South Africa!!

I’m back on the ship and after a week in Cape Town I find myself having trouble adjusting to the idea that I have to go back to my classes, finish reading assignments, and write papers. Cape Town was awesome. I did so much in the course of the seven days I was there but I’m ready to move on to our next port.

So where to start. Well as I already wrote in my last entry, I went skydiving on my first day in South Africa. It was amazing, yada, yada, yada. On Tuesday, my second day, I did a tour of the wine lands with three other people from the ship. We ended up being the only four people in our tour, which was awesome because a lot of the other tours were full of people. Our guide, who’s name was pronounced Air-el, told us, “I want to give you the best…this is your day,” He offered to take us anywhere we wanted to go but we stuck to the plan of drinking lots of wine at four different wineries. Airel talked to us about South Africa’s political situation for quite some time. “It’s our country now, it wasn’t before,” he explained, telling us stories about how much life has changed since apartheid ended. Hearing him speak about Nelson Mandela was really interesting for me. He kept stressing about how wonderful Mandela is, “When he is near you you get goosebumps…he is that great of a person,” he told us with excitement.
Our tour consisted of Airel driving the four of us around to different wineries, where we had the opportunity to taste up to five different types of wine. I knew very little about wine tasting, and still don’t understand how on earth winetasters find so many different flavors within a single glass of wine. I guess my palette isn’t developed enough yet. But all the same, I really enjoyed pretending that I noticed a major difference between each glass.


On Wednesday I went on a Semester at Sea trip to a township outside of Cape Town. Our tour first took us to the District Six Museum which made my day because I was really disappointed that I wasn’t going to have the time to visit it while in South Africa. District Six is an area where 70,000 blacks were removed, starting in 1972, in order to make way for Europeans. Homes were bulldozed and entire neighborhoods turned to ruins. Members of the community ended up in squatter camps and homeless. The museum showed what the neighborhood once looked like, had testimonies displayed from past residents, and had a map of the district that covered the entire first floor. People had written small comments and signed their names where their homes once stood. Our tour guide himself once lived in District Six. His grandfather down to his son was born in the house that was bulldozed right before his eyes.
After the museum visit our bus headed to a township, or a squatter camp. Although apartheid is over, consequences of it still remain. Thousands upon thousands of blacks live in shanties crammed together, some without doors. Before we entered the township our bus driver told us, “This may be emotional for you, but it is our past and we are looking to the future.”
Upon entering the township our motorcoach drove up and down the streets, showing us the intensive amount of poverty that exists in South Africa. If one were to visit Cape Town they would not see this side of the wealth distribution. Cape Town is made up primarly of white middle-class citizens. So anyway, children were running out of their homes, waving at our bus, parents just stared at us and continued their work. One little boy flipped us off and said “Fuck you,” as we drove by. Eventually the bus was parked and we had the opportunity to walk around the township. We received a tour of a bed and breakfast that is essentially a fixed-up shanty. A woman from the township, Vicky, started it in order to bring more people into their neighborhood. We also went to a day-care type place. The day-care was in a shanty as well, hidden from the dirt road and behind several homes. Ten young children were there that day and they sat politely in the tiny room that made up the building, as a woman explained the purpose of the establishment. Before we left they sang a couple songs for us.
After our tour we headed back outside and spent about an hour standing around on the narrow dirt road, talking to children, and walking around. One girl brought a Polaroid camera and was taking children’s pictures, giving them a photograph of themselves, something many of them don’t have. I wish I had thought of that. The kids got a kick out of seeing their faces on the backs of digital cameras though and I found myself plowed over by kids at one point as they asked me to take their picture and laughed when they saw how it turned out. A group of women stood in front of a nearby home, cleaning their clothes in a soapy bucket. Some girls started a game that looked similar to jump-roping but was much more complicated. A little boy in a wheelchair rolled by, being pushed by another child. It was all so overwhelming.
What I found important to note is that these shanties, surrounded by dirt, were spotless. They were swept clean, making it obvious that people took pride in their homes. And the women that were cleaning their clothes were also scrubbing their shoes, something I don’t even do. It was very apparent that the poverty of all these people is out of their control. The unemployment rate in South Africa is up to 40% I believe…maybe 30.
After an hour we loaded back onto our air-conditioned buses and backed out of the township as the children stood outside barefooted on the dirt ground. Students reviewed the pictures they had taken on their digital cameras as these young kids waved at us upon our departure. We are so lucky it’s ridiculous. I just can’t get over it.
Before the tour was over we stopped for lunch at a restaurant located in a different township. This township was nicer as it had paved roads dividing the homes, but the poverty was still evident. The owner of the restaurant, Sheila, told us her story. She worked as a maid, I believe, for quite some time, making only 40 Rand a month, which is equivalent to less than seven dollars American. One day at work she picked up a receipt that the homeowner of the house she was cleaning left out. He had spent 40 Rand the night before on wine and cheese at a restaurant. It then hit her that she was valued the same as some wine and cheese and shortly after she enrolled in night school, which didn’t work out she said because she couldn’t stay awake due to the fact that by then she was working two jobs. Eventually she started a second-hand clothing story and made enough money to start up her own restaurant and add on to her home, which is a part of the restaurant as well. I just found her whole story really interesting. And the food served was awesome, there are about fifteen different dishes for us to taste. While we ate a marimba band performed; they were really talented and the main singer had an amazing voice, very operatic.

I spent my next day in Cape Town sandboarding. There were about fifteen of us and we rode in vans until we reached the sand dunes, which were an hour out of Cape Town. Everyone stepped into a pair of snowboarding boots and carrying a snowboard being our backs, we hiked out into the dunes.
Sandboarding was a good time, but I think it’s more of a sport for those who haven’t snowboarding rather than for those who have. I mean, it’s hard for me to get a rush from sliding down a hill of sand when I’ve snowboarded black diamonds in Colorado, you know? All the same though, it was a good time. One of the guys on the trip, Rob, is a snowboarder as well so the two of us teamed up and attempted to find steeper slopes. Oh and did I mention that we had to hike back up the sand dune after each run? Yeah, it definitely got tiring.
By the time sandboarding was finished at 3:00, we were all starving. A group of us ate lunch at this health food place in the mall. It ended up being my favorite place to eat in Cape Town and I went back like three times.
That night a group of us went out to a restaurant to drink some wine and ended up at two different clubs in the course of the night. It was an awesome time and we got all these free drinks because this guy wanted us to go to the club where he was DJing. So on top of the free drinks we also had free entry into the dance club because he was with us. So cool.

Friday was Table Mountain day. Since arriving in Cape Town, Table Mountain had been impossible to miss, I mean, it sits in the center of the city, towering over it. Carrie, Kathryn, this girl Gretchen who I had just met, and I took a cab to the beginning of one of the hiking trails and started our journey up the mountain. It was hard, really hard and that was only the first half an hour. When we reached a crossroad in the path this man who was resting pointed to the left, saying that the path was easier that way…we were all for it. And it was easy, but only for about an hour. Then it got ridiculously difficult. We were hiking up through this gorge, going back and forth on the same slope as it ascended upwards. Our path way was made entirely up of rocks and it felt like I was doing the stairmaster on level 20. On top of that, Table Mountain has very little vegetation, so there were no trees to give us shade and we were baking in the hot sun. It was so frustrating because for nearly the entire hike we could see our goal, this tiny path that led through the huge rocks at the top of the mountain. I looked at that path so many times, wishing it were just a little closer. We had to stop a lot, especially once we ran out of water, and eventually Kathryn went off on her own and beat us to the top by about thirty minutes. We did make it up there, and the view was a hundred times more spectacular because we had worked so hard to see it. Despite how rewarding the hike had been though, we still opted to take the cable car back down and save time and energy.
At 2:00 we up with these two girls who are studying abroad in Stellenbosch. Carrie knew one of them from her college in Kansas. Gretchen headed back to the ship and the four of went to the well-known botanical gardens in the city. I have no idea how to spell the name of the gardens so I’m not even going to try. As we stood in line getting our entry tickets I there were two older women behind us. I paused between two sentences to hear one woman whisper to the other, “American.” I guess my accent gave me away. My head darted towards them a little too quickly and I soon wished I hadn’t looked their way because they both ended up staring at me. I smirked and turned around as though I shouldn’t have heard them talking. But anyway, the gardens were beautiful. The grass was freshly mowed and children ran around while their mothers laid on blankets underneath the shade of the trees. There were flowers everywhere and strange-looking ducks waddling around near a small pond. Casey and Becky had to get on the train to head back to their school before it became dark so we only got to spend a little over an hour at the gardens and I have a feeling that there was so much more we could have seen if we had had more time to walk further into the park.

