Finally an SAS Wrap-up!!!

9. Japan
Arriving in Japan was a lot like coming home to the US. Japan was the first country where we have had to disembark and physically go through customs (metal detector, passport inspection, x-ray machines, etc.). More often, on arrival in a port, customs officials have boarded the ship and either gone through our passports and stamped them without ever seeing us, or have required us to stumble briefly out of bed for a procession of two-second face-to-face inspections. So Japan was something of a reentry into a more familiar world but you have to imagine that that more familiar world had gone through a time warp and become super-modern. Actually a good example of this is the fact that they took our “temperatures” with heat sensing radar guns… Turns out I’m healthy. Our first port was Kobe and Ali and I got off the ship and immediately went in search of sushi and adventure along with our friends Colin, Molly, and Heather. We mostly just wandered around and did some shopping, mostly in shoe stores full of super cool, super hyphy Nikes and Adidas. We sampled the local cuisine, enjoying burning hot fresh waffles in the shape of fishies and full of either custard or chocolate. My favorite part of the day was our exploration of one of the many buzzing arcades that are all over most of the streets. There are all sorts of these arcades. Most of them look like casinos or something but I don’t know if they have anything to do with gambling. Some of them are more like places people go to play fantasy computer games and some of them are full of whacky Asian photobooths. ALL of them absolutely buzz. They are so loud. They sound like the sound effect on a video game when your character picks up an ultra-magic coin but if that were magnified by infinity and if each magnification were rhythmically slightly offset from every other one. And that might describe what actually goes on in these rooms, for all I know. Ali and I opted for the Japanese photobooth experience. We entered a sizeable room (in between the size of a small bathroom and a large closet…) in which all of the walls were bright green as was a small bench in the middle of the room. You may have guessed that the function of this room was the “green screen” function where the camera automatically would superimpose the images of Ali and I and a giant teddy bear, or a bathtub, or a rocket ship, or outer space… IT WAS THE BEST. So we posed against several computer-generated backdrops and then went next door to another small (smaller, in fact) booth where we used computer pens to “draw” all over the images. We added flowers and sparkles and bubbles and hats and tiaras and, oddly, a dead cat… Not sure why that was an option… So that’s PRETTY much Kobe. We had an EXTREMELY expensive sushi dinner that night. It was one of our first experiences ordering off of a menu that had zero English translations and sparse pictures of the food. Colin got all excited to be all Anthony Bourdain and order something having no idea what it was. The hope, I think, was that it would arrive and be, basically, something that he might not have had the courage to order with full knowledge of what it was… He was hoping for the most exotic thing on the menu. Colin’s meal arrived in a small bamboo box- we all got our hopes up. The little box was steaming… and the waiter took off the lid to REVEAL: the simplest of the bland. Pork potstickers. Apparently they were good but he was a little bummed. This seems like a good place to add an update to a previous post, however. Some of you avid readers may recall the occasion in Shanghai when we ordered the crock pots and Colin requested the “Bovine Pizzle” pot. Robbie informed me recently (and I can guarantee that NONE of us knew this at the time, in Shanghai) that “Pizzle” means male genitalia… Did you know that? Perhaps some of you did. But he basically got what he had been hoping for in Kobe that night: the retrospective knowledge that he had, in fact, eaten something VERY exotic by taking a chance on a dish with an odd name…
We spent the next Japan day in Kyoto. Actually, I SAY that we spent the day there but, really, we were there for about three hours. Really poor planning that day. I actually really don’t know where exactly the time went, to be honest. But basically we arrived and met up with my friend Michael Thompson from Pomona (the ONE person who really believed me when I broke my big toe sophomore year). Michael was spending the entire year in Kyoto so I hadn’t seen him since the previous spring. We managed a really beautiful (if brief) impression of the Imperial Palace grounds, where we sat beneath the cherry blossoms and had a picnic with some of Michael’s friends from his program. I really hope I can go back to Japan some day and see more of Kyoto because it was really kind of a travesty that we missed out on so much that day.
After Kyoto, Ali and I spent a day on the ship as it traveled from Kobe to Yokohama. This day was spent quite as lazily and luxuriously as our time on the ship between stops in China.
The day that the ship docked in Yokohama, Ali and I set off immediately for Tokyo with our friends from Seattle, Kevin and Kyle. Actually Kevin and Kyle weren’t really friends of ours at that point and it was a coincidence rather than a plan that we all took the same train to Tokyo. But we ended up getting to know them much better and ultimately had a really fun day in Tokyo with them. I hate to point fingers but… it is TOTALLY Kevin and Kyle’s fault that our day kind of deteriorated from an enthusiastic plan to track down the Hello Kitty factory to a less-motivated romp. I loved the romp though. I’ll say that. We started off with some really quality sushi. At a fairly classy restaurant I ordered what our waiter-turned-translator called a “lunchbox” and miso soup. The lunchbox contained a sampling of a number of Japanese foods… I’m not sure how to name all of them but there was a spicy tuna sushi roll, some noodles, and there was a lot of sweetly pickled stuff, some of it meat and some of it vegetables. After lunch, however, is when the deterioration began. Basically we got a little silly after sampling grapefruit-flavored malt liquor. It tasted like Fresca. So. Before I knew it I was silly. No worse than that. But definitely a little silly. We ended up having a pretty decent tour of downtown Japan though. We took a train downtown to the business district. We found a neat park with beautiful cherry trees and a really cool, placid fountain. And then we headed back to the more touristy “Shibuya” area where we had started off. We ended up talking to two young Japanese men on a corner for probably about an hour… We (I) taught them how to “pound it and explode it” and they taught us how to do a Japanese “cheers.” They didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Japanese but we had a pretty good time. The only mishap of the entire day was that we ALMOST missed the last train back to Yokohama (where the ship was). But we didn't! So Tokyo was a success, by and large.
On our last day in Japan, Ali and I went on a looooooong walk through, ironically, Yokohama’s China Town. We saw all sorts of crazy stuff that we had NOT seen in China. There was so much Panda paraphernalia. So much. It was really fun. We mostly just walked and talked and window-shopped. We did find a really cool little vintage store but we were both feeling (rightly) pretty broke so we didn’t buy anything until later that day when we discovered a woman selling partial kimonos for $10. Then, before we really even knew it, it was time to leave Japan.

10. Hawaii
Hawaii was brief and so will I be. We stayed on Oahu in Honolulu for two days (one night) and spent most of our time in Waikiki Beach. Waikiki was pretty touristy and expensive but I had a really good time anyway. The first day, I went to the aquarium with my friend Tim to fulfill a requirement for my Marine Bio class. Then (and beforehand, as well, actually) we went swimming in the WARM, WARM bathtub of an ocean. It was marvelous. I was in the ocean a LOT in those two days. Including after midnight that night. Basically we loaded up on Taco Bell (we also ate at a classier Mexican restaurant as well) and Ali and I went surfing and swimming a ton. That’s all there really is to say. Everyone was in a weird, mournful mood as we began to realize that the trip was going to be over before we knew it… but I, personally, still had a pretty great time.

