March 24, 2007

Nothing much happened this week, but it went by fast and I am very grateful for that. This is what happened on the MV Explorer this past week:

1. James cut his hair. Or he let Caitlin and I trim it and then decided he didn’t like it, so he went up to the salon and got it shaved. He said that the only time it had ever been that short was when he was born. So that was exciting.
2. Dolphins swam and jumped around outside my bedroom window.
3. Nick had a birthday, so we got some ice-cream cake and it was very good.
4. There was an ‘anything but clothes’ party, which is great for SAS to sponsor since they want us all behaving like intelligent, young adults with excellent behavior and good intentions. Some people wore laundry bags. Others stuck notebooks to their bodies. I think masking tape was a hot asset for the night.

I had one midterm this week in my Food and Society class (today, on Saturday, unheard of!). It went well I think, and I really like my teacher so even if he doesn’t give me an A, I can’t get mad at him. He’s got a cute face and a cute accent. He’s also heard of the New Zealand folk-singing band ‘Flight of the Conchords,’ who I absolutely love, so that gives him more points too. To quote him, “It’s the funniest shit you’ll ever hear.” Agreed, Simon. And yes, he let’s us call him Simon, because Professor Nicholson is a mouthful.

I also had lunch with James Bond’s wife and their very cute baby, Ryder. This couple is very good looking and the baby has all his father’s genes, and I found out today that Rocky is actually 53…but looks like he just turned 40. Apparently if you remove red meat from your diet and only eat fish and chicken, you’ll be a stud forever. Mrs. Rocky shared her wisdom with us and told me and my friend that we should wait to have kids until we’re 35. She herself is 39 and her son is only 9 months old. Most people tell me that these days, but she stressed the idea more strongly than others. Then she went on to tell me how she and her husband were big into white-water rafting and traveling everywhere and I basically wanted to be her for a day. Rocky also plays the harmonica and gave us a performance tonight at pre-port. It was very impressive. Simon joined him on the flute and Bob, as always, strummed away on the guitar. Bob always plays music for us before we get to port, but tonight it was a collaboration of all our gifted gentlemen on board. And unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera.

So tomorrow we arrive in Chennai. I think this is going to be a huge culture shock for a lot of people on this boat. I’ve heard that a lot of kids are nervous about getting off and would rather just skip the Indian cities and sunbathe on the beaches (probably the Spring Break kids). We’ve been told to try and conserve water all week because we can’t refill while we’re in Chennai. Some kids have had their water cut off on them during showers or had toilets that didn’t flush (ew). This is supposed to be our dirtiest port so we have to make sure to wear clothes and shoes that we don’t care about, because its also going to be the smelliest place we visit on the trip. I’m still very excited. I think we’re going to be shocked by the amount of people that are in the city—and they know we’re coming so we have to be ready for their constant attention and the lack of personal space we’re going to receive. One of our dollars equals 44 of their Rupees, so we’ve been told all week that bargaining is a must because they will try to rip us off and take advantage of our ignorance. I leave for my 3-night trip to Delhi, Agra and the Taj Mahal at 3:00 so I don’t have much time to explore the port before we leave, but I’m very excited and can’t wait to see the Taj Mahal. Yay Asia!

March 24, 2007

The India sun during sunrise is the brightest, most vibrant thing I have ever seen.

March 18, 2007

Our first day in Mauritius was an easy one. We weren’t able to get off the ship until 1:30, so we decided to find a beach called Flik et Flac and spend the afternoon there. It’s kind of a cute situation: we have to take a water-taxi from the port to the shore in order to get anywhere. It took us a little while to figure out how to get there and what we were doing, but we eventually found the right bus stop (thanks to some very friendly Mauritians) and made our way to the beach. It was so nice after we got there. It’s one of the less-touristy beaches so there weren’t many people around at all. We ate a late lunch at a little hotel on the beach and just hung out and swam until about 5:45 when we had to make our way back to the boat for our first night out.

