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

Life on this Crazy Ship

Aboard the MV Explorer:

Hi!

Robbie asked me to tell him what I do every day on this boat. Also, dad asked what activities I'm doing. This is my response!

Daily Life on this crazy boat:

The first thing you have to know is that I have two different kinds of days: days with class and days with no class. Every day starts the same, though, whether it's WITH or WITHOUT. I wake up every morning at 8:00 (actually 8:15) and eat one peanut M&M. If I'm on top of it, the first thing I do is RUN upstairs to get breakfast which closes at 8:30. After hectic and sloppy enjoyment of a peanutbutter and jelly english muffin and maybe also some yogurt, I return downstairs to my cabin (on deck 3, dining halls are on decks 5 and 6). It should be noted here that walking downstairs on this ship is NOTHING like what you landlubbers are doing. The ship doesn't rock horribly but it's pretty hard to feel stable. I know this doesn't SOUND too extreme but reeeeeally try to imagine it: you can't walk down the stairs without holding the railing. Really think about that. Now add to that equation that you're super tired. You get to know people really well as you crash into them every morning.

After breakfast I have until 9:20 to get dressed. I usually check my email first and my roommate Kendyll and I either talk or don't talk depending on how sleepy we still are, but the atmosphere is always very pleasant either way. Usually we then depart for Global Studies. Everyone has Global Studies and it happens at the same time every day. In Global Studies we listen to this old hippie who I don't really dig mumble about stupid stuff. On day one he explained photosynthesis (Um... I'm pretty sure we've all learned about that.. Also, what does that have to do with ANYTHING) and today he LITERALLY spent at least ten minutes on how days and seasons work ("well the earth's axis is tilted so as our planet circles the sun..."). What. I dozed today. The other weird thing about Global Studies is all 700 of us take it at the same time and the biggest classroom (the Union) holds like 300 so a bunch of people sit in classrooms nearby and watch the lecture on TVs. This works out for sea sick people because the Union is at the very front of the ship where the rocking's the worst and the classrooms are better for their stomach, but it's hard for me to watch a TV tell me about photosynthesis. The good news is the other professors also teach that class, the hippie brings them in to guest lecture and so far every professor OTHER than the hippie has been excellent. We learned about the Caribbean (Sugar, pirates, and other stuff) which was cool.

So that happens every day. After Global Studies it's like any college where people have different schedules. Mine just happens to be ordered so that all my classes are on one day.

WITH class:

After Global Studies I go to US Foreign Policy. My friend Kelsea (spelled like Lexsea!) is in it which is cool and the professor is HILARIOUS. As in he swears really casually and is super old. That class will be the hardest for me I think because there is a lot of rather dense reading but it's really interesting and the class moves along in a lively fashion thanks to Professor Mabbutt.

Then I have lunch. The weird thing on the ship is it's REALLY hard to find your friends. We all have phones in our rooms and we can call each other from there but if our friends aren't in their rooms, you better make new ones for the lunch hour. Which is actually kind of cool since everyone's in the same BOAT on that if you know what I mean. Today I was fortunate enough to run into Kelsea (of USFP) and my friend Thomas. Thomas is interesting. He's from Georgia and described himself as "probably the most conservative person on this ship." He's really up front about it but not obnoxious. Ali and I decided we can be friends with him it'll just never be like a super long intense close friendship. I lifted weights with him yesterday (you'll see when I describe WITHOUT class days) and he kept suggesting I use these light weights. I was like, Thomas back off. The girls in Oregon are buffer than those in Georgia. Figure it out. Lunch was fine. Food's not very good here but it's doable. After lunch Kelsea and I tanned/read by the pool for about half an our.

THEN I have Studies in Poetry. Again I really like this professor. He's also sort of elderly and has a good sense of humor (much more soft spoken than Mabbutt) but, unfortunately, some of the people in the class are lame. I have a friend in that class as well, Colin from C... I can't remember. Connecticut! He made good points about the poetry. But this one girl. Yikes. She prefaces her comments with "I'm sorry, when I analyze poetry I just go way to deep and then I'm always like, I bet no one else will have seen it this way, it's so weird. Sorry. I just go really far into it" like it's weird of her but secretly like she wants us to clap for her. And then she repeats what everyone else was saying but makes it wrong-er. Whatever. I still really like the class.

