Update

Hey neglected readers,

Sorry I left you hanging after Vietnam! After that point, I a.) ran out of Internet minutes on the ship and b.) was so overwhelmed and tired as the gravity of my trip set in. Trust me, Semester at Sea was heavy, emotionally and physically. Looking back now, over a year since we pulled back into Miami harbor, I still look back on my SAS experience as the coolest, but probably most exhausting, thing I've ever done in my life. I really tried to pack the most amount of activity I could into each port, but toward the end I started feeling really burnt out. Not that I regret it :)

Anyway, I'm going to attempt to pick up where I left off, which is CHINA!

HONG KONG

We docked in Hong Kong, which was, out of all the cities we docked in, the ritziest. It was like New York City but much cleaner and much more efficient. The Waterfront Mall that we were shuffled into as soon as we left the ship was straight A-list designer. After seeing the same sort of thing in South Africa and Vietnam, however, I wasn't too excited by it and quickly passed on through.

My friend Collyn and I resolved that we wanted to get as lost as possible in the city -- we had a full 24 hours in port and we wanted to explore it without any reservations. We left the port area and wandered around the downtown area for a while, which was pretty uninteresting, just lots of tall office buildings. The weather was a little gloomy because of the smog, and the atmosphere was a little depressing to me. I would hate to work somewhere that rarely got sunshine.

As we got further away from the waterfront, we found a small park randomly in the middle of a populated area that was actually quite beautiful. It was obviously very well-maintained and contained a number of absolutely gorgeous, colorful flowers, as well as a waterfall. I imagine it was built to help relieve businesspeople who feel cooped up during the day.

After an extremely confusing encounter with the subway, we ended up in another part of the city that had a lot of restaurants, so we decided to grab a bite to eat. Of course, we couldn't read any of the menus so we made our choice based on how populated the restaurant looked. This was kind of difficult as well, because it was lunchtime and all the resturants seemed pretty busy. We settled on an out-of-the-way place that had a huge fishtank.

Collyn ordered a pretty standard sweet-and-sour pork, which was on the menu in English so it was obviously a popular choice with Westerners. I attempted to order a fish meal, but something must have been lost in translation because I ended up with an enormous, whole crab covered in hot peppers. Not wanting to be rude I attempted to eat it anyway, which was an extremely messy process and I felt a little embarrassed because the Chinese have such polite table-manners.



After lunch, which was surprisingly expensive, we continued to wander aimlessly around the city. We stopped in a mall, just for something to do, but again, everything was Gucci and Fendi, so we didn't spend much time there. They had a movie theater and we considered seeing a Chinese movie just for the novelty of it, but once we saw the price of the tickets, we quickly reconsidered.

We came across a few more SAS students who seemed to be doing the same thing we were, but they had a Chinese friend with them who had studied in the United States. Finding a native guide is usually pretty exciting (see my experience in India), but unfortunately she wasn't too familiar with the city and eventually the group broke up and Collyn and I decided to make our way back to the ship.

That evening, I went out with a bunch of my friends and watched the famous Hong Kong light show from the best seat in the house: the MV Explorer! You can see a video of the light show here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHWmFkpondw. It was pretty neat and it lasted quite a long time. My friends I hung out on deck and chatted about the inevitable end of our trip, and then I headed to bed becasue I had a flight early the next morning.

BEIJING

My flight for Beijing left the next morning at 6 a.m., so the bus to take us to the airport arrived at 4. A bunch of the other students looked severly hungover, and my friend Forest almost didn't even make it because he was still ridiculously drunk. I was sent by his mom (who happened to be the nurse on board) to retrieve him, and then I accepted the responsibility of babysitting him and making sure he got on the plane -- a task that required more energy that I was prepared to expend at 4 in the morning.

Somehow we got on our flight and when we arrived, we had a full day of sightseeing planned aboard a tour bus. I've never been a big fan of tourbuses, and I guess I didn't realize that that's what my trip to Beijing would primarily consist of, so I was a bit disappointed. Our tour guide, who had given herself the American name Ashley, gave us quite a lot of interesting information though. She talked about intonations in Mandarin and how "ma", for example, could mean four or five things depending upon pronounciation.

The weather was surprisingly beautiful; the sun was out and bright, the sky was blue, and there was an incredible breeze. We later learned, however, that this type of weather is a bit of an anomaly. Usually Beijing is overcast due to the smog, so I felt very lucky.

Our first tour stop was lunch at a buffet style Chinese restaurant. I had very much been looking forward to trying Chinese food because I knew that the stuff they serve in America is only a loose replication of the real thing, and I was excited to try something authentic. Upon arriving at the restaurant, however, I quickly realized why authentic Chinese food has never been popular with Western palates. Pretty much every meal option had a number of cringe-worthy ingredients, like duck feet, goose blood, pig liver, etc. I felt especially bad for a vegetarian girl in my group because she was basically limited to having plain white rice for every meal.

After lunch, we were taken to the Summer Palace, which was originally built during the Jin Dynasty, but gained popularity during the Qing Dynasty when an emperor decided to beautify it for his mother's 60th birthday (aww). The buildings were very pretty, especially since the cherry blossoms were blooming, and like I mentioned, the weather was exquisite -- the problem was that it was incredibly overcrowded. We were supposed to follow our tour guide, who had a flag with a little toy panda attached to it, but there were so many other guides with similar flags that a group of us quickly got separated. I can say unreservedly that the avenues at this palace were more crowded than the streets of Hong Kong at lunchtime. It was ridiculous, and I couldn't wait to get back on the bus.

After this palace, we were taken to our hotel. A group of us decided to go out to dinner and explore the area a little more, so we all got dressed up and headed out. Embarrassingly enough, we had to walk out of the first three restaurants we went to because they could not cater to our vegetarian friend (we told them she was Buddhist, because the waiters couldn't understand "vegetarian"). We finally found a quiet restaurant that had an enormous menu with pictures and enough options that we could all find something to eat. We ended up ordering an extravagant amount of food (I think we were all really hungry since lunch was kind of a miss) and had an incredible meal where we were all sampling each other's dishes and passing things around. Compared to Hong Kong, the prices were great.

After, we meandered around and found a hole-in-the-wall Internet cafe. It was cool looking around the cafe because there were a bunch of teenage girls hanging around playing really fun-looking games with cute characters.

When our Internet needs were satisfied, most of the group decided to go out to see if they could find a bar or nightclub, but a few of us were really tired and headed back to the hotel (as tasty as it was, I don't think the Chinese food was sitting very well with me, and my stomach was kind of upset).

The next morning we were taken to the Great Wall, which was about an hour outside of the city. As touristy as it was, it was amazing. Our tour guide prepared us with a thorough history of the wall -- my favorite tidbit was that, instead of carrying dead workers' bodies down the hill, they simply built them into the stone! She said they estimated 20,000 bodies were treated this way, so it was definitely something I kept in mind while I was walking on it.

