Travel Lark

arts & ideas

2010-06-24T22:15:00.000-07:00

From one pizza capital to another...
The day after returning home from Chicago I met up with another Semester at Sea friend, Disha, for some closer-to-home cultural fun in New Haven.

I met Dish at the train and we drove into downtown. As soon as we hop out of the car, what do we see but a street performer (awesome) singing right next to a guy giving away free Ashley's Ice Cream (event better!). Ashley's is a New Haven institution, not to mention the producers of very tasty ice cream.

We collected our slightly melty but very free cones and slurped our way towards the New Haven green to check out the International Festival of Arts & Ideas http://www.artidea.org/. The A&I festival is a really cool, three week happening in new haven celebrating music, dance, performance, food, drinks, literature, philosophy, politics and so much more. On any given day you can experience a modern dance performances, a 13-year old frontman's garage band or a farm to table bike tour of the city. By far one of the coolest things going on in Connecticut and a great showcase for local, national and international artists, thinkers and chefs.

The Saturday that Disha and I stopped by we passed by the Thai and Soul food trucks and made our way over to a tent for the American Mural Project, which is working to create the largest collaborative piece of artwork in the world http://www.wallofamerica.org. There were a bunch of kids already working on a piece of art and our new 8-year old guide directed us towards the paint and brushes. Disha and I made our mark on the mural which will be installed in Winstead, CT.

After painting we moved over to see a local rapper and break dancers from Middletown, CT. The rapper was pretty good and even dropped a song about his hometown. The break dancers were incredible and a very zealous Michael Jackson fan even made an appearance in the circle for some moon-walking.

Once the rapper's set was over Disha and I walked down Chapel St. looking at the boutiques and shops and working up an apatite for one of our favorite New Haven restaurants, Claire's Corner Copia, http://www.clairescornercopia.com/. Claire's is an all-vegetarian restaurant, cooking with only organic and locally sourced ingredients. Not to mention, they donate 10% of the proceed to charity. But most importantly, the food is absolutely delicious. Everything from the mexican menu to the homemade soups and salads tastes amazing and is good for you. Plus their selection of baked goods, which includes their famous Lithuanian coffee cake. Disha and I split a quesadilla with the works (beans, peppers, onion, tomato & spinach, topped with hommade guac and a mango cilantro crema). And once that had been thoroughly inhaled, we had to split a piece of coffee cake for the road.

It was great to catch up with Disha, spend a beautiful day in New Haven and eat some amazing vegetarian food. But, it was also a nice reminder that there are great things going on with food and art and music, right here in Connecticut, if you can spare a Saturday to enjoy them.

beans, beans, they're good for your art.

2010-06-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

The next day, Mark and I met Hussain near the UIC Chicago med school campus (where he'll be a dental student this fall) and we drove into the heart of the city to meet Steve at the Shedd Aquarium. It just so happened to be free admission day and so we went to enjoy some aquatic adventures. There was a pretty long wait so I had time to snack on a chicago-style hot dog with mustard, onion, tomato, sport peppers, celery salt and a pickle spear. Pretty tasty, as most thing are when they contain a pickle spear.

Once we got in we were able to mill around the droves of strollers and check out some pretty neat fish. They had a particularly exciting exhibit about the amazon and we also spotted a fish bearing an uncanny resemblance to james earl jones. Clearly, Steve and Hussain had fun:

After the aqarium we walked along to river and across the way to Millennium Park. We passed the Art Institute (Steve's favorite), and made our way into the park towards "the bean". It was a pretty hot day so we decided to take a quick break along the boardwalks in the park that run along a little man-made river. There were lots of couples and families with their shoes off and their feet in the water, enjoying picnics or making wishes with coins and we decided to take off our shoes and join them. The water felt cold and amazing and the view through the park looking toward the institute and out further towards the loop and soldier field was pretty perfect.

Once our feet were sufficiently cooled we made our way towards the infamous bean. I had seen other people's photos of Anish Kapoor's sculpture, which is actually called Cloud Gate, but I didn't anticipate it being so big! It really is a beautiful sculpture and the views that you can get of the city and the river and of all the people around you by looking at the reflections and curves of the sculpture are amazing. We spent some time looking at all the angles, including the underside, before snapping a few pictures and heading on our way.

After a tasty stir fry dinner with the boys and some of their friends, Mark and I headed back to the hotel, braving the chicago traffic one last time before flying out in the morning.

In summary - Chicago is a beautiful, open, city with some tasty food traditions and awesome public spaces. I only got to see a handful of them and I hope to make a return visit sometime soon to catch up with Steve, Hussy and Gino's East pizza (pie).

chicago-go-go there.

2010-06-24T19:15:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that Chicago is a really cool, beautiful, clean, fun city. After going there for three quick days i definitely could plan a return trip.

After landing at midway and enduring a wild-goose chase cab ride I met my dad and brother and we decided to venture into the city. My dad was leaving later that night so we decided that we should hit the biggest monument first - the sears tower (now called the willis tower).

While waiting in line to go to the top we learned some fun facts! Did you know that the tower is 262 michael jordans tall? You do now. But as fun as the facts were, the clear highlight was the view from the top of the tower. The midwest is so flat that you can literally see four different states when you look out each direction of the window. I got a pretty great glimpse of Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. Annnnnd they recently installed these four viewing boxes that are clear all the way around so you can step out over the city and see in all directions, including below you.

After the sears we brought dad to the airport and mark and I went to go meet some of my favorite semester at sea friends, and chicago natives, Hussain and Steve! And on top of seeing good friends we met them at Gino's East for my first encounter with chicago-style deep dish pizza.

This was my first introduction to deep dish and, being a lover of NY-style pizza and die hard Pepe's fan, I was highly skeptical. We ordered a large spinach pie and spent the 40-minute cooking time catching up with Steve and Hussain. Upon arrival our waitress cut us up some pieces and it was go time. I have to say; it was good. I love cheese and the amount of cheese in this pie was incredible. As you can see from the photo, each piece eschewed ribbons of delicious cheese, plus tasty sauce and spinach on the bottom. But, I am an east coast girl. And while this was delicious, it was not pizza. It was pie. An awesomely cheesy, saucy, spinachy pie. But pie and not pizza and not better than the pepe's clam. Sorry chicago and deep dish lovers. That's all there is to it.

After stuffing ourselves with deep dish, we retired to rest for a big day ahead.

on the road...again

2010-06-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

So it's been over a year since I made the permanent transition to life on land after Semester at Sea and I've decided it's time to start blogging again. While I'm not doing as much traveling, I have a few trips coming up and I'm ready to document. This should be pretty exciting as travel lark 2.0 will hopefully be less wordy, with more pictures, and not hurriedly emailed between global studies classes on the MV.

To give you a quick update about me, I just graduated from the University of Connecticut with a BA in Communications and a minor in International Studies. I've been doing a lot of cooking, eating and twittering over the past 9 months since my last post, but I'm ready for some travel and some blogging as well.

First stop: Chicago on Wednesday!

afterthoughts

2009-08-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

so it's been a little over three months since we disembarked the MV and tomorrow i pack my bags and head back to school.

but before i fall into the pleasantly hectic rhythm of life at school i wanted to take the time to think back on my trip and how i feel about it now, three months out.

coming home was easier than i thought it was going to be in some ways, but harder in others. i didn't hate home or find it utterly boring. i love reconnecting with my friends and family. but at the same time i was really prepared to talk about my experiences and when no one asked i was really bummed out.

but life went on and i got into the routine of being at home, working and living post SAS. it was only in the past few weeks where i had two experiences that really impressed upon my how much my trip means and how much it is still a part of me.

the first experience came during our family vacation this year to loon mountain in new hampshire. one morning my dad and i decided that we were going to go and hike loon mountain, a pretty steep ski mountain about two miles up. we started getting up the mountain and i am getting seriously tired. my dad is patient, we take breaks, but i am seriously out of shape. finally about 2/3 of the way up i stop and let my dad go ahead, telling him that i was going to rest and i would meet him on his way down and hike back. as i am lying in the grass catching my breath i think about the day that greg and i hiked table mountain. the sun was in the middle of the sky in capetown, we got passed out by families carrying babies and we took break after break, but greg and i hauled our asses up that mountain, stone by stone, for four miles. and i knew that if i could drag my lazy self up table mountain, i could get up loon. so i got up and went one check point to the next, very slowly, until i finally made it to the top. i was red-faced and sweaty and certainly grossing out everyone who had taken the gondola to the top, but i got up there. and i don't know if i would have pushed myself if i hadn't spent that day in capetown with greg.

this made me realize that there was something about the things i did on SAS that will stay with me, despite the fact that i no longer call the MV my home. SAS made me realize how much i was capable of. i now know that i can naviagate a foreign city without being able to read the signs. i can jump out of a plane. i can start a philosophical conversation with a stanger on a train, in french. most of the time the only thing holding me back is myself.

is this a new revelation? of course not. as kids we are always told that we can do anything we set our minds to. but as we get older we put up walls around ourselves. we decide that we can't do things for one reason or another but most of the time we're just afraid. SAS showed me that i can be fearless.

the other post SAS experience i had was a reunion with a bunch of my ship friends in pittsburgh. spending time with my friends all together just reinforced how much i love and appreciate the people i met on my trip. they've seen me sweating in vietnam, bartering in morocco and rolling out of bed for global studies. they have seen me at my best and worst and i really feel like i can be wholly myself when i am with them. not to mention the fact that they are some of the most hilarious, daring, silly, loving, thoughtful and fun people i have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

which is the other thing that SAS taught me. that the world is full of amazing, caring, funny, intelligent people. from the students and professors on the ship to the hotel owners, meditation instructors, elephant tamers, and students that i met in the countries; i encountered people who are truly incredible. this is what les meant when he said ubuntu. that we are all shaped by the people we meet. we all teach each other what it means to be human because we cannot do it alone.

i have no doubt that i will travel in the future. i think anyone who goes on SAS and has had their fill of exploring probably had too many cases of TD. and while i know that no experience will be the same as SAS i hope that i can hold on to the best parts of my journey and keep them with me, no matter where i go next.

japan!

2009-05-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

So i know we’re home now, but in all our speediness moving through asia (and all my laziness) i didn’t get to write about Japan. And last night when I was posting pictures I realized that I didn’t have photos of a lot of it and my memories are already fading fast. SO! since the blog’s purpose is to record my travel adventures, I think it’s perfectly fine to record them in retrospect.

Everyone was really psyched coming into Japan because after going through southeast Asia and Africa and heeding travel warnings about water and communism and fruit we got to Japan and they were just like - go ahead! eat and drink whatever, talk about everything, plus, did we mention the toilet seats are heated? Needless to say, we were excited. My ship mom, Joan was the nurse onboard and it was her job to do medical pre-port before Japan. Since Japan is basically a country of safety and medical wonder she decided it would be cute for our family to help her out and recite haiku’s about the various medical things we would come in contact with in Japan - drinking water, toilets, clinic hours etc. I had toilets and we all got up in front of the shipboard community to recite our poems. Mine read as follows -

i hate to squat, ugh.
warm seats and tinkle music
this is an upgrade.

I think I should probably leave haikus to basho, busson and issa for now. But anyway....

We got into Kobe the first day and the first thing we had to do getting off the ship was go through a face-to-face customs inspection. This involved some long lines, staggered disembarking and a few hours but eventually all of us got off the ship ok and we left to our devices to go and explore the city.

I went out with Steve, Keith and Britton and we decided to just start walking, find some food and see where we ended up. We strolled around, grabbed lunch at a spanish tapas place and the stumbled upon an indoor/outdoor mall. We explored the shops and found this really neat place that sold all kinds of clothes and accessories and Steve bought a pair of lime green suspenders. I had recently started to learn how to do the rubik’s cube so I was on the hunt to find one of my own to practice on. After looking around for a while to no avail we headed upstairs to check out the manga shops. The walls were lined with stacks upon stacks of manga comic books with craaazy characters on every cover. There were vampire schoolgirls who fought crime, pokemon and dragonball-z and of course lots of porn. After poking around looking for a specific series as a gift for one of Steve and Keith’s friends from Pitt we decided to walk back to the ship so we could go to the welcome reception for some local Japanese students.

On the ship we had two interport students, Haruna and Asami, join us from University of Kobe. This afternoon a bunch of students from the university were going to come on board to hang out with us, see the ship and show us some traditional Japanese music and dance. We arrive at the ship just as the students did and we all headed into the union. One of the girls performed a traditional Japanese dance in a full kimono and makeup. After a few more presentations we were allowed to just break off, get snacks and they had tables set up for us to learn calligraphy and origami. Steve, Keith and I had sat down next two three students and started talking to them and hanging out with them. Rieko, Aya and Koji got some food with us, and then taught us how to do some origami. We made some cranes and then they showed us how to write our names in Japanese characters. Aya helped me out and my name didn’t even look half bad.

The girls and Koji wanted to see the ship so we took them on our tour, showing them all the decks, the dining room and our cabins. It was dinner time so we decided to all grab and quick D1 and then head out together for some D2 and karaoke. We had a little food, met up with Magoo and headed out into Kobe with our new friends.
We all hopped on the subway and headed into the center of Kobe. Keith had never tried sushi before so all of us went to a local sushi bar to have some. I got some salmon, a tuna wrap and some salmon with cheese. Rieko was next to me and she really liked this sticky fermented soybean thing which she ordered in a roll. I forget the name but I remember the smell and the texture. Magoo tried it and really didn’t like it, as apparent by his face, so I decided to try some. I pulled away a little piece and it left a sticky trail behind it, almost like candy, except it was kind of smelly and tasted a little weird. Sorry Rieko, different strokes. But, Keith had a good first sushi experience and all the fish I ordered was incredibly tasty (not to mention really cheap) and we headed out full and happy.

We took a walk through Kobe to see the local Chinatown and then decided to find a place for karaoke. Anyone familiar with karaoke in the states knows that it’s usually a semi-embarrassing, often drunken, public event. But, the karaoke places in japan are much less embarrassing since you have a private room. So, even if you’re drunk or out of tune, only you friends will be able to make fun of you. We got to the place, grabbed a room and started picking songs. Koji knew some songs in english and was no karaoke novice. He sang a really good version of Imagine by John Lennon and It’s My Life by Bon Jovi. Not wanting to look like American wussies, Keith and Steve sang some Killers songs, Steve and I did Summer Lovin’ and Magoo and I did Semi-Charmed. The girls sang a song in Japanese and I san Girlfriend by Avril Levigne per Koji’s request. I can’t say I’m a big Avril fan but apparently the Japanese are all over that. She had almost a page and a half in the song choice book devoted just to her stuff.

After a hour in our little room our time was up and the girls decided to take us to this photobooth place to take pictures. We walked into the photobooth place and it was like a pre-teen bubblegum explosion. There were young Japanese girls dressed to the nines stepping into the photo booths and all of us piled into one. It wasn’t your average tiny photobooth but was about the size of a VW van. We took a bunch of pictures of the group - smiling, funny facing, peace signing. It was really fun and we had a good time being silly, enjoying the bubblegum surroundings and the 90s pop hits. After we took the pictures Rieko took us over to a screen where you draw on the pictures, add stuff to the and pick the background. We added hearts and space ships and hats and mustaches and ended up with a strip of the seven best pictures I think I’ve ever seen.

After photos we deiced to head to a local pub for a drink before the girls had to head out. We chatted for a little longer, took a pictures of all of us together and then the girls had to get going since it was a weeknight and they had class the next day. Koji said he could stay a little longer so we walked down to the pier to see the Kobe tower all lit up and the ferris wheel across the bay. Koji then had to head home as well so we decided to hop the subway back to the ship. It was pretty early but the guys wanted to go back to the ship so I tagged along figuring I could take an early night and maybe pick up some free wi-fi in the cruise terminal. But when I got off the train a whole bunch of my friends were on their way out and urged me to get on the next train with them and go dancing. I figured it was good luck, said goodnight to the boys and turned around and headed back into downtown Kobe.

A local club knew that there was a ship full of people wanting to party on a Monday night so they had passed out fliers outside the ship. As a result almost everyone was there and the place was crowded and very sweaty. My friend Taylor was on her way out as we were arriving and she gave me her wrist band so I could get away without the cover charge. I secured it with bubble gum and headed into the fray. The club was packed but everyone knew each other and we were all excited to be out dancing and drinking in Japan. I ran into Jill and Hannah and we danced and laughed in the crowded space. It was our friend Monica’s 21st birthday and we all celebrated with her as well. We would dance inside and then when it got unbearable hot we would hang out on the street outside until we were finally ready to head back into the heat. After a good night of dancing I split a cab home with my friend Peter and hoping to get a few hours of sleep before waking up to catch the shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo the next morning.

camino seguro

2009-05-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

The next morning I got up early to go on a service visit to Guatemala City with an organization called Camino Seguro, or Safe Passage in English. Founded by a woman named Hanley Denning in 1999, Camino Seguro works to help some of the most impoverished people in Guatemala City who make their living scavenging through waste at the city dump in order to find and sell scraps of recyclable materials. After sleeping during the two-hour drive to there, I awoke to look out my window and see zone 3 of Guatemala City, one of the worst districts, and home to the dump. Our first stop was the national cemetery. Unlike the trip I had taken in Vietnam, however, we were not there to see the graves of war veterans. Rather, we walked around the numerous mausoleums, through the cemetery, over to a spot which gave us a good view of the dump. Even though we were far above the area where the dump was, the stench was strong and stung at our noses while we listened. My friend Chas, who works as an EMT told us to put Vicks vapor rub under our noses so that we would only be able to smell the mint, a trick he uses when working with burn victims.

There were vultures everywhere, crowding in trees, swooping in the sky and moving in giant packs as they picked through the garbage. Our guide, Freddy told us that 2,500 people work daily in the dump collecting items that they can re-sell to companies that will recycle them – like cardboard, cans and plastic bottles which they string together. Along with these materials however, they also collect food, sometimes rotten, to help feed their families. They would often have to eat vegetables or meat found in the dump, sometimes cooked over fires built by burning other debris, like plastic bags and rubbed with lemons. 80% of the people working in the dump are women and they earn as little as 7-15 quezals a day, around $1-2 US dollars.

Freddy then informed us about the dangers of the dump. The land on which it is built is incredibly unstable and as a result there have been many accidents where trucks, and people, have literally sunk into the ground. The people who work there also suffer from food contamination, have a risk of HIV and have skin and eye problems because of the constant exposure to methane gas. They wade through seven to ten thousand new tons of garbage daily.

After seeing the dump we then went to see the areas where the project is working to improve the lives of those in the community. Our first stop was the preschool, gym and food bag program. We went into the preschool to find about 50 children, all sitting on little benches at little tables, eating hearty helpings of rice and black beans. They were so adorable, all with big brown eyes, smiling and waving to us as they ate, many with plenty of black bean on their faces.We saw the beautiful playground they had out back, which was built by students at Washington University. There was a big wooden play structure painted with bright colors, a swing and a slide for the kids to play on. When you stood at the top of the play structure and looked out you could see the slums stretching out beyond the area, with barbed wire all along the top of the fence. It was such a juxtaposition to know that right outside the walls of this clean, positive place, there were miles of slums where they children would return home after school.

After seeing the playground we looked at the children’s classrooms and then went to learn about their food bag program. Until recently, children had also been allowed to work in the dump until child labor laws changed and made it illegal. Before the child labor laws were instituted many parents did not want their children to be a part of the program simply because having them in school meant one less person to work for food that day. In order to even out the loss of profit that a family would have from sending their child to school Camino Seguro started a once monthly food bag program where families would come and get a garbage bag full of rice and beans, as well as other staples like salt, oil, sugar and flour. This was the one day a month where bags were handed out and we watched people come and go, collecting their bags and walking back out towards their homes, often carrying the bags on their heads.

We stood on a balcony looking over the slums as one of the women at the foundation told us a little more about the economic climate and Guatemala and what the foundation is up against. Land distribution in Guatemala is strikingly unequal, with 2% of the population possessing 80% of the land. There is barely a middle class as most of the people are either very wealthy or living below the poverty line. And while a subsistence farmer living in the lowlands may be able to support his family on very little, the people living in Guatemala City were not able to adequately survive on the incomes they received from working in the dump. Plus, the nature of their work caused the people who work in the area to be discriminated against more than any other segment of the population. They were stuck in the cycle of poverty and it wasn’t easy to get out.

We then walked over to the second complex of buildings which included the facilities for the older children and adults. We learned about the new adult literacy program which was training the mothers of the children in Camino Seguro in basic reading and writing, allowing them to earn their 6th grade equivalency certificate, which is comparable to a US GED in the Guatemalan job market. The women who were enrolled in the program had also started their own jewelry co-op and have started to generate a lot of interest in their products and have begun to make a profit, allowing them to work less days in the dump and work full-time at home making jewelry. We learned about the women who had graduated from the literacy program and were now in training for higher paying jobs, like nursing our accounting, and others who had gotten work with Camino Seguro, teaching their peers or as the head chef in one of the kitchens. They also have self esteem workshops and social workers who come in and meet with the families once a month. The men in the community are starting to become interested in the programs too and they’ve just started a men’s literacy group.

After that we toured around the classrooms for the older children and were able to learn a little more about the program for ages 6-22. Since these kids are enrolled in public school half-day they spend the second half of their time at Camino Seguro, learning English, working on school work and also learning vocational skills and doing programs that promote positive personal values. They also have sports programs where the kids learn lacrosse, soccer and even break dancing. Finally, the kids are fed lunches and two snacks every day and Bayer pharmaceuticals sponsors a free clinic for the families of all children enrolled in the program.

To be honest, it was overwhelming how incredible this place was. The buildings were clean and beautiful. They had outdoor spaces for the kids to play. They were working on not just helping the kids in the communities, but their whole families and making sure that they have the tools to be successful and get out of the dump. In just 10 years Camino Seguro grew from one woman from Maine with 5,000 running out of a local church to a 1.8 million dollar non-profit with three facilities, friends groups in the United States and Europe and hundreds of volunteers. I really want to look into coming down to volunteer for a week or a month and if anyone is interested in doing the same or just learning more about the program I would urge you to check out their website at http://www.safepassage.org

After we left the facilities we got back onto the bus to eat the bagged lunches they had provided us with for the trip. We were all given sandwiches, chips, cookies and a drink but not everyone wanted all of their food. Seeing all the leftovers, I didn’t want them to go to waste so we collected everyone’s unwanted sandwiches and such and gave them to Freddy to give out when he went into the dump later that afternoon. We drove away back through Guatemala City and I think everyone on the bus was asleep by the time we hit the highway.

We got back on the ship and it was strange to think that when I swiped my card it would be the last time I would swipe into the ship. The next time I get off the MV, it will be for good. They had a bbq for us out on Deck 6 and I sat with Keith, Magoo and Steve as they told me about their adventures climbing a volcano and I shared my stories over some really awesome bbq ribs, fruit and ice cream. YUM. It was so bittersweet getting back on the ship for the last time. I love coming back from a port and seeing everyone get together after being apart for a few days. Everyone hugs and takes time to talk about where we’ve been and what we’ve done. The community we have on the ship has been really great and I’m starting to realize more and more how much I’m going to miss it.

After dinner I responded to some emails, started on this blog and just hung out in the room until Rosaly, Taylor and I decided to go up to D7 in the front, our favorite place, to sit a talk and watch the stars. Ben Gelb, a hall director from UConn who is on the trip with his fiancé was up there and the four of us told Guatemala stories until he went inside. It was so warm and beautiful out and Rosy, Taylor and I stayed out talking and enjoying the ship until it got late and we got tired. On my way back to my room though I ran into my friends Chris, Mike, Peter and Monica and ended up staying up for another hour or so just talking and laughing with them. When I finally got in my bed I was exhausted and happy.

I’m going to try and write more frequently over these last few days on the ship. I want to hold on to everything that is going on and while they definitely won’t be novels, I think that writing will be good. So, expect some updates. Until then...

guatemala

2009-05-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

I’m not going to lie, I was nervous about going to Guatemala. About 5 days before we were set to arrive in Puerto Quetzal I hopped on wikitravel to see what there was to do in the country. What I found was an article warning about increased violence, muggings, bus-jackings and murder of tourists in particular. It stated - Please be aware that the security situation in Guatemala has deteriorated dramatically since the beginning of 2009 with 40 murders a week in Guatemala City alone. Tourists are directly targeted, robberies are common place and travel to Guatemala is strongly discouraged until the situation improves. NEVER EVER take photos of children without permission. - Hm. Scary. SAS, in their best efforts to keep us safe, also warned us about every possible threat, from swine flu to drug trafficking. Also, we were told not to travel to Guatemala City or the airport unless with a trip and we had an 11pm curfew for the ship and hotels. This, on top of lots of exams, papers and end of semester projects, left me without a lot of time to actually get excited about visiting the country. But, if I’ve learned anything on this trip it’s that we always end up being over-scared. We receive a lot of safety information and while it’s important to know what threats are out there, as long as you’re smart about your surroundings chances are you’re not going to get your kidney stolen or your car hijacked.

Despite all the safety warnings, Guatemala ended up being an amazing last port. In fact, I think after being in places like Hawaii and Japan, I had forgotten how much I really love traveling outside of big cities and being in places that are a little more off the beaten path. I really hated being around American tourists in Honolulu and coming to Guatemala and getting to see locals, eat the food, try (and usually fail) to speak the language and go off on the back roads allowed me to realize how much this trip has made me love traveling this way. We had gotten used to relative comfort in our last few ports with cool weather, lots of commercialization and plenty of reminders of home. But I think it was important for us to be a little hotter, dirtier and less comfortable in our last port of call. At least for me, it reminded me of all that is out there to experience and explore and how much I have the desire to go and see it.

We woke up the first morning still a little apprehensive and unsure about what we would encounter when we got into port. I slept through the diplomatic briefing, missing yet another warning about muggings, crimes, murders and the dangers that were lurking ahead of us. The port we docked in was pretty industrial, a lot like Namibia or Morocco. Luckily SAS has shuttles going to another area of the port where we could catch taxis or walk to a nearby town. The first day my friends Jill, Hannah, Caroline, Alicia, Greg, Brendan and Mike decided we were going to go this place called Iztapa lagoon which we had read about in one of the SAS independent travel suggestion books. According to the article you could get boats to go deep sea fishing and there was a sandbar with a black-sand beach where we could hang out and get some lunch.

Our cab driver Jorge took us the 20 minutes to the “tourist pier” where we got a little motor boat from one end of the lagoon to the sandbar. It turned out there were no places to get boats and the area was pretty sparse. We crossed over to the sandbar and it was completely deserted. It looked like there were a few places that had food and cervesas but they were closed up. Aside from some stray dogs, a few beachcombers and one Israeli surfer, the sandbar was empty. I went over to talk to the surfer and we found out his name was Aaron, he was from Israel and he spent about 3 weeks every year surfing in a new location around the world. He was staying in a one-room cabin on stilts with a hammock on the other side of the lagoon. He told us that the restaurants were only open on weekends and that the place was pretty much cleared out. He asked if we were surfers and once we told him no he was very confused as to why we would even come to Iztapa in the first place. Even though it wasn’t exactly what the guide book had sold, we weren’t at all disappointed. We had a strip of black sand beach all to ourselves and a few hours before the little boat was coming back to get us.

