April 12th (the first)

I’m currently 15 hours ahead of Pittsburgh time (crazy!) but apparently that’s the limit. Tonight, instead of losing another hour, we’ll actually gain another day! So I get the wonderful pleasure of living through April 12th two days in a row! I’m still a little confused as to how it all works, but all I know is that today is April 12, and I’m ahead of the east coast, and tomorrow will also be April 12, but I’ll be behind east coast time then. WEIRD!

In other news, Taiwan was short-lived, but pretty cool. We stayed in Taipei the 2 days we were there (we docked in a city called Keelung that has nothing going for it really).  A 45 minute train ride to Taipei only cost me a little over a dollar, so that’s pretty awesome.

I was looking forward to being on the ship for a long time to give myself a rest from all of the countries in Asia, but now I’m just bored and getting cabin fever. They have a bunch of activities for us to do to keep us occupied, but I just want to get to Hawaii and then get home. 5 more days at sea, 2 days in Hawaii, 5 more days at sea, San Diego for 3 days, and then I’m home!! So excited, but a little sad at the same time.

Shout out to Kelsey for your 21st birthday!! I know it’s not quite midnight at home yet, but I’m going for a record on how many times I can wish you Happy Birthday in the same day ☺

Vietnam, Cambodia, and China!

Asia was such a blur. Everything went by so fast! I’m used to having a week or so between each port, but since Singapore, we’ve only had 2 days to recover. Quick recap:

Vietnam and Cambodia were HOT, I got a dress made in Vietnam and learned how to cross the street (walk into oncoming traffic and the cars and motorcycles will move around you… pretty sweet concept, but scary!). Cambodia was amazing, but also horrifying. I learned in more detail how the Khmer Rouge government killed millions of Cambodians (a greater percentage than the Holocaust) just because these people were intellectuals and they didn’t want to be overthrown. Angkor Wat temple was beautiful though. So were all of the other temples (like the one that Tomb Raider was filmed in!) I got a fish massage (where little fish ate the dead skin off of my feet!) and probably the best massage of my life for only $10 an hour! The prices in both countries were incredible. I bought more stuff than I can even mention in here and spent under $150 total. Though they aren’t real designer brands, they still seem to be pretty good quality surprisingly, and as the locals joke about it, the things you can buy there are “same same but different”

China was beyond awesome! Hong Kong (where we stopped first) had a beautiful skyline, especially at night. We went up on an incline to a mountain to see everything from high up. It reminded me of Mt. Washington! (I miss home). The rugby sevens was going on when we got there, so we got to meet a lot of British and Irish people there to celebrate which was a lot of fun!

I flew to Beijing (my flight was awesome by the way—we even got to watch our takeoff from a camera on the front of the plane on the tv screens on our headrests!) to see the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Olympic stadium, and the Great Wall. One of my friends tht was in our group travelling with us fell on the wall and is in pretty bad shape, so please keep her in your prayers! She is slowly making progress though, so there are good signs. I got to hike on the Great Wall, which was literally a hike and very intense. It was so pretty though and indescribably huge—over 4,000 miles total!

Took a sleeper train to Shanghai, and the experience was a million percent better than my India sleeper train. There were only 4 beds per compartment and there was actually a door that even had a lock! The floors were clean and, though I didn’t, I would have felt comfortable walking around barefoot. There were REAL toilets with toilet paper (not the squatter toilets that we were used to that are literally porcelain holes in the ground).

Shanghai’s skyline was even prettier than Hong Kong’s! I went up into this tower (that reminded me of the CN Tower in Toronto) that had a glass floor that was pretty sweet. I met a lot of fun people in Shanghai too; there were a lot of people from England and America that were working in Shanghai. I think it would be a great place to live (too bad I don’t understand Chinese).

Right now, we’re actually docked in Japanese waters because we’re not able to travel straight from China to Taiwan. I hope I’ll get another passport stamp. My passport is looking pretty impressive! We get to Taiwan tomorrow morning!

