Hong Kong is a city straight out of a sci-fi movie. Everything is so clean and modern, giant windowed buildings, walking bridges that cover the city so that pedestrians do not have to fight the traffic in the streets, amazing stores, electronics everywhere, light shows at night, the subways are clean enough for you to eat off of the floor if you wanted to – the city just exudes modern beauty intermixed with a respect for nature, people, and the world itself.
When we got into Hong Kong, it was really overcast and difficult to see clearly into this amazing city – and pretty much for the whole first day that we were there, it was a little humid, overcast, and rainy – but even this did not destroy the beauty of this city. I hope that I can give at least a glimpse into this wonderful place! Our ship was docked on Kowloon, which is another island off the cost of Hong Kong (also an island). To get to Hong Kong, we could either take a ferry ride – the most efficient and clean ferry boat ride I have ever taken – it cost $1.70 Hong Kong Dollars, which is about $.25. ($1 = 7.8 HKD) – or we could take the subway (also incredibly cheap, so easy to navigate, and clean as can be – and really quite – the whole city is very quiet, there is no yelling, screaming, honking, or anything like that, instead the city is calm. At night, around 8pm the whole city puts on a light show with its buildings and it is so cool – I mean, what city in the US does a light show every night – I love it! Just shows how much pride and respect they have for one another and their city. Same thing with the trash, graffiti, etc. – there is none and I think its simply because the people have a profound respect for their environment. There weren’t signs directly telling people not to throw trash on the ground or eat in the subways or not to speak loudly – people just did it – now if only we could get people to do that in the US!
We spent the first day wondering around Kowloon and Hong Kong. We went to the electronics stores and saw all the new Ipods, cell phones, cameras, TV’s, etc. – everything was pretty cheap because they do not have sales tax, but still relatively expensive. I found an Ipod Nano 8G for $200 – I didn’t get it, but I really wish that I had! We also went to the Opal Mine and saw some beautiful opal stones, jewelry, pearls, etc. I spoiled myself and got an opal ring (heart shaped) in an 18 K white gold setting – I probably shouldn’t have spent that much money, but oh well, I think I deserve to treat myself every now and then ( I mean really – I am only traveling around the world!). We also spent some time in the Women’s Market, which was an outside market with jackets, clothes (that would never fit an American woman – I feel like a giant in most of these places), shoes (again – they laughed when I told them the size of my feet), hair stuff, funky stuff, dolls, etc. – just a ton of stuff for pretty cheap and of course you are supposed to bargain, which is always fun. We ate at a Thai restaurant and it was really good. We also got coffee at a Starbucks – sadly, we broke down (Michelle, you will understand I am sure). Later that night, we all went out with one of the guy’s from the ship’s cousin (who lives in Hong Kong) and we ate at an outdoor booth restaurant, underneath awnings, in the pouring rain, and it was fantastic.
The next day, Tom and I got up really early to try and get as much done as humanly possible in 1 day! We went to an orphanage in Hong Kong to donate money from SAS. Then we went on a tram ride up to Victoria’s Peak, which gives the most amazing view of the city and it was a perfectly clear day. The woman at the orphanage told us that a clear day only happens 20x a year, so we got really lucky on this one. We had coffee at the peak and then took the tram back down. We walked through the city gardens, saw pink flamingoes, a bird sanctuary, rose gardens, and lots of green foliage everywhere. Then we took the subway to Central Station and headed to another island off of Hong Kong, where we took a gondola ride up and across the island to this little village with a massive Buddha statue on the top of a hill. We walked up to the Buddha on a staircase with at least a hundred steps, took some great pictures, hung out with the giant Buddha for a bit, had some ice cream, did some shopping, probably the most comical thing about our trip to the Buddha was that he charged $20 HKD to visit! We then rode the gondola back down the mountain, got back on the subway, back to Kowloon and then we ate at the fanciest restaurant in Hong Kong – the Pizza Hut! I kid you not, Tom and I were underdressed for eating in this establishment! The menu was 20 pages long and most of it was not pizza, but different types of Chinese foods, Thai, Italian, it was pretty crazy. We ordered just a regular pizza and it pretty much tasted like Pizza Hut pizza, but I didn’t see anyone else actually eating pizza there. It was a fun experience and now I can say that I ate Pizza Hut in Hong Kong!
After our glorious meal at the Hut, we got back onto the ship and have now been sailing to Qingdao, China for the past 2 days. The ship is mostly empty, only about 80 people are on board because everyone else is traveling independently and meeting us in China. Its actually really nice being on the ship when its this quiet. I have gotten so much work done, slept in, the meals are better cause there are fewer people – its really fairly relaxing. The weather has completely changed course and now it feels like spring without any heat! I love it – finally, we are getting some cooler air. We arrive in China tomorrow morning at 8am and will be there until Sunday night. Then we are on the ship for 2 days and then we reach Japan, I cannot believe it – Japan – our last stop is almost here. But, I am not going to think about that, instead I am going to enjoy Quindao!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
5 Days in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam & 3 Days at Sea
We traveled along the Saigon River as we came into port in Ho Chi Minh City – and what an experience. Surrounded by small boat houses/huts on the water, trees, lush green plants that extended into the river itself, navigating left and right along this little river that didn’t look like it would be deep enough for a ship to cruise through – the entire time, you find yourself thinking about how beautiful this journey is and yet at the same time thinking about how scary this must have been during the Vietnam War. All of Vietnam had this feel to it (for me anyways) – the sense that this place is so wonderful, welcoming, and beautiful – but it also had the remnants of pain, war, fear and a world that must have been terrifying for so many.
Ho Chi Minh was yet another very hot and humid stop in this journey around the world! I have grown so used to sweating all day long, that I cannot remember what it feels like to not sweat when you are outside. J Tom and I had some wonderful experiences in Vietnam and the Vietnamese people are so welcoming, forgiving, and wonderful that it was just a fantastic experience yet again. Ho Chi Minh City is very modern, easy to navigate, filled with more motorbikes that I could ever imagine – the traffic patterns are probably some of the scariest known to man, but they are also so fun! Basically, the cars, motorbikes, buses, etc. are allowed to do whatever they want – if you don’t want to stop at a red light, you simply honk your way through and people will go around you – if you feel like driving on the other side of the road, then by all means do so! Motorbikes outnumber cars by the thousands – at one point we got stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic and it just looks totally insane – thousands of motorbikes along the streets on the sidewalks – a pedestrian’s nightmare! To cross the street, you just have to go – there is no point of waiting for a signal, because it either will not come or it just doesn’t matter J So, if you just walk at a steady slow pace, the motorbikes and cars will just go around you – it got to be so fun by the end. We also took the motorbikes everywhere in the city for $1 you could get the driver to take you around all over the place. It was so much fun and luckily it wasn’t until the last day in Vietnam that we learned of all the students with muffler burns on their legs from the motorbikes – this may have prevented us from having so much fun on them! Happily – I have no muffler burns on my calves so I think I survived Vietnam quite well. My favorite experience with the motorbikes was when I got a “talking to” about why I was 26 years old and did not have any children! The driver could not understand why a woman at 26 would not have 3 children at least – and he kept asking me what was wrong with me! The entire ride he explained to me that it just was not good for me to be childless at this age and how is oldest daughter is 26 and she already has 3 children – after he dropped me off, he rode away saying 3 babies, you need 3 babies. It was quite the experience. Later, on a different tour we learned that most Vietnamese people actually feel sorry for American women. He explained that they feel proud to see all of the rights that American women have, but they also feel sorry for us because it seems that we have lost our primary life goal of the family. Vietnamese women take their roles within the family very seriously – and felt that American women had lost this valuable role within their rights.
The $1 does really well in Vietnam – 16,600 dong per $1 – and yes, we all talked about our dong at every chance that we got! The markets in Vietnam were great fun too and so great to get into the bargaining for different gifts for all of you at home – at first I really didn’t enjoy bargaining, but now I absolutely love it. Its so fun and you get such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the transaction – plus as you are bargaining, the sales person will typically tell you about themselves and their lives, so you end up learning so much about people in addition to getting a great gift. Tom and I spent one whole day in the markets (returning 2x to the ship to drop off all the stuff that we got). Then that night, we went to this amazing nonprofit shop called Vietnamese Quilts, where they helped women learn job training skills, get an education, and generate an income with their quilts. All of the money spent on the quilts was put right back into the store and the stuff was beautiful. We got a queen size quilt for $100 and it is just beautiful. The woman who ran the shop then told us about a great restaurant for dinner where the owner works with disadvantaged youth and trains them in the hospitality industry and teaches them English. They use the restaurant as a place to practice what they have learned and then move on to other industries once they have mastered their skills. The food was wonderful and the people were again so friendly.
I ate some of the best tofu dishes in Vietnam – everything that I ate had tofu included somehow and I am pretty sure that in the end, I was on tofu overload. We ate a lot of Pho, which is basically soup with noodles, spices, veggies and either meat or tofu. The Vietnamese eat soup all day long – there are vendors on the streets selling meals for under $.50 all day long. Their coffee is so amazingly strong and good that it puts any coffee in America to shame. They serve it really strongly, with condensed milk if you want it – but really, its so good that there is no need. They incorporate fresh veggies into everything and are so hospitable – they are not satisfied until you are full and happy with your entire meal. There were quite a few times when we just didn’t know if the meal would ever end because so much food kept coming out!
We took a day trip to the Mekong Delta and rode little banana boats and motor boats through the Mekong. Again, it was that feeling of being in awe over the beauty, while simultaneously seeing how scary this trip down the river would have been during the war. The river trees lean right over into the water and you are surrounded by them as you travel down the river. There are little villages and homes along the river as well, where the people live off of the river and land. So very different from Ho Chi Minh – a place so modern – but again, the people were so friendly. We also took at trip to see the Cao Dai Temples, which is a religion started with the mindset of ending war through religion. Basically the temples are a space where everyone can worship regardless of your religion and so they have statues of Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Allah, etc. – dragon statues line the walls, every color under the sun is used in the temple – it looks like you just stepped into a colorful painting – so happy and bright and open. We also went to the Cu Chi Tunnels and watched a Communist film about the Vietnam – American War – that was quite an experience. The whole film was about how many American’s the village people were able to kill and how powerful the Vietnamese were, which of course makes sense. It was odd and good to hear the other side of this story. We got to actually crawl through a tunnel, which had been expanded to fit tourists, but I wouldn’t exactly call it large by any means. We sweat our butts off in these things and it was really quite scary to be in the dark, wondering through this tunnel, you can’t see 5 inches in front of you, the walls are circled around you, the air is really hard to take in – by the time we reached the top and got out of the tunnel, everyone was panting and sweating profusely. But, it really gave you a sense of the dedication and skill of the Vietnamese – they lived inside these tunnels for sometimes 2 years at a time – and the originals are tiny, and again it also really put reality to the fear and difficulties that American soldiers must have faced in that war. On another day, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which used to be called the American Atrocities Museum – so this gives you a hint as to what was contained inside the museum – horrific photos of brutal deaths, killings, bombings, agent orange children, fetuses in jars – it was an important and difficult reality to see how horrific human beings can act during a time of war. We saw the city completely destroyed – and yet 30 years later, the city is completely built back up. Its amazing how resilient people truly are and also forgiving – at no point during my stay in Vietnam did I feel any anti-American sentiment. As one of our tour guides explained, the people of Vietnam are just so tired of war and death – that they are just thrilled to be alive – and you could really feel this in the city and throughout the country. People are just happy – fully alive and happy – and its something that is so contagious that I hope that I can bring a little bit of this happiness back to America. Vietnam is a wonderful place and I hope that I will be able to return again soon.
And so we are now on our way to Hong Kong and are scheduled to arrive there on Tuesday morning for just 2 short days. Our time at sea is really going by so quickly now and yesterday marked the official one month mark to when we will dock in San Diego. I cannot believe it – one more month – it has gone by so quickly. I feel as though I will be so ready to be back at home in one month too – because although I am loving this journey, I am also so excited to bring my experiences and thoughts home with me. I hope that I will be able to convey some of the amazing feelings of happiness, the love of life, and the love of people that these short trips have provided for me. Its funny when you can actually feel yourself changing and growing – learning so many new things about yourself, the good and the bad – and just embracing each experience without preconceived notions of how things should/need to be, but rather letting the experience take you where you need to go. This journey has been nothing short of life-changing and I cannot wait to share these things with you all. I miss you all terribly and I look forward to seeing everyone again in just 1 short month!
Ho Chi Minh was yet another very hot and humid stop in this journey around the world! I have grown so used to sweating all day long, that I cannot remember what it feels like to not sweat when you are outside. J Tom and I had some wonderful experiences in Vietnam and the Vietnamese people are so welcoming, forgiving, and wonderful that it was just a fantastic experience yet again. Ho Chi Minh City is very modern, easy to navigate, filled with more motorbikes that I could ever imagine – the traffic patterns are probably some of the scariest known to man, but they are also so fun! Basically, the cars, motorbikes, buses, etc. are allowed to do whatever they want – if you don’t want to stop at a red light, you simply honk your way through and people will go around you – if you feel like driving on the other side of the road, then by all means do so! Motorbikes outnumber cars by the thousands – at one point we got stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic and it just looks totally insane – thousands of motorbikes along the streets on the sidewalks – a pedestrian’s nightmare! To cross the street, you just have to go – there is no point of waiting for a signal, because it either will not come or it just doesn’t matter J So, if you just walk at a steady slow pace, the motorbikes and cars will just go around you – it got to be so fun by the end. We also took the motorbikes everywhere in the city for $1 you could get the driver to take you around all over the place. It was so much fun and luckily it wasn’t until the last day in Vietnam that we learned of all the students with muffler burns on their legs from the motorbikes – this may have prevented us from having so much fun on them! Happily – I have no muffler burns on my calves so I think I survived Vietnam quite well. My favorite experience with the motorbikes was when I got a “talking to” about why I was 26 years old and did not have any children! The driver could not understand why a woman at 26 would not have 3 children at least – and he kept asking me what was wrong with me! The entire ride he explained to me that it just was not good for me to be childless at this age and how is oldest daughter is 26 and she already has 3 children – after he dropped me off, he rode away saying 3 babies, you need 3 babies. It was quite the experience. Later, on a different tour we learned that most Vietnamese people actually feel sorry for American women. He explained that they feel proud to see all of the rights that American women have, but they also feel sorry for us because it seems that we have lost our primary life goal of the family. Vietnamese women take their roles within the family very seriously – and felt that American women had lost this valuable role within their rights.
