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.

back to ship life

It's been a few days now that we've been back on the ship. The first day, we were pretty much all walking around in this awkward, depressed funk. We love the ship, but none of us actually wanted to be back on it, taking classes, doing the regular thing. We all had cabin fever. I didn't really hang out with anyone for most of the day, except a mid-day break where Ali and I laid out tanning and drank banana-strawberry smoothies on the pool deck (which is apparently what the regular thing implies) Besides that, it was an off day, I didn't really want to be around anyone.

The next day was better. After work I took a nap outside in the sun and got a little bit more tan. I'm loving this whole being near the equator thing. Then I ran into Kevin and we hung out for a while and then met up with Joe. The three of us went to Kevins room to start working on our film. We pitched around quite a few ideas which came from all sorts of different ridiculous conversations, like "Pick a superpower that's completely pointless... or that has a catch". Some examples being "I can fly... but only inside of elevators." Liz and nate came in and we had a small dance break which was super fun and made us all really, really warm. They left to go see Adam Braun speak, but we kept working on the movie. We came up with a REALLY good idea and decided to roll with it. We worked on it for most of the night. We went up to the smokers deck so joe could have a cigarette, and I met a few new people which was cool. the three of us decided to spend new years in new york city together, where the two of them are getting an apartment. Kevin and I wound up staying up until like 4:30 talking about a bunch of random things, and then Farrah and I talked and I finally fell asleep around 5.

Yesterday was another day where I was just really, really tired. Probably because it's an A day and I can never sleep the night before and I have way to much to do. I skipped global studies... again... and took a nap. Musical theater class was awesome, as per usual. Met up with Kevin for lunch and then we started watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which is about 1000 times better than I remembered it being, and there are an insane amount of awesome quotes. After that I went to my world theater class, where we had a really interesting conversation about the role of sexuality for men and women in africa versus in western culture. I grabbed dinner very quickly and then went to improv club, which was super fun. After the club, there was an improv explorer seminar, which was lead by this guy named Dave who trained with second city which is pretty awesome, and that was super fun too. We then had our yellow sea ice cream social, which was pretty cool and also kind of frustrating, because not many people were as pumped about my iceberg activity as I was. Then Kevin and I worked on our paperwork for the next few ports which took way too long and I felt like I was going insane by the end of it. We then kidnapped Nate and hung out until about 2 AM talking about airplane high-fives, sci-fi, and flapping.

Now I'm sitting in the campus store, with 20 minutes left of my shift. We figure out that work study kids get roughly $50/hour. kind of nice, considering I mostly just do homework and fuck around. Tonight is my friend Stephanie's birthday, and she ordered 3 cakes which I'm excited about. I can only stay for 15 minutes, because then I've got an extended family dinner. Extended family is when you get partnered up with a life-long learner and a few other students, and you have dinner together every so often and share stories and just hang out. Tonight's the first night, so I'm excited to see who my family is going to be!

Next port is Ghana, which I'm beyond stoked to get to (Brit, if you're reading this, I need some Ghana tips!) We'll be there on Tuesday, and it absolutely CANNOT come quick enough.

Moroccan your world.

Day 1

Waking up early to watch the sunrise was rough. I was completely exhausted, I knew I would regret if I hadn’t decided to get up. So I manned up and headed up to deck seven. It was beautiful. It was still dark out, but you could see the lights from the city of Casablanca twinkling in the distance. As the sun began to rise, the sky was filled with reds and purples. I was with Ali, Nick, Farrah, and Jimmy. There were a lot of clouds, so we didn’t get to see the sun come up over the water, but we did get to watch it burst over the clouds. As it got lighter out, there was a school of dolphins who swam near our boat for a really short period of time, which absolutely made my day perfect. Right before docking we grabbed breakfast and got ready to leave.

I headed into Casablanca with Farrah, Jimmy, and Julie. Casablanca smells... awful. It smells like a dirty gerbil cage baking in 90 degree weather, for the most part. We overpaid an absurd amount for a ride to the train station (100 dirhams which is roughly $10. The same ride later cost us 10 dirhams, or about $1.10) We bought our train tickets to Marrakech for us and our friends, and then we had some time to kill so we walked around looking for lunch, which failed because in Morocco, food/lunch was not served at 11 AM. We walked back to the train to catch a taxi back to the ship. We didn’t want to get ripped off again, so we did a lot of arguing and trying to force people to use the meters. Everyone refused to, so we walked away. We actually wound up walking the whole way back, which wasn’t that far of a walk. We saw donkeys, children, and a lot of dead animals.