Our port area is somewhat smaller than the rest of our cities. There’s a waterfront with an outdoor mall and a few restaurants, but no big city life like in South Africa. Our first night out we went to a Chinese restaurant in Mauritius’ Chinatown, and it was so good. Eight of us went and sat at a big table, so we just bought a whole bunch of food and spun it around the table, everyone grabbing at whatever they could get a hold of. The food was so good and for someone who loves Chinese, it was a fantastic meal. After that, we went to a local bar and were actually able to watch one of the first NCAA games, Washington State vs. Oral Roberts. There’s only one or two more bars in the area, so we just stayed and hung out and watched some basketball for the night. The next day we explored the city (which is pretty small) but made our way through the markets and saw what busy street life was like in Mauritius. Shopping in the markets is basically impossible. Anytime you walk past someone’s area, they bombard you with prices and shove things in your face and they think it helps with business, but it does nothing for them at all. It just makes you want to get out of their faster. I think they have a very different idea of personal space compared to us. I did find a Zidane jersey in the market for only $13 which is fantastic. I’ve always wanted one but they’re very expensive (when they’re real) and I really didn’t want to pay $70 for one in the states. So that was my great buy for the day. James bought Casino Royale, the new James Bond movie, from a street vendor and assured me that it would be in English, but sure enough we turned it on and Daniel Craig was there, speaking to me in French. I guess it’s not that bad to have a ruggedly handsome man speak French to you, but I’d prefer to understand Bond when he’s saving the world from terrorists.

We found a different bar on our second night that was located on top of the Pizza Hut in the waterfront. It was advertised as a sports bar and grill, but once we got inside they’re were neon colors and music videos playing all over the bar. We had a great time and a bunch of SAS kids were able to start a nice Mauritian dance party. We always seem to become entertainment for locals when we all go out together. I think they admire our groovy dance moves and free spirits.

The next morning we had a snorkeling trip on the Catamaran , which consisted of us spending an afternoon on a sailboat, getting some wonderful sun, eating Mauritian BBQ, and swimming in the India Ocean. We got to see a lot of dolphins splashing around and the coast of Mauritius is gorgeous. It was wonderful and we all had a good time just hanging out and not having to worry about classes or anything coming up in the next week. Despite what everyone may think, we do have hard classes and lots of work to do on the ship. Being on the ship actually makes it harder because there are a lot of distractions and many people find it difficult to study and work properly on a rocking ship.

Today we had the Sea Olympics all day, from 9-8. Everyone on the ship lives in a designated sea, so for every 40 or so people, there’s a Red Sea, Bering Sea, Adriatic Sea, etc. Today the seas competed in a lot of different categories, such as Synchronized swimming, Juice Pong, Tug-of-war, Dodge ball, and a lot more, but the best competition of the day was the Lip Syncing. This consisted of 7 people putting on funny outfits and making great dance routines to great CD mixes. It was hilarious.

So now we have to get back to classes, but we’ll hit India on Sunday and start our Asian adventure!

Spring Break '07- Mauritius!

March 15, 2007

Today is my sister’s birthday, so Happy Birthday Lauren! We’re finally arriving in Mauritius today, but since we got a day-late start in Cape Town, we’re arriving about 6 hours later than expected. I was supposed to ‘hike in the mountains and swim in the waterfalls’ today, but unfortunately that was canceled and we’ll just spend the day exploring this little island. It’s going to be like our Spring Break, and once we get back on the boat, we don’t have class the 18^th because its Sea Olympics! I will be competing with the Red Sea in the ping-pong tournament because everything else filled up too fast and for a girl, I think I can swing the paddle pretty well. Our Resident Director bought us all Santa Hats because he figured that would be the best way that we could represent our ‘red-ness’ for a price he could afford.

This past week on the ship was rough. As my roommate put it, the ship isn’t ‘cool’ anymore and the honeymoon period is over. I’ve got 3 class I like a lot: Food and Society, African-American Literature and African Drums. There there’s Abnormal Psychology. 8 AM on A days is my least favorite time of the week. The tests are hard and we have the most ridiculous field assignment for that class- we have to interview people in Asia (who probably don’t speak English) and ask them about random, odd mental problems and then write a 10-20 page paper on it. Everyone else on the boat gets to write a journal for their field assignment…I just hate the class. But we’ve got one more long trip (to India, 7 days) and then April will just consist of us bouncing around Asia. We only have 9 class days in the month of April, which is awesome. I can’t wait for that.

Mauritius is a small island, about 30 miles across and I think 720miles². Our Mauritian student who joined us in Cape Town informed us all that there is free WiFi across the whole country. Free! We’re all so excited and can’t wait to be able to get free internet so we can finally not worry about ‘wasting minutes.’ I personally plan on connecting to iTunes and buying every episode of ‘The Office’ that I’ve missed and I have to find classes that I want to register for, for fall semester.

The trip to the island has been so, so rocky. Things are falling in our cabin, people can’t walk properly and are running into walls. It’s all very amusing, until you try to go to sleep and your stomach starts to rise up to your throat. But finally, I can see the island out of my window, and am very excited to start my little 3 day vacation.

March 9, 2007

This is gonna be a long one.