The $1 does really well in Vietnam – 16,600 dong per $1 – and yes, we all talked about our dong at every chance that we got! The markets in Vietnam were great fun too and so great to get into the bargaining for different gifts for all of you at home – at first I really didn’t enjoy bargaining, but now I absolutely love it. Its so fun and you get such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the transaction – plus as you are bargaining, the sales person will typically tell you about themselves and their lives, so you end up learning so much about people in addition to getting a great gift. Tom and I spent one whole day in the markets (returning 2x to the ship to drop off all the stuff that we got). Then that night, we went to this amazing nonprofit shop called Vietnamese Quilts, where they helped women learn job training skills, get an education, and generate an income with their quilts. All of the money spent on the quilts was put right back into the store and the stuff was beautiful. We got a queen size quilt for $100 and it is just beautiful. The woman who ran the shop then told us about a great restaurant for dinner where the owner works with disadvantaged youth and trains them in the hospitality industry and teaches them English. They use the restaurant as a place to practice what they have learned and then move on to other industries once they have mastered their skills. The food was wonderful and the people were again so friendly.
I ate some of the best tofu dishes in Vietnam – everything that I ate had tofu included somehow and I am pretty sure that in the end, I was on tofu overload. We ate a lot of Pho, which is basically soup with noodles, spices, veggies and either meat or tofu. The Vietnamese eat soup all day long – there are vendors on the streets selling meals for under $.50 all day long. Their coffee is so amazingly strong and good that it puts any coffee in America to shame. They serve it really strongly, with condensed milk if you want it – but really, its so good that there is no need. They incorporate fresh veggies into everything and are so hospitable – they are not satisfied until you are full and happy with your entire meal. There were quite a few times when we just didn’t know if the meal would ever end because so much food kept coming out!
We took a day trip to the Mekong Delta and rode little banana boats and motor boats through the Mekong. Again, it was that feeling of being in awe over the beauty, while simultaneously seeing how scary this trip down the river would have been during the war. The river trees lean right over into the water and you are surrounded by them as you travel down the river. There are little villages and homes along the river as well, where the people live off of the river and land. So very different from Ho Chi Minh – a place so modern – but again, the people were so friendly. We also took at trip to see the Cao Dai Temples, which is a religion started with the mindset of ending war through religion. Basically the temples are a space where everyone can worship regardless of your religion and so they have statues of Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Allah, etc. – dragon statues line the walls, every color under the sun is used in the temple – it looks like you just stepped into a colorful painting – so happy and bright and open. We also went to the Cu Chi Tunnels and watched a Communist film about the Vietnam – American War – that was quite an experience. The whole film was about how many American’s the village people were able to kill and how powerful the Vietnamese were, which of course makes sense. It was odd and good to hear the other side of this story. We got to actually crawl through a tunnel, which had been expanded to fit tourists, but I wouldn’t exactly call it large by any means. We sweat our butts off in these things and it was really quite scary to be in the dark, wondering through this tunnel, you can’t see 5 inches in front of you, the walls are circled around you, the air is really hard to take in – by the time we reached the top and got out of the tunnel, everyone was panting and sweating profusely. But, it really gave you a sense of the dedication and skill of the Vietnamese – they lived inside these tunnels for sometimes 2 years at a time – and the originals are tiny, and again it also really put reality to the fear and difficulties that American soldiers must have faced in that war. On another day, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which used to be called the American Atrocities Museum – so this gives you a hint as to what was contained inside the museum – horrific photos of brutal deaths, killings, bombings, agent orange children, fetuses in jars – it was an important and difficult reality to see how horrific human beings can act during a time of war. We saw the city completely destroyed – and yet 30 years later, the city is completely built back up. Its amazing how resilient people truly are and also forgiving – at no point during my stay in Vietnam did I feel any anti-American sentiment. As one of our tour guides explained, the people of Vietnam are just so tired of war and death – that they are just thrilled to be alive – and you could really feel this in the city and throughout the country. People are just happy – fully alive and happy – and its something that is so contagious that I hope that I can bring a little bit of this happiness back to America. Vietnam is a wonderful place and I hope that I will be able to return again soon.
And so we are now on our way to Hong Kong and are scheduled to arrive there on Tuesday morning for just 2 short days. Our time at sea is really going by so quickly now and yesterday marked the official one month mark to when we will dock in San Diego. I cannot believe it – one more month – it has gone by so quickly. I feel as though I will be so ready to be back at home in one month too – because although I am loving this journey, I am also so excited to bring my experiences and thoughts home with me. I hope that I will be able to convey some of the amazing feelings of happiness, the love of life, and the love of people that these short trips have provided for me. Its funny when you can actually feel yourself changing and growing – learning so many new things about yourself, the good and the bad – and just embracing each experience without preconceived notions of how things should/need to be, but rather letting the experience take you where you need to go. This journey has been nothing short of life-changing and I cannot wait to share these things with you all. I miss you all terribly and I look forward to seeing everyone again in just 1 short month!
Sunday, April 8, 2007
4 Days in Penang, Malaysia and 3 Days at Sea
Malaysia was by far one of my favorite stops. It was the perfect place to go after India and I feel completely refreshed, happy, and more like myself than I felt after India. I had no expectations for what Malaysia might look like or be in anyway – and I was so pleasantly surprised. Penang is a city that I would love to return to later – the people were so friendly and the food was amazing – I had a wonderful time.
Tom on the other hand only got 2 days in Penang because he came down with the most violent stomach illness I have ever encountered. The night before we arrived in Malaysia he woke up throwing up like crazy – this continued until about 10am and the doctor had to come and give him a shot, which pretty much knocked him out cold for 2 days. The stomach flu was going around the ship and at first everyone thought that it was Delhi belly, but it turns out – it was not! Thus far, I have not gotten this stomach thing – but I will now knock on wood, because as many of you know – my belly is not the strongest of my organs! J
So while Tom laid in bed for 2 days, I went out with a bunch of people from the ship and hung around the city of Penang. Malaysia is a Muslim country, but there is also a strong Chinese culture mixed in. There are temples and mosques all over the city in between businesses, stores, and restaurants. Traffic was so manageable in comparison to India that we felt like we were back in the states. The food was amazing!!! More tofu and veggies and fruits – I thought I was in heaven! The first day we ate at a Chinese Restaurant and I had what can only be described as small bricks of tofu mixed with mushrooms and cabbage. It was soooo good. The shops in Penang had a distinctively ‘punk’ feel to them and this was really refreshing to see as well. I visited an internet café for a morning and re-discovered the glory that is the internet!!! It was so fast and beautiful…tear J
For 2 days, I basically ate everything in sight, shopped, and wondered around Penang with friends. We visited the temples, ate some more, sweat our butts off again – Malaysian heat makes India look like a slightly warm bath – it was so hot and humid that you could not even move without sweating profusely! I have yet to feel heat like this and apparently Vietnam is supposed to be even hotter…I cannot imagine – after India my limbs were swollen and my body ached from the heat and the same happened after Malaysia – so by Vietnam, I may just completely lose all feeling in my body. J
The only bad part for Malaysia was that we had to dock away from the actual pier and use our ship’s safety boats to get to and from the city. Now, initially this seemed like a lot of fun, but once you are stuffed into an enclosed lifeboat with 75 other sweaty people with no breeze – it is not so fun. So, after 2 days (and Tom felt better at this point) 5 of us went out to a beach community at Batu Ferengi for 2 days. It was beautiful! We had a bit of a rocky start though, we had initially reserved a “Guest House” but when we got there, we soon discovered that a guest house means a cement block with some pillow/mattress type things on the floor. The bathroom was just one open room with the toilet and shower in the same area – i.e. no curtain separating anything – and so you could literally shower as you used the toilet! Not exactly what we had in mind, so we upgraded to the Holiday Inn down the street for an extra $10. The Holiday Inn was one of the fanciest things I have ever stayed in – we had a massive room with a shower that could fit like 10 people, full bathtub, Malaysia TV – it was definitely worth the extra $10!
We rented scooters for the 2 days and rode all over the island. Scooters are so fun, that I may have to consider getting a motorcycle when I get back! Although really, I just enjoyed riding them and not really driving – too much to see from the bike to have to worry about driving it. We went to a Spice Garden, which was this great little sanctuary on a hill where we could wonder through forest trails, get eaten alive by mosquitoes, see a beautiful landscape and just be in a very peaceful, quiet place. We also went to a Butterfly Zoo type place, where you go into this back area and are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of butterflies. We also got to see some seriously nasty looking bugs and massive spiders too! Then we headed to the Tropical Fruit Farm, which was at the top of this giant hill and for 25 Ringette or $3.50, we could go on a tour of the farm (again, while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes) and then receive a free fruit drink and attend a fruit buffet. It was needless to say amazing – we tried 15 different tropical fruits, most of which I have never heard of before along with pineapple, mango, dragonfruit, starfruit, bananas, guava – it was fantastic. We wondered around the night markets and got some great bookleg DVD’s and a bunch of other fun stuff for people at home. We drank Tiger beer (another Coors Light basically) and ate over and over again. J I think after my tour through Asia, I will certainly be gaining some healthy world travel weight! On the last day, we traveled around the island by scooter – visited the Snake Temple, where Tom held a snake around his neck – and pretty much just drove through local towns and coast lines – we also tried to scale a mountain with our scooter, but that wasn’t really working all that well – but anyways, we stopped at this little market and got fried bananas 10 of them for 1 Ringette or like $.30 and mixed it with ice cream…I think its my new favorite food.
The one true cultural experience that we had happened at a local fish restaurant – Tom and I had gone along with another couple and when we sat down to order, the men were clearly favored. They got to order their food first and their drinks magically continued to be filled with our beers. The men’s food was brought to the table right away, while we didn’t get ours until after the guy’s had finished. If we asked for something, we were ignored and so we would have to ask one of the guys to order it for us – it was quite the experience and yet so obvious that we couldn’t really even get mad – we just sort of observed and took this experience in…very interesting.
After 4 great days in Malaysia, we boarded the ship for another 3 days at sea before arriving in Vietnam! I am sad that I no longer have a superfast internet connection or tofu, but I will soon – since Vietnam can be veggie heaven! These past 3 days, the ship has barely felt like it was moving cause the water is so calm and I have been doing a lot of GLI work, attending sessions on Marathon running, and just hanging out with people. I realized today that Easter Sunday is actually here…its strange to be so far away from commercialized life that you don’t even know what holiday is coming up – without the chocolate bunnies being thrown in your face, its so easy to forget what you are supposed to remember. At this point, the trip is flying by – so I will stop here and update after Vietnam.
Tom on the other hand only got 2 days in Penang because he came down with the most violent stomach illness I have ever encountered. The night before we arrived in Malaysia he woke up throwing up like crazy – this continued until about 10am and the doctor had to come and give him a shot, which pretty much knocked him out cold for 2 days. The stomach flu was going around the ship and at first everyone thought that it was Delhi belly, but it turns out – it was not! Thus far, I have not gotten this stomach thing – but I will now knock on wood, because as many of you know – my belly is not the strongest of my organs! J
So while Tom laid in bed for 2 days, I went out with a bunch of people from the ship and hung around the city of Penang. Malaysia is a Muslim country, but there is also a strong Chinese culture mixed in. There are temples and mosques all over the city in between businesses, stores, and restaurants. Traffic was so manageable in comparison to India that we felt like we were back in the states. The food was amazing!!! More tofu and veggies and fruits – I thought I was in heaven! The first day we ate at a Chinese Restaurant and I had what can only be described as small bricks of tofu mixed with mushrooms and cabbage. It was soooo good. The shops in Penang had a distinctively ‘punk’ feel to them and this was really refreshing to see as well. I visited an internet café for a morning and re-discovered the glory that is the internet!!! It was so fast and beautiful…tear J
For 2 days, I basically ate everything in sight, shopped, and wondered around Penang with friends. We visited the temples, ate some more, sweat our butts off again – Malaysian heat makes India look like a slightly warm bath – it was so hot and humid that you could not even move without sweating profusely! I have yet to feel heat like this and apparently Vietnam is supposed to be even hotter…I cannot imagine – after India my limbs were swollen and my body ached from the heat and the same happened after Malaysia – so by Vietnam, I may just completely lose all feeling in my body. J
The only bad part for Malaysia was that we had to dock away from the actual pier and use our ship’s safety boats to get to and from the city. Now, initially this seemed like a lot of fun, but once you are stuffed into an enclosed lifeboat with 75 other sweaty people with no breeze – it is not so fun. So, after 2 days (and Tom felt better at this point) 5 of us went out to a beach community at Batu Ferengi for 2 days. It was beautiful! We had a bit of a rocky start though, we had initially reserved a “Guest House” but when we got there, we soon discovered that a guest house means a cement block with some pillow/mattress type things on the floor. The bathroom was just one open room with the toilet and shower in the same area – i.e. no curtain separating anything – and so you could literally shower as you used the toilet! Not exactly what we had in mind, so we upgraded to the Holiday Inn down the street for an extra $10. The Holiday Inn was one of the fanciest things I have ever stayed in – we had a massive room with a shower that could fit like 10 people, full bathtub, Malaysia TV – it was definitely worth the extra $10!
We rented scooters for the 2 days and rode all over the island. Scooters are so fun, that I may have to consider getting a motorcycle when I get back! Although really, I just enjoyed riding them and not really driving – too much to see from the bike to have to worry about driving it. We went to a Spice Garden, which was this great little sanctuary on a hill where we could wonder through forest trails, get eaten alive by mosquitoes, see a beautiful landscape and just be in a very peaceful, quiet place. We also went to a Butterfly Zoo type place, where you go into this back area and are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of butterflies. We also got to see some seriously nasty looking bugs and massive spiders too! Then we headed to the Tropical Fruit Farm, which was at the top of this giant hill and for 25 Ringette or $3.50, we could go on a tour of the farm (again, while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes) and then receive a free fruit drink and attend a fruit buffet. It was needless to say amazing – we tried 15 different tropical fruits, most of which I have never heard of before along with pineapple, mango, dragonfruit, starfruit, bananas, guava – it was fantastic. We wondered around the night markets and got some great bookleg DVD’s and a bunch of other fun stuff for people at home. We drank Tiger beer (another Coors Light basically) and ate over and over again. J I think after my tour through Asia, I will certainly be gaining some healthy world travel weight! On the last day, we traveled around the island by scooter – visited the Snake Temple, where Tom held a snake around his neck – and pretty much just drove through local towns and coast lines – we also tried to scale a mountain with our scooter, but that wasn’t really working all that well – but anyways, we stopped at this little market and got fried bananas 10 of them for 1 Ringette or like $.30 and mixed it with ice cream…I think its my new favorite food.