We got back to the ship and had lunch with Kevin,Veronica, Ali, and Sam. We agreed to meet up at 2 PM to wait for Andrew. When we got to the lobby, we found him and he told us that he had been mugged, which was really scary and made us all feel awful. We/he talked to the dean, and he decided to stay in Casablanca as opposed to come to Marrakech with us for the night so he could sort everything out. We grabbed money and took taxi’s to the train station just in time to catch a train to Marrakech. We passed miles and miles of farm land, and it was about a three hour train ride. We spent it learning bits of Arabic from a nice couple who was sitting with us. It was really cool because the woman had this beautiful henna tattooing all over her hands and feet, which means she was celebrating something, which we later found out was that she was pregnant. It was a really interesting cultural experience and language experience. “la” means no and “shukran” means thank you, which is mostly all that I was able to retain.

When we arrived into Marrakech, we began the frightening process of getting a taxi to our hotel for eight people. We split two taxis and got near our hotel, which was super sketchy because it was down a creepy alleyway. Apparently, creepy alleyways are like regular streets in Morocco. (don’t worry, mom, I was carrying my cuticle cutters in my hand ready to stab a bitch) We went up to the rooftop terrace to see the square from the top, which was absolutely beautiful. We also witnessed the call to prayer, which happens five times a day where people within Islamic culture pray to Allah. We went out for dinner and found this really cute place that had a beautiful ambience. I got chicken tangien with lemon which was interesting. Tangien is like meat with lots of diferent spices and vegetables and olives in an almost stew type thing. We also all ate bread that we’re thinking was drugged, because after we ate it we all felt like we had had a few drinks at the EXACT SAME TIME. But it also could have been a placebo thing. After figuring out payments, we went out to the markets which consisted of Sam sucking at bartering and Kevin winning. I absolutely loved it. We went and grabbed some orange juice because we all heard that it was an absolute must. IT WAS AMAZING. I don’t even like orange juice, and it was probably the most amazing drink I had ever had. So fucking good. Seriously. I wish there were more words. The market was filled with so many beautiful colors and scents and it was just all around amazing. I had a hard time sleeping and wound up going back up to roof with Kevin for a bit and witnessing a 3 AM soccer game being played in the square, which was pretty cool.

Day 2

Woke up to the sound of birds. Not in a cute way. Too many birds. I also heard the call to prayer at some random hour in the morning. We headed out of the hotel to grab a taxi to get to our meeting point for the camel trek. It didn’t take long to get there or for our tour guides to arrive, and ANDREW SHOWED UP! It was amazing because we weren’t sure what his situation was after everything that happened. We all went out to breakfast at this cute little cafe place, where I got a chocolate croissant and more orange juice. We then started the drive, which of course meant nap time. I’m not sure how long I was asleep for, but when I woke up we were in the middle of this beautiful mountain range. It sounds weird, but I finally felt like I was in Africa. We stopped for lunch, where I got beef tangien. Andrew made the decision to leave, which made me really, really upset because I hadn’t gotten the chance to spend time with him as much as I would have liked to.

