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.