India and Singapore

My India experience in a nutshell:

The drivers are crazy. They don’t pay any attention to lanes… There might as well be 5 lanes instead of 3. The auto-rickshaws are tiny and you feel like they could break down any second. But I got to drive one for a minute or two (not by choice—my driver told me to drive, and when I politely declined he took his hands off the wheel... I learned fast). The rickshaws (bicycles pulling a 2 seater cart that can fit 4 Indians) are exactly that—rickety. I felt like I might fall out too many times for my liking.

The food wasn’t as bad as expected. I would even go as far to say that it was pleasant at times (though we did get Chinese food one day, and McDonalds another).

The smells were not too bad either. There was this one bridge that we had to cross every time we left and got back to our port that smelled like it might be above a sewage plant, but other than that, I smelled more incense and spices than anything bad.

I got to see the Taj Mahal, and it was absolutely breathtaking. And I went on a boat on the Ganges River and saw cremation ceremonies and people bathing in the river that they consider to be holy and sin cleansing. I even dipped my hand in the water and trickled some onto my head—not the full effect, but I wasn’t trying to get some disease. They throw all of the cremated bodies’ ashes into the river. And some bodies (children under 12, pregnant women, and people that died of a snakebite) that don’t get cremated get thrown in whole…

Shopping was intense. I got so much for so little! There are about 45 rupees to a dollar, so it was great for us.


The day after we left India was called Neptune day.  There are these three steps to transform us from “pollywogs” into “shellbacks” which were a little ridiculous and I didn’t participate in them, but everything was a lot of fun to watch. Step 1: get doused in “fish guts” (slimy goo) and jump into the pool. Step 2: kiss a fish (it was a dead fish). Step 3: Option to shave your head. We also didn’t have class this day, so I quite enjoyed it.


Singapore was a complete 180 from India. It was clean and civilized and so modern. You will get fined if you spit, chew gum, jay walk, litter, and don’t flush the toilet. But my roommates and I spent our day shopping and eating and eating some more and then we went to a karaoke bar, which was hilarious!


With everything that’s been happening in Japan, we changed our itinerary. We’re now going to Taiwan… So if anyone knows of anything fun to do there, PLEASE let me know. I’m sure whatever we do will be fun there, so I’m trying not to be a Debbie Downer like a lot of people on the ship are. They think it’s going to be too similar to China, but whatever.  I do feel bad for the 20 something Chinese students on the ship that are going to have a hell of a time trying to get into Taiwan.


Ok, that’s all for now; we’re about to dock in Vietnam now! So I’m off to do some more shopping!! (Just wanted to give Susie something to read in class :P)

Almost India

Yesterday was the halfway point of the trip. I’m sad and surprised that it’s already gone this fast. It literally feels like we just left Ghana and that was a month ago. But we get to India tomorrow, and to say I’m excited is the understatement of the year. I did manage to bring 3 overstuffed suitcases full of clothing inappropriate for India though. The only things I have that are acceptable are sweatpants and tee shirts. It’s a good thing that my flight to Delhi doesn’t leave until 7:45 pm the first day, so I’ll hopefully have some time to go shopping and buy a sari or two… or at least some linen pants.

After Delhi, I’m going to Varanasi, and Agra (where the Taj Mahal is). I really wanted to go in the Ganges River in Varanasi (Hindus believe that the water will cleanse all of your sins away if you bathe in the river, and I thought it would be a cool experience) but then I was told that not only are people’s ashes thrown into the river, but also some dead bodies. Apparently there are so many people that want their ashes thrown into the river after their death, that they don’t have time to burn everyone’s body completely. So they will cremate half of a body and just dump the remains into the river. I think I’ll just stick to watching everyone else cleanse their sins.

I went to a lecture on Indian culture last night and learned some important facts. You can’t use your left hand… EVER. Don’t wear leather (not that I even brought any on this trip) and always step into a room with your right foot first. I also learned (confirmed my belief) that I will not like Indian food. All of the inter-port students (students that live in India that met us on the ship in Mauritius to tell everyone things that we couldn’t find in guide books) said that pretty much everything is spicy. I like hot food, but not curry. It’s going to be a lot of naan for me in the next week! I’ve been stocking up on mini boxes of cereal from breakfast too though, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.
On another note, I’m finally getting wireless internet in my room! For a while, it seemed like literally everyone but our part of the ship was getting wifi, but we finally have it, so I’m writing this while lying on my bed!