We got to the camel trek after about 11 hours, which was much longer than everyone was expecting. Some girls freaked out and called the US embassy because they thought we were being kidnapped, which seemed to me like a gross overreaction. We got on the camels around 8:15 PM. I chose to name mine Allen and Kevin named his Steve. (Allen... Allen... Allen... oh wait, that’s not Allen... Steve... Steve...) We rode 45 minutes into the desert and we got to our camp which was large tents with mattresses in them, each for 5-6 people per tent. I was expecting so much less so I was pretty pleased. We got dinner which was soup, tangien, and melon. (PS- at this point I was pretttttty sick of tangien) After dinner, I decided to lay out under the stars for a bit, which was absolutely amazing. There was zero light pollution which made it the most clear and beautiful night sky I have ever seen in my life. After about 10 minutes, I decided to join the drumming and dancing circle that was going on around the fire pit with Ali and Kevin. It was absolutely incredible. There was this great community-type vibe which was amazing to be apart of. Ali and I danced around the fire, which then lead to us being offered the drums to play along. We played for about 10 minutes, then we walked up this massive sand dune/mountain where everyone was hanging out. We talked to Will for a while about stars, life, and other such things. It was amazing because I don’t see or talk to Will very often, so it was amazing to see just how close this trip can bring people. Will and Ali left, and I went to find more people. I ran into Skyler, Robin, and Bryan. We talked for a bit, but to my left I noticed a group of people sitting in a circle with several of the local Berber men, and I decided to go over to them. Kevin was there, so I sat with him and he told me much they had taught each other. There was so much singing and dancing, in both Arabic and English. They loved the song “OMG” by Usher, which was very funny. However, instead of singing “oh my god” they said “oh my gosh” which I found interesting. We also sang/danced to “Waka Waka” which seemed fitting, considering we are, in fact, in Africa. Then Hassin and I poured sand on each others arms, which is called a desert massage. He also buried Kevin and my feet in the sand, which was very warm under the surface. Kevin and I decided to head to bed, so we laid out a sheet behind our tents and slept under the stars, which was amazing and very cold. I had this moment right before I fell asleep where I just felt so inspired. I felt like I was in this beautiful place filled with friends I haven’t met, friends I barely know, and people I can already tell are going to be life-long friends.

Day 3

Woke up about an hour after I had fallen asleep because I was just that cold. I watched the sunrise over the mountain and noticed that I had fallen asleep about 100 feet away from all of the camels. We took a lot of pictures and got ready to head back out. I ate some bread with cheese for breakfast and packed up my belongings. This time around, my camel group decided we were going to be a band called “The Talibans”, so my camels name was T-Pain. He was kind of wild, so I was feeling pretty sore by the time we got to our van to head back. I slept a good majority of the ride back, waking up randomly. For lunch I had a kafta sandwich, which is like a meatball and it was amazing, possibly only because it wasn’t tangien. We arrived in Marrakech around 6 PM, and our bus to Casablanca was meant to leave at 7:30 PM. We walked incredibly quickly into the market to make some last second purchases. I got gifts for my mom and sister, as well as some more orange juice (because how could I not?).

At 7:15 we got back to our bus arrival place, and there was a bit of a language barrier to figure out which buses were for us, because one of the drivers only spoke french and arabic and the other spoke french, arabic, and spanish. Sam knows a small bit of Spanish so we were at least able to figure out that they were the right people. We loaded up two vans and made the three hour voyage to Casablanca. This also consisted of a lot of napping. I also played a game with the girls I was sitting with where you pick a letter and have to name a bunch of animals who’s name starts with that letter.

We arrived in Casablanca around 11 PM, starving and gross. I ate cup a noodles, a twix bar, and cheetos in about 30 seconds because I was SO hungry. We all took showers, I showered in Joe’s room because his shower is twice the size of mine. I went and met up with Kevin and joe in Kevin’s room, and we talked until fairly late about a lot of things, which was super intense and awesome. They’re both really cool people. I went to bed around 2:30 AM.

Day 4

I woke up at 12:30 because we completely forgot to set an alarm. We got ready and grabbed lunch super fast because we wanted to explore Casablanca and still be back on the ship at 6 PM, which was call time. Farrah, Jimmy, Jessie, Joe, Kevin, and I walked to Rick’s cafe to have a drink, because it’s kind of one of those things you have to do while you’re in Casablanca. I tried some gin and tonic, which I very much did not like. I ordered myself a strawberry daiquiri and a shot of vodka, which were both super good. We left around 3 PM and headed to Old Medina, which was super cool. It was like a back alley filled with outside vendors. Farrah and I each got a really cool scarf, hers in black and mines in white. After that, Farrah, Jimmy, and Jessie headed to the boat but Kevin, Joe and I wanted to stay out for a bit longer. We took some random turns and wound up in an area that was clearly not often visited by tourist, which was really awesome. We had about 100 dirham to spend, so we went to a little corner store and got a thing of orange juice and ten candy bars, which was assumed would use up all the money. Turns out it only cost 22 dirhams. We then walked around some more and stopped at several other stores, buying a ridiculous amount of candy, jam, and tea to bring back on the ship. We headed back at 4:30 to get on the ship, and we stored all of our belongings in Kevin’s refrigerator. Once back on the ship, we all hung out with a bunch of people, swapping stories and enjoying dinner. The ship left at 8 PM, and it was so surreal watching Morocco disappear just as quickly as it had come. I had this “a ha!” moment where I came to the realization that this was my FIRST port. There’s 10 more ports, thirteen more destinations. I felt a significant difference in myself after four days. I experience that much of the world after one country. And this is only the beginning. I cannot wait to see what the next countries have in store for me.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.