The climb up the hill toward the Wall was a little grueling -- sooo many stairs! But when we finally arrived on it, we stayed up there for two hours or so and ate a packed lunch. We took turns walking on the stone wall like a balance beam and took about a million pictures collectively.

Getting down from the Wall was an interesting experience: instead of more stairs, they had set up a sort of bobsled course (without the ice) as a gimmick. They had these little wheeled scooter-things that we sat down on and then sped down the hill. It was way too fun, even if it was a little silly.

After that, we had some time to wander around the marketplace at the foot of the hill and I got some fun souvenirs for my friends.

Then we packed into the tour bus and headed for a street market, but first we made a stop to see the Olympic stadiums! It was awesome to see the Bird's Nest right up close. We also saw the swimming arena and our tour guide explained the symbolism in the architecture (at this point, I can't really remember, but I believe it was designed to represent aspects of Taoist philosophy). A word about the Olympics: the Chinese seemed tremendously excited about hosting the Olympic games -- people everywhere were wearing Olympics t-shirts and sporting keychains with the little animal mascots (see a picture here: http://www.notcot.com/images/beijing_olympic_mascots-thumb.gif)

To be continued, I have to get back to work!

Pictures!

I finally got around to uploading a bunch of my travel pics!

Check them out here: Elisabeth Abroad

Vietnam Pics

Vietnam

Vietnam was by far one of my favorite ports (although I’m sure I’ve said that about at least four other ports; but hey, we keep going to new places!). I went on a four-day biking trip with 20 other students who organized the trip independently with a travel agency – the whole shebang, including five-star hotels, food, supplies and tours at various places, costing a whopping total of $215 USD.
Our first stop was to a restaurant to have a traditional Vietnamese lunch. Most of us weren’t too excited about the food, to be honest. A whole fish – scales and eyes and all -- that had been dropped in a fryer was placed in front of us for us to pick at with chopsticks (we nicknamed our table’s fish Herbert). Then we had some shrimp, some clear soup with vegetables, and some kind of beef. This basically sums up the meal that we had at every restaurant we went to.
Then we hopped on a ferry and floated over to a factory where rice candy is made. We got to see them popping the rice and mixing it with sugar and making it into different types of candy, all of which we got to sample. The factory was really hot, and it was 90 degrees outside, so I felt pretty bad for the workers who had to cook rice all day.
Then we had the option to try cobra shots. A cobra shot is literally a whole cobra preserved in some kind of rice wine. The venom is said to mix with the wine and give it medicinal properties. Personally, the whole thing sort of freaked me out so I didn’t try it, but lots of my friends did. (They said it was absolutely disgusting). There’s another variation on the cobra shot that I heard about from some other SASers that sounded even lovelier: someone cuts off the head of a live cobra right in front of you and pours the blood into a shot glass containing a little alcohol. Then you drink the blood/alcohol. If you’re lucky, you get to swallow the cobra’s heart while it’s still beating. I kid you not. I’ve talked to some people claim to have done it.
Anyway, I didn’t have the guts to do anything like that but kudos to the students who can brag about drinking cobra’s blood.
After that, we went on a relaxing afternoon cruise along the river. People living in houses along the water waved at us and came out of their houses to see us. We were taken to a house that belonged to a wealthy Vietnamese family and doubled as a bed and breakfast. We watched a music and dance performance, and then we slept on cots outside. The house was very beautiful – really traditional and old.
The next morning we woke up early and got on our bikes. The trail went along the Mekong Delta on a trail that ran through the woods, past local houses. Everyone waved to us as we walked by, and occasionally we had to break hard to allow for passing chickens. The weather was nice that day too – hot but dry and really pleasant in the shade of all the trees. I took a bunch of pictures.
We ate lunch at a small restaurant (same lunch as before, plus or minus prawns, so I’ll spare you the details) and visited a terracotta factory where clay pots were made. My favorite things were the huge kilns they used to bake the clay. Again, it was extremely hot and I felt so bad for the employees who had to work there every day! After the tour, we got back on our bikes and made our way into town and to a hotel.
We cycled about 60 kilometers on the first day. I wasn’t especially tired from the biking but it was hot and the bicycle seat was really narrow and starting to get extremely uncomfortable (I was literally bruised after the trip), so I was glad to have a break. The hotel was really nice too. After dinner, a few of us walked around to get a feel for the area, and then we conked out early. By the way, I would love to divulge the name of the city we were in (we were very far away from Saigon at this point), but I honestly can’t remember and I can’t point it out on a map because I had no idea where we were and neither does anyone else who went with me! It was nice to get away from everything though, and we were really in a remote part of Vietnam.
The next morning our guide took us to the floating market, which is where everyone comes out on their boats to buy and sell fruit, vegetables, animals for meat – any kind of food you can think of. While we were drifting along, a few “river vendors” rowed up to us, held on to the side of our boat, and tried to sell us cans of coke. It was such a neat experience. Some boats had huge pigs on them, some had chickens, some had melons stacked to the brim. Many of the vendors seemed to live on their boats too – a few were bathing while we floated by (and got really embarrassed when a couple students tried to take pictures), and some had satellites hooked up to the top so that they could watch TV.
Then we had some more biking – 45 kms worth. This time, people were getting really tired and really uncomfortable. We begged our tour guide to take us to a restaurant that was a little different from the others (like I said, most of us weren’t big fans of the food), and he took us to his wife’s aunt’s road-side stop. We were a little confused because it didn’t really look like a restaurant, but they brought out plates and plates of incredible food, vegan-everything. We had an amazing lemongrass curry, pineapple rice, bok choy, noodles, little bananas, mango – absolutely one of the best meals I’ve had on this entire trip.
At the end of that day’s biking, everyone was completely exhausted, and we finally stumbled into our hotel at about 8 p.m. after about 8 full hours of biking. Again, we pretty much passed out after dinner.
We left really early the next morning to head back into Ho Chi Min – a seven hour drive. Most of us slept the whole way until we got back within city limits. Our guide took us to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were really pretty amazing. If you don’t know, they’re tiny tunnels that Vietnamese soldiers used during the war (which, by the way, they call the American War, whereas we call it the Vietnam War). The tunnels were maybe 4 feet high, two feet wide, and we were all crouching or on our hands and knees. And the particular tunnels that we went in to had been widened for tourists.
Then we had the option to fire off machine guns, which a few of the guys in my group signed up for readily. It was so loud – it made me realize how horrifying it would be running through the woods and hearing gunshots close to you.
We also got to see some of the traps the Vietnamese would use on Americans – I have to say, some of them were downright sadistic. One was a trap door that rotates when you step on it, causing you to fall in a pit full of sharpened bamboo stems. Our tour guide said Vietnamese preferred to injure American soldiers so that other soldiers would have to help them, so they did things like put rotting cow tongues on the spikes so that the wound would get infected. Pretty terrible.
After our informative little tour, we were driven back into Ho Chi Min. I went out with my roommate to a club called Apocalypse Now, which I thought was ironic, and danced for a little while in a very upscale part of town (we’re talking Louis Vuitton and Gucci – a stark contrast to the river houses I had seen people living in just the day before).
On my last day in Vietnam, I went out shopping at a strange market that was set up like a mall, but basically everything in the entire building was a knock-off. Fake jewelry (set up very professionally), fake handbags, fake perfume, fake computer supplies (I got a camera charger and a 2G memory card for $15 USD), and bootleg DVDs. Really strange place. Everything was dirt cheap, and vendors expected you to bargain. I bought a bunch of DVDs and a couple of fun souvenirs.
Then it was time to get back on the ship, which was really sad because I’d enjoyed Vietnam so much. It’s really a beautiful, fun, interesting country that I would love to go back and visit again.

