SAS Presentation

Friday January 21, 2011 Evergreen and I will be giving a presentation on our Semester at Sea Voyage.  Anyone who would like to attend is more than welcome.  Before the presentation there will be a fund raising dinner for the youth group starting at 6:00 pm, so I estimate that we will start the slides at 7 -7:30.  This will all be held at the Norris Religious Fellowship located at 23 Dogwood Rd.  Google knows where it is but I wouldn't trust all of its directions.  Thanks everyone for your interest in my voyage, I hope you enjoyed reading about it, and I hope I didn't ramble too much. 
Thanks
Jocelyn Borgers

Last Day on the Ship

Today was the last day on the ship.  Everyone has managed to stuff everything into the many bags they have brought with them or bought along the way.  Tomorrow we arrive in San Diego and have to go through customs.  Everyone is scrambling around getting people to sign things and sharing videos and pictures and just hanging out for the last time on the ship.  It's a bitter sweet moment.  We are all so excited to go home but really sad to leave our ship community and all the friends we have made.  We stayed up really late last night hanging out playing cards and packing.  Today we all dragged our suitcases to designated areas so they can be taken off the ship for us.  If they didn't do this I don't think that I would ever make it off the ship because I have so much stuff.  I will try to get some sleep tonight so I am wide awake tomorrow (standing in line is hard work). 

Hawaii

The first day in Hawaii I went with some of my friends to Diamond Head.  We hiked up to the top where an old fort was.  It was really windy and so not too hot at all.  The view was amazing.  after getting back down we got shave ice.  We caught the bus to Perl Harbor but it was really late by the time we got there so we only got to go in the submarine and the museum.  That night we ate at a Japanese restaurant before walking around Honolulu.  While walking around we ran across a "First Fridays" concert.  We stayed and listened to a really good ukulele player and ate fresh homemade Popsicle that we bought at a stand.  Mine was banana cream pie, yum! 

Day 2 in Honolulu we took a bus and a taxi to Honuma Bay where we snorkeled in the coral.  I got a sunburn that day but it was well worth it.  That night on the ship we sailed to Hilo. 

The first day in Hilo Jen, Laura, and I went to Rainbow falls which was really neat but what I like the best was the giant tree beside it.  This tree was amazing it was like thousands of tiny trees bunched together as one giant tree.  We spent a while climbing in it.  After that we walked to the downtown where we ate lunch and looked at all the little shops.  We called a taxi and went back to the ship where the three of us got ready to go to the lu'au.  The lu'au was at the University of Hawaii in Hilo.  The cultural club put it on for us.  It was not like the normal tourist lu'au that everyone thinks of but it was still neat.  We learned how to make lei's and saw some hula dancing and ate Hawaiian food.  After getting back to the ship we decided to go to the mall to see a movie.  We saw Tangled in 3D and I must say that I highly recommend it. 

The last day in Hawaii eight of us rented a car so we could drive to Volcano National Park.  We bought lunch to take with us and had a good day at the park.  On our way back to Hilo we stopped by Rainbow falls again for those who hadn't seen it yet.  Evergreen agreed with me that the falls were cool but the tree was really the highlight. 

Now we are back at sea.  I have 2 finals tomorrow and one the day after then I will be done!  Today the ship is really rocking even though it is so sunny and pleasant outside. 

San Diego in 4 days, Home in 5.  It has all gone by so fast. 

Don't Rock the Boat (Ship)

Since we have left Japan several days ago the ship has been rolling and pitching a lot.  For some people like me this is just an annoyance because it is hard to walk to class.  I feel sorry for the others who are sea sick.  The Ambassadors Ball happens right after Hawaii, then the final exams.  Everyone is study and finishing last minute projects.  All that’s left after finals is packing and getting off the ship.  Soon it will all be over.  I will be really happy to get home again but sad to leave the ship and all the friends I have made.  But for now it’s back to the books. 

Today is Tomorrow and Tomorrows Today

How many people can say that they had two days that were November 27, 2010?  Well at least the thousand people on this ship can.  We crossed the International Date Line sometime yesterday November 27, 2010, a Saturday.  Guess what today is?  If you said November 28, 2010, a Sunday, you would be wrong.  Today is November 27, 2010, a Saturday.  If you are now confused as to how this is possible don’t worry, you are not alone.  My friends and I have had numerous discussions and we still haven’t quite been able to logically explain this, other than saying time travel.  We have also only confused ourselves more by talking about things we need to do on the 27, wait which 27, which Saturday?  The ship does make this a little easier by saying that yesterday the first 27 was B19 and today is A20.  But even so…  Yesterday (B19) one of my friends set her phone to reminder her about a meeting she had the next day (A20).  Her phone promptly went off at the correct time but on B19.  She looked at me and wanted to know why her phone was going off.  “I asked you what day tomorrow was and you said Saturday” she said angrily, I replied “Tomorrow is Saturday and today is Saturday and the next day is Sunday.” 

Other than us having our fun little word mix ups we are studying and writing a lot of paper, finishing several projects and taking naps.  We only have 5 more days before Hawaii and then finals start. 

Kobe, me and a hat.

Me in my new hat from China infront of the Kobe Tower

Yokohama, Japan

The last day in Japan, Evergreen and I spent in Yokohama. We walked around the city from 9:30 to 12:30 when we went to the train station to meet Evergreens friend who lives an hour away from Yokohama. We ate lunch at a Japanese restaurant in a mall food court before having another crepe, this time apple, cinnamon, and whipped cream. We walked back to the ship so Evergreen's friend could see it, then while Evergreen walked her to the subway station I took our bags and stood in line to go through security and get on the ship. I waved goodbye to our last foreign port from inside because I went outside and couldn’t take it because it was so cold. Of course those of you that know me know that I get cold easily anyway. My friends didn’t think it was that bad so they stayed outside and watched us take off. It was a good day. Now begins the long stretch to Hawaii.

Tokyo, Japan

The first day in Yokohama we took the train to Tokyo for the day where we met some of our friends. We went to a temple, we went shopping, I got this really awesomely delicious crepe filled with bananas chocolate whipped cream and gelato. We sang karaoke for 2 hours in a karaoke room; it was a lot of fun. We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant where I got one of the best pizzas I have ever had: chicken, bacon, and potato. An interesting combo from the sound of it but it really was really good! Evergreen and I took the train and got back to Yokohama at 12:00 am just in time for the rain to start. We walked back to the ship in the rain, my shoes where really wet.

In-Transit day

The next day was an in-transit day as we traveled with the ship to Yokohama (some people traveled independently to Yokohama). It was so nice to relax for once. I woke up at 7:30 am for breakfast then went back to bed till lunch. After lunch I caught up on some school work before dinner. After dinner Tesia, Natalie, Evergreen, and I watched the movie 17 Again. It was a nice day

Kyoto, Japan

The next day Katherine, Evergreen, and I had a field trip to some temples, gardens, and a castle. They were all really beautiful especially the Japanese maples with their leafs red and yellow. All the fall colors made me think of home. The weather was almost perfect, a little on the cool side but not too bad.