Because this is where I do my homework.

Fuck sleeping

Um, first of all, I’M GOING TO BE IN MOROCCO TOMORROW. WHAT. THE FUCK?!

The past two days have been kind of crazy, which is why I have not updated this in what seems like forever. It’s going to be a while before my next updated, because I’m doing a two days camel trek in Morocco and I’m not bringing my computer with me. We’re traveling through the Atlas mountains and going through the Zangora desert. A small group of us is going from Casablanca to Marrakech early tomorrow so we can spend the night there, which I’m incredibly excited about doing.

So two days ago (9/1) was a pretty good day. I had lunch with Ali, Sam and Ionna then went to work, which was of course really easy and mainly consisted of folding a copious amount of tshirts. I went outside to try to study, but it was absolutely freezing so I only lasted about 20 minutes. It worked out ok, because when I came inside Joe was there and I sat with him. Somehow it transformed into Joe, Lou, Kevin, Liz, Evan, and Nate. Throughout the day there were more or less people sprinkled in, but that’s pretty much how it remained for the evening. We all went to diner together (one of which being my new friend, Alden) Kevin taught us how to play our wine glasses, which was a lot more difficult than one would assume, but it was pretty awesome and we were doing it fr a solid 45 minutes.

After dinner we went to Evans room and decided to watch a movie. We started watching some Mary-Kate and Ashley movie but quickly decided that was a piss poor choice and Evan suggested we watch a movie called Marci X, which none of us had seen. It is AMAZINGLY RIDICULOUS. The cast includes Lisa Kudrow, Ice-T, and Damon Wayans. There is no way to explain it... you just have to stumble across it at some point in your life.

We went to the acapella group meeting which was awesome. I suggested we put together a disney medley which a lot of people liked the idea of. After that, I went to trivia night which was also hilarious. We had that really obnoxious group that most other people were probably secretly jealous of... or I’m just completely delusional. But either way, I had fun!

We went downstairs with the intentions of making a fort, which wound up turning into a pretty big game of Indian chief in the hallway. I went inside Tracy’s room with ionna and Ali to talk about some logistical things, and when I came out everyone had left. Ali and I went back to Kevins room, and we all hung out in there for a while. When Kevins room mate came back and wanted to go to bed, we went up to the sixth floor. I saw Ryan and Moobushair, who I had never met before but he was pretty cool. We all hung out and said many ridiculous things, including Joe knowing a lot about Chinese astrology off the top of his head, “fuck goats!” Kevin and Liz went to bed and I stayed up talking with Sam and joe, and after Sam left I stayed up with joe talking until about 4 AM. I went back to my room and Farrah was ACTUALLY awake, which was something we both weren’t expecting out of one another, so we stayed up until like 5:30.

Yesterday I woke up completely exhausted at 7 AM to go to work. I made the decision almost immediately that I was going to skip global studies to nap. Work was fun, I work with Mallory in the mornings and she’s pretty awesome. I went back to my room with the intention of sleeping through Global Studies. I wound up sleeping through that AND history of musical theater, which was shitty just because I love my professor for that class. I went to work at noon and (surprise!) folded some more shirts. After that I ran into Nate, Lou, Kevin and Sam. Kevin made a funny comment about liking the group of friends we were forming, which was pretty cool to hear because i definitely agree with it. I grabbed lunch and then hung out with Nate until I had to go to class. Global music was pretty ridiculous, which is pretty much par for the course. World theater and performance was amazing, which is also pretty much par for the course.

After classes I had a meeting with ym LLC (sort of like an RA) Christy because I’m on the Yellow Sea Spirit Committee. We discussed some cool things that we could do as a sea to form a bond and get to know one another better. There were a lot of great ideas thrown around, and I’m actually pretty pumped to be on the committee. It’s just me, Farrah, and this girl Wendy who’s super nice.

