similar interests and desires for this trip and its important to find people who want the more…intellectual experiences rather then the getting-drunk-in-ever-port experience and keep up with them.

In any case, Nakita finally got a ticket—which she bought off another student because the field office started selling tickets early and didn’t have any when she got there. Nakita and I sat next to Earnest—a life long learner, from Shri Lanka who is going to be investigating the last king of Shri Lanka while we’re in Mauritius and India.

Nakita’s hair kept attacking me, the game was amazing, and the locals really know how to cheer. The referees, by law, have to be surrounded by an armed guard of military police during half time and after the game—apparently they were being attacked too often previously and now no matter the game, they are escorted.

There was a small man who came around and did tricks with a small ball for tips. He was dripping sweat, couldn’t have been more then three or four feet tall, and really knew his trick.

I tried sugar cane, bread with shrimp, popcorn with coconut in it, and that’s about it. Someone, during the local’s cheers, climbed up on the chain link fence and the guards we had immediately got her down.

I’m sorry this is so slapstick but I’m just trying to record what I did by this point.

The game ended, our team won, and everyone piled back into the buses.

The next day was annoying and amazing. Nakita and Lisa were planning on going to Itaparica, and Island near by, and I couldn’t go because I knew it would last longer then I could afford since I had a dinner that night at 7. So instead, I tried getting on a service visit with Shanti and Kim. It didn’t work, so I, unwilling to just stay on the boat, headed out on my own to see the Afro Brazilian museum again, take notes and pictures of the same thing, and wander around Pelourinho and the Market by myself.

Now I know what you’re thinking. I know most wouldn’t be pleased about this, but I knew where I was going, I was comfortable going, and it allowed me to have some of the most amazing experiences with locals.

It was worth it, for all the possibly perceived danger in the motion. I can see why people who travel say that traveling with a friend is fun, but it is nothing to traveling alone.

It was about 1pm by the time I headed out by myself and headed upstairs immediately. I spent about two or three hours in the Museum alone save for my interactions with locals. Within five minutes of paying the museum fee I saw a young boy fall to the floor and stay there.

I knew I didn’t speak his language. I knew I couldn’t adequately convey my concern using Descupa (I’m sorry), Abrigada (Thank you), and Porvafor (please) so I froze. He stayed down, so after my moment of hesitation was over I reached down and touched his shoulder and asked him if he was alright.

He smiled. He didn’t understand the words, but I think he understood my concern. He popped up and ran off to his mother soon after. I saw him again by the old well while I was taking notes on Orishas. He peered up at me, I smiled and waved, and then he ran off again. It was… something.

Later, while I was taking pictures of the wood carvings, another man came by and asked if I was a student. I had to admit I didn’t speak Portuguese and he switched to English.

We talked about the Orishas and how the religion in Nigeria has a very similar belief system. It was fascinating—I don’t think he would have spoken to me had I had anyone with me.

Once I finished taking pictures and notes, I wandered around Pelourinho. I went into every Music store looking for Negras Core and the movies I wanted. I found none of them, though I used mixed hand signals to convey that I was just looking around.

After I was finished with the upper city I hit the Market Mercado which I hadn’t wandered around since the first day. I went to the upstairs and looked for statues of Orishas—It was one thing that I really wanted.

Here I was approached by a seller who conversed in Portuguese, I understood a lot of it, and we talked in a mismatch of Spanish, Portuguese, English, and body language. He told me about his sister who was in the US working at a Laundromat and discussed what he was selling. I really wasn’t comfortable buying something alone—just as a precaution—so I didn’t buy anything but it was another interesting experience.

It’s amazing how many ideas can be transferred without a common language.

This night I had Bahia by night, a dinner and a cultural show at a restaurant my Brazilian film professor suggested. On my way from the dinning hall, where I guzzled water, I saw Earnest and asked him if he was coming. He wasn’t, but because of my surprise—as I thought he’d really enjoy it—he decided to change his plans and try to get on the trip. I don’t think he regretted it.

The dinner show was a bunch of songs and dances. Some were representational of the Orishas, others were more local. They were really amazing. The body language of the dancers was so alive and even if you couldn’t understand the words, as many of us couldn’t, it was beautiful and some of the translation came through form the simple actions and expressions of the dancers.

The dinner wasn’t as fantastic, though it was still pretty good and it was very interesting to try all local foods. I honestly can’t tell you what I ate, but most of it was pretty good even if it wasn’t my favorite food ever. I ate dinner with my scriptwriting professor, Kim, Susana (I believe her name is—she reminds me soo much of Ander which is awesome) and Nancy.

We stood outside in Pelourinho for almost an hour. It was amazing to watch all the people around on the street. Children played, women danced all the way down the street, an open club blared music, beggars asked for money, men slept on doorsteps. This was the last night we had in Brazil and it was worth it to just stand there and watch the people who make Salvador their home.

My camera, by the way, sucks at taking pictures of people dancing AND of night photos so I have very few pictures that are suitable.

The next day Rachel and Kindle were back. Kindle met another girl on her trip whose name sadly alludes me at the moment. She wanted to find some cds and asked the field office where the best place would be—they said a mall so we all headed out. This was the first time, aside from a S@S trip that I actually got out of Salvador proper.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have Negras Core, the band Kindle wanted, or very many Brazilian films. In fact, I found more American films then Brazilian. I never found the movies I wanted.

After wandering around the mall for a short period of time, and checking out the local bookstore, we hit up the super market where we bought the local soda and then headed back into town.

From there we had Gelato again—this time I tried the Tiramisu…it is truly impossible to go wrong at this store, and finished up some shopping. I bought postcards and sent them, I bought myself a nice Orisha statue, and one other little thing. I just didn’t see anything small and cheap that I thought would be worth it for anyone. There were some things I did like, however, nothing just jumped out really. Though I feel like I should be buying memory items, or gifts, I almost feel that the memories and pictures are so much more important—this is why I’m writing such god-awful long blogs. I did, however, also get a Negras Core cd that was ripped from their Carnival CD. So I at least found one of the music/movie things I wanted.

I also did get my half-naked statue of Oshún.

Oshún rules over the sweet waters of the world, the brooks, streams and rivers, embodying love, fertility. She also is the one we most often approach to aid us in money matters. She is the youngest of the female orishas but retains the title of Iyalode or great queen. She heals with her sweet waters and with honey which she also owns. She is the femme fatale of the orishas and once saved the world by luring Ogún out of the forests using her feminine wiles. And,in her path or manifestation of Ibú Ikolé she saved the world from draught by flying up to heaven (turning into a vulture in the process). Ikolé means Messenger of the House (of Olodumare). For this reason all who are to be initiated as priests, no matter what orisha rules their head, must go to the river and give account of what they are about to do. She recognizes herself in the colors yellow and gold and her number is five. Peacocks and vultures are hers and we use them often to represent her.

From there I went and sent my cards and wanted to hop online or use their phones but it just wasn’t meant to be. It was also awkward with the time change—which will only be worse in South Africa as we have a 10 hour difference.

All errors on this blog are likely because I wrote this post in a long blogging stint of three hours. Please understand.

Salvador: Day One—Carnival (Another day under a different sky)

So, as many of you know but some of you might not—about a week ago we crossed the equator and arrived in Brazil just in time for one day of Carnival. I was, admittedly, a little uneasy about arriving for Carnival, I’ve heard some horror stories, and the port in general left me both excited and worried. I’ve taken an intro to Latin American/Caribbean studies class and a Brazilian Film class, I’d also been to preport where the entire group attempted to scare the hell out of the entire ship community and made most people believe that they were inevitably going to be mugged, harmed, or otherwise. This, I think, was a mistake—yes, people should be warned, but not to the extent that they make an entire country a caricature of the worst.

Regardless, I woke up early again. Not early enough to take pictures of Salvador as we came in(mostly because we were coming in around 5am and I just couldn’t do it), but early enough to see the final preport. I still had a cold so I didn’t feel like I had had a ton of sleep so I just wanted to get the early morning preport over with. Unfortunately, it took an extra 45 minutes or so for it to begin. It also took another two hours for our ship to be cleared. For future ports I’m just going to go back to bed. Its seriously not worth waiting for an hour to be let off… or, it seems, to go to the preport in the morning where they simply tell you the same stuff all over again for the 100th time.

To top things, getting off the ship became an even bigger to-do. My shipcard stopped working on the gangway so I had to go get a new one and, thus, get in the back of the line of the hundreds of people attempting to stream out at once. Lucky for me—Israel, Moe, and Kindle decided to wait for me and I found Lisa and Nakita to hang with while I waited for the line to go down.

Brazil from the windows looks like multicolored buildings in various forms of disrepair. The humidity seems like its slowly eating away at the buildings. There are water spots on painted stone, smudges of off coloring like water marks on ceilings, and everything looks like its slowly moldering. The reality is that it smells like heat, sweat, asphalt, urine, and skin. There are more buildings that look like they should be condemned then not. Though the buildings are ultimately in a very different style, it’s like Spring street and some of the less kosher places in Charleston. So far, every port goes back to Charleston—it’s a southern, colony style thing and the weather doesn’t help the comparison.

