In The Land Of China: There is no Facebook but There is a Ton of KFC

We pulled into Hong Kong and it was a ridic huge city! big difference from nam. we docked and we literally docked into a mall. You walked right off the ship into a starbuckesque coffee place. it was unlike anything we had done so far. There were no stairs just a bridge into the mall. For china I had signed up for a HUGE independent trip. The tour operator does it with SAS every time they come through, so they know how to work with us and it is super nice. We had a tour all day of Hong Kong or Honk Honk as they say it. Hong Kong is on all these smaller islands so there are lots of bridges and it reminded me of NYC. First, we went to this gold flower thing that was a big memorial to Hong Kong becoming independent of Britain in 1997. We were across on a different island and this area had an amazing view of the ship against the skyline it was really cool. Hong Kong is considered china but when they re acquired it they used the term " 1 country 2 systems" so the government there is not nearly as strictly communist (facebook works and there are magazines and stuff from the US). They have a different currency and everything and our flight to Beijing was considered an international flight. It is very confusing! So after that we went to lunch and had dim sum, which was very yummy!

Afterwards, we went to a Buddhist temple. I am def. putting Buddhism in my religious shopping cart. t was such a cool temple and they believe in all this incense burning so there were these massive coils of incense burning everywhere. Like HUGE coils that burn for 3-4 weeks. It was really pretty and cool to see something so different. Then we took the tram up to the top of Victoria Peak. The tram was like a rollercoaster ride it went STRAIGHT up. The views of the city were breathtaking. The tram pulled into this huge mall complete with a Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant. It was so so pretty. Then we took this boat ride to a floating fishing village and cruised passed the worlds largest floating restaurant (it can feed 1,000 people at once!)

We headed to Repulse Bay, which was this really pretty beach and it had all these fun sculpture and stuff. We didn’t spend much time there, but it was a nice are to get to see. We went to Stanley Market after that to shop a little. Hong Kong was SO expensive like ridiculous. Especially coming off of Viet Nam and their cheap cheap prices. So we didn't really buy much. We headed back to the ship and Kara had found me an CURRENT AMERICAN issue of People magazine. I almost died because that is def. what I have been missing the most (I know it is really silly and superficial, but it is my guilty pleasure!). it was the best present ever. Drew went to go ichat his rents and gen and I went to go find dinner. everywhere in the mall was so expensive so we ended up having dinner at McDonalds. We are all like we never eat this stuff at home, but sometimes we just need food we know so it is an easy, fast and cheap place to go. We went back to the ship to watch the light show over the harbor. We then when out and had a rough night. Bad decisions were made all around, but nonetheless we survived slightly unscathed, with some UPIs (unidentifiable party injuries).

Miracle on miracle we got up on time to head to the airport. all still struggling hardcore. Drew and I fell asleep on each other in a pile on the bus there. he had to fill out all these extra forms in the airport they knew we were bad news. The Hong Kong airport is RIDIC. they had a Tiffany’s, Gucci, Mac everything. I got ramen and ate, which still didn't help. Then we had a longggg flight to Beijing (4+ hours) of which I slept the WHOLE time. they had these funny videos with exercises for people to do in their seats though to help with circulations. Asians are weird. on Drew’s plane before they landed they took every newspaper coming from Hong Kong since it wasn't censored. it is very interesting. we broke through the clouds in Beijing and saw everything covered in snow, which was a huge eye opener! the plane was 3/4 SAS and we all collectively go OH WOW. it hasn't been cold in a while. we got off the plane and I got STARBUCKS!! (I know awesome it was next to a KFC too).