On Saturday morning I met this girl Kristen in the dining center for breakfast and then we headed out together to go to Robben Island. I had met Kristen on the township visit and was so happy to hear that she wanted to visit Robben Island on Saturday too. For a while I thought I would be going alone. Robben Island is this small piece of land right off the coast of Cape Town that was used a prison for political prisoners during apartheid. Nelson Mandela spent eighteen years of his life in a cell on the island. It’s a really big tourist attraction now and you have to get tickets days in advance for tours, which are always sold out.
I’m really glad I got to go to Robben Island because I learned so much. We were driven around in buses and saw the areas where the prisoners were forced to work each day. Different animals were scattered around the island, including tiny Jackass Penguins which we hiding underneath the shade of trees. While on the bus tour our guide asked everyone to say what country they were from. I was amazed at the variety of tourists within this one group of people. There were folks from New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, just so many places.
For the second half of the tour we were taken to actually holding cells for the prisoners and a new tour guide explained to us what the prisoners went through on a daily basis. He knew all too well since he himself had been a prisoner in Robben Island for five years, and would have been there longer had not all the prisoners been released in the early 90’s.
In the afternoon Anna and I took a bus to the Green Street Market. Today was my shopping day and because Anna had nothing else to do she offered to come along with me. She was awesome. She helped me carry all my purchases and was so patient with me. I bought a kick-ass drum that I’m really excited about. It rocks my world.


I was up the next morning at 5:30 am for my safari. Only I don’t feel like I can actually call it a safari because in general, it sucked. I mean, I guess it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t a safari at all. See, I would have never signed up for a safari in Cape Town if we were going to Kenya but after that port was cancelled I, and hundreds of other students, rushed to sign up for a South African safari.
We boarded a motorcoach at 6:30 am and drove two hours to this area, which I don’t think I can even call a reserve. It was a beautiful drive there, although I slept through most of it. I woke up while we were driving through a mountain pass though and was just amazed at the beauty of the area.
At the lodge they gave us this awesome breakfast, which was probably the highlight of the trip. We then headed out in this safari jeep/van/bus thing with stadium seating in the back. The safari basically consisted of us driving around and looking at animals, which granted were animals I rarely see, such as giraffes, hippos, ostriches, and lions. Only it was so fake because there were fences everywhere and the animals were obviously not roaming free. And there were only like three of every animal. I don’t know. I just know in Kenya we would have been driving around entire parks with loads of animals roaming at their own will. But yeah, we got to go into a cage with some young lions which was pretty cool, but we couldn’t pet them like the brochure had said.
At 3:00 we headed back to Cape Town. I slept the entire way again. Everyone was back on the ship by 9:00 pm and an African Township Choir performed for us in the union before we departed. Oh and yeah I guess we departed without two boys, or maybe three, who were sent home. A fight broke out the night before in front of the ship and both boys were kicked out of the program.

So yep, back on the ship once again. I really enjoyed Cape Town, but I’m ready for Mauritius, and I’m really ready for India.

I’m sick, but it’s nothing serious. Just the usual. I’ve been sick so many times on the trip so I’m starting to get used to it. I skipped my first class yesterday though, it felt amazing.

Anyway, I have papers to write. Hope all is well.

Happy 24th Allison!!

I just wanted to wish my big sister, Allison Margaret Kelly, a happy 24th birthday! I miss you and wish I could be there to celebrate. I'm sure you'll be enjoying indian food. mwa.

I went skydiving, I went skydiving, I went skydiving! Okay, so I’m still high off the fact that yesterday, within three hours of being in Cape Town, I free-fell from 10,000 feet. So cool. I got off the ship with two other girls, Alyssa and Lindsey, who I barely knew before hand, without any pre-arrangements to skydive, and within fifteen minutes we were signed up and heading towards the pick-up spot for the 10:30 skydiving group. We had worried that all the tours would already be full, but instead we were the first group on Semester at Sea to take the forty-minute drive out of Cape Town to the field where our plane took off. It all fell together so well.

There ended up being nine of us total in my group, as some other SAS kids had reserved spots beforehand and as soon as we arrived at the giant silver shed that sat alone on a plain, they were rushing us. I happened to be the first one to hit the bathroom, and in turn, the first one ready to skydive, so they called me over instantly and I stepped into my harness. My guide, or I guess my “tandem-master”, Hugo, introduced himself to me and walked out of the shed, motioning for me to follow him. It all happened so fast and before I knew it I was in a tiny, rickety plane ten thousand feet above the ground freaking out silently. There was another SASer skydiving with me as well, Eric, and we both just kept looking at each other, wide-eyed, saying nothing. The only training I received for skydiving consisted of Hugo telling me to stick my legs out of the plane when he opened the door, which was right beside me. He also told me to look up, hold on to my harness, and take a deep breath when the door was opened. And that’s what I did…and it was amazing!

Hugo and I sat on the edge of the plane, feet dangling, ten thousand feet above civilization. I didn’t look down, I was afraid I would fall before he was ready. Instead I held onto my shoulder harnesses as though I were squeezing a bookbag to my back, and looked up at the plane wing which was above my head. And then we rolled out of the plane and fell. Only it doesn’t feel like you are falling. In fact, I didn’t have the type of adrenaline rush you get when you do free fall rides at amusement parks, because it doesn’t feel like you are falling. Instead you are flying, the wind rushing at your face so loudly that you can’t hear yourself screaming. It’s a completely different type of rush. For about thirty-five seconds I screamed and cheered, my arms outstretched, staring straight down at the ground. I was so happy I didn’t even think about my parachute opening, or worrying that it wouldn’t. When Hugo finally pulled the cord and the parachute slowed our descent it felt as though we were barely moving anymore. My legs shot up in the air and my body bounced like a rag doll as we were caught. “Thank you so much! Oh my gosh! That was awesome!” I kept telling him for the rest of our descent.

Back down on the ground there were about twenty SASers total now, all anxious to hear what I had to say. I loved being the one to go first because it gave me the chance to talk about the experience right away with those who hadn’t gone yet. I was talking a mile a minute. Oh and I thought about it, and I was the first SASer off of our voyage to skydive! Go me! By Sunday at least half of the students will have.
I still can’t believe I skydived. It’s one of those things I’ve never wanted to do, even thinking about doing it used to make me sick to my stomach. Man.

I spent today drinking wine. I took a tour of the winelands with four other people, stopped at four wineries and tasted over 20 different kinds of wine. Pretty cool. More about that later.

In other news, we have an extra two days in Cape Town now in order to make up for Kenya. After that we’re heading to some island off the east coast of Madagascar…starts with an M I believe. It’s a resort island, not exactly where I want to be going, but oh well.

Oh, and my family is crazy and I love them for it. I also love them for sending me pictures that make me laugh out loud.…

Plus my favorite quote from mom’s last email “ i know you're having the time of your life. reminds me of that song from the movie where patrick swayze says, "nobody puts baby in the corner!”

One more thing, I’d like to give a shout out to the one and only Shingle Shirl…love you, hope you get better soon!

K. I miss you all. Cape Town is awesome. I went skydiving.

No More Kenya

I’ll be in Cape Town tomorrow and yes, I’m very excited to both be in South Africa and get off this ship at last. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, or “The Tuts”, as everyone calls him, will be getting off the ship once we get to port, which is too bad because although I never really talked to him, I loved his presence and his loud laugh that could be heard across the dining room at meals. This past week I learned about apartheid, which beforehand I knew nothing about, and have really grown to appreciate who he is and what he has none for South Africa. I finally realize what a big deal it is that he has been on our ship for the last week.