Every port so far looks sinister before you get to know it. The buildings look threatening in their slowly rusting visages, the streets stank of stale, hot, urine, and the lack of people left the entire area with a surreal movie like feel. You never get right off the ship and end up in the pretty, picturesque, part of town. I don’t entirely find fault with this.

Salvador: The sun roasts you alive if you’re not careful and Fat Tuesday, about 11am in the morning, on the lower city looks like the city of the vanished. There are only a scattering of people aside from the clumps of travelers from the docks. Six cruise ships came in at once, they all released their passengers around the same time, but once outside of the dock area things are unusually silent.

Nakita, Lisa, and Hailey had to exchange money. The rest of us went in search of a bank. This was where we found the city of the lost—vaguely decrepit looking buildings branched out around us with all the shops closed and nary a person lurking down one side street or another. We got lost trying to find the Elevator after finding ATMs, we also lost Nakita, Lisa, and Hailey but they were together so we assumed they would be fine. With the help of the tiny groups of people lurking around the city, and a bit of pigeon Portuguese/Spanish/English we were able to finally find the Elevator…and the tourist market that sprung up in front of it.

One of the pre-port speakers told us that going up the elevator was about 1 rel. It’s not. It’s about $.05 rels. It’s also completely free for Carnival. However, we don’t know that so Israel, Moe, Kindle, two other people, and I search the market for something to get to break our bills. We were told that pretty much no place will give us change, another misconception that was quickly destroyed. The preport messages seemed pretty faulty over all.

The market is four things. There’s two touristy restaurants—one upstairs and one downstairs as far as I can tell(It is possible that they are the same one, but I didn’t eat in either). Along with the restaurants which lay port side, there are two layers of tiny little shops—the upstairs, in my opinion, has better quality. Then there are drink and food venders scattered around wear venders lingering outside in the sun as well. It’s massive—I don’t think anyone could see everything in them, and I’m pretty sure more then one person got ripped off. It is, of course, a tourist market.

Israel bought a bracelet so that we could ride the elevator, however, we didn’t really need to do that as previously mentioned. Free. That would have been a wonderful thing to know before hand. Regardless, by the time we found that out and were settled, two people had left our group, we were in the upper city on the cliff, an hour had passed, and most of us were about to eat our shoes—urine soaked or not.

We were, not unexpectedly, completely clueless about where to go so we chose a direction and walked. This was away from Pelourinho, towards the other side of the city which, unfortunately, was the only time I made it over there.

We wanted food that wasn’t insanely priced. There were very few places open. The sun was trying to beat us senseless and we passed dazed looking packs of Semester at Sea kids all unsure about where to go and what to eat. We found a hole-in-the wall restaurant that was maybe slightly bigger then our cabin. It was open to the street, a cockroach crawled the white tile wall, and it had wonderful chicken, red beans, and rice.

Everyone was going to try to rip us off, they said. Everyone’s going to steal from us, hurt us. This man, the owner or otherwise, took out a calculator so we could figure out how much to pay for our drink and food. He smiled and attempted to understand when we stumbled over the most basic of Portuguese phrases and threw body language we all were able to figure out what each person was thinking.

This took about an hour. It had to be around 1pm or so when we left the little restaurant. From there we stumbled off. We bought more water; I bought a Guarana. During which transaction we had a beggar come ask for money.

We found Carnival after that as we stumbled around street corners and followed the sounds of drums, people, and music.

There is an energy in Brazil, at least that’s how I feel. Though looking at it for the first time from the ship window it’s impossible to tell, and walking around aimlessly in a strange and near-sinister seeming landscape doesn’t lend itself well to this feeling… being in the middle of carnival does. Being in the city lends itself to it as well, but Carnival is like the accumulation of everything at once.

People are hanging out of balconies, called Camarotes for the day; the streets are packed with people and venders. Everyone’s selling water, water with lemon, Guarana, coke, and Carnival masks.
However, this is nothing to seeing a trio elétrico. Imagine a semi-truck, shorten it and widen it…add glitter, lighting, and an stage on top. It’s a double decker buss with a flat top and a band on top. That is a trio elétrico. Bloco’s go around them. Blocos are the large rope enclosures around the trio elétrico that are guarded and separate the ‘paying’ audience with the ‘nonpaying’. We played popcorn, which means we danced outside of the rope just dancing around and smiling while the trio’s passed and the mobs of people inside the blocos echoed the singers words and danced, or bought water spray over the entire crowd.

All of us are whiter then white, by the way. We’re all pale kids regardless of attempts to tan or not. We are, for all intents and purposes, the only white people on the street, dancing around the edge of the roped off trio elétrico. When my attention was called to this fact I looked around—the only other ‘white’ people were in the Camarotes, looking down at the people on the street. It didn’t look like half as much fun as being right in the heart of things.

There is nothing else quite like this. It’s just loud, loud, loud, and soo hot. As the truck slowly moves on you, your whole body thrums with the music. The treble vibrates you to the core and the bas runs threw you like water. There are thousands of people dancing, dancing, dancing all around. All colors, all shapes, all sizes—it doesn’t matter if you understand the words or not, it’s just all there. People buy water, cut holes in the bottom, and shake it out onto the burning faces all around them and all you can think is that its amazing that it doesn’t evaporate right there as it flies threw the overheated air.

Israel bought a mask, we all bought water and more water to try to keep hydrated while dancing and wandering around in the sun. We saw two Trio’s but mainly listened to Nigras Core—who’s cd I bought later that week. There is no personal space here, by the way. You are right next to people, they are right on you—you brush skin, you brush bodies… but we were not stolen from, we were not harassed, or kissed, or any other thing. We just danced and walked, and held on each other’s shirts as we weaved threw the crowds and headed back to the ship before five.

On our way back I found a place I love. It’s a small side street on the side of the elevator. Its free to walk down, but takes well over twice the time as hitting the elevator does. It’s also not exactly a ‘nice’ part of town—not that there are many places that most of my American counterparts would consider ‘nice’. It’s a tiny road on the edge of the cliff that looks out over the lower city and the bay beyond. There are decrepit buildings here—some in pieces, some mostly together…almost all look like they should have been condemned long ago but there are still people living in them. Music filters threw open windows fitted with a poor mans security system of broken glass. Other buildings are nothing but facades—empty building faces facing the road and opening up into air. Its dusty, somewhat dangerous to walk…but the view, the place—I walked it three times and it was worth it, every minute.

But it was a good thing we went back to the ship early. We smelled like urinals with a side of sweat, and we were all going out again—either with a Semester at Sea trip or independently and it was important to cool off and take a breather before continuing on. Israel and I had the More Mellow Carnival, and Kindle was going to hook up with Rachel to go out later.

Rachel, by the way, is another girl I’ve taken to hanging out with. I met her during Lunch one day before Salvador and she has long brown hair and glasses (seeing a trend for the most part?). She goes to the Prespaterian College in SC and is majoring in Christian Education. Yes, I was a little ambivalent at first—I thought, Oh god I’m going to insult her by accident somehow, aren’t I? But, no. She is an amazing person, just like everyone else. She’s friendly, funny, sarcastic, and has a character I recognize in many of my friends from home. I don’t have to fear being told I’m going to hell, aside from a joke, from her. Of course, I should have known this would be the case the moment she said she was a drama kid.

Anyway, we got back an hour and a half before I had to go out again. I planned on taking a nap but that was simply not working. I was exhausted, wide awake, and my pulse thrummed in my ears the entire time I was supposed to be asleep. I ended up writing emails before dinner and then making a makeup mask.

My make up mask consisted of me using silver make up around my eyes, and then adding red cresset marks spreading out from the corners of my eyes. Personally I thought it was pretty cool looking but you’ll have to ask everyone else. Silver glitter was added later.

On the other side of Carnival there is the more ‘traditional’ mellow carnival which can be found around Pelourinho, or the historic district of Salvador. I had decided to sign up for this one in an attempt to experience Carnival without as many of the dangers...and it was also far cheaper then the rest. When I singed up for it, I didn’t know anyone who was coming and I didn’t want to miss out. I also didn’t want to pay $200 for a Camerote threw S@S (you can, by the way, get them for about half the price or cheaper elsewhere). I had mixed results.

The group that went was overly large. Twice as many people came then there likely should have been. There was confusion over whither we were walking or taking a bus—and we ended up walking. This was a problem for some of the older people who were coming with us, and it was a little unsettling for many people as the road we took went behind the elevator and into a less then kept up area—it was, of course, the road I took earlier and I was fine with this.

However, we had a lot of older people with us. The road is nearly vertical and most of the people are already exhausted from Carnival in the afternoon and getting up at the crack of dawn for pre port or for images of dawn over Salvador. The elevator would have been a better choice for many in this group.

The worse part of this whole ordeal was just that there were too many people, few could hear the guides, and for about forty-five minutes it looked like we were just wandering around Pelourinho aimlessly. Then, for a change of pace, we wandered into a supposedly closed restaurant and were given water… then told we could have anything we wanted drink wise—but only one for free! Most of us, understandably, confused. From that point we were set free. We simply had to find the upright cross around 10 or 11 if we wanted a ride back to the ship because that option would expire around two am.