11. LAST PORT: GUATEMALA!!!!!!!
I had several really wonderful experiences in Guatemala. In fact, Guatemala was pretty magical all around. Charmed, even. I decided kind of at the last minute to go on a Semester at Sea trip to a coffee farm outside of Antigua. It was a GREAT decision. I learned all about the different stages that coffee goes through before we consume it (cherry stage, parchment stage, silverskin stage, and then roastable bean….) and they served us just the most wonderful coffee along with guacamole, bean dip, and mango cake, all in the most lush, beautiful farm setting. That night I went to the bar at the port with Alex, Molly, and a few other friends and we danced and danced our butts off to the live band and ate even more guacamole. SO much guacamole.
The next day, I decided to head to Antigua with my friends Molly and Lia. We ended up having a really fabulous day. Molly and Lia and I got along reeeeally well and had a great time. In retrospect, I’ve realized truly how much my memories of each port are shaped by the people I traveled with… but I digress. When we got there we were pretty immediately struck by the beauty of the architecture. Antigua is a really charming city with old stone buildings painted pretty light colors and cobblestone streets. The volcanic backdrop of the city also adds to the idyllic feel it has. Molly and Lia and I started the day off with ice cream (duh) and then headed to the markets to buy last minute trinkets for people like (in my case) Robbie and Elliott BOTH of whom were the lucky recipients of SWEET Guatemalan slippers. The markets were really fun. I have a kind of love/hate relationship with haggling (it had been a fairly long time since I’d really gotten down to it with a salesperson). I think haggling is good for me in that I have to really want something to enter into that tricky process. So it prevents me from buying a lot of extra stuff. It’s also fun. I love when I KNOW someone’s trying to rip me off and I can pretty much prove it (for example, when someone else has already bought a similar item at a low price). But it can really really suck horribly too, under the wrong circumstances. There were a few times when I felt like I should buy something for my mom or someone and just did NOT feel like haggling over it. Like I bought chopsticks for my family and for Robbie’s family in Vietnam. I had been planning on getting the two families chopsticks pretty much all along and would have loved to just swing by a store and pick some up for super cheap. Instead, with heavy heart, I went up to a stall and began looking at the chopstick selection sort of disinterestedly and waited for the woman to say, “You like? How much? How much?” to which I would respond “Oh I don’t know… I don’t really neeeeed chopsticks…” etc. Anyway, haggling once again, in Guatemala, kind of woke up my brain. Yes things were cheap, unlike in Japan, but ALSO unlike Japan, there was no such thing buying something on a whim.
Lia and Molly and I had a really fabulous late lunch of nachos (with guacamole!) and these potato/onion pancakes with tomato paste. Y Cervezas of course. Afterward, we ran into Ali and Colin SORT of coincidentally and ended up smoking hookah in this sweet tented place while we waited for them to eat lunch. During our hookah session there was a really cool thunderstorm with some of the craziest lightning I’d ever seen. It started pouring just as we left the hookah place. We had taken so long sitting and chatting at lunch and then smoking the hookah that we ended up at dinner not long after that. We had mas cervezas y mas nachos for dinner with Ali and Colin at a restaurant where we continued to observe the storm. At one point, I happened to go downstairs and saw that our friend Meryl whose 21st BIRTHDAY was that day was downstairs celebrating! So we hung out with her for a bit before heading back to the ship (taking a 2 hour cab ride through the STORM) so we could go to bed in order to get up early the next morning and hike El Volcan Pacaya.
The third (and last!) day in Guatemala was one of the most incredible days of my life. When I look back on Semester at Sea, this day (let’s call it el dia del fuego from now on), along with the day I hugged an elephant and the day(s) I rode the train to Bangalore, ranks among the best days of the entire trip. I’ll start out by saying that I took a geology course sophomore year which I really really loved. It was one of those classes that applied to the world around me in a really concrete way (no pun intended…) and I still move around the planet checking out rock formations and trying to figure them out. The most memorable thing from that class, however, was the least directly applicable: volcanism. It’s true that I live not far from Mount St. Helen’s which exploded in the 80s, and I have visited it’s crater (well before taking my geology class, however), but it had just about never occurred to me that I would ever be on top of an active (as in literally spurting lava) volcano ever ever in my entire life ever. And that is precisely where I found myself, after a really lovely hike, on this dia del fuego in Guatemala. Near Antigua, there are several active volcanoes: Volcan Agua, Volcan Fuego, and Volcan Pacaya. It is Pacaya that has particularly visible and cool magma (on a clear day) so it was Pacaya that we climbed. We drove towards Antigua from Puerto Quetzal where our ship was docked, but veered off before the city to head to the tallest and most beautiful of the volcanoes. Our little van pulled up in a small little mountain village that I couldn’t help but notice was on the edge of the volcano itself. Stepping off, we were immediately bombarded by men on horseback offering us a “taxi” to the top (by “taxi” they meant an old, underfed, rickety horse) and children offering us walking sticks. A few people bought walking sticks but we were all here to hike AND the horses did not seem to be treated very well so we opted out of the taxis. The hike was gorgeous. We passed lush views of the other volcanoes in the distance and we walked, at first, on the greenest paths. Gradually, however, the path we were on, which could easily have been in any deciduous forests in the Northwest, turned from green to black. The foliage faded out as we moved forward and up and, suddenly, the bare peak of the mountain, complete with a billowing ribbon of smoke above it, came into view. The intensity of the moment was broken when our guide gestured to this steep, sandy (black sand of course) hill and told us we could run down it. It was a little more dangerous than the sand dunes I had run down in Morocco and in Namibia. Several people got bloody knees and elbows, but I had a great time. Each leap made us feel weightless for a moment and it made our coming encounter with our planet feel even more alien and surreal. After that run, not only could we see the peak and it’s smoke, but it became clear that there was a glowing, orangey-red stream of lava making its way down the cone as well. Seeing the lava, even from fairly far away, was the moment I went from feeling sleepy to feeling a huge adrenaline rush of excitement. After that moment, I was pretty much giddy the entire remainder of the time. We moved towards the stream and eventually were climbing on rock that weighed no more than Styrofoam but which was made up of tiny crystals that were actually classifiable as glass. Needless to say these heaps of shifty, seemingly insubstantial rock were incredibly sharp and we suffered a few more knee casualties as we continued on. We made it over the hazardous stuff to a covered canal of lava rock. We stood at a place where the top of the canal opened up to reveal a river of hot, flowing lava. I was literally a yard away from it (aka, as close as I could get). I stood, posing for my picture to be taken by my friends. from behind me, where the lava was, I could feel what felt like a sunburn spread across the backs of my unprotected legs. From in front of me, however, the cool mountain breeze was blowing. I’ve never felt two such different temperatures at once. It was so much more intense than standing in front of an oven or a campfire. The heat was a wall behind me and the cool air whipped into it where it could. I was pretty much ecstatic. I could see an area down hill where a recent, more powerful lava flow had created almost a helicopter-landing area in the forest below. We roasted marshmallows over the lava… I actually don’t know what else to say about it, except that it was the most intense moment of illumination. I had never before faced the power of our planet. Everything I had learned about how it worked and what it was made of had been totally abstract before this. I had heard of people dying in various ways in “the elements” but had always sort of felt that I could survive anything the planet could dole out. Here was serious proof that the Earth is so much more powerful than any human being. The lava didn’t seem angry or scary, just incredible and powerful.

12. Reflections.
I think that my experience on the volcano is a really good way to explain my experience on Semester at Sea in general. The four months I spent on and off that ship were about experiencing things that I had previously only read about. It was about personally confirming and validating what had once been an abstract paragraph in a textbook. Everyone knows India has an immense population. But you could go through life and never leave Portland, Oregon (or wherever you’re from) and those millions of people could all be basically theoretical. In India, I was overwhelmed as we drove down crowded streets in our rickshaw. When I was little I used to think about how incredible it was that everyone I passed in my car (on the way to school or the zoo or wherever) was living an entirely unique experience. At that moment, as I passed them, they were feeling totally unique emotions and working toward goals and living a life in which they featured as the main character. Just like me. Semester at Sea brought my awe in that to a global level. It brought everything to a global level. Semester at Sea revealed to me things about people, about our history, about animals, about the Earth itself I had never thought about.
Sitting now at my kitchen counter in Portland, taking advantage of this weekend away from the sweet babies I nanny for and away from my internship, I’m finishing up this blog in a very different frame of mind than I began it with. Already, the experiences I had seem more and more dreamlike and distant. And I'm not just trying to be poetic in saying that. Last semester feels very isolated and time-warpy. I left in January and half expected, after four months gone, to come back to the same month. It’s weird that time passes when you’re gone. I visited Robbie in the Bay Area last week and seeing him (which was WONDERFUL) did kind of take me back to pre-Semester at Sea. When we picked up where we had left off (almost as if it was still January) Semester at Sea literally began to feel like a dream. But I’m left with my new friends (Ali lives just down the street from me and we’ve been having so much fun together in Portland and Colin, Alex, Nate, Kendyll, and Carly may all visit this summer), my pictures, my videos, and the distinct feeling that I’ve changed and grown to remind me that it really happened. I was talking to my dad the other day about how scary it is that such incredible experiences can sort of fade away to foggy memories super quickly and he said: it’s just a part of life. You have to make up for it by focusing on your next adventure. SO. I don’t know what my next adventure will be (does senior year at Pomona count?) but I can say that I feel like I need to explore the US more. I’ve never even been to Washington D.C.! So… I guess I’ll conclude by saying stay tuned….?

Good Morning Vietnam! and Hong Kong a Ding Dong and Bovine Pizzle and other news from ShangHAI!

Vietnam was, in some ways quite a lot like Thailand and, in other ways, very different and, back to back as they were, I can’t help but draw comparisons. My best Vietnam experiences were politically educational while in Thailand my favorite learning experiences were more experiential and focused on nature. Vietnam was a really important opportunity for me to learn about the Vietnam War (which of course in Saigon where we were is called the American War). It came to my attention that the Vietnam War is something a lot of American students think they know about, but don’t. And, in fact, I think that a lot of parents and teachers expect my generation to know a fair amount about it, having gone through it themselves. I came to realize that there was a lot I didn’t know before actually visiting Vietnam.
The other day this girl in my poetry class went on a rant when our professor asked us what we had thought of Vietnam. Preaching to the choir, she complained redundantly and loudly about her lack of preparation for visiting Vietnam, pointing an angry finger at the professors on the ship. It’s true that opportunities to really teach us about our country’s history IN depth were had and missed BUT this girl also needed to take a little responsibility for her ignorance. SO I guess the point is: I learned a lot about the war that I hadn’t known and I think a lot of people on the ship learned a LOT a lot about the war that they didn’t know. Terms had been thrown around in my education: fear of communism, guerilla warfare, Agent Orange, civilian deaths, anti-war activism. So I certainly had a vague outline of the events of the war but many of the war bullet points hadn’t been real to me before. Visiting the Cu Chi tunnels, for example, was the first time the words “guerrilla warfare” became concrete for me. I was able to imagine the desperation and anger of people forced to hide underground for years, cooking only at night. As I squeezed on my hands and knees through the tunnels, which had been enlarged by 40% in order to accommodate tourists, I thought about the creativity and immensely difficult labor it had taken these people to survive, not to mention to fight back. Our guide had an odd approach to the tour. Probably in his 30s his parents had no doubt been alive for the war and he must have been born not long after it ended but he led us through the surreal maze of tunnel entrances, breathing holes, bomb craters, and deadly traps for American soldiers with an amusement that overshadowed any reverence he must have also had. He described the ways in which American general Westmoreland had tried to coax the Vietnamese out of the tunnels: smoke, flooding, poison, and almost gleefully explained the reasons that none of these worked.
This leads me to another important series of reflections. In a lot of the lectures meant to prepare us for Vietnam, professors and Vietnamese guest lecturers talked about forgiveness. One person explained that the Vietnamese population is so young that the people literally don’t remember the war. Another talked about Vietnamese pride in having defeated the greatest military power in the world. All of them stressed the importance of tourism and encouraged us to observe the forgiveness. And it’s true that the Vietnamese were extremely nice to all of us. I still can’t quite believe that the war is forgotten and that the injustices inflicted on civilians and soldiers by the US have truly been forgiven but it was really inspirational and encouraging to recognize the progress that Vietnam has seen in the last thirty or so years. With the war in Iraq still unsettled, it gave me a great deal of hope to believe that a war-ravaged country can begin to heal, that US government administrations can change and people (my people who, as I couldn’t help but think about at the War Remnants Museum are STILL torturing prisoners of war illegally) can be forgiven to some extent. It’s hard to express the way I feel about it. I feel like I risk sounding like I believe that the US should be automatically forgiven for the wrongs they inflicted. Believe me I don’t believe that. After walking through prison cells that Vietnamese people were held in and reading the captions on pictures of people who had been exposed to Agent Orange and of people who are still, today, being born with severe birth defects because of what their parents went through at US hands, I don’t mean to celebrate the fact that Vietnam has ostensibly forgiven all. BUT witnessing the extent of the healing that that country has gone through really warmed my heart. And I’ll tell you my heart was pretty sad after visiting the War Remnants Museum which has an entire room devoted to American war crimes.
My time in Vietnam passed strangely. I feel like, in my telling of it, there will probably be gaps. During these gaps, I was shopping and eating and drinking and dancing, I guess. But those weird down-time moments are punctuated with cool experiences too. The first day was the day that I went to the Cu Chi Tunnels. I’ve sort of painted a picture of what that was like. The next day I went to the War Remnants Museum, which I also gave you an idea of. That day I had my first experience of Asian fast food (something I was to become much better acquainted with in China). I went with a few of my new friends (from Thailand, perhaps you remember we ate grasshoppers?) Steve, Hussein, Keith, and Alex to a burger joint called the Jolly Bee. Their Ronald McDonald is a big plastic red and gold-clad bumble bee who eagerly gestured us into the restaurant. The Jolly Bee’s menu offered burgers and fries but also rice and various dumplings. The funniest thing, to me, was the fact that the Jolly Bee was a three story building with seating as high up as the third floor. No elevator. Needless to say, this would NOT fly in the US. While I'm on the subject of nearly Western food, I should mention Tutti Frutti. Tutti Frutti was a frozen yogurt place that was SO much like Pinkberri or Kiwibear. They had more flavors though, including fruit flavors that were unique to Asia. AND you served yourself or, I should say, you softserved yourself. MMM.
The next day Kendyll and Colin and I explored on our own a bit. We went to a beautiful temple to Buddha. It was kind of obscure and didn’t seem like it saw many tourists. I think it was kind of like if someone from Vietnam had come to Portland and sought out Trinity Cathedral as a tourist destination… But we loved looking around and they let us take pictures. There was an enormous bronze colored (I don’t think it was actually bronze) Buddha Sitting in an altar in which the walls had been painted like a blue sky with clouds. In front of the altar area was a table laden down with burning incense, colorful flowers, and fruits and a number of smaller Buddha figures, Bodhisattvas, I think.
After we explored the temple, we headed to the Ho Chi Minh Zoo. The zoo had been described in a folder of possible activities on the ship as something like “derelict but the animals appear to be fed.” That’s my paraphrase. But it was bizarre. It was almost abandoned. There were a few Vietnamese people hanging out, just sitting on benches reading, alone… Apart from us the only other people who seemed to be interested in the animals was a group of about 30 children on a fieldtrip. They were seriously tiny and they swarmed us saying “hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi.” I bet they were ages 3 and 4. They were really cute. We wandered around. We saw a giraffe and hippos and elephants. That’s about all I remember with regard to the animals. The elephant area was cool because this woman was reaching across this narrow moat that kept them in their enclosure and handing them bananas. I got snot-sprayed by one because it wanted me to give it a banana. We spent most of our time wandering around this broken down little carnival in the middle of the zoo. We hijacked little tricycles with little wagons attached to them and pedaled around for awhile. We rode a little train that did a tour of the tiny zoo. We posed next to the garbage cans which were shaped like penguins with their mouths open to receive people’s trash.
So that was Vietnam in a nutshell.