In other news we are no longer going to Kenya!! Yeah…bummer. Apparently another safety warning has been placed on the country and tourists are urged to avoid the entire west coast of Africa. The U.S. Navy isn’t even docking in Kenya right now. I refuse to complain too much about the safari I won’t be going on anymore because regardless, I’m still traveling around the world and seeing more than I would ever see in Chicago. But yeah, still a disappointment. They haven’t announced what country we will be going to instead, but everyone is pretty excited to find out. For the last two days all the students have been gossiping about where we could possible port between South Africa and India, a lot of people are rooting for Madagascar, which I don’t even think is a possibility.

Oh yeah, and I got the role as an executive producer on the ship’s television station, SeaTV! Four of us (2 guys, 2 girls) were selected out of over forty applicants so I feel pretty honored. We had our first meeting with the rest of the people on board who want to be involved last night and it went really well. Afterwards I sat down the other execs and arranged interviews for producers for our news program, which will be tonight, and got notes out to all those interested in being anchors for the news program about auditions which are right after Cape Town. I can already tell that SeaTV is going to take up a lot of my time, especially in the evenings, but all the same I’m really excited about this opportunity and am crossing my fingers that it doesn’t overwhelm me.

So yeah…Cape Town tomorrow! Hope all is well.


P.S. I’ll email you back right after South Africa Mil!

I'm a shellback!

Today was Neptune Day. Really it should have been celebrated the day we crossed the Equator, but due to our having just started classes the deans didn’t want to give us a day off until now. So classes were cancelled for the day and the entire student body slept. Well maybe not everyone, but Kathryn and I definitely did. We took a two hour nap after lunch which has left me feeling quiet revived.

But anyway, so it was Neptune Day. At 7:45 all the students were awakened by the sound of drumming and whistling up and down each hall. Crew members giggled as they paraded the building, their faces painted, wearing silver hats made of foil. The drumming and pounding on the door didn’t get Kathryn and I out of bed for long and we were soon passed out again. At 9:00 “Queen Minerva” sang a tune over the loudspeaker about how the opening ceremonies were about to begin on deck seven and that all the pollywogs who were brave enough to become shellbacks should report. We pulled ourselves out of bed and still wearing our pajamas, climbed the stairs to seven. Have I mentioned yet that I live in the basement of the ship and that I walk sooo many flights of stairs each day?

The captain of our ship was painted completely green wearing a long wig and a crown and one of the deans had creepy red paint on his face and he too was adorned in some type of “sea god” outfit (really though it was a white robe with bows stuck all over him). Anyway, they made this big deal out of Neptune Day and all the shellbacks talked in deep voices about how we were entruding on their territory.

Eventually the initiation started and student after student lined up to have “fish guts” poured on them. No one’s really sure what the fish guts actually were, we’re thinking a mixture of oatmeal, water, and something else…but regardless, they were being dumped on all these people who would then jump into the pool immediately after. Before leaving the pool each student, or teacher as there were many of them getting in on the action too, had to state that they honored the ocean and kiss a fish, which was probably the most disgusting part of it since it was a real fish and we had to kiss its head. Kathryn and I stood watching as more and more people were convinced to join in on the ceremony by peer pressure. We refused. We hadn’t worn our swimsuits up to the deck like everyone else had and that was our excuse.

But then Carrie arrived and I could tell that she sort of wanted to be a part of it…and I did too. So we sprinted down to our rooms and threw shitty clothes on and made it back up to the deck as the line had ended and the sea gods were searching for more victims. The fish guts were dumped on me, I jumped into the pool, and I kissed a fish…I am now a shellback!! Kathryn eventually gave into the pressure too and had fish guts dumped on her as well.

After the initiation, the head shaving began. Crowds of students gathered around as a variety of people, both boys and girls, had their heads shave. One family of two boys all had their heads shaved, including the mom. It was hard to watch some of the girls become bald in a matter of five minutes. Don’t worry, I didn’t give into this method of initiation.

So yeah the rest of the week will be somewhat monotonous since our “no classes” day is over and we don’t arrive in Cape Town till Monday.

Oh and they covered our porthole again!! It’s so frustrating. It’s hard enough for me to stay awake on this ship as it is, but now to have no sunlight whatsoever? I took a nap in complete darkness today and slept an hour later than I had planned, I blame it on the whole no window thing.

K. I have to watch a documentary on Guns, Germs, and Steel; a book I have not yet read. They’re airing the second part of the documentary tonight and I’m totally hooked by the theory that geography has determined the fate of all societies. Read the book.

Much love.

Brazil!!

It’s nearly midnight and if I stand to look outside of my porthole I will see Brazil slowly vanishing. Kathryn is on her bed across from me, laptop in front of her, hood up on her pink Semester at Sea sweatshirt. I’m exhausted and can’t decide whether or not I should even begin describing the last five days right now. I’ll try.

I never ended up sleeping on the deck like I had planned. The idea of waking up and seeing Brazil immediately sounded romantic and all, but the rain kept us from sleeping outside. Instead Kathryn and I pulled ourselves out of bed at 5:15 am and made our way to the top deck where Carrie already was and watched the sun rise over the distant city of Salvador. It was the first sunrise that I can ever remember seeing. Sam and I attempted to see the sun rise when we were in Maine last summer and woke up at 4:00 am to drive to a lookout point. We waited for nearly two hours before we realized that the clouds were covering the sun and our chance to be one of the few Americans to see the sun rise first that morning.

Kathryn and I spent the day exploring the markets in Salvador. Two other girls, Cynthia and Sheryl, started the day off with us but we lost them at some point. The markets were within a ten minute walk from our ship and were, to go along with the general theme of this semester, overwhelming. There was stand after stand of jewelry, hand-made earrings, necklaces, and it was all so cheap. I was buying earrings for less than $1.50 American dollars. I got really good at bartering too and through my stubbornness was able to lower the prices for nearly everything I bought.

I fell asleep. And it's Sunday now...but I'll resume...

So we basically roamed the city all day. Salvador is split up into two sections, lower city and upper city. You have to ride an elevator to get to the other half of town by foot. It was only like a 5 cent ride but they squeeze as many people as possible into it.

Upper city was beautiful. The buildings surrounded a center square and around each corner there was yet another large center. And the architecture was beautiful. Pretty much every building in upper Salvador was built by the Portugese how ever many years ago…I wish I had done the city orientation because I found myself fascinated by the beauty and wishing I knew more about the city’s history. Although I have never been to Europe I felt like I was walking down the streets of London based upon the buildings that surrounded me. The streets were full of Brazilians walking around, holding out boards of their jewelry. A capoiera group was performing in the main center of upper city, beating their drums, playing their barimbas (it was called something like that), and bending their bodies as they danced around one another.

For lunch Kathryn, Sheryl, Cynthia, and I ate at this buffet which had way too many types of meat for my liking. Kathryn is pretty sure she ate a piece of what we soon realized was cow intestine. I have slowly had a falling out with meat. I still eat it, but if it’s not chicken or fish I’m pretty iffy about it, especially if it’s ground.

Our first night in Brazil was spent attending this welcome reception through Semester at Sea. About three hundred SASers were there and another fifty Brazilian students. They drove us in buses to this old building that had an open, but covered courtyard in the center. My bus was the first to arrive and when we entered the courtyard it sort of felt like a middle-school dance. The Brazilian students were scattered among the tables, talking to one another, but definitely noticing that we had arrived. I sat down at the first table, which was also the table with four cute guys, and the girls I was with followed. I ended up talking to the boys for quite some time; it was really entertaining. Only a couple of them could speak clear English but they translated what the other guys were trying to say to me for them. It was a lot of small talk since you can only go so in depth with a conversation when the language barrier is evident, but I had so much fun talking to them.

So yeah, the welcome reception was awesome. A capoeira group performed for us and taught us their chants so we could join in. For the record, capoeira is a type of dance-I guess you could call it. Or maybe it would be best to refer to it as a type of movement. Two people stand in the center of a circle as everyone else sings and plays instruments. The men in the center basically look as though they are fighting, making aggressive but fluid movements, but barely ever touching one another. They do cartwheels over each other. Stand on their heads and kick their legs, and bend their bodies around one another, ducking and backing out of the way as the other makes an “attack” motion. It’s really cool to watch and definitely a skill that takes years to acquire. Capoeira is part of African culture, I think I learned that Brazilian slaves used it as a means of letting out aggression during times of slavery and it has just been passed down ever since. It seemed to be a big part of Salvador as it is primarily Afro-Brazilians.