Malaysia

Hey family and friends,

Sorry I’ve gotten so behind on my blog – we’ve been hopping through countries so quickly I’ve barely had any time to sit down to check my email, much less write a blog.
We’re en route to Hong Kong right now, having just left Vietnam, but this entry is going to be about Malaysia.

I’d like to preface by saying that I wasn’t especially excited about Malaysia – I wasn’t unexcited but with the excitement of countries like South Africa and India, I put Malaysia on the back-burner. Ironically, it ended up being one of my favorites. I had no idea what to expect – I hadn’t really given it much thought – but I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty and urbanization of Malaysia.
We docked in Penang and I went out with the group of friends I was planning on traveling to Kuala Lumpur with. Our original plan was to find a hotel for the night since our flight was very early the next morning and we didn’t want to deal with the tender boats that brought us in because they tended to get delayed. Instead, we found a cab driver who offered to drive us all around Penang and take us to a few sites very inexpensively. I think it ended up being about $3 USD each (for a group of 4) for the whole day.
A word about Penang – it has an enormous Chinese population and the Chinese influence is very evident as you walk around.
So, our cab driver took us to factory where they make beautiful designs on cloth using wax and a special dye. They hand-draw intricate designs on the cloth using a tool that holds the wax, and then they dip the cloth in the dye. To remove the wax, they wash the cloth in boiling hot water. Some of the dresses were very pretty, but a little too expensive for our tastes, so we moved on to a museum.
The museum was a huge Chinese mansion built in the early 1900s. The rooms were very ornately decorated and beautiful and I got a lot of pictures of rooms called “The Bridal Chamber” or “The Parlor.” It was pretty interesting to see life for the wealthy back in the day.
We were feeling a little peckish so our driver bought us some roadside snacks called Pao – a Chinese pastry which is sort of like a puff of soft bread with some coconut jam in the middle. Mmm.
Then we stopped at the railroad station to get tickets for my friends who opted to take the train to KL instead of fly (both options were about the same price). After that, our driver took us to a Buddhist temple that contained an enormous bronze statue of a reclining Buddha. His toes were about the size of my head. We lit a candle and tried to meditate on the pillows they had laid out, but I think we probably looked a little silly. Oh well.
Moving on. We said we were hungry so our cab driver took us to a little food court where a bunch of little shops had been set up. Everyone was selling traditional Malaysian street food and everything was in Malay or Chinese, but with a little help from our cab driver, everyone ordered food they were happy with. I got some type of curry that I think contained octopus (or something with tentacles) and tofu, and it was absolutely delicious. I took a picture and I’ll post it as soon as I have reliable internet. Each meal had more than enough food and cost about $1 USD a plate. We all had ice cream for dessert, too.
Our cabbie then took us to a cheap but clean hotel called Hong Ping which was about $35 USD a night for all of us. We set our stuff down and then decided to walk around a little.
We found a cute hole-in-the-wall bar called the Hong Kong Bar and played Connect Four and Jenga and talked to a Swedish guy who worked in Cambodia but was vacationing in Malaysia. It was a good way to unwind and chat after a long day of rushing around the city.
After that, we walked around, looking in shops and trying to find a good place to eat. The restaurant we ended up at wasn’t very good (pretty bland, Americanized food) but it had a little dance club attached to it so we stayed there and danced for awhile. A pretty good band was playing and there were a lot of other SASers there.
Somehow, my friend Josh went off by himself to make a phone call and got lost. He was wandering around the streets of Penang at probably 10 p.m. or so. He stopped at a pay phone for a moment to try to find a number for a cab company, and someone came up behind him and held him up at knife-point. Josh gave him 50 Ringitts (about $17 USD) and the guy left. He finally found a hotel and managed to call some of his friends who picked him up in a cab and took him back to Hotel Hong Ping. He was lucky not to have been hurt or have had anything very valuable taken, but it shook him (and the rest of us) up pretty badly.
After this ordeal we decided to relax in the hotel and went to bed fairly early since we all had to be up at about 5 in the morning. For some reason I couldn’t sleep and spent all night reading in the hallway.

The next morning, bright and early, we went to the airport and flew to KL. We took the train into central KL, which was really cool because we could see the skyline as we got closer. In town, we took a monorail to our hostel. The hostel was pretty cool, all things considered – free internet and really cheap calling cards. I paid 20 Ringitts (about $6 USD) for a calling card and I had over 100 minutes to make calls to the States with. I didn’t even use them all but unfortunately the card doesn’t work anywhere except Malaysia. The rooms looked a little like jail cells but at the end of each day I was so tired, it didn’t matter.

So, after we were settled, we went out and decided to get massages because there were signs all over the place advertising hour-long massages for 35 Ringitts (about $12 USD). This was when I realized that the Asian concept of “massage” is a little different from the US one. I won’t go into details but I felt a little violated – and I’m a girl. My two guy friends had a much more awkward encounter.

Anyway, we headed off to the world-famous Petronas Towers after that (feeling a little traumatized, and very oily) and met up with our friends who had taken the train. We couldn’t go up the towers because you had to get there really early in the morning to get tickets (we’re taking 7 a.m.), and even then you could only go to the bridge that connects the towers (built after 9/11 in case of an emergency), which is about halfway up.

The entire platform is a gigantic shopping mall with all of the posh stores – Louis Vuitton, Versace, Ferragamo, etc. Obviously not within our price range but it was fun to meander anyway.

That night we hopped around bars. The nightlife wasn’t very exciting but we had a good time all hanging out together. We met some really cool Germans at the hostel, too.

The next morning we woke up early and spent the day walking around. We went to a radio history museum, which was a little cheesy but fun to walk through. We also climbed the Merona Tower, which is the one that looks like a space needle. We were much higher than we would have been in the Petronus Towers, and we had a fantastic view of the entire city. We stayed up there for about 2 hours napping on the benches, waiting for the sunset (which was sadly disappointed), and then we took the metro back to the hostel. By the way, KL’s public transportation system is really nice.

That night we stayed up because we planned to leave the hostel at 4 a.m. anyway, so I made a few phone calls on my mega-cheap phone card, and watched old Disney movies. The flight back was really pretty – we saw the sunrise, and mountain peaks were poking through the clouds, so we got a few pictures from the window of the airplane.