we then headed to the hotel. it was a nice hotel a little communist but clean so that was good. we had the night free and gen had gotten a recommendation of a restaurant to go to. the communication thing was really really hard though. very few people spoke English and since it isn't even the same alphabet we were really shit out of luck. we had to make sure we always had the hotel card with us and then have the hotel write down in Chinese everywhere we wanted or needed to go and we ALWAYS needed a map. there were too many of us for 1 cab and we tried to have them follow each other but we ended up losing each other so I was with gen and Kareem. we found this mall and actually found the restaurant we were recommended but it was dirty and gross. even Kareem said no (which is major cuz he’s a boy and pretty hardcore). so we found this other restaurant, which appeared to be cute and looked good. they had an English menu, which was good. we then proceeded to have the worst meal I have ever consumed in my entire life. ever. the dumplings were good. they refused to serve us rice because I think they were closing soon. so I ordered tofu with crab meat, gen got what she thought were spare ribs and Kareem ordered "shanghai chicken". when gen tried her spare rib she started gagging so much I thought she was going to vomit in her plate. my tofu was the worst thing I have EVER EVER tasted. and Kareem chicken had the head on it. yup little cooked chicken head. it was bad. we paid and left with the majority of our food still on our plate. As we were leaving some random man who looked well off pointed to the food to figure out if we were done with it and we were like YES and he then proceeded to eat it. gross. we went to dairy queen and got blizzards instead. We always try the authentic food, but I’m telling you after 4 months of weird countries sometimes McDonalds and DQ are just a necessity. We walked around the area a bunch and it was really cool and well developed. Burberry, Coach and all these huge high end stores and it was pretty clean. I was very surprised. We headed back to the hotel and went to sleep.

The 3rd day in china and the 2nd in Beijing we woke up and went straight to the Silk Market. It wasn’t open yet so we hit up McDonalds and starbucks for warm drinks and chicken sandwiches. It was easy to forget where we are. Finally the Silk Market opened. one would expect silk here- nope. They had loads of knocks offs and clothes, jewelry, shoes, everything. We stocked up on warm clothes. I got lined water proof pants and a hat and some fuggs (fake uggs).We were laughing so hard because we were finally in real Asia where nothing fits us. I am usually like usually a small and I was buying XL sizes. they were straight up laughing at drew and Kareem going "yous so biiiiig". It was hilarious. We headed back out on the bus and had our first hands on experience with the bureaucracy of a communist country. We sat on the bus for 40 minutes in the parking lot and we were all getting frustrated. Finally, our tour guide got on and explained that we were not supposed to be visiting the Silk Market that day but they had changed the schedule, so we could get warm clothes for our night on the wall. Because of this the proper paperwork had not been filed with the government documenting our whereabouts. So we had to sit around while the government recognized that we had stopped at the Silk Market. ridic.



We then headed out to the Hutong area of Beijing. Hutongs are these narrow alleyways that connect houses. They are basically small winding neighborhoods. We had lunch in a traditional Chinese home and it was so good. There were all different types of food and it was delish and the family was so nice and sweet. The whole family (grandmother, parents, children spouses) all live in one house. This one was sort of run down but they said per square foot it was worth a ton because it was so historic and in such a central part of Beijing. Then we got in traditional tiny rickshaws with bicyclists and toured the area. Kareem and I sat in ours; they are so small! I was so afraid we were going to tip over. The roads were not particularly good and since it had snowed it was all muddy and slush. This really killed my sneakers. We got a nice tour and said bye to our rickshaw peddlerman. We headed up the drum tower all 69 steps up to the top. It was a great view of the city and there was a small drum show with all the giant drums that are kept up there. We then boarded up with buses and headed out the 2 hours to the Great Wall.

 We got to the wall around sunset and it was freeeeeezing.
 It was so snowy the bus couldn’t really make it up to the entrance so we had to slip and slide up the hill till we got to the base of the wall. Then we hiked up a portion to get a good view of the sunset. After taking some pictures we headed back down before all the light was gone. We went to a local restaurant for dinner. We got there and a bunch of kids asked to use the rest room and some one plucked up the courage to ask where we pee on the great wall. Our tiny Chinese tour guide simply answers “the bucket or the wall”. I had known this already from Kate but it threw everyone into near hysterics. We all used the gross bathroom at the restaurant. Thankfully it had 1 toilet and wasn’t all squatty potties (which are gross). Dinner was ok and I got a bottle of wine since everyone was drinking beer and we all know I don’t roll like that.