We immediately set down our stuff and ran into the water. It was so warm, the waves were big and it felt great. There was a little current but we were all fine swimmers and Aaron has assured us he would rescue us on his surfboard if anyone got pulled out. After going for a swim we went to go lay out on the sand. I’d never been to a black sand beach before but we learned that the ash from the volcanoes that are all along the coast of Guatemala are what give the sand its color. It was definitely the coarsest and hottest sand I’ve ever been on. We swam and laid out for a little while and then went back over to an area in the shade, hanging out and looking at the stray dogs, a really cute stray puppy in particular, while we waited for the boat to come back for us.

Our boatman finally returned and we walk a few blocks down into the town with Jorge to try and find some food. There was a little restaurant showing the soccer game with a few guys sitting inside watching and having a beer. We brought a couple tables outside and pushed them together, ordering a round of Gallo beers and some food. The boys got burgers and we split platters with beans, chips, french fries and meat with tomatoes and onions. After a couple beers and our fill of food, and some creamy halls cough drops that Jorge bought us, we decided to head back to the ship to shower and go out again later. We got back and I ended up passing out and taking a really great nap. I woke up and Jill, Caroline, Alicia, Hannah and I went down to the dining hall for dinner. They had a really tasty dessert called “paris brest” which was a round pastry with coffee cream in the middle. Yum. We ate a filling dinner, along with bunch of the brests, all the while making a number of immature jokes.

After a shower we met up in Tymitz square with our friend Doug and headed out. We caught a shuttle to the taxi area and Jorge, along with a translator named Edwin, were there waiting for us. We drove into Puerto San Jose, the nearby town and they said they would take us to a place playing music. After driving through town we arrived at this bar that was lit up like a Christmas tree. There were lights all over, blinking and sparking and music blasting. Not just any music, but the best worst 80s and early 90s music we could have asked for. They played Lady in Red, Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley, Billie Jean by Michael Jackson, Red Red Wine by UB-40 and What Is Love from Night at the Roxbury. We bought a bottle of Rum and Jorge and Edwin mixed it with coke and club soda, along with salt and limes. We drank, listened to the music and talked to Jorge and Edwin. It was a Tuesday night but there was one other group of locals at the bar. There was one guy who was very far gone and was dancing like crazy, all over his table and the dance floor. We got a big kick out of him and were dying laughing at his moves. We wanted to dance a little too so the DJ put on some reggaeton and we danced for a few songs before deciding to head back to the city center to walk around.

We stopped at a park where couples were sitting on benches and a bunch of teenagers were trying to do skateboard tricks. Jorge and Edwin walked with us so we would be safe and we explored the few blocks that constituted downtown. It was after 9 so a lot of places were closed but Jill bought a reggaeton CD from a stall and we also got some tacos from a street cart. We walked to the park to sit and eat our tacos. There were three little corn tortillas topped with meat and onions and slaw and fresh tomato and onion salsa. They were drippy but tasty and we scarfed them down, doing our best not to drip. Afterwards we started talking to a few little kids who were watching their siblings do skate tricks. Jill actually spoke Spanish and I remembered most of what I learned in third grade after school Spanish class so we were able to ask their names and their ages. We took pictures and they loved seeing themselves on the camera screens. We decided that we should head back to give ourselves a good buffer before the 11pm curfew so we got back in the cab and Jorge and Edwin took us back to the port.

When we got there we still had some time before curfew and we heard music coming from a bar that was located right in the port area. We walked down there and found a live band and a bunch of our friends from SAS. We went over to the bar and saw that three girls from the ship were behind the bar serving drinks. We got some margaritas and went to dance while the band played. We talked to our friends and some of the crew that was there and drank and danced. At one point the band invited us up to play with them and Alicia and I took over the drums. They were “Ricky Ricardo” drums and we played along to the beat while our friends danced. The music was great and it was such a fun time. At just before 11 o’clock we all piled into the shuttles and made it back to the ship in time for curfew.

My friend Martha and I weren’t tired so we decided to go for a swim. The pool was covered up and closed but the small kiddie pools on either side were still open so we laid on our tummies and penguin slid back and forth through the water. The water was warm and we eventually sat up and just started talking. We ended up staying up late talking about our hometowns, our boyfriends and the idea of going home. We made plans to go to Antigua the next day and after changing into warm dry clothes I curled up in my bed and fell asleep.

The next morning we slept in a little, waiting for our friends Colin and Ali go come back so we could meet up and go to Antigua. They has been camping on a volcano the night before and we weren’t sure when they would we back. We took our time in the morning, getting ready and then grabbing some lunch on the ship before leaving them a note on heading out. It was me, Martha and Martha’s friend Molly who I had just met that morning. We took the shuttle to the other side of the port and tried to get a taxi to Antigua. The prices that the companies had listed were insane but since we were seasoned barterers by now we were able to get them down from $140 for a car to $15 per person. Score. We ended up with a really great cab driver named Mike and we started the 2 hour drive to Antigua.

Since Puerto Quetzal, where we were docked was super hot and humid we were expecting a sticky, sweaty, day much like the previous. However, upon arrival in Antigua we were pleasantly surprised. It was warm but not hot, the sun was out and there was a really nice breeze. Molly had been to Antigua the day before and it didn’t take us long to get a sense of the city. Antigua is the former colonial Spanish capital of Central America and it still retains a lot of Spanish influence in the architecture, the cobblestone roads and the Arch of Santa Catarina, one of the hallmarks of the city. We started walking in the direction of the market and decided to get some ice cream on the way. We stopped into Pop’s Heladeria for some really tasty ice cream cones and munched on them as we walked. We reached the market and after walking through the locals market where they sold food, clothes and household goods we made a left into the more touristy market. The stalls were all located in this open air enclosure with courtyards and fountains in the middle. We walked around looking at the hammocks, textiles, coffee, leather, dolls, pipes and weaving. Martha bought some really great slippers for her brother and boyfriend and some woven bracelets and I bought some little doll magnets and a bag a coffee for my Mom-mom.

While Martha was paying for her bracelets I started talking to some local kids who were sitting near their mother. In my terrible Spanish I asked their names and ages and told them mine. I was somehow able to explain that we live on a boat and are visiting Antigua. Their names were Elice, Ana, Fernando and Juanito. Elice was 7, Ana was 4, Juanito was 3 and Fernando was 1. They were so sweet and curious and we had a nice little conversation, despite the language barrier. I was sitting next to Elice and she showed me how to play a handclapping game. She sang in Spanish and I followed her lead with the claps. Since she had taught me I showed her how to do Miss Mary Mack and we clapped for a little while until it was time for us to go.

We walked around into the next market, similar to the first, and found a little coffee place on the corner. We got cups of coffee and hot chocolate and sat on benches right outside talking and sipping our drinks. The coffee and the hot chocolates were delicious and it was nice to take a break, enjoy the breeze and people watch while we talked. Once we were all shopped out we decided to walk back near the Parque Central in the middle of town and find some food. We ended up at a restaurant called La Fonda de la Calle Real and we sat in a little open air courtyard in the middle. There were some other SAS kids at the restaurant and they assured us that we had made a good choice. We ordered some nachos, chips and guacamole and some papousas which are an El Salvadorian dish with cheese and potato cooked in the middle of tortillas with an onion and tomato relish on the side. The food came and it was DELICIOUS. The guacamole was out of this world tasty, the chips were warm and fresh, the cheese was thick and melty and the nachos came with this awesome black bean paste and more guacamole. Finally the papousas were warm and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside and they tasted great with some of the tomato onion slaw, guacamole and a little salsa verde on top. All in all, the best D1 I’ve had in a very long time.

After our snack/pre-dinner/D1 we walked back down the main street to a candy shop that Molly had seen the day before. We grabbed little bags and filled them with sour gummy bears, coke bottles, gummy worms and orange slices. As we were coming out of the shop a car passes and the window rolls down and it’s Colin and Ali! We meet them up at the square and they tell us that they need to go check into their hostel but that we should meet in an hour for dinner. While they went to their hostel we decided to walk down another side street to see the Arco de Santa Catarina and explore that area. It was golden hour and the sun was just starting to go down and clouds were coming in. We walked down the side street toward the arch and it was just so beautiful. All the buildings were painted golden yellows, brick reds, assul blues and there were ruins on one side of the street and the volcano rising up behind in the distance.

After walking up and down the street, taking some pictures and doing some general marveling at the fact that we were in Guatemala and having a great day, we still had some time to kill. We had passed a really cool looking hookah bar on the way down the street and decided to pop in and see if they were open. They were but we were the only ones in the place. We sat underneath this white linen tent at a low table with soft stools and ordered a peach hookah. As we sat, trying to blow smoke rings and talking about the day the clouds started to close in and we could hear the thunder rumbling in the distance. The place where we were sitting was in a courtyard but we were covered by an awning. We could see lightning start to flash and we all got really excited. After we had smoked our fill of peach hookah and dinnertime was approaching we paid our bills and headed out just as a little rain started to fall. It has rained in almost every single port but for lack of a better term, it never put a damper on things. We walked in the drizzle towards the park and all yelled when we saw an incredible streak of lighting cutting across the sky. We met up with Colin and Ali and their friend Joe and the six of us headed to a place called Mono Loco for dinner. We were there in time for happy hour and ordered rounds of beers, gin and tonics and cuba libres as well as salads, quesadillas and chips with dips.

Meanwhile in Connecticut...The Undergraduate Student Government was having its first meeting of the new year in which they new officers were set to be sworn into their positions. I had arranged with everyone to get sworn in as Vice President in via telephone but for some reason I couldn’t find my charger the night before and my battery was on its last legs. I was hoping and hoping that my phone would stay on long enough for me to get sworn in but I kept getting text message updates from my friends in the meeting that two students were trying to stop the proceedings and the debate had stalled for almost an hour.

In the meantime we had finished our food and drinks and we ran into our friend Meryl whose 21st birthday it was. We were so excited to see her and we gave her the bracelet we had found with her name on it earlier that day. After celebrating with her we walked over a block to a place called RumBar to meet Colin and Ali’s guides from their volcano hike the day before. The place was nice and small and we got to meet their guides, play with a giant dog who was hanging out and talk about their hike on the volcano. My phone was literally beeping that it was about to die when I finally got the call from our freshly-sworn in Chief Justice, Kayla. I was so excited and I ran out into the courtyard to repeat after her and recite my oath. I only messed up the oath a little and it was kind of nice to hear everyone at home laugh in the background. It made me feel like I was there with them. I finished my oath just as my battery was about to die and Kayla congratulated me on officially being Vice President of the student body! I was so excited and ran back into the bar where my friends congratulated me with hugs and high fives. It was a really nice moment, having great friends to celebrate with but at the same time knowing that I have so many wonderful people to come home to. I’m so excited about student government next year and I’m really looking forward to the work waiting for me when I get home.

We literally got everything done just in time since we had to meet Mike in the park at 9:30 in order to make it back to ship for the 11pm curfew. We wanted to stay since we were having so much fun but we all had early trips the next morning and didn’t want to risk missing them. We ran through the rain and made it to the park where Mike was there waiting for us. We hopped in the cab and started the drive home in the rain, excitedly talking about the day we had had and our plans for our last day in Guatemala. We got back to the ship a little after curfew but Mike brought us to the industrial entrance and it was only a short walk from there to our ship. We swiped our cards and tried to go swimming again. It was a little too chilly this night but we had fun nonetheless and after a really great day and I went back to my room and fell asleep as one of my favorite movies, Bride and Prejudice, played on the loop on our TVs. Great Day

rugby stars, muffin tops and that time we got left

2009-04-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

I actually started this blog right when we got back on the ship after China so I’m just going to leave it as is, however, you may have noticed it’s been a few weeks….Oh well. Here goes.

Oh China,

Honestly, the past few weeks have been crazy. We are literally sprinting through Asia. It’s awesome to be certain but it’s definitely tiring. With only two days between each country we barely have enough time to catch up on sleep, journal, blog (or try to), before we’re already in a new and exciting place with things to see, taste and experience. Not to mention class, quizzes, homework and papers. Yikes.

That being said, it seems like we got on the ship after Vietnam, showered, blinked and then we were in China. I woke up the first morning in Hong Kong excited and ready to do as much as I could in the 24 hours I had before my trip to Beijing. My friends Taylor, Rosaly, Megan and I got off the ship as soon as we were cleared, ready for a day of shopping, sightseeing and general Hong Kong fun.

We took a cab to the ladies market downtown and since the stalls weren’t set up yet we had a little while to putz around and see the downtown. We window shopped and decided to grab lunch before hitting the market. You’re probably going to cringe, but since we knew we were going to be eating lots of traditional Chinese food on our trips we figured the best place for our first meal in China was Pizza Hut. Sometimes, western food is just so good and this was no exception. This Pizza Hut was actually surprisingly fancy with swanky booths and semi-romantic accordion music playing. In an effort to at least try something cultural Megan and I split a curry chicken pizza and once we had all eaten our fill we headed over a few blocks to the ladies market.

We’ve spent a lot of time on our trip in markets and the ladies market in Hong Kong was very much of the same. Stalls selling purses, scarves, watches, souvenirs, not so tasteful underwear and occasionally some cool clothes, lined both sides of the streets. People tried their best to barter down the prices and there was the constant game of up and down until finally a good price was reached. I didn’t end up buying anything but my friends got Hong Kong tee shirts, some scarves and something that can only be describes as a banana hammock shaped like a toucan as a gag gift for a friend.

After the ladies market we decided to take the Star Line Ferry across the bay to Hong Kong Island. Our ship was docked right on the bay across from the island and we had a great view of the skyline. We hopped a ferry across and after taking lots of pictures of the skyline (and seeing some of the buildings used in the Batman movie) we decided to take a cab to Stanley market. Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting Hong Kong to look like but it was actually really beautiful. Someone said that it looked a little like Los Angeles, in that it was a city but it was surrounded by hills. The drive to Stanley market was gorgeous. We drove through the hills, saw the water and all the buildings carved into the sides of the mountains and followed the steep and windy roads into the middle part of the island. It reminded me of Monaco with the windy roads looking over the ocean. We got to Stanley market and shopped around for a little. They had some really nice Chinese handicrafts and I bought some gifts and watched as one of the shop owners did name calligraphy and made custom Chinese stamps for my friend.

We had a MICE performance on the ship at 7pm and I wanted to get back in time to help set up and figure out what was going on. As of that morning I knew that there was a performance and the general idea of it but didn’t really know what I was supposed to be doing or how the piece went. But, MICE is usually an adventure so I just wanted to make sure I was on the ship in time to play. We cut it really close, especially since there was a little confusion with the taxi, but I ran onto the ship at 5 minutes to 7 and has just enough time to change into formal wear, figure out how to play the birinbao and get into place for some pictures. Semester at Sea is launching a big new Sino-US relations program and the ship was packed with a bunch of important alumni and representatives from the host universities. We were going to be playing for people like the President of the University of Virginia, the founder of Semester at Sea, the CEO of Crocs shoes and the woman who is the head of all the Starbucks in Southeast Asia.

The piece we did was called World Strings and we threw it together literally the day before. My friend Keith who is a computer science major wrote this really incredible patch that creates all these layers of sound that you can vary with 6 different controls. Each of us in the “orchestra” had a stringed instrument tuned to E and after starting the piece with a few strong chords we each improvised along with the patch and the other computer controlled sounds. Even though we put it together on such short notice it actually sounded really great. We had a cello, a ukulele, an ud, a danbao, a Thai hammer dulcimer, a guitar and then my birinbao. All of the strings harmonized and we played around with the rhythms and it ended up being a really cool piece. We performed in a place called Tymitz square in the middle of the ship and after the performance John Tymitz, for whom the square is named, came up to us and told us how much he enjoyed hearing the music in his square. We all got a big kick out of this and had a mini SAS fanboy moment.

After MICE, Keith Hussain, Steve, Disha, Sarah and I had made plans to go out to a gay bar and see the Hong Kong night life. We said we were going “out out out”. We met up with our friends Mark and Martha at the 7-11 near a street called Lan Kwai Fong. It was still pretty early but things were already in full swing. Apparently that day there had been a giant rugby tournament so everyone on the street was already celebrating the wins and losses in the street. We grabbed some dinner and after milling through the street we started the walk to the gay bar. Since it was a Sunday night, it was pretty low key but we all hung out, tried to teach Hussain how to dance and had some good conversations with the locals. They told us about how homosexuality was slowly becoming more acceptable in Asia and talked to us a little about what it was like out in Hong Kong. After a while we decided to head back to Lan Kwai Fong to check out the rugby party.

The streets were absolutely packed and the crowds flowed in and out from the bars into the road with music playing, people cheering and crazy costumes in full display. There was a guy dressed like Ronald Macdonald, a male Britney Spears as well as lots of angels, devils, a greenman, some people in drag and plenty of people with hats, face paint and beads. There were lots of SAS kids mixing with locals, tourists and people from all over the world who came to play and watch rugby. I ended up talking to the Scottish rugby team and they were really great, funny guys. They had lost to the Hong Kong Sevens earlier that day but were having a great time nonetheless and boasted proudly that they had beaten the American team last weekend. After bopping around the area, dancing and chatting more with the Scots we decided it was time to head back to ship in order to pack and maybe get some sleep before an early departure the next morning.

After very very few hours of sleep I got up, took a light-speed shower and headed to the union for our 7am trip to Beijing. All of us groggily boarded the busses and napped until we got to the airport. The flight to Beijing was quick and relatively painless, filled with more naps and some journaling. Upon landing in Beijing the group of us headed down through the gates to customs and then caught a tram to the arrivals section where we were supposed to meet our bus and tour guide. My friends Disha, Grace, Kendra and I stuck with the group most of the way to customs but since we were the last to go through the line, we got to the platform just after a tram had left. We waited 6 minutes for the next one, hopped on and made the walk down to the arrivals gate.

Coming through the arrivals gate I was a little surprised at how strangely I felt. I hadn’t been in an airport since coming to the Bahamas and it just made me realize that the next time I do this I’m going to be coming home to see my family. While I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world I definitely got a little excited thinking about coming through the gates at JFK and being able to see my family waiting. I got goose bumps at the thought of seeing my mom waiting for me on the pier in Florida and driving up to school to see my friends for the first time after so long.

Unfortunately this feeling of excitement didn’t last long once the four of us realized that, after looking around the immediate area, our group was nowhere to be found. A pack of 40, white, loud SAS kids is usually not an easy thing to miss so we asked around and no one had seen us. We figured maybe they had gone down to the bus and we should walk down there and check. Well, we walked all up and down the bus terminal, checked the area around the arrivals gate again and then came to the conclusion that we were pretty much stranded in the Beijing airport. Oh yikes.

Being the cool and collected travelers that we were we decided that the best thing to do would be to call the ship’s field office and see if our trip leader had a cell phone we could call. We bought a phone card and after a number of failed attempts and some serious help from the phone card lady we were able to connect with the ship. The field office coordinator told us to see if there was a phone number on our itinerary so we called the tour company’s Hong Kong office and once they realized what was going on they called their local tour guide and instructed us not to move. We stayed put and eventually a woman from the local office came and picked us up. Crisis averted.

We took a taxi with the tour guide over to the bird’s nest and the water cube. After having seen both on display during the summer Olympics it was really cool to see them in person. The four of us only had a limited amount of time since we arrived late so we decided to make the most of it. We wandered around the complex taking pictures and recounting our “left behind” experience. We decided to call ourselves the four horsemen in reference to the left behind book series and made lots of jokes about the new nickname. As we were strolling around the complex we saw three Asian tourists wearing what are best described as panda hats. Basically, it’s the face and ears of a panda, very soft of fluffy, that sits on your head and secures under the chin. We thought these were just about the coolest hats ever and took a few pictures with the guys wearing them, resolving that we needed to purchase them immediately if we ever got the chance.

As big of a kick that we got out of the panda hats, the other Asian tourists got an even bigger kick out of us. In front of the water cube we were pretending to be Michael Phelps and swim through the air and tons of people started taking pictures of us. Finally a few asked if they could take them with us so we posed for a bunch of swim pictures with our new friends. This would become a common theme throughout the trip (other Asian tourists taking pictures with and of us) and it’s kind of strange to think that somewhere in Korea there’s a picture of me in someone’s home, doing my best Michael Phelps impression.

After the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube we headed over to Peking University to settle into our hotel. We were staying at a small hotel on the University campus and would be meeting a bunch of the students later that night. We dropped our stuff off and then walked to a restaurant on campus for our first dinner. All of the food we had in China was served family style at circular tables with a lazy susan in the middle. All the plates were put on the lazy susan and you spin it around in order to share everything. Some of the food was a little hit or miss but it was definitely a good introduction to traditional Chinese food.

After dinner we walked further into campus to go meet some of the Peking University students. When we arrived we were told to split into groups and each would get to go around with one student. Disha, Kendra, Kerri, Dave and I were all together and were joined by a really great girl named Yin. We were still a little hungry for a D2 and since China was way colder than I think we anticipated we were also hoping to buy some jackets. Yin decided the best place to take us was the campus store which was right next to our hotel.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the UConn co-op and I have to say that after seeing the Peking University store I have some suggestions for an upgrade. The PekU store had a full grocery store, campus stuff, books and school supplies, shoes, some really cool women’s clothes, winter jackets, a bakery and a section where you could by American and Chinese movies and TV series for $2-4. We explored the store and tasted some Chinese cookies from the bakery, all the while asking Yin about where she’s from, her family, and college life in China. She was originally from a small town pretty far from Beijing but moved here to study Library Sciences and Information Technology. She has 2 older sisters and 2 younger brothers.

Part of us wanted to go out into Beijing and see the nightlife, but all of us were still tired from the night before. We decided to go get some coffee and tea and take it from there. Yin led us further into campus to this really nice, warm coffee shop located under one of the buildings. It reminded me of Lu’s café at home, except larger and packed with Chinese students. We grabbed a table and it just so happened that we were sitting next to an American exchange student from Alabama. His name was Sam and we talked to him for a while about his experiences in China thus far, getting around and understanding the language and things to know and do in Beijing.

After getting a round of coffee and tea Yin suggested we play a game called Truth or an Adventure. Much like truth or dare, you put a number into your phone between 1 and 100 and your friends take turns guessing. You begin to narrow it down and whoever picks the right number has to choose truth or an adventure. I was lucky enough to pick first and I chose adventure. My adventure was to go up to anyone in the room and make a new friend but somehow I had to slip the sentence “I have a dog named Moxy” into whatever conversation we ended up having. I scouted the room for the perfect target and found two girls who looked like they could be some good new potential friends. I came over and introduced myself and asked them a few questions and the looks on their faced indicated that they thought I was totally nuts. My entire table of friends was staring at us so I decided to just explain the game to them. This was probably cheating, but once they got the gist of it they seemed a lot less nervous. They confessed that I had actually scared them but once they knew what was going on they were really cool. We talked about Semester at Sea, life at PekU, stuff to do in Beijing and, of course, my dog moxy.

After me it was Yin’s turn. She also picked adventure and we tried our best to come up with one. We decided that we would buy a muffin and she would have to try and eat the entire thing in one bite. Yin had been awesome before this, a very sweet and funny guide to be sure, but the muffin moment put her above and beyond and was definitely a bonding moment for us. She couldn’t fit the whole thing in her mouth but she committed and hilarity ensued as she tried to eat as much of the cap while crumbs flew everywhere due to laughter. We played a few more rounds of T or A – Disha made a hat out of napkins, Dave told us about the time he painted a 20ft graffiti mural for a girl, Kerri shouted “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream” while marching around the center of the coffee shop” and Kendra finished the rest of the muffin in one swift bite.

After our tea we knew that we were definitely too tired to go out but also didn’t want to go to sleep just get. We decided to go back to the store to get some movies and snacks and stay in to have a movie night. After browsing the movie selection we decided on The Last Emperor and Farewell my Concubine. Since we were going to see the Forbidden City the next day we figured we’d get a jump on the history. We also bought some snacks and I decided on some apple/kiwi/aloe flavored yogurt and some roasted chicken flavored Pringles. If there’s one thing about Asia that is definitely different from the states, it’s their preferences for potato chip flavors. All the chips are some kind of meat or fish flavor usually and have pictures of steaks, ribs, and thanksgiving dinners on the front. The other day I bought chicken and red wine flavored lays and I’m pretty excited to try them. (editing note: they were weird, but good)

We all went back to the hotel to put on pajamas and met up in Disha and Kerri’s room with our extra blankets and pillows to watch the movie. Apparently in China they don’t ever have sleepovers so the concept of a slumber party and getting together in your pajamas to watch movies was a new one for Yin. We explained the slumber party concept from when you’re a kid and it’s a big deal t have a friend stay over and that even older kids and adults will spend the night with friends. She said that in China you rarely ever sleep at other people’s houses and that she and her friends don’t usually watch movies together. Considering all the time my sister and friends and I spend at Video World it was definitely interesting to note the small difference in culture that we might otherwise have overlooked.

We popped in The Last Emperor and while it was a beautiful movie, I started to fall asleep before the Emperor even reached puberty. Apparently it was the first movie ever allowed to be filmed in the Forbidden City after it became open to the public and it swept the Oscars so I’ll have to come back and finish it sometime. After all of us started to fall asleep we called it a night, said goodbye to Yin and passed out.

saigon, blinders and bubble tea

2009-04-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

After a good conversation we all passed out and napped until we reached the ship. After a very much needed shower we re-convened on the ship for dinner and then headed out to enjoy our last night in Vietnam. I had to go in to get my dress fitted at 9:30 so a little bit before then Kendra, Disha, Hannah and I split off from the group and made plans to meet up later. We had some time to kill so we stopped to get some coffee on the way to the tailor. I didn’t know this until recently but Vietnam is the second highest exporter of coffee in the world and the iced coffee I had was AWESOME. It’s really thick and strong but in a good way and when they add some sweet milk it’s just about perfect.

After coffee we made our way to the dress shop where they fitted my dress. I was a little worried that the actual dress was not going to look like the drawing or that it was going to fit weird but it actually looked great. She needed to take it in a little on top so I left it with the tailor and made plans to pick it up the next afternoon. While I got fitted Kendra, Disha and Hannah browsed around the store. Kendra was thinking of getting another dress made but when she inquired about the price the seamstress made a comment that took a serious swipe at her self esteem. It may have just been a cultural difference or the fact that her English wasn’t great but the comment was hurtful nonetheless and we promptly left and decided it was time to go out for a drink.

The four of us headed to a bar and perused the “girly drinks” section of the menu. Everyone ordered something different and we all took turns tasting, swapping stories and having a good time until we had forgotten all about the seamstress. We had planned to go to this place called Acoustic Café across town so we hailed a cab and headed out. I had heard that Acoustic was popular with locals and they weren’t kidding. It was a really cool, small place with a live band that played American covers and a bunch of singers that rotated sets onstage. It was packed with locals so after getting our drinks we hovered around the bar until some seats opened up. Aside from a few French guys we were the only tourists in the place and it was really cool to see everyone enjoying the music – from Tom Petty to Katy Perry. We stayed until the last set was over and then grabbed a cab back to the center of town.

