"Where the hell is Roatan?"

If we hadn't had the chance to go to Roatan on this trip, it is very likely that none of us would have ever heard of the damn place. Roatan is an island off the coast of Honduras, and it is a part of "The Bay Islands" of the country, being the largest one. It is primarily a resort destination for cruise ships and scuba divers. It is home to the second largest coral reef on the planet.


Game plan for Roatan: Relax. And I succeeded greatly. I checked into my hotel with Jimmy, Farrah, and Alex: The Bananarama Dive Resort located on West Bay. Our room was located on the beach, about a hop skip and a jump away from the water front, and only a hop away from the restaurant. We started the day off with drinks, falling in love with the "Monkeylala", a blended drink of kahlua, coconut cream, and other delicious things. There were a bunch of other SAS people there, students and faculty alike. We enjoyed bacon cheese fries (!!!) and the rest of our drinks before heading into the water, which was warm and inviting. We chicken fought the field office team and photographer, splashed around, and enjoyed the weather. Until it got cold and started raining. At that point, I walked around with Alden, Boulder, and Bryan, jumping off of piers and running into drunk SAS kids. It was a blast, actually. We got more food and more drinks and just basically spent the entire day doing that. At night we hopped around a few bars, played kings cup, and I walked 2.5 (ish) miles to the West End with Alden and Bryan, climbing over rock walls and really strange bridges. I danced the night away in my bathing suit and met this really cool Irish dude who's working on becoming a dive master. We made it back around 1 AM and passed out.

The next day was more of the same, except the weather was worse so we did less. We tried to shop along the beach, but most vendors were closed because of the weather. I desperately tried to go on a tour that involved seeing whale sharks, but the weather prevented it :'(. We left our resort around 11 and headed back to the ship, then shopped around there and ate a small lunch before calling it a day and getting on the ship. It was kind of a bummer that the weather was so cruddy, but worse things can happen in life.

I for sure want to come back to Roatan when the weather is nicer, it's a beautiful island that was SO relaxing and just straight up awesome.

Now, with only two days left on the voyage... things are getting pretty nutty and kind of hilarious. Details to follow.

Costa Ricaaaa

Getting off the ship after the Pacific Crossing was fucking great. Costa Rica was awesome, it sort of reminded me of Malaysia in the sense that it was a tropical paradise. I went zip lining through the forest and spent the night drinking at this awesome bar and spending time with friends. The next day I hopped on a tour bus with a bunch of carnival cruise people with my friend Matt, and we had a fucking blast hanging out with them.


I know it's not a whole lot of information, and it's kind of funny seeing the difference between my first blog entries and my most recent ones. It seems like everywhere is kind of the same, I do similar things and see similar things and hang out with similar people... yet every day is amazing and unique in some way or another. Leaving this ship is going to be fucking hard.

GO WATCH THE LIPDUB. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pA_I2GrwpQ

Hawaiian Hospitality

Aloha! So it's actually been a little while since we were in Hilo, Hawaii, but I kind of forgot to write about it, because we were only there for one day and it's been busy busy since then! I'll write about it super briefly because I'm doing a bunch of other stuff right now.


So I spent my day in Hawaii with Sam, Williama, Kyla, and Lizzie. We were with Williama and Kylas families, because they're both from Hawaii. It was amazing! Thanksgiving on an island is pretty awesome. We hung out in a guest home at a church all day, eating tortilla chips with dip and all sorts of island specialties and laughing at Williama's brother, who is one of my favorite children ever. When the full meal was ready, we loaded our plates up with pig, turkey, potatoes, fruit salad, regular salad, and lots of other amazing food. I had NO room in my stomach after ward, I was completely stuffed. We hung out for a while more and heard some stories about Hilo and The Big Island, which was great. We all loaded into the car and went to this chocolate store that was highly recommended. It was lovely! I didn't buy anything, but I did eat quite a few samples. Then we headed to Wal Mart, which doesn't sound that exciting, but when you've been without chain stores in America for a while, you appreciate then 1000% more. I walked in and there was a McDonalds and an American flag... I felt very much at home. We loaded up on snacks (and I loaded up on Martinellis sparkling apple cider) and headed back to the ship. We got there JUST in time to avoid dock time, and I spent the rest of the night making last phone calls home and to friends.

Being in America was super refreshing. Trust me when I say, being away for so long makes you miss little things, like being able to call home and send a text message, and not having to pull out a calculator every time you buy something so you can figure out how much you're actually spending. Spending the day with a family that welcomed us as if we were there own made the day even more amazing, because I didn't feel like I was away from home. I felt perfectly at home.

A community of love.

Today, for the first time in a while, I felt that sense of community that this ship is capable of having.

The first instance was during my family dinner. I'm not sure if I've explained this before, but we sign up for "extended families" on the ship, which means that you're assigned ship board parents and siblings. Let me say, my family is pretty fucking boss. Since today is the day before Thanksgiving, there was a proper meal served, and my family and I gathered with two other families and had a nice meal together. It was SO nice. I love my family meals, we swap a bunch of great stories and get to know each other so well, and it's an awesome way to get to know people you don't really run into otherwise. It made me feel SO at home.

The second was during "A night of Expression", a talent show event put on my LAMDA and my dear friend Adam. It was in celebration of Pride Day which was yesterday. I chose to perform a monologue from the play "Like Dreaming, Backwards", which is a monologue I've been working on for about 9 months now. (I guess you could call it my baby). The monologue is about a young girl who is suicidal, and she is telling bits and pieces of her story. Now, there are certain aspects of the piece that relate to my life, but it is absolutely not a piece ABOUT my life. After the show, I had a lot of people coming up to me and telling me that I'm brave and courageous and that they would be there to talk. At first, I thought it was really awesome that everyone thought my monologue was so good! The I discovered through my friend Chris that most people thought the piece was written by ME, about MY life. So essentially... the whole ship thought I was suicidal. Oh shit. So I went around to the people who had offered me support and told them I am, in fact, not suicidal... perhaps one of the happiest people you'll ever meet, in fact. Everyone was INCREDIBLY relieved.

It made me realize something. There are some days where I get really sad on this ship, and I think that there's no one here who really, truly cares about me. I sit in my room and wallow in self pity. Tonight made me realize that after 3 short months, there are people here who give a shit about who I am. There are people here who love me. There are people here who have experienced the things I've experienced, and they're here to talk and tell me everything is ok. It's absolutely the most amazing thing to realize... that people you didn't know a few months ago care about your life and your well being. It put me in an absolutely amazing mood, and I feel so incredibly blessed to have met the people I've met on this trip, especially the people who don't give off a caring vibe.

The most important lesson I'm taking away from this thus far is not to judge people based on the way they come off. I know we've all heard it before, but there are some people I've met on this trip that I would have NEVER hung out with back home. Our paths wouldn't have crossed. And they did, and I am so BEYOND lucky to have them in my life, even the people who I occasionally talk to or hang out with.

I'm just really, really happy right now.

The Pacific Crossing

We've all been warned that crossing the Pacific Ocean was going to suck pretty badly. After the last month or so consisting of almost no time at sea and at least four days in port, I had sort of forgotten what being at sea for more than two days at a time was like. Let me tell you, I miss it.

This time around, we're at sea for nine days before we stop in Hawaii for Thanksgiving, and we then continue another eight days until we hit Costa Rica. Many people consider Japan to be our last real port. Personally, I'm stoked for Costa Rica. Our last port has changed yet again, from Cuba to Guatemala, to now Honduras, so I'm trying not to get too stoked for that, in case it changes again. Not getting stoked for Honduras is hard though... there's whale sharks. I FUCKING LOVE WHALE SHARKS.

Anywho, spending this long at sea is kind of brutal. Especially on The Pacific Ocean. First of all, the waves are kind of nutty. Being in my room is really similar to being on a roller coaster at all times. I'm situated at the front of the ship, so I can feel us going over crests of waves and hear the crashing when we come down. It's kind of cool, but kind of annoying.

Second of all, we're losing an hour of sleep almost every other day. Because of this, my schedule is wonky as fuck. I've developed pretty bad insomnia. For example, it is currently 6 AM on the 21st of November. I tried going to bed at midnight on the 20th of November to get a good nights rest, and woke up at 2 AM. I was unable to fall back asleep until about 7 AM, and then I couldn't wake up until 6:30 PM, meaning I missed all of my classes, work, and one rehearsal... woops. I fell back asleep around 11:30 PM, and I woke up at 4 AM, or about two hours ago. Since then I've been checking emails and watching "Supersize Me" and "The Laramie Project" on the TV, all while trying really hard to be tired. Finding a normal schedule is a massive pain in the ass, and it's just not working out.

Third, eating is weird too, because of my schedule I'm rarely awake or hungry during regular eating hours. So i find myself snacking, if anything. Also, because the worms in my feet are dying and there's been a rush of white blood cells and phagocytes down to them, the rest of my immune system is totally fucked, making me just not hungry at all. Yesterday I ate a burger and a bag of dried pineapple. The food on the ship has become progressively less appealing to me, to the point where looking at most of it makes me feel nauseous, so that doesn't help. And the rockiness of the ship makes my stomach a little queasy too, so it's just a whole lot of craziness.

Some cool things:

We had the shipboard auction, which is a night where members of the ship can donate items to be auctioned off, and all the money raised goes towards scholarships. It was AWESOME, and my first auction ever. There were some really interesting items, everything from week long getaways in Mexico to having our academic dean (who's British) read you Harry Potter over tea and crumpets. I bid on a few things, but the prices for most things got outrageous pretty quickly, as a lot of students on this ship have parents paying off their credit card bills. I found myself getting frustrated about it, but it's ok because all of the money goes towards people (like me) who wouldn't be able to do this trip otherwise. I did buy a raffle ticket and win a seat at the ship captains table at our alumni ball, which is a pretty cool thing, so I'm excited about that.