After dinner was over we all got back on the bus and attempted to change into our warm clothes. This was a struggle with all 30 of us trying to maneuver into all these bulky warm clothes on the bus together, but we finally did it. We drove about fifteen minutes to where we had to complete our 40-minute hike up to where we would be sleeping. We were given the option to opt out of the outside sleeping part and get a hotel at no additional cost, some kids decided to do this and I was seriously considering it, but decided to force myself to face the cold. This was a rough hike. It was almost completely vertical with a ton of steps. Everyone was given a flashlight and it was so disheartening to look up the mountain and see lights all the way to where the sky would be and realize you still had like a bajillion more stairs to go. Finally, we made it to the top and at this point we were all sweating and took off our 8 layers. It was about 10 degrees so we got cold again really fast and rebundled up. We later found out that it may actually be illegal to actually sleep on the Great Wall and that is why we had to hike so far to get to our spot. But whatever we didn’t get arrested so it’s ok. They had snacks and stuff up there and provided us with beer and I had my bottle of wine so we all just sort of hung out and drank in the frigid weather. Finally, we decided it was too cold to be in the whipping wind and we retreated into one of the towers where we decided to sleep. Some crazy kids slept unsheltered outside without the structure to shield the wind like crazy people! And I am proud to say I was able to pop a squat and I peed on the Great Wall! I was so proud of my self!! We all settled in and went to sleep in our sleeping bags. We were each supposed to have 2 and a mat but someone slept in our tower who wasn’t supposed to and stole a bunch of people sleeping bags so Gen and I had to share…which made it that much colder.

We woke up with sunrise and got to watch the sun come over the Great Wall, which was very cool. I also do not think I have ever been that cold in my entire life. We headed out on our 6-mile hike through the Simatai region of the Great Wall. At some points this was near impossible. Sometimes the wall was so destroyed that we had to climb on the mountain around the wall to get to the next section. There was also one section that was nearly 90 degrees straight up, which would have been a lot easier if it wasn’t covered in ice. The wall was massive. We decided that the Chinese speak in poems all the time like they don’t have a word for seafoam green its like green of the waves crashing in the south china sea…couldn’t that have come up with a better name then just the Great Wall? I mean like wall of giant spine curling over the majestic mountains…like SOMETHING a little more descriptive right? It was a long hike we had a lot to discuss. After about 3 hours we made it to the end of our section and the zipline. I was very apprehensive of this Chinese zipline and almost didn’t do but Gen forced me to. It turns out we were able to be strapped in together so we went over this huge gorge and river off the wall. It was scary but I am so glad I did it.

Then we headed to a restaurant for lunch. This was the first time my germaphobia actually really upset me the entire voyage. They only had GROSS dirty squat potties and I was tired and just couldn’t do it. I was near tears. Drew and Gen both gave me very detailed demonstrations on how to do it and I just couldn’t. Eventually, it will be something to laugh at, but I was at my wits end with China hygiene by that point. And I just cried a little. I was cold and tired and all I wanted to do was pee but I couldn’t. This was a sad sad china moment.

We got back on the buses and headed back to Beijing and our hotel. Showers were the first thing we did and then Gen, Kareem, Drew and I headed out to the Silk Market to finish up our shopping. When we were in the mall the day before we had seen a movie theater and decided it would be a fun experience to see a movie in China. We headed back to the mall and went to pick up our tickets. We ended up running into on the professors on the ship and his family and decided to do a mitzvah. It was their son’s 14th birthday and he was with them and had his heart set on seeing 2012 (which we were going to see) except the 9:20 showing they were supposed to go see was sold out, so we invited him to come hang out with us and go to the 10:20 and we would walk him back to his hotel afterward. He was so cute and grateful he didn’t have to spend his whole birthday with just his family and got to see this movie too. We felt like we did a nice thing and it was fun! We hit up pizza hut for dinner…we had to. We were so over Chinese food and let me tell you it was so good. It was fancy too! It was weird! They had like nice pasta dishes and drew and I got this pumpkin seafood appetizer, which was really good. Kareem insulted the waitress because the menu said a large fed 3-4 people and he asked if that was 3-4 Chinese people and proceeded to order and eat an entire large pizza. The movie was super fun and interesting. It was in English, but subtitled in Chinese. They also sold dried squid as a movie theater snack. It turned out that part of the movie actually took place in China so that was really cool.