Everyone was going to go to the opening of a club called Buddha but since it was its first night, no one knew where it was. Plus, Hannah, Disha, Kendra and I weren’t in the mood to be around a giant group of SAS kids just yet so we wandered around a little longer. We took the elevator to the top floor of the Hilton and got to see an awesome view of the city. After walking around a little longer we resigned to just head over to Apocalypse, hoping to run into the rest of our group and dance a little before heading home. The club was packed and we could barely make our way around. We did find our friends though and a bunch of other SAS-ers. The music was good so we stayed a little longer to dance before finally hopping on some motorbikes and heading home.

The next day was our last day in Saigon and Hannah, Disha and I had a mission. Do something cultural and then spend the afternoon at the market. We were tired of seeing things like museums and tourist attractions and wanted to meet people our own age so we decided to go to a local college and just see who we could meet. We got three motorbikes to take us to the school and when we got into the campus we saw that there was some kind of fair going on. We didn’t really know what it was for but there were booths showing knot making, bridge building and there were people giving out what looked like iced tea. In short, we were excited and confused. We stuck out like sore thumbs but people were also really interested in us. We went over to the booth with the “iced tea” and started talking to some of the people who spoke English. They explained that today was a holiday and that the fair was to show what the different disciplines in the University have been studying lately.

We walked around to the booths, meeting people and seeing what they had put together. There was a guy who built a bridge out of bamboo, another who taught me how to tie fancy knots. There were people who knew martial arts and there was a table where you could make a painting and hang it up. Somehow we started talking to one girl named Nguyen. She came with us over to the art table and hung out and painted with us. As we were painting everyone cleared a space in the middle of the quad a we were treated to a martial arts demonstration. It was really awesome. There were 12 students who all did moves in time to music and they also did stick fighting. After them there was a boy and girl who sang a duet in Vietnamese. Once our paintings were done we wanted to see more of the campus so Nguyen offered to take us around.

While we walked around we asked Nguyen about where she was from and what it was like to be a college student in Vietnam. She was originally from a small town North of Saigon but came down to attend the university. She told us that she’s studying chemistry and wants to either be a teacher or a researcher but wasn’t really sure what she wanted to do with it yet. We talked about what her classes were like and what she likes to do with her friends on weekends and she told us about her family. She has a younger sister and an older sister, both of whom went to the same university she’s at now. I actually just got an email from her with pictures of her family on Easter and they’re so cute. While we talked Nguyen took us all around the campus and showed us the buildings and where she studied, the classrooms and labs and the canteen.

In another part of the campus they had carnival games, presumably for the same holiday, but they were some of the weirdest games I’ve ever seen. One was kind of like piñata except you have to smash a piggy bank hanging from a string. There was a ring toss but you had to toss the ring around a duck’s neck. And my personal favorite, there was a ring made of paper with lots of little alcoves in it. Each alcove had a number and in the middle of the ring was baby duckling. Everyone picks a number and the object is for the duck to go into your numbered alcove. The result is everyone standing around this big paper ring yelling at the little duck it Vietnamese in hopes that they will woo him to their space.

After a tour of the campus we asked Nguyen if she knew any good places nearby besides the market to shop around. She took us to a place nearby that was kind of like a Vietnamese Wal-mart. We walked around but didn’t see much so we walked up the street to get bubble tea. Nguyen said that chocolate was her favorite so we all followed suit and ordered 4 chocolate bubble teas. I’d had bubble tea a few times before at home and was looking forward to trying it again in Vietnam. Nguyen’s suggestion did not disappoint, the chocolate was AWESOME. We all sat enjoying our tea and chewing out tapioca bubbles. We looked at the clock and realized that we needed to head over to the market if we wanted to get everything done on time. We figured that Nguyen would want to head back to campus but she was done with class for the day and offered to come along with us. We were so excited to have her come hang out for longer and jumped at the chance.

We took a cab over to the Ben Thanh Market and headed in to shop. Ben Thanh was not just an open air market like we’d seen in Morocco or Thailand; it was a giant indoor labyrinth filled with stalls selling backpacks, tee shirts, jewelry, clothing, DVDs, crafts, food, sweets, and more. It was like Canal Street, stuffed into a warehouse, on crack. All of us had lists of gifts and things we needed to buy so we headed in the direction of tee shirts and backpacks. The vendors in the market were really aggressive and if you stopped to look at something they would automatically latch on in hopes of making a sale. Walking down the aisles they would literally grab at you, hoping to get you into their shop to look at their stuff. It was a little overwhelming, especially at first. However, once we figured out what we wanted it was easy to barter with the vendors and get good prices for the things we wanted. However, Disha is a very visual shopper and if she saw something she liked she would pop into a stall to look at it. However, leaving without buying makes the vendors angry and it’s easy to get a lot of people grabbing at you and yelling. We had to institute a “blinders policy” where Disha put her hands up on the sides of her face until we reached our destination. The entire time Nguyen was a patient and funny shopping buddy. She helped us convert from US dollars to Dong and having a native speaker helped us in our bargaining. Plus she got a kick out of watching us try to deal with the vendors and all of us spent most of the afternoon laughing.

After stocking up on gifts, souvenirs and lots of bootleg DVDs everyone was hungry for lunch. We decided to go to a popular chain place called Pho 24 to eat. Pho is a traditional Vietnamese dish which consists of a big bowl of noodle soup, often with meat and egg in it, usually served with lime, chili and plum sauces, green onions and other things you can throw in on the side. All of us got big bowls of steamy chicken Pho and dug in. The broth was tasty, the noodles were good and we slurped down our bowls in no time. After lunch we had to go back to the tailors to pick up our dresses. We took our time walking to the tailors across town, stopping to look in some shops and just talking more to Nguyen. After we picked up our dresses it was time to part ways so we said goodbye to Nguyen and thanked her for all of her help. It was really great getting to talk to someone our age in Vietnam and we’ve communicated via email a few times since.

After we split up Hannah and Disha decided to go back to the ship but I had one last mission to accomplish. My friend Vinny, who went on Semester at Sea this past fall, also got a suit made when he was in Vietnam. However, the girl who he was with in Saigon, a friend of a friend named Chau, told him that she would ship it to him since it wasn’t going to be finished in time. But, Chau forgot to send it and then moved to Australia for the semester, leaving Vinny sad and suit-less. So, since I was in Saigon he had emailed me the address of her parent’s store and I vowed that I would go and get his suit. I had the address and the name of the store, The Teddy Shop. I figured they either sold bears on lingerie and I wasn’t sure which was better. Nonetheless I caught a cab and headed to the address. It turns out it was bears and I walked into the store and was surrounded by teddy bears, bear clothing, bear houses, you name it. I went up to the register and asked for the name of the friend and tried to explain why I was there. However, no one spoke English. Hmm, this is difficult. I tried again to explain, mentioning the name again and showing them the paper I had and the phone number Vinny had given me. After about 15 minutes of broken communication and hand gestures something finally clicked and after making a few calls I was put on the phone with Chau’s mom. She came down from upstairs and told me all about how she had met Vin last semester and her husband was going next door to their apartment to get the suit. Chau’s mom was really cool and very hip. She was sleekly dressed, spoke perfect English and was the owner of the Teddy shop as well as two other branches. After a few minutes her husband came in and had Vin’s suit in hand. Mission Accomplished.

I was short on cash and I was pretty sure I could navigate my way back, so after thanking Chau’s parents I grabbed my stuff and started to walk. I had a map in Vietnamese and did my best to find the names of the streets and match them to the signs. On some streets I was definitely the only white person and I stuck out like a sore thumb walking down the street with my backpack full of stuff and my little map. However, I was able to find my way without any problem and I was pretty proud of myself when I turned the corner and was right in front of the market again. After grabbing one or two more last minute gifts and slung my backpack over my back, grabbed a motorbike taxi and zipped back to the ship just in time to grab an iced coffee before on-ship time.

Once we all got back on board there was a bbq waiting for us and everyone was in a great mood, swapping Vietnam stories and enjoying hamburgers and hotdogs. Hannah and Disha came back from picking up their dresses and brought a bunch of bubble tea with them. I was SO excited to see more bubble tea and Hannah and I had the bright idea of playing a game to see who could fit more of the tapioca balls in their mouth at once. This game proved to be incredibly funny as our faces got chubbier and chubbier and it got harder to keep everything in while laughing at the jokes our friends were making. After lots and lots of bubbles the final count came out to 78 for Hannah and 92 for me. Woo Hoo! We finished off a great day with everyone piling into my room to show Steve his dresses and to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was hilarious.

We weren’t set to actually leave Vietnam until early the next morning and we had heard that it was a sight to see when we sailed down the Saigon River next to small rice boats along the Delta. I’m not a morning person but I wanted to see us leave so I decided not to set my alarm and if my body woke up then I would get up. Well somehow my body did wake up and I dragged myself up to the 7th deck to watch us sail away from Saigon. It really was a beautiful sight to see everyone waking up along the coast of the river, starting their days on their boats or in the rice fields. I ran into Betty Waldron, a woman who, along with her husband Milt, has been involved with SAS for many years. They’ve sailed a numerous voyages and Milt was here supervising the medical students who were onboard with us. We talked about travel, how the world has changed since she and Milt started traveling and about the SAS program. We also bonded over talking about medical practice, malpractice insurance and growing up with a doctor in the family. I talked about my Dad, how much his patients love him and the great experience I had working in his office last summer. It may have been an early morning but the sights along the river and my conversation with Betty made getting up well worth it.

All in all, Vietnam was a country that surprised me in a lot of ways. I was surprised at how developed the cities were and how that commercialization was able to coexist seemingly peacefully with the simple agrarian lifestyle of the more rural parts of the country. I was surprised by how communism affected the country and how the government officials (especially Ho Chi Minh), were celebrated in schools from elementary to university level. But mostly, I was surprised by the people and their kindness toward Americans. During the Vietnam War, we tore their country apart. We murdered hundreds of thousands of people and burned villages to the ground. And yet, the people we met weren’t bitter or anti-American at all. On the contrary, they were overwhelmingly hospitable and kind. They mentioned that our countries were not always friends, but that it was water under the bridge now. And perhaps that sentiment may have been different if we were in the northern part of the country, but it was still struck by how quickly the Vietnamese seemed to forgive and forget. I wondered if we as Americans would be able to do that if the tables were turned and what generational legacy we would pass on about ourselves. However, on the whole, I was thankful for the opportunity to see Vietnam. I don’t think I ever would have traveled there on my own and I would have missed out on meeting great people, the thrill of riding on motorbikes (and regular bikes), my first taste of communism, beautiful scenery, and the really awesome iced coffee.

i ate a fish and i liked it

2009-04-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

The next morning we got up bright and early for our overnight trip to the Mekong Delta. My friend Greg had put the trip together and the ten of us were excited to get out of Saigon and see more of the country. The trip was Me, Hannah, Disha, Taylor, Caroline, Greg, Brendan, Skylar, Nate, Mike and Greg’s friend Dan who had traveled on Semester at Sea in spring 2007 and was currently volunteering at an orphanage in Cambodia.

We got off the ship and were met by a little bus with our name on it and our guide for the next two days, Mr. Tan. We hopped on the bus and all clocked out for the two hour drive out of the city. On our way to the delta we stopped at a Cao Dai temple. Caodaism is a religion that attempts to create an ideal philosophy through the fusion of the secular and religious philosophies of East and West. It includes elements of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, native Vietnamese spirits, Christianity and Islam. The Cao Dai temples are known for their color, beauty and fusion of religious symbols.

After seeing the temple we continued our drive to the harbor where we met the boat that would take us around the delta. We all hopped on with our bags and Mr. Tan grabbed the mic to tell us a little about the area. After he was done he instructed us to sing. We sang some sweet 90s music, a few classics and some Beatles songs which Mr. Tan knew and joined in on. Everyone was in a great mood when we reached the first little island where we were treated to a traditional Vietnamese music performance. There was a guitar, a danbao and what looked like a two-stringed banjo, as well as two female singers. The music was interesting but beautiful. The voices sounded great but were definitely not what we would think of as traditional singing voices in the west. The sounds are much more nasal and sung from a different part of the throat. The instruments however, reminded me of a southern bluegrass band in their composition and rhythm. All in all it was a neat performance.

After the first island we hopped back on the boat and floated further down the delta to another island for lunch. In terms of heat and humidity, India and Thailand were only opening acts for the main show of Vietnam. It was blistering hot and we were sweaty and gross to say the least. Luckily it was nice in the boat and the breeze coming off the water cooled us off a little. We arrived at a second island where we sat down for a traditional lunch. We were given the rice papers and lettuce to make rolls as well as some already fried spring rolls and other appetizers. The main part of the lunch though, was another whole fish, eyes and all, that had been fried on the outside and was now propped up to look as though it was still swimming on the plate. We went to town on it and honestly, it was some of the tastiest and freshest fish I’ve had. After we’d had our fill of fish it was time to go for a bike ride.

Mr. Tan walked us over to a bunch of bikes and each of us picked one out. Once we made sure that everyone’s had at least one wheel with working brakes we lined up behind Mr. Tan and headed out. We rode over the thin bumpy path out from the area where the restaurant was and then turned out onto the main street. The street was paved in some places and bumpy in others. We saw other locals on bikes and motorbikes, people carrying baskets of goods to the market and women walking with children. We rode down a busy street with shops and people selling things outside and then came out the other side onto a less busy and more scenic road. We drove by houses and a school and continued over small bridges, breezing by greenery on every side.

Honestly, riding bikes was so much fun. I felt like a little kid again. Aside from being a little bumpy the surface we were on was relatively flat so it wasn’t an exhausting workout and we were able to be cooled by the breeze and enjoy the scenery. I loved it. As long as you could see the person in front of you it was pretty hard to get lost so well all just zipped around at our own pace and had fun. We reached the end of the trail and Mr. Tan pulled over to a roadside shack. He bought us all waters and coconuts with the tops cut off and we all took a break to enjoy our drinks. We were laughing and joking with Mr. Tan and decided we would start calling ourselves the Tan Clan. Also, over the course of two days Mr. Tan would adopt a number of nicknames including Master Tan, Tin Man, Mr. TanMan and Mr. Miyagi. In short, we were big Tan Fans. After our drinks we got back on our bikes and made our way back to the restaurant. We had some bike malfunctions along the way but we all made it back in one piece and it a great mood after our ride.

We headed back to the boat and Mr. Tan took us to the island where we would be staying. We arrived at our “homestay” and we were led into our open air room where we would be spending the night. Each of us was given a cot with a mosquito net, blanket, pillow and a towel. We had a little time to hang out before dinner and Mr. Tan took us to one of the smaller canals to catch minnows. Everyone was given a stick with a string and hook on the end and some bait. It was hard to catch the fish since they were so small but a few people caught some and brought them back to the site with us to cook.

We sat around and talked and walked down to the canal to watch the sun set. All of us were hungry so we were especially excited for a dinner of fish, spring rolls, rice and these really awesome crepe/omelet things that the women who lived at our site had taught us how to make earlier. We also got to eat the minnows that everyone had caught that afternoon, cooked up in a salty red sauce. They were tiny but tasty and everyone was proud of the food they had caught.

After dinner we were treated to more Vietnamese music and then Mr. Tan took us on a torch-lit walk through the jungle. We had torches made of dry palm fronds all wrapped together and lit on the ends. We felt like the contestants on survivor walking to tribal council with our torches. It was dark all around us and all we could see was what light was cast by the torch. After making our way back Disha, Skylar, Brendan and I decided to go for a short walk down another path. The torches had gone out but we were only going straight and then turning around so we figured we’d be fine. We were walking and laughing when all of a sudden we heard something in front of us. At first I thought it was a person and almost peed myself and then it started to growl and bark. I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face and the sound scared us so much that we all screamed and ran as fast as we could back to the camp. Luckily all of us made it back alive and were able to recount our triumphant brush with death the rest of the group and have a good laugh.

Once everyone was back and settled we took turns using the shower and sat around talking about our homes, life on SAS and what we thought of Vietnam so far. For my Ecoacoustics class I’m supposed to make recordings of sounds I hear in port and I had brought one of the recorders along with me on this trip. I had taken it out to record the sounds of the jungle at night and we deiced to have some fun with it. Greg can make some pretty legit bird sounds so we started with those. However it quickly devolved into cows mooing, what sounded like a bird dying, crows screetching, stich from the movie Lilo and Stich, the announcer from GUTS, crocodile sounds from that arcade game and Hannah’s dead-on impression of a Halloween ghost decoration. And, just in case you thought we were mature, a chorus of fart noises. After playing with the recorder we were all getting tired so we get into our respective mosquito nets and told a few stories before falling asleep.

The next morning we got up at 6:15 to go for a bike ride with Mr. Tan to the market. The sun wasn’t all the way up yet so the morning was pleasantly cool. We bumped along the unpaved roads on our bikes and arrived at the market to see people doing their daily shopping. There were lots of mothers and children as well as many pregnant women. Seeing all the mothers and children made me think of mom and how she would have gotten a kick out of all the women. All of the kids I saw in Vietnam we so incredibly cute and I may or may not have wanted to take a few home with me. I resisted though and after exploring the market a little we rode our bikes home for breakfast. After a good meal of bread, jam, soft cheese and awesome Vietnamese coffee, we packed up our bags and hopped back on the boat.

We took the boat over to another island where our first stop was a place where they made honey. The guy who worked there pulled a comb out of the box and there were bees all over it. He told us we could touch it with our finger and lick off the honey if we wanted to. I was a little nervous at first but I went ahead and touched the bees anyway. I’m pretty glad I did too, since I didn’t get stung and the honey was pretty tasty. Then we sat down and they made us some tea with sour oranges and honey in it. I’ve had some pretty good tea on this trip but this tea was incredible; almost as good as Moroccan mint tea and that’s saying something. They also gave us shots of rice wine and banana wine, both of which were very strong and not particularly good tasting. Luckily there were sweets on the table to get the taste away and we snacked on pieces of candied ginger, coconut and pineapple.

This place also had two cages with a medium sized snake in one and a giant snake in the other .The man took out the medium sized snake first and asked if anyone wanted to hold it. No one did and I felt bad that he had taken the snake out for nothing so I said I would. He put the snake over my shoulders on my hands and he just kind of hung out there, looping around my arms a little. I was like a wussier version of Britney Spears that time at the VMAs, minus all the slutty. I gave the man back the snake and he proceeded to take out the very large one in the next tank. My friend Skylar volunteered to hold that one and it was honestly, huge. He chilled on Skylar’s shoulders and arms while we snapped some pictured but once he started to get a little too wiggly we decided to head out and followed Mr. Tan as he led the way.

Our next stop was a place where they made coconut candy. They opened up the coconuts and extracted all the pulp with a grinder. From there the pulp is put under a press which you rotate using a giant lever. The press extracts the coconut milk which is then boiled and mixed in copper pots until it’s thick and workable. Then they pour it out, roll it and cut it into little squares. They mix it with peanuts, chocolate and banana flavor and after its cut it gets hand-wrapped with rice paper and regular paper before being packaged. It’s a pretty demanding process but the candy is very tasty. I also bought a bunch of packs of it so you may get to try some very soon.

After seeing where they make the candy we walked over to a canal where we hopped into little 3-person canoes for a ride down the canals. The tide was at its lowest point and while it was sometimes difficult for us to maneuver through the water. The small canal was filled with boats and we often had to grab the sides of other canoes in order to push ourselves through a tight spot. Overall though, it was a calm and beautiful ride. We could see the back porches of peoples’ houses, hear their roosters crowing and see them bringing their boats full of things to sell at the floating market. We were given rice hats to keep the sun at bay and relaxed as we slowly made our way back to the larger Delta.

Once we got out of our canoes, we boarded our larger boat and headed back toward land. We got back on our little bus and started to make out way back to the ship. On the way we stopped at a giant Buddha. I thought the two-story Buddha we saw in Thailand was sizeable but it didn’t even hold a candle to this guy. I have absolutely terrible height, depth and weight perception but I would guess that it was around 20 stories tall, all white and standing on a beautifully sculpted lotus flower. Very cool. After seeing the Buddha and enjoying one last lunch with Mr. Tan we started back to the ship.

On the way home we talked to Dan about his time on Semester at Sea and what it was like for him to come home. He said that it was hard to re-adjust to being back and that you never want to buy anything. Everything seems expensive once you’ve been abroad and it’s strange not to be able to barter. He said that it was hard to come back to American culture and to feel like we take a lot for granted. He also said that he has a much lower tolerance for complaining than he used to. Things that he used to complain about, he doesn’t anymore and he expressed how frustrating it was to hear his friends complain about things that seemed so unimportant. However, he also said that once you get over the initial shock SAS stays with you in a lot of good ways. He was introduced to the orphanage where he is now volunteering in Cambodia through semester at sea. He keeps in touch with his good friends and wants to go on a reunion voyage. And he said that SAS really opened him up to travel and made him want to do it as much as possible.

Vietom nom nom nom

2009-04-19T02:52:00.000-07:00

So it’s been a very long time since when left Vietnam but I’m going to do my best to summarize all that we did and the big things that I took away from my experiences there.

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, on March 22nd. Coming into Vietnam, I really didn’t know too much about the country. I knew a little about the Vietnam War but other than the bare essential facts I really had no idea what the country was like now or what to expect when we arrived.

A bunch of my friends and I had signed up for an FDP, so around noon we boarded the busses headed out to see the Cu Chi tunnels and enjoy a Vietnamese lunch. Upon arriving at the restaurant we were met with what would be pretty much our standard meal in Vietnam. Unlike the States, most of the food in Asia is served family style, everyone taking a little of each plate. We were given really tasty fried spring rolls, other little appetizers, soup, and pineapple. After eating our fill we got back on the bus to head to the Cu Chi tunnels. On the way we stopped at a cemetery for those who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. The cemetery was very open and airy with rows of matching, white marble graves. In the center was a large sculpture of a man holding a dying woman in his arms. It actually reminded me of both a small version of Arlington national cemetery and the quiet Jewish cemetery in New Jersey where my grandfather is buried. After a short stroll around we were herded back onto the busses and finally arrived at the Cu Chi tunnels.

Located right next to Westmoreland’s base from the war, the Cu Chi tunnels had been in use since the mid 1940s. They were cramped, tight, underground passages where men women and children lived for years when at war. They were used as a base for the Viet Cong from which they could launch strategic attacks and then seemingly disappear into thin air. We watched a video about the tunnels and then were taken around the compound as we learned more about what life in the tunnels was like and the various military campaigns perpetrated on both sides. There was a range where you could shoot military weapons and we were shown the various traps that were set to catch American G.I.s. Most of them involved very sharp spikes and looked like something I would not be pleased to find underfoot.

Finally we were given the chance to go into the tunnels. We climbed down inside and followed one another through the underground labyrinth of passages. The tunnels were tiny, hot and cramped. We crawled on our hands and knees through the dark and dust, finally making out way back out into the sunlight. After maybe 10 minutes in the tunnels we were dirty, sweaty and thankful for clean cool air. The Vietnamese would spend up to two years underground living in these spaces and we later learned that the tunnels we had crawled through had been enlarged 40%. Yikes.

After out adventure in the tunnels we headed back to the ship to clean up and go out for dinner. After a really awesome shower we met up and took the shuttle to the Rex hotel at the center of town. We walked for a little while and after grabbing a tasty meal decided to explore Saigon and find a place to go out. One of the faculty members from the ship, Bob, was playing a concert at a Jazz club called Sax n’ Art and a bunch of us decided to go watch. The club was small with a stage to the left with just enough room for a piano, drum set and mics for a sax, guitar player, bassist and a singer. Bob played a few songs with their local backup band and then asked if the students who he usually jams with on the ship wanted to come up and join him. A bunch of my friends who play with him every night in our piano lounge hopped up on stage and played for a crowd of SAS-ers and locals.
After a little more jazz we decided we wanted to go dance so we headed back to the center of town near the Opera House to a club called Apocalypse Now. Seeing how it was a weeknight the club was filled with mostly SAS kids. There were a few locals however and everyone was together having a good time on the dance floor. Being on the ship the only time we really get to hear new music from the US is when we’re in clubs or bars in port so everyone was excited to hear new songs and have a good time dancing. At the end of the night we grabbed cabs back to the ship and turned in.

The next morning Taylor, Hannah and I got up early for a service visit to a school for the disabled. After a short bus ride we arrived at the Truong Dan Lap Da Thien School. We were met by the principal who explained to us a little about what the school does and the kinds of children who attend it. Most of the kids are from rural areas and through a government program are able to attend the school. Some are deaf or hearing impaired and the rest have either Down’s syndrome or another kind of mental disability. They had a wide age range with children as young as 5 who attend the kindergarten, and children in the hearing impaired class who were as old as 14 or 15. After learning a little about the school we were able to split into groups to meet the kids and visit their classrooms. The school was actually really nice and the kids were great. They were so friendly and excited by our visit. Also, in comparison to the visit I did in India, the children at Da Thien were given a lot of attention and care. Their teachers were patient and engaging and it was really great to see the program functioning so well. We visited a few of the classrooms and the students showed us what they had been learning, like songs, reading and writing. My mother knows a little bit of sign language and I know even less but I did my best to sign to some of the little girls and was able to spell out my name to them.

After visiting the classrooms everyone was brought into the common area and we were given toys, coloring books, bubbles and games were allowed to let loose and play. It was really fun and we had a great time with the kids. We taught them head, shoulders, knees and toes and the hokey pokey and they sang us a song about Ho Chi Minh. I grabbed a bottle of bubbles and one of the little boys came over to join me. He sat on my lap and I showed him how to blow bubbles. He was seriously into the bubbles and I think we spent the next 20 minutes just blowing bubbles, popping them and trying to catch them on the wand and start again. After a little while I joined some of the older kids drawing pictures. They were actually really good at drawing and were making graffiti writing and DJs and all sorts of really legit drawings. Finally I hung out with a little girl who had a sticker book. We picked out stickers to give to the other kids and she gave me one to put on my cheek. After a little more time playing a few of us went into the kitchen to help set up and serve lunch. The kids were fed in their classrooms and they set up two tables in the common area for us.

At this lunch we were introduced to the Vietnamese concept of “make your own spring rolls,” which we would re-visit at most meals from that point on. We were given bowls of water, stacks of rice paper, plates with lettuce, herbs and some pineapples and a whole cooked fish. What we learned (after some serious trial and error) was that you wet the rice paper in the water so it’s workable, put the greens, pineapple and some fish meat inside and then roll it up. It actually tastes pretty great once you get it all together but it definitely took a little while for us to put the rice paper and the water together resulting in a lot of people snacking on some very dry rice paper. Oh well.