Today is the talent show! I'm not in it, but I'm one of the people who has helped organize it and create it and make it happen. Working on it has been fun and a bit stressful and annoying, having people constantly asking if they could join after we had to move acts around due to lack of space. We had a tech run that actually went really, really smoothly, so I just can't wait to get the whole thing over with so I can stop worrying about it.

Also, I'm performing two monologues for World Aids Day, which I'm very excited about. One of the pieces is from a book written by South African youth who have been affected by AIDS or HIV in one way or another, and the other is a piece from the Vagina Monologues. We've had rehearsal almost every day, and it's starting to come along nicely.


Well, there you have it world. That's pretty much what's going on here. There's still a lot of things I completely forgot to talk about in my blog, like Sea Olympics and other shenanigans, but I almost like having a few things left to my memory and not for the people who read this to know... assuming of course, that people actually read this. Maybe I'll try to go back to sleep now.

Things to do in Japan

I thought Japan was going to be way less awesome than it was. I actually didn't have any expectations, because of the earthquake, there was some uncertainty about us going to Japan before the trip started. I'm SO glad I go the chance to go though. Here's some things I did, and suggestions of things you should do. Written really scrambled... deal with it.

Kobe:

Bunraku Puppet Theater

        This is an ancient form of puppetry that is considered to many to be a “dying art form”. It involves 2-4 foot puppets being manipulated by three puppeteers, and the show also includes a narrator and a man playing a shamisen, which is a guitar-type instrument. The show we saw was long, and there was something about the music that just made me fall asleep. It was really, really weird. But besides that, it was a pretty cool thing to go and see.

Spending a day with an awesome Japanese student

        Meet up with someone you met on couchsurfing. Set a goal for the day. We had one main goal for the day: Kobe beef burgers. Kobe beef is world renowned for it’s marbling, humane treatment of animals, and superior taste. As someone who is mildly obsessed with steak and all beef, I was beyond stoked to be in Kobe. Yohei took us to this street food place in China town and we all got burgers. We got the burgers and they. were. so. good. I wish I could explain it. Incredibly tender and juicy and just straight up delicious.
        After burgers, Yohei offered to take us to a few touristy locations, but we declined. We asked what he and his friends would be doing on a typical Saturday afternoon. He replied almost instantly “karaoke”, so we found a karaoke bar that had English songs and paid for a room. Karaoke in Japan is different than in America, you don’t just perform in front of everyone who’s there. You rent out a private room and you sing with just the people that you’re with. It’s actually way cooler that way. We spent the next two hours singing Katy Perry, Kesha, and rapping various different ridiculous songs. Yohei and I did a duet from RENT, which was simply fabulous. Definitely do karaoke.
        After karaoke, we headed over to Kobe University, which is where Yohei is studying European and American culture as a graduate student. They were having a fair that is apparently common for universities to have. GO TO A LOCAL UNIVERSITY. There were several student run booths that were serving cheap food, and there were bands playing all around the campus. We went and listened to this one band, and a mosh pit formed, which we all joined in. It was my first mosh pit, and it was absolutely epic. We walked around for a while and listened to other bands, but everything was starting to close down, so we got some discounted food and then headed out.
        We started to head back to the ship, but we realized we still had some time to kill, so we chose to grab some last minute food. We walked by this chicken stand that was passing out free samples, and it was delicious so we decided to go there. You basically got a cup full of chicken, and then they had a bunch of different sauces you could put on it. Choices included mayonnaise, barbecue, spicy, sweet and sour, chocolate sauce, and other crazy things... but no ketchup! I went with mayonnaise and barbecue sauce, and it was 1000 times more delicious than it sounds like it was. Eat street food. Lots of it.
        After chicken, we said a sad goodbye to Yohei and made promises to stay in contact via facebook and email. This was my first time spending an entire day with someone I met on couch surfing, and I must say that I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who is planning on doing any traveling. Simply sign up on couchsurfing.com, and look for people in the place you’re going to. You can also use the website for places to sleep.


While sailing the ship from Kobe to Yokohama:

        Sleep. The entire day.


Tokyo:
        Hang out with a group of people you don’t usually hang out with, you’ll learn something new. Spend the entire time you’re in Tokyo walking around trying to find some bar that may or may not exist. Along the way, stop for Italian food at a restaurant that has happy hour, and have three drinks within about 10 minutes. Dodge the rain by running into British pubs, even though you just spend money on booze at a 7 Eleven. Stay there for a while. Pay the child fare for trains... they’re too expensive anyways. Or just don’t pay at all, and follow closely behind a Japanese person. Don’t be afraid to leave the group of people you’re with if you’re having a good time.
        Be awesome like Sonya and I. Spend the rest of the night taking stickers from various places around Tokyo, but get way more picky as the trip progresses as to what types of stickers are good enough for you. Try to find the fish market. Ignore the advice from locals telling you that there’s “no way you could walk there!” and just start walking in the direction you think it might be. We walked until about 4:45 in the morning. It was freezing, and we were slowly starting to lose our sanity and the feeling in our feet. get excited when you walk over the warm part of a train station. If you get too tired and cold to stay out until the trains back to Kobe start up, take NO shame in falling asleep at a McDonalds for a little while... they’ll let you stay there until customers start rolling in around 5:30.

Spend the day by yourself... and enjoy every minute of it.
        The last day in Yokohama, I woke up around 12 (keep in mind this was after coming back from Tokyo running off of 20 minutes of McDonalds napping) and headed out on the town by myself. Yokohama is really cool because the part we were in is incredibly serene and peaceful. There’s not a whole lot going on, and everything is just wonderfully quiet and calm. Soak this in, enjoy the serenity. Go to cool shopping districts. Find a sweet little food store that is Christmas themed, and get WAYYYY too excited about the upcoming holiday. Buy two bottles of sparkling cider, and cross your fingers they let you take it on the ship. I fucking love sparkling apple cider.
        After a bit of shopping, I walked to the theme park that’s in Yokohama. You get in for free, and then you pay for rides. The rides are over priced... but worth it. Ride a roller coaster completely by yourself! I was literally the only person on it, and it was fucking awesome. Ride a ferris wheel alone! And don’t panic about the height when you get to the top... even though it’s kind of scary. I really enjoyed the theme park, even though I was there for less than an hour.
        I went to the mall across the street, because I heard that was a good place to get steak. Turns out, the restaurant had closed. Was I going to let this stop me from eating steak? fuck no. I went to a restaurant in the first shopping district I was in and ordered myself a filet mignon and fries. The fires were cooked in truffle oil and perfectly seasoned with a pinch of garlic and a bit of salt. They were delicious. Then the filet... I just... there are no words. Ok, there are some words. As soon as I took my first bite, I said “Oh fuck yeah, that’s good” out loud. Keep in mind, I’m still by myself. In fact, I’m the only customer in the entire restaurant. Enjoy this feeling, you feel kind of like royalty eating a juicy steak and having the entire waitstaff paying attention to only you. Enjoy every bite of the steak, because you know ship food is coming up for a loooooooong time, and there won’t really be a way to escape it. Load up on more snacks with what you have left for money... you’re going to need them!
        I walked back to the ship super happy with the way my day had turned out. I had spent a few hours to myself to other ports, but I never really full out spend a day alone and did everything that I wanted to do in that city. It felt really, really good. I highly recommend enjoy time alone, because you just don’t get nearly enough of it.

Chine... uhhh?

So for China, I'm just going to paste an email I sent to my dear friend Lillie, because I've told the story way too many times and I don't feel like retyping everything:

Hey dude.

The great wall fucking SUCKED. let me tell you all about your delinquent best friend...

So, the wall itself was awesome. A pretty tiring hike, but one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Cold as fuck, but awesome. Then it became night time and it was time to make camp. We were in a group of 50, so when almost everyone settled in one place, me and four friends decided to keep going because we didn't want to get in any sort of trouble, which generally comes with large groups and alcohol. So we found this kick ass watchtower that had like... a makeshift fire pit. So we gathered some branches and toilet paper and this wood we found on the ground, and we started a fire. I didn't drink because there was only beer and I wanted to be sober (last year someone fell off and busted their head, and I know CPR/first aid so I figured I'd stay clear headed) So after a few hours of just kicking it and chillin, these fucking security officers come and make us put out the fire and start yelling at us in Chinese. Then our tour guide comes and we're like "dude, wtf is going on". APPARENTLY the piece of wood we found on the ground was a relic from the wall that they thought we had torn off (allegedly 600 years old). We explained that we found everything the way it was and that we didn't tear the wall apart, but they wouldn't believe us. So they kicked everyone off the wall, which made a lot of people hate us a little. Then we went to the police station and were interrogated for about 2 fucking hours, and they told us to clean up the wall at sunrise and that we would be fined anywhere from 5,000 YUAN-30,000 YUAN (about $800-$5000), but our tour guides said that if we cried and cleaned and did everything we'd probably get a lesser fine. Oh, and they wouldn't let us call the embassy. So they finally let us go at like 3:30 AM, we have to be on the wall cleaning by 6. Meanwhile it's like 20 degrees outside so none of us sleep at all. At 5:45 we head up and clean up our shit and everyone elses shit, I'm talking picking up pieces of used toilet paper and shards of broken glass. At 8 AM then tell us they're charging us the 30,000 YUAN, which is BULLSHIT. So we go back and they interrogate us for another two hours and we eventually talk them down to 20,000 YUAN, but they make us sign a confession saying that we tore the wood off the wall and created the fire pit ourselves. We just were so fucking exhausted and pissed off at this point, and they wouldn't let the rest of our group go either, so we swallowed our pride and our tour guides paid the fine (we're being billed for it... $665, dude) and we were finally able to leave.