The one true cultural experience that we had happened at a local fish restaurant – Tom and I had gone along with another couple and when we sat down to order, the men were clearly favored. They got to order their food first and their drinks magically continued to be filled with our beers. The men’s food was brought to the table right away, while we didn’t get ours until after the guy’s had finished. If we asked for something, we were ignored and so we would have to ask one of the guys to order it for us – it was quite the experience and yet so obvious that we couldn’t really even get mad – we just sort of observed and took this experience in…very interesting.
After 4 great days in Malaysia, we boarded the ship for another 3 days at sea before arriving in Vietnam! I am sad that I no longer have a superfast internet connection or tofu, but I will soon – since Vietnam can be veggie heaven! These past 3 days, the ship has barely felt like it was moving cause the water is so calm and I have been doing a lot of GLI work, attending sessions on Marathon running, and just hanging out with people. I realized today that Easter Sunday is actually here…its strange to be so far away from commercialized life that you don’t even know what holiday is coming up – without the chocolate bunnies being thrown in your face, its so easy to forget what you are supposed to remember. At this point, the trip is flying by – so I will stop here and update after Vietnam.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
5 Days in Chennai, India and 3 Days at Sea
India was one of the most amazing and difficult places that we have visited thus far and although I have had 3 days now to process my experiences in India – I am still not certain that I will be able to give a good enough description of this place – but I will try my best for all you amazing, wonderful people at home! J Ok – so Chennai, India was a completely fascinating, contradictory, traditional, liberated, clean, dirty – a place where dichotomies exist in full force and no one gives any rhyme or reason for it. After leaving India, many of us still could not put to words the experience of being in India and even now, as I write this blog – I am finding myself staring out into the ocean and wondering how in the world I am going to sum up my 5 days there…
The Chennai port is an industrial port, so we were surrounded by what looked like car dealerships, but then we also were next to a coal plant – so pretty much at all times of the day, the ship smelled of fuel and by the end of our 5 days the outside was almost completely black with coal soot. Everything from the ship to the inner corners of our ears was covered in black coal at the end of each day – and let me tell you, there are some strange things that can water out of your eyes or that you can sneeze out when you spend your days docked outside of a coal mine! J The city of Chennai was just as polluted as our port as well – cars, motorcycles, rickshaws (which are like death traps on wheels – little buggies that have a motor in them like a lawnmower – and you can fit 3 people if you stuff or like us 5 if you are really strapped for transportation!), cows, goats, dogs, bikes, people – the streets are the most stressful, chaotic and spastic streets I have ever seen – barely any lights, traffic means nothing, street signs mean nothing, driving on the wrong side of the street also means nothing – and somehow this all works. People travel around without any problems and we only saw 1 accident in the entire 5 days, which is utterly amazing considering that in many of our rickshaw experiences we came so close to the other cars, animals, people, etc. that we could have stepped into the other vehicle fairly easily.
Indians do this strange bobble head nod thing to let you know that something is acceptable or ok. Its kind of a side to side nod, so sometimes you think that the person has told you no when they are actually saying ok. Got a bit confusing when ordering food or asking for something, until we remembered what that head bobble meant! We spent all of our time in Chennai (while a lot of the people from the ship traveled to see the Taj) and we had a great experience. We saw some wonderful things and a lot of heartbreaking things as well. The first day was spent getting familiar with the city. We went out with 5 other people in a rickshaw and stopped for some market shopping and lunch. The funny thing about the rickshaw drivers is that there are specific businesses that pay the drivers to take tourists to their shops – they give the driver gifts and a commission. So of course, every time we got into the rickshaw we would have to fight with them to get them to not take us to this rug shop or souvenir shop, which were the most expensive places to go too! I think I went back to the same place 3 times and by the end of the 5 days we would just refuse to get out of the rickshaw, until they took us to where we wanted to go. Its quite fun – constant haggling for a lower price (usually arguing over a few cents), your lungs are clogged with the exhaust from all these vehicles, the streets are dirty, bathrooms are anywhere for men and for women, you have to squat over a hole in the ground. I learned to hold it until we got back to the ship! There are people that live on the streets, next to the rivers, trash is everywhere, people are begging for food, children so small and skinny tug at your arms for food, using the left hand is considered unclean because it is the hand used for wiping oneself after going to the bathroom, the food is super spicy – not really sure why one would want their mouth to burn so much, but it does clean out your sinuses! India is so hot that its almost oppressive – one day it was 110 degrees with 100% humidity – and yet the women are supposed to be fully covered (no shoulders or knees can be shown) so needless to say, I sweat my butt off again. By the end of the 5 days, my legs were actually swollen from the heat and in pain – a bunch of people on the ship felt the same way – I guess because our bodies are just not used to that type of heat – it makes NJ summers look like winter in comparison.
We visited Hindu temples so beautiful and intricate in design – statues of their gods were bold in color and carved into every part of the city. Shoes must be removed whenever going into a temple – and many a time we thought we would come back from the temples shoeless! But the people of India are very honest in a lot of ways – Karma probably has something to do with that and I think the heat too – you are just too hot to make any efforts for dishonesty. On the last day in India, we went outside of the city to Mamallapurum and Katchiaria to visit some temples created in the 8th and 9th century. It was just amazing to see the dedication of the people to preserving and using these spaces – no graffiti, no destruction – so un-American! We saw 5 temples carved out of 1 large stone from the 8th century, monks and regular people holding festivals for Shiva, hawkers selling every type of figurine possible to us (and of course, on the last day we were able to haggle them down in price so much that we got a bunch of statues of gods for $1 each – it got pretty fun!). The fabrics in India are amazing as well – so bright and beautiful and sooo cheap! I bought a sari, although I am not sure what I am going to do with it (maybe have it made into a dress or pillow cases or something) I got it for 550 Rupees and the US $1 is equivalent to 44 Rupees, so I got it for about $12 – not bad! I got a few shirts and a skirt too – the markets are just crowded with amazing things to buy and everything is really so cheap. Most of our meals only cost us $1 each. We drank a lot of soda because the water is so bad – its all cloudy and filled with bacteria and such. I had South Indian coffee, which was absolutely amazing. It comes in 3 parts – 1 part looks like coffee tar, then hot water, and then milk – it is a really dark roast and most Indians drink it black, which must keep you awake for centuries! I bought some tea, although it was surprisingly difficult to find because most people just get a cup from someone because they don’t have the means to purchase a lot on their own.
The majority of the people in India live off of $1 a day and yet there are others with advanced degrees and it seems that the country is slowly moving forward. We visited an orphanage which had about 300 children living there – of course the majority of the children were girls because, as the superintendent said, girls aren’t of any great value to the culture and are more an expense/burden than they are a blessing. I know that I know this – I mean, I work for girls’ education, have a women’s studies background and all – yet somehow in India it really hit me as to how girls and women are really seen throughout the world. I was constantly experiencing the feeling of being invisible, whether on the streets when men would cut me off, walk in front of me, etc. or when only Tom would be asked a direct question and I would be ignored or perceived strangely if I asked a question, women rarely speak directly to anyone – instead they wait to be spoken to – one woman said that the rickshaw driver was utterly shocked when he found out that she was married and “allowed to go out alone without her husband.” Men and women are not to interact in public spaces and arranged marriages still account for 70% of all marriages. If women are not married by the time they are 25 years old, they are seen as barren and ultimately sad/worthless. Publicly, men and women occupy completely different spaces and will never be seen touching. Yet, men are given complete freedom to be very affectionate with other men. It was not uncommon to see men holding hands, hugging, arms wrapped around each other, etc. – but this has nothing to do with their sexuality. Homosexuality is not a part of Indian culture – in fact it is hushed by the culture and not something that people could be open about. Women did not have the same luxury as men in being affectionate publicly with one another – so it was really an interesting experience and phenomenon to see. Most people do not own shoes, so the majority of the people in the city are walking around barefoot. Helmets are not something that anyone wears when riding a motorcycle – again, its amazing that more people haven’t died from accidents. We saw a few monkeys, but not many. Cows are sacred so if they go to cross a street or something – all traffic stops – this is the only time that traffic stops.
Ultimately, Chennai is just a chaotic place that somehow operates as one. The people that we met were wonderful and yet the poverty of the place makes your heart ache. Just seeing the way that most people lived, really brings home the amazing advantages that I have, that we all have – I think it will now be difficult to complain about most things, when I think about mothers walking around with small, malnourished children begging for a little bit of food, shacks on a river that smells so bad that I cannot even begin to describe the smell, full grown men only about 4ft tall because of malnutrition – the poverty of India is something that is so tragic and yet at the same time, so treatable – if only people would begin to care and not harden ourselves to their tragedy. This was the difficulty of India – the slap in the face of poverty, inequality, and social responsibility. As this trip moves along, the theme of poverty and gross inequality becomes not only linked, but thematic in many ways. From Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius to India – the poverty has built itself up on one another – and it all looks and feels the same – it changes you, for better or for worse – and I will never be able to let go of this disconcerting feeling of which I have no words to describe. And so instead, I sit on a luxurious ship – bathed, clean, fully clothed, in air conditioning where food is readily available and I think about this experience – sailing for 3 days to another place sure to jolt the senses – onto Penang, Malaysia – who knows what will come next…
The Chennai port is an industrial port, so we were surrounded by what looked like car dealerships, but then we also were next to a coal plant – so pretty much at all times of the day, the ship smelled of fuel and by the end of our 5 days the outside was almost completely black with coal soot. Everything from the ship to the inner corners of our ears was covered in black coal at the end of each day – and let me tell you, there are some strange things that can water out of your eyes or that you can sneeze out when you spend your days docked outside of a coal mine! J The city of Chennai was just as polluted as our port as well – cars, motorcycles, rickshaws (which are like death traps on wheels – little buggies that have a motor in them like a lawnmower – and you can fit 3 people if you stuff or like us 5 if you are really strapped for transportation!), cows, goats, dogs, bikes, people – the streets are the most stressful, chaotic and spastic streets I have ever seen – barely any lights, traffic means nothing, street signs mean nothing, driving on the wrong side of the street also means nothing – and somehow this all works. People travel around without any problems and we only saw 1 accident in the entire 5 days, which is utterly amazing considering that in many of our rickshaw experiences we came so close to the other cars, animals, people, etc. that we could have stepped into the other vehicle fairly easily.
Indians do this strange bobble head nod thing to let you know that something is acceptable or ok. Its kind of a side to side nod, so sometimes you think that the person has told you no when they are actually saying ok. Got a bit confusing when ordering food or asking for something, until we remembered what that head bobble meant! We spent all of our time in Chennai (while a lot of the people from the ship traveled to see the Taj) and we had a great experience. We saw some wonderful things and a lot of heartbreaking things as well. The first day was spent getting familiar with the city. We went out with 5 other people in a rickshaw and stopped for some market shopping and lunch. The funny thing about the rickshaw drivers is that there are specific businesses that pay the drivers to take tourists to their shops – they give the driver gifts and a commission. So of course, every time we got into the rickshaw we would have to fight with them to get them to not take us to this rug shop or souvenir shop, which were the most expensive places to go too! I think I went back to the same place 3 times and by the end of the 5 days we would just refuse to get out of the rickshaw, until they took us to where we wanted to go. Its quite fun – constant haggling for a lower price (usually arguing over a few cents), your lungs are clogged with the exhaust from all these vehicles, the streets are dirty, bathrooms are anywhere for men and for women, you have to squat over a hole in the ground. I learned to hold it until we got back to the ship! There are people that live on the streets, next to the rivers, trash is everywhere, people are begging for food, children so small and skinny tug at your arms for food, using the left hand is considered unclean because it is the hand used for wiping oneself after going to the bathroom, the food is super spicy – not really sure why one would want their mouth to burn so much, but it does clean out your sinuses! India is so hot that its almost oppressive – one day it was 110 degrees with 100% humidity – and yet the women are supposed to be fully covered (no shoulders or knees can be shown) so needless to say, I sweat my butt off again. By the end of the 5 days, my legs were actually swollen from the heat and in pain – a bunch of people on the ship felt the same way – I guess because our bodies are just not used to that type of heat – it makes NJ summers look like winter in comparison.
We visited Hindu temples so beautiful and intricate in design – statues of their gods were bold in color and carved into every part of the city. Shoes must be removed whenever going into a temple – and many a time we thought we would come back from the temples shoeless! But the people of India are very honest in a lot of ways – Karma probably has something to do with that and I think the heat too – you are just too hot to make any efforts for dishonesty. On the last day in India, we went outside of the city to Mamallapurum and Katchiaria to visit some temples created in the 8th and 9th century. It was just amazing to see the dedication of the people to preserving and using these spaces – no graffiti, no destruction – so un-American! We saw 5 temples carved out of 1 large stone from the 8th century, monks and regular people holding festivals for Shiva, hawkers selling every type of figurine possible to us (and of course, on the last day we were able to haggle them down in price so much that we got a bunch of statues of gods for $1 each – it got pretty fun!). The fabrics in India are amazing as well – so bright and beautiful and sooo cheap! I bought a sari, although I am not sure what I am going to do with it (maybe have it made into a dress or pillow cases or something) I got it for 550 Rupees and the US $1 is equivalent to 44 Rupees, so I got it for about $12 – not bad! I got a few shirts and a skirt too – the markets are just crowded with amazing things to buy and everything is really so cheap. Most of our meals only cost us $1 each. We drank a lot of soda because the water is so bad – its all cloudy and filled with bacteria and such. I had South Indian coffee, which was absolutely amazing. It comes in 3 parts – 1 part looks like coffee tar, then hot water, and then milk – it is a really dark roast and most Indians drink it black, which must keep you awake for centuries! I bought some tea, although it was surprisingly difficult to find because most people just get a cup from someone because they don’t have the means to purchase a lot on their own.