The next day we went to a few temples and a few shops around Penang, but we had to be back on the ship by 7 p.m. I wish I could divulge more details about the “feeling” of each place we visit because I feel like telling you what I do in each port isn’t enough. So much of the experience comes from the vibe of the city and the attitudes of the people. It’s hard to explain.

Anyway, I know I’ve been slacking on my blog entries – after Malaysia we hopped to Vietnam, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai within a week. It’s been pretty exhausting. I’m going to try to update them as soon as I can. I’ve been keeping bulleted notes with all the important stuff on them so I won’t forget anything.

I miss you all. I’m a little homesick, actually, and I’m looking forward to coming home.
Lots of love,
E

India!

Hey everyone!

Here is my long-delayed India post I’m sure you’ve been looking forward to.
Simply put, India is a culture shock, and at first I felt a little nervous about wandering into Chennai, but I soon realized that, despite extreme poverty, everyone is extremely friendly. I think I had a better time staying in Chennai than many people did going to see the Taj Mahal (they said it was a little disappointing).

India isn’t pretty by any means, but it is full of energy and interesting sites. This will sound clichéd, but driving through the slums, where children were eating trash in the streets, really did make me realize how lucky I am, living in luxury compared to most people.

On the first day, I went out with a Semester at Sea group to see a Schizophrenia Research facility. I thought it would be very interesting to see how Indian treatment differed from American treatment. It wasn’t quite what I expected – we were ushered into an auditorium where we watched a movie and then asked questions to one of the doctors. We weren’t given a tour of the facility or allowed to meet any of the patients because of privacy regulations (which I can understand, but I was still disappointed).
One thing I found interesting: in America, many paranoid schizophrenics have delusions about a Christian God cursing them; in India, they have delusions about Hindu gods and goddesses, which seems obvious, but it’s funny how culture can shape your mind.

That night I went out with my friends Josh and Heidi, affectionately known on the ship as “The Couple,” because they’re always seen together. We went shopping at a few places and I bought a beautiful silk sari. I’m not sure when I’ll wear it in the US, but it’s gorgeous fabric, so I think I might have it made into a skirt or something. I paid Rs 1000 ($25 US) for it after talking the guy down from Rs 3800 ($95 US).

We then we out to eat at a very nice genuine Indian restaurant – we could tell it was genuine because the menu was completely written in Tamil and there were a bunch of traditionally dressed families. I asked for a chicken curry with some naan bread, and they brought the food out to us on big banana leaves – no silverware. In India, you are supposed to eat with your right hand (never eat with your left hand; I won’t go into details about why). So, we dug in. The food was delicious and eating with your hands is really fun because you feel like you’re rebelling against every piece of etiquette ever drilled into your head. Our bill for the entire meal only ended up being only Rs 480, or about $12 US.

A word about auto-rickshaws: I’ve traveled to a lot of places, and I’ve seen a lot of crazy driving, but Indian auto-rickshaw drivers are definitely the craziest. It’s so much fun riding around in them though.

The next day I went out to a shopping mall with a group of girls. We just checked out some of the local stores – most of them were along the same strain: lots of fabrics, small devotional statues made of wood or bronze, jewelry, rugs, clothes, pillows, hookahs, tea, and incense. I bought a few small souvenirs. Everything was incredibly cheap, and you could easily bargain the price even lower. I bought a Punjabi dress (google it for an idea of what it looks like), and they tailored it to my exact size. Altogether it was about Rs 600 ($15 US).

The following day I went out with another group of people to check out some of the temples in the Chennai area. Thanks to my Hindu class, I was able to recognize most of the gods and scenes portrayed on the temples, so it ended up being really fascinating. My favorite deity is Saraswati, the goddess of education, knowledge and fine arts. Unfortunately, we didn’t stay out long looking at the temples because it started pouring rain, and we were all eager to get back to the ship and get dry.

That night we went back out to a hookah bar, led by the inter-port student Kanishka. Kan is from Chennai and goes to school there. He was invited to sail on the ship as an ambassador, so he flew to Mauritius and sailed with us to India. He gave a few presentations and was available to answer all of our questions. We got to be pretty good friends, and he picked us up from the ship in his own car and took us out for the night. The hookah bar was a lot of fun, even though I wasn’t really interested in the hookah smoking. The food was incredible though, and they had good coffee. Then we went to a nightclub, which was a lot different from an American nightclub, but still very upper-class (and expensive). In India, you can’t sell alcohol past 11 p.m., so the bar closed at that point and we went back to the ship.

The next day was my last day in Chennai and I got up early to go out with some friends. We asked our rickshaw driver to stop at an ATM so my friend could take out some money. He stopped at an ATM that was enclosed in glass, for security, and the glass had a thin crack across it. My friend went in and got his money, but when he went to reopen the door, the glass cracked even further and when he tried to push the door open, the glass shattered everywhere. This caused a huge commotion in the area, and everyone came out to see what was going on. The police were called, and a representative from the bank had to come, so we were there for about an hour an a half while everything got straightened out. They wanted my friend to pay $500 for the damage, even after he explained that it was an accident and that the glass had already been cracked when he tried to use it. Finally, when he explained he was on the ship, and said he was going to call the dean, they let us leave without having to pay for the damage. Pretty intense situation.

After that we walked around a market for awhile, and went out to a restaurant where I had amazing chicken marsala and a sort of sweet and sour soup that was delicious. My favorite thing about coming in to each port is trying the food, and Indian food was not disappointing. It didn’t upset my stomach either, which was fortunate. Many people from Semester at Sea came back on the ship with upset stomachs after India.

My only regret about India is that I didn’t get out of Chennai. According to a bunch of my friends, Delhi, Agra and Vernaci were incredible. I didn’t care too much about seeing the Taj Mahal (and the Semester at Sea trips were way too expensive), but I would have loved to see some other Indian cities just to get a taste of how they’re different from Chennai. I’ve heard that Chennai is not a good representation of India as a whole. Maybe I’ll have to come back someday!

More India

We received a blessing before we entered a temple.

I love their dresses.

My friend Forest got to drive the rickshaw.

A beautiful temple

India Pictures

A government building

My friend Heidi trying on a sari
Not the cleanest river
I think this is Lakshmi, but I'm not sure.
You have to eat with your right hand!

New pictures!

Hey friends and family!
I'm working on my India post and I'll have it up as soon as I can. I'm already in Malysia and I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and write. I do, however, have a few minutes (and fast internet) to upload a few new pictures from Mauritius and India.
Miss you all so much!
E

Here are some pictures from Mauritius:

Climbing up La Ponce - it was quite a hike.

The MV Explorer from the top of the mountain.

From the top of La Ponce, looking down on Port Louis.

A beautiful sunset.