The carnival of the afternoon and night were miles apart. Afternoon was roasting alive under the sun, surrounded by swarms of people that ebbed and flowed like tides. The carnival of this night, at least in Pelourinho included more costumes, brass bands, drums, and parades of people dancing leisurely down the street. Its more mellow, you don’t feel like you’re drowning in the sounds and people, you don’t breathe in the experience quite as much.

There were men and women in nothing but jeweled coined loincloths and covered in body paint and glitter. Silver, gold, glitter, they shimmered in the lessening heat and low street lights as they danced down the uneven cobble stones at a near vertical angle. Nakita, Kim, a few other girls and I stumble-danced behind them and some locals took pity on us and try to show us how to dance on the roads better. It had mixed results.

It is very hard to shake it if you’re at a near vertical incline on uneven old stones—the locals did it like pros… we stumbled and flailed around which was likely very amusing for everyone else.
Aside from the nearly naked people we saw children—little girls in revealing near belly dancer outfits, children dancing in the streets under the eyes of their parents, and others. We saw women in hoopskirts made out of multicolored recyclables, and people handing out safe sex condoms(which, ironically, were expired).

I was exhausted.

We found Nakita something to eat, I ate as well, and then we danced a bit more and headed back to meet up with the groups. I had had a cold since Puerto Rico and I simply didn’t want to make it worse—leaving at 10:30 was fantastic to me even if it meant cutting Carnival shorter then most people did.

In closing on Carnival, there is nothing like it in the states. The more modern kind has everyone taking to the streets or in the balconies all dancing with nearly no space between each other. In the ‘traditional’ kind you have more space but its still a large part with brass bands and drums—spinning people in costumes and people just joining in as they want.

Recently in global studies a professor said that Music was not a universal language. I’m not sure I believe that—you may not be able to understand the words but you can understand the feeling of elation, the emotions that go into the motions and sounds, the way someone’s blood begins to pound and the near feeling of euphoria dancing causes. Deeper meanings may be lost, but the basics transcend—it can still move someone.

Although I don’t think I’d want to be at Carnival for four days, it is worth it for a day, two days. I wish I had experienced every aspect of Carnival, I wish I hadn’t had a cold… but I can’t regret my choice to sit some things out, to take a breather. I experienced a lot, I saw so many people, so many things, and that is worth it.

Now, although I think the warnings were a little extreme for Salvador, they weren’t all full of shit. People DID get hurt, people did get mugged, and I’m glad I decided against bringing a camera. There’s at least one picture of me going to the Traditional Carnival on a disposable camera and that’ll just have to do.

I won’t lie to you—one boy got stitches after he went to help a girl who was having her disposable camera stolen, more then a couple students were stolen from-- they were pressed against the walls and frisked. People were grabbed, pulled by the hair, kissed, perhaps touched too much for their comfort level. Military police catcalled girls (and these were hard core police—seriously, they scared me more then anything). Other girls were almost grabbed by local men and tugged away. Bad shit happened, and bad shit almost happened. However, most of this happened at the Lighthouse area of Bahia which is where the craziest part of Carnival was. I would also say that a fair amount of them had some alcohol involved, though whither or not this is a major factor or not depends.
I was fine wherever I went, whenever I went somewhere. All my friends were fine—aside from some extra touching and a few kisses.

I think the only thing I found out later that involved me was that some guy with a girlfriend was staring at me. I’m going to claim it’s because I was still probably pale enough to glow in the dark.

Descupa—no pictures for this post.

Also Abrigada for Kurt who has decided to post in my blog for me so I don’t have to waste internet minutes. This means that I can break up my posts by day. They will still likely be insanely long but at least now they might be more manageable.

And so ends my first day in Salvador, Brazil.

Next post: Getting not-quite lost in what might be considered a less then nice area of Salvador, Pelourinho during the day, Gelato, and Soccer games.

Puerto Rico Photos

From Left to Right: Lisa, Me, Kindle

Massive San Juan Post

My mother warned me that long posts would be things that most people wouldn’t want to go threw. However, I find that this is both my personal journal, to a point, as well as a way to let everyone know what I’ve been doing the past few days. I’m also doing this in an attempt to conserve internet minutes, as I really haven’t been online on the ship yet, and not wrack up an insane shipboard account payment for the end. So far, I think I’ve been doing quite well.

So, as of today we’ve had two A day class days, two B days, orientation, and three days in San Juan. Although it still seems vaguely surreal, the reality of being deposited in ports around the world can no longer be viewed as a delusion—Wandering around San Juan was certainly real. Happily, the fear of not finding people to hang out with has also been destroyed.

I am, as I have been recently, pretty damn lucky.

The first night on the ship, before even pulling away from the port, I met Israel and Cody (the latter I may be misspelling/forgetting). I assume they felt bad for the rather lost looking girl who claimed a table by herself near a window (mostly because I was very enamored by the way Nassau looked from the sixth deck window). Israel is a boy who was born in, you guessed it, Israel and then later lived in South Africa before ending up in California. Cody, I haven’t seen again yet (as far as I can remember it gets confusing) but she seemed like a nice girl even though I don’t believe we’ve ended up around each other sense. In any case, Israel has the missing “Heart of Gold” Firefly episode, has a couple of movies I haven’t seen, and generally seems fairly interesting. I also haven’t scared him off yet, which is always a plus.

I have met so many people, and many of them are damn awesome, however I seriously cannot remember their names at the moment. I’m going to just hit the high points for the people I’ve interacted with the most.

So I continued to meet people during our Orientation, which was the first full day we had on the ship. Mostly I floundered. I was trying to find people to hang out with in San Juan so I wouldn’t have to wander aimlessly alone (though I was fully prepared to do so if I had to—I was not going to just sit in the ship when we docked) and no one really knew what they were doing or wanted to do yet. One of the RA’s asked me if I would be interested in working on the student webpage (I suppose my tablet tells everyone I’m a geek, too bad the tablet driver’s being annoying so I can’t play with it much), but aside from that I hadn’t found any sort of commitments on or off the ship.

Luckily there was still one more day. A day classes, I found that I hadn’t scared a lunch mate away when we had a course together the day after we met. Kindle had erroneously made eye-contact during the first lunch, I believe, and I ended up sitting with her then. The conversation, unfortunately for the really nice nursing major who had joined us, ended up swirling around fantasy and scifi movies, shows, and books. We have some different taste in things, but that is likely mainly because I am far too picky on the things I read. Regardless, it was thrilling to find another girl who liked Phillip Pullman, Harry Potter (she is nearly Paula’s Anticist with her pairings), firefly and the other things. Though this was not quite a fact at that moment, but she and her girlfriend—currently working long distance—are just about the cutest couple I’ve witnessed in a while. Sorry Riley, Russell, John…this one pwns in the adorable department.

Anyway, I wasn’t done meeting people the day before San Juan. In my first class for A day, Human Unity and Diversity, I met Nakita again. Nakita is an Anth major who lives in Costa Rica but goes to school in California and she proceeded to save my ass in Spanish during our time in San Juan. She also is very funny, has hair that could possibly kill, and has some amazing stories. We met momentarily during the last meeting on Orientation (where I also met Lisa for the first time) but I don’t think we spoke much until our class and then that night at dinner when I joined Nakita at dinner, Kindle followed, and Lisa joined us a little later.

Lisa is 28 and from New Jersey, though she now goes to college in Tampa. She’s a Business Major and was definitely very willing to hook us all together for a safe, if not overly large, group to wander around Puerto Rico. She has two bad knees from a double car accident incident, however.

We chatted threw most of the preport, though we did also listen to it, and then we discussed the rest of the countries because its always good to know who you might be traveling with, what they’re doing, and I needed some people to talk about what to sign up for anyway. The day after San Juan, the form for the second sale had to be finished and I was so confused about what to do since I was not one of the most travel savvy people around. That will be detailed a little more in a bit.

The next day, less then 14 hours after we started chatting in earnest, we were in Puerto Rico. So far, I’ve found myself hanging out with them the most, Israel pops up a fair amount, as do a bunch of familiar faces.

In any case I drug my body up for sunrise and the travel into the port the next day. I have some amazing, in my opinions, pictures of this too. It was just amazing—the colors, the lighting, the city that slowly appeared… it was a good way to start a port even if I was exhausted because of it later.

Finding Kindle and Nakita after that proved to be a bit difficult, though I did find Lisa a little quicker. When we found everyone, though we were set except for the fact that everyone had to be cleared before disembarking the ship…and Nakita had a walking tour of Old San Juan to go on the moment they were let off.

No matter. The rest of us would wander, she’d meet up, and things would be fine. It was too bad the ‘okaying’ process took about two hours but we were off the ship by 11 and ready for find food.

It’s always interesting to notice first impressions of an area. Unfortunately, we were let out on a concrete jungle about a forty minute walk from Old San Juan. Yes, they put the MV in a place that wasn’t perhaps… the most dangerous area in the world but definitely was more dangerous then where the rest of the cruise ships were.

Our first view of San Juan was of concrete, open wires, the smell of open sewage, deceptively cheap looking gas prices, Mc Donald’s, and heat. I didn’t find it terribly hot, and I was one of the few in pants, but it was a bit warm. Wandering in pockets of obvious S@S students everyone seemed to scatter in clumps and we, as a group, nearly got lost on the way to Old San Juan. We had to ask for directions, we stumbled into a bank, and then finally found lunch in a touristy little restaurant.