Our trip to South Africa, or ZA as they abbreviate it, is officially over even though we have yet to leave the port. We all boarded the ship last night around 9 and were supposed to leave, but the winds were too strong. Now it’s 2:40 in the afternoon and we haven’t made any progress leaving the country. I think Captain Jeremy really just wants to prolong our stay and I think that every student would agree with him.

Cape Town is incredible. We ported right on the Waterfront, which is an extremely popular area with tons of restaurants, music and opportunities. The food is very good and much cheaper than American food because of the currency exchange. Four of us were able to order a large pizza, sub sandwich and 4 drinks for a total of 128 Rand, which is equivalent to $18.15. Awesome! And there was a mall 2 minutes away so a lot of people took advantage of that for souvenir shopping, myself included. The big things to do were safaris, climbing Table Mountain, visiting the wine lands and townships, and going skydiving. I went on a 4 day safari and biked through the wine lands, so I didn’t have much time to do any extreme things, like skydiving. But the wine was fantastic. Unfortunately, we can’t bring any alcohol on board with us, even if its all boxed up and we have no intention of drinking it. I was so tempted to pay the $160 to ship 6 bottles home, but I didn’t want to get back to the states and regret that. And as I’m writing this I’m regretting not sending the wine home…sorry Dad…

So I was fortunate enough to travel to Northeast South Africa where Kruger National Park is. It was a slightly expensive safari, but the lodge we stayed in was wonderful. They fed us well and we got to stay in a great room, so it was nice to get away from the ship food and accommodations. They put on a small tribal show for us one night, and sang happy birthday to one of our leaders, Bob, which they pronounced as Boob. So imagine a bunch of Africans singing Happy Birthday to Boob. It was great. And I don’t have Malaria pills and the area apparently is buzzing with mosquitoes, so I had to stay all covered up during our Game Drives, and sometimes it gets hot in Africa. I don’t even wear long sleeves and shoes around my house in the winter, but I really didn’t want to get Malaria so I think it was wise of me to just stick it out. For 3 mornings, we got wake-up calls at 4:30 AM and we’d start our drive at 5:30 and stay out until around noon. We’d then go on an evening drive from around 5-8. The time between the two was spent eating, watching The Island for roughly 25 minutes, and then passing out for 3 hours.

Safaris require patience and that wasn’t really what I was expecting. By day two I was worried I had made the wrong decision in making the trip, but our third day was fantastic. My roommate Ashley and I decided we were good luck charms because both game drives we went on saw the most lions. There are only about 1,500 lions in the whole park, which is 20,000 square kilometers. Our guides explained to us that as far as we looked, in every direction, was the park. I felt like Simba in the Lion King when Mufasa takes him on top of pride rock and tells him that everything the sun touches is his kingdom. So I was able to see three male lions with great big manes, a pride of females walking together in the African night, and many elephants, zebras, rhinos, giraffes, buffaloes, a couple leopards, and many many many impalas. They’ve got little black marks on their bottoms that make an ‘M’ and the guides called them McDonald’s. The elephants had little ones trailing behind them a lot and they were SO cute. I probably took 200+ pictures of animals in the park.

After getting back from the Safari, I was able to take my first big night out in the city. While I was gone, my girls had made friends with some UK chaps who were studying or just playing in South Africa, so we went out with them on our last night and it was very fun. They took us to a bar called Chrome and it was an interesting situation. A lot of single guys standing on the dance floor, bouncing to the music, just waiting for a hot chick to come talk to them. And there were a couple of transvestites with killer wigs. Our group just hung out together and did our best to get jiggy to the ZA techno beats. The currency exchange is such a wonderful thing. Beers cost about $2 and mixed drinks around probably $4. When you leave someone a 10 Rand tip its great because its not even $2 to us but it’s a lot of money to them. The people in the city were so kind and courteous and were willing to help with whatever you needed. I had to find a pay phone my last afternoon there and this nice restaurant host let me use their phone even though I wasn’t eating there. After that I had a couple waiters ask me if I needed anything or if it was working correctly. Just little things like that to make travelers feel at ease. Simple kindness.

Every time I go to a new city, I always imagine what it would be like to live there and if I would enjoy it. As of right now, I think Cape Town and Paris are my two favorites, but South Africa does have the perk of having English as one of their main languages. And its also a very diverse place which makes for a more respectable and less judgmental society, I think. There are many white people, but there are still many African, Indian, and Asian people, all living together in one large city. Absolutely fantastic and I cannot wait to come back.