After the movie ended we walked Danny back to his hotel and went back to ours and crashed before our crazy day in Beijing.

Our last day in Beijing was extremely busy and cold. Our first stop of the day was at the Forbidden City. It was packed with crazy Chinese people and we were cracking up the whole time. The Forbidden City was very cool too see but it got slightly repetitive and we really rushed through it because it was indescribably cold. We walked through the Forbidden City and ended up right in Tianmen Square. We were so excited to take pictures in front of the giant Mao picture but the communist police didn’t really like that idea and it had a lot of security, but we still got a few! To get into the actual Tianmen Square we had to go underground and then we came right in the middle of the square. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to go into Mao’s Mausoleum, but it would have been very interesting to see his badly preserved body and crystal coffin. After Tianmen Square we headed to a traditional Peking Duck lunch. It was served with little moo shoo like pancakes and hoison sauce and was delicious. Gen and I picked up some push pops and Great Wall Wine for the impending overnight train ride.

After lunch we headed out to Olympic Park, which was breathtaking. We were able to pay to go into the Bird’s Nest and it was one of the coolest things I have ever been in in my life. The structure was so complex and huge. We were not able to go inside the Water Cube because it was under construction, but we got to see the outside. It was also really amazing and I was surprised how close the two were to each other.

The Summer Palace was out next stop, and it was another outside one that we tried to breeze through because it was so cold. It was pretty and interesting that there was this huge lake palace in the middle of the city. It is definitely a spot that intensifies its beauty with the summer months. It was a little frozen over- for obvious reasons.

There was a lot of extra time since we had gone through the palace so fast due to the cold. The tour guide wanted to take us to some type of show, but it was an addition $20 and none of us really had the money. So we convinced her to take us to the Pearl Market (also didn’t really sell pearls) and we got our last minute stuff and snacks for the train. Drew and I found a bakery place and it was soooo good. We got to the train station pretty early and it was way more developed than I thought it would be. They had like 4 McDonalds and KFCs (the Chinese really do LOVE their KFCs). Drew and I found this place that had this delicious soup with dumplings and also this beef soup. There was a huge communication barrier here and there was a lot of pointing and gesturing. Then halfway through our delicious soup I saw an eyelash in one of the bowls. I tried so hard to get over my germness but then some guy hocked up and spit ON THE FLOOR of the restaurant. They also love the spitting in china. I looked at drew and was he just nodded and was like ok, we can go now. So we got some snacks and got on our sleeper train. I figured the bathroom thing was going to be an ish again, but we got on and it was super clean and there were toilets! I was ecstatic!! The train was actually very nice. We had the whole car but it was split into compartments with 4 beds in each compartment. There was a little confusion at the beginning because a bunch of people switched rooms and we couldn’t figure out who was where, but everything got settled. We drank a little (the Great Wall wine was goood) and all hung out. The beds and train were nice, not super clean there were some hairs and fuzz, but gen and I are getting so close that she thankfully swept off my bunk. We all crashed around 3am and then got into Shanghai at 8am and headed to the ship. The view of the skyline from the ship was absolutely ridiculous. That cool space future looking building was right behind the ship. The skyline was amazing.

Since china also loves the bureaucracy we weren’t allowed to leave the ship for about 2 hours after we got on because the government needed to reprocess us and issue us shore passes. During time we found out that we weren’t actually leaving Shanghai that night like we were supposed to! There was inclement weather so they extend our stay by a day. The weather must have been really bad because it is really expensive to keep us in a port. Hong Kong was $130,000 per day just to give an idea. There was a rumor that Obama was going to be coming aboard and that was why we had the delay. People thought he was going to be our 100th voyage speaker. I knew this was NOT happening, but people were convinced since he was in Shanghai anyways. Alas, this did not happen (hate to say I told you so).