This may seem anticlimactic, but it was a good start.

Food was wonderful regardless of its touristy background. I had a burrito in between green plantas with some sort of green chili sauce and this gave us a chance to consult maps and decide what to do with the rest of our day. After lunch we all went and picked up postcards from a near by tourist shop, then found the free buss system so that we could get a general idea of Old San Juan—which has some similarities with Charleston, but with more hills, more shops, and more balconies.

On our trip we saw the bus layout about four times, saw an old man pull off his pants in the park, ogled pastries in little pastry shops, chatted with Frank—the friendly, if slightly odd, Cuban born who wanted to go to the beach with us, and got directions to the Old Wall by a man who had no front teeth, and very bloodshot eyes. We also switched buses at one point because the bus we were on had no AC—this was when we met Frank who chatted with us until a few stops before we got off ourselves.

The old Wall, as we found out, is the only and best preserved wall out of an original five. It’s surrounded by picturesque cobblestone streets and well kept houses with balconies full of hanging flowers. We spent around an hour walking around this area, taking pictures of trees, flowers, buildings, streets, and the amazing water and distant city areas. Eventually, we decided to walk around a path next to the water and hoped to find a beach.

We failed. The path deadened, but we found some other travelers and chatted with them as we walked. They were a young married couple who had departed another cruise ship for a few extra days in San Juan and they gave suggestions on things to do while we headed back to the entrance.

From there we found a statue depicting Nuns who had fought against pirates and…even more beautiful scenery.

From this point, most people’s lucked changed. Lisa dropped her camera and it broke, and we had a bit of trouble finding Nakita. Still, we had fun killing the rest of our time before Kindle and I had bioluminescent bay. Nakita, infused with knowledge from her walking tour, showed us a very touristy cathedral (and, yes, a cathedral can be touristy and is when there’s a gift shop in the doorway and the woman suggests we stick around to watch and take pictures of some stranger’s wedding). Inside the cathedral, the main draw, was a wax figure of a Saint (Saint Pius, I think?) who was depicted as dead with his eyes half open… he also featured several human teeth taken from the corpse of the actual saint.

During our inspection of this cathedral I found that they had electric “candles” (for prayers), and the traditional depiction of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. This one, of course, was a dual depiction as many Latin American versions are—Jesus was Puerto Rico, and I believe Mary was also partially depicting another deity. Lisa couldn’t fathom this, but there is an interesting mixing of beliefs in many Latin American/Caribbean cultures and I look forward to seeing more of this in Brazil.

We did not stay for the wedding. Instead we headed for this really cool Hindu and Buddhist store we passed a few times before then headed back for the ship because we didn’t have enough time to get local food before Kindle and I were supposed to head out. Kindle, however, found her bit of bad luck back at the ship.

During Dinner at the ship, Kindle spilled potato and herb soup on her hand and received second degree burns. There would be no Bio-bay for her, and her kayaking excursion on Monday was similarly canceled.

Never fear, I am still waiting for my bit of terrible luck.

When she got back from dinner she, understandably, just wanted to sleep—and Nakita and I decided to try to sell her trips. This might sound crass, but as far as we knew she couldn’t go and wouldn’t be able to get her money back either so selling was the best alternative. We solicited random shipmates, and actually found someone to take them…before finding out that it would be taken care of and we needn’t have worried.

So Kindle was no longer doing bio-bay…but I was. So I grabbed my suit and headed out with Nakita who was doing the meet-and-greet with a local university.

We split up onto different buses and there is little reason to detail much more except that when the bus stopped for everyone to use the restroom at a local Mc Donalds…the boys side had people running.

Although I wasn’t entirely entranced by the bioluminescence, the late night kayaking excursion was certainly worth it. Kayaking at night was strange. The water looked black and people were only visible in glimpses as their glowing multicolored bracelets sent splashes of yellow, orange, purple, pink, green, and blue over their hands and faces. The night sky came by in windows beside the black outlines of near invisible mangrove trees, while the waning moon played peek-a-boo behind wispy clouds. Kayaks crashed against each other constantly, the mangrove channel was perpetually overrun by different groups of Semester at Sea kids, which only lead to confusion and more then one sour mood. My partner and I, who I unfortunately forgot her name, hit at least two trees and more then one person in our travel.

The thing that probably upset the most kids was the expectation of something truly phenomenal—not that bioluminescence wasn’t, but it wasn’t going to light up the entire surrounding area. Unrealistic expectations and assumptions always lead to feeling letdown. It is also unfortunate that the same lovely moon that loomed so largely in the sky while we paddled made things worse. The light from the moon caused the bioluminescence seem like little more then sparkling bubbles at first and it was only through close inspection that it looked like anything at all.

For conservation reasons we were not aloud to swim in the lagoon. However, we were aloud to stick our hands and feet into the water to cause the oxidation of the microbes (I believe) and, thus, the illumination. To me, it looked like little gnats, tiny moths, or butterflies were clinging to my skin, exploding from my fingertips, or swirling in current I created. They were little more then tiny white or blue things that moved and changed with motion. Really, had I not known what they were I think I too would have thought it was magic the way the indigenous people did.

I loved it—having expected something a little more flashy or not. I loved the travel to the lagoon more, though. I’ve found something extremely calming about the water and was awesome to tilt my head back and watch the black outline of tree branches give way to Orin’s belt and the host of other stars that couldn’t quite light up the way through the swamp. I wish I had had a camera for the lagoon and the way the moon lumbered, then loomed, over the rolling hills and wispy little clouds.

People were sour, people bitched about there being so many people in the channel at once. However, the agency had made more tours for us to go—they didn’t have to. I have no regrets.

Driving home, however, was exhausting. I was already tired from getting up at 6am to check out the sunrise into Puerto Rico, wandering to and around Old San Juan, and then the kayaking. I just wanted to sleep. I was feeling very run down. Of course, Kindle had to wake me up at 8am the next morning—which I don’t fault her for. She had slept from 8pm to 7am, more or less, and wanted to get going and, while I was still tired, I figured I could get up and join her fine.

We went out for breakfast. One of our shipmates gave us a restaurant to try and it was amazing—mostly locals were eating there, it had been featured on food network show, and the food was simple, tasty, and filling. Unfortunately, our new companion Amy wasn’t able to check out the Castle at that time because by the time the check came, it was time for her to be back on the ship for the Puerto Rican open Ship. So Kindle, Nakita, Amy, and I headed back so they could greet some prospective students and I could attempt, and fail, to have a nap.

Two hours later, or less, Kindle and I couldn’t wait anymore and we headed back into Old San Juan from the ship deciding to hit the Castle and whatever else we could find.

We took a side trip to get water at a Gas Station and ended up in a church with barbed wire wrapped around its walls. More to the point, there were stain glass windows fettered with barbed wire, missing and boarded up windows where stain glass had once been, and double faced Mary’s holding infants that had even more faces. This was less a tourist destination and more a place of worship, no matter how tattered. Donation baskets were attached to poles, the second story windows were nothing but wood even as they reached high up to the ceilings and the candles were candles and not light bulbs attached to a circuit. There were no human teeth on a vacant looking statue here.

From there we headed towards the Castle, stopping here and there to check out abandoned homes, statues, and other commutative places that were scattered around the roads.

The castle is what most would like to consider a Fort, but because its not part of the outer wall it is technically a castle—though those who don’t know the definition of a castle wouldn’t think so based on the general layout and visuals. It is nothing like European Castles, or what most would think a Castle is. It is all tunnels, hard rocky floors, with what looks like spaced shooting gullies around most levels.

The ocean itself seemed placid against it. The water was a delicate green, infused with white foam that sprayed out against the concrete and rocks around it. The rocky shore gives the castle the look of one who has simply risen from the ground to survey the kingdom that surrounded it.

From the third story, it was impossible not to just stop and stare at the sunlight and salt spray that seemed to cover the outer edge of Old San Juan that somehow slunk out from behind the old wall. The spray softened the far side of the castle and seemed to almost breathe against all the concrete and stone that builds up the city.

I took way too many pictures of the ocean, edge of the fort, and the opening edge of the city on the left.

After getting a history lesson by a park ranger from Boston we took his directions and went to procure some old fashion Ben and Jerry’s, which should raise the question of: why not local ice-cream?

Though globalization is, inevitably, both good and bad and I should be avoiding restaurants I can easily find at home… it’s very hard to say ‘no’ to seeing the local flavor of made-fresh waffle cones. I did, as I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it before the ice-cream was all over my hands, but I don’t regret finding the ice-cream pallor. The walls were turquoise, there was a collection of pictures of a local girl who had been in the gymnastics team for the Olympics, dogs were welcomed companions in line, books found there way into a bookcase on the side, it doubled as an internet café, and it had what looked like local art. There were quotes on the tables, things that were likely mass produced but still fun to see. X-POSED Pieces of the Dream, Only in New York Kids, To Catch a Legend, and so on. I haven’t been to many Ben and Jerry’s but this was a good one and it was fun to watch tourists, travelers, and locals mill in and out while we waiting for Nakita, Lisa, and two other girls find and meet up with us.