The majority of the people in India live off of $1 a day and yet there are others with advanced degrees and it seems that the country is slowly moving forward. We visited an orphanage which had about 300 children living there – of course the majority of the children were girls because, as the superintendent said, girls aren’t of any great value to the culture and are more an expense/burden than they are a blessing. I know that I know this – I mean, I work for girls’ education, have a women’s studies background and all – yet somehow in India it really hit me as to how girls and women are really seen throughout the world. I was constantly experiencing the feeling of being invisible, whether on the streets when men would cut me off, walk in front of me, etc. or when only Tom would be asked a direct question and I would be ignored or perceived strangely if I asked a question, women rarely speak directly to anyone – instead they wait to be spoken to – one woman said that the rickshaw driver was utterly shocked when he found out that she was married and “allowed to go out alone without her husband.” Men and women are not to interact in public spaces and arranged marriages still account for 70% of all marriages. If women are not married by the time they are 25 years old, they are seen as barren and ultimately sad/worthless. Publicly, men and women occupy completely different spaces and will never be seen touching. Yet, men are given complete freedom to be very affectionate with other men. It was not uncommon to see men holding hands, hugging, arms wrapped around each other, etc. – but this has nothing to do with their sexuality. Homosexuality is not a part of Indian culture – in fact it is hushed by the culture and not something that people could be open about. Women did not have the same luxury as men in being affectionate publicly with one another – so it was really an interesting experience and phenomenon to see. Most people do not own shoes, so the majority of the people in the city are walking around barefoot. Helmets are not something that anyone wears when riding a motorcycle – again, its amazing that more people haven’t died from accidents. We saw a few monkeys, but not many. Cows are sacred so if they go to cross a street or something – all traffic stops – this is the only time that traffic stops.
Ultimately, Chennai is just a chaotic place that somehow operates as one. The people that we met were wonderful and yet the poverty of the place makes your heart ache. Just seeing the way that most people lived, really brings home the amazing advantages that I have, that we all have – I think it will now be difficult to complain about most things, when I think about mothers walking around with small, malnourished children begging for a little bit of food, shacks on a river that smells so bad that I cannot even begin to describe the smell, full grown men only about 4ft tall because of malnutrition – the poverty of India is something that is so tragic and yet at the same time, so treatable – if only people would begin to care and not harden ourselves to their tragedy. This was the difficulty of India – the slap in the face of poverty, inequality, and social responsibility. As this trip moves along, the theme of poverty and gross inequality becomes not only linked, but thematic in many ways. From Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius to India – the poverty has built itself up on one another – and it all looks and feels the same – it changes you, for better or for worse – and I will never be able to let go of this disconcerting feeling of which I have no words to describe. And so instead, I sit on a luxurious ship – bathed, clean, fully clothed, in air conditioning where food is readily available and I think about this experience – sailing for 3 days to another place sure to jolt the senses – onto Penang, Malaysia – who knows what will come next…
Saturday, March 24, 2007
6 Days at Sea - Mauritius - then 7 More Days at Sea
I apologize to those that care for not having blogged in quite sometime, but the past 2.5 weeks have been very interesting, frustrating, wonderful, and painful all at the same time! First, our time spent moving from South Africa to Mauritius was incredibly painful because of the Indian Ocean around the cape. The waters were so rough that the boat was almost impossible to move around in – doors and drawers in the cabins would open and slam shut all night, there were doggy bags all over the ship for those with sudden sea-sickness, people were sick from the rocking, the food, and I think also just being on the ship for so long. Six days while feeling seasick is horrible! Luckily for me, I only thought that I was going to throw up once – and so I went outside and sat on the deck looking at the water and that seemed to help. But none of us had an appetite, which made everyone really irritable and tired – it was a long trip to Mauritius. On top of all that, I think the rocking made me really homesick too. I dreamt of land, my favorite foods, my family, friends and of course Majji and Peanut! I just wanted my bed back and to smell the familiar smells of home, light some candles, run outside, and do the things that I normally would get to do on my own. Because so many of the places that we go are not exactly safe for women to wander off along, I often feel like some sort of dependent child – always having to make sure that I have someone with me – and then never being able to find a place on the ship where you can be alone…its difficult at times. I certainly miss Emily time more than I ever thought I would!
Anyways, as we got closer to Mauritius (which, by the way is this tiny island off the coast of Madagascar – apparently, it’s the #1 honeymoon capital for Europeans – more to come about that!), the Captain made the announcement that because of the rough seas, we would be delayed getting into Mauritius by ½ day! Everyone was so upset – I think mostly cause we just wanted off this rocking ship! We ended up docking around noon and couldn’t get off of the ship till 1:30pm or so. A bunch of us went into the city of Port Louis (we had to take a little ferry boat over for $1) and it was pretty much a really run down city, with cars driving all over the place (no lights or stop signs), beans and spices sold at every corner, street vendors trying to get the tourists to buy a million different things with the Dodo bird on it. Mauritius is famous for its honeymooners and the Dodo bird, which the Dutch ate and single handedly destroyed the species in the 1400’s. Quite the history right!? We walked around the city a bit more, bought some really cheap South African wine and then Tom and I got pineapples on a stick and they were amazing! The street vendors have these little pineapples that they will peal right there in front of you and then just hand it over, so you eat the pineapple upside-down as if it is a lollypop or something. They are soooo sweet – it was well worth the $.80 or (20 Mauritian Rupee). I love that I am learning all these different currencies – in Mauritius, $1 is equivalent to 32 Mauritian Rupee.
After the excursion to the city, we all packed our bags and headed for our beachfront apartment, which we rented with a bunch of friends for $10 a night. The apartment had a little kitchen and was right across the street from this tiny little, beautiful beach. It was in the town of Perebrye (which we kept calling Periwinkle) and was mostly filled with speedo wearing Europeans and French people. Mauritians speak French and English, but mostly French – so there were a lot of café’s with loaves of bread that you could buy for real cheap, great cheese, and of course pineapple! We spent our 2.5 days hanging out at the beach, tanning ourselves, swimming in crystal clear water, eating pineapple (do you sense a theme), drinking at every bar that we could find in the town (great fun), and clubbing it every night! We found this great club called Zanzabar’s next to the Banana Beach Club and we danced all night till 4am! People were incredibly friendly and they loved to watch the silly Americans dancing. I was mistaken for German a whole bunch of times – which was an odd experience. I guess its an American thing to assume that everyone would know that you are American – and of course, as soon as people found out that I was American, they wanted to know what I thought about George Bush. And yet again, I was confronted with the understanding that the world follows American politics and the politics of the world – while I have the option not to. I mean, here I am, in a country that I didn’t even know existed until Semester at Sea, couldn’t tell you a thing about their government or lifestyle – and still every stranger that we met knew everything that there was to know about America (life as the dominant…left me thinking about this position in a new way – ML, Squat, Amanda – I cannot wait to talk about this with you all – I really do miss our conversations sooo much!)
After 3 days in the beautiful island of Mauritius, we boarded the ship and headed for Chennai, India. I am also happy to report to you all that my Bent luck continues in international countries. The package that my wonderful Mom sent to me got stuck in customs and arrived at the ship the day after we left! I was beyond upset – a little piece of home would be so nice right now – and then I got a note from the front desk that they had my package in Mauritius and if I wanted to pay $5, it would be shipped to Malaysia. So, of course I paid the $5 – and now I am hoping that it makes it there…I hope, I hope! The sea has been the complete opposite of our trip to Mauritius! The Indian Ocean is so calm right now that it almost feels as if we aren’t moving at all. The painful part of this journey has been that it is getting hotter and hotter, we passed the equator yesterday and after exercising outside I actually had to ring out my shirt, I was soo nasty! The other thing is that our ship’s satellite has been having trouble and so the internet has reached a new level of mind-numbing frustration. It actually took me 5 minutes to open 1 page – and it has been like this for about 5 days now, but at least in these past few days it has gotten much better – like almost the speed of dialup! I swear, you do not know frustration until you have experienced an internet this slow. People were swearing like mad – I almost wanted to throw my computer off the ship at times – it was bad – like computer rage instead of road rage!! But, despite the internet slowness – we did have Taco Day for lunch one day and then a BBQ another night, which perked us up some! J I never thought that I would love tacos as much as I do on this trip.
Other than that, we have been preparing for our arrival in India! YEAH! I cannot wait – although, we have begun to conserve water with the hopes that we won’t have to ration it out. The water in India is so polluted that the ship cannot use it or convert it. We have to turn the showers off when we soap up and then turn it back on to rinse off. I also had to start taking my Malaria meds. A bunch of us have started watching my episodes of Nip Tuck and it definitely helps with feelings of homesickness – somehow TV becomes a way to feel normal, when you lose your mind after not seeing land for 5 days straight! India marks the official mid-way point on our trip and I cannot believe it…the time has just flown by and it feels like I just left, yet at the same time – I feel like I am so out of touch. I just cannot believe that this is my life! I saw a pod of dolphins jumping and swimming in the waves that the ship made for the past couple of days too. They do belly flops all over the place and jump so high – it just looks fun. I often feel like I am having an out of body experience and just watching myself do things and see things that I never thought would be possible. And despite my bitching about seasickness and the internet, I wouldn’t give this up for much (maybe a Twix or a Snickers bar J or a home cooked meal – mmm, food – can you guess what we think about all day while we are at sea!).
Anyways, as we got closer to Mauritius (which, by the way is this tiny island off the coast of Madagascar – apparently, it’s the #1 honeymoon capital for Europeans – more to come about that!), the Captain made the announcement that because of the rough seas, we would be delayed getting into Mauritius by ½ day! Everyone was so upset – I think mostly cause we just wanted off this rocking ship! We ended up docking around noon and couldn’t get off of the ship till 1:30pm or so. A bunch of us went into the city of Port Louis (we had to take a little ferry boat over for $1) and it was pretty much a really run down city, with cars driving all over the place (no lights or stop signs), beans and spices sold at every corner, street vendors trying to get the tourists to buy a million different things with the Dodo bird on it. Mauritius is famous for its honeymooners and the Dodo bird, which the Dutch ate and single handedly destroyed the species in the 1400’s. Quite the history right!? We walked around the city a bit more, bought some really cheap South African wine and then Tom and I got pineapples on a stick and they were amazing! The street vendors have these little pineapples that they will peal right there in front of you and then just hand it over, so you eat the pineapple upside-down as if it is a lollypop or something. They are soooo sweet – it was well worth the $.80 or (20 Mauritian Rupee). I love that I am learning all these different currencies – in Mauritius, $1 is equivalent to 32 Mauritian Rupee.
After the excursion to the city, we all packed our bags and headed for our beachfront apartment, which we rented with a bunch of friends for $10 a night. The apartment had a little kitchen and was right across the street from this tiny little, beautiful beach. It was in the town of Perebrye (which we kept calling Periwinkle) and was mostly filled with speedo wearing Europeans and French people. Mauritians speak French and English, but mostly French – so there were a lot of café’s with loaves of bread that you could buy for real cheap, great cheese, and of course pineapple! We spent our 2.5 days hanging out at the beach, tanning ourselves, swimming in crystal clear water, eating pineapple (do you sense a theme), drinking at every bar that we could find in the town (great fun), and clubbing it every night! We found this great club called Zanzabar’s next to the Banana Beach Club and we danced all night till 4am! People were incredibly friendly and they loved to watch the silly Americans dancing. I was mistaken for German a whole bunch of times – which was an odd experience. I guess its an American thing to assume that everyone would know that you are American – and of course, as soon as people found out that I was American, they wanted to know what I thought about George Bush. And yet again, I was confronted with the understanding that the world follows American politics and the politics of the world – while I have the option not to. I mean, here I am, in a country that I didn’t even know existed until Semester at Sea, couldn’t tell you a thing about their government or lifestyle – and still every stranger that we met knew everything that there was to know about America (life as the dominant…left me thinking about this position in a new way – ML, Squat, Amanda – I cannot wait to talk about this with you all – I really do miss our conversations sooo much!)
After 3 days in the beautiful island of Mauritius, we boarded the ship and headed for Chennai, India. I am also happy to report to you all that my Bent luck continues in international countries. The package that my wonderful Mom sent to me got stuck in customs and arrived at the ship the day after we left! I was beyond upset – a little piece of home would be so nice right now – and then I got a note from the front desk that they had my package in Mauritius and if I wanted to pay $5, it would be shipped to Malaysia. So, of course I paid the $5 – and now I am hoping that it makes it there…I hope, I hope! The sea has been the complete opposite of our trip to Mauritius! The Indian Ocean is so calm right now that it almost feels as if we aren’t moving at all. The painful part of this journey has been that it is getting hotter and hotter, we passed the equator yesterday and after exercising outside I actually had to ring out my shirt, I was soo nasty! The other thing is that our ship’s satellite has been having trouble and so the internet has reached a new level of mind-numbing frustration. It actually took me 5 minutes to open 1 page – and it has been like this for about 5 days now, but at least in these past few days it has gotten much better – like almost the speed of dialup! I swear, you do not know frustration until you have experienced an internet this slow. People were swearing like mad – I almost wanted to throw my computer off the ship at times – it was bad – like computer rage instead of road rage!! But, despite the internet slowness – we did have Taco Day for lunch one day and then a BBQ another night, which perked us up some! J I never thought that I would love tacos as much as I do on this trip.
Other than that, we have been preparing for our arrival in India! YEAH! I cannot wait – although, we have begun to conserve water with the hopes that we won’t have to ration it out. The water in India is so polluted that the ship cannot use it or convert it. We have to turn the showers off when we soap up and then turn it back on to rinse off. I also had to start taking my Malaria meds. A bunch of us have started watching my episodes of Nip Tuck and it definitely helps with feelings of homesickness – somehow TV becomes a way to feel normal, when you lose your mind after not seeing land for 5 days straight! India marks the official mid-way point on our trip and I cannot believe it…the time has just flown by and it feels like I just left, yet at the same time – I feel like I am so out of touch. I just cannot believe that this is my life! I saw a pod of dolphins jumping and swimming in the waves that the ship made for the past couple of days too. They do belly flops all over the place and jump so high – it just looks fun. I often feel like I am having an out of body experience and just watching myself do things and see things that I never thought would be possible. And despite my bitching about seasickness and the internet, I wouldn’t give this up for much (maybe a Twix or a Snickers bar J or a home cooked meal – mmm, food – can you guess what we think about all day while we are at sea!).