We finally got off the ship that day and Kara, Gen, Drew and I just explored Shanghai. We had planned on going to the Jade Buddha Temple, but the day just got away from us. We shopped and had lunch at a very local food court like restaurant. I was getting pretty sick of Chinese food at this point, but I was able to find some good dumplings. It was pouring through all of this and freezing, which made conditions less than favorable. We ended up finding a huge indoor market and it had such funny stuff. We call it China Glitter Sparkle Surprise Stuff. We bought lots of useless things including feather headbands and panda shaped usb splitters.

After this market Kara and I still needed to find a market for our Food & Culture class. We are allowed to use 2 supermarkets and we realized this country was just going to need to be one of those. We got sent to E-Mart (it was quite a feat trying to get across supermarket to the Chinese) but we found it and it was like Chinese Wal-Mart! Kara got funny slippers and a water bottle with Engrish on them. Engrish is what happens when Chinese and Japanese people attempt to try to translate things into English and screw it up just enough that it is hilarious. Then we headed down to the super market area and oh man it was ridiculous. We found a great example of Engrish when we found the “Fresh Bekery” (bakery). I know this totally offensive and we realize we are going to be in big trouble when we get home and are talking like this and when we realize that everyone around us can actually understand what we are saying. But the bekery was great! They had a “Breakfast” section, which was 3 aisles of instant ramen. Then we made our way over to the fish section. HAHA oh man. They had live frogs just jumping around in a cage and then they had dead turtles in bags like we would put oranges in. There were also giant live fish swimming in tanks with open tops. One actually jumped out at Drew and he fell on the floor trying to get away from it. Yet another amusing fall. They also had live eels and catfish in huge tanks too, and chicken feet. After exploring the supermarket for a while we ventured back out into the cold freezing rain and found dinner. I had the real chow fun noodles (for mom) and they were delicious. Then we headed back to the boat and Drew and I attempted to find internet in the pouring rain. We struggled for a long while and finally found a Starbucks 10 minutes before they closed. I was able to call mom and dad for enough time to figure out my credit cards weren’t working. I made them promise before I left that they would give up their hippy non-capitalistic ways for FOUR MONTHS and remember to pay the bills. That is all I wanted was FOUR MONTHS. But alas this was not doable. So we got all that settled and headed back into the rain to the ship. A bunch of kids were going to some club but after our internet debacle I was just annoyed and went to sleep.

Kara and I got up early to head back to the Starbucks to get internet before the ship left that afternoon. Unfortunately since we were in China facebook did not work but I was able to talk to mom and Emma Kate and stuff. Sadly, Tim had a work dinner and I thought I was going to get to talk to him for a while but he wasn’t around. It was a bummer. Then Gen and Drew met us and we headed up to the Jade Buddha Temple. It was super cool and gorgeous. People were lighting incense everywhere and they had these huge wax candle flowers. The Jade Buddha was very pretty. They also had this gigantic koi pond. Dad would have loved it. The Koi were HUGE and so trained that they would eat out of your hands like a dog. It was strange.

Then we went on our last quest of China: Dunkin Donuts. They had them in Shanghai. We were freaking out and so excited (it is the little things these days). So try to imagine 4 American kids trying to communicate Dunkin Donuts to a bunch of Chinese people. Needless to say this took FOREVER and finally we found another Sashole who was able to point us in the right direction. When we got there it was filled with sasholes everywhere. We got iced lattes, they didn’t taste exactly the same but they were close, they didn’t have bagels but we got like a billion donuts. They even had green tea and all these crazy flavors. We hopped a cab and scarfed the donuts on the way back to the ship and got on just in time for on ship time.

China was a whirlwind. I did more in 7 days than I think I have ever done and it was a blast. It was so different and the cold definitely put a different twist on the intense traveling we have been doing. The extra day in Shanghai also meant we only had 2 days before Japan, which was not a lot of recovery time. But we just had to keep pushing on!

Viet Fucking Nam & Cambodia

The trip from India to Vietnam was actually pretty eventful. Well as eventful as it can be on a ship in the middle of the ocean. The crew had their talent show, which was SO much fun. They were great and one of the cabin stewards is a cross dresser and man could he/she dance! It was one of my favorite nights on the ship so far. They asked us donate to the crew well being fund because they can’t get off the ship in a lot of the ports they are on for huge stretches at a time. So this fund goes to like musical instruments, gym equipment and other stuff to help their ship life. That night alone they raised almost $9,000. It was a very cool night. 