Dinner was the next thing to do. We hit another local dinner place and I finally got to try Mufongo. I’m probably misspelling this but its pretty much mashed Plantaines with garlic and butter and is… just amazing. I wish I had been able to try more of these things, and I will honestly demand to next time.

Lisa doesn’t want to eat out much, but that’s fine with me---she can go back to the ship if she wants. However, I think that food can show so much of a culture and a history that it is silly to miss out on. I don’t need clothes, or nick-nacks… I’d rather spend money on food assuming that it won’t make me to terribly sick.

I should have gone back to the ship after this. However, I was with a group and I didn’t want to just head off. We went to Wallgreens, which held nothing for me, and then picked up coffee. I should have left after the coffee but Lisa wanted to hit the slot machines for a little bit and I thought it’d only be ten minutes.

Two hours later, after walking around for a while, and then lingering around the casino, I was finally home and feeling just very run down. I was soo tired.

Funny story, though—when we were finally leaving someone carded me (and the rest of the girls). Apparently this man just knew I wasn’t 18, and decided that talking very fast Spanish was the best way to get my ID. By this point I was too tired to know what he was saying but Nakita, as said before, saved me by translating.

Eventually I got back. I still have a cold from my time in San Juan but its slowly dissipating.

Monday was a waste, mostly. I uploaded photos online from Starbucks, and ended up going with Lisa and Kindle to K-Mart…which I really didn’t need to go to. Lisa also went to the mall to get a new camera and that took time… so by the time we got back to the ship there was little point in going out to eat.

So San Juan wasn’t the best, it ended on a low note, and it certainly had more then its share of bad luck… but it wasn’t bad. I would certainly want to go back—it was beautiful. I will also take what I know now to make Salvador that much better.

I highly recommend San Juan for family. Although there are lots of hills and it did involve a lot of walking… taxi’s weren’t bad. Three dollars a person to get from where we were docked to old San Juan really couldn’t be beat, especially at night.

So, as mentioned before, we had our second trip sign up things. Bio-bay was over crowded, and I’ve heard that the walking tours were similarly packed with people that caused the areas they went to to be pretty much dominated by S@S kids. However, there were a few things I wanted to do and either didn’t know how to go about planning, or had an idea of how to plan it but thought that’d it be a little too stressful to mess with.

I signed up for two more large trips, and a few small ones—expecting not to get at least one or two of them but ironically the service visits were the ones I got bumped from instead.

Here’s what I signed up for and received excluding the first sales which can be read about below:

For Brazil I added:

SAL 26: Bahia By Night with Dinner at Senac [FDP: Dalbey] (1815-2130 Friday, 08 February) Minimum 26/Maximum 180

The Agua de Deus Company performs at SESC-SENAC Theatre in the Pelourinho area, in a seamless presentation of the multiple African Traditions that underpin Bahian Culture. You will see the sacred dances of Candomble; puxada de rede, a song by fishermen in honor of Yemanja, the goddess of the sea; manculele, an acrobatic stick and sword dance with its origins in the cane fields; capoeira, a martial art/dance of Angolan origin and the samba de roda, a spinning, swirling version of this exuberant national dance.

Dinner will be served at the Senac Resturant, a culinary school offering a buffet of 40 Bahian cuisine dishes, many of African origin. Located in Pelourinho Square, the heart of this historic district of Salvador, the building dates from the 18^th century and is cooled by large open windows and ceiling fans.

South Africa:

CAP51: A night of Theatre: Rigoletto [FDP: Bender] (1800-2330 Friday, 22^nd February) Minimum 35/Maximum 200

Written in 1850, Giuseppe Verdi found his inspiration for Rigoletto in Victor Hugo’s play, Le Roi s’amuse, a play that was banned in Paris after just one performance. Describing his muse, Verdi wrote, “it contains extremely powerful positions…the subject is great, immense,a nd has a character that is one of the most important creations of all the theatre of all countries and all ages”. True to form, Verdi’s Rigoletto is one for all countries and all ages as it is still one of the most celebrated and performed operas. The story is a classic tale of love and loss and includes the famous and recognizable tenor aria, “La Donna e Mobile” (The Woman is Fickle).

Prior to this cultural performance, meet your host for the evening, Michael Williams—former SAS Theatre Professor and General Manager of Cape Town Opera. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres and savor some of South Africa’s finest wines.

Maritius:

Mau04: Blue Safari: Undersea World and Marine Conservation (0930-1230 Saturday, 01 March) Minimum 15/Maximum 30

Enchanted by Jules Verne’s novel, filled with wonder by Captain Cousteau’s documentaries, or just to satisfy your taste for exceptional adventures, here is an opportunity to travel 114 feet under the sea. This possibility is offered to you in only ten places in the world. During one hour, sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned cabin, discover the undersea world: corals, different species of fish, and the wreck of the “Start Hope”. Then visit Marine Conservation Pointe Canonnier before returning to the ship.

I have no idea how I got that one… it’s a pretty small group that gets to go—I signed up for the following assuming I wouldn’t get this one.

Mau06: Multi-Cultural Evening (1930-2345 Saturday, 01 March) Minimum 50/Maximum 100

Located ten minutes from Port Louis, the Domain Les Pailles recreates an old Creole and colonial estate including a rudimentary sugar mill, horse-driven carriages, a spice garden, a small train, and a rum distillery. Guests are greeted at the Sugar Mill Mauritian Creole-style and enjoy a traditional Sega show, complimented with a fruit cocktail and snacks. Participants are then lead by Sega dancers, through an alley of torches, to La Cannelle, a Creole restaurant. Here a Mauritian multi-cultural dinner show features four dance performances (Indian, Chinese, Oriental, and Creole). Afterwards, a DJ provides music for your listening and/or dancing pleasure.

India:

CHE38: Making Movie Art [FDP: Pennell]

India has one of the largest film production industries in the world, and Chennai is India’s second largest film-making center (after Mumbai’s “Bollywood”). Here, movies are made in several languages. At one of the major film studios of Chennai, we shall tour the studio lots and, depending on the studio’s schedule, visit various departments, including sound dubbing facilities, mixing rooms, and editing facilities. If a film is being shot on the studio sets at the time of our visit, there is a possibility of observing some of the actors.

Malaysia:

I had no idea what to do for Malaysia. I thought about doing another home stay and nearly signed up for it before Kindle talked me into trying for another large trip that really did sound like something amazing, and something I couldn’t organize myself.

PEN12: Terengganu (0530 Thursday, 20^th March—1830 Saturday, 22^nd March) Minimum 20/Maximum 36

Terengganu holds the charms and splendor of other states in Malaysia and is particularly rich in natural beauty. It has the longest coastline of sandy beaches, and is the birthplace of most Malaysian arts, culture, and heritage. One particular river this is fast becoming popular is Sungai Marang, where cottage industries remain the core occupation of the friendly people. Please note: Thought his is a conservative Muslim state, the general public still enjoys the freedom of worship. However, conservative attitudes and attire are recommended for the visit.

Day 1: Transfer form the pier to Penang Airport for your one hour flight to Terengganu. On arrival, transfer to the hotel and proceed for a heritage town tour of Terengganu. Take a drive along the ‘long roof’ China Town and visit the colorful Central Market. Then take a water taxi to the picturesque Seberang Takir fishing village, dotted with brightly painted fishing boats. Drive along Princess Hill, the waterfront, Maziah Palace, State Mosque, and then proceed to the State Museum which is the largest in South East Asia with outdoor and indoor exhibits. Then proceed for a visit to the unique boat building fishing village of Duyung Island. After lunch, stop at Batu Buruk Beach Brassware factory to see the process of making Terengganu brassware. Then view the beautiful floating mosque and visit a Batik factory. In the late evening, transfer to hotel for dinner. The rest of the evening is at your leasure.

Day 2: Following breakfast, depart the hotel for a half-day Terengganu countryside tour. Take a drive along the picturesque countryside of Terengganu. Visit Kampung Pasir Panjang which is famous for songket weaving and keris making. Witness the traditional lifestyle of Terengganu villagers with stops to view several cottages industries like mengkuang and pandnus weaving. Kampung Gong Nangka is where mengkuang bags are made, mainly by housewives. After lunch, continue the journey to visit the fishing village, where charcoal is produced and then stop bythe traditional woodcarving factory to learn more about woodcarving technique with flora motif. Return to the hotel for dinner. The rest of the evening is at leisure.

Day 3: Take a cruise up the Marang River for a river safari. Along the mangrove swamp, look for wild animals like monitor lizards, monkeys, crabs, colorful birds, eagles, and otters. Witness the traditional lifestyle of Terengganu villagers and stop at one of the riverside villages to visit several cottage industries like Attap leave roof weaving and coconut sugar making. This coconut sugar is mostly purchased by city folk for which can be used to make traditional cakes, porridges, drinks. Down the road, you will visit the 74-year old Pak Uda and see his monkeys plucking coconuts. Through signs and special language only understood by the master and his primate, the monkeys can pluck some 100 coconuts a day. Return to the hotel for lunch and check out before transferring to the airport for a return flight to Penang.