THEN I have Marine Biology. HILARIOUS professor. The best of all!!!!! He's really nerdy but laughs about it and knows how to make it just absolutely hilarious. He ran into a post today because he was pacing around the classroom and the boat rocked and then he hugged the post and said "I love this post" as if he had meant to do it. Hard to describe his humor but I look forward to that class SO much. It's my favorite. And we learn fun facts about fish (there's some ALLITERATION for you, poetry butthead girl!)

Then, as in, right now, I go to my room and catch up on email. I may rest a bit. Watch some 30Rock or one of the free movies that plays on the TV in my room. Eventually I'll call Ali for dinner and then hang out with friends until it's time to go to sleep. Oh and I have a date with the stairmaster at 8:30 (literally. I had to sign up last night in order to work out today).

WITHOUT class:

I do all the stuff I already said up until Global Studies. Then I take a nap. I wake up for lunch and then I hang out with friends by the pool/do readings for the next day/work out. Mostly I hang out with people. There's a lot of sitting and talking that goes on. And we play cards and watch movies. And they host events every night I forgot that part. There's a swing dancing class tonight and an Open Mic Night one of these days.

PS at the activities fair I signed up for battle of the bands (upcoming I guess) and to volunteer at the writing center as a tutor. So that stuff too.

So life is jam packed. The days are long when you look back on them because so much happens each day. I'm loving it and time is flying.

LOVE,

Martha

Belated Update (s)

The Bahamas!!!

But first, how to reach me: 1. my gmail emails get forwarded to me so emailing me there is fine but my ship email is mupreston@semesteratsea.net make sure you do .NET!!!

Nassau:
I met up with Ali, a friend of a friend, at the airport and we had arranged for all the same flights. Ali is wonderful. We had a really great time flying together, for example we enjoyed Coronas and fries at the Chili's Margarita Bar in Fort Lauderdale and had a really fun time with this weird touch-screen thing that was supposed to take our orders. When we got to the Bahamas, we explored our craaaazy resort. We stayed at the Atlantis in Nassau, which you might want to look up online because it's ridiculous. It's a Disneyland for grown-ups. There are humongous water slides, some of which are pretty much vertical and mayan-ruins decorated. There are also a few where you ride on innertubes through a hallway made up of aquarium walls. The Aquariums (there's also a restaurant/aquarium) house giant (really huge) sting-rays and medium-sized sharks. It's crazy. Ali and I didn't really test the water slides much, we just looked at them. We each put in a dollar at the casino.. that was weird because we didn't know how to use the slot machine. We had several pina coladas and hung out at the beach. It was weird and overwhelming but mostly really pleasant. I would never ever go there again though. Too decadent and tacky.

The second night in the Bahamas we met up with like, hundreds of semester at sea students at a bar/restaurant called Senor Frog's. This place was bizarre. The walls and ceiling were covered in these tacky signs that said sassy things about alcohol like "Alcoholism may be bad, but I sure love the symptoms" or something. Except one wall was open and looked out on the ocean. So that was nice. There was a DJ who would bring people up on the stage and force them to do weird things like gallop like a horse or sing kareoke. Periodically white confetti would spray out, I'm not sure from where (from whence?). At one point, the random people on the stage apparently pleased the DJ by galloping particularly well and the DJ declared that there would be "free shots" for everyone in the bar. Do you know what that meant? It meant everyone made a conga line that wove all around the bar until it got to this guy who had a bottle of fruity alcohol that he would pour into each person's mouth. Even though it was REALLY loud-too loud to really get to know anyone- Ali and I got the names of TONS of people which made it easier when it was time to check in to the boat.

SO. The next day we checked in to the boat! We got there at like 10:00 or so and had to wait in line for over an hour. They put ALL of EVERYONE'S stuff through an x-ray machine and we had to go through two metal detectors... I guess we're pretty safe. We now all have traveler's insurance cards as well as ID cards. The ship is so tremendously gorgeous you wouldn't believe it. If you look online, it's nice, but in real life it BLOWS your mind. I'm not exaggerating. Right now, looking out the window of my room, I see the rolling sparkling Atlantic. And there's a spa on the ship. And a bar. And a swimming pool. You can get incredible massages or facials or manicures or your hair cut or whatever (expensive, of course). I slept SO well last night and it was big-time because of the rocking. My room mate Kendyll described people's movement through the hallways and rooms on the ship as being like those fish that all move in the same direction at the same time without apparently signaling or whatever. The ship rocks and so do we. It's pretty funny.