Saturday, March 10, 2007
7 Days in Cape Town, South Africa
Cape Town, South Africa is one of the most beautiful cities in the world – no lie. The city is surrounded by the Table Mountain Range, the water is a crystal clear aqua color, the weather is beyond perfect, its clean, young, exciting, and just fantastic! It’s a city that I had never really given much thought about, but after being here for 7 days – I will tell everyone that they must visit Cape Town. We got here on Friday morning and left last night – Tom and I didn’t sign up for any of the Safari trips, so we had the whole week to try and experience as much of the area as possible.
It’s the summer time in Cape Town and that meant that the weather was between 65 and 85 degrees – no humidity, no bugs, no clouds really – just perfect beautiful sun! I had pictured South Africa as being ungodly hot, but apparently it really doesn’t get that hot – and it even snows here…changing perspectives all the time! South Africa is well known for its wine, jazz, food, coffee, perspectives on life, and wild life – and we experienced it all!
It’s hard to imagine and not hard to see the impacts of Apartheid in the city. There is an obvious contrast between the rich and the poor – and of course, race plays a huge part of this contrast. As I mentioned, the city is beautiful – filled with shops, café’s, restaurants, wineries, bars, etc. but then just about ½ mile to 1 mile out of the city, you see the “Townships,” which are basically shacks where the poor live. The shacks line for miles and miles with approximately 2.5 million people living in them. They are made from tin cans, garbage, pieces of wood or tin – anything that the people could get their hands on really and most of them are 1 room only with a few families living in them. The Townships are small towns living in abject poverty – but they have schools, bars, barber shops, stores, etc. The people living in the townships either got stuck there during the Apartheid or they moved there after the Apartheid to start a new life in the city. These homes are an obvious result of the effects of this system and yet, the country has only been operating as a democracy for 14 years – and the changes are amazing to see. We went to Robben Island (which is where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners were held because of their demand for an abolishment of apartheid) and we met with 2 former political prisoners of the time period and learned so much. The last political prisoner released from the island was in 1991 – and apartheid has only been abolished since 1985 – its hard to imagine that a system so inhumane lasted for so long – and that people were literally thrown into prison because they refused to be an object of the dominant’s oppression…amazing.
The people of South Africa were so inspiring in their beliefs in humanity. One would think that after living under the system of apartheid, you would come out angry at the world – or just angry at your oppressors – but these people did the exact opposite. They have such faith in the goodness of people and as the former prisoner told us, “South Africa is an example to the world of what can happen when we expect the best in people and work together.” Everyone that we met was so genuinely happy and ready to live life – something that I will always carry with me – for despite some of the worst forms of oppression and for many, continued poverty – the South Africans are thrilled to be free and alive. After leaving this place, I feel such hope for the future of the world – because if we could just take a little piece of the South African’s notion of life & humanity – we will be fine.
In addition to the people, the city life is wonderful as well! The city looks like the funky parts of NYC, but so clean and open – there were all these independent shops everywhere (no chain stores – and happily, we didn’t see 1 McDonald’s the entire way!). The American $ stands up pretty well with the African Rand too, about 7 Rand for $1 – so we got some great stuff for fairly cheap. The first day I bought a bag of nectarines from a farm stand and thought that I had just bitten into heaven! They were the perfect texture and taste – later I also got peaches and pears to die for. Their salads were so fresh too and the feta cheese was great – I ate A LOT in South Africa! Some of my favorite foods that I ate included, many cups of cappuccino, glasses of the best red wine ever (I don’t know much about wine, but I know that this stuff was amazing), cheeses of all kinds – we did a cheese tour and had goat and cow cheeses of so many varieties – I was in my glory!, Portobello mushrooms grow like mad here and so I had a lot of them, avocados, and cheesecake with blueberries (just amazing – the best cheesecake I have ever had!).
Ok, so in addition to eating more food than should be physically possible, we did took some great trips as well. We spent a lot of time walking along Long Street, which is the young section of the city – filled with bars, clothing shops, and cafes – our first night, we went to this “Irish Pub” (why I do not know – why would you go to an Irish Pub in South Africa!), anyways – this pub was not Irish in anyway – and they had a horrific cover band called “Adrenalin” where they sang the worst American songs known to man! Matt – you need to come to South Africa, they would be blown away by your music and voice! J Other than this bad music experience, we did get to see some jazz groups at the restaurants at night and they were really good – although, not the typical jazz like at home – more of a Norah Jones type jazz. We hiked Table Mountain, which I highly recommend; however, be prepared to lose all feeling in your legs and butt. The hike was like a giant stairclimber and it took us 3 hours to get to the top – at points, Tom was just saying – “You go ahead – just leave me – I can’t do it!” We stupidly only brought 1 thing of water and 2 energy bars, not smart – you definitely need more. I am pretty fit and this thing kicked my butt, a couple of times I had to literally will my legs to move…but when we got to the top we could see all across the water and mountain – it was great! (P.S. we took the tram ride down!). We spent some time at a beautiful white sandy beach tucked away between some rocks – the sun was glorious – and the water felt like an iceburg had just melted in front of us. We could only go in up to our knees before you were so cold that it felt like hypothermia! We hired a taxi for a day with some other people on the ship and traveled to the Cape Point. On the way, we saw wild ostrich (their eggs are equivalent to 56 chicken eggs!), antelope, weird fuzzy large rodents – like the ROUS from the Princess Bride, baboons, and we got to hang out with a colony of penguins!!! We paid 25 Rand ($4) to go to this little beach where the penguins live and just hang out among them. It was sooo fun – and we must have taken 1,000 pictures of them – they are too cute! We also went on a wine tour and tasted some great reds and sparkling wine too. However, we did discover the sad, sad news that apparently, each bottle shipped to the US gets an extra $30 taxed to it – cause the US is a pain in the ass about shipping wine into the states. There was a website that one of our tour guides gave us that only charges $100 for a case to be shipped – but you have to go and pick it up at the airport and bring it through customs…just ridiculous. We did get a few bottles that we were able to bring onboard, but not a ton – which is disappointing. Don’t worry El Squat, we will figure out a way to get you some reds! I also ate some meat (Kudu and Ostrich) – we had gone to an amazing restaurant with some friends to get dinner and after 4 bottles of wine (between 4 people) – trying meat didn’t seem like a bad idea! So, I tried a few bites of Kudu and Ostrich – it brought tears to my eyes it was so good – but I paid a price later, when my belly swelled like crazy. I didn’t get sick though, so I was very proud of myself! It was really really good – the best steak type meat ever! Lastly, we had to bring a donation to a community agency, which works with street kids and as we were leaving Arlene (the woman at the foundation) told us to be careful as we travel – because of our accents! I was too excited to be told that I have an accent J
South Africa was beautiful and beyond words. Hopefully, this helps to give a decent description of my experiences in Cape Town – but really, I am not kidding when I say, everyone should visit this place – I know that I will return here – seven days will never be enough time!
It’s the summer time in Cape Town and that meant that the weather was between 65 and 85 degrees – no humidity, no bugs, no clouds really – just perfect beautiful sun! I had pictured South Africa as being ungodly hot, but apparently it really doesn’t get that hot – and it even snows here…changing perspectives all the time! South Africa is well known for its wine, jazz, food, coffee, perspectives on life, and wild life – and we experienced it all!
It’s hard to imagine and not hard to see the impacts of Apartheid in the city. There is an obvious contrast between the rich and the poor – and of course, race plays a huge part of this contrast. As I mentioned, the city is beautiful – filled with shops, café’s, restaurants, wineries, bars, etc. but then just about ½ mile to 1 mile out of the city, you see the “Townships,” which are basically shacks where the poor live. The shacks line for miles and miles with approximately 2.5 million people living in them. They are made from tin cans, garbage, pieces of wood or tin – anything that the people could get their hands on really and most of them are 1 room only with a few families living in them. The Townships are small towns living in abject poverty – but they have schools, bars, barber shops, stores, etc. The people living in the townships either got stuck there during the Apartheid or they moved there after the Apartheid to start a new life in the city. These homes are an obvious result of the effects of this system and yet, the country has only been operating as a democracy for 14 years – and the changes are amazing to see. We went to Robben Island (which is where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners were held because of their demand for an abolishment of apartheid) and we met with 2 former political prisoners of the time period and learned so much. The last political prisoner released from the island was in 1991 – and apartheid has only been abolished since 1985 – its hard to imagine that a system so inhumane lasted for so long – and that people were literally thrown into prison because they refused to be an object of the dominant’s oppression…amazing.
The people of South Africa were so inspiring in their beliefs in humanity. One would think that after living under the system of apartheid, you would come out angry at the world – or just angry at your oppressors – but these people did the exact opposite. They have such faith in the goodness of people and as the former prisoner told us, “South Africa is an example to the world of what can happen when we expect the best in people and work together.” Everyone that we met was so genuinely happy and ready to live life – something that I will always carry with me – for despite some of the worst forms of oppression and for many, continued poverty – the South Africans are thrilled to be free and alive. After leaving this place, I feel such hope for the future of the world – because if we could just take a little piece of the South African’s notion of life & humanity – we will be fine.
In addition to the people, the city life is wonderful as well! The city looks like the funky parts of NYC, but so clean and open – there were all these independent shops everywhere (no chain stores – and happily, we didn’t see 1 McDonald’s the entire way!). The American $ stands up pretty well with the African Rand too, about 7 Rand for $1 – so we got some great stuff for fairly cheap. The first day I bought a bag of nectarines from a farm stand and thought that I had just bitten into heaven! They were the perfect texture and taste – later I also got peaches and pears to die for. Their salads were so fresh too and the feta cheese was great – I ate A LOT in South Africa! Some of my favorite foods that I ate included, many cups of cappuccino, glasses of the best red wine ever (I don’t know much about wine, but I know that this stuff was amazing), cheeses of all kinds – we did a cheese tour and had goat and cow cheeses of so many varieties – I was in my glory!, Portobello mushrooms grow like mad here and so I had a lot of them, avocados, and cheesecake with blueberries (just amazing – the best cheesecake I have ever had!).
Ok, so in addition to eating more food than should be physically possible, we did took some great trips as well. We spent a lot of time walking along Long Street, which is the young section of the city – filled with bars, clothing shops, and cafes – our first night, we went to this “Irish Pub” (why I do not know – why would you go to an Irish Pub in South Africa!), anyways – this pub was not Irish in anyway – and they had a horrific cover band called “Adrenalin” where they sang the worst American songs known to man! Matt – you need to come to South Africa, they would be blown away by your music and voice! J Other than this bad music experience, we did get to see some jazz groups at the restaurants at night and they were really good – although, not the typical jazz like at home – more of a Norah Jones type jazz. We hiked Table Mountain, which I highly recommend; however, be prepared to lose all feeling in your legs and butt. The hike was like a giant stairclimber and it took us 3 hours to get to the top – at points, Tom was just saying – “You go ahead – just leave me – I can’t do it!” We stupidly only brought 1 thing of water and 2 energy bars, not smart – you definitely need more. I am pretty fit and this thing kicked my butt, a couple of times I had to literally will my legs to move…but when we got to the top we could see all across the water and mountain – it was great! (P.S. we took the tram ride down!). We spent some time at a beautiful white sandy beach tucked away between some rocks – the sun was glorious – and the water felt like an iceburg had just melted in front of us. We could only go in up to our knees before you were so cold that it felt like hypothermia! We hired a taxi for a day with some other people on the ship and traveled to the Cape Point. On the way, we saw wild ostrich (their eggs are equivalent to 56 chicken eggs!), antelope, weird fuzzy large rodents – like the ROUS from the Princess Bride, baboons, and we got to hang out with a colony of penguins!!! We paid 25 Rand ($4) to go to this little beach where the penguins live and just hang out among them. It was sooo fun – and we must have taken 1,000 pictures of them – they are too cute! We also went on a wine tour and tasted some great reds and sparkling wine too. However, we did discover the sad, sad news that apparently, each bottle shipped to the US gets an extra $30 taxed to it – cause the US is a pain in the ass about shipping wine into the states. There was a website that one of our tour guides gave us that only charges $100 for a case to be shipped – but you have to go and pick it up at the airport and bring it through customs…just ridiculous. We did get a few bottles that we were able to bring onboard, but not a ton – which is disappointing. Don’t worry El Squat, we will figure out a way to get you some reds! I also ate some meat (Kudu and Ostrich) – we had gone to an amazing restaurant with some friends to get dinner and after 4 bottles of wine (between 4 people) – trying meat didn’t seem like a bad idea! So, I tried a few bites of Kudu and Ostrich – it brought tears to my eyes it was so good – but I paid a price later, when my belly swelled like crazy. I didn’t get sick though, so I was very proud of myself! It was really really good – the best steak type meat ever! Lastly, we had to bring a donation to a community agency, which works with street kids and as we were leaving Arlene (the woman at the foundation) told us to be careful as we travel – because of our accents! I was too excited to be told that I have an accent J
South Africa was beautiful and beyond words. Hopefully, this helps to give a decent description of my experiences in Cape Town – but really, I am not kidding when I say, everyone should visit this place – I know that I will return here – seven days will never be enough time!
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Eight Days at Sea (This was a Long Stretch!)
The past eight days have been our longest stretch at sea thus far and honestly, it went by fairly quickly. Eight days seem to have messed into one giant day, but overall there have been some interesting things to report back. As usual, the scenery is fairly similar – lots of really calm water, no land, clouds, billions of stars, a few really great moon nights – but the biggest difference is that it has actually gotten colder outside as we traveled from Brazil to South Africa. Makes sense being that we are traveling further away from the equator – but I guess I just always assumed that South Africa would be really hot and not 70 degrees!