Kobe, Japan

The first day in Japan we were docked in Kobe. Evergreen and I didn’t get off the ship and through customs until 1 pm. We walked around the downtown and bought some donuts from a place called Nature Donuts (We think they were organic or something) they were good. Then we walked around for a while longer before heading back to the ship where we ate dinner.

Shanghai Day 2

The second day Evergreen, Jen, and I met Laura and Katherine outside the port.  We walked to a coffee shop for breakfast before walking along the riverside to the Bund.  From there we walked to a market and managed to spend the rest of our Chinese money on gifts and souvenirs.  For lunch we had Chinese dumplings and orange soda.  We took our time walking back to the ship getting milkshakes from McDonalds along the way.  Back at the ship we ate dinner and then I think we went to bed but at this point I can't really remember.  It already feels like such a long time ago. 

Shanghai Day 1

We left the hostel at around 8:15 and headed to the subway station a few blocks away.  Needing coins for the ticket machine we got breakfast at the Donut King across the street.  There were tai chi groups everywhere doing there slow controlled movements in the cold winding morning air.  It was rush hour on the subway but we managed to shove ourselves on the second subway with everyone else.  Once we made it through the subway system we walked for 15 minutes or so before we saw the ship.  When we first saw it, it looked really funny; almost like it wasn’t in water but surrounded by skyscrapers.  At the port was a long line of students waiting to get on the ship.  We got there around 9:30, plenty of time to get on and off the ship right?  Wrong, so instead I will not get on the ship but just get on the bus that my trip is leaving parked right there in my sight right?  Wrong again.  I got all the way on the bus and was ready and excited to go on my trip when a customs officer comes on and asks to see everyone’s passports.  I don’t have the stamp that you have to get when you get on the ship so they make me get off the bus.  I get to skip the line and run inside and turn in my passport to have it stamped; it will be ready in an hour or so.  Welcome to communist China!  Two other girls have the same problem that I do so it is set up for us to meet the group at lunch.  An hour later I go back and my passport is still not ready.  So I sit with a book in a chair right there and wait.  Finally after a lot of help from the tour agent and the field office we get our passport back and get to lunch.  After a fabulous lunch we went to the Shanghai museum.  I wish we had more than an hour because it was a really nice museum that I would highly recommend to any future visitors to China and it was free.  It had 4 floors and about 8 different exhibits.  Out of those I walked through the furniture, the costume, the ceramics, and a quick glance at the brass exhibit.  After the museum we went to the Jade Buddha Temple where we saw two jade Buddha’s and tried Buddhist tea.  Because of a fire we couldn’t eat at the restaurant that had been picked out originally but our tour guild was really good and managed to find a place for 25 people to eat.  After dinner we went to see an Acrobat show.  It was a long day; once back on the ship I went to bed. 

Hangzhou

We arrived in Shanghai at 11 am.  After getting some Chinese money, we bought our train tickets to Hangzhou, a town about 2 hours south of Shanghai.  We ate lunch at a Chinese fast food chain and then wandered around a super market before going to the train station and waiting.  Our train to Hangzhou left at 3:30 pm and arrived at 4:30 pm.  It was one of the new bullet trains, we reached 360 kmph.  I took a video of the cars on the road beside us that we were flying by.    In Hangzhou we found our hostel and walked around the shops on one of the market roads.  The next morning it was raining but we went out anyway.  We went to the National Silk Museum (the biggest silk museum in the world) and walked around West Lake.  We ate a late lunch at a “western” restaurant because that was the only place around that was still opened.  Evergreen got a pizza that said it would serve 3 – 4 people but it was just the right size for one person.  I got French fries, pork kebabs, and “pumpkin pies”.  The pumpkin pies were small little blobs of fried pumpkin mush stuff, I wouldn’t have called them pumpkin pies but they were good.  We caught a 6 pm train back to Shanghai were we had booked another hostel.  This one was also very nice with a fluffy blanket that made it hard to get up in the morning. 

Second day in Hong Kong

The next Day Evergreen and I took an overnight train to Shanghai.  We left at 3 pm.  We ended up with the top bunks in a room with 6 beds (each bunk bed is 3 beds high).  We read and studied and then ate a dinner of sweet and sour pork and rice in the dining car.   On the train we met a guy from Canada who is studying in Hong Kong so we talked to him for a little while about Hong Kong and China and the big differences between China and North America like the fact that in China they don’t drink cold water but hot water (just plain hot water).  That night we went to bed to the cuddled in the fluffy blankets with the train rocking almost like the ship. 

First Day in Hong Kong

The night before arriving in Hong Kong my friends and I watched Mulan to get us excited.  That morning we left the ship and took the subway to the cable cars that would take us to the island Lantau where there is a giant Buddha statue 33 meters high and it is on top of a hill so we walked up the millions of steps and walked around and took lots of pictures with the giant Buddha.  We also went to the Buddhist monastery and then took a walk on the wisdom path.  At the wisdom path there were giant half tree trunks set up in the shape of a figure eight with Chinese characters on them.  There weren’t a lot of people there and with the mountains in the background and the cool breeze blowing it was very nice to just sit and relax for once.  We left Lantau at 6 pm and went to see the light show.  The light show was like Christmas at home.  By that I mean it was like one of the houses that have bunches of lights that are programmed to a song.  The only difference was that this was a whole city.  Afterwards we walked along Star Avenue where we found Jackie Chan’s handprints and a statue of Bruce Lee.  Then we went in search of dinner.  We found a nice little dinner type Chinese restaurant down in the basement of a building.  It was really good; I had some sort of pork dish and rice.  One of the waiters kept trying to help Jen hold her chopsticks correctly because she can’t eat with them very well but she has fun trying.  They finally just brought her a fork but she refused to use it for a while because she wanted to use the chop sticks.  We were going to take the subway back to the ship but we just ended up walking through the giant subway station tunnels underground. 

Last day in Vietnam

My last day in Vietnam I had a field trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels.  We left at 7 am and arrived to the tunnels at around 9.  It was a very cool experience to go through the tunnels in a doubled over crouching walk.  We were told that these tunnels had even been widened for tourists.  We all came out of the tunnels sticky and sweaty from all the people and the hotness of the tunnels.  We made it back to the ship by 12:30, just in time to have lunch.  After lunch I took the shuttle bus to the town center and sat in a park and drew for about an hour or so.  I then decided that I should use up the last of my dong (Vietnamese currency) at the market, so I started walking towards the market thinking that maybe I would stop and get some ice cream on the way.  As I walked up the street towards an ice cream shop I saw Jen and Evergreen sitting.  I was so surprised to see them.  I ate ice cream with them and we told each other about our day so far.  Then Evergreen went back to the ship and Jen went with me to the market.  I managed to use up the rest of our dong on a shirt and some material for myself when it again started to rain.  I was again the only one with a rain poncho so we decided to wait in the market for a while and see if the rain would let up.  While waiting we met up with Megan (another friend) we finally decided that it wasn’t going to let up very much more so I took everyone’s bags and put the poncho on over myself and all of them and we took off to the Rex Hotel, about 4 blocks away, where the shuttle bus would pick us up and take us to the ship.  We were soaked by the time we got to the Rex.  Even I with the poncho on was soaked from my knees down (Our bags were good and dry).  Once on the ship again we changed and had a BBQ dinner.  Vietnam was an interesting country. 