So... yeah. That's mostly how China went. Don't get me wrong, I saw some other cool things and enjoyed my time otherwise... but I did NOT enjoy China.

Viet nom nom nom

I've recently realized that most people probably care less about the details of what I've done every day than I originally thought. So I think that from now on for my blog, I'll only give a daily breakdown when I feel it's needed. For vietnam, I do not feel that way.

Basically in vietnam I ate a lot of food (banana pancakes are my new favorite thing ever), toured around ancient pagodas and temples of Hue, got some custom goodies and shopped around Hoi An, met some of the most random and wonderful people in China Beach, and felt my heart break in Saigon.

China Beach was especially awesome. We got to a guest house where there was a family dinner served at seven for everyone who was staying there. We met Chris from Sweden, Scott from Australia, and Jean-Paul from Holland. We spent the night attempting to sneak into a pool, swimming in the ocean, and drinking in Danang. We had some absolutely fantastic conversations, and their stories reawakened my love for traveling. It was refreshing mixture of traveling for fun, traveling for new beginnings, and traveling for the sake of traveling.

I spent my last day in Saigon learning. Most people in our generation know someone who fought in the war or who have been affected by it in one way or another. I never really read into the war much. I didn’t know anything about it. I’m not even sure if anyone in my family fought in it. To put it simply, I was incredibly ignorant to the horrors of the war. I made my way to the war remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh City to learn more, and I walked away with a head full of horrifying images and a heart full of sadness.

        The part of the museum that I found most disheartening was the Agent Orange exhibit. Agent Orange is a chemical that was sprayed throughout Vietnam with the intent to kill. The chemical affects your DNA, so there are children to this day who are being born with physical deformities and health defects. Deformities ranging from lack of fingers and toes to missing legs to large tumor-like lesions all over the body. Some defects are worse than that. You can feel free to look up images on your own, but I must warn you that the images WILL stick with you. I saw images of hundreds of kids who were affected by it, and by the end of the visit I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach.

        After leaving the museum, I went to an orphanage for children affected by agent orange. I was completely by myself. I got there and just walked right in and started playing with this little boy, who jumped up for me as soon as I walked in. I spent time with him and one other boy who clearly had a slight mental retardation. I never learned their names, because they both didn’t speak English, and they had a hard time speaking anyway. We spent about half an hour drawing pictures, singing, and just playing with one another. I took a few pictures and they loved how a digital camera works, so they took a few pictures as well. After about an hour, I had to leave. I picked up the boy who had been in a crib and put him back in and had the most difficult time walking away from him and all of the kids who I didn’t get the chance to interact with. I walked downstairs and saw a little boy who had to be strapped down to a bed, and he was trashing around trying to escape. I walked toward the room and two nurses who were hovering over another child shooed me away.

        On one hand, I think it’s amazing that there’s an opportunity to go to an orphanage and just play with these kids. On the other, it scares the hell out of me. ANYONE can just walk in and interact with the kids. Including not so nice people. I just couldn’t stop imagining that there was a chance for people to walk in and abuse the kids and no one would even notice. Or someone could just walk out with one of them, and it may easily go unreported. I found my heart completely broken and my faith in humanity ever so slightly diminished. I wish that I could help every kid in the world who needs it, but I can’t and it made me feel so small and meaningless. The thought has been circulating in my head for a while. I feel like the more I see the world, the more I don’t want to be apart of the population.

        Don’t let the things I’m saying make you sad or turn you off of seeing the world. Absolutely don’t let it stop you from going to orphanages or donating your time somewhere else. I have to continuously tell myself one thing: Even if it’s a small change, I AM still making a change. Some people I've been talking to on this ship are under the mindset that there's no way to actually know if we are making a difference, we can't just assume that we are. The way I see it is that if there's even a glimmer of hope in the eyes of these kids, then we are making a difference. Every smile, every laugh, every hug counts.  What may seem meaningless to us could mean the entire world to these kids. Sure, we're not necessarily changing their lives, but we are doing something... and that's what matters.


        ALSO: I just found out I got ringworm in my feet from walking around the woods of Malaysia. Don’t walk barefoot in Southeast Asia, folks! Also don't worry, it will go away within a week or so. I'll try to get some photos of my new little foot pets.

Malays-yah?

There’s something about the country of Malaysia that made me and everyone I traveled with talk like the three little pigs in the movie Shrek. It was pretty consistent theme throughout the trip.

Day One:
        We all met up after mass confusion of the customs clearing process and headed off the boat together around 9:30 AM. “We” means my travel group for this adventure: Nate, Cassie, Keara, Molly, and Heidi. It took us way too long to clear customs because everyone kept on jumping in front of us in line, which was slightly aggravating. We finally cleared customs after about an hour and a half and we headed straight for the airport. We got our tickets and we were all super hungry, so we grabbed food at the food court which was delicious. We got to our gate and ran into about 20 other SAS kids, we pretty much took up the entire back of the airplane. After a grueling, lengthy plane ride, (it was only about 20 minutes) we reached the beautiful island of Langkawi.
        We talked to the tourist center and got a few suggestions for areas to stay in. After consulting our lonely planet suggestions, we headed off in the direction of our hotel... which was less awesome and more expensive than we thought. We headed to another hotel... which was full. Our taxi driver took us to a motel which was right on the beach and reasonably cheap ($8 per night per person), so we did that and ran into Chris, Aria, Joel, Will, and Christine, who were living two rooms over from us.
        The eleven of us settled in and quickly headed out to the Seven Wells waterfall. It was about a half hour taxi ride, for which we actually got a large van that fit all of us. We got there and were told it was only a 10 minute walk uphill, but when we got to the mark it said “waterfall” to the left and “seven wells” upward, so we continued upward. We reached a small waterfall which looked awesome, but we continued our trek uphill because we didn’t think we had reached the top. About 1,000 meters uphill later, we ran into some french tourists who said that the top was essentially only a “train ends” sign, so we headed back down to the second waterfall we had come across, and we rode the waterfall like a water slide down the rocks. It was pretty awesome. Chris also discovered a smaller one which landed in this super deep, underwater cave thing which we dove down to the bottom of. (I felt like I was in a bad horror movie). After about an hour there, we headed down to the first waterfall, which was pretty amazing. We all stood directly underneath the waterfall and took a few pictures, but it was starting to get dark so we headed back to our hotel.
        After drying off and rinsing off, we walked around to find dinner and stopped at a Thai restaurant. We were serenaded with a man playing guitar as well as Joel joining him throughout dinner, which was pretty awesome. Dinner was pretty good, we all got different things and kind of shared with one another. I got an ice cream cone after for dessert which was awesome, and we all headed back to the room to get ready for the night. We headed out in different groups and a few of us wound up at this awesome bar that had live music and was right on the beach. We spent a while there drinking, enjoying the music, and enjoying one another company.
        A late night dip in the Indian Ocean seemed like a great idea, so we ran into some other SAS kids and went for a late night swim, which ended kind of terribly. Two friends got stung by jellyfish and had to go to the hospital after what felt like a really long time of running around figuring shit out. A few people went with them, and the rest of us hung out for a little bit and I finally went to bed around 2:30 AM.

Day Two:
        I woke up around 9:30 AM and went out for breakfast with Keara, Cassie, and Heidi. Everyone else was either sleeping or still at the hospital with everyone. We went to a place called the breakfast bar and I got toast plus banana pancakes. Once again, there was a person playing music in the background, although this time it was a ukulele. Cassie talked to him to ask about the jellyfish and what the appropriate reaction to a sting is. Turns out we did everything WRONG. Best cure: vanilla cake frosting (wether other flavors work or not, I’m not sure). Second best: vinegar. third best: Pee. Worst? Salt water. So soaking the girl in a shower for 40 minutes was just awful on our part. We then did some shopping around the town and met Acher, the awesome shop keep at a little hut outside of the breakfast bar. We also had an interesting incident with Cassie kind of losing her ATM card... but we said we wouldn’t really tell people all the details on that one :)
        We got back to our hotel and our friends weren’t back yet, so we were planning on going to lunch and then leaving them a note telling them we were going out for the day, but as luck would have it, they showed up right then! Aria and Will gave us a suggestion of a place to get food, but it was Indian food which we didn’t really want, so we got Chinese food instead! I had watermelon juice which was absolutely amazing. After lunch, seven of us decided to head to the caves which we heard were super awesome. We loaded into a taxi and headed out, for which most people fell asleep. When we arrived, I felt like I was in the movie “The Beach” with Leonardo Dicaprio (special thanks to Mark for introducing me to that film) The water was stunningly clear and the islands looked as if they had been painted onto a backdrop. We got onto a small boat and navigated our way through hundreds of feet of mangrove, through which we saw monkeys, fed eagles, and saw a small lizard gliding through the water (which looked a lot like an alligator). The first cave, crocodile cave, was named that way because the opening resembled a crocodile mouth, not because it was infested with crocodiles (much to my dismay). We saw a small gathering of bats which was pretty awesome, and a small taste of what was to come. Next, we headed to the BAT CAVE, which was precisely what it sounds like... a large cave filled with what seemed like thousands of bats. We navigated around in the dark and walked up a staircase which specifically told us not to and explored around that area. It was awesome! On the way back, our boat driver informed us that Thailand was only a 40 minute boat ride away, and we were able to see the mountains of the country which was pretty surreal, because Thailand is one of the places I want to go to most.
        Our original plan was to do a canopy walk thing, but we decided that it was a bit too expensive and that we could do canopy walks in Costa Rica, so we headed back to the hotel. Keara and I went to the duty free shop and bought an absurd amount of snacks for the ship, which are much needed. Once we got back to the hotel we all went out for dinner at the bar we had been to the night before. Most of us got burgers, which were quite a let down because they were chicken and we were all hoping for beef cheeseburgers. After that, I grabbed my laptop and went somewhere with wifi to pay off my credit card bills and figure out my shit for Vietnam. About 45 minutes after that, I went back to the hotel and found everyone hanging out on the beach playing kings cup and flinging cool light toys into the sky. I dropped off my laptop and joined everyone. A few of us went to a reggae bar so we could have some hookah and ran into roughly 10 SAS kids. We smoked hookah with the guy who worked there, Bhat, who was a member of the oldest living family of Malaysia (they’ve lived there over 2,000 years) I spent the night dancing with locals and SAS kids and smoking and drinking and just having an amazing, surreal time. We headed to the beach where there were fire dancers, and they let us try our hand at fire dancing. Certain people were much better than others, but I had SO much fun doing it. How many people can say they’ve fire danced on a beach in Malaysia? Not enough, that’s for sure. After that, we met a few guys from Lithuania and talked to them for a bit, where we came up with four rules of life in Malaysia:
Don’t play with fire
Meet Lithuanian men... in Malaysia
Lithuanian jokes aren’t bad... google translate is bad.
I am you because you are me... Ubuntu