Speaking of my room mate, she's great. Ali and I have spent a lot of time with her so far. She's from Reno Nevada and she goes to the University of Nevada there. She's a history major and she's an Obama supporter. THAT brings me to my next point:

We just came back to the room after watching the inauguration in the Union (a big amphitheater type room)! It was incredible. I was tearing up as soon as I saw the little sweet Obama babies. Everyone was asked not to log on to the internet during the inauguration because there was barely enough bandwidth to support it. Everyone cheered and celebrated and the whole while we were rocking in the waves. I'm really excited to be traveling in a time when being American is no longer something to be shy and embarrassed about!

Some other tidbits:

I don't have an "RA" but I basically do. She's called a "Living and Learning Coordinator" and she works I think at UC Santa Cruz..? I think.

The food is not bad but not good.

I put up a ton of pictures on my wall as well as some other decorations (like the crazy banner thing from Lexsea). Our room is all moved-in and tidy.

We're not supposed to call our "Voyage" a "Cruise" but the administrators refer to the "dorms" as the "hotel"... Our beds get made for us and our shower is better than my shower at home. AND I only share it with one person!

My bed is pretty durn comfy but not amazing or anything.

We have a TV in our room that gets several channels: an info channel as well as several that play movies all day (I'm not kidding: we watched Black Hawk Down last night).

Classes start tomorrow.

It's warm on the boat in the sun, even when we're traveling.

Ali's room mate is good too but not as good as mine and we're not really that close with her yet.

My asthma is getting much better since I've been using my inhaler.

Our window is quite large.

LOVE,

Martha

Well well WELL WELL welllllll

WHEEEW.

Here we go everybody!!!!! Seat belts on?? Helmets buckled???? Get ready for a terrifying, dizzying week!

We have come to the official week of my departure. If I felt swearing was appropriate for my readership I might do so here.

Here is a sampling of some of the things I need to do:

1. Go through the twelve travel books I borrowed from the library and create an information folder by scanning hundreds of pages (I have to do this research NOW because I'll have very limited internet use on the ship). This task may sound innocent enough but it's going to take forever, believe you me.
2. Several coffee dates. That's fine. I'm looking forward to those.
3. GET INOCULATED. Can you believe I'm letting them shoot me with needles just so that when Moroccan mosquitoes try to do the same to me it will be ok? In I way I feel like I'm enabling them.
4. Pack. This one is good and bad. I'm really excited to HAVE everything organized. Unfortunately the process I'll need to go through is going to stink because my room is just absolutely trashed right now.
5. Print out this one page I'm supposed to show the people in Nassau Customs. Also fax SAS my updated transcript.
6. Buy: magnets (the walls of my room are not, themselves "magnetic" as Ben Coppersmith pointed out, but they are magnetized metal so I'll hang up pictures with magnets.), an international phone card, and yoga pants.
7. Pick out the music I want to sing at my senior recital. I really need to get on this NOW before I leave so I can start learning it on the ship..

That's it. That's not that bad.

oops and 8. Shave my legs. I'm going to the BAHAMAS.

You know that feeling where time is moving forward and just dragging you with it? Maybe you don't. That feeling is my conjoined twin. BAD joke meaning that I can't shake that feeling.. I just have a lot to do that I haven't been getting done but time is moving forward anyway. I just need to catch up to it. Time. What a jerk.

This post is getting rather long but I would just, quickly, like to give a "shout out" to my home-boy Robbie. He's off in "Scottyland," and taking Edinburgh by storm. Unfortunately he has mostly just taken the Edinburgh toilets by storm so far, as he got food poisoning on his first afternoon out.. But he's recovering from that and from jet lag and I would just like to say that I'm really excited about the adventure he's beginning. Even though I'd rather hang out with him on a cruise around the world.

Love to all of you!
Martha