Ummmm… some other random things from the past week or so:

We stopped at Diego Garcia a few days ago to drop off 2 students that needed to be flown to Singapore to get medical treatment. It’s a British military base in the Indian Ocean that is fairly top secret. We were instructed by the captain not to take pictures under any circumstances (though I know some people definitely did). But I’m told that you can google the island and get info on it (I wouldn’t know since we don’t have internet though).

I let my friend Chance give me a haircut. I decided it wasn’t worth it to pay $40 for just a trim. I was a little nervous, but he did a really good job.

I’m fasting for 24 hours. A group of students on the ship is doing it to promote knowledge about starvation in India. The poorest 5 states in India have more starvation than the poorest 26 countries in Africa. And these people are all living on less than $1.25 a day. I’ve been sans food since 6:30 pm last night, and it’s only 2 pm here (we’re 10 and a half hours ahead of Pittsburgh now) but so far, so good.

fun fact

My roommate, Lauren, just showed me this quote and I had to share.

"Mauritius was made first, and then Heaven, and that Heaven was copied after Mauritius."--Mark Twain


Oh, and you should look at this: http://laurensas2011.blogspot.com. It's Lauren's blog, and it's 5829075x better than mine. If you want a better idea of what Mauritius is like you should read her last post :)

Mauritius

For those of you that don't know, because I definitely had no idea before I looked it up on a map, Mauritius is a teeny tiny island right by Madagascar on the eastern side of Africa. It is a little paradise there. It's french speaking, but unfortunately since we were only there for a day, I didn't have any time to practice my high-school french on the locals. A huge group of my friends (there were 30 of us total) rented a catamaran for the afternoon and just sailed around the island. There was plenty to drink on the boat, so of course it was a good time. We got to go snorkeling (though we didn't see much) and swam to a beach when we were anchored.
I got a few bruises yesterday that rival some of Mary's worst ones. Though now they're really painful. It was my friend Emma's birthday, and since both of her parents are teachers on the ship, they ordered tacos to their room for all of her friends. (Tacos are a rare treat on the ship, because we're used to only getting pasta, potatoes, and rolls.) Since tacos were at 7:30 and I got back to the ship by 6, I decided I'd take a little nap beforehand. Too bad all of my roommates also took a nap and we all slept through our alarms and the multiple phone calls we got to wake us up. But after missing tacos, we had some roommate bonding time, which was precious.
India is in 6 days!!! So excited :)

South Africa

South Africa is the rape capital of the world (scary). There is a lot of theft there, and a lot of crime. But luckily nothing happened to me or any of my friends while we were there! I thought it was quite nice.
People never honk their horn at you. Multiple times cars snuck up behind me and almost hit me because I didn’t even hear them coming up. This was actually a nice reprieve from Ghana where we heard horns honking 20 times a minute.
The only thing I hate about Cape Town is the damn wind. It messed up our plans so many times while we were here! We were supposed to dock on Thursday, but because of the “strong winds,” they told us that it wasn’t safe. We had to sail around the harbor for a full day and a half just waiting for the winds to die down. Finally at 10 am on Friday, we were able to dock and made it past customs and immigration by noon. But we still wasted a day and a half. Then a group of friends and I tried to go skydiving on Saturday, but had to postpone it until Tuesday because the winds would mess up our landing. Later that day on Saturday after our failed attempt at skydiving, we tried to go on this speedboat, but they wouldn’t sail because of the winds again. It was annoying, but I ended up doing everything that I wanted to, so I guess it worked out.
We took a cable car up to the top of Table Mountain instead of hiking. Since we lost that day and a half, Greg and I wanted to try to fit in as much as we could and didn’t mind skipping the two and a half hour hike. It’s called Table Mountain because the top is flat like a table. It always has this huge cloud at the top, and when it’s really thick (thick enough that it’s not safe for people to go hiking up there because they will get lost) they call it the tablecloth. Sometimes when there’s a really strong wind, they also don’t let people climb the mountain because people will literally get blown off of the mountain. One of our tour guides was telling us how there are at least 10 deaths a year on the mountain from either people getting lost or falling off during strong wind. The view from the top of the mountain was unbelievably beautiful though.
I have a new favorite candy. It’s called Kinder Joy, and for some reason they don’t make it in the US. It’s this egg that has a toy in one half, and in the other half there are these two chocolate truffle type things sitting in this hazelnut cream stuff. You eat it with a spoon. Oh, and this was the first country that it was safe to drink the water and eat the food! So that was exciting. We probably won’t be able to drink the water again until we get to Japan.
I went shark cage diving! We had to wake up at 5am to go, but it was worth it. We were just in these cages submerged in water and had on goggles to see under the water. The sharks came right up to the cage and one even head butted the cage and whipped its tail against it. The water was freezing though. Literally. It was 8 degrees Celsius. The wetsuits helped a little, but it was still super cold.
And I toured two wineries. South Africa is known for wine (I had no idea), so I got to learn the proper way to taste wine and got to see how it was pressed and filtered and stored and everything. I still don’t like red wine though, even though it’s apparently the only thing that real wine connoisseurs like. After our wine tour, we went to Robben Island. It’s basically like the Alcatraz of South Africa. In the olden days they used the island to keep lepers there because they thought that if all of them died, then the disease was cured. More recently, they kept all of the political opponents to Apartheid there, like Nelson Mandela. We got to see his cell where he was kept.
And to make a perfect end to our trip to South Africa, I JUMPED OUT OF A PLANE!!! It was beyond amazing, and I’m definitely going skydiving a lot more when I get home (maybe even again in Hawaii if I still have money by the time we get there!)