       
Day Three:
        We woke up at 7:27 to catch our 7:30 taxi and made it there just a tiny bit late, which was pretty freaking impressive. We caught our flight back to Penang and arrived around 10 AM. After asking a tour guide where there was cheap and good food, we took two taxis and got slightly separated for a little while... but miraculously we were able to find each other! We had lunch together and Cassie, Molly and I decided to walk back to the ship, because it was only a 15 minute walk! So we stopped at a hotel with the coolest marble bathrooms ever, and a Coffee Bean for drinks (yes, Ana, I was thinking of you) Turns out that the brisk 15 minute walk was more like an hour or so, and Cassie had to catch a bus for a field program so we kind of sped walked the later half, kind of concerned we wouldn’t make it. We made it there just in time, and I grabbed my stuff from Nate who had graciously taken it to the ship for me. I chatted with Kamel and Adam for a bit, and then decided to head out on town on my own. I wanted to find a cheap market to spend the remainder of my ringgits, and I had vowed that I wouldn’t go to the mall... so I wound up at the mall eating McDonalds. I’m not really sure how that happened. I was unable to find the outdoor market that I had heard all about, so I guess I just kind of gave up! I took the bus back to the ship with Albers, Jess, and Joe and got randomly drug tested, which I passed with flying colors.


Malaysia was awesome, and Langkawi was paradise. I hope to go back some day and explore the other parts of the country, on the mainland and around other islands.

ALSO, October 28th is Danielle’s 22nd birthday, so bombard her with happy birthdays and other shenanigans.

Incredible India!

Fun fact: It is absolutely impossible to experience India in six days. We all felt a little bit short changed in our adventures for time, but we definitely had a wonderful time.

Day One:
        I ran into Veronica, Ali, Sarah, and Nick and we all decided to go out shopping and exploring Chennai a bit. We found Steven and John, two auto rickshaw drivers. We hopped in and began the ridiculous adventure that is driving through India. The traffic doesn’t make sense, but it has this weird, seemingly perfect rhythm to it. For example, if you’re coming up quickly behind someone, all you have to do is honk your horn and they’ll move over, making room for you. We heard a lot of honking, and it took a bit of getting used to to remember it wasn’t because the drivers were pissed off about something. We asked the drivers to take us somewhere that the locals eat for lunch. At first they took us to a clearly Westernized tourist trap, so we told them it wasn’t what we were looking for, and they took us to a totally authentic Indian place. In the words of Nick, “You can tell it’s good because there’s no other white people here”. We all ordered different things, and our food was presented to us and it all looked delicious. We ate off of banana leaves with our hands, which was actually way more fun than eating with a fork. Unfortunately, spicy food and I DO NOT work well together, so the food was too spicy for me. I ate a lot of garlic naan and I gave my food to everyone else. I was pretty satisfied with just eating bread and rice. After that, we all tried our hand at using the stand and squat toilets, which was a fun test against balance and gravity. We spent the remainder of the time together shopping at various indoor markets and outdoor stores, buying lots of cloths and sarees and scarves. Everything made in India is beautiful and so well crafted.
        We headed back to the ship, where I was meant to meet with Emilia, Ryan, and Dave to head to the airport WAY early for our flight (which was leaving at 7 AM the next day... we were going to get a hotel there). Ryan informed me that the plans had changed, because hotels near the airport cost like $200 which is about $150 more than we were willing to pay. He told us that we were all meeting up at 6:30 to get dinner at a place that Prem, the Indian interport student, had suggested. We got ready for dinner and did a lot of waiting around because the seven of us headed out. We got to the restaurant which was beautiful. It was a buffet-style place, but way better. For their buffet, you were given a little stove on your table and endless kebabs of cheeses and meats... for the first course. After you felt like you had a sufficient amount of kebabs, you moved onto the main course, which consisted of different types of noodles and other Indian food. Then when you were truly stuffed beyond acceptance... it was dessert time! We had amazing vanilla ice cream and mango cakes and other things. It was absolutely phenomenal and so beyond filling. We then headed back to the ship to get rest for the busy day we were going to have.

Day Two:
        We met up at Timitz Square at 2:30 AM to make our way to the airport. We were told to get there at least two hours before our flights, and we were told it was about an hour car ride to the airport, and we wanted to leave buffer time because we knew that transportation in India tends to be slightly less than reliable. We grabbed a taxi and got to the airport in about 30 minutes. It was a neat care ride, because even though a light would be red, people would be going through because there was no traffic coming from other directions. I thought that was pretty cool, because in America if it’s 3 AM and there’s a red light you run because there’s NO ONE around, you can still get in trouble for it. Also fun thing about India, the traffic lights all have countdowns... so you know how long the light will be green or red. I really enjoyed that. Anywho, we got to the airport and checked in which took up all of ten minutes, so we had about 2 hours to kill. We journaled, listened to music, napped, and found ways to pass the time. It was our turn to go through security, because at that airport you were only allowed through security one hour before your flight (SUPER efficient, by the way. America should think about it). We cleared security in about five minutes, and we then ate cookies and brownies while waiting for our flight. The flight to Delhi was about three hours, but well all completely passed out because we had gotten less than two hours of sleep each.
        We got off the plane in Delhi and grabbed a prepaid taxi to the hotel we had booked, which took a while and a lot of searching for. We got there and found out that our hotel reservation had been cancelled (It’s right around Diwali and rooms are high in demand, so they sold it for more than we had paid) We went to a travel agency to look into other hotel options. He asked what we wanted to do, and we told him we were going to head to the train station to get a train to Agra. He kind of laughed at us and told us that trains to Agra are high in demand and that we should have booked a few days in advance. We called the train station and found out that it was absolutely true... they were totally sold out. We wound up hiring a taxi to take us up to Agra for the night, stay at a hotel, see the Taj Mahal, and take us back to Delhi the next day to catch our flight, for around $70 per person. We got a quick lunch at dominoes (because nothing els was open and we were all insanely hungry) and began the five hour car ride. I slept for almost the entire ride, we pretty much all did. Along the way we saw a lot of cool looking markets and had a few beggars asking us for money and made really small conversation. We got to Agra around 6:30 PM and put down our stuff at the hotel before heading out. Our driver took us to a marble factory, where we were shown how the marble at the Taj Mahal is constructed, and I got to use the hand wheel to shape a few small pieces of stone which was really cool. They gave us a really awesome demonstration, and I ALMOST bought a marble table ($250 for the table and to have it shipped to USA), but I realized it wouldn’t really fit at my house and my dad would probably just make fun of me for spending that much money on a table (right, family?) We left there and bought two bottles of alcohol to have with our dinner, and we headed back to the hotel. We had dinner on the rooftop at ran into Dip and Aaron, two other SAS kids. Our drivers friend brought over some chicken that he had made, which was a bit too spicy for me. We ordered a bunch of food and I mostly ate rice and naan (It’s kind of a pattern). We went to bed around 10:30-11 because we were all exhausted and we knew we had to be up early the next day.

Day Three:
        We woke up at 5:00 to get to the Taj in time for sunrise. We got there and ran into a whole bunch of SAS kids who were either traveling independently or through the program. Walking in and seeing the Taj Mahal in real life was totally surreal... I’ve seen it in pictures my entire life and having it be this real THING was just weird... like when you talk to someone on facebook for a while and then actually meet them (Which happened with this trip), it’s just a strange feeling that makes the world feel really small. Other than that, I didn’t really feel any huge revelation or spiritual connection or anything... but I did think it was pretty awesome that this dude built this amazing structure to bury his wife. We walked around and took a bunch of pictures and walked through the building. We were there for about an hour before we left, and on the way back to the car we saw a bunch of monkeys, one of which was awesome because it was on a motorcycle looking like it was riding it (JUMANJI). We headed back to the hotel and packed our belongings and enjoyed our free breakfast of toast and eggs (and mixed fruit jam which I’m now obsessed with). We then began our journey back to Delhi, which I fell asleep for a bit of. I was awake for longer than the previous time, and I had a fucking blast hanging out with Ryan and talking about rude bushes, Emilia’s new CD, “Sleeping in Detroit”, and people being late to the horn shop. SIDENOTE: Horns in India are rarely normal horns. They vary in pitch and the sound that comes out of them... most of them sound like the ringtones that come on your phone when you first get it. I’m relatively in love with the whole thing, some of them made me laugh for extended periods of time.
        Sadly, we weren’t able to get back to Delhi in time to see anything, we got there just in time to catch our flight (the original departure time, not including the one hour delay it had). We got some snacks and headed to our terminal. I started reading “White Tiger”, a book that Ryan had picked up, which was really, really good (I finished reading it by the time we were heading back to Chennai). We got to Chandigarh and met up with Jesse’s driver who took us to a government guest house, which was where Jesse had arranged for us to be staying.
        Sidenote: Jesse is Bruce’s business associate. Bruce is my dads friend.
        We settled into our hotel and decided to head to sector 26, which was apparently where all the food was. The city was very well organized, everything was split into different sectors and different sectors had a different purpose. We walked around for a while before choosing a place to eat, a small Southern Indian restaurant where I got a sampler platter of this pancake-type food (I think it’s called oomptham but I could easily be wrong) They were awesome and not spicy at all which was super exciting for me. We headed back to the hotel after dinner and I fell asleep watching “The Hollywood Channel”, which appears to only show B-rated films.