8. China
Hong Kong: When I woke up the morning of our arrival in Hong Kong I was blown away. Looking out the window from the dining hall I felt like I was in a gigantic, extensive Millennium Park (like in Chicago). When I got off the ship, my wonderful friend Mark, from Pomona, was waiting for me! He’s spending the entire semester (and maybe summer!) in Hong Kong so he and his friend Meredith from the Hong Kong program were all set to show me and a few of Meredith’s friends who were on the ship with me around. Along with Hannah, Kendra, Braxton, and Riley (from Semester at Sea) we walked around for a bit and eventually sat down to Dim Sum with Ada, a Chinese friend of Mark’s and her mom. Ada and her mom ordered dish after dish for us. It was fantastic and such a wonderful way to kick off China. There were various dishes with pork and shrimp in different stages of mashed-ness, dumplings in soups, dumplings out of soups, vegetables, rices, chicken (all with difficult bones, but delicious if you could chopstick your way around it). Ada and her mother taught us to constantly refill the teacups of those older than you and that, if someone older than you refilled your cup, you should use the knuckles of your first two fingers to tap the table, symbolizing kneeling to them in thanks. Desert sent me into the oddest flashback. We ate this sweet tofu soup for desert. I had had it before when we ate authentic Chinese food with one of dad’s coworkers a looooong time ago and he had been obsessed with telling me it was just like ice cream… I remember thinking, even though I was really young that, as good as the tofu soup was, it was pretty much the antithesis of ice cream: it was tofu, so it was creamless, and it was warm, rather than iced. But it tasted delicious, anyway.
After Dim Sum, Ada and her mother offered to show us where they lived. They lived in the tiniest apartment I have ever seen. It was barely bigger than the apartment Maura had in Manhattan, and that had been a walk-up shared by two young college aged people. Ada’s home housed herself, her sister, her two parents and a Taiwanese maid. I’ve seen closets the size of the master bedroom. That said, it was immaculately tidy, extremely efficient in its use of space, and characterized by the warmest, brightest colors. They had a really nice view of Hong Kong (they were on a 20 somethingth floor). More than all the people jostling me in the street, seeing Ada’s home really demonstrated the immensity and the density of the Chinese population.
After our time with Ada and her mother, Mark took me to his apartment and let me use his computer to briefly videochat with Robbie. It is so incredible to me that I could see and hear Robbie SO clearly when I was in Hong Kong and he was in Edinburgh. It was really good to see/hear him.
That night, our group headed to… oh I forget what it’s called. The Peak! That’s it. We took a trolley-style gondola thing up to the top of a big hill that had the most stunning views of Hong Kong at night. At first, we had hoped to eat in the restaurant at the top of this giant building at the top of the hill. That restaurant, however, had turned out to be a Bubba Gump. 1. Bubba Gump is not very good and 2. it turns out it’s really expensive in Hong Kong at least! So instead we went to… Burger King. We enjoyed Whoppers and took in the beautiful city. From there we headed to the big night life street. There was a huge celebration going on, even though it was a Sunday, because Hong Kong had been hosting a Rugby event. There were men and women in ludicrous costumes. We managed to grab this one guy for a picture. He was wearing a catholic school girl outfit with a cowboy hat and had naughty underwear sticking out above his plaid skirt. His name was Ian and he was from Ireland. By this point, Mark and I had met up with my grasshopper friends: Steve, Keith, Hussein, Disha, and Lia. We decided it would be fun to go dancing at a gay bar and that is what we did. It went quite well.
The next day, I reunited with my friends Ali and Colin. Along with Mark, we set off to see the 10,000 Buddhas. The 10,000 Buddhas is a hill covered in Buddhas… We walked up a path lined, on either side, with Golden life-sized Buddhas, each with distinct features and a different pose. The path came to a big temple at the top with thousands of tiny golden Buddha statues lining the walls. We ate a little at the top in a little guest restaurant that had “Fried Jew’s Ear” on the menu (we later learned that the word for pork in Chinese is “Zhou” which is pronounced a lot like the word “Jew” and that was probably where the error came from). We did not order the “Fried Jew’s Ear.” And then we descended. We spent the last little bit of our time in Hong Kong exploring the Shoe Street where fifty gagillion little stores sold all the coolest high tops from Nike and Rebok and Adidas.. And I think they were all real, actually, I’m not kidding. So I didn’t buy anything because it was quite expensive.
Mark was the most excellent host. He led us around like a committed tour guide and really shaped our experience of Hong Kong in SUCH a good way. So here’s a shout out to Mark: Thank you! You were so good to me!

In transit: It bears mentioning that Ali and I opted to take the ship from Hong Kong to Shanghai. We were allowed to travel the distance off the ship by train or plane if we chose, but, in the interest of saving money, we hopped back on the MV Explorer and had the most relaxing two-day trip ever. We camped out in my room. The first day, we slept in, waking up just in time for lunch and then got back in bed immediately after lunch. We stayed in bed the rest of the day and watched probably 10 hours of TV and movies (10 hours is a conservative estimate). Dinner was wonderful. Because only 100 people stayed onboard (out of 700) it was a formal and fun event. We ordered off of a menu (usually it’s buffet) and were served free wine (usually we have to pay for wine) and the food quality was really stepped up. The next day we woke up just in time for our free 15 minute massages at the ship spa and then, following the massages, went BACK to sleep. You get the idea I think. It felt great to catch up on sleep before Shanghai.

Shanghai: I was sad in Shanghai not to have someone like Mark to tell me what to do. OH WAIT: Mark sent me a super detailed email about all the stuff to do in Shanghai. He is soooo nice. So the first day my friends Colin, Ali, and Heather and I headed out to explore. We quickly located a Starbucks only to learn that they did not serve chai there. After a terrible experiment with a green tea latte, I tried a local coffee place and had my first actual Asian bubble tea! It was delicious. The big event of our first day in Shanghai was this wacky meal we had. We stumbled upon this place called “O My Dollar.” Contrary to the assumptions one might make upon hearing/reading that name, it was pretty fancy and really cool. The food was served raw and we were given little pots and flames to cook it on. The pots were full of a pre-composed soup and were complemented by dipping sauces we assembled ourselves as well. I have so much to tell you right now I don’t even know what order to do it in. First of all, the pre-designed soups had hilarious names. I ordered the “Frygyrant Beer Pot” and there was also a “Frogrant Carb Pot.” Colin selected the best menu item of all, however, the “Bovine Pizzle and Chicken Pot.” The menu also offered up a number of meatball dishes with unfortunate names like “Funny Balls” and “Play Balls” (in both cases, that is all that the menu said….). We had a great time ordering and laughing. Our waitress had to help us a LOT in her very limited English because the process was so confusing. We ordered our pots plus Wontons, Dumplings, beef, and broccoli, all of which came raw. We dumped the raw stuff into the pots and waited for it to cook so that we could eat it with rice and our dipping sauces. The dipping sauce ingredients also had weird names. For example, I opted out of the bowl full of white powder marked “MSG” as well as the brown sauce labeled “One Fresh Goods.” And we thought “Fried Jew’s Ears” was bad…
After a fun-filled lunch, we went to the art museum, which was really cool. There was only one exhibit on display but it was free for students so that was nice. That night, however, came the best adventure of all! We went to Karaoke. In Asia, karaoke is not something you do in front of a bunch of strangers in a bar or at a party. It’s something you do in a private room with a group of friends. We went to this place spelled “Haoledi” but called “Holiday.” It was a maze of private rooms on the tenth floor of a building downtown. There was a little store where you could buy snacks and drinks and the music from the rooms played in the hallways. Ali, Colin, Heather, and I were joined by our friend Tim and this boy Briton who had sat with us at dinner… We all thought he was a friend of Tim’s but, in retrospect, I'm pretty sure Tim thought he was a friend of ours. We sang such classics as “Shut up and Drive,” “Ghostbusters,” “Like a Virgin,” “Sexyback,” “Superstar,” “Mama Mia,” “Oops I Did it Again,” etc. We had a BLAST. And then we went to McDonald’s…
The next day we did a bit of shopping and explored the oldest street in Shanghai (I forget what it’s called). That’s about it.
China is really cool. I would really like to go back someday.