We also had Halloween on the ship, which was very weird and different. At dinner the crew made a "halloween" menu and made stuff like borscht and called it blood stew and all that kind of stuff. This is just another example of how great the crew is. They try so hard and it was very cute. The little kids on the ship trick or treated through some of our cabins too. There was a halloween "dance" and there was NO beverage service. Having a few drinks makes it a lot more fun to be in a costume, so this was a different experience. They had the dance in the union and there was a costume contest and the student life workers did a thriller dance and stuff. It was fun and we all danced, but it was really weird not being at school. Halloween has become such a college holiday for me I was definitely homesick (school sick). My friend Sam and I had gotten these horribly tacky leopard print pashminas in India so we wore those and made ears and we were leopards. Gen and Corinne were dominoes and Drew was a ninja. People actually got really creative with the limited resources that we had. 3 boys won for best group costume because they dressed up like an Indian rickshaw. It was hilarious.

We also had to refuel in Singapore on the way to Vietnam. So we got to see the city from the ship and I was able to pick up enough cell service to call Emma Kate and Tim so that was really great.

Our preparation for Viet Nam was very interesting. We had a 5 minute DEMONSTRATION complete with re creation on how to cross a street in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). It was pretty funny, but made us a little apprehensive. Saigon was a very different port logistically then any other we had encountered to this point. Saigon is not on the coast of Vietnam but is on a river. This means the ship has to sail up the river to get there, which is not an easy task in the least. We got up early to watch the ship maneuver the tight turns of the river while going about 2 knots. It was really interesting to watch and I couldn’t believe the ship could do that. All the little fisherman were out on the river and when we would go by we would watch the wake of the ship and would hold our breaths to see if they were going to capsize. And yup the wake did knock a few of them over…very sad.

We pulled into port and it was pretty urbanized, which was really nice. I had forgotten that Vietnam was the parent trip port so there were all these moms and dads with signs for their kids, which was really sad. A few kids shed some tears and then we all moved on. There was a little welcome group in traditional Vietnamese attire and rice hats with a big Welcome Semester at Sea sign, which was cool. A tent with a little stall selling stuff had also been set up right off the gangway. I called this the “stuff white people like” market because they were selling rice hats, DVDs, and North Face Backpacks. Basically everything everyone on the ship bought. Hilarious.

I got off with Drew, Corinne and Sam to explore Saigon. We were provided with a shuttle even though the port was really close to everything. The government feels we make too much of a scene with people trying to hawk stuff and pedicabs and stuff it is just easier to have a shuttle. Our first debacle of the day was with money. The conversion rate is 1 dollar to 17,850 dong. That makes you a millionaire with like 50 bucks and it is the most confusing math I have had to do in my entire life. My pink calculator came in SUPER handy. It was easier to just round up to 20,000 and divide but still shit got confusing really fast. We then headed to the Ben Thanh Market, which is a giant market in the central area of Saigon. It was amazing. They had food, meat, clothes, furnishings, restaurants, livers (yes raw livers just chilling), basically everything you could ever want. Ever. We were in major shock for a while and just walked around in a daze. Vietnam is also REALLY hot, like subtropical, and this is an un air conditioned market so there was a lot of sweat. We kept running into sas kids everywhere. We got some beers as we walked around and it was just really cool taking it all in.

It is a known thing through SAS kids that Vietnam is the place to get clothes made. So we left the market to walk around to try to find a tailor. We finally found this great place. I got an amazing jacket made and my linen pants that were destroyed by the stupid camel in morocco fixed and then replicated. Gen’s trip left that am for Cambodia so I had her measurements and tried to have them make a dress from a picture for her without her actually being there. Drew got a blazer made and Corinne got a dress too.