Forth day in Vietnam

The fourth day in Vietnam my friend Laura and I went to the Market.  The market is a big building with some places open to the air but the whole perimeter covered.  Around the perimeter people were mostly selling clothes but there were also some souvenirs and luggage for sale too.  About one half of the middle of the market was all food, but there were also some other food stands sprinkled throughout the whole market.  The rest of the market was bags, jewelry, material, spices, and other random things.  Laura got a really pretty traditional dress.  For lunch we ate at a place called Tutie Fruity.  It was kind of like US food, but a little different.  After lunch it started to rain so we headed back to the ship where we played cards and watched Meet the Robinsons until Katherine arrived.  We headed back out and met up with Jen for a dinner of Pho then we wandered around the outside market.  After Katherine bought some things for her family we went in search of a DVD store where I proceeded to buy a lot of really cheap DVD’s.  On the way back to the ship we stopped at Yogan Fruz for some frozen yogurt. 

Day three in Vietnam

One of my friends, Jen, is part of a leadership class and the main project for this class is a group service project that they had to set up themselves. So on the third day in Vietnam they went to the Little Rose Warm Shelter, and I went with them. This shelter is for girls who had been rescued from human trafficking situations. When we got there at 12:30 they told us that they had just sent us an email saying that we shouldn’t come until 6 pm because the girls would be at school till then. The main service part of the project was buying them a printer so we decided to split up and do some sight seeing, buy the printer, eat, and then go back to the shelter. Jen, Laura, and I went to the Independence Palace. It was really nice inside with lots of fancy furniture, carpets, and decorations. When we left to go meet the rest of the group to buy the printer it started to rain. I had a poncho with me but the other two didn’t so we tried to huddle under it and walk at the same time. Soon after this a really nice random lady stopped on her motorcycle and gave us her extra poncho. We gave all our bags to Laura and put the poncho on her while Jen and I continued to share the one I had. We finally managed to hail a cab and make it to the place we said we would meet the others and went to the LG store to buy a printer. At this point Laura and one of the other girls decided to go back to the ship. We finally picked out a printer and the four girls from the class paid for it and we left. This time we put the poncho over the girl carrying the printer. We walked down the street a short ways and found a little bakery/café. I had a large soft roll with ham and cheese in it, it was really good. After eating we went back outside hail another taxi to drive us back to the shelter, the only problem was it was rush hour in the rain and all the cabs were full. We walked down the street a few blocks and crossed the street with out getting run over. At a hotel some people were getting out of a cab so we got in. We got to the shelter again at 6:30pm. We played some group games with the girls and set up the printer, which of course works to perfection (Something I learned how to do at my internship at UTMC). We then painted nails and had our nails painted by the girls and made friendship bracelets. It was a lot of fun and truly amazing to interact with girls that only know a few words in English and yet we were still able to understand each other well enough. When we finally left we hailed another cab and went and ate dinner at a Pho restaurant. Jen and I got back to the ship around 11:20pm. It was a long and muddy wet day.

The Mekong Delta

Today, our second day in Vietnam we went to the Mekong Delta.  It was about an hour and a half drive to this place and on the way we stopped  to see some giant Buddha statues that were very neat.  We took two boats (for about 40 people) to the first island called Unicorn Island.  There drank tea, watched coconut candy being made, ate fruit and took a small boat ride (4 people per boat) down to meet our bigger boats which took us to turtle island for lunch.  Lunch was a fried fish, literally the whole thing propped up in the middle of the table.  Some of the fish was wrapped in rice paper with some mint leaves and rice noodles.  I tried it, it was certainly different but I much preferred the chicken that was brought later.  There was also rice, some sort of prawn and some kind of soup.  After lunch was over we got back on the boats which took us back to the bus and the bus to Saigon (Ho Chi Min City).  We quickly dropped off our stuff at the ship and headed to the water puppet show.  The water puppets were amazing, very different from any kind of puppet show I have seen.  Tonight we ate at a restaurant where we got to cook the food ourselves (its been a while) in the middle of the table on a little grill.  We ate everything with chopsticks and didn’t drop as much as we did the night before and during lunch.  Maybe by the time we leave Asia we will be experts.  We walked around the market after eating and I of course couldn’t resist getting a traditional outfit that the women wear here.  Now I am back at the ship and am going to go to sleep, I have finally caught up on my blogging and can rest easy. 

Good Morning Vietnam

First day in Vietnam we ate breakfast and as soon as the ship was cleared we got off and took the shuttle to the town center.  We walked to the War Memorial Museum.  It was a very depressing place, but a good thing to see.  They had everything from pictures of Agent Orange victims and those born to the people that came into contact with it, to airplanes and tanks, to pictures and artwork done on the American War (or what we call the Vietnam War), and stories of individuals who lost their entire families.   We went back to the ship for a quick lunch before my friend Laura and I had a field trip to the school for the deaf & Zoo.  It was fun to take them too the Zoo, even though they were crazy excited and running around everywhere they had fun seeing the animals.  When we got back to the ship my friends and I went out to eat and walk around.  It is a lot of fun to cross the street here, and by fun I mean scary and exciting and really cool at the same time.  There aren’t a lot of traffic laws here so when you want to cross the street you look both ways and then walk out into a sea of motorcycles (the primary mode of transportation), you maintain a steady pace and the motorcycles adjust there path to flow around you.   The only things you have to watch out for are buses and trucks.  The buses are crazy (so we have been told) and just might run over you if you aren’t careful.  While walking around we found a place that sells DVD’s for what converts to 50 cents a disk.  We bought a lot of movies.  We took the shuttle back to the ship.  It was a very long day but we decided to go ahead and start one of the movies we had got.  It was a good long day! 

Two days in Singapore

We were only in Singapore for two days which was just enough time to get a feel for this well functioning city state.  The first day we took a bus to downtown and walked around.  We walked through little India, we went to the Singapore Flyer (the tallest Ferris wheel in the world), and took the tram over to Sentosa Island for the night.  Sentosa is kind of how I would picture Coney island to be, a giant amusement park, beaches, restaurants, and hotels included.  The next day I had a field trip to a pewter store where we got to see how pewter objects are made and got to make our own bowl.  I got back to the mall (forgot to mention that after getting off the ship we went through customs, just like in the US, and the customs spits us out into a mall, convenient isn’t it) and skyped my family and then ate lunch (Japanese dumplings) with a friend before doing some last minute grocery shopping and getting back on the ship. 
About Singapore:
Very Clean, Friendly place.  If you can follow some laws about not littering and acting stupid while drunk then I suggest you visit.  After being in India and seeing the messy streets there, Singapore was a breath of fresh clean air.  And speaking of clean we didn’t have to worry about the water!  It was good for just a two day stop. 