Anyway, enough about capoeira. There was also this drum band made up of young children that performed for us. There were about fifteen of them, ranging in ages from like seven to fourteen, and they were really talented! An older singer accompanied them and the kids played their snares and bass drums like experts as they did a routine around the floor. I got a kick out of the Chucks I saw a lot of the little boys wearing.

The final performance was by this amazing band called Sudaka. Apparently they just released their CD in the U.S. I don’t know if it’s because I was in the mood to dance or for lots of bass but I was in love with the music they performed. There was no singing, well there was but it was all prerecorded loops and they played a variety of rhythm instruments around the loop with a guitar being used every once in a while. The strobes were going and all the kids at the reception were dancing to the loud technoish music. Ahhh it was so cool. So yeah let me know if you can find any info about them on the internet, as I’m too cheap to use my internet minutes on looking it up. Dad, I’m sure you’ve already googled them.

I spent the next three days in Lencois (pronounced Len-soyse), which is this tiny town in central Brazil on the outskirts of a national park. The main guide for our trip, Roy, had a really cool story. He’s from New York and headed down to Lencois for Peace Corp. about twenty years ago. He fell in love with the area and convinced Brazil, or the national park service, or something like that, to turn the area into a national park. About ten years ago it became an official park and, in turn, he became the director of it until he stepped down from his position a couple years ago and is now a tour guide.

The park was beautiful. We hiked each day that we were there. On the first day we took a short hike to these water holes where we swam for a while. Afterwards we got a tour through the sand caves nearby which essentially are huge boulders wedged in a way so as to form caves. On day two we did a full-day hike, which wasn’t as hard as I had expected. The trip description had said the hikes would be “strenuous” and in my mind I was picturing climbing a mountain, like in Alaska, so I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that the hike wasn’t very vertical. We were basically jumping from boulder to boulder, making our way up a river. There was a lot of leaping from rock to rock and pulling oneself up onto large boulders. Around lunchtime we reached this amazing waterfall with a huge swimming hole. We spent about an hour there, jumping off the cliff (which terrified me), walking underneath the waterfall, and eating our lunches, which included a mango (it made my day). We left the waterfall and headed back after lunch, going a similar way to get back to town but took a slightly different path which led us to a natural waterslide that was about thirty meters long and ten meters wide. It was huge and there were already a bunch of SAS kids sliding down it when my group arrived. So after changing back into my suit I hiked up the side of the waterslide with Megan, one of the girls I hung out with during my time in Lencois. Three local guys stood at the top and guided me as to where to sit down. Then they basically pushed me for a few seconds before the water picked me up and rushed me down the slide. It was really scary because I was just waiting to hit a sharp rock, but it was surprisingly smooth as I flew down and crashed into the water.

On the last day in Lencois only half of the people on the trip turned out for the hike. A lot of people had gotten trashed the night before and others were too worn out from our previous hike. We drove through the park for about an hour until we got to this huge rock that sat alone in the valley. A cross sat on top of it and Megan and I wondered how on earth that cross got up there. “How would you even climb up there?” I wondered outloud. I couldn’t help but laugh when I found out that we were about to hike up the back side of it. It turned out to be a pretty easy hike for me though and the view up top was amazing.

So yeah, Lencois was definitely a good time and was totally worth the six hour drive to get there. My roommate for the two nights that we were there, Leslie, turned out to be really cool and we spent most of our time together. And our hotel was sweet. Each room came with a hammock that hung outside the door and they served us meals, which were a little too American for our liking, in this huge covered room that had no doors and allowed the warm air from outside to flow in.

The town had tons of little shops, diners, and bars…all of which were open till at least 11 pm. On both nights we ventured into the town, which was unbelievably safe, to have a few drinks. In the spirit of Brazil, I stuck with Caperinas, a lime margarita type drink that’s loaded with vodka. The town was full of SAS kids and it was especially evident at night. About seventy students went on my trip but probably another fifty or so traveled independently and were staying in hostels for a few days. That was probably my only complaint for the entire trip and I’m sure it will be consistent in each country. It’s just really hard to get away from the mobs of American students when we’re in port. It’s most evident at night because there are fewer places to go.

So anyway, we got back to Salvador on Friday at about 8:00 pm and after showering, Leslie, her roommate Casey, and I headed into the city to check out the night life. Don’t worry mom, we didn’t go alone. We traveled to upper city with this guy Adam who doesn’t look intimidating at all, but is super tall, and a bunch of other girls as well. There was sooo much night life! Most of the stores were still open and people walked around outside as groups with guitars played in various locations. A drumband headed down one of the alleys with a group of Brazilians dancing behind them. We jumped in and attempted to dance as well. Eventually we reached the reggae bar we had hoped to find and spent the rest of our night there. After a few drinks I was on the dance floor, as were quite a few other SAS kids, but there were still a lot of locals hanging out. This skinny old man, probably about 70 years ago and dressed from head to toe in flowing white clothing, danced for us and with us practically the entire night. He was hilarious. He was moving around randomly, getting low to the ground, waving his arms, and clapping every once in a while. I made it a point to dance with him.

I also danced with the one Brazilian boys at the bar that I definitely found cute. He was wearing a Bob Marley T-shirt and a Rastafarian type hat and kissed my cheeks when he introduced himself. Our dancing basically consisted of him doing some type of step and me trying to imitate him and failing numerous times. At one point we were skanking together in circles though which made my day and made me think of how much I miss skanking with Kari. We left the bar around midnight, since a bunch of us had to get up in the morning, but I heard a rumor that later on that night Antoinne, one of the guys who went on the Venezuela trip with me, got his head smashed into a wall while he was waiting to use the bathroom. I ran into him this morning and we didn’t talk long but he said it wasn’t that bad and he was just a little bruised. Pretty scary all the same. There are a lot of stories traveling around the ship, apparently some girls got mugged the first day we were in Salvador in broad daylight, but the guy was caught and the camera that was stolen was returned.

My last day in Brazil wasn’t much to write home about. I had to do an FDP, which is basically a field program that’s required for a class. I spent my day on the “Coastal Environments Near Salvador” excursion and learned nothing. It was a pretty big disappointment. I’m in Geohazards and nothing we learned applied to any of my classes. On top of that, I couldn’t even hear what our guide was saying most of the time. So yeah, I’ve already decided that I’m not attending the other required FDP in Cape Town, because I got nothing out of it and it took up an entire day….Oooh but hold up, there was one cool part of the day. We went to Praia de Forte, this beach up north, and got to walk on exposed coral reef because it was low tide. I don’t totally agree with the idea of walking on the reef because there are soooo many habitats within the reef and I felt like we were disturbing them. But I did see crabs, sea slugs, and tiny tropical fish, which was really cool. I got down on my haunches at one point and stared at the reef and within one tiny section I could see dozens of baby crabs walking about and larger ones peeking their heads out of crevices to see if I was still there. Without a doubt, the highlight of my day.

So yeah, back on the ship. There’s so much more I could type into my blog but I don’t want to bore anyone more than I already have and I kinda like keeping it to myself.

Last night Kathryn and I stayed up talking about what we do and don’t want in a guy and then after being as picky as possible, laughed at the fact that we were single.

This morning at breakfast Archbishop Desmond Tutu was sitting at table near me. He’ll be on the ship with us for the next week, taking over several global studies lectures, until we reach South Africa. It’s a pretty big deal and Carrie has been picking which dining room we eat in based upon where Desmond is most likely to be.

Oh and during global studies today I noticed a girl wearing a Wahlert High School shirt so I approached her as soon as class was over and as I had hoped she’s from Dubuque. She knew all the Galena Wahlert kids, including my Brenda Houy and is best friends with Abbie Hillard. She was listing all these names of people that I haven’t heard in such a long time: Cole Newcomer, Brad Walsh, Dayna Lapidus, even Alicia Fleege. We were both pretty excited to meet someone else from our area.