On Saturday, Feb. 24th, the ship held the celebration of Neptune Day. Neptune Day is a day to honor King Neptune for allowing the ship to safely pass over the equator; however, the catch is that all passengers crossing the equator for the 1st time must go through a ritual. For us, this ritual consisted of having sour milk, garbage, and fish guts poured over your head (I almost threw up all over myself when this happened), then you jump into the pool (I went at the end and so the pool was like jumping into a giant vat of fish guts & sour milk), kissing 2 fish (these fish had the biggest teeth I have ever seen – and it was not a pleasant experience to have them rubbed all over your body), then you must kiss the ring of King Neptune and be knighted as a “shellback” (aka: someone who has crossed the equator & done the ritual) rather than a “pollywhog” (aka: someone who has not been through the ritual yet). This was quite possibly the most disgusting experience I have had to date – I smelled the fish and sour milk for about 2 days (and that was after showing 2x’s that day and washing my hair at least 5 times – I also scrubbed my skin raw!). Some people also shaved their heads as part of the Neptune Day ritual, but alas I did not – although I did think about it – and then thought that perhaps Tom and I would look extra weird in photos if both of us had shaved heads. J
At the end of Neptune Day, the crew had a bbq for us on the back deck with veggie burgers, chips (I haven’t had a chip in 5 weeks!), fruit, and ice cream (also a rare purchase on the ship). I stuffed myself to the gills (no pun intended) and it really was a fun day. Most of the ship participated and people got some really great shots of Tom & I covered in fish guts & milk to prove to everyone that knows me – that I really did do this!
A few nights later, Tom and I got invited to the Captain’s Dinner, which was absolutely amazing. Despite the fact that I had to wear a dress, I had a wonderful time. It started with drinks in the Faculty/Staff Lounge (great red & white wine) and appetizers, then we proceeded to a roped off section in the dining hall for a 5 course meal! I have never seen so much silverware in my life. It sort of shined from both ends of the table, everyone sat up really straight, and proper – my Catholic School training came in really handy at this dinner – I just followed what everyone else did, kept my elbows off the table, and dare I say, “Acted like a lady…” For dinner (Squat you would have loved this), we had pretty much a never ending supply of wines (the glass just kept getting filled over and over again, until I figured out that all you had to do was put your hand on top of the glass and they would stop!), and then the food went as follows:
1 - peppers & onions in balsamic vinegar
2 – broccoli soup (to die for!) with rolls & butter
3 – Greek Salad (amazing feta cheese – and I don’t really even like feta)
4 – Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Veggies, and this veggie quiche (Awesome!) – Tom got a steak
5 – Fresh Pear in caramelized white wine with a yogurt type substance next to it, with coffee to top it off
As you can tell, I have a very sophisticated way of describing this amazing food J but just trust me, that after eating nothing but potatoes and pasta all day long – you would be speechless/wordless about it too!
The rest of the time was divided between work, hanging out, reading, and sleeping a lot! We changed time zones throughout the crossing from Brazil to South Africa and lost a total of 5 hours in the 8 days that it took to get to South Africa. I am now officially 7 hours ahead of everyone on the east coast – which does make for a strange email system, as I wonder why I am not getting a bunch of emails at 11am on the ship, until I realize that its 4 in the morning back at home. There is a strange bug that is going around the ship – and yesterday I woke up with a sore throat, so I have been drinking tea like crazy, taking Vitamin C, sleeping as much as I can and just nursing it so that I don’t miss any of my time in South Africa.
This week the ship has been rocking so much more than in the past – and when I sleep at night my head rocks up the bed and then down the bed – not nearly as soothing as the previous cradle like rocking, but still no sea sickness – YEAH! It’s not uncommon to see random people just walk into a wall or slam right into you, and then the crew laughs at us cause we just haven’t been able to get our sea legs.
I think about my Grandfather a lot, especially since he spent so many years living on a Navy Ship – I find myself wondering if I am seeing anything that he used to see – and how funny time is, in that he probably had no notion that 60-70 years after he saw this spot or was crossing the ocean or rocking around in his ship – that his granddaughter would be doing the same thing and thinking about him, his life, and all the things that I wish I could ask him right now, so many years later. I can see why he liked being out on the sea so much – it really is such a peaceful feeling – and at the same time, you realize how incredibly small you are in the world. Here I am on this (to me massive ship) but when I look out into the ocean and I can’t see any land, or birds, a few fish if I am really lucky – it just makes you see the world as being incredibly large – and that you really are this tiny speck. I guess I am just so grateful for this opportunity and I am trying to take in as much as I can – but at a certain point, you start to lose that individualistic notion of self and see that Emily (as an individual) is just one small part of a larger entity and that larger entity or community/world/whatever you want to call it – is what matters most. It’s not about me traveling around the world anymore – its about the world allowing me to travel within it…and I hope that this never ends…
On Saturday, Feb. 24th, the ship held the celebration of Neptune Day. Neptune Day is a day to honor King Neptune for allowing the ship to safely pass over the equator; however, the catch is that all passengers crossing the equator for the 1st time must go through a ritual. For us, this ritual consisted of having sour milk, garbage, and fish guts poured over your head (I almost threw up all over myself when this happened), then you jump into the pool (I went at the end and so the pool was like jumping into a giant vat of fish guts & sour milk), kissing 2 fish (these fish had the biggest teeth I have ever seen – and it was not a pleasant experience to have them rubbed all over your body), then you must kiss the ring of King Neptune and be knighted as a “shellback” (aka: someone who has crossed the equator & done the ritual) rather than a “pollywhog” (aka: someone who has not been through the ritual yet). This was quite possibly the most disgusting experience I have had to date – I smelled the fish and sour milk for about 2 days (and that was after showing 2x’s that day and washing my hair at least 5 times – I also scrubbed my skin raw!). Some people also shaved their heads as part of the Neptune Day ritual, but alas I did not – although I did think about it – and then thought that perhaps Tom and I would look extra weird in photos if both of us had shaved heads. J
At the end of Neptune Day, the crew had a bbq for us on the back deck with veggie burgers, chips (I haven’t had a chip in 5 weeks!), fruit, and ice cream (also a rare purchase on the ship). I stuffed myself to the gills (no pun intended) and it really was a fun day. Most of the ship participated and people got some really great shots of Tom & I covered in fish guts & milk to prove to everyone that knows me – that I really did do this!
A few nights later, Tom and I got invited to the Captain’s Dinner, which was absolutely amazing. Despite the fact that I had to wear a dress, I had a wonderful time. It started with drinks in the Faculty/Staff Lounge (great red & white wine) and appetizers, then we proceeded to a roped off section in the dining hall for a 5 course meal! I have never seen so much silverware in my life. It sort of shined from both ends of the table, everyone sat up really straight, and proper – my Catholic School training came in really handy at this dinner – I just followed what everyone else did, kept my elbows off the table, and dare I say, “Acted like a lady…” For dinner (Squat you would have loved this), we had pretty much a never ending supply of wines (the glass just kept getting filled over and over again, until I figured out that all you had to do was put your hand on top of the glass and they would stop!), and then the food went as follows:
1 - peppers & onions in balsamic vinegar
2 – broccoli soup (to die for!) with rolls & butter
3 – Greek Salad (amazing feta cheese – and I don’t really even like feta)
4 – Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Veggies, and this veggie quiche (Awesome!) – Tom got a steak
5 – Fresh Pear in caramelized white wine with a yogurt type substance next to it, with coffee to top it off
As you can tell, I have a very sophisticated way of describing this amazing food J but just trust me, that after eating nothing but potatoes and pasta all day long – you would be speechless/wordless about it too!
The rest of the time was divided between work, hanging out, reading, and sleeping a lot! We changed time zones throughout the crossing from Brazil to South Africa and lost a total of 5 hours in the 8 days that it took to get to South Africa. I am now officially 7 hours ahead of everyone on the east coast – which does make for a strange email system, as I wonder why I am not getting a bunch of emails at 11am on the ship, until I realize that its 4 in the morning back at home. There is a strange bug that is going around the ship – and yesterday I woke up with a sore throat, so I have been drinking tea like crazy, taking Vitamin C, sleeping as much as I can and just nursing it so that I don’t miss any of my time in South Africa.
This week the ship has been rocking so much more than in the past – and when I sleep at night my head rocks up the bed and then down the bed – not nearly as soothing as the previous cradle like rocking, but still no sea sickness – YEAH! It’s not uncommon to see random people just walk into a wall or slam right into you, and then the crew laughs at us cause we just haven’t been able to get our sea legs.
I think about my Grandfather a lot, especially since he spent so many years living on a Navy Ship – I find myself wondering if I am seeing anything that he used to see – and how funny time is, in that he probably had no notion that 60-70 years after he saw this spot or was crossing the ocean or rocking around in his ship – that his granddaughter would be doing the same thing and thinking about him, his life, and all the things that I wish I could ask him right now, so many years later. I can see why he liked being out on the sea so much – it really is such a peaceful feeling – and at the same time, you realize how incredibly small you are in the world. Here I am on this (to me massive ship) but when I look out into the ocean and I can’t see any land, or birds, a few fish if I am really lucky – it just makes you see the world as being incredibly large – and that you really are this tiny speck. I guess I am just so grateful for this opportunity and I am trying to take in as much as I can – but at a certain point, you start to lose that individualistic notion of self and see that Emily (as an individual) is just one small part of a larger entity and that larger entity or community/world/whatever you want to call it – is what matters most. It’s not about me traveling around the world anymore – its about the world allowing me to travel within it…and I hope that this never ends…
Thursday, February 22, 2007
7 Days at Sea & 5 Days in Salvador, Brazil
I spent 7 days at sea traveling from Puerto Rico to Brazil and I had planned to put in a blog about that experience, but sadly – I became too lazy to do it! I have been journaling each night so that I can remember the experience on this trip as much as possible, but now I need to discipline myself into blogging too! So, to sum up my 7 days at sea – basically, the ship becomes a routine little piece of life where I get up and work out at the gym each morning, eat breakfast, go to the faculty/staff lounge – do some GLI work, journal, read, look out at the ocean, watch the sunset, eat dinner, go back to the lounge to hang out with the staff (who are just too much fun) – and then it starts all over again the next day. We lost 2 hours in the journey from Puerto Rico to Brazil and we passed the equator. So, I am now officially in the Southern Hemisphere. It is so hot at times that I cannot even begin to explain how hot and humid it is – if you go outside, you instantly find that you are dripping sweat within 2 minutes at most. Needless to say, everyone on the ship smells lovely all the time J but we are getting used to the weather. Inside the ship, the air conditioning is on and so I am freezing, but as soon as I step outside, I am sweating like crazy. It’s fun, as you can no doubt imagine. J Seeing land or birds has become the highlight of the day – so many times, I find that I am just staring out at the water for hours without even realizing it – everything is so peaceful and so far away – that I often find myself having the “I cannot believe I am doing this moments” over and over again. Everyone on the ship is feeling the same, so that there has been an almost instant bonding between all of us as we experience the world together.
Prior to getting to Brazil, the faculty and staff tried to inform all of us about Carnival, which is this insane festival that has been celebrated in Brazil for hundreds of years. Carnival comes from the term carne and val – meaning no meat – and so Carnival is this massive party for 7 days before Ash Wednesday so that the people can release any pent up energy, enjoy life, and just go absolutely crazy before the Lenten season. Such a crazy concept, to let an entire community go hog wild for 7 days straight – and its religiously based – I don’t ever remember celebrating as we went into the season of Lent as a kid – it was all about thinking of your sins, sacrifice, etc. and so the theme of Carnival is really fascinating.
Because Carnival is a non-stop party for 7 days, everything is closed – stores, banks, post offices, schools, work, etc. Everyone is partying, which also means that the area is incredibly dangerous for most people. For the 7 days before we arrived in Salvador, I continuously heard about how dangerous the area was that we were going to – women were told that they would be harassed, grabbed, robbed, beaten, etc. and the men were told that they had the potential to be robbed mostly. Women were told to go out only with other men in the crowd, never alone, and never with anything valuable. Hearing this for 7 days really freaked me out – to the point where I wasn’t really sure that I even wanted to go to Carnival at all. Tom and I decided to try and schedule a bunch of trips outside of Carnival so that we wouldn’t have to deal with all this stuff if we didn’t want to. We got all of our trips and for 4 of the 5 days in Brazil – we traveled outside of the city of Salvador to try and get a better feel for the country and also to avoid the whole grabbing, groping, harassment issue.
The most interesting and sad reality of Brazil is that 70% of its population lives beneath the poverty level, which inevitably breeds violence, robbery and upset throughout the country. As we approached Salvador, it looked to be a modern city and even had the city line of something similar to NYC, but then as we got closer, we realized that all of the buildings were pretty run down, graffiti, holes in the concrete and just really run down. (This visual of course did nothing to soothe any concerns I had about going into Carnival, but it is the reality of the majority of Brazilians). The city itself is filled with thousands upon thousands of squatters homes, which are basically small brick shacks that squatters built because they saw a piece of land and took it. But because the land is so scarce in the city, the houses are all built up on top of one another on hills – so as you drive through the city – you see the upper level of the city (aka the rich area, which is all pretty and nice) and then the lower level of the city (aka poverty stricken area – which we were told never, under any circumstances to go to – one night our cab driver took us through some of these areas and there were people all over the streets, I saw a bathtub on the street with a few people sleeping in it – people seemed to be drunk and they were stumbling over to the cab, it reeks of urine – it is not a happy place). Outside of the city, the country is beautiful – mostly wide open fields, the Amazon, rainforests, small towns and villages, farms everywhere – nothing like the city of Salvador, which appears to be so overcrowded that no one could ever pull themselves out of poverty without some serious assistance from someone.
Despite this initial look at Brazil, we had such an amazing time! We visited and learned about the African religion called Candomble, which is a matriarchal, goddess based religion. As slaves, Africans were not permitted to practice their own religions and so Candomble is their religion, which was hidden with the Catholic Church. Slave owners would try to convert their slaves and the slaves simply hid their religion within Catholic doctrine. Candomble is the worship of Orisha’s (individualized to each person) and the spirits of the earth, dead, and the other world. Each person is connected to an Orisha and she/he will give sacrifices and things to her for assistance. In Catholicism, the Africans simply turned different saints into Orishas. So, whites would think that they were praying to a saint, when in fact they were practicing their own religion. We visited one of the communes for the religion today and it was really interesting. They are very connected to nature and each Orisha is given a home to be worshipped in – so the houses are all painted based on the Orisha that is worshipped there (everything from blue, pink, yellow, green – it makes for a very interesting row of homes!) In one of the towns, Cachoeira, Candomble has a special group called the Sisterhood of the Good Death and they are all women who are direct descendants of African slaves. They spend their whole lives praying and working towards having a good death. Because they live such harsh lives, these women hope for the opportunity to die in a peaceful way. They hold a festival in August for the death of the Virgin Mary and celebrate her peaceful death and pray for the same. Hard to imagine spending your entire life hoping for death, but when life is lived in such a harsh way – perhaps it is not so difficult to imagine.