There isn’t a lot to say about Mauritius, because I didn’t do much except lie around on the beach all day, but there are a few tidbits I’ll write about.
On the first day, I was one of the first ones off the ship with a group that was going hiking up La Ponce, a mountain overlooking Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius where we’d docked.
The hike was very rigorous and it took about three hours of steep climbing to get to the top, but the breath-taking view was definitely worth it. I have a bunch of pictures, but as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, uploading pictures is a pretty big task and it might take me awhile to get them up. (I hear the Internet cafes in India are very fast and very cheap though, so maybe I’ll have some more luck there.)
After the hike, we were taken to Flic en Flac beach, which is about 30 minutes away from Port Louis. A few friends and I had rented a villa there for the week, and when I got to Flic en Flac, I found my friends already lying on the beach. Our villa was right across the street from the beach, and it cost about $100 US for each of us for the entire week. It was a little shabby but for the next few days it was the place to be and we had a bunch of people drive in from the ship to stay with us.

My friends Eric and Alan got up early one morning to go snorkeling with an SAS group. They had been at it for about 20 minutes when Eric suddenly started convulsing in the water. Alan grabbed him and ran back in to shore – they were in fairly shallow water but there was coral everywhere, and by the time Alan got back, his feet were completely sliced up. (We asked him about this later, and he said the adrenaline was pumping so hard he didn’t initially feel his feet getting cut.) The rest of the group swam into shore and started calling for help.
A doctor happened to be lying on the beach nearby, and helped to adjust Eric, who by this time was starting to regain consciousness but had dislocated his jaw. The coast guard came shortly after, and Eric was air-lifted to the nearest hospital in Port Louis.
According to the doctors, he’d had an epileptic seizure, although he wasn’t diagnosed with epilepsy. He’d had one a few years ago, and they concluded that the combination of dehydration, bright sunlight, overexertion and fatigue was the cause of his seizures.
Anyway, Eric had his jaw popped back in and spent the night in the hospital, but the next morning he grabbed a taxi and came back to the villa, perfectly healthy. By the way, in the picture of us petting the cheetah, Eric is the one in the middle in the white shirt.

Other accidents that occurred in Mauritius:
One girl had had a lot to drink and slipped off her chair at a bar. She hit her head extremely hard on the concrete floor and lost consciousness. They took her to the hospital (at the same time that Eric was there, which is how I know this) where she lay in ICU in critical condition, apparently due to bleeding in her brain. Eric said he heard that there was long-term mental damage. She was sent home before we left Mauritius.
Another girl was walking with a group of people and got side-swiped by a bus – she broke her arm and sprained her ankle. She’s sort of been a joke for the past couple of days (she thinks it’s sort of funny too). The traffic in Mauritius goes the other way, but you probably shouldn’t walk in the street in any country.
Another girl apparently had something slipped into her drink and had to have her stomach pumped, but I’ve heard less about that one.
One guy performed a song at Open Mic night with the lyrics: “It’s kind of suspicious, that night in Mauritius, when everyone came back with bruises and stitches.”
Needless to say, future Semester at Sea voyages will not be going to Mauritius.

The last day I came back to Port Louis so that I could see the downtown area. I went to the open-air market, which was pretty cool – very hustle-and-bustle, with lots of bargaining going on. I got a couple trinkets to bring back with me.

I should also mention that the MahaShivratri pilgrimage was going on while we were in Mauritius. It’s is a huge Hindu pilgrimage (Mauritius is 52% Hindu) during which many families walk from one end of the island to another carrying colorful floats that depict Lord Shiva (“floats” isn’t quite the right word – they’re like statues, almost, or miniature temples). I took a few pictures of the pilgrims as I passed them and I’ll try to post those a.s.a.p. I’ve learned a lot about Hinduism from the class I’m taking on board the ship, and I think it’s a really beautiful, interesting religion, so it was awesome to see a pilgrimage first-hand.

I think Mauritius was a real turning point in our voyage – it was the last place that we could still have many Westernized things at hand, like nice toilets, hot water, and electricity. It was a lot like spring break – a lot of partying and laying out on the beach and relaxing, but now we’re off to countries like India, Vietnam, and China where we’re not going to be able to do that. It’s time to get serious (at least until Hawaii).

It was also a turning point in terms of friendship – like I wrote earlier in my South Africa entry, there have been a lot of little dramas spurring up in different places, people getting angry at each other. So my original group of friends has more or less divided. I’m really lucky to have stayed out of everyone’s little personal fits (mostly because I’ve been very careful to keep my mouth shut and to not perpetuate gossip – harder than it sounds, believe me), and now I’m trying to branch out and meet other people – 50 days on a small ship and I still see people every day I don’t recognize. How does that work?

I’m trying to keep my head and my confidence up – I can tell you that cabin fever is a very real thing and people are definitely starting to go a little crazy.

In lighter news, here’s a tidbit from my Fiction Writing class that I wrote. It’s an experiment with magical realism:

Their feathers were beginning to turn a blanched magenta, but the flamingoes didn't seem to mind. They just bowed their heads against the arctic wind and continued to march, wiry legs twisting in the snow. Their beaks, now robin's egg blue, were glossed with ice. Most had gone blind. When the first bird collapsed, none stopped.
Night seized the crystal landscape. Stars began to appear, and then the Northern lights. For the first time in days, the flamingoes stopped and gazed upward. Carefully, they dislodged their frozen wings from their sides, ice cracking as they flapped experimentally. Then, as one, they pushed off the ground and broke into the blue and green light, a new brilliance exploding from the absence.

Okay, I’m off to class.
I miss you all! Xoxo.
Lots of love,
E

Finally, an update on South Africa!

I’m going to have to do this one in two parts – South Africa was incredible and I have so much to write about. I’m sorry I haven’t updated in a long time – Internet hasn’t been very reliable lately, but I promise I’m going to keep up with my blogs as well as I can.

CAPE TOWN

Q. How do you get 750 college students up at 5:30 in the morning?
A. Take them to South Africa.

The entire ship was up and taking pictures of a very beautiful sunrise the morning we pulled in to Cape Town. We were off the ship by 8 and I trekked up the famous Table Mountain with a group of girlfriends. Unfortunately, due to high winds, we weren’t able to take the cable car to the top, but we got about halfway and I got some incredible pictures, so I wasn’t too bummed out. With my zoom lens, I could see the MV Explorer in the distance (like I said earlier, I’ll post more pictures when I have better internet).
So, defeated, we drove back into the main town and walked around the waterfront. The Cape Town waterfront is very posh – lots of designer stores that were fun to look at but way too expensive to buy anything from.

After the mall, we freshened up on the ship and went out to dinner for two of our friends, Kevin and Mallorie, who both had a birthday the day we docked. We had the most incredible dinner – I had a spicy chicken curry that really hit the spot after eating bland ship food for 10 days. After an appetizer, dinner, and several bottles of wine (split among us), my bill was R135, about $18 USD. Then we went out to a club and danced with some of the locals - it was so much fun and we met a lot of South Africans.