After our visit to the school we headed back to the ship and re-grouped to figure out the afternoon. Taylor and I wanted to find a place to get dresses made and Nate and Jordan wanted to get fitted for suits. Hannah, who had gone to a tailor the day before came with us and we headed in the director of her tailor shop. Earlier that week my friend Steve, who is an art major, had sketched out a dress for me and I brought the drawing along as a template. Hannah’s tailor had too many orders to take anymore to Taylor and I ventured next door to ask if they could make our stuff. The woman said that she could make my dress and Taylor’s suit. I showed her the design and she took my measurements and I picked out fabric. The dress Steve designed was three layers with the bottom two visible on top and bottom. I chose a bronze, brown and cream fabrics and Taylor chose an olive-colored fabric for her two piece suit. Taylor and the boys were going to head to the market but Hannah and I wanted to do something more cultural since Hannah had gone to the market the day before. We decided to split off and take a cab to the war remnants museum.

We arrived at the museum and made our way inside to look at the exhibits. Formerly called the Museum of War Atrocities, the War Remnants Museum is operated by the Vietnamese government and chronicles much of the devastation suffered by the Vietnamese people during the war. Upon entering the first room we slowly made our way around the exhibit, examining the photographs and reading the explanations. There were photos of American soldiers holding guns to the heads of Vietnamese men and women. Photos of villages burning, bodies in piles, and miles of scorched jungles. The descriptions chronicled the raids, burnings and the war of attrition carried out by the American soldiers. There was an area of the exhibit dedicated to a raid that took place in a small rural village where, among others, two grandparents and their three young grandchildren were killed and their village was burnt to the ground.

As we moved through the exhibit we reached the section that detailed the devastation brought on by dioxin and Agent Orange. During the war 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange resulting in 400,000 death and disabilities and 500,000 children born with birth defects. There were photos of men and women who had been badly disfigured or affected by the diseases brought on by exposure to dioxin, as well as those in the next generation who were born with birth defects or mental and physical disabilities. There were fetuses that were badly disfigured and testimonies about the chemical makeup of Agent Orange. There was also a section about the American soldiers who were affected by it and the summit that was held on the topic in Ho Chi Minh City in 2007.

There was another section of the museum on weaponry and another which displayed art by local children, expressing their thoughts on peace, war and cultural harmony. Finally, another section of the museum displayed a timeline of events in the war and gave a short history of Vietnam from its occupation by France all the way through until gaining their independence.

Honestly, a lot of what was in the museum was hard to look at. It was hard to come to terms with the things that our country did and our often blatant disregard for human life. It was hard to reconcile why we were there at all and the fact that we literally burnt their country to the ground. Granted, we understood that the museum presented a very biased view of the conflict. There were atrocities committed on both sides and to say that the Vietnamese were the sole victims would be both ignorant and absolutely disrespectful of the Americans who fought and died there. But the things that stuck with me after leaving the museum rested in our reasoning for being there in the first place and the cultural and historical legacy that Vietnam has now in our country.

As a young person, I was angry at myself, at the shipboard administrators and at the American education system for not preparing me for this. I walked out of the museum feeling like I had been uneducated and I felt very ignorant. Sure I had learned about the Vietnam War in AP U.S. History in high school, but it was something we glazed over between WWII and the present day, at the end of the year. I could have taken the initiative to seek out more information on my own, but I didn’t. I had thought that we would learn about the Vietnam War in Global Studies, but the professors speaking to us are from an older generation and when they became emotionally affected talking about the material, the rest of us were left in the dust. Aside from a few minutes on Domino Theory no one really explained to us in detail why we got involved, how the conflict escalated, what happened and how we ended up getting out. For an event that was paramount in shaping the generation before us, we knew so little. I felt uneducated.

It was a feeling shared by a lot of us on the ship, both in Vietnam and China, and we discussed it at length. My friend Dave commented that we learn about the Boston Tea Party and WWII over and over in every history class we take, but we rush over the Vietnam War and even the first Gulf War and don’t really get the chance to understand them. But the truth is that these events play a far bigger role in shaping the world that we are going to inherit than the sugar tax or the Platt amendment or the invention of the cotton gin. What I took away from the War Remnants Museum was a greater desire to understand the war and our role in it and the hope that our country won’t make the same mistake twice.

Hannah and I spent a lot of time after the museum talking about what we had seen, and our perceptions of the war, America, and Vietnam as we made our way back to the center of the city. We had a map but the museum was off its borders so we walked in the general direction until we found a street with a familiar name and made our way back to the Rex hotel. The shuttle from the Rex to the ship left every half hour and we made a quick stop around the corner to get a bottle of water before heading back to catch the bus. Unfortunately, we must have taken a long time counting our change because when we got back to the Rex the bus had just left. We didn’t want to wait another half hour and just as we were about to try and make a plan a guy on a motorbike taxi goes “Ship? I take you. $1” One of the things I really like about Hannah is that she is always down for an adventure. We took one look at each other, looked at the bike and decided why not? He called over a friend and each of us grabbed a helmet and hopped on the back of one of the bikes.

If there is one thing that is memorable about Saigon it’s the motorbike traffic. The city has very few cars but there are literally seas of motorbikes, all driving and weaving around. Everyone wears helmets and often mouth and nose covers that look like surgical masks. It’s not uncommon to see whole families on motorbikes with children sitting on laps, or in front of the driver. Crossing the street is also an adventure. There are only crosswalks and signs in some parts of the city, and crossing the street is all about taking a deep breath and just stepping off the curb. The key is to go at a steady pace and make eye contact with the drivers. They anticipate you walking so they’ll swerve around you, but if you make sudden stops or run you might get hit.

Hannah and I held on tight to our respective drivers as we headed into the fray of motorbikes. Honestly, I was a little nervous because they told us not to go on the bikes and to be careful about exhaust burns but riding on the back of the motorbike was AWESOME. It wasn’t crazy fast, the breeze was great and it was just really fun. We got back to the ship quickly and cheaply and from then on Hannah and I were hooked on riding motorbikes.

We showered and grabbed some dinner and then met up with some other friends to go out. We decided to walk around downtown Saigon and check out the night market. I hadn’t been to a Vietnamese market yet so it was fun to see what kind of stuff they were selling. They had lots of polos, tee shirts, northface backpacks and jackets, Vietnamese crafts, shoes, clothes and food. We strolled around the night market and decided to grab some ice cream on our way back to the ship. We went into the ice cream parlor and checked out the menu. Most of my friends got vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce but I figured I may as well eat something adventurous so I got a longan ice cream. Longan is a Vietnamese fruit but I had never tried it before and didn’t know what it was going to taste like.

Everyone got their ice creams and after taking a few bites I still couldn’t really decide if mine was good or not. The ice cream itself tasted ok but there was something weird about the longan fruit. I had my friends taste it and we all agreed that there was some kind of aftertaste that we couldn’t put our finger on. Finally my friend Ben tasted it and he said, “It’s like fruit, but with the aftertaste of bacon”. He was absolutely right. Ew. After realizing that I was eating a baconfruit sundae I decided that I had definitely eaten my fill and once we were all done we headed back to ship for the night. We had a trip to the Mekong Delta scheduled for the next day and knew that we were going to need our sleep.

i lub thailand

2009-03-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

Wow. Thailand.

I have to say that heading into Southeast Asia I really didn’t have a lot of plans. I knew I wanted to have an adventure and fly by the seat of my pants but I really didn’t have any expectations about the amazing country that I was about to encounter in Thailand. What I found was a place that was colorful, spicy, friendly and overwhelmingly beautiful. However, more than anything else, Thailand was fun. It was the perfect combination of an exciting culture, lucky opportunities and amazing travel companions. So let’s start at the very beginning…

The first day we docked in Laem Chabang, a port city about 2.5 hours south of Bangkok. That afternoon a bunch of my friends and I had all signed up for a visit to the Pattaya Elephant Village so after lunch we hopped on the bus and got on our way. We arrived at the elephant village and were greeted by about 15 elephants! I really love elephants so I was immediately excited. We were able to feed them bunches of bananas and stroke their trunks. It’s crazy how they use their trunks as an arm, scooping up the bananas, picking them off and popping them into their mouths. If they smell the bananas they immediately stick their trucks out in the direction and grope around to try and find them, like hungry children asking for sweets. This tactic resulted in a lot of elephant snot and a couple messy banana grabs, but no one really minded.

Once everyone got settled our host asked us if anyone would be interested in helping to bathe the elephants. A few people volunteered and hopped on the elephants’ backs. We all ran down to the river to watch as the elephants trudged into the water and dunked themselves under. Everyone was soaked, laughing and having a great time. Once they were done with their bath we all came back and our host told us about how elephants had formerly been used for labor in the timber industry before it was outlawed by the Thai government. He demonstrated how an elephant master trains his animal and how, once the master has achieve absolute trust, his elephant will lay down in front of him to show that he or she is not afraid. The elephant who was demonstrating lay down and it was such a silly and surprising thing to see. You never see elephants lying down and she looked kind of like a big wrinkly dog.

They then showed us how to get onto the elephants back by holding onto the ear, stepping on the knee joint and hoisting yourself up. Everyone got a chance to hop up on the elephants’ backs and go for a quick ride around the village. After coming back together we got to meet a male elephant and one who had formerly worked in a circus. The elephants came right up to us while we were sitting and were so big and beautiful and gentle. I was in the front and literally had an elephant standing next to me for a lot of the presentation. Very cool. Finally, we were treated to a Thai drum performance and then took one more ride around the village before it was time to go.

After the elephant village a few of us decided to stay in Pattaya instead of heading back to the ship. Pattaya is a beach town with lots of restaurants, shops, bars and a number of go-go clubs. My friends Steve, Hussain, Disha, Keith, Martha and I split off on our own and decided to explore and find some dinner. We found a restaurant and immediately settled in for a meal and some local Thai beer. We ordered dinners and I got a dry aromatic peanut curry with shrimp. It was definitely spicier than I had anticipated but it was so tasty. We took turns tasting everyone else’s food, finished our beers and went to go explore some more. We had heard that there was a night market in Pattaya so we walked around trying to find it. We shopped a little and eventually found a network of stalls selling all kinds of souvenirs, clothes, muy thai gear, backpacks and pretty much anything you can imagine. We had a great time shopping and joking around and after making it out of the market we decided to go find a place to sit a have a drink.

We walked down the street and the Thai women would catcall from inside the bars, beckoning to our male friends and trying to pull them inside. We had learned a lot about the sex trade and sex workers in Thailand and it was kind of shocking to see the women (and men as women) in person, literally in almost every bar and club along the streets. We finally found a place with less aggressive women and after our drinks we decided to go out in search of street food.

We walked around past all the bars and found a few street stalls out in front of a 7-11. We went in and bought some Thai snacks and drinks and when we got back out there were plates of noodles with egg and pork waiting for us. They were hot, fresh and absolutely delicious. After our snacks we saw a phone café down the street so we stopped there to make some quick calls home. While we were waiting we watched the bar across the street which was full of Thai women dancing and, as we saw everywhere else in Pattaya, lots of older white men enjoying their company. A bunch of other people on the ship went to go see ping pong shows, but luckily everyone in my group was unanimously creeped out by the idea. If you don’t know what a ping pong show is, I promise you don’t want to.

I went inside the cafe to make a quick phone call and when I came out I saw everyone huddled around a street cart which had piles of insects on it. My friend Steve informed me that he bought a bag of grasshoppers and we were all going to eat them. The man at the cart fried up the grasshoppers, seasoned them and gave the bag to Steve. I really don’t like bugs so I couldn’t even make myself stick my hand in the bag to touch them. I actually tried to but then freaked out and dropped my grasshopper on the ground. My friend Keith just popped it in his mouth like a chip and Steve, Martha and Hussain all sucked it up and chomped theirs down. I kept saying I would grab it by the thorax and Martha said that I definitely was not allowed to say thorax if she had any hope of eating hers. Finally Hussain grabbed the last grasshopper, a big one, and I let him pop it in my mouth. Disha got the head and I got the body and both of us freaked and danced around while we chewed and finally swallowed. Honestly, it was really crunchy but it tasted fine, kind of like popcorn or soy nuts. Plus, now I can say I ate a grasshopper.

After our buggy snack we decided to catch a taxi home. All the taxis from Pattaya were pickup trucks with roofs, open sides and benches that you sit on in the back of the truck. We all piled into a truck and made the 40 minute drive back to the port. The breeze was great and we enjoyed laughing about the grasshoppers, hookers and silly things the whole way home. When we got back to the port all of our friends were sitting outside, hanging out, and recounting their adventures in Pattaya. We joined them for a little while, laughing and having a good time until it was time for bed.

I really wanted to have an adventure in Thailand and I had originally planned to go to Bangkok the next day and stay there until it was time to get back on the ship. I had toyed with the idea of flying to Phuket or trying to go to this Half Moon Party on an island off of Koh Sumoi but both of those seemed expensive and involved flying which I didn’t want to do on my own. However, Keith, Steve and Hussain were all going on an SAS trip to this island called Koh Samet which is only an hour taxi and 15 minute boat ride from our port. They said that I could stay with them in their hotel room for free and basically just hang out. I decided that this was exactly the kind of adventure I wanted and by the time we got out of the taxi at the port I had decided that I definitely wanted to do it. My friend Hannah was sitting outside when we got back and after she decided to come with me I knew it was going to be great.

The Koh Samet trip wasn’t until Wednesday morning so I still had the whole next day to myself. I had hopped online the night before trying to figure out something to do and had come across a Thai cooking class that this woman Angsana Andersson teaches in her home. I love cooking and I was even more excited about the idea of learning traditional food in a home setting. I had written her on short notice and wasn’t sure if she was going to get back to me, but when I got back on the ship after Pattaya I had a message from Angsana saying that she would be able to teach me the next day and that I should call her when I arrived in Bangkok.

The next morning I hopped on a bus and took the 2.5 hour drive up to Bangkok. I called Angsana and she told me to come by her house around noon. I had some time to kill so I walked around this area mall called Central World. It was a giant, westernized mall and I decided to find some food since I had skipped breakfast and didn’t want to cook on an empty stomach. There was a pizza place that I had seen ads for so I stopped in to order some food. I got a Tom Yung pizza with shrimp, calamari, pineapple, mushrooms and Thai chili sauce. I figured if I was going to eat chain restaurant pizza it should at least be interesting.
When it was almost 12 I hopped on the Bangkok version of the subway, an elevated network called the sky train. I got off at the Ohn Nut station and made the short walk to Angsana’s house. She was at the store buying ingredients when I arrived and I was greeted by her mother. Angsana came back and introduced me to her husband and 1-year old daughter Victoria. Originally, she had been working in Bangkok teaching Thai to foreigner when she met her husband who is originally from Sweden. After they married they moved to Florida for a few years and then transferred back to Thailand in order to raise their two kids and be closer to her family.

Angsana took me back into the kitchen and we got ingredients ready to make khao niow mamuang (mango sticky rice), gaeng khoa sapparot (red curry with shrimp and pineapple) and moo satay (pork satay with peanut sauce). We put the rice in the steamer, marinated the pork and then got to work making the chili paste for the red curry. I chopped up spices, lemongrass, garlic, shallots and chili peppers and then ground them with a mortar and pestle in order to make the paste which would serve as the base for most of the sauces and curries we would make.

Once the rice was done we poured over a mix of sugar, salt, jasmine oil and coconut milk and let it sit to absorb. We skewered the pork and made the peanut sauce to go along with it. Then I diced up vegetables and pineapples, de-veined the shrimp and we got ready to make the curry. We mixed the chili paste in the wok with the shrimp and vegetables and then added coconut milk, fish sauce, palm sugar and at the very last minute threw in some more fresh chilis. The smell of everything cooking was incredible – spicy and garlicky and sweet – and it hung in the air in the kitchen as we cooked. The last thing we did was make a vinegar/cucumber sauce to go with the pork satay and then it was time to eat. The pork was tender and tasted great with the mildly spicy peanut sauce and the cool vinegar to set off the creaminess. The shrimp curry was hot, spicy and so delicious. The coconut milk and the palm sugar set off the spice of the chilis and the saltiness of the fish sauce and it was so good. Finally we took out the sticky rice and cut up a fresh mango to go along with it. The mango was awesome and tasted great with the sweet sticky rice. I left full, satisfied and with a bag full of leftovers. I thanked Angsana and took the sky train back to the Siam stop.

I had a few hours to kill by myself but didn’t want to stray too far from where the bus was picking us up so I decided to explore the Siam stop area. I looked around a few outside markets selling clothes and then went into this giant western-looking mall. It had 9 stories and the ground floor was an aquarium. I bought some books at a bookstore and sat down with a Thai iced tea to read a little. I grabbed some dinner, walked around some more and finally hopped the bus back to the port.

The next morning Hannah and I got up early, grabbed breakfast and decided on our plan for getting to Koh Samet. We were getting our taxi just as the SAS trip was coming out to their bus and we told Keith, Hussain and Steve we would see them at the island. We were really excited for an adventure and we knew that it was going to be a great day. We took a taxi to Ban Phe and then hopped a 15 minute speedboat to Koh Samet. We were let off at the end of one of the nicest beaches I’ve seen. It immediately reminded me of the summers we used to spend in the Bahamas with the Haestads, wearing nothing but bathing suits and just playing all day. We walked onto the beach and both Hannah and I just smiled because we knew we had made a great decision.

We figured that we were ahead of the SAS trip so we decided to just walk down the beach and hang out until they arrived and then try to find someone. We had worn our bathing suits under our clothes so we dropped our backpacks and ran into the water. It was so clear and warm and perfect. We laid in the sun for a little while until all of a sudden my friend Bradee comes walking down the beach. She pointed us in the direction of the hotel so we walked up the beach and within 5 minutes we found the guys. We all decided to get some lunch, drop our stuff and then enjoy the beach. We sat down at a beachfront café for some pad thai and fried rice and after lunch dropped our stuff off in the guys’ bungalows. It turns out that each of the rooms, in addition to the double bed, also had a padded window seat which was about the size of a twin bed, which meant a perfect (and free) place for us to sleep!
We decided to leave everything and just get on our bathing suits and enjoy the beach. I think we spent most of the rest of the afternoon playing in the waves and hanging out in the ocean. We hurdled the waves and swam out to the buoys. The guys did flips and tried to ride in on their stomachs and we just had a great time joking, laughing, and marveling at the fact that it was a Tuesday afternoon in March and we were at the beach in Thailand. I couldn’t even tell you what was so funny but we were laughing the entire time and I felt like a little kid again. We stayed in until all our fingers were pruney and then we decided to go explore the rest of the beach.

We walked down past the sculptures of Buddha and the Mermaid that were on one of the rocks and sat down at another beachfront restaurant for D1 (dinner 1). The guys got fried rice and sticky rice and Hannah and I ordered nachos. We listened to Thai covers of 90s music and while the boys got their food our nachos never came. We asked around until about half an hour later we were informed that they were out of nachos and forgot to tell us. Le sigh. We knew D2 would be in a few hours so we just turned back around on the beach and decided to find a place to get massages.

We had been told many times that Thai massages were incredible, not to mention very inexpensive so when Hussain, Hannah and I saw some women who were given massages on the beach, we settled down while Steve and Keith decided to go explore some more. The massage was awesome. I could hear the sound of the waves and the women speaking in Thai and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep at one point as it was so relaxing. When I woke up the sun had started to set and I felt great. It was almost like waking up from a kriya. We looked around for Keith and Steve but since they weren’t back yet we decided to run into the water and wait for them. We played and when we got out we realized it was cold so we ran back in, Baywatch-ing it the whole way.

Once Keith and Steve came back we all cleaned up and found a place for D2 that had tables on the sand and little cushions that you sat on and faced the ocean. We ordered kabobs, garlic bread, and corn on the cob and enjoyed dinner on the beach. The kabobs and the corn were really good and the garlic bread was really strong and kind of raw? But overall everything was tasty. After D2 we decided to go back up the beach to Buddy Bar for a D3 of desserts and drinks. We ordered a banana split, 3 baskets of fries and a satsung bucket which was basically a small beach bucket filled with ice, red bull, vodka and coke with a bunch of straws stuck into it. We dug into our fries and ice cream and left an empty bucket on the table after a satisfying D3.

A bunch of other SAS kids were at the restaurant with us and after D3 everyone walked down to beach to a pub on the water. There was music and dancing and fire show. We danced and then sat down to watch the guys spin fire on the beach. They had flaming batons, rings and chains and it was incredible to watch. They would throw the batons up in the air and catch them effortlessly and they would spin the chains around them making all kinds of patterns in the air. After the fire show we decided we wanted to night swimming so we took off our clothes and ran into the water. It was still warm, even though the air was chilly, and it was fun to just lay back and appreciate the night, laughing and joking as always. After a good swim we walked back on the beach to our bungalows and passed out.

The next morning we all met up in Keith and Hussain’s room and went to get breakfast. Breakfast was free with the hotel which meant that it was free for Hannah and me too! Yess. We decided that we wanted to get back in the water since we only had a little time left. Keith went to go to the internet café to call his girlfriend and the rest of us ran into the water just as it was starting to drizzle. Pretty soon the drizzle turned to a pour and we all continued to swim in the ocean while the rain fell. It was really fun, especially since the rain and the air were cold but the water was nice and warm.

Eventually though it began to thunder and lightning and we decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to be in the water. Keith wasn’t back yet but we decided to just make a run for it. We ran all the way back to the bungalows and hopped in the warm shower in Steve’s room since we were all shivering. We dried off, watched some of Field of Dreams and then got ready to head home. We asked the tour guide if we would get a ride back with the SAS trip and he said to just make ourselves invisible and get on the boat. We stowed away on the boat and the bus and were able to make it back to the ship for free! All in all, an awesome adventure.

After getting back to the ship we re-packed our bags and got a taxi to Bangkok. We had a hostel booked where a bunch of our friends were staying so we grabbed a van and started the trip. The drive usually takes about 2 and a half hours but once we got into Bangkok our driver got really lost. That along with the combination of bad traffic turned our ride into 4 hours. The van kept playing a loop of bad love ballads, Celine Dion, Thai covers and Stand By Me by the temptations. I love Stand By Me but this was painful. All of us were exhausted from the night before, still full of Thai redbull and a little bit delirious. However, when we arrived at our hostel and Bangkok all of our stress and delirium melted away.

The place was called Lub d Bangkok (sleep in Bangkok) and it was awesome. Free internet, a big open lobby, all kinds of rooms with big bunk beds, clean modern style and a really great atmosphere. It was clean, friendly and all of our friends were there to greet us. We were absolutely starving so we went out to get some dinner. We stopped at the first place we saw with food and ordered generous helpings of noodles and rices and curries. For dessert a bunch of people tried fried bananas with ice cream and I got this thing called taro mousse with gingo nuts, which we ended up calling it grimace soup. It was a warm sweet white broth with little purple chunks in it that were the exact color of Gimace, the McDonalds character. Despite its unusual coloring it was actually pretty tasty and we all left feeling full and happy.

We decided we wanted to check out some of the night markets so we walked through the Patpong area toward the Suan Lum market. We looked at all the stalls and bought a few things. I got a pair of flowy pants since so many of the countries we’ve been visiting are really really hot, but require legs and arms to be covered. We decided to take an alternate route back to the hostel and just walked around the city enjoying the sights and sounds. We were told by some faculty that we had to try durian, a fruit that apparently smells terrible but tastes great. I don’t know who decided on the tastes great part but we bought one from a street vendor and were fairly grossed out. The smell was not so great and it kind of tasted like a garlic mango? Plus the consistency was really gross. Overall – grasshoppers=yum, durian= noooo. We bought some sodas and dragon fruit to get the durian taste out of our mouths and headed back to the hostel. Since we were all still tired from the night before so we decided to just hang out, enjoy the free internet and get some sleep so we could explore the city in the morning.

We got up bright and early the next day with the resolve to see the sights and get back to the ship on time. We saw the Grand Palace which was beautiful and ornate. We saw a few of the buildings and stopped in the monastery to see the Emerald Buddha. It was blistering hot out though and we all felt like we were melting. Literally, on this trip I am becoming increasingly amazed at how much sweat my body can produce - a disgusting but true fact. After the palace we made the walk to Wat Pho which is home to the giant reclining Buddha. The reclining Buddha is incredible and, most notably, HUGE. It’s a giant sculpture of the Buddha, all gold and glowing, showing him in reclining position. He is literally 15m long tall, 46m long and fills the entire space. His feet are decorated with mother of pearl, as are his eyes. When you walk in there are people dropping coins into little buckets in order to bring prosperity so the entire space echoes with the clinking of the coins.

After seeing the Buddha we took a cab up to Koh San road which is a street famous for being a backpackers hangout. We got a great Thai lunch and shopped around before making our way back to the hostel. All of the monuments were beautiful and it was nice to make sure that we saw the big sights before leaving Bangkok. After lunch we met our friends at the hostel and grabbed a taxi back to the ship, making it back just in time for on-ship time.

Overall, I think that I had such a good time in Thailand, not only because of the country, but because of the way this trip has changed the way I think about travel. Normally when we go somewhere we plan and have an itinerary and make sure that we know what’s happening, to who, and when. If anything, as this trip progresses I’m finding myself wanting to do exactly the opposite. I want to have adventures and not make plans and just go with whatever happens.

My friend Dave on this trip is my independent travel idol. In Cape Town he hitchhiked all the way to the Cape of Good Hope and back again, camping on the beach and relying on the kindness of strangers. And while I don’t think that I’m ready for a hitchhiking adventure just yet, I really am more open to the idea of just seeing where things take me. As long as I have a place to sleep, I’m down for anything.

I’ve also realized that it truly is the people you’re with that make your travels awesome. You learn a lot about people when you travel with them and on this trip I was lucky enough to travel with a really great group. Sure it took us four hours in a 10-person van to get to Bangkok and we were all sweaty and exhausted and starving, but we made it and I was still laughing as we walked into the lobby. I’ve met so many incredible people on this voyage and I’m encountering new ones all the time.

We hit the halfway mark of the trip two days before we arrived in Thailand. It was definitely a bittersweet day as it means that now we’re officially on our way home. But, it was also neat to think that, while I know the second half of the voyage is going to fly, I still have a whole half of my time to fill with as many adventures as possible. And I intend to do just that.

We arrive in Vietnam tomorrow and we’ll see where it takes me,

lia

intensely india

2009-03-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

Since Art of Living really was its own experience I figured it deserved its own blog entry, not to mention the fact that you deserve not to read a zillion pages of blog at a time.

The morning after Dakshinachitra my friend Hannah and I decided we really wanted to get on one of the service visits that SAS was doing the next day. We got up early and were able to make it on the bus for the visit to the Samarpana handicapped home and orphanage.

The Samarpana visit was great but heartbreaking at the same time. We arrived at the home and there were about 55 mentally and physically disabled people ranging from small children to adults. We all went into a large square room and were given time to just hang out and play before they ate breakfast. The entire room was full of excitement as we played catch, hand clapping games, and just hung out. The highlight for the kids though, was seeing cameras. They loved them and wanted to take a million pictures. They loved to take a picture and then run over to have you show it to them on the screen, laughing and smiling whenever they saw themselves in a photo. I took pictures with three little kids named Vijay, Lakshmi and Priyanka and played catch with my friend Taylor and another one of the kids.