India (final)

The third day in India we took breakfast to go because we had to meet the other SAS people for a day trip so our host families didn‘t have to figure out what to do with us (although I would have liked to spend more time with them), and I think some of them had to work since they took the day before off to meet us.  We went to crocodile bay, Mamalapurim, and ate another authentic southern Indian lunch at a hotel restaurant.  We also saw Krishna’s Butter Ball (a giant natural rock formation that is well, a giant boulder sitting on a slope and not falling), and several temples from a distance because it was too expensive to go in or that is what our tour guild told us. 
Trying to hurry because I am behind so…
Got picked up by our family, our host mom made us a fabulous dinner, she kept feeding us more and more.  The next morning for breakfast it was the same thing.  But it was really good so I didn’t mind too much.  We got to try on Sharmila’s sari’s after breakfast and Arul took lots of pictures.  Then they took us to St Thomas Church where there is suppose to be a piece of the apostle Thomas’ actual bone.  We had lunch at a restaurant (a large chain that I ended up eating at the next two days).  Then we went to a school where the rotary club helps pay for some poor girls schooling.  The girls held a rotary club meeting and afterwards we got to talk with them.  Our host parents then took us back to the ship where we showed them around and ate dinner.  Then we said our goodbyes. 
The next day we went by rickshaw to some more shops and picked up our Kurta’s we had made.  They are really nice.  That night we saw another Indian movie, the one everyone in India had been talking about, The Robot.  It was a very strange movie to say the least.  We got back to the ship around 1:30 am. 
The last day in India we took a cab to the market and finally after all our time there, got to walk around and just see the sights.  I got a sari and some cotton kurtas and a few other things I couldn’t resist.  I Love India!  It was a good day.  I was sad to leave it but it was on to Singapore. 

India: Day Two

The second day I had signed up to do the Rotarian Homestay.  We got on a bus and drove to a central location where we met the families that we would be staying with for the next two nights.  A girl named Katherine or Katie and I were to stay with a couple the man’s name was Arul and the woman’s was Sharmila.  They lived in Chennai about 45 minutes from the town center just ten minutes from the airport.  They took us to lunch at a nice hotel restaurant just around the corner where we had a typical south Indian meal.  It was a big plate with a banana leaf covering it.  On the middle of the plate was a small pile of rice with some spices and something that tasted like peanuts.   Surrounding the rice were small metal bowls that each had different sauces in them.  Sharmila instructed us on how to eat with our hands mixing the different things in the bowls with plain rice that was brought later.  One of the bowls that was saved for last had a sweet thick milky substance that was spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon and had a few squishy noodles.  We did not mix that with rice but just drank it instead.   I also tried this “sweet” wrapped in some kind of leaf.  I did as instructed and popped the whole thing in my mouth at once.  The “sweet inside was, as far as I could tell, purely cloves and not anything like the sweets we have in the US.  After lunch they took us to the mall where we wandered around for a while.  Next we went to the Chennai museum that had a lot of statues of the different gods that were very old.  Afterwards we went to Arul’s Cousins apartment for some tea and cookies.  After tea we went to the hotel where the rotary club meeting was being held.  We had snacks there and at the end of the meeting, dancers performed two different traditional dances, one from the north and one from the south.  The rotary club gave us all presents, and were all very welcoming and nice.  After the 45 minute drive to the apartment we were staying in that our host family had only moved into a month ago, they fed us more dinner before we went to bed. 

First Day in India

On the first day in India Evergreen had a SAS trip so Jen, Laura, Katherine, and I went out together.  We hired two motor rickshaws to take us to the town center we said.  The driver Jan and I were with seemed to be the leader and took us to a church and two temples then a store.  At the store were several other sas students, we left without buying anything because it all seemed to be overpriced tourist items.  We asked our driver to take us somewhere to eat so we drove around the corner to a restaurant where there were several tables of other SAS students eating all with rickshaw drivers waiting for them.  We ate there despite this and it was good and there were a few locals eating there as well.  All four of us wanted to get Kurta’s made (or sometimes called Kurti) so we asked our driver to take us somewhere.  He didn’t understand what we were trying to ask so he called the other driver over and we told him then they consulted for a little while and said ok they would take us somewhere.   They drove us to another tourist store that had SAS students and premade clothing we again left without buying anything.  We talked to our driver again making sure to use the word tailor.  They drove us some more and we ended up at the silk house.  The people there explained that there was a tailor in the building but we had to buy fabric first so Jen and I picked out silk for kurtas while Laura and Katherine looked at scarves.  The two of us bought silk fabric and went to look for the tailor.  At first they sent us upstairs (4 flights) but there were only more silk shops.  Finally one girl understood what we were looking for and took us down the lift to the basement where there was another store and a tailor.  He measured us and asked about the neckline and the length and whatnot.  When we were done we looked around and realized that Laura and Katherine were gone.  They had gone to pick out fabric because they now wanted outfits made too.  When everyone was happy we got back in our rickshaws and asked to be taken back to the ship to get Evergreen who had been on a field trip all day.  On our way there we ended up stopping at one more temple and one more church(?).  On the last stretch back they told us that we each owed them $60 US dollars for the ride.  We of course told them no that they had originally said $5 each but they would not listen.  Finally they stopped the rickshaws and the two drivers and Jen and I bargained.  We finally got them down to $35.  They dropped us off and just a few minutes later evergreen appeared.  This whole time we were swarmed by people trying to sell drums and people begging and trying take us somewhere on their rickshaws.  By this time though we were simi use to it so we dragged Evergreen with us through the people just talking to each other because while this seems mean it really worked.  By the time we got to the atm the number of beggars and rickshaw drivers had decreased dramatically.  We all got money from the atm and then negotiated with a rickshaw driver to take all five of us in one rickshaw to a restaurant for 150 Rupees.  The conversion rate is approximately 44 rupees to the dollar. 

After eating we got in another rickshaw for the same price and went to the movie theatre and got tickts to a movie that was showing at a different movie theatre at 10:20pm.  But it was in walking distance so we walked to this place which turned out to be a brand new mall (just opened a few months ago) with a really nice movie theatre.  The movie tickets were approximately $3 a person and the movie theatre was nicer than the one on Turkey Creek at home.  We saw a Bollywood film called Anjaana Anjaani.  It was really good and almost exactly three hours long with a 15 min intermission.  It was surprisingly easy to follow the plotline even though they hardly ever spoke a whole sentence in English.  We now have the soundtrack.  We got back to the ship at 1:30am.  It was a good long day that we learned a lot from.

Dance at Sea

As I have mentioned my friends and I are going to Salsa lessons every B day. Yesterday (an A day) there was a hip hop workshop that we also went to. It was a lot of fun. It also showed me that despite the salsa I am a little more out of shape than normal. But like I said it was fun. Today we had another salsa lesson. Evergreen and I are already talking about the possibility of doing a salsa workshop when we get home. In the front of the ship where we have these dance classes (inside) it is rockier than at the aft of the ship, making harder to keep your balance but I think we are getting better at that as well.