March 2, 2007

I woke up at 4:50 this morning to see the sunrise. It didn’t show its face until about 6:45, but I was able to see all the stars of the early African morning and Cape Town with all the city lights from a distance and it was awesome. The sun slowly started to rise around 5:45-6 and by 6:15 everyone was at the front of the ship with their cameras taking pictures. I’m pretty sure I was the first person up on the deck, so I got a great spot to take pictures of Table Mountain.

February 28, 2007

It’s the last day in February and our second to last night on the ship before we reach Cape Town. As of right now, we’re 6 hours ahead of EST and we’ll be losing one more hour of sleep tonight. If you can manage to go through the day without napping or laying down, then you’ve got some sort of super power. Everyone on this ship is always napping before studying or napping before class or napping before dinner. The problem with napping is that you don’t sleep as well at night and then you’re so tired in the morning, so you have to nap again. And the cycle continues. I have two tests tomorrow, in Abnormal Psych and African-American literature, so I don’t get any naps today.

I’m so excited to get to South Africa. It’s the most modern African we could go to, but I’ll be staying busy and I’m very excited to see the whole country. We arrive Friday and don’t leave until the following Thursday night. I’ll be taking a safari in Kruger National Park for four days and will also be biking to the wine lands and tasting deliciousness on Saturday. One of our American dollars equals roughly 7 of theirs, so shopping is a must. Apparently there is a phenomenal music store that I have to stop into so I can spend all my money. I have no idea how I’ll be getting anything I buy home to Virginia, but that’s not something I really want to worry about now.

At every port, we pick up a student who is from or represents our next destination. For South Africa, we had a young Indian woman from the University of Cape Town come and talk to our Anthropology class personally, so she could tell us all the things we shouldn’t miss out on, including the huge Jazz Festival that is taking place in Cape Town Friday and Saturday night. I don’t think I’ll be able to go to that, but there are clubs all over the city that we’ll be going to for the nights I’m in Cape Town. They’ve got a big hip-hop culture down there and we listened to some of it last night in pre-port and I can’t wait to buy it and blast it in the Xterra. No one will even know its from Africa.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we have celebrities on the boat, other than Desmond Tutu. One of our students looks exactly like Russell Crowe. Exactly. I love Mr. Crowe, but I just don’t think that this kid is as cool the Gladiator. One of our teachers, named Rocky, looks very similar to Daniel Craig, the new James Bond, and it’s always fun to see him around the boat. He does magic and he and his wife have a 7-month (I guess 8-month now) old son on the boat named Ryder who actually rocked the Mohawk for a few days. And I figured out that if you say Jay Leno really fast, it sounds like Gyllenhaal. Try it.

Classes are done and I’ve just got time to waste now before we get to South Africa!

February 25, 2007

Today marks our halfway point to South Africa. We’ve been traveling for four days, and have four more before we arrive in Cape Town on Friday. Fortunately, we had a day off yesterday because it was Neptune Day, in which many of the passengers participated in the ritual of getting milk poured on you and kissing a fish. They woke us up with music in the hallways at 7 AM and allowed anyone who wanted to, to shave their head. Many people participated in that, including a lot of girls. It looks good on a lot of them, but some people should have steered away from the clippers. I, personally, did not participate in swimming in milk, but took advantage of the day and slept in. Note, this is the first time since getting on the ship that we’ve been able to sleep in. When on the ship, we’re up by 9 every morning for Global Studies. My body enjoyed the sleep and sunk into an 11 hour relaxation period.

I obviously don’t know how to drive a ship, but sometimes I wonder if our Captain Jeremy is as good as he’s supposed to be. Yesterday we were splashing in the seas at 20 knouts (the ship can go up to 36) and today, he slowed down to 11 knouts and turned off the stabilizers. We’re in the calmest seas we’ve seen so far, but the boat is rocking more than ever. Caitlin and I took the treadmill for a run tonight, and both of us slipped off at one point. Running on a treadmill on a swaying boat is no easy task; I feel as though I’m on the cross-country team and am running through mountains. My whole body is definitely getting a work out. After this trip, we have two more week-long rides, and then its just a lot of travel. We’ve got a lot of work coming up this week and after we leave Africa, and its hard to find a way to manage your time because who honestly wants to read and study when you can sit outside and watch the sunset, go to comedy stand up night (which was actually very funny), or play poker in the dining hall with your friends.

The food is still pretty awful. But at 10 PM, snack time arrives and students will wait as long as 30 minutes for a couple sandwich halves and a small slice of cake. I think they’re making the food bad so we have to go up to the 7^th deck and spend money on ice cream, hamburgers, and popcorn. And the smoothies. They get you every time.