After that we got some iced coffee. Vietnam is actually known for their coffee and they do this thing with the iced coffee where they put condensed milk in the bottom so it is delicious. This was just the beginning of us chalking up our health and safety to god by drinking the water. We have only been in countries where we can’t touch or eat anything for like months now and we are sick of it. So we drank the ice. Yup. Still alive. For now. Then we had our first experience with the North Face apparel. We found a great luggage stall and Sam and Corinne got gigantic North Face backpacks for $10 each and I got a new piece of luggage for China, which I am gifting to mom when I get back. Then we had our first encounter with the pirated DVD. They had so much! I got Up, Season 5 of Weeds, Season 6 of Entourage and the new Harry Potter for like $5 total. It was dangerous.

I had read about this place in Lonely Planet that had propaganda art and other things from the war so we decided to head over there. It was a cool walk (with many dangerous street crossings) but it enabled to see a lot more of the city, which was nice. The store was really funky and I bought a very cool piece of art that will hang on the stairs going up to the loft in the NYC apt when I move in. Yeah I have been decorating the apartment I don’t live in yet in my head the entire trip.

It was getting late by this point so we stopped and got a snack at Yogurt Land. It was great because I LOVE froyo and it was just like 16 Handles in the east village! They had all these flavors and you serve yourself and then add toppings and they charge you by weight. Delish. We headed back to the shuttle and went back to the ship to drop our loot from the day and get changed. Then we headed back out for dinner. I had read about this place in the NY Times that was supposed to be amazing and we tried to find it and couldn’t find it anywhere. So we ended up at a Vietnamese restaurant that the hospitality people on board had recommended. I ordered rice wine thinking it would be like sake. Mistake. It was like a shot of liquor stronger than vodka. So I had to order another drink and pour it into that. Good college kids know one cannot waste liquor! We had a really yummy Vietnamese food. Fresh spring rolls, scallops and other things as appetizers and I got glass noodles with seafood and it was really good! Drew went to find the bathroom and magically found Kara and a bunch of other people. Sam and Corinne went back to the ship and we went out!

We were on a mission to go to this bar called Apocalypse Now! (How funny is that), but we found this little hole in the wall first so we stopped there and had some drinks. Then we headed to Apocalypse Now! Which was packed with SAS kids but the drinks were super expensive. We found Cav and bounced back and forth between our cheap bar and Apocalypse. We closed our cheap bar and the Vietnamese bar tenders whipped out Jenga (really of all games yes JENGA) and we played jenga on the bar for a while. Eventually they closed and we headed back to the other club to dance for a long while. I found Kareem and Cynthia and a ton of other people and it was super fun. We danced for a while and since Kareem doesn’t drink i felt ok walking back to the ship with him. Walk is a stretch for our trip back but we made it! I got back to my room and Drew was just sitting outside my door, which generally means I am sick of dealing with my roommate and I want to sleep in the Klubhouse (what we named my new room). So I let him in and went and called mom and tim. When I got back into my room it was about 4:30 am and Drew’s alarm was going off because he had a trip. I had to wake him up to leave for his trip before I even went to sleep. Oh man. What a night but it was really super fun!

The next day thankfully my trip didn’t leave until 11:45. Lunch on the ship was actually great. When we are in port they have better ingredients and less people to feed. There were also parents on board so they were definitely showing off. We had grilled cheese and french fries which was helpful for my rough morning. We headed to the airport and flew out to Phnom Penh. This was the parent trip and there were a fair amount of both parents and solo students on my trip. I knew this was not going to be my most fun trip as we were dealing with serious subject matters and had lots of grown ups on the trip and I didn’t really know anyone. This was totally fine and I was trying to approach this with an educational attitude. Our flight was delayed quite a bit so our tour had to change slightly. When we landed in Phnom Penh we headed to the Palm Tree Orphanage, which has SAS affiliation. The kids put on a dance and then we were free to interact with them. We all know kids aren’t my favorite so I was feeling sorta awkward. One little girl came up to me and ATTACHED herself to my hand for the rest of the time there. She showed me her room, her classroom and some of her belongings. Then she gave me her stuffed bear. I almost died I kept saying no no it is ok it is yours! But she wouldn’t have it and made me take it. I felt so horrible but there was nothing I could do. Someone suggested that I regift it in another country and I thought that was a great idea.