Hong Kong/China

I was going to do China Indy…but I don’t speak Chinese and I would rather not have to stress out about traveling here or there, honestly. So I decided on a University trip which will give me the chance to meet other college students as well as see some of the sites I really wanted to see. Less stress, meeting people—sounds like a good combination.

HKG10 Beijing: Univseristy of International Buisness and Economics (Friday 4^th of April-to April 7th)

The University of International Business and Economics, formerly known as Beijing Institute of Foreign Trade, is under the direct administration of the Ministery of Foreign Economi Relations and Trade. One of China’s major national institutions of higher learning, UIBE is distinctive because of its full-fledged programs of study in the field of international business and economics. Early in 1951, after the founding gof the People’s Republic of China, the Ministry of Foreign Trade established a business school to cope with the development of China’s foreign trade. The University boasts a highly competent teaching and research staff of 812 including 215 professors and associate professors, 280 lecturers and 317 instructors and assistance. As a national university, it enrolls students from all parts of the country. In recent years, enrollment has been expanded to include students majoring in liberal arts and natural sciences.

Day 1: Depart the ship for your three-hour flight to Beijing. Upon arrival, transfer to the hotel for check-in. After dinner, transfer to the university to meet with UIBE students for an orientation and Campus tour.

Day 2: In the morning, visit Tianamen Square, and the Forbidden City. After lunch, visit Temple of Heaven, and Hong Qiao Pearl Market. After dinner, another get-together with UIBE students is planned for this evening.

Day 3: Following breakfast in the hotel restaurant, depart for the Great Wall where you will spend several hours and also have lunch. In the afternoon, visit Wangfuji Street and the Silk Market in the bustling downtown area. Following dinner at a local restaurant, attend an acrobatic show at Tiandi Theatre.

Day 4: Early risers can enjoy a session of Taiji or Kungfu; after breakfast, check out of your hotel. Your day will include a visit to the Summer Palace, Lama Temple, and Several 2008 Beijing Olympic venues before proceeding to the airport for your return flight to Shanghai.

People may think I’m stupid for doing a lot of large S@S trips, but it takes a lot of pressure off and with them I’m sure I can actually go to the places I want to. Thus, this is what I’m doing for sure. More then I originally planned…but I think it’ll work out.

Before I go

I’ve an hour before I hit the docks, or wherever I go to sign in for the first time. Its funny to think of it as an hour, rather then a day, a week, a month, three months…six months…so on. Its been a wait, I was accepted in late May or early June last year.

I was not overly impressed with the Bahamas. The city looked like a cross between Myrtle Beach and Charleston. Half historical, half tacky. Half the souvenirs are the same ones you can get in Charleston too—the only ones really worth it are the ones that are handmade.

Meanwhile, Paradise Island reminded me of Carowins in all its fake, half gaudy, splendor. I did like taking pictures of it, though. They had wonderful lights and a bigger aquarium then Charleston. If you’re going to the Bahamas go for the beach and for the water—both of which are just lovely—and perhaps a short day trip to one of the completely cut off resorts.

The first day here it rained. I was miserable, partially because I was uncomfortable and partially because of the weather. My parents and I went to the Strawmarket, road around the town in a bus, hit the Fish Fry, wandered down to the warf, and that’s about it. We saw the ship for the first time, then we went back to the room before the sky really gave way.

I bought internet, and had it go down on me a half an hour later because of the storm.
The next day was better. The sun came out and reminded me that all cities look better in the daylight. We road a ferry to Paradise Island and wandered around there before my parents went to the parents reception and went people watching in Senior Frogs. It really wasn’t a bad day, though it is amusing to see how people—including myself—made eye contact with each other going almost silently, “Are you? Are you going to be on the ship with us/me?”

It’s hard to ask, you don’t want to be rude even though it’s almost impossible to think of why a simple question would be rude.

Oh, in case others feel like reading this I suppose I should list some facts about myself. Everyone has biases and they impact whatever someone writes so it would probably be best to do a little introduction for strangers.

· I’m going by Rose because there are too many Sarah.
· I’m white
· I was adopted as an infant
· I consider myself agnostic.
· I find organized religion uncomfortable because of some of the sheep mentality I’ve witnessed in my home state.
· I don’t think any one religion is “right”.
· I believe that evolution plays a role.
· I’m pro choice
· I love comics—American, Asian, otherwise.
· I love books, teacups, and boxes.
· I’m studying Anthropology and Gender studies.
· I consider many of my friends: family.
· I’ve been kissed by boys and girls—I don’t have a problem with this.
· I am not a slut or any other term that may be wrongly proposed by the idea of bisexualism even though I do not consider myself bisexual.
· I do not like labels: labels simply cause problems when you don’t quite fit them anyway.
· I think everyone should be able to get married as long as they are mentally sound and able to consent (be that an age regulation or otherwise).
· I wear light glasses.
· I like to write, ramble, and rant.
· I also draw for fun on occasion.

So there. Those are some facts about myself, I think they are as telling as I want to be. As long as others don’t assume that just because I’ve had a kiss or two from girls means I want ALL GIRLS RIGHT NOW, I’ll be happy. Similarly, just because I’ve had kisses from boys doesn’t mean I’m about to go throw myself at the 30% male population on the ship. I, typically, don’t like anyone in that fashion and I'm happy that way.

Be realistic, and please don’t make me want to bang my head against the wall in frustration because of ridiculous assumptions.

Similarly, if you don’t agree with my views at least you know them now. (Though this is not by a long shot all my views or even a list of things that will impact what I write but at least you have a bit of a warning ahead of time.)








Also, a lot of people might have left their parents in favor of new friends during this type of trip and I can understand the desire to. However, I decided against that. I would feel rather bad if I did the same seeing as they’re helping me out a lot, and it was my dad’s birthday at the beginning of this trip (which consisted of flights, flights, and a dark cab ride). Besides, after the first day, there was only a little more then forty-eight hours before I hit the ship (and as I edit this post, now less then one). Forty-Eight hours is nothing. I have, and will have plenty of time to meet people later today…and I have three months to bother the hell out of them. I don’t regret not socializing earlier.

Other Blogs

I was going to make a nice little list of links to all the other Spring 2008 S@S blogs on the left-hand side of the blog but blogger doesn't seem to want me to do that at the moment so instead here's a post with all the links.

• http://livevicariouslythroughthomas.blogspot.com/
• http://avalancheshane.blogspot.com/
• http://caitlinatsea.blogspot.com/
• http://saraatseasas.blogspot.com/
• http://corettajean.vox.com/
• http://www.bermudaatsea.blogspot.com
• http://www.kevinaroundtheworld.blogspot.com
• http://nicolesas2008.blogspot.com
• http://bryansemesteratsea.blogspot.com
• http://karatsea.blogspot.com
• http://stephanieatsea.blogspot.com
• http://aliatsea08.blogspot.com
• http://teaganwade.blogspot.com/
• http://krikinatsea.blogspot.com/
• http://thenotsosecretlifeofsandyc.blogspot.com/
• http://nessatsea.blogspot.com/
• http://free2sea.blogspot.com/
• http://collegiate-1der.livejournal.com/
• http://www.getjealous.com/getjealous.php?go=danidebold
• http://www.elisabethabroad.blogspot.com/
• http://miguelina08.blogspot.com/
• http://berritatsea.blogspot.com
• http://lucysas2008.blogspot.com
• http://nikkiatsea.blogspot.com
• http://kerryatsea.blogspot.com
• http://seemegatsea.blogspot.com
• http://theworldatmyfeet.blogspot.com/
• http://jilliangerstley.blogspot.com/
• http://julieatsea.blogspot.com/
• http://web.mac.com/kayleigh3/iWeb/Semester%20at%20Sea/Welcome.html
• http://hiltonbutchard.blogspot.com/
• http://sarasatsea.blogspot.com/
• http://rebeccaatsea.blogspot.com/
• http://94thelongway.blogspot.com/
• http://brittanyatsea.blogspot.com/
• http://mara-at-sea.blogspot.com/
• http://www.walteratsea.blogspot.com/
• http://phil-sas.blogspot.com/
• http://morganatsea.blogspot.com/
• http://beckyatsea.blogspot.com/
• http://getjealous.com/sarahelizabeth
• http://sarahatsea.blogspot.com/

Flying

1/20/2008

I’m now in Nassau, Bahamas. This won’t be put up until I get on the ship, most likely, because the internet, like many other things in this city, costs extra…but that’s that.

Today I got up around 8:30am to see Dexter Season 2 end, jump in the shower, double check my bags, and get everything packed up. It’s my dads birthday, and the day that all three of us were going to the Bahamas so I’ll just say that it was a special day that started with an hour drive to Charlotte North Carolina, a quick breakfast at Denny’s, before we got to the airport. This was mostly uneventful.

We went threw USAir international. We had our luggage checked. My dad, who has a metal arm and always sets off the metal detectors, was patted down, checked, out, and seemed to be nearly going to be asked for a rectal search before he was released into the terminal. We found our gate, I went with my dad so he could have a beer, and we flew from Charlotte, North Carolina to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

I talked to Therease before getting on the plane; I talked to John, Sharla, Russell, and Kurt before the second flight. I was nearly as surprised at the internet at the airport as I was when the internet was not at the hotel (or at least wasn’t easily slipped). I met three other Semester at Sea kids on the plane, all of which I’ve now forgotten their names because I fail like that.