UP NEXT: Kobe, Kyoto, Tokyo, and Yokohama!

Maurian Ambition/Madu's Magical Love Tour/Elephant Dung be Damned

I am SO behind on this bloooooooog.

Mauritius was amazing. I’m just going to start there and then… keep going until I’m caught up. Ok, this just in: I just finished writing it and it's 6 1/2 word pages single spaced. I'm SO sorry. Feel free to skim it or not read it or whatever.

The good news about Mauritius in terms of how much I have to write about Mauritius, India, and Thailand, is that it we only spent one day there. That’s also the bad news about Mauritius because I wish I could have seen more of it. I spent the day snorkeling and had SUCH a fantastic time. My friend Ali and I woke up in the morning and hopped on a mini bus that took us to this pier somewhere. To get there, we drove through fields of sugar cane and had just the most beautiful landscapes outside the van window of volcanic island. It was JUST how you would imagine it I think if I told you to picture THE island. THE greenest most lush tropical island ever. Also you can google earth it.

At the pier we got on this catamaran. It was pretty big for a catamaran and held like 15 or 20 students plus a small crew. It was a vacation day, basically. We relaxed on the prow (I think it’s the prow…) and sunbathed. We dove off the catamaran and did all these cool jumps. The water was SO clear and gorgeous and warm but refreshing. Snorkeling I saw all sorts of corals and different colored fishes and an EEL. I found it under a rock while using my new snorkeling skills from Catalina and diving down do the bottom to look around.

Honestly, the day was suuuuuuper low key. They cooked us food on the catamaran (it was SO good) and served us beer and soda. Also, just so you know, I just got back on the ship after Thailand where I ALSO went snorkeling so, writing this, Mauritius has been sort of eclipsed by the sea life I saw in Thailand. At the time it was one of the best days of my life but since then I’ve had more best days of my life. Which is why I need to stay on top of my blog better in the future.

India was next. How to begin to describe my experience in India? First of all, I just should say, Chennai was the dirtiest place I have ever been. Except, maybe, for Tijuana. No Chennai was dirtier. Every time I came back to the ship I was not only sweat soaked but the soles of my shoes were BLACK and I had dirt Oliver Twist style stuck to the sweat on my face. I looked like an extra in the “Bring out your dead” scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We traveled around in tuktuks which were CRAZY and all pimped out with the BRIGHTEST colors. And there were cows everywhere and goats and roosters. And sometimes it smelled fouler than anything. Like burnt poop. Ali maintained that it smelled like baby flesh which I find TOTALLY disgusting and also have no idea how to interpret. But other times it smelled like incense and the most mouth-watering spices. And there were SO many people. So that’s my best attempt at giving you a picture of what India was like.

The first day, I did a Faculty Directed Practicum (FDP) that consisted of a trip to visit the US Consulate in Chennai. It was really interesting. We talked to several people who worked there about issues from what it means to work for the state department to dealing with the bombings in Mumbai to the current conflict in Sri Lanka between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan Government. Also I learned that a consulate is different from (smaller than) an embassy. Maybe you already knew that. Security at the Consul was interesting. We went through this little room in the wall that surrounded kind of the compound thing. This woman in a sari pulled out this little screen to pat me down and I went through a metal detector. The screen detail was a reminder that this, though it was sort of like a little piece of the US, was in India. We talked to men called “special agents” too. I learned a lot.

After that I went out to dinner with a large group of friends. The restaurant had a little birdcage with parrots in it and a little fountain outside but was otherwise not the nicest. Our waiter introduced us to an Indian practice that would continue to confuse me for the rest of my time there: Indian people display interest and understanding in a conversation by bobbling their heads from side to side in a motion that, in America, would be kind of saucy and indifferent. It’s awkward. There were tons of times where I thought waiters or tuktuk drivers were telling me “no” but what they were saying was “I hear you, yo.” Rather than plates we were served on banana leaves and there was no silverware on the table because in India people eat with their hands. There were twelve of us Americans and we pretty much all wanted cokes. They didn’t have that many Cokes. So people who ordered too late started asking for Sprite instead. They didn’t have that many Sprites either. I had a Fanta. Which was fine. But it was pretty funny that they had so little Coke. And Sprite. Heh.

Next a few of us decided to head to a Bollywood movie that was playing in a theatre in a nearby mall. The movie started at 10 and ended up being three hours with a little intermission! And it was TERRIFYING. And awesome. It was called Naan Kadavul and it was a Tamil movie that was completely in the Tamil language with no subtitles. I have never ever been to a movie that was so LOUD and on such a humongous screen. Plus the images were terrifying. We have no idea what exactly it was about but my friend Alex thinks maybe the main character was a spirit who came back as an activist for Dahlit and disabled people. Dahlit (I think I’m spelling it wrong) is the name Gandhi gave members of the untouchable class, untouchable being (obviously) derogatory and dahlit being a means of starting anew and celebrating these people as children of god. This dahlit thing brings me to my next point about the movie: it was about this group of severely disabled people and there were severely disabled people in the film. It was really cool to consider that these people, who would probably otherwise have been in the streets of India, were afforded an opportunity to be in a really popular Tamil film but it was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in real life or in a movie. I won’t describe it all but it was pretty unreal. Ali and I managed to find a bootleg version so if you want to watch it when I get home, let me know! It was so intense that I decided to leave for a little bit (I didn’t know there was going to be an intermission) so I got up to check out the food options at the concessions stand. After talking to the guys there about how great Barack Obama is (plus totally embarrassing myself by messing up the payment process) I walked away with a huge thing of popcorn and a hot chocolate having spent the equivalent of only 3 US dollars. Unfortunately, because the movie ended at 1:00 AM, I had the sketchiest experience of the entire trip so far right afterwards. Don’t worry, it all turns out ok. There were seven of us who had stayed for the movie and when we walked out we were met by like fifty million tuktuk drivers who began to negotiate with us. They told us that, because it was so late, they could only take two of us in a tuktuk at a time (BS: I’ve been in one of those with three other people before) and that it would be more expensive (also BS). But we were tired so we said ok whatever. Ali and I got in one, Jacob and Ben in another, and Alex, Heather, and Peter in another. The third tuktuk with Alex Heather and Peter quickly got separated from us and it was obvious to us that they were behind us. Our tuktuk drivers pulled Ali and my tuktuk and Jacob and Ben’s up to a stop on the side of this busy street on one side of these bridged train tracks. During the day, we had crossed the train tracks on the bridge to get to the port, but they told us that “the gate” (what gate???) was closed since it was so late and that we would have to walk through this dark tunnel under the tracks to get to the dock. For 5 USD more EACH they would escort us. I was SO mad. I don’t think I’ve been madder than that. I told them that we weren’t going anywhere without the third tuktuk but they said it was ahead and that our friends had probably already gone. That wasn’t true. But there was literally nothing we could do. There were no other cabs, no other tuktuks and we had no idea whether they were telling us the truth about the bridge. We paid them the money to walk with us. Thank god Ali and I didn’t get separated from Ben and Jacob. And it was ok. But I learned how vulnerable you can become really quickly if you’re not prepared with information and if you stay out late in foreign countries. It turned out that they lied to us. There was no gate. They should have driven us. We agreed not to stay out that late again and that if anything like that ever happened again, we would just walk towards people and, rather than try to get to the ship through sketchy stuff like that, stay overnight in a hotel somewhere safe and not walk through scary tunnels. Also we will never be cought without at least one boy at night anywhere ever. Nobody worry. That will never happen again. And we dealt with it pretty well. Also I felt pretty secure that nothing bad would happen. I wasn’t afraid that the cab drivers would do anything since they weren’t even interested in walking with us unless we paid them, and there were cars going by around us, so we weren’t totally isolated. I was mostly just scared when I realized how helpless I had allowed myself to be. Never again. Don’t worry.

The next day, Ali and Colin and I met Madu. Madu was our tuktuk driver for the rest of our time in India. He was this eccentric Indian man who didn’t speak very good English but was fiercely dedicated to us and took us to many delicious restaurants and good shops. He got pissed whenever we bought something at a price higher than an Indian would have (the thing is, after you get like a bracelet down to $1, you might as well just pay that to these people who need your money more, right? Even if you could get it for $.75?). Madu claimed to be a stunt man for Indian movies including Naan Kadavul. I totally don’t know whether to believe that. He let us pay “as much as we felt was right” which was probably really smart of him because we probably overpaid him. But not by much. He called us his family. Colin was his brother, Ali was his daughter, and I was his sister. He told us our fortunes based on our birthday. He joined us for all our meals and several coffee stops. I actually talked to his daughter on the phone at one point…. It was weird. But it was cool.