Day Four:
        We woke up and contacted Jesse, who sent a driver to come get us and take us to his house. His cousin, who’s an animator in India, came to pick us up and gave us some information about Chandigarh as we drove past things. We got to Jesse’s house which was absolutely beautiful, my favorite thing being a spiral staircase. Meeting Jesse and his family was awesome, they were so warm and inviting. His wife made us breakfast while we talked with Jesse and his son, Gary. Gary just got drafted into India’s football league which is pretty badass. We had omelets, hash browns, chicken sausage, and toast with the mixed fruit jam I love so much. We then headed to the bus station to hop on the bus to Amritsar, which took 5 hours. We thought it was only going to take 3.5 hours, so we were all a bit frustrated by the time we got there. We met with Sukh and his business associate (who’s name I wish I could remember). Sukh took us to the Golden Temple immediately because he wanted us to be able to see it at sundown. He gave us advice about pickpockets and things to do around India for when we all decide to come back (He could tell that we all wanted to come back pretty immediately).
        The Golden Temple is a place of prayer for those of the Sikh faith. The main principles of the Sikh faith, as Sukh taught us, are the equality of humankind and the concept of universal brotherhood. We got to the golden temple, where we bought bandanas to wrap up our heads and took off our shoes. When you walk in, you walk through a flowing moat-type thing to cleanse your feet, and then you walk in. The temple was BEAUTIFUL. It was sparkling in the dimming sunlight and reflecting in the holy water which surrounded it. We walked around the entire plaza, which consisted of several other temples and the most amazing sense of community I think I’ve ever felt. There was a cafeteria type place, which is 100% free to anyone who needs food. It is run entirely off of donations and volunteers. We were given a tour and shown how they made the bread, some by hand and some by machine, and we were able to speak a bit to the volunteers who are just amazing people. We saw an entire community of several hundred people sitting and eating together, and when the finished they would either go into prayer or wash off their bowl and then take their place in the cafeteria, whether it was cooking or cleaning or handing out food.
        We then were able to go into the temple and walk around the interior. One thing was truly amazing was that I didn’t feel pressure to take place in prayer, as I often do in churches in America. Everyone was so accepting of everyone, and although I was clearly not of Indian decent, I was welcomed with open arms. The interior of the temple was absolutely pristine. There was so much beautiful marble carvings and amazing paintings with such vibrant colors. when we walked out, we were offered the holy sweet, which tasted like a brown sugar/cinnamon dough. It was a really interesting texture and flavor, but I kind of liked it.
        We left the temple and Sukh asked us where we wanted to go to eat, and we told him to take us wherever he liked. We went to a super nice restaurant and Sukh asked what foods we liked and disliked, and he ordered for us based on that. The food was SO good, and he was able to find me lots of non spicy foods which was lovely. We then went to Baskin Robbins for dessert before saying a very sad goodbye. We took a taxi ride back and got in around 3:30

Day Five:
        We headed out around 9 AM, hoping to see all there is to see in Chandigarh before our flight left. We sped through a really cool and beautiful lake, then rushed over to the rock garden which was really amazing, I wish we could have had a few more hours there. We ran into a man who used to work for the UN, and he was very friendly to us. Everyone we met up there stopped us and asked us about our lives and told us about theirs, particularly about their families. We then jetted over to the craft mela, a big craft fair that had handmade stuff from all over the country. It was AWESOME. We only had 40 minutes so I didn’t buy a whole lot, but I could have spent four or five hours looking at everything. We rushed over to the airport to catch our 12:30 flight back to Chennai via Mumbai.
        I spent the whole first flight reading and sleeping. I woke up pretty much as we were pulling into Mumbai. I felt really saddened by the look of Mumbai from the sky, skyscrapers and modern buildings surrounded by hundreds of slums, some with shacks stacked on top of one another. We didn’t wind up getting into Chennai until about 9:30, so I spent the rest of the night hanging out with Farrah and Jimmy and then Kevin when he got back.

Day Six:
        I went to Spencers mall with Jimmy and Farrah and did some last minute shopping as well as getting my nose pierced. WIN. We couldn’t stay very long, because we all were going to an orphanage at 1 PM. We rushed back to the ship and hoped on the bus after a quick lunch.
        I have really, really mixed feelings about the orphanage visit. Clearly it was awesome because we got to spend time with these kids who don’t have homes and who were so happy to be spending time with us. But at the same time, they had a show prepared for us and we were only there for a few hours... I felt like they were on display. I felt like we didn’t really make a difference at all. I let several kids take pictures with my camera and one girl in particular really enjoyed filming with it, and it was nice to see smiles on their faces... but smiles only last so long and the money we donated will only go so far. It actually made me more depressed than anything.


I plan on coming back to India at some point in my life to really experience it. I love Semester at Sea, but I wish there was a way to get more than just an appetizer sampling of every country that we’re going to.

Also, you people should start emailing me more often, let me know I’ve got readers, because if I don’t I’ll probably worry less about updating this damn thing.

Also also, the next few countries have VERY little time in between them, so I’ll try to keep this thing as updated as possible, but things are probably going to start getting out of order. I still haven’t told you guys about all of the adventures that IS sea olympics which happened well over a week ago... things to look forward to :)

Mauritius!

So the only thing that sucked about Mauritius is that we were only able to be there for one day :(.

Farrah and I woke up around 5:45 AM to get off the ship ASAP, being able to leave at 6. We got off around 6:15 and caught a water taxi into town, which was really cool. We walked around a bit trying to find food or an ATM or something, but we didn't really have any plans set in stone. We walked around a small market which was clearly not fully running yet. About a half an hour into our journey, we ran into a few other SAS people who were talking to a taxi driver about how to get to the north shore, which is the direction we wanted to head into. We were able to convince a taxi driver to take us around the entire say for $40/person, so we hopped into two separate taxis and headed out. We stopped quickly at a little food cart and got some deep-fried food, which is a traditional Mauritius thing. It was pretty delicious and insanely cheap, 2 rupees per item (29 rupees=$1) Our first stop was at this really small beach, and we walked a little ways along the shoreline. It was absolutely pristine. The water was so beautifully clear and the mountains were amazing. Me and one of the girls we were with decided we wanted to go parasailing, but we wanted to wait until we got to grand baile, which was an area that we heard was really amazing. We got there and realized that parasailing was way more expensive there, so me, Farrah, and the other girl (who's name I can't actually remember right now... we'll call her Michelle) headed back. Michelle and I chose to go parasailing, and Farrah didn't really want to so she came along the boat with us. I decided to go up first, which I was pretty stoked about. I've gone parasailing before but not since I was a lot younger. They loaded me up and sent me on my way. IT WAS AMAZING. Mauritius is insanely beautiful. I got this crazy adrenaline rush and I was so far up in the air and everything was just so fantastic. The water was the most amazing shade of blue ever and I could see so much of the country.

After parasailing. we headed back to meet our group, and enjoyed the beach there a bit. We then went out for lunch at this small restaurant a few minutes away. I wasn't super hungry, but I did have delicious, fresh-squeeze pineapple juice. We then went to another beach which was a bit less touristy and so incredible. I snorkeled for a few minutes and then went back to shore to hang out with people. When I got to shore, Woody, Michelle, and Farrah were talking to this guy about this awesome thing where you put on an astronaut-like helmet and go about 20 meters under the water and walk along the bottom of the ocean. We decided to go for it and we headed off in the back of a pick up truck. When we got there, we got a quick briefing and walked around the area a bit, and ran into some other SAS people. We headed off in the boat on a 5ish minute ride to the place we were meant to walk around. My group went first, and I of course was the first in the water. The helmet was extremely heavy, but it was SO cool. I felt like I was in a bubble. I saw a bunch of fish and some really cool coral. The guy gave us bread to feed the fish, so I had fish nibbling all over my hands which was awesome. Then the guy CAUGHT A FISH with his bare hands which was pretty badass. We were down there for about 10-20 minutes, and then we came back up to let the other group go down. While they were down there, we were allowed to jump off the top of the boat into the water. It didn't take long at all for people to start doing flips and other such tricks, which I thought I should try. Fun fact: I cannot do flips. Woody tried teaching me and I tried... seven of eight times. And I failed pretty miserably every time. I was in quite a bit of pain by the end of it, but I had an absolute blast. On the way back we were able to sit on the very front of the boat which was awesome. We then headed back to meet up with our friends, again via pickup truck. We got there and I bought a pineapple which I ate off the stem, which was AAAAAMMMAAAZZZIIIINGGG. I had been craving fresh fruit for about three weeks so I died a little. We then headed back to port because it was getting late and we had to get back. Our taxi driver dropped us off at the market, where Farrah and I did some really quick shopping and I bought a dress and some food stuff. We got slightly lost on the way to the ship, but we wound up finding a water taxi and making our way back successfully.

Overall: Mauritius was an incredibly beautiful place, and I wish I could have more time there to explore that beauty, but I think it's probably very similar to any other island country. While I was there, I came to the realization that I would definitely like to live on an island some day, so I think I should go to a few more before I pick one :)

Cape Town!