They were all very friendly, which was a relief. I know I’ve heard that people generally are but I was a bit worried about just running up to random kids on the flight from Fort Lauderdale to Nassau anyway. The highlight had to be when one of the girls launched herself onto her suitcase and road the baggage conveyor atop her bag until someone helped her get off and get her bag off. (This becomes far more understandable when one realizes that everyone had been waiting for their baggage for quite a while, and the florescent lighting gave everything a vaguely blue tinge which meant that bag had been circling for a while).

So far, the Bahamas is dark. There’s a storm blowing at the window, the palm trees are flailing in the air, and rain slams the glass. The hotel we’re in has holes in the comforter, there are gouges on the sinks, and all this for over $100 a night. Still, we have a beautiful view of the beach, we are just down the street from the Warf, and we are no longer flying. It’s worth it.

Today I stood inside the Charlotte Airport and thought—how different will this look three months from now when I’m coming back by myself, weighed down in my bags just as I am now?

I watched the moon bob up and down into the window of an airplane as it hung over a sea of thick white clouds. I watched the east coast slide past the window. I probably will see something similar on the way back but I wonder if it’ll look the same then. I know it really doesn't matter, and this post is already deranged enough as I'm writing this half awake but there you go. Only a few more days and we'll be on the ship.

The First and Last Snow

Sometimes, in a purely generalized way, I think that the south loves snow more then the north. Ice, snow, white precipitation that could be bone fragments for all anyone knows, brings with it a certain thrill. People rush to the store for bred and milk, school hangs in the balance whenever a flurry shower is forecast, the school humms with anticipation, and its very rare for them to get sick of it.

It’s snowing right now, or icing, really, and I’m leaving in three days since its only one am and I haven’t slept yet.

The cold is wonderful, at least at times like this. Its not too cold, but even if it were the ice more then makes up for it with its unlikely beauty.

I don’t think there’s anything quite like a wander around at 1am while its snowing or icing. Dark, light, the world seems to be on low while playing static. The ice tinkers through the tree branches, gathering on flower bushes and making them look like they have white berries hanging from their boughs. The bird bath is mostly full, but not frozen over. There is at least three inches on the railing on the porch, the car is covered and the sidewalk too. It’s all slush.

The ice looks amazing from the ground by the trees. The light from the porch silhouettes the trees and causes the ice to glitter.

I find this even more amazing then usual because just the other day I was admiring a beautiful picture a shipmate took, I believe, of a stream covered in winter and thinking-- if only.

My only regret is that this time there will be no hot chocolate to share, or Chinese food after a snowball fight. There won’t be midnight wanderings, or people visiting from the other side of the neighborhood, or someone to help make a snowman, or create tracks in the snow. There won’t be any snow angels beside my own.

I suppose it is fitting considering this semester but even as I’m thrilled to see winter—real winter!— before I go for a bit of nearly endless summer, the regret is there. The feeling of: Not this time.

Previous snows have spoiled me. Even the ice the first year I was in college had me wandering around in 600 layers of clothing in mostly good company.

Thinking on it, however, this will be the first time I’ve gone somewhere not really knowing anyone in a while. I used to go to summer camp each summer not knowing anyone, but that changed once I met Rosie and Susan. In College, I knew John no matter what else happened.

But having someone with you—a safety net—can’t always happen. There can’t always be someone there to cheer you up, or hold your hand, or share a cup of really great hot chocolate. For every large dinner that everyone comes to, there will be mix ups, or losses of address, or simple decisions of no. And that’s okay.

At my winter dinner this winter I had 17 people come to dinner including my parents and not including myself: Nik, Hetherington, John, Eli, Sharla, Russell, Paula, Pam, Heather, Harry, Brandon, Betsy, Jen, Kurt, and Savil.

I hope to have more next year, but who I don’t know yet.

I get sappy around 2am. That’s the death time for me, I should never write then because nothing good comes out of it.

I’m leaving in three days. I’m already packed save for my computer, some cds, and some time. I think I’ve gotten most of my nerves out of the way—until I’m about to sign in that is, that’s when they’ll hit next—now it’s just pure excitement.

Things will work out, they always do.

Mail me!

The one good thing about not seeing you is that I can write you letters. ~Svetlana Alliluyeva

Send me letters and I'll try my best to send you some. The style is as follows.

Sarah Rose
C/O: Exploer
Arrival Date
Port Agent Address

And here are the port addresses:

PORT	ADDRESS OF PORT AGENT	SUGGESTED AIRMAIL DATE
San Juan, PUERTO RICO Phone: 1 787 982 8888 Fax: 1 787 982 8890	Cruise Plus Service & Sales 1760 Fernandez Juncos Avenue San Juan, PUERTO RICO, 00909	January 12
Salvador, BRAZIL Phone: 55 71 3241 4990 Fax: 55 71 3243 5633	Oceanus Agencia Maritima Av. Estados Unidos, 555, Room 712 40015-010 Salvador, BAHIA-BRASIL	January 22
Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA Phone: 27 21 419 8660 Fax: 27 21 421 6984	John T. Rennie & Sons PO Box 702, 1 Thibault Square 8000 Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA	February 5
Port Louis, MAURITIUS Phone: 230 202 70 40 Fax: 230 208 5814	Ireland Blyth Limited Shipping Operations Department No 6 Dr Ferriere Street Port Louis, MAURITIUS	February 16
Chennai, INDIA Phone: 91 44 252 12032 Fax: 91 44 252 43813	J.M. Baxi & Co. 3rd Floor, Clive Battery Complex 4 & 4A, Rajaji Salai Chennai 600 001, INDIA	February 26
Penang, MALAYSIA Phone: 60 4 2623 245 Fax: 60 4 2627 989	Inchcape Shipping Services SDN 4th Floor Unit 4B Wisma Saw Chong Thuah 39-c, Pengkalan Weld 10300 Penang, MALAYSIA	March 5
Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM Phone: 84 8 823 1052 Fax: 84 8 824 2996	General Forwarding Agency 5th Floor Osic Building 8 Nguyen Hue Avenue D. 1, Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM	March 13
HONG KONG Phone: 852 2746 7312 Fax: 852 2744 3240	Inchcape Shipping Services (HK) Ltd. Units 1802-1805, 18th Floor No 3 Lockhart Road Wanchai, HONG KONG - CHINA	March 20
Shanghai, CHINA Phone: 86 21 6323 1350 Fax: 86 21 6329 1519	Penavico Shanghai 3/F 13 Zhong Shan Road (E 1) Shanghai 200002, P.R. CHINA	March 24
Kobe, JAPAN Phone: 81 78 391 3046 Fax: 81 78 391 3105	Inchcape Shipping Services (Japan) Ltd. Kenryu Bldg, Room 502 6, Kaigan-dori, Chuo-ku Kobe-shi, Hygo-ken 650-0024, JAPAN	March 28
Honolulu, HAWAII Phone: 1 808 599 8604 Fax: 1 808 599 1950	Inchcape Shipping Services 521 Ala Moana Blvd. Suite 256 Honolulu, HI 96813	April 8
Puntarenas, COSTA RICA Phone: 506 440 2000 Fax: 506 442 8862	R. Smyth & Co S.A. 500 M. Norte del Super Santiago Rio Segundo Alajuela, COSTA RICA	April 26

Pre-Sale Trips

The only sure thing about luck is that it will change. ~Wilson Mizner

I was really lucky in the lottery for pre-sale trips. I didn't want a ton of things, but the things I wanted the most were the ones I got. In fact, I really did get everything I aimed for--even if it wasn't my first pick.

What I mean is, that I chose every single alternative for the exact same thing I wanted. So, I chose a Cambodia trip and then, as alternatives, I chose that same trip but letter B, C, D etc. I'm positive, and have proof, really, that this is the only reason why I got everything. I even got a trip that wasn't on the pre-sale sheet (but was the same trip I had been trying to get).

Trip Country

Bioluminescent Bay - Group F Puerto Rico
Traditional Carnival: More Mellow [FDP: Moreno] Brazil
Rotarian Homestay India
Cambodia: Phnom Penh & Angkor Wat - Group C Cambodia (Side trip from Vietnam)

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Bioluminescent Bay (Puerto Rico)

The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, described the phenomenon of bioluminescence thusly, “You strike the sea with a rod by night and the water is seen to shine.” Primarily a marine phenomenon, bioluminescence is the ability of living organisms to emit light. Bioluminescence is created through a process of oxidation: luciferin is oxidized in the presence of the catalytic enzyme luciferase, which produce light-generating cells called photophores. There are only four bioluminescent locations known to man, and Puerto Rico has three of them. Travel by motocoach to the warm protected waters of Las Cabezas Bioluminescent Lagoon (approximately one hour) and then board two-person kayaks. Paddle through the mangroves where you will be able to appreciate the nocturnal animal life, as well as iguanas recharging their energies for the next activities. The most common color of bioluminescence is blue, although red, orange, yellow, green, and violent may also be found.