Random thoughts

Running on a treadmill while the ship is rocking back and forth is near impossible. Someone should record me.

It’s a little scary that the captain only actually steers the ship when we dock.  I toured the bridge (where the control room is) today and he told us that the ship is always on auto-pilot.  But I got to sit in the captain’s chair with a captain’s hat!

I’m having the hardest time getting work done now that I’ve ever had.  There is always something going on here and I can’t bring myself to sit down and do work.  I woke up early today to write a 4 page paper in like an hour before class because I thought it was a good idea to watch a movie last night.

Gossip on the ship is 52937491x worse than high school ever was.  Literally everyone on the ship will have heard about something that happened within 2 days of it actually happening. There is this person called the “Rumor Ranger” who is an anonymous source that we can ask questions to figure out the legitimacy of something. The only thing is, I’m 99.9999% sure that it’s a dean or at least faculty member because all of the answers are straight out of the voyager’s handbook and usually don’t even answer the question.  For example: Someone emailed Rumor Ranger and asked if it was true that you would be expelled if SAS found out that you skydived, bungee jumped, or shark cage dived, and they responded that these activities were considered dangerous and we were not advised to do them.

I’m going to get really into making videos.  One of my friends on the ship has this sick camera and he records EVERYTHING. He makes really sweet movies about each country, and I decided that I need to do this too.  (I may or may not have stolen all of his videos to use too). One of my roommates is pretty good at making videos too, so she’s going to show me how to use iMovie.

Oh, and I'LL BE IN SOUTH AFRICA TOMORROW!!!

Oh Africa (the theme song of the trip)

I still can’t believe I was in Africa!! It’s pretty much how I would have expected it. Women carry their children in blankets on their backs and carry heavy things on their heads. People are crazy here. They swarm us wherever we go trying to sell us random fruit or souvenirs, and they always stop and stare at us because they aren’t used to seeing white people…

The first day in Ghana we went on a 10-hour bus ride to a monkey village, so everyone slept an ungodly amount on the way there. We got to see Togo (but only the border because we couldn’t leave the country). The people that lived in the village put on a celebration for us and we got to dance with them.  All of the kids were super precious. Then in the morning we fed monkeys with bananas!! (Shout out to Erin: Thanks for uploading my pictures for me since I didn’t have time to!) We got to see the school there and all the kids put on a little presentation for us, and then we had another long bus ride to Accra, the capital, where we stayed the night. Later that night and I chipped my tooth :( But I got to go to a Ghanaian dentist to get it filled and it was only about 60 US dollars, and I got the best souvenir out of all my friends.

Wednesday a group of us went to this old slave castle where they used to keep all of the slaves before they shipped them to the Americas. It was really sad.  And after that we went to this national park and did a canopy walk which was really cool. I was the asshole jumping up and down on the little rope bridges pissing everyone off that was afraid of heights.