Day One:
I left the ship with Liz, Veronica, and Kevin with no real destination in mind. We were all fairly hungry, so we happened upon this really cool grocery store and got way too excited about it. It was a lot like a whole foods, so I got a bunch of different types of food and took it out with me. None of it was all that good, but I did enjoy trying all sorts of things. After that, we walked around some more and happened across a bar that Veronica had read about, so we stopped and each got a drink. I had a wine cooler called “Brutal Fruit” which made it sound 1000 times more badass than it actually was. After that, we walked around more and stopped in this small outdoor market, and Kevin and I bought these really cool giraffe statues. We then went to a coffee shop and hung around there for a bit. After that, we headed back towards the ship but we stopped at the mall. Kevin and Liz went back to the ship, and Veronica and I walked around the mall trying to find her shoes and headbands. We went back to the ship around 3, because I wanted sufficient time to get ready for my FDP that night and we were planning on going to a wine tasting at the mall. I got ready and we all met up around 4:45. Instead of wine, we decided to go to dinner at a restaurant called Karibou which Kevin had heard good things about. We all looked really fancy and the restaurant was fancy as well, so it was a really nice meal. Kevin got ostrich which I tried and instantly fell in love with. Kevin and I had to speed eat because we were both going to see Fiddler on the Roof at Artscape, which is where my teacher works. We got back to the ship and loaded on the bus to head there, and Michael told us some stories and gave us a small tour of the city. When we got there, we walked around backstage and saw the dressing rooms and the stages and the genie and all of these amazing things. It was a beautiful setup, the theater had two separate stages. We were served appetizers and wine before the show, which was nice. Fiddler was amazing! I had never seen it before and I wasn’t sure of the story of the show, so I really enjoyed it. After, we headed back to the ship and met us with Liz and Veronica again, then Liz’s friend Lilly and we all went out to drink. There was some communication errors, so we all got kind of split up and I wound up going out with Alden, Lilly, and Veronica. We walked around Long Street and found a bar called “Boo Radleys”, so we went in. Then we got kicked out for being white. Really. Even though the apartheid is technically over, there are still strong racial feelings throughout the city, and it was crazy to witness it first hand. We wound up at this really random bar and had a few drinks with Lou and Roy, who were really strange but kind of awesome. We then headed back to the ship and I hung out with kevin for a bit before going to bed.

Day Two:
Game plan was to go shark diving. I WAS PUMPED. And then it got cancelled because the waters were too rough. So I went out and got lunch with Farrah and Jimmy. We all got ostrich burgers which were amazing. We went back to the mall to walk around, and I was completely exhausted so I went back to the ship and took a nap. Kevin met up with me around 4:30 and we went out to dinner at this pizza place that we had noticed before. I got a bacon and banana pizza which was INCREDIBLE. We didn’t realize the pizzas were going to be as big as they were, so we got two and wound up with leftovers which we gave away. We headed to a bar called Mr. Pickwicks, which was where I was meeting Talia, this girl I’ve been talking to on couchsurfing. We stopped in a few really cool stores on the walk but didn’t buy anything. We got to the bar about an hour earlier than we were meant to meet, but we sat and enjoyed ourselves. We talked to the bartender Greg a bit, and he made me my first White Russian, which was his choice for me to drink. It was pretty good, but not something I think I would order again. We got a few more drinks and hung out until Talia got there. When she got there we hung out there for a little while more and made plans with greg to meet up tomorrow. We then went to another bar and got some more drinks and food, and then we went to this dance club, but Kevin and I decided against dancing and headed back to the ship. We got slightly distracted at Mitchells... and by that I mean we stayed drinking for a few more hours with birthday boy Mark, Whit, Cassie, and some German army guys. We headed back to the ship and watched a few episodes of The Office and then passed out.

Day Three:
Kevin had scheduled a shark dive at the aquarium for 11 AM, so we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed there. I took a bunch of pictures of him in the tank which was super awesome. I was pretty jealous that I’m not a certified diver. Liz met up with us there, and we headed back to the ship to get ready to go to Stellenbosch. We went to Mr. Pickwicks to wait for Greg, and wound up having a conversation with this cool British guy named Nick who was in Cape Town on business. Greg never showed up, so we invited Nick to come with us to Stellenbosch and he was super down for it. We got into a cab and headed to Stellenbosch, which was only about a 45 minute drive away. We got slightly lost getting to Spier, but when we finally did get there we promptly went to a wine tasting. I watched everyone enjoying their wine, because I very much do not like wine so I didn’t really see the point in paying to do it. After the tasting, we headed over to the cheetah sanctuary portion to see the cheetahs and to pet them. I got a little worried because the handlers said that we may not get the chance to pet them because it was the end of the day and they were getting fussy. LUCKILY I was in the second to last group to go in a pet it. It was pretty cool. Cheetahs are soft and kind of awesome. Afterwards we spent some time talking to the handlers about their jobs and how they got them. It was interesting because one of the handlers is doing SAS next semester, so we were telling her all sorts of things we’ve learned so far. Next we headed back to the ship and said goodbye to Nick. We got ready for dinner and walked around trying to find something to eat. We went to a German restaurant but it took way too long to get service and the lady was kind of a bitch (sound familiar, Ana?) so we just decided to go to the food court in the mall. I got a burger, fries, and a milkshake... because I’m in America, right? It was a carmel banana milkshake which was spectacular. After that Kevin and I decided to check out the grocer store and bought an absurd amount of ramen, as we tend to do. We then headed back to the ship, and I grabbed my laptop and headed back to the mall to use their wifi. I was able to skype steve&josh, my dad, and my sister which was awesome because I was feeling a bit homesick. After that I went back to the ship and tried to find stuff to do. I got ready to head to Mitchells, because I knew SAS kids would be there and I would be entertained. On the way, I ran into Nate and we decided that it would be 1000 times better if we had a slumber party in his nook and watched “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, so that’s what we did! It was lovely.

Day Four:
I woke up and got ready for the day, which I was pretty pumped about because I was heading to Simon Town with Nate, Natasa, Luke, and Sonya. We caught a taxi to the train station and got on the train, which was really similar to a T. I fell asleep for a bit on the ride, and when I woke up I felt like I was driving along the California coast. It was absolutely beautiful. We got to Simon town and walked around a bit. It reminded me a lot of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, just a small seaside town. A local told us about a really good restaurant nearby and headed over to it. It was beautiful! It overlooked the ocean and mountains and there were a few penguins in the water nearby. We all ate and it was delicious. I got another burger. I really like burgers. After an incredibly disappointing lack of cheesecake, we headed over to the penguins! We ran into some SAS people, and they informed us that paying 40 rand to get “closer” to the penguins was definitely not worth it, and to just walk along the path, so that’s what we did. It was AWESOME. It took us about 10 seconds to find a bunch of penguins. We saw well over 100 penguins by the end of the walk. We started heading back to the train station, and I stopped and bought a really cool painted ostrich egg with an old school world map on it. We swiftly walked back to the station to catch our train, and we got there just in time to get the train back to cape town. When we got there, Natasa, Luke and I took a Rikki back to the waterfront, which is sort of a version of public transportation. I had been telling a few people to meet me at 7 in Timitz Square so we could go to a bar, and I got there early so I grabbed dinner and ran into Ali and a few other people. We ate and swapped stories of the day, and I went and got ready to go out. I met up with Evan, Liz, and Kevin and we headed out to Mr. Pickwicks yet again, this time to participate in trivia night! We got there and verbally abused Greg for ditched us the day before and we got a few drinks. We went upstairs to trivia night, where we failed pretty miserably. We hung out there for a while longer, and then headed out to another bar. It didn’t take long for us to realize that Mr. Pickwicks was better, so we went back. We got a few more shooters and then decided to leave and head to another bar. We got slightly distracted by McDonalds, and while we were eating we decided that we didn’t really want to be out anymore, so we headed back to the ship. Kevin and I hung out a bit longer and then I went to bed around 3:30.

Day Five:
I missed the shark dive I was hoping to sneak onto, so I was trying to figure out my plans for the day. I went over to Ali’s room and talked to Ionna, and she was getting ready to go get breakfast and use wifi for a bit before heading over to Boulder beach and Cape Point. I got a delicious panini and the most amazing hot chocolate ever, and we went back to the ship at noon to head out. We met up with Waldine, a super awesome cab driver, and he drove us to Cape Point. It was men, Ali, Ionna, Lauren, and Sara. Along the way we stopped at a gas station where I got the best ice cream bar ever. We also were able to stop for pictures whenever we wanted, including when we saw A BREACHING WHALE. I LOVE WHALES. Anyway, we got to cape point, which is where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. We got lunch and hiked up to the top of cape point. It was absolutely stunning. We were there for a little while, and then realized it was starting to get late and we still wanted to go to Boulder beach (which is where the penguins are) so we headed back down. We ran into a bunch of SAS people along the way. We spent a short amount of time at Boulder beach, and then headed back to the ship. The cab ride was awesome, Waldine played some Katy Perry and Bruno Mars and we had SO much fun singing. Also “Jenny from the block”, the classic. We realized that our original plan to get food once we got back wasn’t a good idea, because none of us were hungry. We decided to meet up at 9:30 to go to Mitchells, so I hung out with Nate for a little while and then headed over there. We got burgers and drinks while we were there, and we met up with a bunch of different people. There was karaoke, which I was at first pretty stoked to do, and then it got to the point where there was a wait list of about 20 and I wasn’t really down for that. Alcohol wasn’t really affecting me, and there were people smoking cigarettes everywhere so I decided to just leave early.