After playing it was time for everyone to have breakfast. We passed out big tin plates to everyone and they were given scoops of rice and a sweet that I can only describe as really thick cream of wheat but sweeter. We all sat back while they ate their breakfast and then we split up into groups to do work around the house/school. People did laundry, cleared dishes, and took rags to start dusting. They needed people to clip fingernails so some of my friends and I volunteered. Everyone eats with their hands so it’s important that their nails are kept short and clean so no one gets sick. None of the kids or adults spoke English but we communicated with charades and everyone was very sweet while we cut their nails.

After all the nails were clipped I played some cricket with the kids in the front yard. Basically we just had a ball and a big plastic cricket bat and it reminded me of playing baseball in the backyard with my dad as a kid. I would pitch and the kids would hit, with some helping me field. I played a lot with Vijay and he was hilarious, responding to jokes and striking poses whenever I would pretend to wind up too much or take too long to pitch. After cricket I went inside to play with a few more of the kids and everyone eventually filtered back into the big square room to play more before it was time to go.

Almost all of the kids we met had some kind of mental or physical disability but there were a few kids that the people who ran the home called “flappy children”. They didn’t speak, were unable to move their arms or legs and their limbs were so small and frail. One of the little girls, Swetha, was 7 years old but she looked like she couldn’t have been older than one or two. My friend Hannah spent almost the entire morning holding this one little boy named Suresh. Even though he couldn’t really move or speak you could tell that he was totally aware of his surroundings and when he smiled his whole face lit up like a light. When the kids were dusting the grate above the square room Hannah pretended that dust was going to fall on their heads and would pretend to scream and run and spin in order to avoid it. Suresh absolutely loved this game and was smiling from ear to ear the whole time.

It was really great to get to visit the home, play with all the kids and the adults, and to hold the children. Everyone we met was well cared for and all of them were so sweet. But at the same time, all of us left feeling a little helpless. The people who live at Samarpana are the ones who no one in society wanted. Their families abandoned them, the hospitals said they were lost causes and wouldn’t treat them, and they were just given up on. The home gives them a nice place to live, clothes and food and schooling, but there’s just so much that they need and so little that can be done. There are 55 of them and only 5 people who work in the home. The people who work there provide wonderful care, but they’re spread so thin. Even something little, like clipping fingernails, is a task. Between that and bathing, dressing, feeding and teaching everyone it leaves very little time for things like playing cricket or holding the kids like Swetha and Suresh. It really impressed upon me how much people need each other and I was reminded of Veda's lecture on responsibility. There is so much that needs to be done and I hope that I can at least do something.

After leaving Samarpana we headed back to the ship for lunch before heading out to explore Chennai. A group of us decided to get into some auto rickshaws and check out the city. Auto rickshaws are these little three-wheeled taxis which are basically a motorbike with a three person backseat, covered top and open sides. The six of us piled into two rickshaws and headed out into Chennai. We had heard that the traffic in India was crazy and we were not disappointed. There were motorbikes everywhere, other rickshaws, cars and buses. There are lanes but no one really uses them and driving through the city is a symphony of horns. Unlike in the US, car horns aren’t just for when you get cut off, but rather a way to let other drivers know where you are and what you’re doing. You honk when you’re passing, coming up next to someone, moving over, and just like home, when you’re pissed off at the other drivers. The horns are all different tones and pitches and you hear them everywhere. I loved riding in the rickshaws though and kind of really wish I could take one home. It would be great to cruise around Middlebury/Woodbury in the summer with the sides open and the breeze coming in. India is so hot and the breeze in the rickshaw felt so good.

After our adventures in traffic we arrived at the Pondi Bazaar. We walked around and bought some bangles, henna paste and took in the sights and smells. More than any other place I’ve been, smell was the sense that captured India. Walking through the city is a mix of sewage, jasmine flowers, fruit, garbage, food cooking at street stands, car exhaust, henna, smog and spices. We wandered around, stopped to try some Indian sweets (everyone really liked the ghee), and then went back to our rickshaw drivers. Taylor and Jess wanted to get some henna done so our drivers took us to two guys on the street just outside the bazaar. The men worked so quickly and the henna was absolutely beautiful. Even though Hannah and I had gotten some on our palms at Dakshinachitra we sat down and got the other side of our hands done because their work was just so intricate.

We had heard of a great place called Mocha to go for dinner but we still had some time to kill so the rickshaw drivers took us to a few shops downtown. They way it works is that the drivers have certain stores and if they take you to them then they get a kickback and if you buy something they get even more. The problem starts when you have a destination and they keep making unwanted pit stops. People wanted to see some handicrafts so we let the drivers take us to the stores they knew. There was one store that had really funny salesmen and we quickly made friends. Most of the guys working there were around our age or a little older and we had a good time joking around with them. Hannah and I ended up buying Christmas ornaments and they said that if we bought one, we could have one of the salesmen for free. We ended up just getting two ornaments but we stayed for a soda and a picture before heading back out.

At this point we wanted to go to Mocha but the drivers told us it didn’t open until 5:30. We let them take us to one more place, popped our heads in and left. We asked them to take us to the restaurant and they said it didn’t open until 6:30. At this point we realized that we were being “given a haircut” as my dad likes to say and we adamantly insisted that they take us to Mocha. After some more stop attempts and more insisting we finally made it to the restaurant, which we found out had opened at 11am. After some terse words with the drivers, we went into the restaurant. We were all a little shaken up by our tension with the rickshaw drivers, but after we walked into the restaurant we immediately felt better.

The place was really cool. Completely outdoors with lights everywhere, comfy booths, long low tables with pillows and a river flowing down the middle, one table and chairs covered in Astroturf and just a really neat atmosphere. They had a menu full of really tasty sounding western food and a huge assortment of hookah flavors. Plus, free wi-fi. We settled into a booth and spent a while reading over the long menu. They had whole pages for milkshake flavors, kinds of coffee and lots of sandwiches. We ordered a whole bunch of sandwiches, shakes, teas and some blueberry hookah. We smoked our hookah and joked about our rickshaw adventure until the food started to arrive. Everyone got theirs but mine hadn’t come out yet so I told them to just eat figuring it would be out soon. We asked someone and they said it was coming but pretty soon everyone else was done and I was still sandwich-less. Bummer. Everyone ordered dessert and eventually I got a hold of someone and explained that it was really no big deal but can I please have some food? Finally once the desserts had been consumed, my sandwich came and I think I made my chicken and pesto croque-monsiuer disappear in record time.

After inhaling my dinner I decided that I wasn’t quite ready to head back to the ship for the night so I ended up staying with some of our other friends from Art of Living who had been seated at the booth next to us. We smoked some more hookah and I had some really tasty masala chai. On the way home the five of us squeezed into a rickshaw and decided to play the rickshaw game where you try and touch as many other cars and rickshaws as you can while you’re in traffic. Double points if you high five someone and a million points if you can switch places with someone driving a motorbike and no one notices. We had a great time all smushed into the rickshaw with Hussain trying to high five people and no one knowing why he was sticking his hand out at them.

The next morning was our last in Chennai so we decided to go see the Shiva temple and then get some last minute shopping done before heading back to the ship. The Shiva temple is a Hindu temple in the middle of the city and it’s so colorful and beautiful. All of the Hindu temples we saw were so intricate and just exploding with color. The tops of the temple towers were covered with carvings of gods and goddess and stories from the Ramayana and the Gita and its almost overwhelming to try and take in all the imagery.

We walked around and over to one side in the temple and saw that there was a wedding going on. I’ve always wanted to go to an Indian wedding so I walked over to get a closer look. A few people came over to my friend Disha and I and it turns out they were the brother and sister of the bride. Apparently Indian people really like to have tourists at their weddings? Or so we had heard, but they asked us if we wanted to take a picture with the bridge and groom. We jumped at the chance. A bunch of younger girls at the wedding must have gotten a kick out of us as well b/c they walked up shyly and asked if we could take a picture with them too. We did and talked for a little while before piling back in the rickshaws and heading out.

All of us brought our laptops and went to Mocha again for omelets and free wi-fi and then headed over to Spencer mall for last minute shopping. I bought a bunch of silk scarves as gifts and we browsed the book stores and silk shops before heading back to the ship.

After India you could really sense a change in everyone on the ship. We all had a lot on our minds and if the trip had started to change us before, it was really starting to show now. My friends and I all went to the post-port reflection meeting where people get up to share their stories from the port and everyone had something to say about the children, the cows, the poverty and the garbage. But we also had so much to say about the kindness of everyone we met, the beauty of the country, the awe people felt when seeing the Taj. We had been put in the middle of a place so different to what we were familiar with and it was both wonderful and overwhelming.

I know that my experience in India will inform the rest of my travels and will stick with me long after I arrive back in the states. I want to return as soon as possible and see the rest of the country – Agra, Jaipur, Varanasi, Kerala and Delhi – and experience their strong regional identities.

In the meantime though, the travels continue, and as we race through Asia I know that I will continue to be changed by my experiences. I’m looking forward to it and look forward to sharing it with you.

art of living pt. 2

2009-03-27T23:25:00.000-07:00

We woke up bright and early again the next morning for coco and 6:30 and class at 7:00. We started this day much like the previous, with stretching, yoga and a short guided meditation. After breakfast we watched a video with Sri Sri Ravvi Shankar, the man who designed the Art of Living course, about the 5 arrows of love and then had another half-class before lunch. After lunch Veda talked with us about continuing our education in Art of Living and showed us how to do a mini kriya without the tape.
I didn’t really want to do another kriya since my last one had been so good but I ended up being glad we did. This time, instead of images, my thoughts were filled with music. As I breathed all of sudden my mind remembered this beautiful recording I have of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the hymn Peace Like a River, one of my favorites. The song looped in my head while we breathed and as I lay down I heard another hymn that we sing every Sunday at MUUS called Spirit of Life. The lyrics of both of the songs were so fitting for the experience I was having and I awoke again feeling incredibly at peace.

After class we had time to explore the village and my friend Hannah and I got henna done on our hands and watched as some of our friends got their palms read. We headed back for another class session where Veda had planned a samsat. A samsat is a Hindu tradition with singing and dancing. The songs are call and response style and everyone in the group is involved.
Before we began, Veda talked us about the ego. She defined it as the way we are affected by the opinions of others and how we act differently because of it. She encouraged us to remember when we were children and we didn’t care about ego. With that thought in our minds, the musicians came to join us and our samsat began. We sang along with a few songs and on the more upbeat ones some of the women encouraged us to dance. They began to dance and we followed along and pretty soon everyone was just dancing, jumping, clapping and doing their thing. Someone later remarked that it was the first time they had danced sober since middle school and they had forgotten how much fun it could be. We put Veda’s lesson about ego to good use and really had a great time.

After that we had a break between classes and a bunch of us decided to get our palms read. We quickly ate a snack of onion fritters and fresh grape juice (mind blowingly good –tasted like eating a handful of grapes) and we headed over to the palm reader. She only spoke Tamil so Veda was nice enough to come over and translate for us. I sat listening to the fortunes of my friends and they all sounded great. The palm reader told them about their life lines, heart lines, how many kids they would have, when they would marry etc. When it was my turn I was excited but a little nervous as I told the palm reader my age, name, picked a # from 1-12 and picked a flower. I picked 6 and lotus and she scattered a handful of cowl shells. She told me that I was blessed by God and that the charity and good work of my family and ancestors protects me (thanks mom and dad). She told me 7 was a lucky number and 4 and 6 were not. She said that in a year and half two big events would happen in my family, possibly involving the buying and selling of property. Then she read my palm.

She said that my lifeline was good but that my heart line was not good. She said I would work in education and that I would travel and wouldn’t live in the same place I grew up. She said that I was going to have health problems, not serious ones, but that I would have to see a doctor. She said that I would worry about small things and would make myself sick with headache and heartburn and that when I was confused in my life I should do nothing. She did say I would have a good marriage though, would be successful at my job, would marry between 23 and 26 and have one boy and one girl. At the end I asked her about my mother and her health and she said that my family would also have some health problems.

At first coming away from the reading I was a little shaken. Everyone else’s readings had been so good and really positive for the most part, but mine had been not so great and everyone in the group was a little bummed out by it. I don’t usually feel confused or worried about small stuff and I was a little unsettled about it to be honest. I headed into our last Art of Living class with a lot on my mind.

Upon arriving in class Veda had us split into groups of 5 and told us we were each going to tell a story to our peers. We had a few minutes each to just tell our own life stories to each other. I learned a lot about my group members and it was really cool to learn not only the facts they told, but the things that they felt were important to share about themselves. I was surprised by a guy named Bill who had transferred schools a few times and was trying to figure out what to do next, especially after getting home from the trip. I was really touched by a girl named Molly who admitted to us that after high school she felt really out on her own at college and lost herself. She began to run way too much and just wasn’t healthy. She told us about how supportive her family had been and she began to tear up as she told us about how much they had stood by her and helped her. All of us talked about how our voyage has already started to change us and the challenge that faces us when we get home and have to reconcile our new perspective with our old surroundings. At the end of our time we all hugged and headed back to our spots.

We did some other games and exercises and then did one where we sat directly across from another person. Without speaking we looked them in the eyes and tried to convey to them the fact that we appreciated and accepted them. We could hold hands if we wanted to and I sat across from my friends Keith and Hussain. Veda told us that we should look at each person we come in contact with and try to accept them unconditionally for who they are. Imagine that they are God, incarnate as that person. We can’t know everyone’s life stories, where they come from or what important to them, but if we can accept them as they are; you never know who might be able to teach you things.

The last thing we did in the class was a guided meditation. Veda had us imagine ourselves at different ages – 6 months, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 60 and 80; The first few ages I had such clear pictures of myself; looking up to see my mother, playing in our yard on Birchwood street, being at Chase and UConn and of the people in my life. It made me feel so lucky to reflect on the wonderful life I’ve had so far. As I tried to imagine my future it was both difficult and exciting. I don’t know what my life will be like at 25, 30, 40, etc. I know I want a family, a home, children and grandchildren. I know I want to work but I don’t know where or even doing what really. I realized that I’m curious and excited to see how my life unfolds.

Doing this meditation also put me at ease about my palm reading and helped me to realize a few things. I know I have the potential to make myself sick if I choose to, but I also have the potential to keep myself healthy. I can either take this palm reading and give it weight, or I can let it go and live in the moment. I had just spent the last three days feeling so relaxed and happy and I decided that I’m not going to let something silly like a palm reading cloud the fact that I am whole and healthy and well. As Veda said, this moment is inevitable. If any of those things on my palm do happen, I can only control how I respond to them. I’m deciding to be happy and take things as they come and I believe that thought is far more powerful than anything someone may have seen on my palms.

After our last class was over we thanked Veda, had one last delicious Indian meal, said goodbye to Gobal James, and took our bus back to the ship.

art of living

2009-03-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. If you’ve been checking the blog and you read my “sorry-I-am-so-behind-post” you know that’s just been really hard to put my experience in India into words. But at this point the trip is moving fast and I can’t exactly put this off any longer. It took all of us on the ship a while to process everything that we saw in India and I’m just going to do my best to tell you what I saw, smelt, heard and tasted and hopefully we’ll get somewhere by the end…

That being said, before we even got there India was definitely one of the ports that I was most excited about visiting. My dad went there for a medical conference when I was a freshman in high school and ever since I’ve wanted to see it. I’m fascinated by the culture and the people and the history. Last semester I took a modern Indian history course which only deepened my knowledge of the country and my desire to see it with my own eyes. In our pre-port meetings before every country they pump us full of expectations, which I kind of love and kind of hate. The result is that we arrive in most ports expecting them to be simultaneously life-changing and violently threatening, and India was no exception.

India was also the first country in which I signed up for a big SAS trip. Usually I prefer to travel independently as it’s a little more spontaneous and involves a lot less time on tour busses. But, I had seen a photo slideshow about this trip last year on the SAS website and after talking to my friend Vinny who had done it last semester I decided that it would be a great experience. It was called the Art of Living, which is a program designed by the guru Sri Sri Raavi Shankar (although not the same Raavi Shankar who played sitar with The Beatles). It’s a combination of yoga, breathing and meditation, as well as group and personal reflection. (You can learn more about it at www.artofliving.org if you’re into that).

We all assembled for the trip, got onto the bus with our boxed lunches and started the drive to Mamallapuram, which is a town outside of Chennai known for its temples. As we drove through Chennai we got our first glimpses of the city and the way that people lived. We drove along the coast and could see all of the boats out catching fish and then strips of markets where people tried to sell their catches. On the opposite side were all the houses where they fishermen and their families lived, and it was astounding to see. Their homes were made out of palm fronds all woven together into flat planks and then stacked on top of each other to make walls and a roof. There was garbage absolutely everywhere and people were just living on top of each other. No electricity, no running water and filth abounded. There were some homes that weren’t even palm fronds but were just tarps propped up with some poles like a makeshift tent. However, they weren’t makeshift and you could see women and children sitting in the doorways looking out. We had heard over and over that India was a country of contrast and juxtaposition and this was our first glimpse of how true that statement would be.

We arrived in Mamallapuram and Sushela, our guide brought us to this rock which had been carved originally to make a temple, but was then left unfinished. The outside of the rock was beautiful, with a whole pantheon of Hindu gods, cows, elephants and depictions of stories carved on the outside. On the inside they had carved out a cave with pillars and there were more gods and vignettes represented on the walls. We walked a little down the road into a park to see something called “Krishna’s Butter Ball”. There was a little stone slope and on it rested a giant boulder – the butter ball. It looked like it could just fall and start rolling down the hill but somehow it stayed balanced on the ledge. A bunch of Indian schoolboys were sitting in the shade underneath it and would take turns sliding down the stone slope on their butts. My friend Molly and I saw and thought it looked really fun so we decided to try. The boys got a big kick out of us and it was really fun to slide. The hill was slippery and we ended up going pretty quick. After sliding we headed back to the bus.

The minute we had stepped off the bus when we arrived we were swarmed by people trying to sell carvings and charms and drums as well as women and children begging for food and money. It was hard to turn away from these women and children and get back on an air conditioned bus and I felt simultaneously guilty and helpless- knowing that giving them money wouldn’t really help and that I couldn’t give to everyone, but also knowing that not giving was just as bad. We saw two other temple sites and the situation was pretty similar. The carvings and temples were beautiful and intricate and everywhere we were followed by a similar group of merchants and beggars. Before leaving we got together all of the food from our boxed lunches and gave it to the kids outside the bus. It was good to be able to do something, but at the same time we knew that it was kind of like putting a band-aid on a broken bone. That feeling was one that I would experience a lot during my time in India and after.

After leaving Mamallapuram we drove to Dakshinachitra, the heritage village where we would be staying while we did the Art of Living program. Dakshinachitra is kind of like a south Indian Sturbridge Village, in that it’s a recreation of the traditional south Indian way of living with period style homes and craftsmen. There’s a potter’s house, a weaver’s house where they made silk saris, and a glass blower. There are also craftsmen who live in the village with their families and sell their crafts in the market that they have daily in the middle of the village. They led us through the village to the guest houses where we would be staying. The accommodations were Spartan but nice; brick walls with thin cots, ceiling fans to help with the heat and a bathroom with a bucket and cup for a shower and a squatter toilet. We were welcomed and given the third eye on our foreheads made with a paste and red powder. We were given a coconut with the top open and a straw and had a chance to explore the village until snack time.
After some delicious vegetable samosas, it was time to go to our first Art of Living class. All the classes were held in this hexagon-shaped room w/ high ceilings, lots of natural light and mats on the floor with a pillow for each of us. We met Veda, our instructor, and she gave us a pen and paper and asked us 3 questions - What do you want in your life? What are you afraid of? and What are your expectations from this course? We wrote our answers and a few people shared their expectations. Veda informed us a little bit about the course and then we dove right in.

First, she showed us how to breathe. We sat on our knees w/ our feet under us and took deep breaths, inhaling and then exhaling from the back of the throat. We then learned a deep breathing technique called Jai breathing where you inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4 counts, exhale for 6 counts and then hold for 2. The counts were very slow and it was a little hard to get the hang of. We also learned the three pranayama, or poses for jai breathing, which help to focus energy in different parts of the body, working from the bottom up. Then we learned how to do bhastrika, which is an exercise where we sit and hold our hands in loose fists in line with our shoulders. When Veda says “In” we throw our hands up and take a breath in and when she says “out” we bring them back like we’re closing a shade and then exhale through our noses.
The last thing we learned before ending class was how to chant Ohm. We took a deep breath in and started with the Oh held deep in the back of our throat and then moved to the Mmmm in the top. The “oh” vibrated through our chests and moved upward as the “mmm” vibrated in our throats and mouths. We exhaled on Ohm three times and after slowly opening our eyes we got up and headed to another part of the village for dinner.

The first night we were treated to a traditional south Indian dinner. All the food we ate at Dakshinachitra was vegetarian but this dinner was served on a banana leaf and we ate with our hands. There was chappati bread, thick tasty vegetable curries, rice, noodles, yoghurt, spicy pickles and sweets. So spicy and so delicious. After dinner we had storytelling. A woman named Devika took us outside and told us stories under the stars. We learned about Shiva and the Ganges, how Ganesha got his elephant head, and a love story about Nala and his princess. The stories were definitely bedtime stories so after almost nodding off under the stars we headed back to the guest houses and fell asleep

We awoke bright and early at 6am for coco at 6:30. We arrived for our first class at 7am and began w/ stretches. Veda stretched us out and taught us a series of yoga poses. We lay down and did the yoga and it was so relaxing and fun. We did some jai breathing and a short meditation and then it was time for breakfast. Before we left Veda asked us to reflect on two questions – What do you need to be happy? and When will you be happy? We headed off to eat with those questions in our minds, feeling refreshed and relaxed. After another delicious vegetarian meal and good conversation we headed back for our second class.
We lay down and listened to Veda talk and then split into pairs to talk about the questions. I was with my friend Kelly and I told her that what I need to be happy is to have people in my life who I can love and care for and who will love and care for me. I said that in order to be happy I want to find some way to positively impact the space that I live in and life a life that is purposeful. She agreed, especially on the loving and being loved.

When we talked about when we will be happy, I had to say that honestly, I am happy now. I wake up every day and I have to marvel at how lucky I am to be where I am in my life. And even more than that, I am so thankful for the fact that I am so surrounded by love. We came back as a group and Veda said that so many people think, “when I do this, then I’ll be happy”. When I get this job, when I get a boyfriend, when I graduate, then I’ll be happy. But that’s not the case. Happiness is not conditional and it doesn’t follow a timeline. It’s our mind’s natural tendency to wander toward the future or the past, but the only moment that is real and that we have control over is the present. Veda said, “This moment is inevitable” and all we can do is choose how we respond to it. The only time that you can be happy is right now.

As Veda was talking, I began to get tears in my eyes. I had traveled halfway around the world, by plane and by ship and by bus, and here I was being told that somehow, I had started to get it right. The thing that made me emotional though, was that if anything had taught me be grateful and happy in the present; it was losing my good friend Adam last year. Adam was one of those incredible people that you meet only rarely in your life -brilliantly smart, a great writer and the kind of person who embraced life with verve and excitement. He always made me feel loved and valued as his friend and losing him made me realize just how important that is. I have so much joy in my life right now and I need to make sure that I am thankful for it and enjoy it, instead of worrying about the past or the future. His death taught me that events happen that you can’t change, but you can hold on to what is important. I am lucky enough to have such incredible friends and family, and the best thing I can do is be thankful for them, right now.

After our discussion Veda told us we were going to do an extended breathing exercise called a kriya. We would do the three stages of pranayama with jai breathing, three rounds of bhastrika, chant ohm three times and then we would follow along with a tape, inhaling when it said “so” and exhaling audibly through our noses when it said “hum”. Our eyes would be closed the whole time and at the end we would lie down. We did all the breathing and came to the “so-hum”. The breathing went through stages, starting slow and then speeding up to a point where you almost felt like you where hyperventilating and then it would slow and speed up again. At the end of all the breathing you lay down on your back and it’s such a surreal experience.

You don’t really know if you are asleep or awake and you lose complete track of time. During our first kriya and was able to dream but I was also completely aware of my surroundings. After lying on our backs for I don’t really know how long, we rolled onto our right sides and lay there before slowly coming up and opening our eyes. When I opened my eyes I was struck by how the light in the room had changed as the noon sun moved across the sky and the glow had softened while we had been meditating.
To be honest in the beginning I was distracted by the jai breathing and my posture and couldn’t seem to keep my mind from wandering where it didn’t want it to. However, I still felt relaxed and Veda instructed us to perform 5 random acts of kindness before sending us on our way for another tasty meal.

After lunch we watched a video about Dakshinachitra and then got a tour of the village. It was an interesting but strange experience living there since it was also a destination for local Indian tourists and school field trip groups. As they wandered around taking pictures we were going to class or just wandering around, almost as if we were the insiders, despite the fact that we clearly looked like outsiders. After the tour we had the afternoon to wander around and check out the handicrafts before being served snacks. We had another snack similar to the samosas along with this insanely delicious watermelon juice and once we were officially snack-ed out, we headed back to the pavilion for a four-hour class before dinner.

Upon arrival Veda had us split up to talk about two questions – What am I responsible for? What am I not responsible for? My friend Matt and I both agreed that we were responsible for our actions, the way we treat people and the decisions that we make, but that we are not responsible for the baggage that people often carry with them and the way that they perceive things. Veda brought us all back and told us an anecdote about a well-known guru who had been hired to help with a phone-a-thon to raise money. Upon getting on the air the first words he said were “Charity is a sin. You should never give charity”. This made the organizers of the drive pretty nervous but the guru continued; “When you give a gift to your brother, or you help your mother or your father, you don’t give them charity. When you take care of your house or feed your family, it’s not charity. You don’t think of it as charity because these things belong to you and are yours to care for. But the truth is that there is no charity. Everything is yours. Every man who is sick or child who is hungry is yours because you exist with them and your livelihoods depend on each other.” Veda impressed upon us that we need to think outside of our own personal realm of responsibility and realize that by caring for others, we are caring for ourselves. She also stressed that our inactions are just as important as our actions. After this talk we were told to take a walk around the village and then come back for the last part of the class.

The sun was just getting ready to set and the village was closed to the public for the day. We each walked on our own, thinking about the day and all that Veda had said. I sat on the porch of a few of the houses and then walked through the playground to pick up some litter. I walked through an unfinished renovation at the edge of the village and the sight and the smell reminded me of the years we had spent on construction sites while building out house in Woodbury. Finally, before returning to class my friend Rachael and I climbed 3/4 of the way up a tall water tower ladder in order to look over the village walls at the slums that lay not too far outside its borders. One thing that has struck us both about India was the sheer amount of garbage and litter that was literally everywhere. She commented that if this is the amount of garbage produced by people who live so minimally in the slums, imagine what it would look like if we saw all the garbage that we produced, even in one day.

After returning to class we settled in to do another kriya. This time I really didn’t want my posture or achy legs to get in the way and I was hoping to remain a little more lucid and not let my thoughts get clouded. I don’t know what was different but for some reason this time things just clicked. I was able to do the jai breathing without focusing too hard on the timing and move easily from stage to stage without getting distracted in between.