My classes are going well. I have now completed 4 (almost 5) collages. In anthropology we just got our first essay back (I did really well), but I am behind on my reading because there is not much time to read while on the ship, and while off the ship who wants to read. In world religion we are currently studying Hinduism. This will be really relevant in the next country we get to, INDIA!!! We get there in two days. I can’t believe that our voyage is halfway over. We try not to think about it too much but I have heard that it goes by really fast because we have less time on the ship between countries. We have at most 3 days between countries until after Japan. Tonight we go ahead 30min, so weird.

Mauritius Pictures

On mountain overlook in Mauritius after going to the hindu temple

Flic en Flac Beach at sunset

B Days on the Ship

As I have mentioned before days on the ship are divided into A days and B days.  A days I only have one class, so it is my study day.  B days I have World Religion from 10:45 – 12 then I go to lunch after which I study until my Collage class which starts at 1:35 and goes to 2:50.  Right after that class I stay in the same room for my Anthropology class which goes to 4:10.  I then study until 5:45 when my friends and I go to salsa lessons.  There are several students aboard who know salsa and one girl in particular who has taught salsa before.  We have a lot of fun and switch out being the boy because there isn’t an even number of males and females in the class.  Salsa ends at 6:30 giving me half an hour to eat dinner before I have to go to work in the computer lab.  Tonight after work they were showing Slumdog Millionaire in the Union so my friends and I went and watched it.  It was just as good as the first time I watched it.  Going to bed now it has been a long day. 

Mauritius

Most people don’t know very much about Mauritius.  I know that I didn’t other than hearing that we were going there.  I now know that it was the home to the dodo bird.  The first day there Jen, Laura, Katherine, and I went to the Valley of Colours.  This is a natural occurring phenomenon where the volcanic soil oxidized leaving it different colors.  When some excavating was started they saw the different colors and stopped.  The Valley of Colours also had three waterfalls you could stop at on the way to the part where you could see the colored earth.  After that we went to Flic en Flac beach, the longest beach on Mauritius.  We ate a late lunch at a café and then went swimming as the sun went down.  There were pieces of coral everywhere so we had to be careful not to scrape up our feet walking on it.  We got back to the waterfront around 7o’clock and ate dinner at a cheap (but very tasty) Indian restaurant.  I got chicken taka which was very spicy but very tasty and bright pink in color. 

The next day I had a SAS trip called Volcano Island.  Our first stop was to a school where we were a half an hour early so had to wait a few minutes so they could get ready.  Mauritius is a very densely populated place which makes traffic around the island, especially on the small two lane roads, very congested so I think some extra travel time was allotted.  Anyway, at the school (or collage, I really don’t know) a lady talked to us and told us about the dodo bird, and the rainfall of the different regions, and about the volcano’s.  The mountains in Mauritius all look extra pointy because the volcanoes are dead and so the insides have caved in.  We stopped and saw one volcanic crater that had a lake in the middle of it.  We also stopped at a Hindu temple that had a man-made lake outside that was filled with water taken from the Ganges River in India.  My friend Tesia and I got the kohl put on our foreheads and paid a small tribute after standing during a ceremony.  I really don’t know what it was about because they didn’t really tell us but we did figure out that we were supposed to walk around this one alter 9 times, one for each planet (see Pluto is a planet).  We got back on the bus and went to an overlook where we could see the highest mountain on the island.  From there we could see a gorgeous water fall which later that day we went closer to (but still not next to).  It was amazing to see how different the flora was there, high in the mountains, compared to around the base of the mountains where there wasn’t as much rainfall.  We went and ate lunch at a really good restaurant which had an awesome view.  We bread, squash soup, chicken kabobs, and tiramisu.  It was all really good.  I was really full afterward.  I even liked the soup, which I almost never eat, but it was really good.  After lunch was when we went to the giant waterfall that we had seen earlier then we went to the 7 Coloured Earth.  The 7 Coloured Earth was like the place I had seen the day before but bigger and next to it was a giant tortoise pen with about 4 giant tortoises.  After leaving there we went to flic en flac beach for about 45 minutes.  I didn’t swim because I didn’t think it was worth it to get on swim suit and have to take it off again a few minutes later so I collected coral on the beach.  Back on the ship we had BBQ for dinner; it was really good after that long day. 

Habitat for Humanity (Last day in SA)

The last day in South Africa I had managed to buy a ticket to go to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Evergreen already had a ticket so she and I along with about 16 other people loaded up on a bus with a sack lunch and were driven to a township to the north of Cape Town. It seemed to me that the township itself was small but the shanty town that surrounded it was huge. These tiny shack houses were stealing electricity from the township through many wires that were strung everywhere. The whole week groups of SAS students had been working on a house for one single woman and her three kids. The house already had a roof and all its cinderblock walls put up. We just filled in the gap between the walls and the roof with parts of cinderblocks and daga (a mixture of sand, concrete, and water). We mixed the daga using the Jacuzzi method. This involves mixing the dry ingredients on the floor with shovels before making a hole in them and filling that hole with water. Shovelful’s of daga are then taken and thrown on daga boards where people are working with the cinderblock pieces. Some others also oiled the wooden doors and painted the trimming around the roof. At 10am the woman to whom the house would belong made us tea and fat cakes. Fat cakes are like beignets without powdered sugar on them. You cut them in half so you can put jam on them. I didn’t put jam on mine because it was already really good. We ate our sack lunches around 12 and saved the leftovers that people didn’t want to eat to give to the preschool in the township later. At 1:00 we cleaned everything up so we could present the house to the woman. The house was locked up and we all stood in a circle outside and passed around the key and said some kind of blessing on the house. Then the key was given to the women who opened the door and invited us all in. Throughout the day we all wrote something in the front of a new bible, when we went inside the house we all stood in a circle again and did the same thing with this bible as we had done with the key outside. The woman thanked us all for helping build her new home. Before leaving the township we went back to the preschool where we gave the leftover food to the teachers to distribute and the kids sang for us. They were really cute. The drive back to the ship was silent.

Back at the ship we had 2 hrs before on-ship time so we hurriedly changed clothes and went to the mall (right next to the ship) and bought some snacks and supplies. Later that night, after we departed, we learned that our global studies teacher, Professor Sanchez, had a partially detached retina and was in surgery back in Cape Town and would be meeting the ship in Mauritius. So these past few days of global studies have been thrown together and throwing schedules off. It will hopefully get back on track fairly quickly after Mauritius. We were told yesterday that he went through two surgeries successfully and would definitely be back. In the meanwhile we have had one guest speaker, and will have another tomorrow.

The second to last day in South Africa

The 5th day in SA my friends and I were on a SAS field trip for our world religions class (well three of us anyway, Jen was just along for the ride).  It was called a three faiths tour.  We went to the first mosque built in Cape Town, a Jewish museum, a synagogue, and St. Georges Cathedral.  At the mosque our guild told us that one day a year these three places switch speakers.  For example the Islamic leader will go speak at the synagogue; the Jewish rabbi would go speak at the Cathedral, and the catholic priest would go to the mosque.  The Jewish museum was opened by Nelson Mandela and had a lot in it about the Jews involvement in apartheid.  It was really interesting. 