Day Six:
I woke up and met up with Jessie and Emily to go see a rehearsal at Cape Town opera. We ran into Evan when we got there, and we sat there for about two hours watching the rehearsal, which was pretty cool because I’m not super into opera and I’ve never really even seen one, so seeing one in the process was very interesting. After that I walked around with Evan until he found a taxi to take him to table mountain for cheapish, and once he did that we separated. I walked around by myself for a bit, which was really, really nice. I stopped at a market and bought this really awesome bottle opener, and it was just so nice to be able to get acclimated to a new city by just walking around alone with my thoughts. I went back to the pizza place Kevin and I had gone to a few days before to meet up with him and Nate for lunch, but I got there early so I just sat there for a while observing everyone around me, which was really nice. They got there around 2, and we ordered pizza and hung out. It was a very nice meal. After that, we decided to go to the place with really good hot chocolate. We each a hot chocolate and they used the free wifi to look into their India trip. While they did that I headed over to the Africa trading post store, where I went kind of wild and bought a lot of amazing things. I found them at the hot chocolate place when I was done, and they saw all the cool stuff I bought and decided to head there as well. We shopped really quickly there and then at one more store before getting back on the ship to get a good seat for Desmond Tutu’s speech. It was amazing. He is such a genuinely happy guy and his words inspired everyone of us who was listening. Then I was lucky enough to get a picture with him which is pretty balla. I hung around with a bunch of people and went to bed.

Overall, I’d have to say that I’ve enjoyed Cape Town the least thus far. I felt like I was in San Francisco or other parts of America, and I don’t really feel like I learned as much there as I did in the other countries. However, Evan’s got family here and there are a few weddings coming up, and he asked me to be his date to one of them, so I know I’ll be back and I’ll have the chance to explore a little more in depth. Also, I'm horribly depressed to be leaving Africa. Africa is freaking amazing. I will DEFINITELY be back to this continent.

Neptune Day & Others.

Hey, world. Been a while, eh? I’ve haven’t necessarily been more busy than normal, I just haven’t been blogging on journaling with nearly as much consistency. I’ll get back to normal, maybe. Or this will become normal. Who knows.

So the day after Ghana was a lovely day that we like to call Neptune Day, which is the day that we sailed over the equator. We were all woken up around 7:30 AM by the lifelong learners and our cabin stewards banging on pots and pans and dressed in ridiculous outfits. Farrah and I got really, really excited and got ready and Jimmy joined us for breakfast. Everyone was buzzing with excitement about the impending activities. I was convinced that I had worms because I noticed these weird bumps in my feet, so I headed down to the clinic to get them checked out, but while I was down there, they called for all participants to come up to deck 7, so I peaced out (I don’t have worms, by the way) I rushed up there and joined Ali, Nate, Evan, and many others on the pool deck. The procession begun, which included the captain being painted all green and most of the ships staff looking pretty ridiculous in togas and other such outfits. We learned that we had to make a sacrifice to King Neptune to turn from pollywogs to shellbacks and be allowed to cross the equator. The sacrifice went as follows: Get fish guts poured on your body, jump in the pool, kiss a fish, and kiss the kings ring. There was an additional option of shaving your head. Evan and I jumped up to be some of the first to be turned into shellbacks, and we did the whole thing together. I did a whole lot of running around saying hi to various people, and I took a spot near the front of the group near the head shaving station to watch everything unfold. My friend Sarah was the first girl to shave her, which was a last minute decision for her. It was a beautiful moment. Everyone was cheering her name and screaming with excitement as her hair was braided and cut off. She was crying, as were many others in the audience. Everyone was being so incredibly supportive of one another, it was so amazing to be apart of. Throughout the day, many people shaved their heads, either because of planning it the whole time of because of a last minute decision, but there was this epic sense community that made me proud to be apart of. There was an impromptu dance party, an AWESOME whirlpool, and hair everywhere. After my incredible frustration with the shipboard community after the citizen kofi night, it was great to feel like everyone was here for one another and like everyone was just really awesome. I loved it.

After the festivities, I had rehearsal for global studies which went really well! Michael told me that I’m only the second person to ever perform the song, which really the performance into perspective and made me about 1000 times more nervous. I got dinner and spent most of the night hanging out with Kevin listening to music and drawing pictures.

The next few days have kind of redundancy and amazingness. There were two separate “waka waka” dance parties during class which were awesome. There was a SICK dance party, which started with a silent rave that I joined in a bit late. I have dinner with my extended family which was nice. I learned that my friend Nick plays the piano and has an absolutely spectacular voice, so we jammed for about an hour. I performed twice and have gotten a lot of compliments, which feels pretty awesome. The ship got pretty rocky and I woke up mid air at one point which was terribly exciting.
Tomorrow we get to south africa, which I’m incredibly excited about. It’s going to beautiful, and I know I’m going to see a whale. I LOVE WHALES.

Never Ghana give you up, never Ghana let you down.

Let me preface this blog entry with this: I cannot possibly explain in words how amazing four days in Ghana was. The words I have will not possibly do it justice, and I’m kind of ok with that.

Day 1:
We got off the ship around 10 or 11 AM, so freaking pumped to be in Ghana. I wrangled everyone up in Timitz square and we headed out together to get to the gate. It was about a seven minute walk, and a few people decided to just take the shuttle. Along the way, people tried to sell us a lot of stuff and we got a lot of welcoming “hellos!” which was nice. One of the first things I noticed was that on the back of almost every taxi was an uplifting message, usually from the bible but sometimes not, things like “Still living” and “Be happy”, which was really amazing. After leaving the port gate, we were BOMBARDED with people selling things. I struck up a conversation with Kalabash, who was an artist with some very cool paintings. I also gave my saltine crackers to someone to trade, and I gave him about 3 dollars for one of his paintings. It was harder telling people we wouldn’t buy stuff, because they were VERY persistent. I told Kalabash which of his paintings I liked, but that I couldn’t pay him. I found our tour guide as well as Fred, who welcomed me with a huge hug and a warm smile. Our tour guides name was Emmanuel, and we also met Olivia who was Freds sister. We got on the bus and headed to Accra to use an ATM, which was quite an interesting experience. When I took out money, good old Kalabash was there telling me that I could buy his painting now. I bought one and I also got a necklace, which was the same one he was wearing so I decided that we were twins. We headed back to the ship and Kevin had another artist bugging him to buy things, making him bracelets, and calling me Nikki Minaj. Everyone was SO friendly, even if you weren’t buying things from them. The bus took off, and throughout the bus ride Emmanuel told us all about the history of Ghana and all about what our tour was going to be like. I was completely overwhelmed with this intense feeling of happiness throughout the whole bus ride, which was SO surreal because I had no idea WHY I was so happy. Emmanuel stopped so we could buy plantain chips off of a street seller, which was SO good. They started to taste better the more you ate them, but they were delicious. We stopped for lunch at one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life. It overlooked a beautiful lake, the walkways were dotted with seashells, and there was beautiful forestry everywhere. I got jolof rice with chicken, which is a very common dish in Ghana. It was very good, but a little too spicy for me. Kevin got yams with chicken which was AMAZING. I ate quite a bit of it. After lunch, we hopped back in the bus and played slides along with thumb wars to keep ourselves entertained, and I took several naps. We got to our hostel in the Amedzofe village, which was very high up. The weather was not that nice, so our original plans to go around the village didn’t happen, but that was ok. The hostel was really cool because it was someone guest house, so I felt like I was just in their spare bedroom. Dinner was more delicious rice with chicken, but it was way less spicy so I enjoyed it more. We set up our rooms and all hung out, and Evan, Nate, Kevin and I decided to walk around the village ourselves for a bit. This didn’t last long at all, because we couldn’t find anyone. We spent the night playing big booty, never have I ever, and shoulders which was awesome. We headed to bed around midnight, because we knew we had to wake up before 6 AM the next day.