I applied for the position of Executive Producer for Sea TV, the student channel aboard the ship. It’s the first time they’ve ever had a student-produced TV station. Anyway, I have my interview tomorrow and I doubt I’ll get it, but as long as I get to host a show here and there I’ll be happy. Although I’m pretty psyched that I get an interview. The daily Dean’s Memo said that over forty people applied and only eight are being interviewed. So even if I don’t make it I at least know I made it somewhat far.

Tonight is our “sea social.” The rooms on the ship are broken up into sections known as seas and so my sea, the Aegean Sea, is supposed to dress up and hang out in the faculty lounge tonight I guess. We’re allowed to order drinks if we want but Kathryn and I already decided to play it cheap and stay sober.

I have so much to do. I have three papers due soon, deadlines are very vague for some of my classes, and I haven’t even started my readings for tomorrow.

Oh and get this, in the next week we will lose five hours as we cross the Atlantic! Tonight marks the beginning of it all and we have to set our clocks forward an hour. Just what I need…less sleep.

K I’m done rambling.

But in case I don’t blog before the 21^st…everyone needs to make sure to wish my mom, Kimberly Sue Kelly a happy 55^th birthday on Wednesday!! Whoohoo! Drop her a line…annies.mim@hotmail.com

Hope all is well.

I’ll be in Brazil tomorrow. The ship and all the reading I’ve been doing is getting to me so I’m looking forward to it even more so than I should be. I’m sleeping on the deck tonight so I can wake up tomorrow morning and see Brazil instantly.

Oh and they put a cover on our porthole. I live on the second floor and the waves are getting too high so as a precaution they covered our windows and screwed them so tightly shut that not even an ounce of light leaks in our room. What’s worse is that I totally wasn’t decent when they came around to our room the other night, pounding on the door. Kathryn let the woman in and behind her followed two other men. “I’m not decent,” I attempted to say as they walked in but it was too late. So I just sat there in a sweatshirt and my underwear as they sealed the window and carried on a conversation with me. Kathryn got a kick out of because just that night her and Carrie had been giving me a hard time about my love for lack of clothing.

Our first global studies exam was this morning and everyone made such a huge deal out it. I studied way more than I needed to.

The waves are picking up now. I have natural curve in my walk because it’s near impossible to walk in a straight line here. Working out is a joke, especially on the treadmill.

I miss home, particularly Galena lately for some reason. But once I’m in Brazil I’ll be great. I’m going on a hiking trip for a few days and I’ve already decided that it will kick my ass.

Hope all is well on the homefront. Much love.

I'm crossing the Equator today! whooohoo! I made sure to lay earlier so as to feel the full effect of the sun.

Venezuela!!

I spent the last four days of my voyage in Venezuela and honestly, I have no idea how to even begin describing everything I got to do and see. It was amazing. I didn’t do any trips through Semester at Sea for this port and instead did an organized independent trip into Merida, which is an Andes mountain town about twelve hours away from the our port city, La Guaira. I bolded the coolest parts of the trip in case anyone is like me and doesn’t have much of an attention span…Millie.

We got into La Guaira on Saturday morning. Rolling green hills covered in hundreds, maybe thousands of favelas (shanties) made up most of the landscape. The favelas varied in color, yet were all finished off with a tin roof and obviously had no plumbing of any sort. We learned in global studies days earlier that LaGuaira was a much more colorful city before a mud slide killed thousands of residents years ago. After looking at the arrangement of homes on the mountains it didn’t surprise me that a mud slide could bring so much damage to this city. Those who didn’t live in shanties lived in huge apartment buildings that had bars on every window. Hanging from the bars were wet t-shirts and other laundry. I had expected to see poverty. After all, in our pre-port lecture that we had the night before reaching Venezuela they warned us over and over about the risk of being mugged in the city due to it. They really worked to scare us, telling us at one point that Venezuela has a higher murder rate than any other Latin American country.

So anyway, we got into LaGuaira and within an hour or so thirty SAS kids and me boarded a bus for Merida. The tour agent who organized the trip for us, Ben, was a really nice guy. He got us our hotel in Merida, set up the canyoning, the cable car ride, and the paragliding, and made sure we got everything we needed along the way.

The drive that afternoon was interesting. We drove through Caracas, which was basically just like LaGuaira but much larger. Then as we neared a tollbooth shortly after we were met with dozens and dozens of people standing out on the streets selling anything and everything. They were walking up and down the highway holding up life jackets, cloves of garlic, huge lollipops, etc. Since we had such a long drive to Merida we got to drive through country neighborhoods as well. There were children sitting on the sidewalk, a man having his head shaved in his backyard, raw meat hanging from various booths, fences made out of twigs, etc.

We stopped for “lunch” at 4:30 pm and by then we were all starving, as we had assumed the lunch included on the trip would occur by 2 at the latest. Three huge tables were set and waiting for us, taking up the entire roadside restaurant we stopped at. The meal was definitely authentic. One of the dishes, the main one, was basically a huge plate of meat, and not just one type of meat. There were like four or five different types all mixed together on the plate. I just couldn’t do it. Ha if only Allison could have seen it. I dug into the meat though and uncovered some hidden chicken which made my day. Oh and then outside, in the backyard of this restaurant, this family had a garden and in it were two cages that held about five or six green parrots. I was standing around alone taking pictures and the bird greeted me! “Hola!” It said loudly. This bird turned out to be the talker of the group and for the remainder of the time we were there it kept saying “Hola!” followed by this sing-songy tune that sounded like it was laughing at us. Seriously, over and over until we left. I totally thought of the birds back home, Ollie and Jesse, and I really wish you guys could have heard how hilarious these parrots were. Mom you would have loved it. I could not get enough of it. Before we left the restaurant the owners got a picture with all of us and we were told that the picture was going to be in some newspaper. Ben is planning on scanning the article and sending it to us soon.

After lunch we drove a while more and headed to the Maria Lionsa Mountain that night and spent a good three hours there. A village of people live within the mountain and practice black magic as part of their religion. Ben told us that we were the “first organized group to visit Maria Lionza” and in turn, the state made a huge deal out of it. They loaded us into these smaller buses and we drove into the mountains surrounded by police escorts. The ratio of police to students was about 50:50. We were all freaking out with excitement because these state police had guns and their lights were flashing as they led us, and followed us, into the mountain. None of us knew what to expect when we got there and it just made us even more anxious. Before going I knew very little about Maria Lionsa, but today in global studies I learned that it is best summed up as a cult of African, Indian, and Christian beliefs and cultures and that it is mainly practiced by those who live in great poverty within Venezuela.

I don’t even know how to explain what we saw. It was unreal. We got there on a Saturday night which I guess it like the big spiritual night for those who live there and there was so much going on. There was drumming going on in the distance when we arrived and eventually we were led to it. A row of young men sat on the ground with drums while made fifty other Venezuelans stood around behind them, many puffing cigars. In front of the men were two cages, for lack of a better word, full of candles, images, crosses, etc. Within a half an hour we were getting cleansed as a member of the village hung a black pot of coals and incense from his hand and moved it around our bodies. One man gestured to me, allowing me to go into one of the cages to pray, after I took my shoes off of course. While this whole cleansing thing was taking place there was a woman dancing frantically within a circle of people, she was in some sort of a trance. Later an older woman who had been cleansing us earlier went into a trance, dropping her cigar on the ground and moving her body around spastically while others sang. There were a lot of rituals going on throughout the small village, made up of tents by the way, so we moved on to another area after a while. The second ritual was crazy and I almost laughed at one point because this man was soooo scary. He was stomping around in a red cape, sniffing the air, and then walking up to random SAS kids and saying something to them in a deep devilish voice. One girl was totally caught off guard and nearly cracked up. It turns out he was blessing us, but at the time we didn’t realize this. He kept saying the word “babies” in his speech. Like he would speak in his native tongue yet was using the word “babies” while talking. Ben later explained that he must have asked someone what the English word for children was, referring to us, and babies was what he was told. Either way, he totally scared me and I purposely stood in the back for this ritual to avoid his coming up to me. The third ritual we saw right before leaving was for this woman’s birthday and there were people standing around her, chanting some song over and over, as she danced. Someone sipped wine and blew it on her back, and at some point she went into a trance and was moving around as though she was possessed. We left soon after that. One student remarked, “Wow, they’re drunk,” as we walked away. And yeah, I’m pretty sure they were. The whole night up at the “magic mountain” as it’s called was just so surreal, I don’t know how we could be so lucky as to see as much as we did while we were there. I mean, we went to an area where few tourists venture and there were hundreds of people in this village just doing their thing.