We also visited a Cocoa Farm and learned all about how to make chocolate, ate the cocoa fruit (tastes like a tart but sweet jelly and is white and surrounds the cocoa beans), visited a self-sufficient farm community (they only make and take what they need and are part of the Land Reform Movement in Brazil, which is trying to get people out of the cities and into the farmlands where they can live much better lives, live off of the land, and the communities that are built are just amazing – very utopian, but they are there for each other and are respectful of the land that they have – they share everything and it was amazing to see this lifestyle that we always hear about, but never get a chance to see). We went to the Itaparica Islands which are off the coast of Brazil, saw a Jesuit Church from the 1500’s at the beach (it was all white with a giant pentacle in the center – da Vinci Code anyone! – it also had a graveyard that was straight out of the exorcist, really really creepy – saw a massive tarantula spider and Tom screamed like a little girl!), spent some time at the beach (it has to be consistently 100 degrees with 100% humidity – I have never sweat so much in my life!), drank out of a Fountain of Youth (3 spouts for Love, Wisdom, and Health/Youth), ate the traditional Brazilian style foods (cooked in coconut milk and with dendi oil – it has to be the heaviest oil on the planet and every time I ate a meal – I felt like I had just gained 20 pounds – it sits in your belly like a weight, but it stands to reason, that when you don’t have a lot of money, the food that you eat needs to fill you up), drank Rosca’s (vodka, lime, and sugar – its their specialty – it is good), also had their light beers (Skol and Antartica – all taste like a version of Coors Light, but it is so cheap – 1 liter cost 2 reales which is equivalent to $1), went to a forest reserve and saw white tuft earned marmosets (pretty much just little monkeys that jump all over the trees – they are really cute), ate a ton of pepto bismal because the doctor said it would keep us from getting sick off of the food – and guess what, it worked!, rode on a skooner around the bay of Brazil, saw 4 dolphin fins on our way to the islands, and of course – we did wonder over to Carnival!
We went to the Pellourino district, which is much more low key, families are everywhere, kids, you can move around and dance without having to be too worried, there are restaurants all over the place, cobblestone streets and the usual insanity that is a massive party. Each night that we went to the Pellourino, I went without a watch, money, or anything valuable. If I did carry money, I stuck it in my shoe – and we always went out with at least 5 people. The Carnival scene was crazy – we saw naked men and women painted silver, ancient African costumes, drum beats, horns, groups of people parading through the streets, dancing, sweating profusely, popcorn, cotton candy – it is almost like a parade, but one that lasts 7 days & nights, went to a Reggae Club and danced with a bunch of locals, met some people from Italy, talked with native Brazilians about their culture, Tom got interviewed by Brazilian TV (I stood in the back with a bunch of the other people we went with – screaming and cheering), followed the most amazing group of Carnival – this Japanese group with just drums – they were so awesome, that we all danced behind them for at least 2 hours, got 1 reale taken from me by this kid who was selling beaded necklaces (I continued to see him for the next 3 nights and he would point and laugh and say what is the equivalent of “Stupid White Girl” – then on the last night, he gave me 2 kisses on the cheek and so the 50 cents that was taken from me was forgiven! J), got bracelets of string where you make 3 wishes for each knot and then when the bracelet falls off they come true – completely superstitious, but people just come up to you and tie them on, by the end of Carnival I had 3 on my wrist, ate candied popcorn that was pink, yellow and green (really awesome stuff!), and basically sweat my butt off! It was so much fun – after all the fearful preparation, we had a wonderful, safe time in Salvador. We did of course hear about the horror stories of the people who went into the crazy part of Carnival (not the kiddy section that we went to) and because of those stories, I am so happy that we just went to Pellourino each night – it was great fun with amazing people, performances, costumes, music and food. I only wish that we would have been able to bring our cameras with us – many people had their cameras stolen as they were held up by knife point – thus we decided, why take the chance! Some of Tom’s fellow staff members got pictures, so hopefully there will be some to share.
So that was Salvador, Brazil and now I am off to Capetown, South Africa!!! I don’t know if I could be more excited about this port. Of course, it is going to take us 8 days to get to Capetown – but I think it will be well worth the wait! I hope all of you are staying warm in the snow (I never thought that I would say this, but at times I really wished that I could be cold again J). I also have to apologize that none of you have gotten mail from me, but everything in Brazil was closed and so I was unable to even get to a Post Office. I promise that once I get to South Africa, the postcards and gifts will be sent!
Prior to getting to Brazil, the faculty and staff tried to inform all of us about Carnival, which is this insane festival that has been celebrated in Brazil for hundreds of years. Carnival comes from the term carne and val – meaning no meat – and so Carnival is this massive party for 7 days before Ash Wednesday so that the people can release any pent up energy, enjoy life, and just go absolutely crazy before the Lenten season. Such a crazy concept, to let an entire community go hog wild for 7 days straight – and its religiously based – I don’t ever remember celebrating as we went into the season of Lent as a kid – it was all about thinking of your sins, sacrifice, etc. and so the theme of Carnival is really fascinating.
Because Carnival is a non-stop party for 7 days, everything is closed – stores, banks, post offices, schools, work, etc. Everyone is partying, which also means that the area is incredibly dangerous for most people. For the 7 days before we arrived in Salvador, I continuously heard about how dangerous the area was that we were going to – women were told that they would be harassed, grabbed, robbed, beaten, etc. and the men were told that they had the potential to be robbed mostly. Women were told to go out only with other men in the crowd, never alone, and never with anything valuable. Hearing this for 7 days really freaked me out – to the point where I wasn’t really sure that I even wanted to go to Carnival at all. Tom and I decided to try and schedule a bunch of trips outside of Carnival so that we wouldn’t have to deal with all this stuff if we didn’t want to. We got all of our trips and for 4 of the 5 days in Brazil – we traveled outside of the city of Salvador to try and get a better feel for the country and also to avoid the whole grabbing, groping, harassment issue.
The most interesting and sad reality of Brazil is that 70% of its population lives beneath the poverty level, which inevitably breeds violence, robbery and upset throughout the country. As we approached Salvador, it looked to be a modern city and even had the city line of something similar to NYC, but then as we got closer, we realized that all of the buildings were pretty run down, graffiti, holes in the concrete and just really run down. (This visual of course did nothing to soothe any concerns I had about going into Carnival, but it is the reality of the majority of Brazilians). The city itself is filled with thousands upon thousands of squatters homes, which are basically small brick shacks that squatters built because they saw a piece of land and took it. But because the land is so scarce in the city, the houses are all built up on top of one another on hills – so as you drive through the city – you see the upper level of the city (aka the rich area, which is all pretty and nice) and then the lower level of the city (aka poverty stricken area – which we were told never, under any circumstances to go to – one night our cab driver took us through some of these areas and there were people all over the streets, I saw a bathtub on the street with a few people sleeping in it – people seemed to be drunk and they were stumbling over to the cab, it reeks of urine – it is not a happy place). Outside of the city, the country is beautiful – mostly wide open fields, the Amazon, rainforests, small towns and villages, farms everywhere – nothing like the city of Salvador, which appears to be so overcrowded that no one could ever pull themselves out of poverty without some serious assistance from someone.
Despite this initial look at Brazil, we had such an amazing time! We visited and learned about the African religion called Candomble, which is a matriarchal, goddess based religion. As slaves, Africans were not permitted to practice their own religions and so Candomble is their religion, which was hidden with the Catholic Church. Slave owners would try to convert their slaves and the slaves simply hid their religion within Catholic doctrine. Candomble is the worship of Orisha’s (individualized to each person) and the spirits of the earth, dead, and the other world. Each person is connected to an Orisha and she/he will give sacrifices and things to her for assistance. In Catholicism, the Africans simply turned different saints into Orishas. So, whites would think that they were praying to a saint, when in fact they were practicing their own religion. We visited one of the communes for the religion today and it was really interesting. They are very connected to nature and each Orisha is given a home to be worshipped in – so the houses are all painted based on the Orisha that is worshipped there (everything from blue, pink, yellow, green – it makes for a very interesting row of homes!) In one of the towns, Cachoeira, Candomble has a special group called the Sisterhood of the Good Death and they are all women who are direct descendants of African slaves. They spend their whole lives praying and working towards having a good death. Because they live such harsh lives, these women hope for the opportunity to die in a peaceful way. They hold a festival in August for the death of the Virgin Mary and celebrate her peaceful death and pray for the same. Hard to imagine spending your entire life hoping for death, but when life is lived in such a harsh way – perhaps it is not so difficult to imagine.
We also visited a Cocoa Farm and learned all about how to make chocolate, ate the cocoa fruit (tastes like a tart but sweet jelly and is white and surrounds the cocoa beans), visited a self-sufficient farm community (they only make and take what they need and are part of the Land Reform Movement in Brazil, which is trying to get people out of the cities and into the farmlands where they can live much better lives, live off of the land, and the communities that are built are just amazing – very utopian, but they are there for each other and are respectful of the land that they have – they share everything and it was amazing to see this lifestyle that we always hear about, but never get a chance to see). We went to the Itaparica Islands which are off the coast of Brazil, saw a Jesuit Church from the 1500’s at the beach (it was all white with a giant pentacle in the center – da Vinci Code anyone! – it also had a graveyard that was straight out of the exorcist, really really creepy – saw a massive tarantula spider and Tom screamed like a little girl!), spent some time at the beach (it has to be consistently 100 degrees with 100% humidity – I have never sweat so much in my life!), drank out of a Fountain of Youth (3 spouts for Love, Wisdom, and Health/Youth), ate the traditional Brazilian style foods (cooked in coconut milk and with dendi oil – it has to be the heaviest oil on the planet and every time I ate a meal – I felt like I had just gained 20 pounds – it sits in your belly like a weight, but it stands to reason, that when you don’t have a lot of money, the food that you eat needs to fill you up), drank Rosca’s (vodka, lime, and sugar – its their specialty – it is good), also had their light beers (Skol and Antartica – all taste like a version of Coors Light, but it is so cheap – 1 liter cost 2 reales which is equivalent to $1), went to a forest reserve and saw white tuft earned marmosets (pretty much just little monkeys that jump all over the trees – they are really cute), ate a ton of pepto bismal because the doctor said it would keep us from getting sick off of the food – and guess what, it worked!, rode on a skooner around the bay of Brazil, saw 4 dolphin fins on our way to the islands, and of course – we did wonder over to Carnival!
We went to the Pellourino district, which is much more low key, families are everywhere, kids, you can move around and dance without having to be too worried, there are restaurants all over the place, cobblestone streets and the usual insanity that is a massive party. Each night that we went to the Pellourino, I went without a watch, money, or anything valuable. If I did carry money, I stuck it in my shoe – and we always went out with at least 5 people. The Carnival scene was crazy – we saw naked men and women painted silver, ancient African costumes, drum beats, horns, groups of people parading through the streets, dancing, sweating profusely, popcorn, cotton candy – it is almost like a parade, but one that lasts 7 days & nights, went to a Reggae Club and danced with a bunch of locals, met some people from Italy, talked with native Brazilians about their culture, Tom got interviewed by Brazilian TV (I stood in the back with a bunch of the other people we went with – screaming and cheering), followed the most amazing group of Carnival – this Japanese group with just drums – they were so awesome, that we all danced behind them for at least 2 hours, got 1 reale taken from me by this kid who was selling beaded necklaces (I continued to see him for the next 3 nights and he would point and laugh and say what is the equivalent of “Stupid White Girl” – then on the last night, he gave me 2 kisses on the cheek and so the 50 cents that was taken from me was forgiven! J), got bracelets of string where you make 3 wishes for each knot and then when the bracelet falls off they come true – completely superstitious, but people just come up to you and tie them on, by the end of Carnival I had 3 on my wrist, ate candied popcorn that was pink, yellow and green (really awesome stuff!), and basically sweat my butt off! It was so much fun – after all the fearful preparation, we had a wonderful, safe time in Salvador. We did of course hear about the horror stories of the people who went into the crazy part of Carnival (not the kiddy section that we went to) and because of those stories, I am so happy that we just went to Pellourino each night – it was great fun with amazing people, performances, costumes, music and food. I only wish that we would have been able to bring our cameras with us – many people had their cameras stolen as they were held up by knife point – thus we decided, why take the chance! Some of Tom’s fellow staff members got pictures, so hopefully there will be some to share.
So that was Salvador, Brazil and now I am off to Capetown, South Africa!!! I don’t know if I could be more excited about this port. Of course, it is going to take us 8 days to get to Capetown – but I think it will be well worth the wait! I hope all of you are staying warm in the snow (I never thought that I would say this, but at times I really wished that I could be cold again J). I also have to apologize that none of you have gotten mail from me, but everything in Brazil was closed and so I was unable to even get to a Post Office. I promise that once I get to South Africa, the postcards and gifts will be sent!
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
3 Days in San Juan, Puerto Rico
I am sitting in the faculty/staff lounge right now and Desmond Tutu has his feet up on one of the chairs and is just hanging out, reading his email and playing on his laptop! How crazy is my life right now!?
So, we have officially begun our port visits, starting with San Juan, Puerto Rico – which I have to admit I was not too excited about visiting (in comparison, it seemed a little too much like the US – well technically it is the US) but after staying there these past 3 days – I will admit that I was completely wrong! Puerto Rico was so beautiful that at times I considered not getting back onto the ship at the end of the trip.