Day 2:
We woke up to the very annoying rooster directly outside of our window around 5:45 AM. It was my first time being woken up by a rooster, and even though I wanted to punch it, it was pretty awesome. I sat outside with Solomon, who was going to be helping with the tour for the day. Around 6:30, breakfast was served. IT WAS SO GOOD. It is literally the best breakfast I have ever eaten. It’s been a few days and I’m still telling people about it. We had fresh bread which tasted like it had just been made, with a small omelette. The omelette clearly was made from eggs that had been hatched by the nearby chickens, and the carrots, green peppers, and onions inside were clearly picked from their garden. It was absolutely amazing. We were then told that it was time to head for a 45 minute walk to a waterfall, so we all left, very excited for that. The walk was nice, we were able to walk through the village and the marketplace and almost everyone we walked by said “welcome to Ghana” or “hello”, which was a warm welcome from the whole community. The walk was interesting, we walked through the forest and had to use ropes to repel down some parts, which got pretty intense for a few of us and pretty awesome for a few of us. The waterfall was absolutely beautiful. As soon as we got their, I got into my bathing suit and climbed over the slippery, wet rocks to enjoy the water. I went underneath and let the water hit me, and I had this insane moment of clarity where my brain wasn’t clogged with a million thoughts about ridiculous things that don’t really matter in life, which was crazy intense and made me feel amazing. We were there for about 20 minutes, and I don’t think I stopped smiling for even a second. We took a bunch of pictures, and then it was time to leave. On the walk back, we saw a boy cutting big leaves with a machete to make brooms, and he let me try it which wa pretty awesome. We had the option of climbing a second, less intense mountain, or spending time in the village. I chose to spend time in the village, which was amazing. I stopped and talked to so many people, and they were all so friendly. Everyone was curious about what we were visiting for and about our lives, and everyone was just so happy and welcoming. Everyone was also fascinated with our cameras, and everyone wanted to try taking a picture which was cool. We wound up getting slightly lost on the way to our hostel, but we found it eventually. We packed up our belongings and headed to another waterfall, the tallest one in Ghana. Along the way we stopped for lunch and drinks. I got chicken with yam chips, which are similar to french fries. We also discovered our love for Ghanian music, including the songs “I Love my life”, “Easy” and “Strong black African man”. These probably aren;t the real titles, but that’s what we call them. The place we went was super cheap and really cool, and the drinks were very refreshing. We reached the waterfalls and walked about a half hour trail to get to the actual waterfall. It was absolutely beautiful. As soon as I got there, I jumped in the water and went to go under the waterfall. Fun fact: NOT as romantic as in the movies. I felt like I was battling nature. When I was under there, I could barely see anything or hear anything or really stand up on my own, but it was amazingly intense and just so awesome. Again, I wish there were words for it. I stayed under there for a while, trying to take pictures and just enjoying being there. I came out and saw several hundred bats just flying around far up in the air, which was really freaking cool. We walked back, and I was with Emmanuel so he played his music and we sang and danced along. We spent bout 20 minutes walking around the local market, and I bought myself come cool earrings and a bracelet for someone else. We rode another hour or so until we reached the Tafi monkey village, where we split up into our rooms and got ready for dinner. We got to see a sneak peak of the drumming that the villagers had prepared for us, which was really, really neat. We had dinner, which was rice with a really spicy sauce, so I just ate some rice which wasn’t bad. We then sat and listened to the drumming and watched the dancing of the villagers, which was absolutely beautiful. They put on a really amazing show for us. Toward the end, Emmanuel called me over and asked me to dance with Evan during one of the performances, so Evan and I jumped in with insane amounts of enthusiasm. It felt amazing. We had both been paying attention to the pattern of the dance and the beat that was going, so we pretty much did it right. It was cool because the villagers as well as semester at sea students all cheered for us, and a few of them laughed at me because I got confused about when it was my time to leave the dance (I wound up leaving halfway between when the girls left and the boys left) There was then another song which everyone got up and danced to, which was also pretty awesome. After that. Emmanuel took us to the only bar in town, where I tried Appateschi which is a type of gin that is distilled in the village, and incredibly strong. It was gross, but I had about four shots. I struck up a bunch of conversations with a bunch of different locals, including one of them asking me if I wanted to be an actor “like John Travolta”, which was really funny at the time. the night consisted of breakdancing, talking with locals, slides, and pullup competitions. We all left a bit before midnight because we had another early morning the next day.

Day 3:
We woke up around 6 AM and went to find the monkeys. They were everywhere! We all tried feeding them bananas, which was cool because a few of them jumped onto peoples arms and hung out for a while. We walked through the forest and saw more monkeys and Emmanuel told us about the village and about the monkeys, and we learned that there was a medical clinic they were trying to open, but they didn’t really have the resources to do it. We asked if we could add a quick tour of the clinic to our itinerary, and Emmanuel made it happen because he was fantastic. We had a quick breakfast of bread and grits and headed to the clinic. It was basically just a building with a lot of rooms, but it was really depressing because it wasn’t open or working, and they’re working so hard to get the funding for it but it’s not working. (If any of you reading this are rich or know some doctors/nurses with kind hearts, contact me.) We then headed to the school to teach and play with the children. I LOVED IT. The first thing I did, obviously, was have the kids do some repeat after me songs. I wound up running around to a few different classrooms and teaching a few different songs. It was amazing. The language barrier was a bit difficult, but all of the songs had some kind of physical movement, and that translated with ease. We were there until about 10:30, running around, singing, dancing, holding, laughing, and crying with these kids, who were all so genuinely happy to be there. We learned that a lot of the classrooms don’t have teachers because most teachers in Ghana want to work in bigger cities, so the whole school of about 200 kids only has about six teachers, who rotate which classrooms they’re teaching. (If you’re reading this and you’re a teacher with a kind heart, contact me) We all left really sad and really sweaty to head back into Accra. We stopped for snacks at a gas station, but we didn’t want to have a full on lunch because the day before took longer than expected. We got to Fred’s house, where his family was making us dinner. We had red-red, which is another traditional Ghanian dish which was too spicy for me. Emmanuel gave me a gift from can do land tours as a thank you for helping organize it, which was super sweet of him. We have Freds family our email addresses and facebook names so we can all keep in touch. The ride back to Tema took quite a while, so when we arrived we were all ready to shower and head out into town. We said our goodbyes to Emmanuel and our other tour guides, which was very sad because they were just SO amazing the entire time that we were with them. I showered and met up with Evan, Nate, Cassie, Joe, and Kevin, and we planned on heading into Accra and going drinking, then staying at a hostel. We took the shuttle into Accra and tried to find a bar called Bywell, which was where Evans friend who is studying in Ghana was planning on meeting us. After asking a bunch of people for directions, including my dear friend Kalabash, we found it. It was beautiful. It had no ceiling and there was live music and people dancing. A waitress came over to take our drink order, and it was just so cool because there weren’t very many non-locals there so it was a cool experience. We had a few drinks and danced quite a bit, and Evans friend Olivia came with a bunch of her friends from NYU who are studying here. Cassie had an allergic reaction to something, so her and Nate left to go to the ship. The rest of us headed to a club called citizen kofi, which is where someone from SAS had rented out a private room for us to hang out. As soon as we got there, I was not impressed. Everyone was way too drunk and sloppy, there was vomit in the sinks in the bathroom, and people were being carried out by their friends because they were completely passed out. It was embarrassing, sloppy, and just really lame. Kevin and I made a deal to not leave without each other (buddy system for the win), so I stuck around for a few hours just kind of hating everything. We left around 2:30 AM and hopped into a car to take us back to the ship, which went about 100 MPH and drove down random back roads, so we were all positive we were going to die for a solid five minutes. We got back to the ship and Kevin and I hung out for a bit, then I went to bed.

Day 4:
I woke up around 7 AM to get ready for the day. I went around to the rooms of Evan, Nate/Joe, Cassie, and Kevin to make plans. Evan, Cassie, Nate and I grabbed breakfast and decided to spend the day in Tema. We left the ship around 9 AM and decided to go to the market. We wound up walking the whole way there with a few of the guys who tried selling us stuff. Albert asked me to marry him, to which I politely declined. We got there and gave Albert some money so he would stop following us. It was awesome. We walked through the markets which was a total sensory overload. There was all sorts of weird seafood and fruits for sale, and seamstresses and peple selling trinkets. My nose went through a lot of confusion. We bought some fruit to eat and struck up a bunch of conversations with different people about where we were from and things like that, which was awesome. Everyone, again, was SO welcoming and warm hearted. (Common theme here) We left the heart of the marketplace and walked around a bit, and as Cassie and I stopped to buy some stuff, Nate and Evan struck up a conversation with one of the ladies on the street who was selling some things. She was super friendly and welcomed us to come back to Ghana to visit her anytime, to which we all returned the invite. I asked her if she knew somewhere that I could go to get my hair corn rowed, and she excitedly grabbed my hand and took us to her sister, which was the most incredible thing ever. It was down a random side street alley completely off he beaten path, and I sat down to get my hair braided and everyone was so friendly and laughing and having a good time. Everyone was talking to everyone, and Evan struck up a conversation with the woman braiding my hair. She was a Liberian refugee, and she’s leaving for Liberia again on Monday to try to start her life over, because life in Ghana is just too hard. While she was telling his story, she didn’t have even a hint of sadness in her voice, she was just happy to be ABLE to be alive. Nate and Cassie were meanwhile talking to this girl about the music we had been listening to that we loved, and we started playing music on her phone, which Nate and Evan were dancing to. They were teaching us some new dance moves, and we were teaching them some new dance moves and it was just so incredible. Even though we only spent an hour there, we were treated as if we were apart of this family that they had created. We left feeling incredibly happy and humbled, and we went for lunch. We picked a random restaurant and all ordered something different so we could try a little of everything. Evan had jolof rice, Nate and Cassie got variations of fried rice, and I had fried chicken. Everything was absolutely delicious. We left lunch and just started walking fairly aimlessly, deciding to turn at random times at places that seemed cool. We walked through a small village street where there were men playing checkers and children who all gave me a high five. We talked to almost everyone we walked past, sending greetings and laughing. We also happened across a litter of puppies who were PRECIOUS. I wanted to buy one so much I can’t even describe it. We found a school and decided to walk behind it, where we found a small group of kids playing soccer. Evan started playing with them, and I talked to a few locals and then sat with Nate and Cassie for a bit. Before we left, we met this man who was a contractor who told us a bit about himself and life in Ghana, which was amazing. We were all feeling really good, and we walked past this store where this woman called us over to say hi. It was incredible. We talked for a long time about our lives and their lives and our school program, and she told us that she’s a teacher at the school and they don’t have many school supplies or books, and she asked if there was anything we could do to help. We worked it out that the four of us are going to do a book drive when we get back to our homes and then we’re going to mail them out sometime in January. Her whole family and the four of us exchanged email addresses and promised to keep in touch. We were there for about a half an hour, but I felt like they were my aunts and uncles and cousins at a family gathering. We decided to head back to the ship, because we left on such a positive note. The taxi ride back was wonderful, Nate had a long conversation with our driver about his life and our lives. We got to the port gate and were hassled to buy more things, and then we headed for the boat. I bought some waist beads and a backpack outside of the ship, and then I boarded. The ship left around 2000 hours, and I sat alone watching it leave with these overwhelming feeling. I was so sad to be leaving, but so blessed to have been here at all. I found myself telling myself to stop being sad and to just be happy that I can even be alive. I smiled at the thought that I will absolutely be returning here some day.

To sum it up: Ghana is the most welcoming, friendly, heart-warming place I’ve been. It put my life into a brand new perspective, and in four days I learned to appreciate my life so much more than I ever have before.