We spent the second day shopping, eating, and visiting the beach. The third and fourth days were when we really had an adventure. Colin and Ali and I decided we wanted to recreate/live the Darjeeling Limited, this Wes Anderson movie starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman we had all seen recently. Our plan was to take a sleeper train overnight to Bangalore, a 7 hour ride away, spend the day in Bangalore (visiting a temple and this park…) and then take a train back that night. Our reasoning was that sleeping on the train would be cool because then we wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel PLUS transportation. We were extremely optimistic about the train. In fact, it turns out that just believing that we’d be able to sleep on it at all was optimistic. Some really naïve pre-train moments: 1. We didn’t bring ANY bedding with us whatsoever 2. We didn’t bring any warm clothes at all 3. On the way to the train station, we had a conversation about whether we should accept “sweet lime” (this Indian lime juice, a prominent part of the movie) when (WHEN, not if!) it was offered or whether we should decline because it might contain Indian water that would make us sick 4. At the train station, walking through/among literally hundreds of sleeping and barefoot people, we wondered aloud whether we should buy more snacks for the train. “No,” I said, “There’ll be food on the train.” “Yeah, it’s pretty much going to be just like Harry Potter” (that part was Colin and he was PARTIALLY kidding). The train was like a prison cell. Our room was dinghy blue and grey with barred windows and peeling paint. The “beds” were tiny benches and there were three on each wall. We almost decided not to take the train. But we wanted the adventure so we boarded it and departed for Bangalore at 11:00 PM. We didn’t sleep. At first we kept ourselves amused by playing “ten fingers,” “would you rather” and “contact.” As the sounds of Indian people snoring (and farting!! More than once!) mounted however, we decided to do a rotating massage line. This was a bad idea because it reminded us how tired we were but we couldn’t sleep. Daylight saw Ali and I huddled for warmth (it was freezing) under a scarf I had bought the previous day and Colin SORT of sleeping across from us. Seven hours. We got into Bangalore at 7:00 AM and spent the next three hours trying to get tickets back to Chennai. Eventually we were able to (we actually had to go to a different train station in Bangalore to get a train) but we were too exhausted and delirious to explore Bangalore so we walked down the street to a hotel restaurant and ordered an early lunch at 10:00 plus rum and cokes. We stayed there, laughing, eating, and drinking in a daze for FIVE HOURS and then caught a 4:00 train back to Chennai where we pooped out on the ship.

We slept in on the last day and then did some final shopping with friends at this HUGE Indian mall. And then departed for Thailand. Just so you know, my description of India focuses on parts that may make it seem like I didn’t really experience the real India. This is really just because I brushed over the days spent shopping in markets and stuff in favor of the crazier stories about the train. I really had a terrific time. To me, the train was one of the most Indian experiences ever, even if we did kind of waste the day in Bangalore. I think that the train stations and the chaotic process of finding tickets also really brought us closer to Indian people. It’s really hard to prioritize these stories. But trust that there was much more to India and that it was incredible. I’ll show you pictures. Oh and we went to a temple which was GORGEOUS and SO colorful but not at all funny which is why I talked about the train ride instead of the temple.

Thailand. Frick. You must be really exhausted reading this and let me tell you I am pooped just writing it. Whew. Reload. Ok. I’ll tell you about Thailand now.

THAILAND: Thailand was my favorite port yet. But I’ve said that after just about every port. We docked in Laem Chabong (I may have misspelled that..) which is a two hour drive away from Bangkok. The first day, I had another FDP. This one took me to an Elephant Village in Pattaya, a nearby town. It was pretty incredible. I rode two different elephants. One of them, I mounted when it bent its front leg for me to step on. I held onto its ear to pull myself onto its neck. It was amazing. They were the sweetest creatures of all time. And their sweetness was even COOLER since they were so dang big. I hugged several and fed others bananas. There is nothing as bizarre as holding out a banana for an elephant’s eye to see, and then watching as its trunk snakes towards you and grabs it. So weird, so cool. Actually, as I learned later in Thailand, some things ARE more bizarre than that…

Thailand is, according to Ali (who got this from the Travel Channel) the “sex capital of the world” which I assume has something to do with the fact that prostitution and “sex shows” are legal there. So, while I’m on the subject of the bizarre, I feel I should take a moment to address the weirdness that is Thai prostitution and sex shows. I’ll just group all the relevant stories from my five days into a little paragraph here: I did not attend a sex show but apparently almost everyone else did. I’m not just saying that I didn’t, I DIDN’T. And I’m VERY glad because it just sounds appalling. For one thing, these shows are called (by the creepy guys in the street who try to get you to go to them) “ping pong show, sex show”s. I'm not going to elaborate here but feel free to ask me. SO. We got offered to go to “ping pong show, sex show”s many times. Also, there are Thai massage parlors everywhere and, in Thai massage parlors it is no big deal if they include manual sex in male massages. A “happy ending” as Larry David calls it in Curb Your Enthusiasm. My friends turned the masseuses down for this part of the massage. Many Semester at Sea people didn’t, apparently. I opted out of a massage all together. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAND that’s all the Thai sex stuff I have energy for.

SO. After the Elephant thing, some friends of mine, Hussein, Steve, Keith, Disha, and Lia, decided to stay in Pattaya for dinner and general exploration. We did a lot of shopping and had a really delicious Thai meal: Pad See Yu (I don’t know how to spell it…) and fried shrimp and Mai Thais. Also we sampled the Thai beers, in particular Singha and Tiger. I really enjoyed getting to know these guys. I LOVED that night with them. I hope we can hang out more. We ate cooked grasshoppers together from a street cart. We also frequently paired off girl-boy girl-boy girl-boy because the BOYS kept getting cat-called! This is the first port EVER where the guys have been cat-called and not the girls. I understand why the prostitutes were so interested. Their clientele was ENTIRELY made up of old fat creepy white men from Europe and the States. It was funny and sad, actually. We saw TONS of couples with old men holding the hands (or other parts) of hot young Thai women. So imagine how much they must have liked seeing these young college guys walking down the street! When the night ended, we all rode in the back of a pick up truck taxi back to the ship toasting each other.

The second day I went snorkeling! It was SO beautiful! The water was SO warm and clear and beautiful. I saw soooooooooooo many different sorts of fishes and corals. Also there were these little tiny jellyfish that were too wimpy to sting us but that FREAKED me out every time I would accidentally touch one, swimming. They were almost completely transparent so this happened a lot. We also jumped off the top deck of the boat we took off. It was probably 20 feet. I LOVED it. It was another really great lazy day. Afterwards I took a taxi with several SAS people to Bangkok, including my friend Tim. In Bangkok, I met up with my friends Colin, Alex, Molly, and Becky.

Bangkok was reeeeeeeeeeeally cool. There were prostitutes but not as many as in Pattaya and it was WAY bigger and brighter too. Bangkok is to Pattaya as New York is to Portland except pretend in this simile that New York is cooler than Portland (obviously it’s not). The COOLEST thing about the streets of Bangkok was the fact that elephants were in them. BABY elephants. Five years old (the one I hugged) to be precise. I won’t walk you through Bangkok in order because there was a lot of clubbing and a lot of eating and a lot of shopping. I had a BLAST with this group of people. I’ve been hanging out on the ship more and more too. Thailand was a really good place for me and friendships. WOOHOO. We ate a lot of excellent food, we celebrated St. Patrick’s day at an Irish pub, we smoked hookah a LITTLE, and we danced at this club called “Spice Club” that was ultra sketchy (as in we were the only white people there who weren’t paying Thai women to dance with them).

Highlights: The first night in Bangkok we went to a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms. It was pretty weird. It was all about sex education though, which was cool, because STDs are a pretty big problem in Thailand (duh). There was this spinning wheel that had pie-slice things that said: “BAMN, you got Chlamydia” or “Way to go, you used protection and DIDN’T get HIV” or something. I guess they represented your chances of getting STDs…? All the décor was made with colorful condoms. There were dummies dressed in condom-outfits that Tim Gunn would have been proud of, as well as lanterns with condom flowers on them. It was weird. The food was pretty good though.

Anther day, we hired a boat to take us along Bangkok’s canals. I am SO glad we did this. It was the first time I really saw the poverty that some Thai people live in. We passed shacks on stilts in the river with birds hanging in cages on porches, countless dogs, and tons of people sitting still, doing nothing, presumably either out of work, or in between scarce job opportunities. Every house we passed had laundry hanging outside and I doubt most of them had electricity at all, much less a dryer. We saw children playing in the FILTHIEST river water. We saw a crazy huge lizard crawling up someone’s steps… The plants around the river were incredibly lush and green and it was mostly a really peaceful opportunity to observe and reflect. Most of the houses had these little temple-like models on poles outside of them. These are called spirit houses and are built to commemorate dead loved ones and to ask spirits to watch over the people living there. Eventually the boat stopped at this weird traditional Thai house that had been converted into a museum. We saw an orchid farm there as well as a demonstration of traditional Thai boxing. The boat ride ended with a death defying crossing of this huge river. Filthy water splashed towards us and sometimes hit us and our tiny boat rocked a LOT. But we survived. And then, that night, we celebrated Molly’s birthday with a really good dinner and a visit to the nicest club/bar I’ve ever been to, called “Q Bar” (we thought it was “Q Ball” and kept calling it “Screw Ball” for fun).

On the last day, we visited the Grand Palace, home to the Emerald Buddha (which is actually made of Jade, don’t be confused). The Grand Palace was the most overwhelming, complex, detailed thing I’ve ever tried to take in. There was gold EVERYWHERE. It was stunning. I literally don’t know how to describe it. HUGE. The coolest part was the Emerald Buddha which is housed in this HUMONGOUS temple. The Buddha sits on top of this GIANT mass of gold STUFF that’s all sooo incredibly ornate. It’s funny. There’s so much stuff built up around it that it comes across as pretty small. It’s like, not higher than my knee. That’s pretty big for something carved out of jade I guess, but it has this massive palace built around it with SO much gold… I just expected it to be bigger. WAY bigger. It has three friggin costumes for different seasons… Pretty funny. I guess some guy discovered it in the 15th century and thought it was just some random plaster Buddha. But then one day the plaster on the nose popped off and the monk who had found it realized it was straight-up jade and freaked out and gave it to the king who passed it down until eventually someone built the Grand Palace. Our visit to the Emerald Buddha’s palace was cool because there were a lot of people there praying. Outside we saw some women light incense and inside monks were bowing. The monks had their own private area for prayer. You aren’t supposed to sit next to monks on the bus because if the bus moves and you bump them it ruins their vows. So I guess that’s why they had their own section too. Also, a cool fact, you aren’t supposed to point your feet at people but ESPECIALLY not at the Buddha. It’s really offensive. So we all did a really good job either sitting cross-legged or else on our heels.