….so yeah, amazing. We got back on the buses and drove through the night, arriving in Merida at like 9:00 am. A third of us went canyoning, another third went off for the cable car tour, and my group was left waiting around for our turn to do something. Before I go any further, can I just say that I waited around in Venezuela for a majority of the time I was there. To go to breakfast with Ben we waited outside for nearly an hour past the time we were scheduled. For canyoning they drove us to the bottom of the mountain only to wait for almost two hours for our turn. When I went paragliding I was up on the mountain for three hours before I got in the air. I think that was the most difficult thing for me to get used to: the perception of time in Venezuela. Nothing was on schedule and when we were told that we had to wait an hour for lunch, it really meant three hours. I’m so used to everything being on time and happening at the time scheduled that to arrive in Merida three hours later than expected was surprisingly off to me. It became a joke to us eventually, and I became a pro at shrugging it off and saying “ah Venezuelan time”.

So moving ahead in the day, we eventually get to go canyoning. By the time the first group walked out of the woods in their wet suits it was 3:00 pm, we were scheduled to go begin at 1:00 pm. I’m mentioning this because they still took us canyoning and because we were two hours behind schedule the sun went down and the forest became a pitch black while we were canyoning. On top of that, they didn’t pack a flashlight! No joke. I had to repel down a dark drop off while being yelled at in Spanish. I was basically completely terrified at that point. Someone hiked the trail from the other direction to find us eventually and the twelve of us shared one flashlight as we attempted get back. There were kids falling off the trailer and tripping on rocks. It was definitely an experience. I learned how to say “I’m scared of the night. I want some light,” in Spanish, too!

Okay, so anyway, about the whole canyoning thing…the group that went before us got back, warning us that it was ‘really scary’ and refusing to tell us much more. We piled back into the back of some small SUV’s and were driven up this mountain. The drive got sketchier and sketchier as we went. We were so close to rolling over a cliff that I had to rest my hand on my forehead and close my eyes at one point because I was freaking myself out. I’ve had so many “Don’t tell mom about this,” moments because I know she would just gasp if she saw some of the stuff I did this last four days. You would, mom.

So to get to the beginning of the canyoning trail we first had to hike in our swimsuits for about twenty minutes. It was nothing too demanding, but there was cow shit all over and to fall would have been horrible since we were all half naked…all the boys were just wearing boxers.

Once we got to the river we stepped into wetsuits and started our hike down the river. To sum up the canyoning experience, it basically involved repelling down waterfalls, jumping off small cliffs, rock sliding…aka hiking down a mountain via a river. It was awesome. The first waterfall we got to was only like ten meters, nothing too big, but I went first so as to not pysch myself out while I watched others. I barely even knew what I was doing because the only training we got was right before we repelled and I couldn’t even understand what the guy was saying. Man, it was so cool. I was underneath these waterfalls, being blasted by water, on multiple occasions. The highest waterfall we did was thirty meters.

We eventually made it back into town and we were served dinner by the company that took us canyoning. Thomas, the owner of the company, hung around and talked to us for quite some time. He got started on the whole New Orleans situation, updating us since we hadn’t heard anything since entering Venezuela, and soon enough he was going on about Bush and our government and the problems within it. It was really interesting to listen to this man talk. He knew more about our government than any of us did and he had a definite opinion. So of course we were curious about his view of Hugo Chavez. He said quite a bit but overall he seemed happy with Chavez because he’s actually done something, as he put it, as opposed to past leaders who have accomplished nothing.

By the time we were done with dinner I was exhausted and ready to shower and get to bed, but everyone was planning on going on and drinking cheap beer. So I sucked it up, showered, and took a rickety taxi to this pub with a group of girls. There were already at least 30 SAS kids there when we arrived. Beer was sooo cheap! I drank five beers and paid $2.50 American at the most. Some of the guys got carried away though and were so sloshed the next morning that they missed their canyoning excursion.

The next day was another eventful day. We rode “the world’s longest cable car” up to the top of this mountain. It seriously was the longest cable car ride ever. There was a pretty view, but overall it didn’t do much for me since I saw a similar view while paragliding.

For lunch the group of about eight people I had split off with decided that we needed to eat a real meal. For much of the trip I just didn’t food because we were running late or the food available didn’t look sanitary. So we went to a decently nice restaurant and because we didn’t know what anything on the menu was we decided to just be adventurous and order something random. But no one else followed through! Everyone ordered “pollo” because chicken is a safe bet and some other girls ordered pizza. I ordered “Truchas cuatro queso” and was excited because “four cheese” sounded like something I could handle. So when a plate with a fish, complete with head and tail still on the plate, was set before me, I couldn’t help but jump back. Carrie saw my reaction as I tried to act calm. I did try the fish, but there was no way I could eat it anymore than one bite. So I passed my plate down and attempted to get food from everyone else.

The rest of my day was taken up by paragliding. I didn’t get to shop much but decided that I would much rather paraglide then continue walking around markets. A lot of people bailed on it and kept reasoning outloud for why they didn’t want to paraglide and for a while I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it anymore. But I’m so glad I did.

We were driven to the top of this mountain, 3000 feet up, where about seven other people were waiting to paraglide as well. They were all SAS kids who had traveled independently to Merida. It took hours to get everyone up into the air because it was too windy at first. When it was my turn they basically put some harnesses on me and attached me and this guide to a parachute. I stood at the edge of a cliff and soon the parachute picked us up. I didn’t end up paragliding till 7:00 pm and by then it was night, but it was amazing because of the city lights glowing in the distance. My flight went really smoothly. I was up in the air right away. The feeling of floating overwhelmed me along with the calmness of the night and I totally teared up for the first five minutes I was in the sky: I was just so happy. It was just so amazing to me. I felt like I was in a dream as I flew above the mountains and felt the wind rush at my face. I closed my eyes several times to open them and relive the shock that I was floating 3000 feet above ground. I got to paraglide for about thirty minutes and was lowered back down to the city. As soon as I landed I was surrounded by about four little Venezuelan boys who grabbed at my harnesses and helmet, taking them off for me without saying much. They ran off to assist the other paraglider who had landed immediately afterwards.

As soon as we hit the ground we were rushed to meet up with the rest of our tour and we boarded our bus and drove through the night, back to LaGuaira. We ended up roaming around the port city for our final day in Venezuela. We ate a restaurant that our interport lecturer had recommended and ate the national dish called “peblano criollo” I believe (basically a plate of rice, black beans, shredded beef, eggs, and plantains). Then we headed out into the streets. Markets lined the poverish city, but unlike the hand-crafted items in Merida, everything sold in LaGuaira was American. Nike, Billabong, Reebok, Von Dutch…nothing any of us had much interest in. Instead it was interesting to walk up and down the streets and see the rows and rows of people attempting to make a living. Young children yelled “Chica!” and waved to each one of us as we passed by them, at one point there were all these kids running out from behind booths to greet us. I had nothing with me to give them either as I hadn’t expected to run into so many children while walking around. Three different people in LaGuaira remarked on my red cheeks. One man touched his cheeks and said “Bonita!” to me while the other two people just remarked that I was “Muy roho!”

By 7:00 I was back on the ship, although I technically had two more hours in Venezuela. They are extremely strict about being on the ship on time, however, and even if you are waiting in line to board and that is your reasoning for being late, you can still receive “dock time” (aka not getting off the ship right way at the next port).