For dinner, after walking around for over an hour, we found a really good place to eat that served authentic African food.  It was really good, and our waiter was very nice and entertaining and called a cab for us (after we had eaten for about 2 hours), so we wouldn’t have to walk back in the dark. 

Day 4 in SA

Wednesday after getting back from the homestay and eating lunch on the ship Evergreen, Jennifer, Caren, and I took a bus tour that we could get on and off of all day.  We went to Kristenbosh Botanical Gardens, which are apparently the 7th best botanical gardens in the world.  It was very beautiful, especially with Table Mountain in the background.  I took a lot of pictures of flowers.  We were only there for an hour and a half because we had to catch the bus again so we could go to the world of birds.  The world of birds was a bird sanctuary started by a guy who really loved birds.  It was really neat to walk around the enclosures and see all different sorts of birds native to South Africa and then some that we have in the US like turkeys, Canada Geese, pigeons, and ducks.  There were some very colorful African birds as well but I just thought that it was funny to see these common birds there too.  They also had some mammals like tons of guinea pigs, small monkeys, yellow baboons, alpacas, and goats.  We were only at the World of Birds for 40 minutes because that was when the last bus that was coming through was leaving.  It was another hour or so before we got back to the waterfront area but the commentary on the bus was funny and informative.   

Gardens and Birds

World of Birds

Kristenbosh Botanical Gardens

Day 3 in SA

Tuesday Evergreen, Katherine, and I went to the Green Market Square. They have African items for tourists like statues, clothes, drums, jewelry, and hangings. We wandered around for a while and then went back to the ship so Evergreen and I could get ready for our township homestay that night. For the homestay we were assigned two to a house to spend the night and have breakfast and dinner with a family. I was with a girl named Megan and we were assigned a family of 6, a mother, father, and 4 kids. We ate dinner with them, rice, chicken, potato salad, green salad, and lime soda (basically sprite). The township we were staying in was only 12 years old so it was a lot nicer than some other townships. For breakfast we had cereal and an apple then we left. It was a good experience but it was way to short to really get a feel for living in a township.

Township Homestay

Two little kids from homestay playing with Megan's camera.

First Day in South Africa

The first day in South Africa I went on a SAS trip to the !Khwa Ttu Route (the ! is a pop sound made with the tongue and the top of the mouth). This is a group of San people or Bushmen that were the natives of South Africa. They use to be hunters and gatherers but aren’t anymore. They have created this place to show people how their ancestors lived. They tried to teach us how to make the different click sounds and gave us each a postcard with a description of how to make the noise on the back. We sat in a trailer pulled behind a tractor and went out into the bush where they had a village set up that maybe looked like what their ancestors would have had. They showed us different animal tracks and the kind of clothes they wore. One woman showed us how they made jewelry out of ostrich shells. They also showed us how to start a fire with just two sticks and a wad of dried grass. It wasn't a trip for my class but it might as well have been because my anthropology teacher was there and we had just finished talking about hunters and gatherers in my anthropology class. It was very neat. I got some ostrich shell earrings for myself. While there we also saw some wild ostrich, zebra, and a heard of Springbok, the national antelope that the rugby team is named for. It was a fun and informative trip.

Day 2 in SA

Monday I took the cable car up Table Mountain with two of my friends, Laura and Katherine. From the ship in the harbor we could see Table Mountain, and to its left devils peak, and to its right Lions Head and Signal Hill. The skyline was gorgeous. We spent a long time just wandering around the top on the pathways and taking pictures of the view and foliage (some of which is only found on top of Table Mountain). I also spent about 20 minutes sketching (we are supposed to do one sketch a day for at least 15 min for Collage). The view was so amazing. I took a lot of pictures.

At the Top of Table Mountain

My finger is pointing to our ship the MV Explorer

Herd of Springbok

Neptune Day

Today was Neptune Day and a reading day. In the morning we were woken up by crashing cymbals, pounding feet, fists and drums, and a very shrill whistle. I of course went back to sleep for a few minutes before they walked around again. then I decided to get up. In the pool on the 7th deck students were getting "fish guts" poured on their heads before jumping in. After making it through the line in the pool they were allowed to get out and kiss a fish (yes a real fish), if the student was to whinny and didn't do it the people guarding the person with the fish would shove the student back in the water. All my friends did this and had a lot of fun with it but I opted out on account of my ankle and my runny nose (and I didn't want to get wet, it is not warm enough here). In another corner people were getting their hair shaved off. Two of my friends, Tesia and Megan, got all their hair shaved off and another friend, Ben, and the IT Admin, Sam, got mohawks. It is very strange to walk around and see lots of people without hair.
I studied and napped and studied some more till dinner which was also a treat - BBQ, yum! There were hamburgers and ribs and baked potatoes and mac and cheese, and for dessert strawberry ice cream. It wasn't as good as home made but it was still really good.

Tonight we have our first Global Studies test so I am going to get back to studying now.

Fathers Ministry Childrens Home

Our last day in Ghana I went on a SAS trip to an orphanage in Takaradi.  We spent the entire day playing with the kids.  Like with the SOS children's village in morocco SAS presented them with an indestructible soccer ball which I then learned a little more about.  The material they are made of is the same as is used to make crocks and this is the first semester that SAS has given them out.  It was a fun day and I will be bringing home lots of pictures and hopefully some video's that some others took. 

The next day (Monday) we crossed the equator and the prime meridian at the same time.  Not many people can say that because it is not the usual route, our captain had to make some adjustments to make it possible for us.  Apparently we traveled down the prime meridian for a while so I can say that I have been in two hemispheres at once.  Pretty cool!

Today there has been lots of studying going on because our first test in Global Studies (the class everyone is required to take) is tomorrow.  Tomorrow is also Neptune Day.  It is all very hush hush about what exactly is going to happen other than we are going to have lots of fun.  But I have heard rumors of getting woken up really early.  I hope not because I need sleep the night before a test.  Some of my friends are planning on shaving all their hair off.  Not me and not Evergreen but we will be cheering them on. 

Kakum Rain Forest

The third day in Ghana a group of 6 of us went to the Kakum National Park.  We took a 2 taxi’s from the port to the tro-tro station, where we got on a tro-tro to Cape Coast where we got a taxi to take us to the rain forest.  A tro-tro is sometimes called a mini bus.  It is a large van that holds 10 people plus the driver and the money taker.  If there is room on a tro-tro, they will stop and pick people up while on route.  The money taker sits by the door and collects the money of these add-ons.  Our taxi to the Kakum rain forest was of average size but we stuffed all 6 of us in there with the driver for the 30 minute drive.  At the rain forest we went on the 7 canopy walkways.  While waiting for our trip to start we watched a group of dancers and drummers.  The leader of the group talked with us for a while.  He speaks several different languages including English, French, German, and about 4 different African dialects.  He fussed at me for only speaking one language and proceeded to try to teach me some African.  I remember how to say thank you and that’s about it.  They are little net encased plank walkways that are above the rain forest canopy and go from tree to tree.  I got some postcards that have a picture of this walkway on them.  It was amazing!  After making it across the first walkway it started to rain (well it is a rain forest).  After making it across the 7 walkways our guild took us on a nature walk where he told us about different plants in the forest, one of which was the ebony tree.  In Ghana the name they call it translates to elephant comb.  This is because the ebony tree is very strong and has a rough bark that the elephants like to scratch themselves against and it doesn’t fall over.  We ate lunch/dinner at the park restaurant.  I got to try some fufu which is this doughy blob served in the bottom of a bowl of soup.  After we ate we all piled back in the taxi to the tro-tro station where we took a tro-tro all the way back to the harbor.  We were wet and muddy and my ankle was slightly sore but we were still smiling and laughing and having a good time. 