The next day I went out with my friends Jeff and Eric to the winelands, a part of Cape Town called Stellenboch. The vineyard we visited was called Spier, and they had really great wine. I got a little pocket wine-tasting guide that gave me an idea of look for in a wine, in terms of color, texture, and taste. My favorite wine was one called a Chenin Blanc, which I had never heard of before – it’s a very light white wine, and the one at our vineyard was really nice. I wish I could have taken a few bottles but I’m not allowed to bring them on the ship, and it would have cost over $300 to ship some back to the States.

Right next to the vineyard was a cheetah preservation project, and for 80 rand (about $10 USD) we could go in and pet the cheetahs. (See picture below.) It was so neat – I was a little nervous but our cheetah, Joseph, was very relaxed the whole time. The guide said the cheetahs’ instinct is to conserve energy until it’s time to hunt, so they sleep all day until they decide they’re hungry. Thankfully, Joseph didn’t seem too hungry when we went in to pet him.
We rode the train back in to Cape Town, which was cool because we could see the whole countryside. We shared our compartment with a bunch of hotel staffers who had just gotten off work. It was a relaxing, uneventful ride.

That night a small group of us went to a little restaurant on the waterfront and ordered a few appetizers and had some drinks while the sun set. There’s a group of seals that hangs out near the waterfront, so we watched them for awhile and I got some cute pictures. I didn’t realize there were seals in South Africa, but they’re really cute and like to swim around the MV Explorer.

SAFARI

The next morning I woke up at 6 a.m. and got ready for my safari. We took a bus to the airport and flew out to Jo-burg. The flight was a little shaky, which made me nervous, but we landed just fine and took a 2 ½ hour bus ride to Pilansberg.

We were all completely exhausted after the bus ride, which was really hot (no air conditioning), but when we pulled up to the lodge, all the safari guides were standing outside with glasses of cold guava juice for us. We were served an incredible lunch and then set out on our first drive.

Here, there is so much to write about that I’m not even sure where to begin. Our safari guide, Leon, was incredibly knowledgeable, and broke everything down for us. He was able to answer every one of our questions (and we asked a lot), and he joked around and really showed us a good time.
Did you know the collective word for a group of wildebeest is “implausibility”? As in, “Look at that implausibility of wildebeest.”
Other collective words:
A dazzle of zebra
A murder of crows
A parliament of owls
A kaleidoscope/stretch/ladder/corpse of giraffe

Just a few of Leon’s little tidbits.

On the first day, we saw 3/5 of the Big Five. First we ran into a couple of rhinos sleeping under a tree, then we came upon an entire parade of elephants (yes, parade is the collective word for a pack of elephants). There was a tiny baby elephant among them (see picture below) that Leon said was only 2 weeks old. That night we ran into a pride of lions and the male walked right past the car on my side. I was so amazed and scared that I couldn’t move. They’re really incredible animals.

The next morning we had a drive at 5:30 a.m. We ran into the same group of elephants who were eating on a mountainside. We stopped and watched them for probably two hours – they’re really the most fascinating animals. I was entranced by them the entire time. They seemed to understand we were watching them, and a few of them came really close to the vehicle. The most amazing thing I saw on the entire safari was the mother elephant gently pushing her baby up a hill with her trunk.

Other animals I saw on the safari: hippos, zebras, giraffes, impalas, owls, water bucks, bush bucks (apparently very rare), a kingfisher (also apparently very rare), wild dogs, crocodiles, baboons, warthogs, more rhinos, elephants, and lions. On one occasion, we saw a lion that had just finished eating a water buck; its mane was covered in blood. I’ll post the picture as soon as I can – it’s amazing.

It was hard to leave the lodge. We got Leon’s e-mail address and convinced him to create a Facebook profile. I decided that some day I would really love to come back to South Africa – it’s a beautiful country, despite its problems. I was sad to say goodbye.

OTHER NEWS:
We’re back on the ship, and it’s been pretty boring. I’ve been occupying myself by watching movies with friends and playing intense games of Gin Rummy. Tensions have been starting to erupt within groups and little dramas are starting to happen everywhere. Fortunately, I’ve managed to avoid most of them, but some of my friends are starting to divide up, which puts me in an interesting position.
I’ve started to realize that other countries’ perceptions of the U.S. are not entirely unfounded. I’ve stopped hanging out with some people because they were only concerned with getting drunk, and then getting belligerent and rude. It definitely sends the world a bad message about Americans, and I don’t want to be associated with that message.
We’re almost halfway through, though. Mauritius is up next. I’ll update as soon as I can.

I miss home very much.
Xoxoxo,
E

Just a few S. Africa pictures...I'll post more when I have better internet

From the middle of the Atlantic

Hey Readers,

Sorry I’ve kept in you suspense since Carnivale – I’ve been busy with classes, friends, sunbathing and yoga. One of the professors on board is a yoga instructor and she teaches a class every night, so I’ve been trying to go at least a couple times a week

Here’s a brief summary of how I spent my last two days in Brazil:

The day after Carnivale I left with a group of friends to spend a few days on Itaparica Island. We ended up taking the wrong ferry and, while we still landed on Itaparica, we were on a strange part of the island. We asked a cab driver to take us to a nice hotel. The first hotel he took us to was decent but our impression of the neighborhood was that it wasn’t very safe. These were some people stumbling around, apparently drunk at 3 in the afternoon, so we kept driving.

30 minutes later we arrived on a better part of the island, where we found a nice hotel in the center of town. We were the only white people we saw the entire time; we were completely surrounded by locals, which was so amazing and gave me a feel for life in a small Brazilian village.

We walked around for awhile, trying to talk to some of the locals. There was a girl in our group who spoke decent Spanish, so with her second language, and with the locals’ second languages, we managed to piece together some understanding.

We ate a restaurant that was written completely in Portuguese, so we decided to take the safe way out and order “Pizza Portuguesa” – a pizza with ham and olives.

After dinner we found a tour guide – a little boy named Willy who was selling peanuts. After showing off his capoeria moves, he led us to an amusement park that had been set up for Carnival. A few of my friends went on the bumpercars, but I hung back and took pictures (which I’ll hopefully be able to post soon).

There were still some people dancing and singing in the streets, so we joined in, partying until about 2 a.m. when we finally went back to our hotel.

The next morning we woke up early and had an authentic Brazilian breakfast at the hotel. There was a lot of amazing fresh fruit, manioc (which I had heard of, but never even seen before, much less eaten), and some doughnut-type things that were ridiculously delicious.

We walked to the beach and spent the entire morning there until it was time to catch the ferry back to the ship.

When I got back, I went out with a few friends to look for souvenirs – I didn’t find much, but I really liked walking about the Merchant’s Mercado, which was full of handmade clothes, paintings, and sculptures. I was tempted to buy a painting because they were beautiful, and incredibly cheap, but it would have been awkward to travel with when I get back to the States.
That night I went out to dinner with a huge group of SASers. The meal was all-you-can-eat for 45 raels per person (about $25 US) and the food was incredible. The guys were blown away by the quality of the steaks, and probably had 5 or 6 a piece. I don’t like steaks but I tried rabbit (it made me sad, but it was really delicious), chicken heart (only a tiny piece – it really just tasted like regular chicken meat), lamb (which I still don’t like) and a number of sausages from parts of animals that I don’t want to think about. In addition to the meat, they had an amazing salad, sushi and seafood bar. My favorite was a squid salad made with vinaigrette.
I had pineapple ice cream for dessert, garnished with papaya.