So I’m back on the ship and exhausted. Kathryn, my roomie, and I got up at 6:45 this morning in order to add/drop classes because we knew the line would be super long. I was able to drop biogeography and replace it with another science course, which rocked my world. Biogeography turned out to be an upper-level course for biology majors and our professor decided to teach it at a graduate level and have each one of us conduct a class period, lecturing on a specific topic. I was one of the only two people in the class without a science related major and the one other boy who was in the same boat as me fell asleep on the first day of class.

I’m still overwhelmed by everything. I’ve learned so much in global studies and I am working hard to embrace it all. Our professor is awesome, encouraging us to take home with us more than pictures of things we saw. He reminded us today of how quickly this voyage will pass and that it is up to us to take in what was can, using a line from a poem I once read in high school “We can not make our sun stand still, but we can make him run.” I’ve taken so many pages of notes, trying to catch everything he teaches. Just today we learned about the economy in Latin America and why it is so unstable. I find it all so incredibly interesting. There’s just so much to learn and I want to get as much as I can out of this semester…I’m actually doing my readings, which back at Columbia I rarely do.

I wish I could have been in Venezuela longer, but I’m guessing I’ll have the same feeling after each culture I visit. From the cups of coffee that were the size of a shot glass to the lack of toilet paper in the public restrooms…everything was so different. I felt what Professor Murphy refers to as “the rush of unfamiliarity.”

Right now everyone is sharing their Venezuela stories. Kathryn went south to the Caura River and 24 out of the 28 people in her group ended up throwing up from food poisoning from a meal that Indigenous people served them. Some other people went to orphanages in Caracas. There were groups of people that traveled to Margarita Island and laid on beaches, something I wouldn’t do as our time in Venezuela was so limited. I heard a group of kids were even playing beer pong in the ship terminal one night…I’m really glad I got away from the ship for the majority of my visit.

So yeah. Hope all is well back in the U.S. Sorry to type so incredibly much, but I have so much to tell. I don’t even feel like I covered a fraction of everything I saw. I’m about to go do my readings on the back of the ship and maybe get a tan at the same time. I miss everyone a lot and love the emails…keep em coming! And just to put it out there, I take forever to respond because I only sign on to the internet every three days or so (I’m super cheap with my allotted internet minutes on here) and when I do I only check the Annabelle03 email…so you know.

K…Much love from the Atlantic Ocean.

I’m on the ship, I’m on the ship, I’m on the ship!!

Okay, so I almost starting crying when I got into my room (room 2010) this morning. I just can’t believe I’m here. I’ve had a lot of moments like that lately.

I don’t even know where to start. I was smiling so hard today that I felt like an idiot. I was one of the first six people to board the ship this morning, mainly because me and my roommates at the hotel were the only ones who got up as early as 6:00 am. My luggage was impossible to carry too and since we were at the ship so early there was no one to help us yet. It was a scene…the group of us hauling along, dripping sweat, stopping to take breaks, yet so happy because we were finally boarding the ship. Oh and my room is totally in the basement, but I do have a window and there is so much storage space that it’s ridiculous.

So yeah I’ve been in the Bahamas for the last two days. How crazy is that?! I flew into the Bahamas with Carrie, this girl who is from the burbs of Chicago, and we have been hanging out the entire time. She’s very cool, which was a relief since I spent my Bahamas experience with her. We got to our shotty hotel and instantly we ran into dozens of SAS kids. The lobby was full. And of course I got stuck in the doorway because my luggage was impossible for me to carry and it was hanging off from all ends. All the kids who came with parents were at the $200 a night hotel…but no, we stayed at the $60 a night place and split the room between five people, only $36 total! So cool. But our room was pretty shitty…our shower curtain wouldn’t even stay up so we all took showers without it. The Towne Hotel rocked because it was so incredibly social. There were parties around the pool both night with booze just lying out and music blasting and the hotel didn’t say anything until it got late enough that people were complaining. I played it sober both nights for the sake that I don’t want to make a drunken first impression on people and I was already feeling pretty euphoric as I was in the Bahamas!

Carrie and I didn’t have too much, or anything, to do the first day so on two different occasions we walked down to the port street just to glance at the Explorer, the ship we’re on. We were jumping up and down like little girls and taking pictures of our new home which was in the distance.

Oh and all the girls we stayed with at the hotel were awesome. Now that I’m on the ship I haven’t seen too much of them, but while in the hotel we were all together constantly, and stayed up talking for quite a while too.

I’ve hung out with Carrie, the girl I came with, and this other girl, Kim, the most. Kim is totally a free spirit and constantly smiling; she makes me laugh every time I look at her, kinda reminds me of Brenda Houy.

So yeah, the Bahamas were awesome. We swam in the Caribbean Sea on Monday, walking almost two miles in the heat to get to the Paradise Island beach. I had so many moments where I just had to cheer out loud that I was in the Bahamas and relaxing on a beach for hours on end. Of course we all got stung by baby jellyfish at one time or another. Oh, and I got a mad sunburn too.

Today Carrie, Kim, a bunch of other girls, and I were prancing around town, buying pop and snacks to store on the ship, and it started pouring out. I honestly can’t remember the last time I’ve seen rain like this. The streets were flooding instantly and huuggge puddles formed. You couldn’t walk anywhere without hitting one. So we took off our shoes and ran through the streets barefoot…so cool…and dirty…but still, so much fun.

Time out. I’m totally having trouble typing this up. My roommate, Kathryn, keeps talking to me, but overall…I think that’s a good thing. She seems cool and I definitely think I’ll be able to share this tiny room with her. Then again, it is my first night on the ship.

I have so many mixed feelings right now, but I could best describe everything as “overwhelming”. I mean, I was just thrown on this ship with 650 other college students and every two feet I take I’m introducing myself to someone else whose name I most likely won’t remember. And on top of that I’m in such shock that I am traveling around the world, or traveling around “the fucking world” as Carrie and I like to say since it sounds even cooler. It’s just so amazing that I am on this ship at last and I can’t get over how blessed I am right now. When the ship left this evening and everyone gathered out on the deck to wave goodbye to their parents and the shore and what not…I couldn’t help but cry a little out of pure happiness. I am doing a Semester at Sea. This is probably the coolest thing I will ever do in my life and I just can not get over how lucky I am and that it is here at last.

Sorry, I’m just really pumped up right now. I’m overtired and stressed out too as all my close friends are in rooms across the ship and I don’t know too many people on my floor yet. But all in time.

Oh yeah, and I want to thank Allison for the awesome letter she gave me to read on the ship. It meant a lot…and so did the one hundred dollars. You rock.

I want to write more because I have so much to go on and on about, but I should probably hit the sack.

I’m doing really well and can tell that this semester is going to rock.

Much love.

It's finally here!

I leave tomorrow and am more excited than I can explain. Dad and I went out and bought binoculars today and now I’m set…I just crossed off the last thing on my list to pack.

I had an awesome week home and got to see so many people, and I already miss a lot of them, but I’m definitely ready to go. I hate being all sappy on my blog because I know that the people I write about may end up reading this and yada, yada, yada, I feel stupid overall, hence why I’m not going into detail about the party Tuesday night, or how the girls gave me a new yacht club necklace to have on the trip since I lost mine last summer, or how Bill cooked me dinner, or the awesome time I had seeing everyone at the UC. Allison always read my blog when I was up in Alaska because she liked to hear my take on events; and I found it awkward…maybe that’s not the right word. When I got home though Bill had left me the nicest instant message:

“im actually really excited for you because your getting to travel and see the world, which is what i think everyone in college should get out and do. your going to experience much more than i can imagine, even much more than you can imagine and for that im happy for you.”

I’ll be in the Bahamas tomorrow afternoon and won’t board the ship until Tuesday morning. Then it’s unpacking, meeting my roommate, orientation, and finally classes begin. I feel like I’m starting my freshman year all over again. By Saturday I’ll be in Venezuela, how cool is that?

I just flew for the first time this summer and now I’m traveling around the world...I am so lucky.

When I say keep in touch, I mean it.