Our trip to Puerto Rico started with PR’s Governor greeting us on the ship and giving a little speech about PR, which was really cool. How often does one get to meet with the Governor of Puerto Rico?! So anyways, after he gave his speech we had to meet with US customs officials to be stamped back into the US. Of course, because the customs officers are restricted by US law – they had to meet with each person on the ship personally (some 1000 people) simply because we went to the Bahamas. Needless to say this took absolutely forever – Tom and I missed our first trip because he was busy handing out the passports and thus the beginnings of our experience in Puerto Rico was more or less the same any visit in the US would have been (unruly, painfully long lines, angry customers, and rude officials). It was a great start J
Since we missed our 1st trip around the city of San Juan, we hooked up with a bunch of the staff members and organized our own walk around the area, which turned out to be a much better choice than our original planned event. We walked to San Cristobal and El Morro, which are these massive fort walls built around San Juan to protect the island from invasion. The forts are made from large bricks and at the top of the fort, you can see all the way into San Juan and across the ocean. Its beautiful to say the least. San Juan’s streets are these tiny little brick allies with pastel colored houses. All of the houses have open doorways and often you can see right into everyone’s house right from the streets. The city is really colorful, yet any official type of building is white marble. From most places in San Juan, you can see the ocean surrounding you. The water is the most perfect blue-green color and while we were there, it was sunny and 80+ degrees every day.
We spent our 3 days on sensory overload but got to do and see some amazing things. We ate at local restaurants (I have been busy eating some of the best fish I have ever had and of course filling up on rice & beans – which is always a staple in Latin America), drank at some really great bars in the area (the Pina Coladas were fantastic, as were the Passion Fruit Coladas & Mojitos – from what I have been told! We went to this one bar that was basically a concrete block and when you go they give you a marker to write your name on the wall. The bar tender was from NYC – and so when he found out that we were from the NJ/NYC area, we got a free round of drinks!), went to the beaches, hiked in the rainforest and I successfully escaped the tree frogs which inhabit the forest, Tom and I ran into the Governor of PR while he was out for a jog one night (that was pretty cool), hung out in Pigeon Park where, shockingly enough, I did not get crapped on (this park was filled with 200+ pigeons and if you stuck your arms out they would fly right onto your arms, back, head, etc.- we got some really great pictures of this place and this little boy was there with food and he had probably 50 pigeons on him at a time), we also visited the 2nd oldest Catholic Church in the western hemisphere (very plain, white and modest looking place), we visited with the cats that live in the oldest graveyard in San Juan (they live underneath the grave stones & sometimes if the tomb isn’t set up correctly, they have dug little holes under the coffins. Plus because the island is so small (110 miles by 10 miles), they have to conserve space so families are all buried together/on top of one another. We saw one gravestone that had 16 people in it!) and of course, we made our way to the Plaza de Americanas to purchase many bags of chocolate, diet coke, sugar/jelly bellies/sour patch kids/fruit snacks, peanut butter, coffee mugs, towels (we forgot to bring beach towels), and sunglasses – because I sat on mine.
We kept very busy these past 3 days and now we are back on the ship for our trip to Brazil, which will take a full 7 days. The students have started up with classes again and I am pretty sure that I have lost all concepts of what day it is because I now live on ‘Ship Time’ vs. ‘Port Time.’ I am also becoming a master of nautical time & language (although the whole subtracting 12 from 2100 hours still stumps me). We had tacos for lunch and I thought that I must have died and gone to heaven! The whole ship was running around talking about it being Taco Day – which may not seem all that exciting, but trust me – when you have eaten more potatoes and pasta dishes than you ever thought physically possible – tacos become a feast fit for royalty! I have also done the Susie Homemaker thing today and washed my clothes in the sink. This is a task that I am very much looking forward to never doing again.
So, that was Puerto Rico for me! And El Squat – it was fantastic being in a place where you can add el and la to everything and no one looks at you like you are crazy! I scanned the island for signs resembling “el squat” but, I was not successful – perhaps even Puerto Rico is not ready for the likes of El Squat and El Squattie!
PS I apologize for the lateness of this post - but I am still figuring out when I can get online without having to wait forever!!!
So, we have officially begun our port visits, starting with San Juan, Puerto Rico – which I have to admit I was not too excited about visiting (in comparison, it seemed a little too much like the US – well technically it is the US) but after staying there these past 3 days – I will admit that I was completely wrong! Puerto Rico was so beautiful that at times I considered not getting back onto the ship at the end of the trip.
Our trip to Puerto Rico started with PR’s Governor greeting us on the ship and giving a little speech about PR, which was really cool. How often does one get to meet with the Governor of Puerto Rico?! So anyways, after he gave his speech we had to meet with US customs officials to be stamped back into the US. Of course, because the customs officers are restricted by US law – they had to meet with each person on the ship personally (some 1000 people) simply because we went to the Bahamas. Needless to say this took absolutely forever – Tom and I missed our first trip because he was busy handing out the passports and thus the beginnings of our experience in Puerto Rico was more or less the same any visit in the US would have been (unruly, painfully long lines, angry customers, and rude officials). It was a great start J
Since we missed our 1st trip around the city of San Juan, we hooked up with a bunch of the staff members and organized our own walk around the area, which turned out to be a much better choice than our original planned event. We walked to San Cristobal and El Morro, which are these massive fort walls built around San Juan to protect the island from invasion. The forts are made from large bricks and at the top of the fort, you can see all the way into San Juan and across the ocean. Its beautiful to say the least. San Juan’s streets are these tiny little brick allies with pastel colored houses. All of the houses have open doorways and often you can see right into everyone’s house right from the streets. The city is really colorful, yet any official type of building is white marble. From most places in San Juan, you can see the ocean surrounding you. The water is the most perfect blue-green color and while we were there, it was sunny and 80+ degrees every day.
We spent our 3 days on sensory overload but got to do and see some amazing things. We ate at local restaurants (I have been busy eating some of the best fish I have ever had and of course filling up on rice & beans – which is always a staple in Latin America), drank at some really great bars in the area (the Pina Coladas were fantastic, as were the Passion Fruit Coladas & Mojitos – from what I have been told! We went to this one bar that was basically a concrete block and when you go they give you a marker to write your name on the wall. The bar tender was from NYC – and so when he found out that we were from the NJ/NYC area, we got a free round of drinks!), went to the beaches, hiked in the rainforest and I successfully escaped the tree frogs which inhabit the forest, Tom and I ran into the Governor of PR while he was out for a jog one night (that was pretty cool), hung out in Pigeon Park where, shockingly enough, I did not get crapped on (this park was filled with 200+ pigeons and if you stuck your arms out they would fly right onto your arms, back, head, etc.- we got some really great pictures of this place and this little boy was there with food and he had probably 50 pigeons on him at a time), we also visited the 2nd oldest Catholic Church in the western hemisphere (very plain, white and modest looking place), we visited with the cats that live in the oldest graveyard in San Juan (they live underneath the grave stones & sometimes if the tomb isn’t set up correctly, they have dug little holes under the coffins. Plus because the island is so small (110 miles by 10 miles), they have to conserve space so families are all buried together/on top of one another. We saw one gravestone that had 16 people in it!) and of course, we made our way to the Plaza de Americanas to purchase many bags of chocolate, diet coke, sugar/jelly bellies/sour patch kids/fruit snacks, peanut butter, coffee mugs, towels (we forgot to bring beach towels), and sunglasses – because I sat on mine.
We kept very busy these past 3 days and now we are back on the ship for our trip to Brazil, which will take a full 7 days. The students have started up with classes again and I am pretty sure that I have lost all concepts of what day it is because I now live on ‘Ship Time’ vs. ‘Port Time.’ I am also becoming a master of nautical time & language (although the whole subtracting 12 from 2100 hours still stumps me). We had tacos for lunch and I thought that I must have died and gone to heaven! The whole ship was running around talking about it being Taco Day – which may not seem all that exciting, but trust me – when you have eaten more potatoes and pasta dishes than you ever thought physically possible – tacos become a feast fit for royalty! I have also done the Susie Homemaker thing today and washed my clothes in the sink. This is a task that I am very much looking forward to never doing again.
So, that was Puerto Rico for me! And El Squat – it was fantastic being in a place where you can add el and la to everything and no one looks at you like you are crazy! I scanned the island for signs resembling “el squat” but, I was not successful – perhaps even Puerto Rico is not ready for the likes of El Squat and El Squattie!
PS I apologize for the lateness of this post - but I am still figuring out when I can get online without having to wait forever!!!
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Two Days at Sea
All of the students boarded the ship on Sunday and we departed from Nassau, Bahamas at 5:00 Sunday night. This was the first “sea-legs” test and I have to say that I am passing with flying colors! There are quite a number of people wearing the wrist bands, patches, and taking pills to calm their nausea – but, I am happy to report that the sea is treating me well. And on the plus side, I don’t think that I have ever slept so well – the room is completely dark and the swaying rocks me to sleep like a little baby!
The sea has been fairly calm as well. It rained for about an hour yesterday, but for the rest of the time it has been sunny and beautiful. All of the students are outside tanning all day (many are now burned), but I have mostly spent my time in the Faculty/Staff Lounge reading and chatting with people. It is a very odd feeling to be an outsider both within the student body and also the staff/faculty – Anzaldua’s borderdweller comes to mind constantly. Additionally, we are treated like royalty on this ship. The stewards make our beds and clean the rooms every day, there is a wait staff for the dining halls, a bar crew and even a spa for massages – all of this seems to me, quite contradictory to what should be a “real-life” experience. In essence, the ship has become a version of the so-called 1st World, rather than a collective space for engaging in the difficult questions of this privileged random identity. Perhaps this will happen as time goes on; however, I wonder how that can even be possible, when all one has to do if they feel uncomfortable or challenged – is return to the ship and feel at ‘home.’
Ah the deep thoughts of the sea – I imagine these thoughts of digestion will occupy most of my very open time schedule J Anyways, tomorrow, we reach Puerto Rico and will stay there for 3 days. We set our clocks ahead 1 hour last night and had our first Pre-Port meeting to talk about what people might expect to encounter in the city. I am happy to be leaving the commotion for awhile – The first day, Tom and I are going on a tour of old San Juan and then on the last day, we will be hiking through a rainforest. In between there, we will most likely wonder around. The whole week everyone has been talking about going to the Target in Puerto Rico to pick up some of the odds and ends forgotten or needed – so difficult to leave the American lifestyle behind…
I am sure that I will more interesting stories to report once I return from Puerto Rico, but until then things are pretty calm and dare I say a typical college environment – just on a beautiful ocean. Love to you all.
The sea has been fairly calm as well. It rained for about an hour yesterday, but for the rest of the time it has been sunny and beautiful. All of the students are outside tanning all day (many are now burned), but I have mostly spent my time in the Faculty/Staff Lounge reading and chatting with people. It is a very odd feeling to be an outsider both within the student body and also the staff/faculty – Anzaldua’s borderdweller comes to mind constantly. Additionally, we are treated like royalty on this ship. The stewards make our beds and clean the rooms every day, there is a wait staff for the dining halls, a bar crew and even a spa for massages – all of this seems to me, quite contradictory to what should be a “real-life” experience. In essence, the ship has become a version of the so-called 1st World, rather than a collective space for engaging in the difficult questions of this privileged random identity. Perhaps this will happen as time goes on; however, I wonder how that can even be possible, when all one has to do if they feel uncomfortable or challenged – is return to the ship and feel at ‘home.’
Ah the deep thoughts of the sea – I imagine these thoughts of digestion will occupy most of my very open time schedule J Anyways, tomorrow, we reach Puerto Rico and will stay there for 3 days. We set our clocks ahead 1 hour last night and had our first Pre-Port meeting to talk about what people might expect to encounter in the city. I am happy to be leaving the commotion for awhile – The first day, Tom and I are going on a tour of old San Juan and then on the last day, we will be hiking through a rainforest. In between there, we will most likely wonder around. The whole week everyone has been talking about going to the Target in Puerto Rico to pick up some of the odds and ends forgotten or needed – so difficult to leave the American lifestyle behind…
I am sure that I will more interesting stories to report once I return from Puerto Rico, but until then things are pretty calm and dare I say a typical college environment – just on a beautiful ocean. Love to you all.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Life with the Whooping Cough & Women from North Carolina
Prior to my departure for Semester at Sea, I came down the the Whooping Cough - and no, I am not 86 years old, nor do I typically allow people to cough bacteria directly in my face - however, according to the doctor I am just "one of those strange people whose vaccine from childhood just stops working." And hence, I got the whooping cough! It is lovely, I assure you - especially when you are on vacation :) It has calmed itself down, which is good - a lot less hacking - also good - and I need the meds less - very good!
My time thus far in the Bahamas has been quite nice and fairly normal - the usual tanning and wondering how in the world these Bahamians got the water so blue - when I made the mistake of needing to use the public bathroom at a resort. Now this initially seemed harmless, but upon entering the facility I noticed 2 women from North Carolina leaning out of their bathroom stalls so that they could have a face to face conversation with one another as they proceeded to pee all over the seat & floor of their stalls. I must have made some sort of "what the hell" kind of sound - because they looked at me and said, "Oh Sorry, We didn't have time to close the doors." I am not exactly sure what this means - do they always do this and they didn't have time to close the doors before I entered, or did they have to go so badly that they could not possibly be bothered with closing a door when they have their pants to pull down! Fairly disturbing - and so when they said that to me - I closed both of their doors - was I being rude, perhaps - but hey these are the women that give Americans a bad name. Its little wonder that people think Americans are crude and disgusting when you have 2 women pulling a stunt like this... (Alissa if you are reading this - get out of NC while you still can!!).
So, like I said - I typical day in my vacations - especially as a Bent!
Love to you all! ~Emily (also known as Em, Shmemy, Femily, & Squat)
My time thus far in the Bahamas has been quite nice and fairly normal - the usual tanning and wondering how in the world these Bahamians got the water so blue - when I made the mistake of needing to use the public bathroom at a resort. Now this initially seemed harmless, but upon entering the facility I noticed 2 women from North Carolina leaning out of their bathroom stalls so that they could have a face to face conversation with one another as they proceeded to pee all over the seat & floor of their stalls. I must have made some sort of "what the hell" kind of sound - because they looked at me and said, "Oh Sorry, We didn't have time to close the doors." I am not exactly sure what this means - do they always do this and they didn't have time to close the doors before I entered, or did they have to go so badly that they could not possibly be bothered with closing a door when they have their pants to pull down! Fairly disturbing - and so when they said that to me - I closed both of their doors - was I being rude, perhaps - but hey these are the women that give Americans a bad name. Its little wonder that people think Americans are crude and disgusting when you have 2 women pulling a stunt like this... (Alissa if you are reading this - get out of NC while you still can!!).
So, like I said - I typical day in my vacations - especially as a Bent!
Love to you all! ~Emily (also known as Em, Shmemy, Femily, & Squat)
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