Ghana Drumming and Dancing

The first day in Ghana was a beautiful and sunny day.  It is towards the end of the rainy season here and the air is hot and humid.  I had signed up for a drumming and dancing workshop so at 10am we rode a bus for 10 minutes into town where the workshop was held in a pavilion.  The dancing group came from Accra (the capitol of Ghana) and the drumming group was a local group (from Takerati).  This was the first time that the two groups had performed together.  They did several different performances for us.  They were very good, and the drumming was very loud.  Afterwards they split us up into two groups my group went and learned drumming first while the other group went and learned the dancing.  We learned two different drumming parts to a performance called Panloco (don’t remember the exact spelling but that’s close).  After learning the first part and getting its rhythm down, we learned the second.  Then they spilt us into two groups and gave us either the first or the second part and we played them together.  After about an hour of drumming we switched with the dancing group and we learned the dance that goes with the drumming we just learned.  It was lots of fun.  We went to lunch about 5 minutes away at a hotel where we ate pasta salad, rice, rice with plantains, beef with “gravy” (it did not look like the thing we know as gravy), and chicken.  It was very delicious.  After lunch we went back to the pavilion and they performed some more for us.  One of the dances that they did had a long elaborate story that I can’t remember all of.  What I do remember is that for some reason the men were trying to trick the gods into thinking that they were women.  They wore skirts and carried fans and did these really fast circle hip movements kind of like in Tahitian dance.  It is the local dance of somewhere in Ghana that I don’t remember, but the dance teacher was from there and he was by far the best at it.  Finally we divided back up into our groups and while half of us were doing the drumming the other half were doing the dance.  My group was the second group to do the dancing.  When we finished the entire dance that he taught us the teacher sent us in the circle two at a time to do free style dancing.  When it was my friends and my turn we went into the circle dancing and just having a good time.  I was really into the music and decided to do some sauté chase (spell?) (jumping turn ballet thing) that in retrospect I shouldn’t have attempted because I was tired and I haven’t been keeping up with my dance exercises like I should.  Well I ended up spraining my ankle.  Luckily the dance ended soon after that and I could sit down.  Oh well I had a good time, I don’t regret going and it’s raining today anyway so there is not much I could do even if I had been able.  So I am following the clinics (and past experiences) advise and resting and icing and resting and propping up and wearing my ankle brace and icing some more.  I will get better soon.  This also gives me a chance to catch up on a few things that I have gotten behind in.  I also drew diagrams of the dance and the drumming that we learned so that when I get home in a few months I will still remember them. 

Here Comes the Rain

In the required class for all students and lifelong learners, Global Studies, we are currently talking about global problems.  We had guest speaker Cathy Rodgers who is the Vice President of world relations (if I remember her title correctly) for IBM.  She travels around the world and meets people and gets paid to do so.  She talked to us yesterday about global sustainability.  After her presentation she informed us that she has made it her goal to plant a tree for every person that comes to one of her talks on sustainability.  So for every person on this ship she has already made plans to plant trees in Ghana in our honor.  Today she gave a shorter talk on women’s issues around the world.  Most of it, while still shocking, I already knew from being a member of WOW (Work of Women).  But it was informative to hear from somewhere else.  She also briefly spoke about how much better it is, how more women are coming into power.  Some of the things I didn’t know where that there are 10 female presidents of different countries.  There are also 10 female Prime Ministers.  There are still nowhere near as many women as men and the wages are still not the same but this does show that things are getting better.  As Cathy Rodgers said “happier women make for happier men.” 

Lunch was tacos.  Very yummy.  Everyone loves taco day.  The only problem is that for the first time this whole voyage it is raining.  We have been lucky in not having any rain days.  The problem comes in when the people that normally eat outside can’t and have to come inside.  I don’t know how it was on the 5^th deck dining room but on the 6^th deck, where most students eat, it was chaos. 

Still on the ship

I saw dolphins for the first time on this voyage.  People have been saying that they have seeing dolphins all the time but somehow I always missed them.  Then today right after one of my classes a girl looked out the window of our classroom and there they were.  Earlier today I saw some flying fish.  Some people were very confused and thought that they were birds that were diving underwater.  The food today was really good also.  I missed breakfast but for lunch there was fish and chips (fried fish and French fries), Noodles with Cheese and Garlic (Mac and Cheese), and all the other normal stuff.  I don’t like fish but everything else was good and it was nice to have some French fries.  For dinner we had some kind of pork that was really good, cubed potatoes in a sauce, and spaghetti without the meat.  Also for dessert there was the all American classic, apple pie.  There isn’t usually a line for the dessert but tonight there was. 

In my collage class we are working on collages either from Spain or Morocco (there isn’t enough time to do both).  I chose Spain because I picked up more items that could be used for my collage there.  We are doing an interesting collage technique that I will do my best to describe.  We start by drawing outlines of the picture we want to have for our finished product (I drew a building in Spain).  Next we use tracing paper and carbon paper to copy certain shapes onto different paper that we either made from stuff that we collected or purchased or gathered from the country we choose.  I collected lots of different paper napkins that say different things and have glued them together on a piece of paper.  We then will glue all our “puzzle pieces” onto our collage.  We will finish by painting, drawing, using pastels, and whatever to make it look like a finished product.  I have a long way to go. 

We will get to Ghana in 3 days. 

Back on the Ship

Today we went right back to class its strange after having 11 days off to get back to the school routine.  I only have one class on A days so I luckily had some time to study my notes and remind myself what we were last talking about in class.  During the time in the two ports I finished reading two books for class giving me extra time while at sea, so today I also hand washed some clothes in my bathroom sink.  Last night my friends and I started a game of Phase 10 and plan on finishing it tonight if everyone doesn’t have too much homework to do. 

Last Day in Casablanca Morocco

The last day in Morocco we went back to the mosque because three of our friends wanted to go see the inside and Evergreen and I were happy to wander around the outside.  It was really foggy that morning and at first the top of the minaret couldn’t be seen.  But by the time we left we could see it even though a few wisps of fog hung about making it look very mystical.  We walked through the medina to the new part of the city for lunch.  I had couscous with chicken and fresh squeezed orange juice. It was really good but by the time I was full it looked like I hadn’t done anything but move the food on my plate around, there was just so much there.  For dessert we all shared orange slices with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top.  I know it sounds weird but it is actually really good.  Before going back to the ship we walked around the medina some more and some of the girls bought some things.  So slightly sunburned I got back on the ship and we said goodbye to our second port. 