The next day was our last day in Brazil, so I went out and walked around with friends again and went to the Angolan Capoeria school.

My original impression of Capoeria was that it was very fast, with lots of gymnastics and upper body strength, like breakdancing. But at this school, they were practicing a different method of Capoeria that was much slower and much more controlled.

When I watched them, I thought it looked easy and I was unimpressed by the initial display. I wanted to see some fighting. But then they made us try it, and I realized how incredibly strong you have to be to exert that much control. They were able to roll up into a handstand effortlessly and hold it as long as they wanted – it took me 5 minutes to find my balance before somersaulting forward and nearly breaking my neck. By the end of the hour, I was sweating profusely, and the next day I was sore everywhere.

After the trip, it was time to get back on the ship. Everyone was back on the ship by 2130 so we were able to leave earlier than expected (we were scheduled to leave at 2300).

Now we’re somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where, according to the bridge report, we’re on top of 5,000 meters of water and surrounded by something like 3,000 nautical miles of water in all directions. It’s actually nice feeling being so isolated from the world.

We had our first Global Studies exam yesterday, which was a big ordeal. Everyone was up late studying for it. I haven’t gotten my grade back yet, but I’m fairly confident I made an A.

I still love all of my classes, especially Fiction Writing. I wrote a story for the class that I might post on here, if I refine it enough.

By the way, thanks to Steve for posting my pictures of Brazil  I can only transfer 50 MB of data or my internet minutes will be automatically cut off.

My luggage never arrived in Salvador, which was a bummer, but fortunately I found someone who has the same type of camera as I do, and he agreed to let me borrow his charger in exchange for a pizza at the snack bar.

Anyway, I have a class in about 30 minutes that I should probably start preparing for (I’m still in my pajamas).

Xoxoxo.

More Brazil

Salvador, Brazil

02/05
Hoy from Salvador, Brasil!
Today has been such an amazing day, and I haven’t even experienced the craziness of Carnaval yet!
I woke up this morning at 5:15 a.m. (2:15 a.m. EST) to watch the ship pull into the dock. The sun coming up behind the city skyline was phenomenal – I took a lot of pictures but I won’t be able to upload them until I find an internet café, and for the next few days that’s going to be next to impossible because everything is closed for the celebration.
We got off the ship at about 9 a.m. I was with a big group of friends, six guys and five girls.
There were women with ribbons waiting as we loaded off the ship. In Carnaval tradition, someone ties a colored ribbon to your wrist and you make a wish. Then you can’t untie or cut the ribbon – it has to come off naturally. When it does, your wish comes true. My lady triple-knotted my ribbon, so I have feeling I’ll decide my wish isn’t worth it (I wished for a pair of Christian Louboutin stilettos) and cut it off or else I’ll be stuck with it indefinitely.
The heat was stifling – I was wearing shorts and a tank top and I felt dizzy from the heat. I finished off my bottle of water within a few minutes of stepping off the ship. Before disembarking, I had loaded up on sunscreen, but the tip of my nose got a little burned anyway.
We separated into three groups and each group was supposed to take a cab to a part of town called Barra, which is supposed to have good restaurants and shopping. Our cab driver misunderstood us, however, and we ended up about a mile and half away from our other group members (he took us to the Shopping Barra – the mall, which was closed). It was a nice part of town, though, and we walked around for a little while, checking out the locals in their preparation for Carnaval. Ironically, the other half of our group, who we’d been separated from, was walking in our direction, and we ended up meeting again on the street by coincidence.
All together, we visited a lighthouse that overlooks the ocean, took a few pictures, and briefly walked on the beach. Then around noon we found a small café for lunch. We shared a few Portuguese pizzas – ham, egg, olives and basil – and the tab ended up being about 8 raels each, or about $5.50 per person, including drinks (Stol beer).
After lunch we wandered around for awhile, looking for some places to shop, but most of the stores were closed. We took a taxi back to the center of town, and went up the famous Elevador Lacerda to the higher level of the city. Up there, the streets were brimming with activity – there were literally hundreds of street vendors selling coconuts with straws poked into them, drinks, and small crafts.
A Capoeria group was showing off in the middle of the street so we stopped to watch them and got a few pictures. It reassured me that there were a lot of police officers stationed around busy streets – the Dean gave a lecture last night about the frequency of robberies and fights that tended to break out on the street.
We walked for about 4 or 5 miles, looping around the inner part of Salvador. As before, very few shops were open, but I did manage to find some postcards and a small souvenir for someone. We bumped into a lot of SAS students doing the same thing we were doing, and by the time we started walking back we had a much larger group than we started with.
At around 4:30 p.m., we decided we needed a break after almost eight hours of exploration, and walked back to the ship.

Salvador is a very pretty city – most of the buildings are on the top of the hill overlooking the water, which is bright blue. The buildings are very colorful – bright blue and bright pink most often. The downtown area is nice, with fountains and places to sit.
There is a lot of trash lying around, which discouraged us from wanting to swim at the beach because we weren’t sure what kind of things were in the water. It seems like people also frequently use the streets as a bathroom, but that could just be because of Carnaval. The smell was pretty foul.
A lot of young children came up to us asking us for raels in exchange for a picture (some of them were so cute we took them up on it).
I was very suspicious at first about the honesty of the taxi-drivers and merchants, but when I didn’t notice that I had dropped a 2 rael bill inside a shop, the shop-owner picked it up and gave it back to me. All of our cab rides were fairly priced – usually 10 rael (about 6 USD) for a group of four for a 10 or 15 minute ride. By comparison, in Puerto Rico it was usually $4 per person just for a quick drive into Old San Juan.
The festivities begin tonight when the sun goes down – more to come soon!

02/06
Carnaval was just unbelievable! It was such an amazing party – thousands and thousands of people dancing in the streets; I had an awesome time and took some great pictures.
I was very nervous when we first stepped into the crowd of people, and I was clutching my bag (even though my money was tucked into my shoes, my bra, and my money-belt) and watching carefully for anyone who came too close. I had bought a disposable camera because the Dean said digital cameras were often stolen. I was on my guard the whole night but after being led into the crowd by two teenaged dancing girls, I loosened up a little when I saw they didn’t want money – they just wanted me to dance and were trying to show me how.
I was with a huge group, probably fifteen of us, with lots of guys, so I felt very safe within my group. Locals would dance with us, wanting to talk to the gringos, and we met a lot of natives who jumped in our pictures with us, especially one 16 year-old kid named Gilvan who thought we were really cool and wanted to learn everyone’s name.
In Carnaval, huge buses drive slowly around the loop of upper Salvador, blasting music while singers and dancers ride on top, revving up the crowd. Each time one of the buses went by, every 30 minutes or so, it was accompanied by hundreds of costumed dancers in the street, who would give out high-fives and beads as they danced by. A singer would ask a question in Portuguese and the entire crowd - all six thousand of them -- would cheer in response.
The Dean had said that sometimes Brazilian men would harass women by grabbing them or kissing them, so I had my guard up about that as well, but besides a few blown kisses, no one tried anything inappropriate. The men who danced with us just wanted to shake our hands and pat our shoulders – I think they understood that we would be uncomfortable with anything else.
We’d gone out around 7:30 p.m. and stayed out until about 1 a.m. The original group was still together: no one had been robbed or hurt, no one had had too much to drink, and everyone was exhausted from dancing and laughing so much. It was a great success!