But what made the kriya so good, and probably so fluid, were my thoughts. The whole time we did the exercise I pictured with crystal clarity so many important people, places and moments in my life. I saw my family and friends, teachers, neighbors, people I went to school with, construction workers, family friends, pets – everyone. I saw all the homes I’ve ever lived in, my schools, the land, and places that were important to me. I saw moments from my childhood and adolescence that I hadn’t thought of in years or didn’t even realize I remembered. I saw my whole life and it was so beautiful and I was so able to be at peace because of it.
When people snuck into my thoughts who I didn’t want there, I just let them in and they’d pass in sequence as another would take their place. When we lay on our backs I wasn’t asleep but just so completely relaxed. I thought about food and holidays and meals that I’ve loved. As we were lying on our backs, all of a sudden fireworks began to go off right above our building and it sounded like small bombs going off. At first we were all shaken but I fell right back into it, imagining that the vibrations and sounds were a drum and allowing it to beat. We rolled onto our sides and I was curled up like a baby, floating. The last image I had was the one of me a few weeks ago, floating in the pool as the rain fell on my face and my favorite song played on loop in my head. When we finally sat up and opened our eyes I don’t think I’ve ever felt calmer or more at peace.

After class we were all starving and enjoyed another awesome vegetarian meal outside under the stars. India is not the hottest place I’ve ever been but I can say with certainty that it is the sweatiest. We were literally dripping all day, but once the sun set it was cool and beautiful out. We all ate and joked and made friends with one of the dogs who lived in the village who we named James. The busboys informed us his real name was Gobal and that he was actually a she. Gobal James tagged along as we walked back to the guest houses and after a long day, we retired to our rooms and fell quickly asleep.

tardiness is a hallmark of mine...

2009-03-16T04:03:00.000-07:00

Not a very great hallmark, defnitey not one I'm proud of, but I will admit that I am often a procrastinator. Hence, you may notice that while India came and went, there is no blog post detialing my adventures there. For this, I am sorry. India was a country of contrast; sensory, beautiful, dirty, stricken, thriving and intense, all at the same time. And coming back on the ship it's taken me a while to process everything that I saw and experienced and try to find a way to share it with you. I promise, I'm working on it though.

I'm in Thailand right now and I already have a million stories to tell. This next month in Asia is really going to fly - out of the next 26 days, we spent 20 of them in port. I will do my best to keep you up to date on everything going on. I know this is easier said than done, but I'll work on it lol.

Just wanted to let you know - India is coming, Thailand is incredible and I am safe, happy and having the time of my life.

With love and good thoughts from Bangkok

lia

some thoughts en route to india

2009-03-03T12:59:00.000-08:00

So I’ve decided to go a little out of order. I still have to write about the Sea Olympics but I was in the mood to write this entry now before bed so here you have it. I promise to be all caught up before we arrive in India the day after tomorrow, and I’m pretty sure little disorder never hurt anyone (I don’t think). This little stretch of time at sea between Mauritius and India has been pretty enjoyable, although I can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe it’s because the Indian Ocean is so calm, or maybe it’s the fact that we had grilled cheese for lunch that one day. No one can be 100% sure. But before we get to India I wanted to take the time to reflect on a couple really great moments I’ve had over the past few days.

On Monday we had our first day back to class and it was honestly one of the coolest school days I’ve ever had. I got up for global and we learned pretty much the entire history of India in an hour and then I had a break until 1:30. Usually I don’t have class until Ecoacoustics at 4:15 but we were having a MICE performance that day and I attended the MICE class in order to get ready and learn the piece we would be performing. At 1:30 I met up with the professor, Matthew, and the MICE boys in the classroom and we grabbed all the computers and cables and microphones and headed up to the pool.

The piece we were performing was called Kañja, which is derived from a Sanskrit word meaning “born from the water”and the East African Kikuyu language meaning “from the outside”. We were going to be playing the piece underwater in the pool. The name immediately reminded me of my parents and my brother (and of the videos of Russian women giving birth in the ocean that my sister and I were made to watch as children in preparation for watching the birth of our brother - another story entirely). But, aside from the Russian women, anyone who knows my family knows about our connection with waterbirth, and because of that I automatically had a strong affinity with the piece. Matthew described the experience to all of us in the context that, in our travel we’re coming from the outside as visitors to each of our ports and that through the water we’re able to make our journey around the globe. The pool is filled each day with ocean water so the concept of the performance was playing in the middle of the Indian Ocean –literally in the water itself and while we traveled through it.

We grabbed all the equipment, put on some sunscreen and hopped into the pool to play with the hydrophonic microphone. The mic is meant for recording the sounds of water and we were going to use it to record the sounds of the water moving with the ship and us vocalizing and playing instruments in the pool. We tested the mic out, trying different underwater vocalizations and they sounded really cool. Steve screamed into the mic, I made some higher pitched sounds and Justin made whale noises. Then we grabbed the cowbells we had used for the previous performance in Cape Town and started playing them under the water. Those sounded pretty neat as well and we played around with those sounds, in addition to playing with the drumsticks on the ladders and metal sides of the pool. We decided that for the piece Matthew and Keith would be on the deck playing whale calls and ambient noise and we were going to respond to the whale calls by making similar sounds underwater to be picked up by the mic. Then they would introduce a beat into the mix and we would pick up the cowbells and play them underwater, varying in time with the beat. Finally, we would fade out the sounds of the beat and the bells until we were left with only the sounds of the moving water and ambient sound.

MICE class ended and the performance was set to happen around 5:30. We were going to have Ecoacoustics in the pool at 4:15 as well so I decided to just stay in the water until then. A little after the MICE class had finished the clouds began to move in and as the humidity in the air finally reached its breaking point, the sky opened up and it began to rain. We quickly moved all the electronic equipment out of harm’s way and I stopped to look out and admire the rain. Justin walked out into the rain and jumped into the pool and I followed suit. It was pouring by this point and I lay on my back in the middle of the pool with my arms outstretched and closed my eyes. I was surrounded completely by water –lying in the middle of a small pool of ocean with rain falling all around me as we moved slowly along in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. It was such a quiet and peaceful moment with the rain falling on my face and the clouds surrounding the ship as the rain came down. The water in the pool was warm and the rain was perfectly chilly. I popped back up just in time to see a bunch of friends coming out from under the covering to enjoy the rain with me. A few of the professors and families with children came out and we all hung out in the pool and played as the rain came down. Like all good summer storms, the downpour didn’t last long and the sky had cleared in time for our Ecoacoustics class. We all sat around the pool and discussed the difference in the way that sounds moves through water versus air. Sound moves much faster underwater meaning that the sound waves themselves are far larger in water. We did some math and calculated the speed, wavelength and frequency of certain pitches in water versus air and then Matthew let anyone who wanted to hop in the pool and try out the hydrophonic mic. I was pretty soggy by this point and let my classmates take advantage of the opportunity to play with the mic.

At 5:30 the class dispersed and we set up for the MICE performance. We put the audience in front of the pool and tied our MICE poster to the showers at the back of the pool. From where the audience sat, they looked aft to the pool and then out off the back of the ship toward the ocean. A good number of people showed up and once the audience was settled we all hopped into the pool to start the piece. The whale calls and the ambient noise started and the entire deck was quiet. The mood was calm and serene and we moved through the water slowly and deliberately, going down under the water to respond to the calls and vocalize, and then resurfacing. The beat was introduced and we grabbed the cowbells, playing them softly as the sound was amplified through the water. Eventually the beat faded out and we all came to the surface and the final sound was that of the water in the pool sloshing from side to side with the motion of the ship. It ended up being a really beautiful piece, definitely one of my favorites that we’ve done thus far. Apparently Matthew has been posting all the pictures and information on the MICE facebook group, but as none of us have internet minutes we have yet to see them. As far as school days go however, it was pretty neat to spend two class periods in the pool, making music and playing with sound. It beats sitting a lecture hall to be sure.

After MICE I ran back to my room to wash off all salt a get dressed up for my friend Megan’s 21st birthday dinner. On the ship you can sign up for Special Occasion Dining where for $25 you get a really tasty five course meal served in a smaller private dining room. A lot of people do it for their birthdays and we signed up for the first time in order to celebrate with Megan. Aside from the absolutely awesome fried chicken/french fries of sea Olympics day and the bright spot of grilled cheese for lunch, the food on the ship had really been starting to wear on us. So, we were extra excited to get dressed up and have a really good meal. My friends Taylor, Rosaly and I got to the small dining room and ended up at our own little table next to Megan and everyone else. We were given a menu with two or three options for each course and a glass of champagne. I decided on a trio of grilled and smoked fish, chicken tinola soup, salad with feta and oranges, filet mignon roulade with spinach, and mud pie. The food was so delicious and it was really fun to have a nice meal with friends. After dessert they brought out another cake and we all sang for Megan and sat around joking over coffee and tea. My extended shipboard family has a fancy dinner scheduled for March 12th and I’m excited for it already.

Aside from class in the pool and a delicious meal, the other highlight of the past few days was earlier tonight when they shut the lights off on 7th deck forward so that we could look at the stars. I headed up alone and at first it was a little overcast and hard to see. However, my eyes adjusted to the darkness and as the wind picked up a little the clouds blew away. I grabbed my ipod and lay on my back staring up at the sky. It was so nice to just listen to the music and let my thoughts wander while looking up at the stars. The sky was so clear and so big and it was incredible to just look up and marvel at it. Sailing along and seeing nothing but ocean for days can often make you feel very small. You look out and realize that you’re just a dot, floating along in the great mass of water, somehow in transit across this giant globe. Looking up at the sky continued to impress upon me the big-ness of the space that we’re in and how small each of us are in comparison. And while this might make some people feel insignificant, it actually made me feel hopeful. So often we get stuck in our own little microcosm and it becomes easy to get caught up in the rigors of our lives and our space in the world. But the knowledge that there is so much out there, so much space that we never even think of, is kind of comforting. We have the ability to seek out new spaces and carve new niches in the world, indefinitely if we need to, as long as we create the means to do so. And the idea that there is so much out there to see is both humbling and exciting all at the same time.

I am incredibly excited for India and also incredibly in need of sleep before my last day of classes tomorrow. I am so looking forward to experiencing India and I have no doubt that I will have much to share when I return to the ship. Until then I hope you all are enjoying the snow and staying warm and dry inside.

With love from the Indian Ocean,

lia

mauritius: former home of the dodo, current home of awesome.

2009-03-02T11:22:00.000-08:00

I have to say, I never thought that I would ever step foot in the country of Mauritius, but it may well be the reason I am on this trip in the first place.

The whole reason I even heard about Semester at Sea is thanks to my friend Ted. We were at the study abroad fair last fall and I had been looking around the Italy table thinking about studying in Florence and Ted goes “Come with me to the SAS table. It’s so cool. They go to Mauritius! No one even knows where that is”. And it’s true, I did not know where Mauritius was, but Ted got me to the table and after one look at the itinerary I was sold. So thank you Ted. Because I have now set both feet on Mauritian soil and I have to say that it was a pretty great experience.

For some reason after leaving South Africa everyone on the ship was in a bit of a funk. We had a global studies exam that stressed everyone out, there was a lot of school work smooshed into a short amount of time, and after having endless things to do in Cape Town I think we all felt a little stuck on the ship. However, by the time we got to Mauritius our tests had been handed in, papers typed, it was Friday and we were all excited to spend the day in a country that truly is a paradise.

We learned in global studies that Mauritius had no native people but had been slowly inhabited by traders and pirates starting in the 1500s. After killing off the now infamous Dodo bird and cultivating lots of sugar cane they settled in to stay and were later joined by a large immigrant population from India. These days Mauritius retains a bunch of cultural influences and has synthesized all those cultures into their own blend of Mauritian creole.

After diplomatic briefing in the morning everyone was itching to get off the ship and get going on their trips. My friends and I had signed up for an SAS trip to the Adventure Park and Beach. We boarded the buses and made our way through Port Louis, the capital, toward the adventure park in Chamarel. Our bus driver was driving like a mad man which made the trip half a little scary and half more exciting. He rear ended someone in traffic, got pulled over and would accelerate really quickly before slamming on the brakes to go around a sharp turn. However, I think we made it to the adventure park in record time considering his speed.

The park sat on top of a mountain with views of the valley below and the other peaks dotting the coastline. The entire area was completely green with trees, grasses and flowers everywhere. Upon arrival we were given harnesses, applied ample amounts of bug spray and headed into the woods to do the ropes courses. The first half of the course was a series of suspension bridges that went through the forest. We hooked our carabineers onto a lifeline above the bridge and then walked across. I decided it would be more fun to walk without holding on and made it across for the most part on all of them. The bridges looked over more views of the valley and the forest which made for a pretty nice time on the first course.

For the second course we had to take a mini hike up into a different part of the forest. It was hot and very humid so by the time we got into the shade where the course started we were thoroughly sweaty and gross. The second course was more exciting and also more physically challenging. There was a bridge that you had to swing and jump from plank to plank, one that involved jumping from swing to swing, one that was a rope enclosure with no bottom that you had to climb across and another that was just a rope net that you climbed across horizontally. Luckily after that there was a small zip line and it finished with a tightrope-like bridge where you held onto one rope and walked across the other. It was funny to watch each other trying to get across and Taylor and I had a great time. It was definitely more physically tiring than I expected though and I woke up with sore arms for the next few days.

After the ropes course we got back to the base for a lunch of chicken curry, lentils and rice before getting changed to go to the beach. Everyone else had gotten eaten up in the woods by mosquitoes but whatever bug spray my friend Bradee brought kept us all bite free, for which I was very thankful. We hopped back on the bus with the Mauritian Dale Earnhardt Jr behind the wheel and started the drive to Flik en Flac beach. On the way we passes more views of the mountains looking down onto the ocean and fields upon fields of sugar cane. We got to the beach and it was absolutely beautiful. All of us were hot and pretty yucky so we dropped our stuff and went into the ocean for a swim. The water was a gorgeous clear light blue and was as warm as a bath. It was everyone’s first time swimming in the Indian Ocean and we were all pretty excited about it. The salty water washed away all the bug spray and sunscreen and we just hung out in the ocean and enjoyed the view. After our swim we headed to a local restaurant to get some drinks to take back to the beach. We tried a really tasty local beer called Phoenix and sat out on the beach sipping our drinks and enjoying the scenery. After another dip in the ocean it was time to head out. Instead of going back to the ship we had the bus drop us off at the Waterfront which was an area with restaurants and shops. We grabbed a table at an outdoor café overlooking the harbor and had some more snacks and drinks before it was time to go back to the ship. When it was time to go we hopped on a water taxi across the harbor and made it back to the MV in time to enjoy the bbq that they had for us on the 7th deck. After a quick shower and changing into some purple attire it was time for the opening ceremonies of the 98th Sea Olympics.

All in all Mauritius really was a paradise. It was great to spend the day outside enjoying the natural beauty of the country and just having a good time with friends. It was interesting to see the effect that humans have had on the island and to think about it as it would have been when it was completely uninhabited. It’s strange to imagine a place without a native people but in the end I saw that the people of Mauritius actually had a great sense of national pride that we rarely see in America. When asked about their nationality people identified themselves first and foremost as Mauritian which I found interesting. I definitely know I would not have had the opportunity to visit it without SAS or Ted, (chances are I probably never would have heard of it at all), but I am definitely better off for having experienced it and will be able to carry my day in Mauritius with me now and for the rest of the voyage.

Onto Sea Olympics,

lia

cape town

2009-03-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

First of all, I wanted to apologize for the delay in this post. Unfortunately the realities of taking classes on the ship really set in the past few days with exams and papers in almost all of my classes. Plus, Cape Town was too incredible of an experience to be squeezed in between studying and homework. Even though we spent 5 days there, longer than any of our previous ports, I still think I could have used another month to experience all Cape Town has to offer. I don’t think I’ve spoken to a person yet who didn’t fall in love with South Africa in one way or another and I would honestly look into spending a year there after college, doing service work if I could find a way. My friend Caroline has already emailed the owner of a local vineyard in the hopes of getting an internship this summer.

We got into the port a little late the first day due to fog in the harbor and everyone scrambled to get off the ship in order to get some food and run some errands before a lot of FDPs headed out. Unlike most of our previous ports, the place we docked in Cape Town, The V&A waterfront, was not at all industrial and very tourist-friendly. You step off the ship and out of the port and there is a giant mall, along with restaurants, hotels, places to get taxis and an amphitheatre. This was a welcome change from the cranes and long walks we were used to. Since I had another MICE FDP in the afternoon I spent the morning walking around the area, stopping to use some internet and grab lunch at a local health food store. We all met up for MICE at 12:30 and walked over to the amphitheatre with our computers, cords, speakers, mics and gongs. For this performance we did all four pieces that the MICE had learned thusfar and it was a pretty cool experience. The amphitheatre was right in the middle of the outdoor square so there were plenty of people there to listen. We performed Sandprints, Anemoi (a piece that uses wind and voices), Squex (a piece that features squeaky toys) and That Which Is Bodiless Is Reflected Through Bodies. The last piece was new and ended up sounding really cool. We used synthesized noises, soprano sax, a gong and a number of bells and bowls, gradually building and then ending with a last hit on the gong. It was interesting to see the way the audience reacted to the songs since the MICE sound is very different from traditional music. But, it was pleasantly surprising that a lot of the locals seemed to really enjoy and appreciate the pieces and a bunch of them came up afterwards to ask about the music and how it’s made etc. After the show a bunch of us went to Mitchell’s, a local microbrewery, for some food and drinks. I met up with my friends back on the ship and we decided to go out for dinner at a place called Blue Pizza. It took us a while to find and we definitely got lost a few times, but between us and our cab driver Antonio we made it in time to eat some really delicious bacon and avocado pizza and have a few Savannas. After dinner we decided to go out to Long Street which is the main street for restaurants, shopping and nightlife in downtown Cape Town. We ended up at a club called Chrome which was playing a mix of R&B and House. We made friends with our bartender, Wessel, and had a great time dancing. After a good night Antonio picked us up and we headed back to the ship to sleep.
The next morning I didn’t have any plans so my friend Caroline and I decided to spend the morning exploring the V&A. We shopped a little, went over to the clock tower and then decided to find an African place for lunch. I tried some Bobotie which is a traditional African dish with meat and a sweet and savory sauce. It was a little on the sweeter side but overall not too bad and I was glad I tried it. Caroline and I wanted to do something exciting in the afternoon so we flipped through one of the travel guides on the ship. I had seen something earlier about horseback riding so we called a few places and found one that could take us for the afternoon. We took a cab to Kommetjie which was about 35 minutes outside Cape Town. We were a few minutes early and so we took a walk around the farm while we waited. As it turns out the place was called Imhoff Farms and in addition to horseback riding they also had a natural foods restaurant and a store where they sold all their own homemade cheeses, breads, preserves and spice blends. Being a big foodie nerd I was in heaven since the ingredients were locally fresh and everything smelled great. I was able to taste some of the cheese and browse around the shop before we headed over to the stable. As far as horseback riding goes, Caroline and I were novices to say the least. We were put in a group with three other women- a mother and daughter from NYC and a 14 year old girl named Holly from England. They had a lot more experience riding than we did so once we walked the horses down to the beach they broke off to trot and canter while Caroline and I moved along at a leisurely pace. The coast was absolutely beautiful, with waves crashing on one side and mountains and valleys rolling off in the distance. There were surfers in the water a few other people walking dogs on the beach. It was peaceful and quiet with the waves crashing and the occasional conversation. For the most part it was a nice opportunity to think and enjoy the scenery. My horse Echo and I strolled along until it was time for all of us to head back to the barn. We hopped a cab back to the ship and got there just as the sun was setting and it was time for dinner.

Our big group split into a few smaller ones and some of my girlfriends and I decided we wanted to try some game for dinner. Bradee, Rosaly, Mischa, Agnes and I wandered over to a place called City Grill near the pier and ordered a bunch of interesting food. I got springbok, Rosaly got crocodile and Bradee got a giant skewer with kudu, warthog, ostrich, impala and venison sausage. All of us shared and tasted so everyone got to try all the meat. Some of it was a little gamey but most of it was delicious. The ostrich was really tender and the venison sausage was great as well. After dinner we headed back to the ship and most of my friends decided to turn in early. I wasn’t tired and wanted to explore more of Cape Town so I joined up with some other friends to go out. We stopped at Mitchell’s for a drink and then headed to Long Street to a club called Bang Bang. Despite the questionable name, the club itself was really fun and relaxed. There was a DJ mixing house music and everyone had a good time just enjoying the songs and dancing. After a little while there we headed a couple blocks over to a place called Baghdad for some hookah. After some conversation, hookah and a little more dancing it was time to turn in, so we headed back to the ship.
The next day my friends Greg, Alicia, Caroline and I met up early to grab some breakfast before hiking Table Mountain. At 3,563 ft. Table Mountain is one of the largest landmarks in Cape Town. It’s featured on the Cape Town flag and looks over almost the entire city. We took a cab up to the base and decided to hike the Platteklip Gorge route, which we thought would be a pretty easy and direct trail to the top. While we found that it was definitely a fairly direct route, it was not as easy as we expected. We started our ascent and were quickly met with a really steep trail. After taking a wrong turn and realizing that we were on our way to another, crazy hard route, we turned around and kept climbing. I can honestly say that climbing Table Mountain was one of the hardest and most rewarding things I’ve done in a long time. It was also a glaring reminder that I am very out of shape. The trail was steep stone steps almost the entire way up and I thought my legs were going to fall off. Caroline and Alicia quickly sped ahead, leaving Greg and I to head up on our own. I honestly don’t know what Greg and I would have done without each other but between the two of us we dragged ourselves up that mountain. We would pick a break point, hike to it and then stop to breathe and keep going. The views coming up the mountain were absolutely incredible. From the trail we could see all of Cape Town, the coastline and the two peaks on either side of Table Mountain –Lion’s Head and Devil’s Peak. We appreciated the views on our constant breaks and it helped to look down and see the people at the bottom of the trail far below us and appreciate how far we had come. Par for the hike is usually 2.5 hours and we were able to make it up in two. When we finally got to the top I have to say that I was really proud of myself. We were so tired and sweaty and my legs were shaking but we didn’t stop and the feeling of self-satisfaction was worth all the pain. The views from the top were equally breathtaking and we were able to take a break to eat lunch and take some pictures before taking the cable car back down the mountain.

After the hike I headed back to the ship to get ready for my SAS trip that night. We met at the pier at 6:30 to go into the townships for Township Music. I had heard about the townships from friends who has visited them the other days and I was excited and a little nervous to see them. As nice as the Cape Town I had previously seen was, I had yet to be exposed to the part where the majority of the citizens lived. As a result of Apartheid almost all of the black residents were forced into the townships and most of them live there to this day. There are three main townships in Cape Town and we were going get to see all of them. Our guide, Shy, was a 36 year old Xhosa man who lived in the Guguletu township. The Xhosa language is one of the few that speak with clicks and Shy tried to teach us a few Xhosa words. We did our best to get out the sounds and the clicks right, but to mixed results. Shy told us he had graduated from school and got his certification to do tourism. Our first stop was Langa, the smallest township. Driving into the townships for the first time, the first thing that strikes you is their size. There are houses upon houses upon houses; all two or four rooms and right next to each other. There are also trailers that house hair dressers, stands grilling meat and people in the streets everywhere. We were getting there at the end of the day on a Friday so everyone was outside. There were all these kids and when they saw our bus they all called and waved and got excited. We left Langa and headed toward Guguletu, another township which houses 70,000 people. Coming into Guguletu we got our first glimpse of the squatter camps. The people living in the squatter camps are on the list waiting for some of the government houses in the townships to open up, but the chances of them being able to actually move out of the shanties are slim. The houses they live in are made of iron sheeting, pieced together with weights on top to keep the roof down. There are literally shacks on top of shacks for acres. Large families all live together in the one room, some with running water and electricity, and some without. HIV is rampant in the townships with an infection rate of 1 in 4. Shy told us that in Guguletu alone they bury 200 people every weekend. After driving through Guguletu we were taken to a school/gym area and brought inside to learn some music. In the building we were met by a group of 5 young guys playing for us. They played marimbas, drums and cowbell and were led by Khaya, their director. Khaya walked us through the piece and showed us the instruments and then we were told to go over and learn the beats. The guys showed us each of the melodies on the marimbas and the drum rhythms and then Khaya told us it was our turn to play. We winged it and tried our best to imitate what we had learned and it didn’t sound half bad. Then they took us into another room to drum. Each of us had a djembe and Khaya showed us beats to play. Khaya was a big guy with a booming voice and when he played the sound rang through the entire space. He split the beat into halves and we jammed for a little while he encouraged us in his booming voice. After drumming it was time to dance. We got into a circle and Khaya started this loud, strong call and response. He spoke his piece and we were supposed to respond with “USUNTU!”It took a few tries to get to the level of volume and aggressiveness that he wanted but eventually everyone in the group let go of their inhibitions and Khaya was happy. He started drumming a beat and started to teach us an African dance. It was a men’s dance but since our group was mostly girls everyone learned the steps. We walked and sat low while moving our shoulders in time. After that we learned a women’s dance and all the guys grabbed a drum to keep the beat. We learned a fast paced dance where we moved our chests, stepped left to right and then shoulder shook. Most of my friends can tell you that I’m not exactly a good dancer (understatement) but everyone in the group just did their thing and had a good time. After the dancing we got back on the bus to go to dinner. They took us over to Khayelitsha, the last township, to a place called Soosy’s for a bbq.

The largest township, Khayelitsha is home to 1.3 million people. We walked into Soosy’s and it was clear that we stuck out like sore thumbs. We had been warned over and over never to go into the townships, especially at night, and while we were safe with our group it was clear that we didn’t exactly belong. But, despite our awkwardness everyone we met was really friendly as we sat down to eat some dinner. We had an African bbq with a first course of tripe, pap and bread and then grilled meat, sausage, baked beans/lentils and rice. All of the food was tasty and even the tripe wasn’t bad. The guys from the music lesson were there and after dinner we all went outside to hear them play. The guys played some songs and we all hung out outside with the locals who had come to Soosy’s to drink and hang out. At first it was a little like a middle school dance with all of us on one side and the locals on the other but we got to talking to a few of them and had a good time. I talked to a few girls my age who live in the townships and a guy who had visited the Semester at Sea ship a few years ago with Desmond Tutu when he worked for the Amy Biehl foundation. We all danced to the music and the guys passed us the djembes so we could play with them for a few songs. When it was time to go we said goodbye to the guys and got back on the bus with Shy to head back to the ship. Shy talked to us more about the townships and gave us each a Xhosa name. Mine was Andiswah which means “grow prouder”. As we drove he stressed to us that it was important for us to take our experience and share it with others; to talk about the townships and make sure that our friends and families know about them and the people there. Despite living in conditions that most Americans would shudder at, the people we met in the townships were not defeated people. Everyone that we came in contact with, even after being forced back by Apartheid and a disappointing government under Mbeki, continue to be hardworking, generous and open people. It’s honestly hard to do the experience justice with words, but I was touched by community I encountered in the townships and I hope I can back if ever possible. SAS works with so many organizations that do service projects in the townships –Habitat for Humanity, The Amy Biehl Foundation, Operation Hunger –and I hope that someday I’ll have the opportunity to get involved with one of them and spend more time in South Africa.