Traditional Carnival: More Mellow [FDP: Moreno] (Brazil)

A key word in the Brazil psyche is saudades, the Portuguese word meaning fervent longing for something gone by. Many Brazilians have saudades for the Carnival of yesteryear. Many find it here in the Pelourinho where strolling bands and street performers engage Carnival revelers in song, dance, and merriment, far from the throngs of the other Carnival centers. Depart shipside with your guide and security staff and walk to the Lacerda Elevator. From here it is a short walk to the Pelourinho. Join in the activities as they appear, dancing behind the strolling bands. The atmosphere is relaxed, the music fun, the performers costumes’ colorful.Enjoy a refreshing drink in a local restaurant before rejoining the activates on the street. Dance your way back to the elevator and continue on foot to the ship, but watch out for the saudades. Please note: Participants should create their own Carnival costumes (attire, face and/or body paint) prior to ship departure to get into the Carnival spirit before joining the festivities in the Pelourinho.

**Some people may see this as a waste--why not go to the main carnival? I wanted something a little more low-key and less expensive then some of the others. Carnival seems a bit overwhelming--and if I like it, why not come back and try the other?

Rotarian Homestay (India)

This homestay, hosted by a Rotarian chapter in Chennai, has been rated very highly by past SAS participants. It is your chance to spend two nights in an Indian home and to exchange views on various topics or aspects of Indian/US culture. During the time with your host family, you will visit the temples of Mamallapuram and participate in other activities. To meet your host families you will travel by coach to the hotel Taj Connemara. Each pair of participants (two males or two females) will be met at the hotel by their host family and accompanied back to the ship after their homestay. Be prepared with a modest gift for your host family.

Cambodia: Phnom Penh & Angkor Wat - Group C (Cambodia (Side trip from Vietnam))

Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, was once considered the loveliest of the French-built cities of Indochina. Its charm is still evident despite the violence and dilapidation of the last three decades. When the Viet Nam War spread to Cambodia, the city’s population swelled with refugees, reaching about two million in early 1975. The Khmer Rouge took over the city in April 1975 and immediately forced the entire population into the countryside as part of a radical social program. During the next four years, more than one million Cambodians (including the vast majority of the educated people) were killed.

On your city orientation of Phnom Penh, you will visit the National Museum and view the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. You will also visit the Tuol Sleng Museum (formerly S21 prison), a school that was converted into a prison camp and torture chamber by the Khmer Rouge. Thousands of Cambodians were incarcerated here before they were taken to Choeng Ek to be killed. Photographs of the victims, taken before or after torture, line the walls of the former schoolrooms. They only ‘crime’ committed by most of these victims was that of being educated. A map of Cambodia, constructed by human skulls, dominates one room and symbolizes the fact that the death and destruction carried out by the Pol Pot Regime affected the entire country. At the Killing Fields of Choeng Ek, you will see the mass graves of more than 17,000 men, women, and children who were executed at this extermination camp between 1975-1978. Please be advised that these sites are grim reminders of the extermination polices carried out by the Khmer Rouge. If you choose to participate in these visits, be prepared for some gruesome and depressing sights.

Angkor is an incomparable temple complex built between 7 and 11 centuries ago at the height of the Khmer civilization. Ankor’s 100 or so temples constitute the sacred skeleton of a spectacular administrative and religious center covering 200-square kilometers. The ruins represent successive capitals constructed by a dozen Khmer kings, which include massive stone temples, majestic causeways, and imposing towers. You will visit the most famous temple complex, Angkor Wat. With its soaring towers and extraordinary base-relief’s, many consider Angkor Wat to be one of the most inspired and spectacular monuments ever conceived by the human mind. The largest religious building in the world, it was built by Suryavarman II who reigned from 1112-1152, to honor Vishnu and for later use as his funerary temple. The Bayon temple of the complex is an edifice of 54 towers, each carved with the four enigmatic faces of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara and bas-relief events.

Itinerary:

Day one: Depart for the airport for your one-hour flight to Phnom Phen. Visit Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. Enjoy a sunset cruise on the Mekong River followed by dinner at a local restaurant.

Day two: In the morning, visit the Tuol Sleng Museum, the Killing Fields, and the Russian Market. Transfer for your flight to Siem Reap. Upon arrival, view and explore Angkor Wat until sunset. Check into the hotel for dinner and over night.

Day three: Early risers may enjoy an optional sunrise tour of Angkor Wat. After breakfast at the hotel, spend the day exploring the area’s massive and elaborate temple ruins and restoration projects, including Angkor Wat. In the late afternoon, transfer to the airport for your return flight to Ho Chi Minh City.

*** This is the one I wanted most.

Classes

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. ~Will Durant

I am probably one of the few people who are really, really excited about the courses. I love books, and I like learning...though I'm honestly a bit burnt out from this semester (thus the lack of posts) but I think this next wave of courses will help perk me up some. Of course, even if they don't I think the travel will.

My Classes

Sched # Course # Credits Title Faculty Day/Time 1025W PLIR 300Z-1 3 Rights, Identity and Gender LeFebvre B 1045 - 1200 1028X SEMS 101 3 Global Studies Ehnbom 0920 - 1035 103CX SEMS 300-3 3 Writing the Short Screenplay Pennell A 1615 - 1730 103E3 SEMS 480-1 3 Human Unity and Diversity in the Global Context Benvenuti A 1215 - 1330 Total Credits: 12

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PLIR 300Z-1: Rights, Identity, and Gender
Women’s Studies/Political Science
Professor Donna LeFebvre

The focus of this course is violence against women in the global context, with emphasis on port countries. The course examines causes of violence, including poverty, economics, politics, religion, government laws, customary laws, and tradition and evaluates relevant international and national solutions. Topics include sex tourism (Mauritius, Vietnam); female genital mutilation (Africa and Malaysia); dowry burning and dowry deaths (India); HIV and rape (South Africa); sex slavery and sex trafficking (Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, Vietnam, China, Japan); “mail-order” brides (China, Vietnam, Malaysia); coercive government birth control policies (China, India, Puerto Rico); preference for male children, gender-selection abortion, female infanticide, and abandonment of female babies (China, India); sexual objectification in manga comics (Japan); female child prostitution (ALL port countries); and domestic and sexual violence (ALL port countries).

SEMS 101: Global Studies
Professors: Dan Ehnbom and Tatjana Good

Global Studies is an interdisciplinary course that focuses on the countries visited and is tailored especially to meet the global and comparative approach of Semester at Sea. In addition to providing basic information about the countries on the itinerary, Global Studies also provides a meaningful framework by which to compare data, examine issues, and develop concepts. The Spring 2008 course will highlight the importance of understanding pilgrimage and religious centers as a way of understanding diverse parts of the world. Participants learn how to understand cultural and social phenomena with which they are constantly coming into contact during the semester and to highlight both commonalities and differences from one society to another. Global Studies equips participants with observational and analytical skills for encountering societies different from their own, and different from each other, a key factor in facilitating the integration of class work and field work for all courses.

SEMS 300-3: Writing the Short Screenplay
Discipline: Communications/English Writing
Professor Marilyn D. Pennell

This course will be an intensive workshop style course in writing screenplays for narrative and documentary film. It is geared for Communication, Film, and English majors as well as those students from other disciplines interested in learning to write writing for film. Students will use their imaginations and experiences on the voyage to make fictional and non-fiction stories come alive on the page and screen Students will develop ideas and treatments for several short screenplays and/or documentaries based on themes and settings related to the experiences on board ship and at port. The class will study and discuss screenplay format and writing through screenings of selected films, some of which will be either related to or produced in the countries/ports of the ship’s itinerary. Students will also learn how to conceptualize a short film; utilize professional screenplay formats; write active and vivid scene descriptions; create interesting characters; write well crafted dialogue, and develop character and story arcs. Each student will be required to complete three or four short three to eight page screenplay projects and do one to two team presentations deconstructing and critiquing the storyline of a film or films. Suggested Pre-requisites: Students should have successfully completed a 100 -200 level English Composition Course and a 200-300 level or above English or Communication writing course. Students should have an interest in writing fiction and non-fiction narrative and an interest in film. Required: Students must bring laptops to class and either download the complimentary version of the Final Draft screenplay formatting software or purchase it-prior to the voyage. Students should have a small notebook and a small audio recorder for use in the field, if possible.

SEMS 480-1: Human Unity and Diversity in the Global Context
Discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
Professor Anne Benvenuti

Can we say anything universal about what it means to be human, or is everything about us filtered through cultural lenses of difference which prohibit real and deep communication? This is the foundational question of this interdisciplinary course. From the standpoint of anthropology, we will ask whether members of one culture can understand, interpret and comment meaningfully on another. Using social psychology insights, we will explore the similarities of human beings in responding to different others. From current developments in neuroscience, we will examine the structure of the human brain and the way that it changes through interaction with other humans and environments. From the point of view of epistemology, we will explore questions about the nature of knowledge, and of sharing knowledge through dialogue within and across cultures. From religious studies, we will examine whether there are underlying truths or experiences common to many or all religions. Students will select an individual area of emphasis and develop their observations and interests accordingly through independent research in ports of call.