Thursday Greg and I went to this water village, which was a town built on stilts.  The trip was really long.  We had a 2 hour bus ride there, then a 45 minute canoe ride to the village in the pouring rain, and we only got to stay at the village for about 20 minutes. It was cool to see, but I don't think it was worth it. And then we left Ghana Thursday night.

We just crossed the intersection of the prime meridian and equator about two hours ago, so that was pretty cool. And we get to South Africa on Thursday!!

On a sidenote: Hershey uses child labor to harvest the cocoa they use in their chocolates, so don’t buy Hershey products. And write them angry letters!!

Back in the ocean

I went to this science center thing called Inpa that was kinds of like a free roaming zoo. All of the animals could go wherever they wanted, so I liked it a lot more than a zoo. (I got a lot of turtle pictures for you, Jenny!) And Erin and I had the most productive shopping trip on our last day.

We got out of the Amazon River late Saturday night, so the ship is rocking a lot again. Still haven’t gotten seasick though. Class for 6 straight days with one reading day and then 2 more classes before Ghana is rough. And the reading day isn’t even a reading day because we all have to participate in the “Sea Olympics.”

We lost 2 hours in the last three days, so now we’re 3 hours ahead of Pittsburgh, and we still have to lose 2 more hours in the next 5 days before we get to Ghana. The only thing I have to look forward to with losing all these hours is getting two April 12ths. I still don’t understand how exactly this happens, but it will be cool anyway. Though we’ll have class on both days, so maybe it’s not such a good thing after all.

It’s sunny out today, so I’m off to lay out :) See Susie, I really don’t have anything interesting going on yet.  I’ll update after Ghana!

Here you go Susie

Brazil is amazing! We walked around Manaus Sunday afternoon, and it was really crowded, but nice. There are parks and courtyards everywhere. Sunday night, there was a Samba school of dance. (Sidenote: the drivers here are nuts! Our cab driver backed up an entire street without turning around going about 40 mph! He also put in the Beatles for us!) At the samba dance thing, the entire street was just full of Brazilian dancers (some with little drums and tambourines). They let us all dance with them and play their instruments. It was fun. Then on our walk back to the ship, I heard that the Steelers won the football game, and even though I have no Pittsburgh pride, I started singing the Pittsburgh’s going to the superbowl song (really loudly) with Erin.

Monday we got to go piranha fishing (I caught one!) and see baby crocodiles. Everyone got to hold it, but when it was my turn I freaked out when it started squirming around and dropped it in our canoe. It was a huge fiasco because we all jumped up onto our seats and had to wait for our guide to catch it again so that it wouldn’t bite any of us. Our guide was crazy! She drank the water from the Amazon and walked waist deep in the river at night barefoot to catch the crocodile with her bare hands! Then we went back to the “lodge” to sleep, but Charli, Emmy, and I were too scared to sleep in the beds they had made for us because people found cockroaches and lizards in their beds. So we got to sleep in hammocks. It was actually really comfortable.

Everyone here speaks Portuguese, but most of the time the language barrier isn’t too difficult. We’ve just been pointing and miming a lot to get our point across. They do understand some words though (like beer, thank God). And everyone is very friendly. Shelly and I were at the mall in a shoe store, and after pointing to our size, all three workers in the store just kept bringing us shoe after shoe to try on.

I'm in the jungle bitch!

We sailed down the Amazon. The water is brown. Really brown. And shallow. At one point we only cleared the bottom of the river by 4 feet. And apparently there is this sandbar that is always changing shape somewhere along the river that's the size of Switzerland??! There are bugs everywhere. Everywhere. And they are on steroids. There was a beetle literally the size of my hand on the pool deck. I hate bugs. And my bug spray apparently attracts more bugs than it repels, because I have about 5 bites on my legs from today alone. But we're like 2 degrees south of the equator, so the sunshine is amazing! We had a "reading day" today, and I got to lay out for 5 hours :) The river is actually really wide; at some points you can't even see the banks from the middle. But we got to a narrower part of the river and sailed pretty close to the shore today. It was so cool to see all the huts along the banks. People left their little houses to come out onto canoes so that they could see the ship up close. The little kids were especially cute. I took so many pictures, but none of them can even begin to describe how pretty the jungle is (and I've only seen it from my boat so far!). We get to Manaus, Brazil tomorrow!