After getting back from the townships I was physically and emotionally exhausted after a long day and I clocked out. The next morning we got up and Greg, Alicia and I had planned to go on a wine tour. I met up with my friend Justin at breakfast and he and another friend from MICE, Brandon joined us for the day. We got a cab around 11 and after stopping for a quick snack our cab driver started the trip out to Stellenbosch. South Africa has a big wine industry and the vineyards are some of the most beautiful areas outside of Cape Town. For only a few hundred Rand a taxi will take you out for the day to a few different vineyards where they offer wine tastings and food. We had heard about one vineyard called Spier that our friends had visited the previous day which had cheetahs that you could pet so we decided to go there first. This ended up being the best decision of the day. We arrived at Spier to find that they were having their annual harvest festival. Upon buying entrance tickets we were given a complimentary wine glass and a card with stamps to taste 5 wines. We walked in to find a beautiful sprawling lawn with tents and giant white pillows on the ground to lounge on. There were tables with wine to taste, a bbq, a live band and lots of games for families. There were families everywhere –parents chatting and drinking wine, kids with faces painted like spiderman, a playground, a pond and a little brook with a bridge. The sun was out and the weather was beautiful. There are few things I love more than wine and festivals so I was pretty much in heaven. We all got some wines to taste and lounged on the pillows enjoying the scenery. I watched families playing and kids enjoying the games. We tasted a few wines, and really enjoyed the Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz and the Chenin Blanc. Unfortunately we’re not allowed to bring alcohol back on the ship or I probably would have brought home quite a bit of wine. The other big feature aside from tasting was the 4 barrels they had set up which you could climb into and stop grapes, I Love Lucy style. After seeing a few kids do it Brandon, Greg, Alicia and I decided to roll up our pants and give it a try. The grapes were really smushy and felt really strange but fun to feel them under my feet and between my toes. The band was playing New York, New York and we stomped and smooshed and danced in our little barrels. So fun. After hosing off the grapes we decided it was time for lunch. We got in line for the bbq and ordered some burgers and steak sandwiches. The steak was so good all wrapped up in a soft roll with caramelized onions. We finished with some white wine and cupcakes and I was pretty much euphoric. We grabbed a bunch of wine grapes to snack on for the road and decided to visit the cheetah before heading to our next stop. There was a bit of a wait to pet the cheetah so we admired from afar and took some pictures. The cheetahs were so peaceful and gentle to humans. It was kind of incredible to see them interacting with their trainers, looking almost like oversized housecats.

After visiting the cats we got back in the cab and our driver started towards Franschhoek, another wine town further near the mountains. On the way we stopped to try and fine a geocache, but after looking in a few hollow trees and under some bushes we left empty handed. Spirits weren’t dampened though as we drove through Paarl and arrived at the second vineyard called Boschendal. We filled out our wine cards, got some cheese to taste and sat down underneath this beautiful big oak tree that shaded the wine bar and all the tables under this soft dappled light. We all tried 5 wines and I had a selection of really delicious fruity white wines along with one red and one really tasty sparkling wine. After having our fill of wine and cheese it was time to head back to Cape Town. Greg and Alicia had plans to attend a birthday party that night but Brandon, Justin and I decided to go into downtown Cape Town to Green Market Square which houses a craft market. The market was closing so we walked around a little, bartered and bought some crafts before heading back to the ship. A bunch of our friends had eaten at a restaurant called Mama Africa on Long Street which has good food and live music so we stopped there on the way home to make reservations for dinner later. After a quick change and snacks on the ship Justin and I headed out to go to a phone café before meeting Brandon for dinner. We were able to make some phone calls home and it was great to talk to my parents and hear their voices. We got to Mama Africa and it was packed. We stayed at the bar for a little while they got our table together and listened to the live band playing marimbas, drums and singing. The singer performed a version of La Donna e Mobile which sounded really cool accompanied by the African instruments. We got seated and had a nice meal with the sounds of the band in the background. I had hung out with Justin and Brandon in MICE and enjoyed going on the wine tour with them earlier that day but it was nice to have a good meal and a conversation and get to know them better. After dinner we decided to go to Bagdad next door for some hookah and then to Chrome to dance. As it was our last night in Cape Town we wanted to make the most of it and we had a great time going out, talking and dancing with more friends that we met up with along Long Street from the ship. The boys had a big hike up the other side of Table Mountain planned for the next morning so we headed back to the ship to get some sleep after an amazing day.

The following morning was our last in Cape Town and I spent most of it getting errands done and buying things at V&A that I would need before Asia. My friends Taylor, Rosaly and I met up on Long Street to check out Green Market Square and stopped for a really great Mexican lunch at an outdoor café. We sat in the sun, swapped stories and had some delicious enchiladas. Spending so much time together on ship and traveling in port makes the friendships that you have on SAS particularly meaningful and it was nice to spend the day with friends just hanging out and enjoying the surroundings. We headed back to V&A and hopped on the internet one last time before getting back on the ship to sail to Mauritius.

Before Cape Town and Namibia I had never really given much thought to traveling in Africa. My travel aspirations never strayed below the Sahara and I thought of Africa mostly as a place for safaris or hunting. However, after visiting, I am already dying to come back and to see more of Africa. I want to travel to Kenya, safari in Northern SA and see the tribes that still live peacefully and simply in the bush. In Africa I was able to meet people who were struggling to make ends meet but who still approached their situation with determination and hope. South Africa has struggled for a long time to try and be an example for the rest of Africa of a thriving post-colonial democracy. It hasn’t been easy to say the least but with their elections coming up in April everyone is hopeful for a new post-Mbeki government. The world cup in South Africa is roughly 460 days away and will give SA a chance to showcase itself on the world stage. It is a country filled with so much beauty and so many different cultures and spending five days there allowed me only to scratch the surface. One of our interport lecturers said to us that “South Africa is the world inside a single country”and he was right. I’m so thankful for the time I was able to spend there and I can only hope that if I don’t get the chance to come back that I can keep my experiences in SA with me as a reminder of the challenges, joys and juxtaposition that exist everywhere we go.

I know that this was a mini novella and I hope that you took snack breaks, but I promise to be up to date with everything soon and maybe try to break things into more bite-sized chunks for next time.
Mauritius and Sea Olympics to come soon but until then,

lia

namibia, my valentine

2009-02-17T07:53:00.000-08:00

We just pulled away from Namibia and I’m honestly very sad to leave. I don’t think I ever would have come here on my own and I would have been missing so much. It’s an incredible country with deserts, shoreline, wildlife and really great people. It has been my favorite port by far and everyone I’ve spoken to on the ship is already planning a return trip in their heads. I know these entries are like novels and I want to apologize/thank you in advance for putting up with them. There’s so much to capture and so little justice that words can do.

The first day in Namibia we were greeted at the port by a choir of girls in traditional African dress clapping and singing. They were all around ages 8-13 and they were great. They were dancing, and stepping along to the songs and it was such a cool treat to have them welcome us to the country. After we were able to get off the ship a bunch of people were playing guitar and the girls
were singing along and dancing with the students and teachers.

We took the long walk to the end of the port and wandered into Walvis Bay to get money changed and check out the area. We rented a house on the beach in Swakopmund, so most people took cabs there to get the house settled while my friend Chas and I headed back to the ship for the FDPs we had scheduled that day. FDPs, or Faculty Directed Practica, are trips planned by the professors that relate to the classes we’re taking. We’re supposed to do a certain number of FDPs for our classes as a way to help relate our experiences in port to the material we’re learning.

My FDP was for Ecoacoustics and our trip was going to be putting on a concert in the desert. In case you’re wondering (and I’m sure you are), Ecoacoustics a music class in which we listen to both environmental recordings and soundscapes and analyze them. We also make our own recordings in port and discuss the sounds that we hear. And while that may sound pretty hippy, I actually really love the class. It’s making me completely re-examine how I think about music and the sounds that we hear on a daily basis. In addition to Eco, Matt Burtner, the professor who teaches the class, also teaches Technosonics (a tech composition class) and M.I.C.E which stands for Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble. MICE has already had two shows on the ship and this trip was to be their first performance in port –a concert in the desert. The way that MICE works is that we take live sounds, like the wind, water or squeaky toys and create music by mixing those sounds with synthesized versions in order to create a new composition. A little out there, but also awesome. Since I like my class so much and had helped with one of the other MICE performances, I decided that instead of just going and watching the concert I wanted to help with the performance and make some music. In addition to just performing we were also making a video of the show which would then be edited into a kind of music video.
The group of us going early to film and perform met at 1pm and headed out into the desert. I have to say that I had never really seen the desert before and when you look off to the left and see the dunes rising up along the side of the road, it is breathtaking. All around there are just dunes upon dunes and the landscape is beautiful. It’s hard to do it justice with words or pictures but I’ll try nonetheless. I’ve realized we spend a lot of time in port in disbelief, trying to wrap our minds around where we are. This boils down to a lot of turning to one another and saying “CAN YOU BELIEVE WE’RE IN THE DESSERT RIGHT NOW!? IN AFRICA!?” Either way we drove along the main road out of town and then pulled off onto an unpaved path. After the unpaved road our bus pulled right out onto the sand and dropped us literally in the middle of nowhere with all of our gear. Some of the dunes have names or numbers to identify them but the place where we were was just called Dunes. We hiked up one sand hill and were met with a beautiful plane surrounded by blue sky and tall orange, khaki, and golden dunes. The show was set to start at 3 so we spent the time until then attempting to set up a variety of computers, microphones and electronics without getting everything sandy. This is a semi-daunting task considering we are surrounded by sand accompanied by a constant wind. But everyone in the group was in great spirits, excited to be in such an incredible setting and laughing and joking the whole time. We had plenty of time to play and take pictures while setting things up and getting some initial shots for the video. We took a number of “band photos”which quickly evolved into a very funny/awesome photo shoot in the desert with hair and scarves blowing everywhere as we did our best to appear like a badass band.

By the time everyone else arrived we were ready to play and everyone getting off the busses was excited by the scenery and the setup. The piece that MICE played was called Sandprints and was created by burying flat mics in the sand along with two standing mics near two of the performers. Around the flat mics we moved and drummed on the sand and two of the guys whistled into the standing mics. These sounds were mixed with computerized drum beat and they were synthesized through the computer so that the sounds of the sand and the wind and the whistling came out as new notes. It started off slow at first but once it picked up it was really great. People were encouraged to dance and to join in the drumming and by the second time we played everyone was dancing and drumming and whistling. It was so fun. After the piece was over everyone climbed on the giant dunes while we cleaned up the equipment. The other buses headed back to the ship but the group of us was having a great time and didn’t want to head back just yet. We decided to pull over on the side of the road on go Geocaching. I didn’t know about geocaching before the trip but one of the guys in MICE is really into it and had us all come along to find this cache. In geocaching there are little “treasures”or caches all over the world, tons in the United States alone, and you find them by plugging the coordinates into any GPS system like a Tom-Tom or a Garmin. Once you find the cache you sign the log book inside and people sometimes leave little trinkets in them. Occasionally there are Travel Bugs inside, which are tags that you can go online and plug in their codes and see how they’ve traveled from cache to cache all over the world. Needless to say, it’s pretty cool. So we pulled our bus over onto the side of the road and looked around for the cache, finally spotting it under a rock in a little green Tupperware container. We signed the log book and left a pin, a pen and a program from the show in the box for the next person to find. Then we took the van to Dune 7, one of the largest sand dunes in the world, and took a break to enjoy some sodas and beers at the foot of the dune. We talked to Prof. Burtner and his wife about some of the other shows he’s played and he told us about playing shows in locations all over the world using all kind of natural materials and sounds. He’s a pretty young guy and he and his wife, a dance teacher on the ship, are traveling with their three year old son Barrett. He says he looks for venues with magic and has played everywhere from caves in Sweden to ice melts in Alaska. We learned today that someone is writing a piece about the concert for the Journal of Computer Music, which is pretty exciting. We have another MICE concert tomorrow in South Africa that I’m really looking forward to.

After we got back to the ship I showered the sand off, grabbed a quick dinner and my friends Chas, Justin and I got together to go to Swakopmund. It’s a long walk to the end of the port and we couldn’t find a taxi near the ship so we started to take the trek, bags in tow. Luckily a guy in a pickup truck passed by and gave us a free ride to the end of the port in the back. Perfect. We caught a cab to Swakop and started the drive through the desert. After such a great day it was incredible to be able to look out the window as we flew down the road and see the sun setting over the desert. It was almost dark and it was so calm and quiet and all I could see was sand and the last vestiges of the sunset peeking over the dunes. Not a bad way to spend a Valentine’s Day if you ask me.

Unfortunately the calm dissipated once we reached Swakop. My phone hadn’t been working all day so I borrowed a friend’s in order to get the address of our house before we left the ship. Once we got into town we told our cab driver the area we needed to go to and he didn’t know where it was. So he found some other cab drivers and once they told him where it was he said it was too far away and he was going to charge us more plus, since the other drivers were going to show us where it was, we would have to pay them as well. It was dark and we didn’t really have any other choices so we said fine. They drove us to the area but pass our place so we have them turn around and take us to the cross streets that my friend had texted me. It’s dark, quiet and not close to anything, but it’s our destination so we get out, pay the drivers and they leave us. However, now we don’t know what house is ours and most of the ones in the area have the lights out. We walk around calling names and looking to see if we can find them but to no avail. We have no phone and no idea what we’re going to do if we can’t find them since we’re far from town and have no way to get back. Twenty minutes pass and I’m getting a little worried so we decide that our best option is to go back to a house where we saw someone watching TV with their door open and ask to use their phone. This turned out to be a great choice. The guy watching TV was a 22 year old South African named Quentin and not only had seen our friends earlier that day but he offered to walk us to the house to find them. Thank Goodness. We follow Quentin and find our friends all settled in our beautiful beach house. There is dinner on the counter and the fridge is fully stocked with food and drink. There are 3 bedrooms with sleeping space for 6 and two bathrooms with big showers and tubs and a washer and dryer. We are in heaven. Quentin leaves and we invite him to come back later and have a drink with us. We settle in and Quentin does better than make good on his promise when he and his uncle, Clifford, show up with two bottles of champagne. We sit and drink and talk with them for a little while. They tell us they run a scenic flight business that takes tourists in small planes over the desert and along the coast. After they leave a bunch of us walk to another beach house to visit friends. We have some more drinks, hang out and then head home.

Once we get back my friend Nate stumbles in behind us and we realize that he is bleeding profusely. He must have stepped on something because his foot is a mess and there is blood everywhere. My friends clean the cut and put antiseptic on it but it’s really deep and we decide that he needs to see a doctor. We call Med-Ex which is the insurance provided to us by the ship and they hook us up with a local doctor. Keep in mind however that it’s 2am on Valentine’s Day Saturday and we’re in the middle of nowhere with no means of transportation. My friends Alicia and Taylor decide to take Nate to the hospital and the rest of us go to bed. Apparently the “ambulance”did come and get them but the ambulance was a pickup truck. On the way to the hospital they made a pit stop and dropped one of the nurses off at her house and finally made it to the hospital. They cleaned Nate’s foot and found that it had cut all the way to his fat layer. They cleaned out all the sand and sea glass and shell bits and gave him 5 stitches. After Nate was all stitched up the doctor gave the three of them a ride home since they had no other way back and they ended up back at the house around 5am. Somehow Alicia and our other friend Jill got up at 7am to go skydiving and the rest of us slept in until 9 or 10.

We got up and decided to make Sunday breakfast before heading out to the dunes. We had scrambled eggs, toast, onions and peppers and bacon along with coffee and orange juice. Not too shabby for a bunch of college kids on limited sleep. We hopped a taxi back to Dune 7 and spent the day enjoying some of Namibia’s extreme sports. The first thing we did was zorbing, also called sphere-ing or hydroballing. Basically you get inside a giant hamster ball filled with water , they push you off the edge and you roll down the dune. We had seen people doing it the day before and heard it was awesome so we signed up and hopped in the truck to go up the dune. My friends Megan, Taylor, Rosaly and I were joined by two older South African men in banana hammock speedos on our zorb adventure. The South Africans went down first and then we decided it was our turn. Megan and I hopped into the ball and they pushed us down the hill. It goes quickly but its suck a rush. There is water everywhere and it’s like being inside the spin cycle of a washing machine. We screamed the whole way down and had a blast.

After we got back to the base we put on some dry clothes it was time for sandboarding. Sandboarding is basically like snowboarding or sledding but on the sand dunes instead of snow. I thought we were going to be doing the kind where you lay on these flat pieces of wood and go down on your stomach but apparently we were doing the one where you stand up. I was really nervous since I had never snowboarded before and I am generally incredibly clumsy. To give you an idea of how much so, when we were putting on our boots to strap in my pair somehow hooked together and I fell flat on my face, this before even having touched a board. But this is an adventure so I grabbed a board, hopped on the back of the quad and our guide, Marcus, drove up to the top of this giant dune. He gave me a one minute crash course (lean back to go, forward to stop), hooked me into my board and then led me to the edge. It’s a long way down and very steep so I was nervous at first, but once I took the drop onto the hill it was surprisingly really easy. I started and stopped my first time down, mostly because I wanted to make sure I could stop, but once I figured it out I was able to go up a few more times and zip down the hill. The view from the top was incredible and it was so fun to fly down the hill and see the path you carved down the dune.

After sandboarding we decided to finish the day by spending an hour riding ATVs in the desert. I had heard from a friend who had done the trip in the past that ATV-ing in the desert was one of, if not the most fun things to do in Namibia, and I have to say that he was so right. We got onto the quads and we were a little nervous since they were semi-automatic and we got another 1 minute crash course which basically consisted of, push this to go, push this to brake and change gears when you feel like you should. But again, we had nothing to be nervous about. We headed into the desert and had a blast. We followed our guide all over, down ridiculously steep hills, up the sides of bowls and all across the flats. He would go ahead of us to scope out an area and do ridiculous tricks, jumping halfway off of peaks and popping wheelies everywhere. The views were incredible and driving the quads was so fun. Also, the phrase eat my dust has never taken on a more literal meaning then when you drive through some really dry sand on a flat plane. You kick up giant clouds of dust and the affect is pretty neat looking. The hour passed too quickly and all of us were sad for it to end. We thanked our guides, grabbed some snacks for the road and hired a van to take us home. The sun was going down as we drove and all of a sudden the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight came on the radio. We all starting singing and laughing and it was a pretty perfect end to the afternoon.

We got home late and by the time we all showered and changed most of the restaurants in the area had already closed their kitchens. This coupled with the fact that it was nearly impossible to find cabs left us in a bit of a predicament. We decided to walk to a nearby hotel that we knew had a restaurant and try our luck. When we got there the kitchen was closed and the woman said that they only thing that would be open was the gas station but that they did have food and were open 24 hours. We had her call us a cab and the driver said that he would take one group and then come back and get the other. Half of us took the first shift over and arrived at Total, a perfectly nice gas station market in downtown Swakop. We had lots of tuna at home so we bought a few loaves of bread and some chips, drinks and snacks and waited for the other group to arrive. Apparently our cab driver made some pit stops on his way to get the other group so we hung out for a while and talked with the guys who were working at the gas station while we waited. Simon and Eben were both around 21 and were working the 12-hour shift from 7pm to 7am. We talked about American and Namibia politics and the national elections that they have coming up in November. Swakop, the majority party is facing opposition from a faction that has broken off and will be running candidates for the first time in this election. They expressed their distaste for George Bush and their excitement at the idea of an Obama presidency. We also talked about music. Simon had more songs on his little cell phone than I think most people have on their iPods so he played us clips and told us about his favorite American singers (Rihanna, Chris Brown, T.I. and Usher, just to name a few). Apparently Simon liked me quite a bit and asked me if we could take a picture together on his phone. Finally the other group arrived, got their food and we headed home to eat. We were all starving and feasted on tuna sandwiches, chips and snacks. We were all beat from a long day in the sun and we crashed hard in our beds until the next morning.

The next morning people had made appointments to get massages at the hotel down the beach since the exchange rate made the prices really reasonable. I couldn’t book one in time but I tagged along with Taylor and Rosaly to see if they had anything else open. We all got fluffy white robes and I relaxed in the sauna while they got massages. The spa looked out onto the beach and it was a beautiful day. After being very sandy and dirty the day before it was nice to feel refreshed and clean. We took a cab back to the house, locked up and, after picking up some postcards and stamps, headed back to the ship in Walvis Bay.
Spain was a test route. Morocco was a culture shock. But Namibia was a gift. The landscape was so beautiful and so different than anything most of us had ever seen. It was so easy to just sit back and be in awe of how majestic, sprawling and exquisite the desert was. Plus, the contrast of the desert and the ocean, literally right next to each other, was amazing. Being able to wake up and look out our window to see the sun rising over the water and then being able to watch it set on the dunes is something that is so rare and striking. Namibia was also really fun. I had the opportunity to spend my time with people who were excited and open to all possibilities and that was something that made my trip really wonderful. There were certainly moments where it would have been easy to get cranky, when there are no cabs, no dinner and you’re lost or stuck, but everyone rolled with it and had such a better time for it.

The gravity of this trip continues to hit me every day like a ton of bricks. Every time I wake up in a new country I feel like I need to be pinching myself to make sure that this is real. We turn to each other all day, wherever we are and ask, “Can you believe what we’re doing right now? Can you believe where we are?”and I’m fairly certain that we will never stop asking those questions. Tomorrow we arrive in Cape Town and I’m sure that I will be in awe all over again. We have 5 days there and I can’t wait to make the most of it.

Until next time,
lia

guts, kisses, tutu and neptune

2009-02-09T15:07:00.000-08:00

Today was an incredible day. Why? Because today was Neptune Day.

An old Navy tradition, Neptune Day is a bunch of rituals performed to celebrate the first time a sailor crosses the equator. Coming on Semester at Sea you’ve heard about Neptune Day before, but even then, you aren’t sure exactly what to expect. So, yesterday evening, we received and email stating:

SUBPOENA to all POLLYWOGS,

You are hereby requested to appear before the ROYAL COURT OF THE REALM OF NEPTUNE, in the DISTRICT OF EQUATORIUS, because it has been brought to the attention of HIS HIGHNESS, NEPTUNE REX through his trusty SHELLBACKS, that the good ship M/V EXPLORER is about to cross the equator and enter those waters accompanied by passengers who have not acknowledged the sovereignty of the RULER OF THE DEEP.

THEREFORE be it known to all Slimy Pollywogs that The Royal, King NEPTUNE REX, Supreme Ruler of all citizens of the deep, will, with his Secretary and Royal Court, meet in full session on board the offending ship M.V. EXPLORER on the 9^th day of February, A.D. 2009 at 0900 on Deck 7 aft, to hear your defense.

Needless to say, everyone is excited. Simply because, not only do we have no classes today, but this sounds like it’s going to be fun. We get woken up at around 8am, not by our usual alarm clocks, but by the crew members dressed in costumes, wearing bandannas, foil hats and green paint banging on drums and blowing horns up and down the hallways. At 9am everyone heads to 7 aft to find the Royal Court of Neptune all set up. The guy who makes all the daily announcements, Luke, who is hilarious at any time, is introducing the court like the starting five of a very obscure basketball team. Everyone who has been on a previous voyage is dressed in “shellback attire”like the crew and the King and Queen are there in all their nautical glory. The King (our fantastically British captain Jeremy) is painted entirely green and is wearing robes, a wig and a very snazzy crown.

We are then informed that in order to cross the equator we need to prove to the king that we are worthy. Only then can we transition from being Pollywogs to full fledged shellbacks. This includes first reciting the Neptune pledge. Once the pledge is complete, the rituals begin. Everyone lines up and comes to the pool where first; we must each have fish guts dumped on our heads. While I’m fairly certain they were not actual guts, the concoction was green and awfully smelly. Then we each have to kiss a very large, very dead, fish being held up by the queen. Finally, we had to kiss King Neptune’s ring before jumping into the pool.

Everyone was giddy as we got dumped with fish guts and then took the plunge into the pool. But, guts and fish kissing are not exactly the Neptune Day main events. The most important thing of the day is head shaving. And while I’ll say right now that I was not brave enough to shave my head, I was very impressed with all the people who did. Lots of guys and even 10 or so girls sheared it all off and some even took it a step further and bic-ed the whole head. Very fun to watch and I give lots of credit to our newly shorn girls and guys.

After the festivities wound down we were free to enjoy a day of absolutely beautiful weather with no class. The sun was out and it was at least 80 degrees so almost everyone spent the day out on the deck in the sun. My friends and I headed to the very front of the boat on the 7^th deck where the sun was shining in full force and we got a great breeze coming off the ship. We passed the rest of the afternoon talking, tanning, listening to music and looking off the edge for flying fish.

And just when we thought the day couldn’t get better we were met with a celebratory bbq out on the deck for dinner. While the food on the ship is good, it definitely gets repetitive and everyone was excited for some burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, ice cream and fruit. They had a giant fruit display and I stealthily grabbed a whole pineapple from the pile. Thanks to some impressive knife work by my friends Nate and Taylor we cut it up and it made the perfect end to our meal. We sat on the deck, watched the sun set off the side of the ship and marveled at the fact that we’re in school right now.

The final thing to cap off the day was a lecture given at a nightly forum called Explorers Seminar. The woman who spoke is traveling with us on the ship with her husband. But, up until this past December she worked as the personal secretary for the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I didn’t know much about Archbishop Tutu until recently but I’ve become increasingly in awe of him as a mediator, spiritual leader and human rights figure. Lavinia talked about “Tutu as I know him”and spoke about the various roles he played throughout his career including his work against Apartheid and his time with the TRC. She told a story about the night that Nelson Mandela was released from prison and she got to welcome him into the Archbishop’s home and see him speak for the first time after his release. Usually when the SAS ship stops in Cape Town Archbishop Tutu comes onto the ship to speak or say hello, and he’s even done an entire voyage around the world. Unfortunately, he’s going to be out of the country when we’re in port, which I’m a little disappointed about. But I definitely want to learn more about him while I’m on the trip and talk to Lavinia more about her time with him.

At the root of all his work is the idea that we’re all children of God and that each person should be treated with love and respect. No exceptions. And I have to say that that is a philosophy I can stand wholly behind. I read a quote from him this past fall before coming on the ship that really stayed with me. It said, “Take the anger from your hearts, Wipe the tears from God’s eyes, and live a life of love.”And while these sentiments are easier said than done, I have faith that in trying to live them; I will become a better person in the process.

As I said, this had been an incredible day and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for more to come.

with love,

lia

al marib ahsssan blad

2009-02-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

So we just got back on the ship after Morocco and I have to say that while certainly overwhelming, Morocco is an incredible country. If ever the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover”were to come to mind, our experience there could be the paradigm case.