I'm in the process of putting more pictures on the facebook.com. Check those out.

That’s all I got. Martha OUT!

Neptune, Namibs, and Safrica

Holy Moly… I have quite a lot to catch up on. Sorry to be behind and then to getcha with a HUGE update… I’ll break this down into smaller parts so you don’t feel like you have to read it all at once.. It’ll go: 1. Neptune Day 2. Namibia 3. South Africa

1. Neptune Day
I have posted some pictures on facebook, as many of you may have noticed and there are a few that involve me in a wading pool getting green goo dumped on my head (Nickolodeon style). These pictures are but a peek into what was a really intense, ritual-filled day of festivities called Neptune Day. Apparently the traditions we practiced on Neptune Day hail back to much older times and ships have, for hundreds of years, marked their crossing of the Equator by shaving their heads, kissing a fish, and getting fish guts dumped on them. Actually, it’s only “guppies” or first time Equator crossers who have the privilege. Those who have gone through the ceremony before are shellbacks (aka I am now a shellback, like when Squirtle becomes that bigger badder turtle). I actually think the word guppies is wrong.. I think it’s something else but you get the idea. It was really cool though because classes were canceled and the entire faculty and staff got painted green and blue and all dressed up and paraded through the halls at seven in the morning banging on things and making noise and then everyone went through the ceremony and then just hung out by the pool all day. There are a LOT of shaved heads. Some of them are kind of badass and others freak me out. Like there are a few female professors who did it and now they wear scarves and they look a lot like chemo patients. Actually EVERYONE looks a lot like chemo patients. So… There’s that fact. Last thing about Neptune Day is they had this really really really great BBQ. We all get pretty desperate for good food after awhile at sea (the food isn’t too bad but there is a lot of pasta and potato involved) and hamburgers were SO good. And ice cream. MMMM.

2. Namibs!
Namibia is one of those places I might never have ever gone had it not been for Semester at Sea and I’m really really glad I did go. First of all, I just want to let you know that a lot of us called Namibia “Namibs” so that’s what’s going on with bullet point 2. The very first thing I did in Namibia was to participate in an SAS sponsored trip. I rode a four-by-four vehicle into the desert and my guide, JAKO! (I put an explanation mark because that’s how he pronounced it: YA-KO! Exclamation marks actually also designate clicks in African click languages, so don’t be confused. Those are in South Africa, anyway, not Namibs as much.) told us a LOT about the desert and about Namibs in general. It became clear to me that Namibia is a pretty great place to live if you have a little money and want to do extreme sports. Literally the drive into the desert was on a highway with the ocean on the left and giant desert dunes on the right. The ocean went as far as the eye could see and so did the dunes. We visited what’s called the “Moon Landscape” which I guess has been a sight for a lot of scenes in movies (including the moon scene in Apollo13, according to JAKO). We also stopped and looked at these weeeeeirdo plants that were hundreds of years old. They didn’t look that old but the youngest ones I saw were in their thirties. Some live to be thousands of years old! Aaaaaand we climbed this massive dune called dune 7, rumored to be the 7th largest dune in the world (I totally don't buy it). That was hard work! The executive dean on the ship was on the trip with us and he’s known for being super buff and fit and so my number 1 goal was to beat him up the dune. I did. I may have had a head start though…

That night, reunited with my friends Kendyll, Ali, and Whitney (Carly was on a safari), I ate dinner at a restaurant called The Raft. It was reeeeally cool. It was this little hexagonal building on stilts on water and it looked all the way out to the ocean. In the water around the little restaurant there were flamingos and other crazy Africa birds and we feasted on pizza with spinach and feta that was called Popeye’s Punching Bag. Our friend got ostrich and let us try a bit.. that was cool too. The ladies at the table next to ours were really friendly. There were two middle-aged ladies, one young girl who turned out to be 18, and one middle aged man. They asked us where we were from and we told them and then I asked one of the women what she was drinking (it looked like some sort of sweet desert baileys kind of drink). She told me it was called Amarula and they bought us each one. It was REALLY good. She said it was the drink of Namibia. We kept talking to them for a while and got to know them, particularly the girl, Carmen, pretty well. Weirdly, at one point, the moms pointed to me and told Kendyll, who was sitting closer to them than I was, that I looked “naughty.” I have never ever ever ever ever EVER been told that I looked naughty EVER before in my life. And you know what? I’m NOT naughty. So we had a good laugh. My friends called me naughty Martha for pretty much the rest of the trip. We ended up going dancing with Carmen and her mom which was really nice. I really miss my mom so it was cool to hang out with a mom, even one I didn’t really know. Dancing was really fun until I danced with this creepy guy named Ivan who was too old to be interested in me but too young for it to be cute and funny. Meanwhile Kendyll and Ali were making friends with this guy named Jeff. He was our age too and he was from South Africa. We ended up hanging out with him and two of his friends in Swakopmund, a little German style beach town like 15 minutes from Walvis Bay, the next day.
The next day was pretty lazy. It didn’t really get started until the early afternoon and it mostly involved sampling Namibian beers, eating, and hanging out at the beach. We got talking with Jeff and his friends Brock and Wynand about politics and race and it was pretty eye opening. They were just kind of unapologetically racist. A little clue was that they weren’t very respectful when they spoke to waiters (all of whom were black at the restaurants we ate in). Jeff couldn’t believe my friends and I were attracted to non-white men, specifically, I think, black men. It really began to hit home, as we talked to him, how recent the end of South African apartheid really was and how it still impacts people’s lives. We ended the day at this bar that everyone had told us to go to (JAKO as well as numerous other Namibians) called Tiger Reef. It was a really cool place. The entire floor was just sand because it was pretty much outdoors and it opened up onto the beach! There was silly tiki décor and this little boat you could sit in (on the beech, not in the water). It was nice. A LOT of Semester at Sea people showed up which made it weird but fun. We were told in our briefing that the 1000 people on our ship would make up 10% of Namibia’s tourism for the whole year… So I guess we weren’t that surprised when we all ended up at the same bar.

3. South Africa

South Africa was really really cool. When we first arrived in Cape Town, I attended a lecture in the ship’s union given by three South African authors, Maxine Case, Dawn Garisch, and Thembelani Ngenelwa. They talked about their latest books, their writing processes, and what it means to write in and about South Africa and they read to us from their books. It was really interesting and a nice introduction to what turned out to be an awesome port.
After that, my friends and I explored Cape Town a little. The dock where we were parked was this really tourism-focused shopping area. We were right up against a mall and there were street performers all day every day. It was actually kind of nice, if you knew how to get away from it and experience the REAL South Africa. Oops actually we didn’t explore Cape Town then that much because we climbed Table Mountain! So yeah right after Authors in Cape Town, we hiked Table Mountain. It was INTENSE. I had my parents look it up for me: we hiked 3,000 feet vertical! We had just the most incredible views of the city and of the cape on the way up but when we got to the very top we were in a cloud. It was unreal. We were absolutely surrounded with impenetrable fog and I felt like I could have been anywhere in the world, but I knew I was in Africa. Cool sensation. We took a gondola down, opting out of another killer hike. And then we went to dinner on Lang Street (means long street). We ate at this place called the Royale Eatery that reminded me and Ali SO much of Portland. It was really hip and had cool vegetarian menu items. We went to several bars after that, one called Mama Africa where we had the extremely popular Springbok shots that consisted of Amarula which I mentioned was “the” African drink plus some sort of mint flavor. Then we went to this place called the Dubliner where they basically had this guy singing professional karaoke. He was the band, but he sang along to karaoke backup music. The place was overflowing with Semester at Sea people and we all loved singing along to Aerosmith, the Spice Girls, and other bands like those.. It wasn’t very South African but it was fun.
The next day I woke up early and got on a bus that took me to a nearby township. I spent the day building the roof of a house in the Habitat for Humanity program. It was really cool to spend a whole day in a township and it turned out to be really interactive with inhabitants. We went on a walk towards the end of the day with our group leader who had, himself, grown up in that township, and I could really see the difference Habitat for Humanity was making there. We walked past fields of trash with lean-to style houses around them. There were houses made out of scraps that Americans would pay to have removed from sight. But there were also tons of Habitat houses as well as houses made by a similar program from Ireland. Our leader took us to a preschool where probably 30 little 3 year olds sang us nursery rhymes in an African dialect (I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know which). They all wanted to snap thumbs, like give a thumbs up and touch their thumb to your thumb. It was super cute. One of the girls in our group bent down when we were walking down this street and picked up a little packet of tiny papers. When we all looked at it, we realized that it was meant to be a little pretend slider cell phone, with all the little buttons written in. It was so creative and so cute! We put it back where we found it and finished our walk.
After Habitat for Humanity I met back up with my gang: Kendyll, Ali, and Carly, and we met up with Amy (from Pomona!) and her friend Mike for dinner. She invited me to dinner at her house the next night. It was suuuuper nice to see her. basically we wasted the next day on the internet and in the mall and eventually my friends left for a rugby game and I took a cab to Amy’s neighborhood. I have to now take a moment to teach you some South African slang (mostly in Afrikaans I think):
Brei: BBQ
lekkar: awesome
jol: party/good time
robots: traffic lights (this one really confused us when we got directions in Namibs)
So I went to a brei. My taxi driver took me to the wrong girls school in Amy’s neighborhood so I called her and she said she’d come get me (on foot). She showed up with a boy named Joel and Zach. Zach is another Pomona student, one I don’t know very well but seeing two Pomona students (and Joel) coming towards me made me SO happy. Note that this is a theme that would continue all night that night. I had NO idea how much I missed my PEOPLE. We walked back to Amy’s house where I was surprised and delighted to learn that there were even more Pomona people at the brei than I had expected: Amy, Zach, Michael Larsen, Evan Stalker, Brian Gillis, Alan Feidorek, Kira from the soccer team. It was wonderful. And their non-Pomona friends rocked big time too. It was a lekkar jol. For sure. I really really really miss my friends. In fact, if you’re reading this blog I more than likely really miss you. We ate hamburgers, pasta salad, and played games. Did I mention it was wonderful?
I spent the night because I didn’t want to take a cab alone at night but I had to wake up early the next day to get back to the ship. I was meeting my friends at 9:00 to go to the winelands. The COOL thing was that Joel had friends on the ship that he was also meeting at 9:00 because he was also going to the winelands! So we took a minibus together. Minibuses are NOT a jol. They are sketchy. To give you an idea, my cab fare, with tip had been about 15 USD the day before. My minibus fare for almost the same distance was 50 cents. It was like this big van that everyone pretended was a bus and the guy who drove honked the whole way to get people’s attention. But one of the passengers decided eventually that the driver was honking too much and his soliciting was slowing us down. So they got in a fight. It consisted of the two of them telling each other how stupid and poor the other was. Eventually they said things like the F word and that they’d hit each other if they weren’t in a car… Joel and I were a BIT uncomfortable. Nothing happened though. If that had happened in New York they would have just said “F you” a couple of times and shaken their heads and shut up but they did NOT stop they just kept telling the other one that he was poor and stupid….
We survived and wine tasting was INCREDIBLE. The winelands in Cape Town are SUPER green and lush and the wine is LEKKAR. It is way good. We went to 4 vineyards. By noon I was tipsy but then that wore off. We sampled just tons of wines and cheeses and we had this really wonderful driver, Janni, and his assistant Kelly. They were terrific guides. They did not cheat us one bit, and they taught us all about the winelands and made negotiations for us. The first wine tasting was at Paarl. It was led by this woman Kirsten who gave us a tour of the cellars and took us step by step through wine tasting, how to etc. It was totally personalized and extremely informative: the perfect way to start the day. Janni and Kelly eventually dropped us off at Stellenbosch, one of the most famous vineyards. They had this deal where you could pet cheetahs there so I got to hang out with Enigma, this cuddly cheetah. That was awesome. And then we had dinner at this super luxurious restaurant there called Spier (I think that’s how it’s spelled). This place was unbelievable. There were tree houses everywhere where you could sit and little private couch areas with curtains you could have around the bar. We did this huge like 5 or 6 course buffet, all of African foods. It was to die for. And there was live music and they painted our faces. Get ready to fly to South Africa in several years because I’m getting married there someday.
Janni and Kelly came back and picked us up. We spent our last day on one of those red double decker tourism buses which took us all around Cape Town. We had a relaxing day visiting the botanical gardens and a few beaches and then we got back on the ship and here I am!
Sorry to overwhelm you with news! Upcoming: Mauritius tomorrow (I’m snorkeling with my marine bio professor) and the day after that are the Sea Olympics onboard the ship.