Much love.

so i'm home.

the flight home wasn't too bad and these people i barely knew who were on the ferry to juneau with me drove me around with them during my six hour layover and i got a free crab dinner, valued at $30 dollars, from some family friend of theirs and got to see a movie...which totally beat sitting in the Juneau airport, looking at the mass quantities of stuffed animals they have displayed.

we had to put Bailey to sleep the day i got home, which was friday. it was awful. mom had warned me that she was sick but i thought she would last a little longer until i saw her and realized that unless we took her to the vets right away she would die in our front yard. it was really rough. and despite the fact that she was only seven years old, it was her time to go.

i miss allison!! and i know she loved reading that. but she's called me pretty much every night since i got home and given me alaska updates. oh and she gave me a kick-ass going away goody bag as i got on the ferry thursday, complete with vegan food and a comfy bra that she knew would work wonders while abroad.

ha and some random guy paid for our chipotle on friday after my mom joked that he could go ahead of us in line if he bought her a burrito. when we went to check out we were informed that he had already paid for our entire meal, including drinks. he was headed out the door by the time we found out and apparently wanted no recognition whatsoever because he just nodded his head at us and walked out after mom exclaimed, "Did you really pay for our meal??" we've been analyzing why we did it every since.

the girls came to visit me in the burbs on friday night. it was so great to see them.

but yeah. i've just been packing and trying to get stuff done before i leave Sunday morning for Semester at Sea. i am unbelievably excited.

it's good to be home for this week though, if not to just catch up with everyone so that they don't completely forget about me. my cell phone works right now and i'm reachable, but only for a week, so call me and update me on life.

5 more hours in Alaska and then I'm off to Chicago. I had a great summer but I'm ready to be home. I already have my whole week planned out, and am hoping to see as many people as possible. But yeah, I can't believe I've already been here two months. I'll be honest, at some points of this summer I couldn't wait for my plane ride home, but all in all it was totally worth coming up here...I got to see part of Alaska, hike, camp, meet a variety of people, make money, and live with my sister. So now on to my next journey.

I'm taking the ferry to Juneau . I was supposed to fly, but I'm terrified of flying out via LAB airlines because everyone here says it stands for "legs, arms, and bones". Plus it's raining out and the flights are cancelled as of right now. So yeah I leave shortly.

Bailey is super sick and will be gone soon, as in Monday. It'll be a sad week at our home.

But on the upside I see my family tomorrow, the yacht club tomorrow night, and everyone else next week. And next Sunday I leave for Semester at Sea!

Can't wait.

My cell phone will work as of tomorrow so I will be reachable at last!

K, off to finish packing.

So we did Upper Dewey Lake on Wednesday. It took quite a while, and at one point I nearly threw up, but I did make it. Upper Lake is right between these two mountain peaks, making the view up there beautiful. And we did swim, although I don’t know if you can call it swimming since I only dunked my head twice because the water, which is glacial runoff, was freezing. I’m so relieved the whole hike is over with though, not that it wasn’t worth it, but all summer I had been dreading it because it is such a steep journey.

Hmmm what else.

The last week or so we’ve eaten dinner with a variety of people. Last Saturday Allison and I ate dinner with Alisa and Holly, two sisters who are in Skagway for the summer and who remind Allison and I of ourselves. Although they use phrases such as, “Cute!” all the time and Allison and I usually stick with “Cock!” Then on Sunday Sheila, Allison, and I went to the Pizza Station with Ed, an older guy who works for White Pass. Yep. And then Wednesday night we went ate dinner with a bunch of White Pass employees who invited us over. Not that anyone really cares. But I haven’t written in my journal all summer so I’ll probably just end up printing these blogs out for memory sake, and damn it, I want to remember that yes, I did have friends in Skagway.

Allison, Walker, and I were the only people working today because there was only one cruise ship in town, so we had what Al and I called a “negligence party.” Basically we took extra long breaks and got stuff done while on the clock because we only had each other to report to.

Tonight is Sheila’s last night in town so we invited her to eat dinner with us before we have our farewell drinking party with her. I’ll miss my roommate, but I won’t miss hearing her blow dry her hair at 4 a.m.

Oh, and randomness. Last night Allison made us tacos for dinner and she went to the trouble of making guacamole for us to eat with them. Anyway, she set the finished bowl of guac on the table and moments later Bob, the same guy who peed on our couch, is leaning over the table to read something while she shaves with an electric razor! He was shaving right over our food. Allison nudged me in shock and we both froze as we watched him. Al finally walked over and scooted the bowl over in disgust. I was laughing so hard I was nearly in tears, don’t think Bob even noticed.

Home in exactly one week. In Venezuela in about three.

Ooo and I have 52 hours in the last four days that I’m working next week.

Anyways, hope all is well. Much love.

Get this...I ran into Mrs. Petique and Mrs. Miller, my second grade teacher (they were both second grade right?), today! Allison was with me at the time and we were both freaking out. I mean, we're up in Alaska and we see thousands of tourists each day so to see a face you actually recognize is crazy. On top of that, it was sunny and in the 80's all day and for one I got to wear a tank-top...AND Jenna Wyse called me and left me a voicemail...And Pavel, one of the security guards for the Diamond Princess, went out and bought Allison, Walker, and I Alaska T-shirts to thank us for giving him a cake and a mini-birthday party on the dock last week for his 26th. So yeah, today was a good one...of course there were tons of bugs out because it wasn't windy, and my acid nearly made me throw up a bit ago, but I'll get over it.

Day off tomorrow. We're hiking to Upper Dewey Lake and I know I'm going to die and request way too many breaks along the way.

It rained for 13 of the 14 hours that I was at work today. So glad to be done for now.

Plus I barely got any sleep last night because Sammy Joe told me a funny story and I kept thinking about it and laughing to myself in bed. I reminded myself of Amy and how when we used to share a room she would start laughing randomly in the middle of the night. Although when I woke up this morning I didn't lay in bed counting outloud.

Anyway, time to get home...I work in nine hours.

Had a good weekend. I got to see a woman’s logging show, pigs racing, and I climbed a mountain. And on top of it all, it’s 1:30 and I’m already off work for the day, a rarity.

Haines was a good time. We ate a lot of food and walked the length of the town many times. And thanks to mom, we had a travel Scrabble board with us and got through a couple games. The first night in Haines we spent the night in a trailer owned our coworkers family but I was miserable because I was over tired and didn’t feel like I was on vacation because I was a guest on someone’s property and we had to invite him everywhere we went in turn and it just didn’t seem relaxing to me at all for some reason. It wasn’t the best night I’ve had. So on night two we headed to a campground with was further in town and all was well at last.

When we got back on Saturday we only had to work four hours, which was awesome. Then that night Allison, Walker, and I headed to the “Mustache Bash” which was the party held out at the Gold Dredge. Nearly every guy there had grown a mustache for the party and most of them looked pretty ridiculous. There were even girls with mustaches. And both the two boys that were my crushes for the week were there…and I have a date tonight with one of them. Although I’ve been thinking about this and I have no idea what we’re going to do, there’s nowhere for us to even hang out since we both live with so many people…so yeah.

Allison, Walker, and I hiked AB Mountain, or hell as I call it, yesterday. Mom you would have been proud of me…for the last quarter of the hike to the top I was on using my hands with every step, reaching in the mud and grabbing roots or whatever I could find to pull myself up. It was tough. The first two hours of the hike weren’t too bad but the mountain makes this drastic cut upwards at one point and from there on it’s pretty vertical. It was frustrating. The hiking path was barely visible at some points and you could see footprints from people we had slipped in the mud throughout the upwards trek. At a lot of points I had to pause and figure out how I was going to maneuver myself up, looking for anything to grab at and anywhere to place my feet. And I couldn’t help but think about the way down. I fell quite a bit on the way down, but once I had completely muddied my butt I didn’t care anymore and I started getting down on my butt to make it down some of the steep rocky areas. Allison and Walker are much better hikers than I am, so I went first for most of the hike, so as to keep them from getting ahead of me. Man, they were patient with me. We hiked for six hours and my body is still feeling it. I really am glad that I stuck with the hike and didn’t turn around, but at the time it was really rough for me. The view up top though was beautiful, it looked down on the town of Skagway and we were so high we had really good views of some of the neighboring glaciers. And we saw a porcupine on the hike, which was a highlight for me.

Millie is back from Norway and I plan to call her tonight. Heck yes.

But yeah…good weekend for sure.