We got off the ship on Tuesday morning and the first thing we see is a very industrial port with cranes and shipping crates everywhere. In order to get out of the port and into the city we needed to walk about a mile and a half and I think that everyone was a little nervous to say the least. In our pre-port meetings we talked a lot about how Islamic culture is different than what we we’re used to, how we shouldn’t wear our hair down or make eye contact with men and that definitely made us a little apprehensive. However, we found our way out of the port, caught a taxi to the train station (which was an adventure in itself) and boarded our train to Marrakech.

By the time we reached the train station all of the first class seats had been sold so my friends and I shared a second class compartment with a younger man and a middle aged Moroccan woman. Somehow one of my friends struck up a conversation with him but since I was the only one in the cabin who spoke French he and I ended up talking for almost the entire train ride. Let me preface that by saying that my French, while pretty good in high school, has quickly deteriorated into fraco-mush. But somehow, between his English and my French, we ended up having an incredible conversation. Hicham, as I found out his name is, is 22, lives in Marrakech and is studying to be an engineer. We talked about America and his perceptions of our government. He said that while he thinks America is great country and that the people are good people he believes that the government is often wrong, especially when it comes to foreign policy. I have to say that I often agree with him. He, like most of the people I’ve talked to in other countries, is excited to see how Obama will do as president. We talked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and he showed me some powerpoints about the devastation going on in Gaza. He told me how a lot of people in Islamic countries are boycotting American and Israeli products because they don’t want their money fueling terrorism. We also had an interesting conversation about religion. Being a Unitarian Universalist, I occasionally have to give a quick explanation of my religion, which is often no easy task when speaking perfect English. So you can imagine trying to do so in broken French to a guy who has just told you that Israelis are terrorists, me sitting there all the while knowing that my mom is Jewish. But, what could have been a sticky situation actually turned out to be not that bad. He seemed to get what I was saying and understood where I was coming from. We also talked about things that are Haram in Islamic culture and how strictly or loosely people actually follow the rules laid out for them. Aside from all the heavy stuff we talked about what we are studying in school and he played us some of the American music he liked. He showed me pictures of his friends and his girlfriend and the camping trip they took over the summer to the Atlas Mountains. After the initial scare of being in port and not knowing what to expect, talking to Hicham definitely put things in a better perspective for me.

After we arrived at the station in Marrakech we piled into cabs and made our way to Riad Mur Akush where we were staying. Driving in Morocco is fairly nerve-wracking since it seems like the lines and stop light and crosswalks are all just there for show. Our cab drivers zig zagged all over, weaving through people on motor bikes, other cars and people in the streets. We got dropped off near the riad and again we were a little nervous. We had to go down two alleys and ring the bell, all the while wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. However, as soon as Mohammad, the owner of the riad let us in we knew there we had been worrying in vain. The place was absolutely beautiful. There were only five rooms in the whole riad and we filled them all. There was a beautiful courtyard in the center, a room for breakfast and a rooftop terrace. There were tiles everywhere and all of the furniture was made of thick, dark, wood. They gave us mint tea (possibly one of the most delicious things ever) and we put our stuff away and decided to head out and explore the souks.

The souks are the giant marketplaces in the old city of Marrakech. We made the fifteen minute walk from the riad to the market and the minute you step into the area it’s like a sensory overload. There were people everywhere. Hundreds of stalls selling shoes, leather, ceramics, jewelry, teapots, lanterns and clothing. Plus food stalls all in the center all grilling meat or selling piles of dried dates, apricots and figs. There are stalls that are simply giant pots of snails that they ladle out by the bowl. There are stalls with whole lambs heads and tangines. Not to mention all the sounds. There were people shouting and bartering in English, French and Arabic. There’s snake charmers playing flutes, men standing in circles telling stories, music coming from some shops and the sounds of donkeys pulling carts filled with everything from pottery to refrigerators. The storytellers reminded me of my friend Tom, who, if he could lean Arabic and take a week to grow his beard back would have fit right in with them. You could also hear the call to prayer radiating from the Mosque in the center of the old city. There were people selling herbal medicine and one lady selling piles of human teeth. We deiced to split into smaller groups and look around. My group ventured into the stalls while some of the others went into the center of the market to see the snake charmers. I’m actually glad I didn’t go with them since apparently the charmers are quite aggressive, especially about throwing snaked onto people’s heads and shoulders. They also saw monkeys on leashes which I thought was pretty sad. Most of us didn’t buy anything that afternoon, resolving to come back the next day now that we had some kind of knowledge of where things were and what we wanted. We headed back to the riad and then to a little restaurant for a dinner of pizza and schwarma. The exchange rate in Morocco is pretty great so we were able to eat a good meal for very little cash. We headed back to the riad and stayed up late talking until bed.

The next day we got up early to eat breakfast and plan the day. Half of the group wanted to go to a leather store and to see the remains of a palace and the other half of us wanted to spend the morning in the markets. My group headed out for the souks and spent the morning browsing, bartering, pretending we didn’t want things and then bartering some more. I don’t know how good my bartering skills were but I ended up buying some bracelets for my friends, a teapot for my boyfriend’s mom and a ceramic serving platter for my mom. By lunchtime we were starving so we decided to eat at a restaurant called Argana which was right in the market. We all got more tea (surprise) and decided to try some tangines. Basically a tangine is like a Moroccan crock pot made of terra cotta and the top is shaped like an upside down funnel. Throw in some meat and a combination of vegetables or fruit and nuts and everything becomes tender and delicious since all the flavors are kept inside while cooking. My friend Nate and I decided to split a tangine M’rouzia which was lamb with almonds, onions and raisins. I have to say that I’m getting hungry again now just thinking about it. The lamb meat was falling off the bone and the raisins were plump and delicious. We literally scraped the tangine clean after we ate all the meat and then sponged up the oil and sauce from the bottom with bread.

After lunch we decided to go visit the Palais Badi which was built in 1593 and still has some pretty impressive remains. We had to walk there from the market and I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t proud of being able to navigate our way in broken French. Madame Allaire, wherever you are, you’ll be glad to know that I still remember droit and gauche and didn’t get lost or die. We spent most of the rest of the afternoon exploring the palace ruins and taking pictures and then headed back to the market en route to the riad. I got some henna done on my hand which I really like. I’m hoping to get more done in India.

After relaxing for a little at the riad we decided to go to a hookah bar before dinner. We had to walk to the bus station to get a cab, which was learned later wasn’t in the best part of the city. We could only find one cab so we had to go in shifts which was actually a little scarier than we had planned but in the end everyone came to the same place and we thought we could have some hookah, maybe some tea and then get dinner after. Well, at this point things got a little messy. We go into the place that we think is the right café and I ask if they have hookah. The man says yes, they have kookah so I’m thinking it must just be a pronunciation difference. So we sit and get a table and people arrive in shifts as the cab comes and gets them and once everyone is there I try asking more about the hookahs and if they have different flavors of shisha. This is that part where we discover that kookah was not actually a pronunciation difference. Kookah, we learn, is what they call Coca Cola. Oh no.

So we decide to split up again since we’re realizing that it’s just too difficult, not to mention unsafe to travel in such large groups. We discover that the hookah place is next door so everyone who wants to smoke goes over there and the rest venture out to find a place for dinner. I end up in a nice small group with my friends Nate, Bradee and Taylor and we settle in for some apple hookah and, unsurprisingly, more mint tea. After hookah we decided to go back to the riad area and find some dinner as it’s getting late and we’re getting hungry. We need to stop at the riad before heading out again and when we get there we find Hassan, the really great night hotel guy, just hanging out since no one else is back yet. Taylor had bought some mint tea in the market earlier that day and Hassan took us into the kitchen and showed us how to make it. We all sat down to enjoy it and the owner of the Riad next door came over to join us. We ended up staying and talking with Hassan and the other riad owner came over with bottles of beer for everyone. The six of us sat and drank and talked with Hassan and the other owner about where they live, their families, etc. Hassan is from a Berber village in the Atlas Mountains. As it turns out it was only his second day of work at the riad and we were his first customers. He spoke English really well and told us that he had learned it from a Peace Corps volunteer who had lived in their village. He also spoke Berber and some Arabic. The other Riad owner spoke French and Arabic so he and I conversed as well. They taught us how to say Morocco is beautiful (which is the subject line of the entry) and wrote it out for us in Arabic. Hassan showed us pictures of his village and the places in the mountains that he would hike with tourists. We also talked a little about America and again both men expressed their happiness that Bush was out of office. As we were almost reaching the bottom of our bottles of beer, the dinner group came back to the hostel and told us about the restaurant they had just eaten in that was located in the hotel about 2 alleys down. They said it might be closed but we quickly finished our drinks and got over there. There was a man in the alley blowing out the candles when we arrived and he told us that they were just about to close. But luckily, he let us in anyway. We were so thankful and once we got inside we could see why the other group had been so excited. The hotel was absolutely beautiful and the restaurant boasted comfy couches, jazz music and a bar. We placed our orders and quickly became friends with our waiter/bartender Rashid since we were the only people in the place. He said that I looked Moroccan and that Taylor looked like Scarlett Johannsen which we all got a kick out of. He made us drinks for free and the food was delicious. After we ate he showed us around the hotel and took pictures with us in the courtyards.

Over dinner we had a really great conversation about how the trip is already starting to change us. Bradee and Nate both said that they already know they’re going to hate going back to school and seeing the people who never think further than the next weekend or where to get beer. All of us agreed that Morocco was a pretty big culture shock but that we almost preferred that to Spain. While Spain was fun, it was also easy. It took us more time to warm to Morocco but in the end it was more rewarding. I like to think of when we got dropped off by the cabs in the area near the Riad. We were all scared, surrounded by people who looked nothing like and speaking languages we barely understood. Walking down the alleys for the first time we had no idea where we were going, not to mention the fact that the word “alley”is not usually one that puts people at ease. But, as soon as we got into the Riad and met Mohammad and Hassan and saw rooms and the courtyards, we realized what an incredible place we were in. All we needed to do with Morocco was to look past the things that were simply different than what we knew, and separate the fear of not knowing from what was actually dangerous. The people we had the pleasure of meeting in Morocco were all thoughtful, interesting, incredibly kind and helpful. I think that if the tables were turned, visitors to America would be hard pressed to find people who were as patient and willing to help strangers as the ones we encountered.

We woke up the next morning early to catch the train back to Casablanca. Upon arriving we had a few hours before on-ship time and decided to go see the mosque Hassan II. We got there and it was raining and windy and hard to see or walk straight but by the time we got on out tour and were able to see the inside, dealing with the bad weather was well worth it. Hassan II is the third largest mosque in the world and as was built relatively recently. Our guide told us that many passages in the Qu’ran alluded to a throne for God above the water and so in 1986 they decided to build this Mosque on the coast of Casablanca. Not only was it astounding in its size, but the sheer breadth of ornate carving, painting and tiling was overwhelming. No space remained untouched by details. It also boasted the highest minaret in the world and, when open for prayer, can fit 25,000 people. They had a sanctuary with a ceiling that opened to reveal the sky, an underground bathhouse and seminary school adjacent to the building. Overall one of the most impressive and reverent religious spaces I’ve ever seen.

After the mosque I was ready to go back to the ship. Three days yet again un-showered and longing for a good nap, it was nice to be back home. And just in case the prospect of a hot shower wasn’t great enough, I came home to find my inbox flooded with emails from friends. I could have burst I was so happy. Now, however, we have another 8 days at sea before Namibia. We’re back in classes every day, writing papers and doing homework like regular college students. But, on Monday we cross the equator and get to participate in Neptune Day. This is a series of navy traditions put on by the crew to celebrate crossing the equator. I hear there is some fish kissing and water throwing but the most exiting prospect is that people shave their heads. Last spring they set a record with 60ish girls buzzing off all their hair. I will say right now that I will not be a part of setting a new record, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless. Until then I’m just sailing along, trying to keep seasickness under wraps and enjoying each day

New updates to come after Neptune Day and then on to Namibia!

until then,

lia

i may not be double jointed, but i better be flexible.

2009-02-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

One of the first things they told us during our on-ship orientation was that the most important thing to be on this trip was flexible. Yesterday, they decided to put the concept into practice.

Last night in logistical pre-port (a meeting we have every night before we’re set to arrive in port in order to get important information about safety, culture and getting around) we were informed that instead of arriving in Morocco at 8am the following morning we were going to be delayed until an unknown time.

We spent most of yesterday in the Bay of Gibraltar picking up fuel and enjoying views of the Rock of Gibraltar. However, due to some rough seas the fuel ship that pulled alongside us that afternoon was unable to run the fuel line and we couldn’t get the gas we so desperately needed. So, we were delayed. Everyone was clearly surprised and a lot of people were disappointed as they had signed up for 3 day trips that were set to leave early the following morning. Luckily for me, my travel plans weren’t really affected as we planned to spend the first day exploring Casablanca and then hop a train to Marrakech the following morning.

However, this did leave us feeling kind of in limbo. All of a sudden we had 24 more hours on the ship and nothing to fill them with. Board games were picked up, scavenger hunts were organized and a lot of people settled in to watch a broadcast of the Super Bowl. Our executive dean is a huge Steelers fan so we were able to pick up the signal from a German broadcast. It was definitely the most interesting broadcast of the “zuper-bowl” I’d ever seen as there were no traditional commercials and no English. Although it was pretty funny to hear the announcer pepper in words like “line-BAH-KAH” and “roth-les-BURGAH”

Aside from the zuper-bowl, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on my time on the ship thusfar as I have admittedly not been the most frequent blogger. It’s strange how it really took going to our first port for the gravity of this trip to sink in for me. Yes it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, yes it will change me and yes we’re getting to see the world in a way that is incredible and unique. I knew these things. I still know them. But all of a sudden they really do seem more real. I spent 9 days looking out my window to nothing but water and then all of a sudden there was Spain. And even better than that was that I got to experience it, head on, for four days. I stayed up until 5am and ate churros con chocolate, I stayed in my first hostel and I saw Las Meninas at the Prado. But then, I got to go back to the ship.

And getting back onto the ship and seeing the friends that you hadn’t traveled with, hearing their Spain stories and seeing where they went and what they did, all of a sudden made the ship feel like home to me. My friend Greg remarked that, for the semester this is “our ship” and then one day we leave, and it belongs to the next group of people to sail on it. For the first time it’s starting to feel like this place is “ours.” Cheesy perhaps but certainly true. And while I think it took me a little while to get to this point, as to be expected I guess, I’m really content to be where I am.

So despite the fact that I am violently seasick again thanks to the rough seas and we’re running a little behind schedule, it doesn’t really matter. Because tomorrow we’re going to be in Morocco. And that, is incredible.

Be well and I can’t wait to share some stories about Marrakech with you soon.

lia

ps. – thank you to everyone who has been sending me emails! I love receiving them more than you can know and am trying to get back to everyone as soon as possible. I love hearing what is going on with you all at home and staying updated,so thank you!

buenos dias: adventures in españa

2009-02-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hola! First of all, sorry for the lack of updates. We stayed at a hostel in Madrid that happens to have free internet and I found out there is a way to update your blog via email so I'm going to start doing that which means far more frequent blog posts. Hooray! Also, I promise not all of them will be this long so feel free to read the parts you like and skip the rest. I’ve realized that blogging is both for me to share my experiences and help me to remember them so it may get a little lengthy. For this, I apologize.

So far Spain has been incredible. We landed in Cadiz early on Wednesday morning and everyone was itching to get off the ship. Not that seeing only water for 9 days wasn't great, we were just really excited to hang out on land. We spent the first day exploring Cadiz. Lots of people had signed up for SAS trips to take them around the city but since my friends Greg, Nate, Taylor and I didn't have any trips scheduled until later that evening we got to spend the day in the city on our own. We actually ended up being really happy that we didn't do a tour as we got to see all the sights but without a big group and a boring guide. We saw a roman theatre that was built in 100BC, the Cathedral in the middle of the city, and had time for sangria and tapas in the plaza. We climbed to the top of the bell tower in the cathedral and the view was incredible. Cadiz is surrounded by ocean and almost all sides so everywhere you looked were the tops of the houses and churches and the sun shining off the water. The weather was great as well so we were able to eat outside and walk around in tee shirts and sandals. For a first day in Spain, we couldn’t have asked for much better.

After heading back to the ship to clean up we all met up for an FDP (faculty directed practica) that was a night of Andalucían flamenco. About a group of 60-100 people loaded up the buses and they took us to a place in the country. I semi loved and semi hated this FDP for a few reasons. The night began with a display of Andalucían horses and a “bloodless bullfight demonstration” which was basically a baby bull running through the cape a few times. Then they brought us inside and gave everyone sangria and tapas. There were a few dancers along with a guitar player and a singer. The dancers performed a few pieces and then finished by taking some people on stage to dance and finishing with a collective dancing of the Macarena. While most of the experience was very cheesy and touristy (especially the Macarena) and I’m not a big fan of exploiting animals, the flamenco was beautiful. The male and female soloists moved so sharply, intensely and gracefully and if you just focused on their dancing it was really incredible to watch.

The excitement of flamenco didn’t last long however as we had to leave at 6:45 the next morning to catch the train to Madrid. We arrived at the train station in a sleepy stupor but caught the train to Madrid on time and were on our way. Unsurprisingly I slept the entire 5 hour ride and once we arrived we then had to find out way to the hostel. No easy task as Greg was the only person who spoke Spanish and couldn’t remember the word for metro. However we got to Cat’s Hostel unscathed and checked into our 10 person room. The hostel was really great. Our room looked like summer camp bunk with 10 low bunk bed and 10 automated lockers. The hostel also had a bar in the basement and an Islamic style courtyard with beautiful tile and a giant stained glass window. Plus free internet access. Not too shabby for 20 euro. We ventured over to the Plaza Mayor for lunch and headed back for a siesta and some internet once it started to rain. Luckily the rain passed quickly and we headed out for dinner.

Let me explain a little bit about the Spanish schedule. Spain is a country for night owls. Lunch is the big meal of the day and it’s usually around 2pm. Then you take a little siesta and maybe have some tapas before a light dinner around 10. Bars and Clubs open around 1am and people stay out until 5 or 6 in the morning. It’s pretty common for club goers to be sharing the bus with businessmen on their way to work. So, we headed out for dinner around 10 and since almost no restaurant should have to be subjected to a group of 14 hungry and excited Americans we decided to split into two groups. My group went for paella, traditional rice, vegetables and seafood served in a cast iron dish. The rice was in a really flavorful yellow sauce with lots of mussels, shrimp and chicken. Muy delicioso.

After dinner we met up with the whole group and decided to do a pub crawl run by the hostel. Our group of 10 was joined by another 3 Semester at Sea friends and we headed out around 1am. For 10 euro we were able to go to 3 bars and clubs and got a free drink at each. The first bar was a local salsa club and after getting our free glass of Sangria we decided it was time to dance. The DJ was playing some American songs and since we knew all the words we singing and dancing up a storm. So fun. We then hit the second bar and were given free shots as well as more opportunities to dance. Finally we went to the third bar/club which included more drinks and more dancing. Not only did this club play a hilarious selection of music such as “Wake me up before you go-go” but it also had a small stage which we stormed for a hilarious rendition of “I Will Survive”. Needless to say by the time we left this club everyone was in great spirits. We went outside to get some air and made some broken Spanish conversation with some other people from the hostel and random Spaniards. Around 4 or 5am we headed back to the hostel but a few of us decided that we wanted some churros con chocolate which is a common Spanish snack of long churro donuts that you dip in cups of thick, delicious melted chocolate. So, the few of us hungry and happy enough to brave the walk wandered over to the Puerto de Sol to a 24-hour churreria. We got a whole bunch of churros and a few cups of dark chocolate and sat down to enjoy. Churros con chocolate is delicious, but let me tell you, it is especially delicious at 5 in the morning in the middle of Madrid.

The next day we decided we wanted to see all of Madrid so we took advantage of the free tour offered by the hostel. Our guide, Adrian, was absolutely incredible. He knew the whole city and was very entertaining and funny. He took us all around the Plaza Mayor, The Palacio Royale, Puerto del Sol and the Prado.

Adrian took us to a convent where the sect of nuns is not allowed to see anyone except for the other sisters and the priest. However, they sell these bisquits to make money for the church. So the way you order them is you go into the church and into this little room and you ring the bell and go over to this big lazy susan where you’re on one side and the nun is on the other behind the wall. You tell the sister what you want and put your money on the lazy susan and then turn it to the other side and she turns it back around with your order and your change. It was unlike anything I’d seen, not to mention the bisquits were delicious. The ones we had were like almond macaroons and were sweet and moist and tasty.

We also learned about the symbol of Madrid, the bear in the tree. Apparently there used to be these trees all over the city and the fruit that was on them fermented to make alcohol inside the fruit. The city also used to have a lot of bears who happened to really like to eat this alcoholic fruit so the symbol of the city is the bear reaching up into the tree to get some booze fruit. The tour was great not only because we got to see Madrid but it was a great opportunity to talk to Adrian and learn about Spanish life and culture and history. He talked about the city from medieval times all the way to the present and we talked to him about laws in Spain, how he grew up, his education and everything. It was incredible to learn that in only the past 30 years Spain has gone from being a complete dictatorship to a progressive, liberal and wealthy democratic country.

After the tour we were mucho hungry and mucho tired so we settled in for a long lunch and a long siesta. I was able to use skype and video chat for the first time which was muy exciting. The three friends who had joined us the night before came back from the train station and informed us that the tickets they wanted were sold out and had to stay another night. So, we decided that the more was the merrier and that we could indeed fit 14 people into a 10 person room. Adrian had informed us earlier that you could get into all of the museums free of charge after 6pm so a group of us decided we wanted to go see the Prado which is like the Louvre of Spain. We saw many many paintings of Jesus and Spanish royalty and got to see a few of the paintings we learned about in global studies that week like Las Meninas by Velasquez. Las Meninas has been reinterpreted by artists like Picasso and Dali and is one of the most notable of Velasquez’s works. It was incredible to see it in person. Another, less dignified highlight was a portrait of the Virgin Mary and San Bernardo where the holy mother is shooting a very long stream of breast milk into the Saint’s mouth. We only wished we could have read the caption in Spanish.

After the Prado we met back at the hostel and decided to figure out dinner. Someone mentioned the words “Mexican food” and we collectively decided that Mexican sounded perfect. Our waiter, Diego was Peruvian but spoke impeccable English which he said he picked up from school and American movies. Hannah, Alicia and Laura all ordered full plates of Nachos which are usually meant to share as an appetizer and the rest of us got tacos, flautas, and gringas rojas. One of my favorite things about traveling is sharing meals and this was one of my favorite ones. The food was delicious, we were starving and everything was hilarious. Everyone in the group has a great sense of humor which, coupled with tasty food and the thrill of being in Spain, made for a really great experience.

We all skipped, stumbled and made our way back to the hostel after dinner and most of us decided that since we had to catch an 8am train we couldn’t do another Spanish night out. We stayed up late talking and making funny noises and caught our train to Cadiz the next morning at 8am. We were a tired, smelly yucky group but we got there and were able to spend our last few hours writing postcards home and enjoying some last minute tapas outside the Cathedral.
Overall for a first port I think we could not have asked for a better experience than Spain. It was a clean and relatively safe country to help get us used to the excitement and trials of independent travel. We learned that the rest of the trip will require increasing amount of creativity and patience as our language gap widens and we head into increasingly unknown territory. However, it was also, if nothing else, incredibly fun. Having a good travel group is priceless and I’m pretty lucky to find a group that can roll with the punches and have a great time along the way. I’m looking very much forward to Morocco and our other ports of call and, of course, updating you along the way.

Best from España,

lia

anchors away

2009-01-21T17:39:00.000-08:00

We are currently somewhere in the Atlantic ocean on our way to Spain! The past few days have been both exciting, nauseating and eventful so I’ll do my best to give you the highlights. On Sunday Mom, Ali and I flew out to Nassau and spent the night eating conch fritters and watching Canadian television. Our mini vacation didn’t last long as the next morning it was time to say goodbye and get on the ship! This involved long lines and quite a bit of processing, but everything went pretty smoothly. Once we were set to leave everyone came up on deck to watch wave goodbye and I can honestly say that seeing the ship actually pull away from the port was surreal.

I spent a lot of time during my last days at home thinking about the difference between leaving and going. Leaving speaks to what is behind you; all of the places things and people that you love. Leaving is never fun. But going alludes to all that is in front of you. Leaving my friends and family and school behind, for lack of a better word, sucked. But as the ship pulled away from the harbor I knew then that not only was I actually going, but that there was so much that lay ahead of me. Semester at Sea has been something I’ve been planning and talking about for over a year and only in that moment did it become real.

Once we were settled on the boat a few things happened. First, I got seasick. Having been on cruise ships before I didn’t think that I would feel the waves as much as I do but I’m sure I’ll figure out my “sea legs” soon. In the meantime I’m trying not to fall too hard and keep the queasiness to a minimum. Yesterday we had orientation during which we were fed lots of information about life on a floating campus. It was pretty much as fun as it sounds. However, the day certainly had its high points including watching the inauguration and some celebratory cake and champagne for the event. It was neat to think that we, even in the middle of the ocean, were able to watch this all happen in real time and celebrate with millions across the globe.

Today classes started and I think I’m going to really enjoy them. Everyone on the ship has to take a class called Global Studies which stresses the theme of the voyage (human migrations) and teaches about the countries we will visit before we get there. In addition to that I had a class in International Short Stories. I have two more new ones tomorrow so we’ll see how those go. In the meantime it’s pretty great to pass the time between classes out in the deck with a good book. Everyone is trying to get in as much sun as possible before we get into the chilly part of the Atlantic. We have another seven days until we reach Spain so I’m sure there will be more nautically awesome news to come. In the meantime feel free to leave comments or send me an email, I love getting them

lia

Different fields, different grasshoppers; different seas, different fish

2009-01-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

So it's just under two weeks until I leave for Semester at Sea and I'm starting to feel excited/nervous/trepidatious/ - pretty much all the feelings that people get before embarking on something big and new. However, I'm sure that once I get on the boat the excitement will weigh out the rest. I'm really looking forward to the experience and to sharing it with all of you via blog! We have limited internet access on the boat so I'm going to try and keep this as up to date as possible and include pictures etc when I can. However, they do provide us with an email address so you can email me anytime at lnalbini@semesteratsea.net.

Below is a list of all the places we stop and a map of all the ports we visit.

Nassau, Bahamas, Cadiz, Spain, Casablanca, Morocco, Walvis Bay, Namibia, Cape Town, South Africa, Port Louis, Mauritius, Chennai, India, Bangkok, Thailand, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
Hong Kong / Shanghai, China, Kobe / Yokohama, Japan, Honolulu, Hawaii, Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

The semester at sea people do a good job of providing a lot of info on their website so if you want to learn more about the ports or follow the ship you can look at http://www.semesteratsea.org/spring-2009.php and if you want to see when we're in each country, where to send mail and what the time difference is for each port you can look at https://www.ise.virginia.edu/asp/mydocuments/S09/S09_CalCom.pdf

I know that I will change a lot from this trip and I'm really looking forward to seeing, tasting and experiencing new things, all the while carrying those I love with me. I can't wait to share my travels and the next time you hear from me chances are I will be en route to Spain!

- lia