Whew!
Love to you all!
Martha

PICTURES

Ok. I have SO much to write about:

Neptune Day (the festive day the ship crossed the equator)
Namibia
South Africa (still in Capetown, right now actually)

So all of that is coming but in the mean time, here are four pictures (I hope this works) of me in a township yesterday. I did Habitat for Humanity.

LOVE YOU!

Never mind. It didn't work. But go to my facebook! I'll load all my pictures from yesterday there!

Bonjour, Moroc!

Hi everyone!!!!!

Guess where I am???? I'll give you a hint... West Africa... they speak French there.... What's that? Elliott, is your hand up??? You're RIGHT! Senegal! Betcha didn't know THAT!!

Actually I'm not in Senegal anymore... But I WAS!! Just the other day! Betcha didn't know THAT! We left Senegal after stopping briefly at the port in Dakar for refueling. It was awesome. We didn't leave the ship, but there were little tiny fishermen in little tiny canoes all around us as we came in to port. I got super sunburned (I'm fine) after lying out on the deck, with the vague imagery of industrial West Africa on the other side of the railing. It occurred to me, in my sun-drunk stupor (I was definitely sun drunk.. or maybe I had cabin fever), that NOBODY at home (or in Chicago or New York or Lafayette or Edinburgh or at school) had ANY idea (ANY idea) that I was in Senegal. But I was. Nanny nanny poo poo! Now I'm in the Southern hemisphere somewhere. Happy summer, everyone!

But how did I get here? Last you heard, I was in Spain! Well a lot has happened since then and THAT is what I'm here to tell you about.

Actually not that much happened. More stuff has happened to my friends lately than has happened to me. I like it that way, I think... As long as it's such stupid stuff. More on that after I tell you about what I did in Morocco.

We arrived in Casablanca and me and my friends (Kendyll, Ali, Carly, two girls named Ashley, Amanda, Jacob, and Ben) woke up early to get on a train to Marrakesh, along with just about everyone else from the M V Explorer. Walking from the ship out of the port was immediately crazy. We were bombarded by men, mainly taxi drivers, who were crazily, passionately.... inviting?? Suggesting? COMMANDING us to take their transportation services. Hell no. They were over charging by SO much, knowing we had JUST arrived in Morocco on a cruise ship. So we walked past to words and expressions designed to communicate to us how unreasonable WE were being by passing these "innocently helpful" people by... I still have to remind myself, when I'm thinking back on it, that I was in the right. They were so adeptly persuasive that they made us second-guess what we knew. And what we knew was not to trust them. But anyway, we DIDN'T trust them and were rewarded by cheap rides in "Petit Taxi"s to the train station. Have you ever played Crazy Taxi? The video game? Well there seem to be NO traffic laws in Morocco- in Africa, for that matter. It is JUST like crazy taxi. I had to close my eyes multiple times.

The train ride was pleasant. Kendyll and I sat in a compartment with the ship's Art History professor and his wife. They were REALLY cool. They kind of reminded me of your parents, Lexsea... but not as cool. PS say hi to your parents for me! We talked about traveling... Ok I'm going to skip to the next thing.

THEN we arrived in Marrakesh and went straight to the Place Djemma el Fna. We had arranged to meet up with our friend Colin there the next day and I remembered it from the last time I was in Marrakesh so that's where we decided to search for a hotel. I don't know about you but I'm having trouble with the spelling of Marrakesh and Morocco back to back. I know how to spell them but Marrakesh has two "r"s and Morocco only has one but it has two "c"s... So if I get it wrong in this post please know that I DO know how to spell both.

We found what was actually a fairly cool hotel. We each paid 80 Dirham which is pretty close to $8.00 for the night. Pretty much everyone in our group hated it because the blankets on the beds were like ancient woolen ones from... who knows where. But I slept great. We had clean sheets, two person rooms with their own bathrooms, and a pretty little view out into a very private and ornate little courtyard. Oh, and did I mention that when we walked out of the lobby, we were IN Marrakesh's main square????? It was cool. We decided to only spend one night there though because people were uncomfortable. I didn't mind leaving to tell the truth.

We spent our time in Marrakesh mainly eating and shopping. The square is surrounded by maze-like crazy markets or "Souks". You could absolutely get lost in them VERY easily (we did, twice). What blows my mind is that the shopkeepers in the touristy parts are all selling the exact same stuff. The exact same T-shirts, the exact same rip-off designer stuff, the exact same shoes and bags and hookahs.. I don't know how they survive. I managed to not spend too much money, in the end I bought a pair of shoes for 12 or so dollars (I ended up throwing them out because I made the mistake of wearing them for like half an hour in Casablanca and after that they ABSOLUTELY smelled exactly like poop).

We really enjoyed the food. We had a lot of couscous and Tagine and mint tea. Tagine is the main Moroccan dish that you find everywhere you go. It's usually some sort of meat (chicken for me) and some vegetables (sometimes with french fries, my favorite) served in a clay dish that comes with this weird conical top on it to keep it warm. The best waiters kind of flourish the conical top as they serve it and steam comes up off of it smelling delicious. As for the mint tea, it is THE best. Absolutely the sweetest, minty-est tea I've ever had. It's as simple as that.

The center of the square goes CRAZY at night. All day there are women with henna stands, men selling orange juice (SKETCHY), men with monkeys and snakes that they'll literally throw on you if you're not careful and then demand money. But at night bagillions of other people show up. I do NOT know who these people are but they come literally in droves (I think.. I'm not positive what actually constitutes a drove)... They mostly end up standing around street performers who say things in Arabic that I couldn't really understand and kind of dance.. I didn't really watch the street performers much. What I DID watch, standing in the crowded circle around a shirtless guy with long white hair who appeared to be dancing, were the men in baggy coats who would walk around the circle. These men were clearly not watching the show. They weren't even watching the people. Their focus was on the waist area of the audience-members. They carefully took in the vulnerability of people's camera cases and purses and pockets. My friends and I had all stowed our stuff away so obsessively as to be almost paranoid so I wasn't worried about our group and fortunately nothing of ours was stolen, but it was a real wake up call.