The Mosque and Rabat

This morning (Monday morning) Evergreen and I went on a SAS (semester at sea) led tour of the mosque here in Casablanca.  It was, if possible, even more magnificent than the cathedral in Seville.  The huge and really heavy roof (I don’t remember what our guild said it weighed) could be opened up almost completely splitting in the middle because of this the floor has heaters that can be turned on so it doesn’t get to cold for those praying there.  The architect was French (although I don’t remember his name) and I found it very intriguing to see the French style mixed with the Arabic.  The glass on the giant chandeliers was from France, and all the marble was from Morocco.  The wooden rails were cider from the Atlas Mountains (I think I remember that correctly but you can probably check on wiki to know for certain).  In the lower levels and on the outside was all the gorgeous tile work mostly in blues and greens but there was a whole room in yellow. 

The bus got back to the port a little before 10:30 so we caught the train to Rabat which is the capitol of morocco and only about an hour away.  We ate lunch at a little café that was playing Jim Croce.  I got a quarter of a roast chicken that came with a little pile of rice and French fries.  We also both got fresh squeezed orange juice (I forgot to mention that we also got some at the market in Marrakech).  The whole meal was very good.  After paying and talking to a man who I think was the owner about Jim Croce we left to see this town’s medina.  It is amazing to me how the three different town’s medina’s where so different in what they sold and the people that were there to buy things.  Although that could have been from the different times of the day we were at each market as well.  After making our way through the market we wandered around some more and eventually found and old fort that had been made into a garden.  We were sitting down when I felt something behind me and when I looked there was a cat just standing there leaning against me and then she just lay down right there beside me.  She had a few kittens running around behind us playing they were so cute!  I love cats.  We left Rabat at 3:30 and made it back to the ship just after one of the camel trek groups had returned so we had to stand in a long line before actually getting on the ship.  While waiting in line two more buses came with more students.  One of the ships staff told us that three buses were coming in tonight.  Dinner was good as usual.  I don’t think there can be such a thing as a bad day on this trip but we will see.  I keep having to remind myself that I have only been gone for about three weeks. 

Half-day in Casablanca

After getting back to the ship so late the previous night Sunday morning I slept till about 10:30.  After eating lunch and looking at the shuttle bus schedule we decided to wait for the next shuttle bus and in the mean time catch up on some reading for classes.  So it was 2:00 pm before we even left the ship.  We exchanged some money then wandered around Casablanca’s medina stopping at a café to drink some mint tea.  It was a nice laid back day. 

Marrakech

Saturday a group of 6 of us took the train to Marrakech.  The train ride was about three hours and 20 minutes getting us there at around 2:00 pm.  It was a little hot but not too bad, most of us slept at least part of the time.  When we got there we found a little café to eat some lunch.  We then walked into the Medina which is the old city and is full of twisting little streets.  In the center in the most knotted up streets is where the big market is.  I bargained for an outfit for myself, it is blue and it is one of the semi-traditional long tunic/dresses that most women here wear and pants that you are suppose to wear with it but I think that I could wear them separately.  I also got a pair of blue handmade leather shoes for myself.  It was a good day.  We took a 21:00 train back to Casablanca getting there a little after 1 in the morning because of a delay, and then getting to the ship (we have to walk about a mile and a half from the port entrance to where the Explorer is docked) at about 1:30.  There is a shuttle bus to take us to and from our peer to the port entrance but it stops running at 9:00 pm.  We were very tired but also very dirty and sticky because it is so dusty here you end up with this gritty sticky coating on exposed skin, so we took quick showers and went to bed. 

Second Day in Morocco

I don’t really recall why we decided to go to El Jadida today other than that we wanted to see a place without lots of tourists and more particularly SAS people. It was a good adventure. So a group of 5 of us took a train at 10:30am and got to El Jadida around 12:00pm. With only a tour guide book with a small map in it we at first had the idea that we would get in a taxi and point to where we wanted to go. Well there weren’t very many taxis and there were a lot of people waiting so we went to plan B which was to walk until we could catch a cab. There is only one road leading away from the train station and the town center couldn’t be that far away right? We spent about three hours walking around and never made it to the town center. But we did have a good time walking around and at one point we stopped to ask for directions from what turned out to be an off duty cab driver who was very nice and couldn’t believe that we had walked all the way from the train station. We asked him if there was any place to eat but because it was the hot of the day and Ramadan had just ended he said that no places were open. He offered to drive us somewhere but we decided to continue walking mostly because we didn’t think that all of us would fit in a taxi. So we ended up back at the train station where we ate some snacks in the café and waited for the next train which was suppose to come at 4:15pm. The ticket booth was empty until 4:05pm at which time we asked him about tickets to Casablanca. He informed us that because of the end of Ramadan the trains were on a different schedule and that the one we had been waiting for was canceled the next train to Casablanca wasn’t till 7:15, one of the girls with us wanted to be back before that because she had an early field trip to be at the next day. So we went outside to wait for a taxi to take us back to Casablanca. While we were waiting two police men came over asking who was waiting for a taxi because there were so many people waiting. They then said that they had called for more taxies for all of us. I overheard one of the guys talking to the police saying that he needed a taxi to Casablanca. So we went over and asked if we could get a taxi to Casablanca. The man luckily spoke English very well and said that yes we could and we ended up sharing a cab to Casablanca with him, during which he explained to us about Ramadan. We also learned that he had a job in marketing and planning events, and that he use to work for a big video game company that made the Prince of Persia and Raving Rabids(not sure about the spelling on that one). It was very interesting to hear his perspective on Morocco. We even made it back to the ship before dinner was over. Another good day. Tomorrow it’s on to Fez.

First day in Morocco

We arrived in Morocco at about 11:00 this morning (Morocco time which is only 4 hours different from home). This was the first time that Semester at Sea had gone directly from one port to another with no days in between. Because of this changed they decided to offer three more field trips one of which I signed up for. So today at 2:00pm a group of us went first to a local private school. At this particular school they teach most things in English but they also switch between Arabic and French so the kids can speak all three languages and frequently switch between them all. We were only there for a few minutes but it gave us a little insight into how they learn (apparently there school system is like the French but I don’t entirely understand all that that entails).

After leaving the school we went to the SOS Children’s Village. This one was the third one out of five started in Morocco. Instead of living in one big orphanage building the orphans are divided up into “familys” with no more than 8 kids per family. Each family has a “mother” whose job is to be these kids mother. She is not allowed to be married nor have any kids that are not grown already and must undergo different evaluations. The mother is given one day off a week to do what she pleases while the other mothers who the kids call Aunts watch them. They have about 98 kids there right now, the youngest being 4. At the age of 18 the kids either go on to college or get a job and are, as far as I could tell, considered able to take care of themselves.

We got to play and talk with the kids. Some people played soccer with them others basketball and one girl even played tennis with a boy. I started talking to three girls one of whom spoke fairly good English. I would ask them questions they would ask me questions and at one point they even started trying to teach me Arabic, which of course I have now completely forgotten, but it was fun. When it was time to go no one wanted to leave.