Dominica (doh-min-EEK-a, not doh-MIN-ick-a)

I love Dominica. It's so beautiful, I can't even describe it. When we got there, we walked around the city for a while. There are little trenches on either side of the street where the overflow water (and God knows what else) goes. Literally everything is closed down on Sundays there because I guess the Dominicans are super religious. Anyway, here's a list of some things that I did while in Dominica:
+We went to the botanical garden and accidentally ended up hiking up a mountain (luckily I decided to wear my keds so that I wouldn't get a staph infection while walking around town). We had a great view from the top; we could see the entire side of the island where the ship was docked.
+I went river tubing in the afternoon.
+Even though the island was basically shut down Sunday, since there were over 600 students that wanted to drink, a few bars opened up for us. Drinks here are strong and cheap, just how I like them. I was really chatty at night, and Greg's roommate told me that he didn't know whether to describe us (Greg and I) as brother and sister or an old married couple. This could not be a more accurate way to think of us.
+I climbed down these massive rocks so that I could swim in the ocean. It was fun. My friend has a waterproof camera too, so that got some use.
+My friend and I snuck into a hotel (his idea, not mine) so that we could swim in the sweet pool there with a waterfall, then we got drinks at the very overpriced bar there. The rum punch here is STRONG.

Now I have to start my homework :( but I guess I can't complain too much because I've only had 2 days of classes so far and this is the first time I'll be opening a book

because my room is being cleaned and I can't go take a nap..

Well, I spent close to $100 at the campus store yesterday, but now I have all of my SAS gear for the rest of the trip (sweatshirt, sweatpants, tee shirt, and long sleeve tee shirt—all completely necessary). It was so nice out yesterday, and I was done with class by noon, so I got to lay out by the pool all day! I did get a little bit burnt though… The wind really cools you off, so you don’t think you’re getting a lot of sun. And I keep forgetting how much further south we are. We stopped in Puerto Rico to refuel, and since it’s a U.S. territory, I got to call home and say hi to my family and a couple friends! We were only there for a few hours, but it was like Christmas morning on the ship. Everyone was calling home and texting like crazy.  We’re currently sailing by the Virgin Islands, and I can see land from my window in my room (to the left, or port side, of the ship). Classes are boring, as usual. I fell asleep in my first one today because they turned off the lights… what do they expect? A group of us tried to sleep out on the deck last night since it was so nice out, but once we left Puerto Rico and the winds picked up, it got too cold, so three of the five left.

My roommate found a quote yesterday that I really like, so I'm repeating it: "The world is a book, and those who don't travel read only the first page." (or something along those lines anyway).

First post from the ship!

I'm not totally sure if this will even work, because I haven't tried emailing my blog before. Anyway, I made it on the ship (with my contraband straightener sans automatic shut-off) and we left the dock at 8pm.  I'm living on deck 3 (there are 7 decks, 7 is at the top) so I'm close to the bottom.  I feel like Jack Dawson in Titanic.  Upside is that apparently you don't feel the rocking of the boat as much closer to the bottom of the ship.  Regardless, I haven't been feeling seasick (knock on wood), but there have been a lot of people already throwing up :/ It's hilarious because nobody has their sea-legs yet, so we all are stumbling around like drunk idiots. I'm in a quad, but luckily we got one of the biggest rooms on the ship.  Most of the quads have bunk beds (and when I say bunk beds, I mean there is one bed on the floor and another bed that folds out of the wall that just sits on top of the other one-- shady) but ours had 2 separate rooms, each with 2 regular beds. My room even has a huge window, so I can look out into the ocean! Our blinds are broken at the moment though, so the sun shines in really bright in the morning. Luckily though, I have this snazzy leopard print sleep mask to wear that Kelsey's mom bought for me! Since our room is at the back of the ship, we can hear the engine. It's loud. The room shakes a little bit. But I'm over it, because I'm a pretty heavy sleeper anyway. My roommates are really nice, and I think that we'll get along really well. The girl that's actually sharing the room with me has the same cleaning habits that I do (throw your clothes everywhere and let the room get messy for a few weeks and then spend a few hours tidying up when you get a chance every so often) so I think this should work out. The ship is so nice, it's like brand new! I'll upload pictures once I get into Dominica sometime after Sunday. We changed time zones last night, so it's currently an hour later here than home. I'll post pictures once we get to Dominica.