After that, I went down to deck 5 and found Kevin and joe, who I wound up spending most of dinner with. We went down to Kevins room to start writing our film, which was really fun. There were a lot of good ideas thrown around. We had to leave around 2000 hours to go to a pre-port cultural meeting, which is basically when the whole ship gets together and talks about cultural considerations for in port, so we don’t do anything terribly offensive, and we got to learn a few phrases in Arabic (which I may have already forgotten) most of the meeting was relatively preposterous, including learning what the dean decided was the origins of “planking” (which was really more of a coincidence than where the idea came from), and basically said “I’m not telling you what to do... but if you plank, you’re racist”. It was pretty silly.

We went to late night snack and met up with Liz. We wound up going down to Joes room to hang out, and we then moved to Liz’s room. We randomly started doing some improvised scenes for the film we’re making, which was pretty cool. From that we came up with a pretty cool idea: Why not just go play some improv games? We headed up to the union and recruited a few people, and we started playing games! Kevin and I kind of lead the whole thing which was cool. We had to move from the union, and we went into a classroom on the side of the garden lounge. We had a solid group of people there, and we had a LOT of fun playing. we wound up playing until about 4 AM. A few people had left by then and it was Kevin, Ryan, Liz, and then Ace, Chris, and Jeff. I knew Ace because he lives across the hall from me, but I had never met the other two. Ace and Chris left to go to bed, and we went out to go star gazing. Jeff and I bonded over our mutual desire to see a dolphin or a whale. It was around 4:30 AM that we decided that there was absolutely no point in going to sleep. We got kicked off the deck because they were cleaning it, and we met this really awesome crew member named Vladimere. He let us go into the teachers lounge, which was actually really cool mostly because we’re not usually allowed in there.

We all grabbed some stuff from our rooms and met back upstairs to watch “I love you, man”, which was of course completely amazing. We saw the sun starting to come up, so we went outside to finish the movie and watch the sunrise. There were a lot of clouds, so at first it was kind of a let down, but it became absolutely beautiful. There was one point where the sun was just peaking out from behind the clouds and the rays were really prevalent, and it was just beautiful. At 7 Am we decided to go grab breakfast together, which was great because it was really, really fresh and my croissant was super warm and the chocolate was melted a little. I decided to go lay down around 8 AM, because I realized I was slowly going slightly insane. I power napped from about 8:30-11:30, and now I’m sitting at work typing this up and listening to my itunes while directing people to the other side of the campus store to make their purchases.

For anyone more interested in the details of my camel trek, here they are!



Travelling over the Atlas mountains, enjoying the magnificent views of the surrounding countryside below and we visit the Kasbah of Ait Benhaddou. This journey takes approx 2 and a half hours.
From there, after our break, we continue to Ouarzazate (approx 1 hour or so) for lunch break.

Lunch is available in the local cafe's.

After lunch, we continue along  the Drâa valley to reach our destination of Zagora.
After a break in Zagora, we meet our 4 legged friends, our Camels, who will take us on a 1 and half hour trek into the dunes to reach our desert camp at Erg Chegaga.

Each person rides their own Camel and additional Camels are provided to carry your luggage.
The Camel trek is usually just prior to sunset, so that you may enjoy the sun setting over the landscape from the top of the Dunes.
Once we arrive at the Desert camp, we are greeted with a cup of delicious hot minty tea and we spend the evening under the stars, on the dunes and beside the warmth of the fireside.
We enjoy a locally cooked meal of Tagine and couscous (vegetarians are catered for with vegetable tagine), a drum party and story swapping.
The camp does have washing and toilet facilities.
Those that wish to can sleep directly under the stars, but there are Bivouacs for everyone.
The stars in the desert are a great opportunity to see as their are no artificial lights around and you can fully appreciate the glory of the skies above.
For those that are unable to ride the Camels, we provide 4x4 transportation to the Desert camp.

Day 2 of this Morocco Desert tour
After a traditional Berber breakfast, just prior to sunrise, we have a Two hour camel ride at sunrise to explore the area further and we head back to Zagora on our Camels.
When we reach Zagora, we have the opportunity to wash and then we begin our journey through the Draa valley and over the Atlas mountains, with plenty of stops for photos and lunch, to Marrakech.
 We usually return to Marrakech, arriving at around 18:00hrs.


I literally can’t believe that I’m going to be there in less than 24 hours. It’s starting to actually hit me that I’m going to be seeing the world.