The next day, after pretty much failing to meet up with Colin (it's ok, he was with other people) we wandered around with this crazy, 5'4'' SAS guy named Jake. Jake has a napoleon complex. Also he has medusa hair, piercings on his nose, eyebrow, lip, two biceps, and hip. Plus a tattoo or two. By this point, our group consisted of Ali, Kendyll, Carly, and myself, the Ashleys and Amanda having left on an earlier train back to the ship. Apparently Kendyll kind of knew Jake but I'm pretty much still not sure how we wound up with him. In a nutshell, he represented himself to us as an experienced traveler, fluent in French, and great at making friends with "the locals". We became gradually disenchanted of this impression, beginning at lunch when he asked our waiter for "le check". From then on it became more and more clear that, although I guess his parents spoke French, he only believed that he did. In fact what he did instead was use a bizarre French/Arabic accent, bad grammar, and too much volume as he spoke English to waiters, shopkeepers, the people at the train station etc. I've heard of people doing this but I've never seen it in action. I assumed if someone DID talk like that, then that someone was probably an old, racist, white geriatric or something, not a young hippie, self-proclaimed citizen of the world. Example: I was buying those shoes I told you about, that I ended up throwing out. I was doing really well with the shopkeeper. I think he asked me for like $20 and I told him, truthfully, that my friend Ali had gotten a pair just like them from another shopkeeper for $10. I made it clear I wasn't going to pay more than that. Suddenly, out of the blue, Jake storms into the shop, turns to me and dramatically says "NO NO! HE NO UNDERSTAND YOU" but with an accent. Then he turns to the man and says "CHEE-PAIR" (cheaper) "CHEE-PAIR". I ended up paying $12 instead of $10 because I was just embarrassed and wanted to get out of there.. Pretty much the same thing happened at another little stall. My friends and I were inside talking to the guys who worked there. They were about our age and both of them spoke English fluently (one had studied at I forget which college in New York for a year). Suddenly, Jake, who had been out in front of the stall negotiating over a T-shirt makes a HUGE fuss shouting "NO NO NO! COME, FRIENDS! WE MUST LEAVE! THIS MAN DISRESPECT ME! HIS PRICE- RIDICULOUS! COME, FRIENDS! THIS MAN VERRRRRRY RUDE". We were like, seeya Jake YOU storm out, we'll finish our conversation. So he did and we did. Apparently the man Jake had been negotiating with ended up insulting him by calling him "George Bush's son" and a "terrorist" NOT kidding. Way to fit in/befriend "the locals"! The rest of us kind of just laughed, apologetically with the guys we had been talking to.

So then we made our way back to the ship. We drank some wine on the train and made friends with the middle aged Moroccan woman in our first class compartment (first class is like $12 versus $8). Her name was Layla so we sang Eric Clapton to her several times. I think she liked it.

As for the stories I hinted I'd tell about friends doing stupid things, one was the story of Jake, and there are two more which I'll briefly describe:

1. Our friends Jacob and Ben ended up going skiing with one of the Southern boys "Beer" (it's his last name but everyone calls him that). They had a nice day of skiing, believe it or not, but afterward were caught in a late night snow storm and unable to get a taxi. Unfortunately they had also just about run out of money and didn't have enough to stay at the mountain lodge and get a cab the next morning. They ended up paying a guy in a truck $40 to take them down the mountain which took hours and involved long, freezing negotiations in the dark (none of the guys spoke French) and like 10 other Moroccan guys piling into the truck. Jacob told me he was pretty sure they were going to AT LEAST get mugged. I would have mugged them. But they made it unscathed, believe it or not.

2. Back on board the ship, leaving Morocco, we went through CRAZY rocky waters. I'm not really sure why although I'm sure it was explained at some point. Our Southern friends decided to go to the Union which is at the bow (if that means the front) of the ship, the rockiest part during turbulence. We had been advised to be in our rooms, seated, with our possessions well-stowed but they were like, "Let's see if we can run all the way across the union and survive!" Two of the three of them ended up with canes and one ended up with a broken wrist. AND everyone's parents got an email being like, "Some people were injured in the crazy turbulence- DON'T WORRY!" Fools. Kendyll and I stayed in our rooms and ALL our furniture (beds, table, chair, bedside tables) slid all the way across the room TWICE. The beds slid even though we were IN them!

I'll write an update about Neptune Day (the wild and crazy festive day when we celebrated crossing the equator) sometime in the near future.

LOVE to you all!!!

Martha

PS I'm going to be arriving in Namibia on Valentine's Day, in case you were wondering what's next on the agenda.

Hola de E(th)pana!!!

Spain:

Hola mi amigos!!!!!!!

I am currently passing through the Strait of Gibraltar en route to Casablanca! Our arrival in Casablanca is currently delayed by at least 12 hours due to I guess bad weather. We were to refuel in the Strait, right by the big ole ROCK and I guess we did but it took waaaay longer than expected. So whatever. We'll arrive in Casablanca tonight and I'll probably leave for Marrakech with some friends tomorrow. I hope I'm spelling everything right.

But ETHPANA. Let me tell you all about it!

Our boat landed in Cadiz the morning of January 28th and my friends and I enjoyed a leisurely day there. I bought some weird Spanish candies... etc. Actually Ali and I made a beeline for a cafe where we ordered "caffee con leche" (Yo no se how to spell in Spanish..). The highlight of the first day, however, was right after that when we found a little restaurante right across from this GORGEOUS cathedral. We ordered delicious seafood Paella and Sangria (which KNOCKED us out- we had to go rest on the ship for awhile) and actually it was really really good (and we accidentally spent between the two of us- on ONLY Paella and Sangria 32 Euros... this is to be a trend in Spain: spending). We took a lot of pictures of the cute little town and then, as I said, needed a rest. It was evening and Ali and Kelsea (pronounced "Kelsey" if you were wondering), another friend, were signed up for a Flamenco night which maybe I should have done too but I opted out. So I waited for them, our plan being to go out at about 11:00 and seek out dinner and perhaps una cervesa (apparently Spain is happenin' late at night and all the cool Spanish people wait to eat until late). SO I rested and watched 310 to Yuma and got really scared alone in my room. But then they came back and we went out. OOPS. Cadiz was totally closed. And we kind of still don't really understand why. All of our guest lecturers had built up the night life of Spain and explained the culture's late eating habits so we had been really excited. After about an hour of wandering around with NO one else in the streets and EVERYTHING closed, we began a desperate search for a Burger King someone had seen earlier that day. It too was closed. SO then we eventually found this weird little room full of vending machines. My dinner was sour cream and onion pringles, these weird gummy candies, and German Kinder chocolates.

The next morning, Ali, Kelsea, and I got on a bus to Granada to meet up with my roommate Kendyll, our other friend (through Kendyll), Carly, and some boys Andrew, Ben, and Jacob. The bus was expensive, in case you were wondering. But it was pleasant. I slept the whole way. In Granada, we stayed in a youth hostal that was down this REALLY sketchy ally. The door didn't have a sign on it. It literally had a number (20, I think) and a picture of a backpacker giving a thumbs-up. We had free internet access though and there was a cute little courtyard and kitchen. I slept on the top bunk of a bed that had a forty-something year old European man on the bottom bunk. Our bunk bed was one of four or five in the room. Whatever. It was an acceptable place to stay if a little sketchy. After checking in at the hostal, we went out for tapas. This was my favorite eating experience of Granada. I got a sample plate and I'm not sure even what I ate but all of it was wonderful. There were meats, there were sauces, there was Manchego... It was delicious. After that we went shopping and I purchased a really cute Srgt. Pepper style jacket for only 10 Euros. I also got some candy... Um you don't need to hear all the mundane details. We didn't end up spending much time with the boys we were traveling with but we realized our group of five girls (Ali, Kendyll, Carly, Kelsea, and me) was really good. That night we met up with some of Kelsea's friends who were studying in Granada while Carly and Kendyll went off with some of Carly's friends. We had cervesas and got free pizza with them (I'm not sure why but it was good). And then we said goodbye and Ali and Kelsea and I went off in search of the famous Granada night life. We didn't quite find it but eventually we needed to go to the bathroom so we went into a bar and met Manuel the bar tender and Irene the friendly Granada college student who helped translate and offered directions. Our main goal was to find Carly and Kendyll. We never did. But in the process of looking for them we made tons of friends, Spanish and American. For example, in addition to Manuel and Irene, we met these girls on the street who go to Puget Sound and said that they thought maybe they knew Carl Larson, my first boyfriend ever. Small world, Ethpana.

The next day we went to the Alhambra. It was gorgeous. A few in our group were fairly... "tired" after the night before (not me!) but the first thing they did was get a beer at this little hut at the Alhambra. I laughed at that a lot. But we were just having that kind of a trip. The Alhambra was gorgeous. It's hard to describe. I'll try to put up pictures at some point.

THEN we got on a bus to Seville. We got in rather late in the afternoon/early in the evening and walked around until we finally found a hostal. THIS hostal was wonderful. We had two rooms one for three of us and one for the other two. All to ourselves! They were like hotel rooms and I guess we paid for about that... Yikes. We went out to dinner at an Italian restaurante in an area recommended by a friend of Kelsea's. For once we did well with our money. We ordered two medium pizzas, one pasta dish (Gorgonzola and walnuts!) and three bottles of the house wine (don't judge me- there were five of us!) for ten euros per person! Pretty good, eh?? And, once more, we made friends with our waiter! I don't know his name.. I don't think he ever told us but then he gave us free shots of lemoncello (may or may not be an Italian restaurant tradition..) but we talked him into having one with us and then as we left he kissed Carly and Kendyll.. like KISSED them on the lips as if it was a normal goodbye... The other three of us were sort of weirded out but I guess that's just how some guys DO in Europe...

Then we went to a couple of bars.. No biggie. And then we ended up fulfilling our final Spain "MUST-do" which was to eat churros in hot chocolate. At the little churros stand there were like 15 guys in their 30s-40s who took picture after picture with us and then we talked about Obama with them (I say "talked" but none of us could understand each other except actually me and this one guy who spoke German...) and then they brought up Bush and started doing the chicken dance which none of us understood but which we gladly participated in anyway.

So all in all it was pretty great. I got the opportunity a couple of times to call my parents and Robbie and it was really great to hear their voices. We made it through the trip with no real mishaps (ironically, as soon as I got back safely on the ship I scratched my cornea but that's another story and it's fine now). We made TONS of Spanish friends. That reminds me: one more highlight. At the Alhambra we were taking pictures of each other jumping up in the air and these young Spanish guys were sitting there and they said "where are you from?" and I kind of apologetically was like "the United States" and they went "OBAMA!!! YES WE CAN!!!" And I just almost cried. I got the biggest goosebumps. It was such an amazing, wonderful moment where I realized how different traveling really is and will be for Americans now. I'm SO proud.

LOVE to you all!

Martha