Bahamas!!

Some things that are different in the Bahamas:
1. They drive on the left side of the road. I knew this before, but I didn't realize how weird it is.  I almost got hit a few times because I looked the wrong way down the street and didn't notice a car coming in the other direction.
2. On a similar note, the lanes are not marked very well, so people drive pretty much wherever they want to. This is also inconvenient when trying to figure out when to cross the street.
3. The locals are VERY pushy. We went to a market yesterday and a woman came up to me and just put a necklace on me and said "It's free! My gift to you!" When I thanked her and began to walk away, she yelled at me and told me that I needed to tip her (so much for a free necklace-- that I didn't even want might I add). So to be nice I gave her $2. She then yelled at me again asking "What kind of tip is that?!" I apologized and told her that I didn't have any other money and walked away. I should have just given her the stupid necklace back.
4. The locals don't like white people dancing in their nightclubs, apparently.  Last night a group of us left Senor Frogs to go back to our hotel, and decided to stop at a local club that was blasting music.  As soon as we got into the club and began to dance, all of the Bahamians around us stopped dancing and just stood there watching us. This didn't deter us though. When we finally did leave, everyone began to dance again. Weird.
5. Apparently when people honk at you here, it's a good thing. They are either trying to tell you that you can walk in front of them, or just saying hi.  When we first got here, I thought that I was getting in everyone's way because they just kept honking, but they were just being friendly?
6. They love conch (pronounced with a -ch at the end or a -k.. I still don't know for sure).  My roommate and I were feeling adventurous yesterday for lunch and ordered a cracked conch basket to try (we also ordered a chicken sandwich just in case we didn't like the conch) and it was surprisingly good. It's pretty similar to calamari.
7. The McDonalds here doesn't have chicken selects, instead they have fried chicken wings with the bones in them and all. And the pop is flat. It's annoying.
8. The water is actually clear here. I can see to the bottom of the ocean for the first time in my life! But the sand is a lot coarser than I'm used to.
9. Tips are included in everything already. At least I noticed this before paying so that I didn't give a 35% tip!

Sooooooo close!!

Well, my 2 hot pink suitcases are finally packed (to the brim) and hopefully under 50 pounds! I think that I have all of my important documents (license, passport, ticket confirmation, etc.) organized and in a safe place in my new, big, ugly, black backpack. My snacks (cherry and watermelon jolly ranchers, cherry and strawberry starburst, and swedish fish-- yes I only like red and pink flavors) that are supposed to last me a few weeks will most likely only last a few days, but I'm okay with that. And I just uploaded the wonderful going away cd that Kevin made for me to my ipod. Now I just have to shower and then try and get some sleep so that I can wake up at 4:30 am to catch my flight (ick). Peace out America!!

5 days to go...

So I leave for the Bahamas in 5 days, and I'm not nearly ready.  I've packed most of my clothes (which leaves me to wear only my old clothes that I don't even like anymore until Monday) but that's about it.  I still have about a million things to do before I leave, most importantly meeting with friends and family one last time before I go.  My flight leaves at 7 am which means I have to get up at an un-Godly time in the morning.  Then I get to spend two (hopefully) relaxing days in the Bahamas until I board the ship!

Once I get my Semester at Sea email address I'll let everyone know, but I'm also going to have my gmail account, so you can reach me through that as well (Pitt doesn't like SAS, so I'll lose that email account for the semester).  I'd absolutely love to get some mail (although postage may be atrocious, so I won't take it personally if you don't send me things) so here is the information for that: http://www.semesteratsea.org/current-voyage/overview/staying-in-touch.php. Unfortunately, I'll only have 120 minutes of internet time (excluding email- thank God!) so I won't get to check facebook very often.  If you want to reach me, definitely use email.

That's it for now-- hopefully I'll be good at keeping this updated!