3 more days until Brazil

I know I don’t have the right to complain about anything, but I have to write a blog about this: the Add/Drop system on Semester at Sea is ridiculously disorganized.
The Registrar, a 28 year-old SAS alumna named Laura, made an announcement on the first day of classes that students typically camped out in front of her office the night before Add/Drop, which opens at 7 a.m. because it’s first-come-first-serve.
I showed up at 10:30 p.m. the night before with a pillow and blanket and there were already three students in front of me who had been there since 9:30. Within the hour, the line of students was into the hall and down the stairs. We sat around, dozing or playing cards, until about 2 a.m., at which time security came and tried to kick us out because we were a fire hazard, or something.

We protested, knowing that if we were to leave we’d lose our spots, and most of us had been waiting for hours. We made an official list and the dean actually woke up and signed off on it. We went back to our cabins. The next morning, I showed up at 6:30 a.m. and there was already a flood of students outside the Registrar’s office. Fortunately, the list held and I retained my spot in line, but 100 other students who had been outside the door since 4 a.m. were not too happy that they had missed out on the list and were now at the end of the line.

Fortunately, I got the classes I wanted – Fiction Writing and Sociology of Religion. By 9 p.m. that night the Registrar had only served 75 students, with over 200 students waiting to add or drop a class.
Most of the students who were #20 or beyond didn’t get the classes they wanted, and weren’t able to add a fifth class. A few students will have to graduate late because they weren’t able to get the classes they wanted on board.
It was messy.

Anyway, I really like my new classes, especially Sociology of Religion. Today we talked about the origins of shamanism, what healing rituals consist of, and different individuals’ propensity toward hypnotism. At the end of class, the professor hypnotized two students and asked them to go to heaven while they were in their trance. When they woke up, they each described different visions of heaven. One student said heaven was a cosmic island surrounded by stars, and the other said he had been at the gates but was not permitted to enter them. It was kind of unnerving, but very interesting. I don’t think I’m very susceptible to hypnotism because I tend to overanalyze everything, but I kind of wish I were, just to see what it’s like.
I like my Hinduism class a lot too. We’re learning about different gods and legends, and how images and symbolism are very important parts of the religion. We read an abbreviated version of “Ramayana,” which is a story about a demon who tries to overpower the world.
I had my first Fiction Writing class yesterday, and our assignment was to make a list of words or phrases that describe a place we’ve seen so far on the trip. I wrote about an alley in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, using phrases like “broken pavement,” “glowing beer signs,” and “stumbling locals.”

Tomorrow is Neptune Day – meaning we cross the equator! We actually cross the equator four times throughout the course of the trip, but this is the first time, so I guess it is the most relevant. Traditionally, everyone gets “baptized” with “fish guts” (I’ve heard it’s just jello) and women are supposed to shave their heads. I know a few girls who are really thinking about shaving their heads, and kudos to them, but there is absolutely no way I’m participating!

The water was really bumpy yesterday and a lot of people were getting thrown around as they walked through the hallways. Today it seems to be a little calmer, but it looks like it is going to storm tonight, so I have a feeling the calm won’t last. Scopolamine has been making me really drowsy – I slept all afternoon yesterday – so I decided to rough it without the patches. We’ll see how long I last.

I signed up for a few small trips for our next ports. Most excitingly, I’m going to a Capoeria school in Brazil. The students will put on a short presentation for us and maybe even teach us some moves. If you don’t know what Capoeria is, you should look it up on YouTube and find some examples. It’s a really amazing martial art form from which breakdancing was derived.
I also got a trip to Beijing, and I plan to go to the Great Wall. I know a group of students is planning to sleep on the Great Wall one night, and I’d really like to do that. How many opportunities will I have in my life to say that I slept on an ancient national landmark?
I also signed up for a trip called “Managing Schizophrenia” in India. I’m not sure what it entails but I have a feeling it’s going to be very sad. Part of me is nervous about being exposed to the horrors of extreme poverty in India, but I feel like I need to gain that exposure and gain some understanding of what life is like outside of the safety blanket that is the United States.

This has ended up being a pretty long entry. I’ll update more when I have time.
-E

The waterfall
A little boy playing in the water
My friends Kristen and Laura swimming in the waterfall
A spider's nest

San Juan, Puerto Rico

I am having an amazing time in Puerto Rico, and this is only the first port!

Saturday:
We arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, very early Saturday morning. A few of us ventured around Old San Juan and got a feel for the city; it’s interesting because the buildings are very old but many things have been Americanized. There are a few McDonalds and Starbucks (which are flooded with Semester at Sea students because they offer free internet). We ventured around and window-shopped for awhile before stopping at a hole-in-the-wall café for $3 mojitos.
After, I had to head back to the ship to take off for a rainforest hike organized by Semester at Sea. After an hour-long winding bus ride through the mountains, we headed into the woods and hiked for an hour or so until we reached a waterfall. Most of the students went swimming but I didn’t have my bathing suit so I just took pictures.
After we went back in to town I went to dinner with four of my new friends at a little restaurant call Lupi’s. Most students went out to the salsa bars but I retired to my room pretty early and went to sleep.

Sunday:
I woke up early and went to the beach with a bunch of SASers. We lounged around and then I went shopping at a few of the boutiques. I bought a bathing suit, which I desperately needed because my bathing suits were in my lost luggage. We hung out at the beach most of the afternoon, and then went into Old San Juan that night to find a salsa bar. I had a great time learning how to salsa and talking to some of the locals. We were out until about 1 a.m. and I was absolutely exhausted when I got home.

Monday:
I woke up a little later today and went to the mall with a bunch of girls. We wanted to buy a few things for the ship – I bought a pillow, some snacks, and a couple of inexpensive dresses to wear around the ship on nice days. We then came in to Old San Juan again and tracked down a café that had free wireless internet, which is where I am now. We depart for Salvador, Brazil, tonight at 11:30 p.m. and we’ll be sailing for six days. It’s crazy to think that we’re just getting started – I already feel like we’ve been going for weeks.

I miss everyone and I’ll upload more pictures as soon as I can.
-E

San Juan, Puerto Rico: Picture Update

More to come when I have better internet!