We then took a Sunset Cruise on the Mekong River, which was very pretty. It wasn’t for very long but it was nice to see the city from the river. After the cruise we had a really nice dinner at this fancy restaurant. Cambodian food is very good and super similar to western Chinese food. With lotssss of sticky rice. Then we headed to our hotel. We got to pick roommates so I had already picked Denim earlier in the voyage and it was nice to be at least acquainted with the person I was staying with. Some kids went out but I still wasn’t over the night before so Denim and I stayed in and watched a little TV and I went to the business center and used the internet for a long while and got to gchat with liv, tim and RJ so that was great. We went to sleep for our 6am breakfast.

I did not sleep very well. Being on SAS trips makes me so anxious that I am going to miss an alarm and miss tours and stuff. It is super stressful and I psych myself out so I am waking up every hour. Not fun.

Our breakfast at the hotel was really good and we started our day at 7 am. This was not going to be a fun day as it was focused on the Cambodian Genocide during the Khmer Rouge. I did not know a lot about this and I was amazed that it all happened so recently and that no one knows about it. Our first stop was the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. This museum was a former high school, which was then used as the Security Prison 21 by the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979. The prison has been transformed into a very disturbing museum. It is estimated that more the 17,000 people were imprisoned in the 3 years. The cells have pictures of what they looked like the day the Vietnamese uncovered the prison complete with torture tools and dead bodies. They still had the torture facilities standing including what used to be recreation equipment, but was used as a type of waterboarding machine thing during the Khmer Rouge. Prisoners were hung off of it and dunked into giant containers of contaminated water or human feces. There are pictures of many of the prisoners up in the cells. There was also a very interesting art exhibit by a Swedish man who had been invited to Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge. It was a exhibit of his photographs with blurbs about how the communist spun the stories and what they had thought in the 1970’s and what they now think of the photos. It was very interesting and disturbing. The most famous thing in the museum was the Skull Map, which was a huge map of Cambodia composed of over 300 skulls. They dismantled the map in 2002 and many of the skulls are still on display and the rest have been brought to the killing field memorial. Out of the 17,000 people that were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng there were only 12 known survivors. When we were visiting there was actually one of the survivors at the museum. Our tour guide was telling us that he probably has post traumatic stress disorder and survivors guilt and apparently spends a lot of time at the museum now. Even our tour guide is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge and lost his own father in the purges.

After the Genocide Museum we headed to the outskirts of Phnom Penh to the Choeung Ek Killing Fields. When the Khmer Rouge took power they forced evacuation of all of the cities in Cambodia. So a lot of things are all on the outskirts. These were the most upsetting. It is estimated that at least 17,000 people were executed here and many of the remains cannot be exhumed because of the flooding in the areas after the regime fell. They have found mass graves of over 8,895 bodies so far. Many of these were former prisoners of Tuol Sleng. Walking around was extremely upsetting. In the center of the field they have a memorial stupa that is over 8 stories high and has acryclic siding and is completely filled with skulls (over 5,000 of them separated by gender and age). Walking around one can see the pits and they have markers like “600 naked woman”. As you walk around you have to be very careful as to where you walk because there are still tons of clothes from the victims on the ground. There are also bones and teeth still in the ground and you can just see them as you walk around. Still there. It is very upsetting and scary to think this only happened 30 years ago or less. The same decade I was born this was going on. And we let it but bothered ourselves with stupid oil wars instead…anyways another subject for another time. Pol Pot stayed in power will almost 1997 and we never took away Cambodia’s seat in the UN. Sometimes I just don’t understand the world and government but there is no right answer or correct fix as we have seen. Communism was the answer for a while but look where that got Cambodia.

After visiting the Killing Fields we headed to the Silver Pagoda and Royal Palace, which was a stark contrast. The Royal Palace was gorgeous. The pagodas were beautiful in the traditional south east asian style. Most were Buddhists but some still had remnants of the Hindu religion that once dominated the area. We kept saying how it looked like Disney World because it was absolutely unbelievable it almost looked fake. We saw the famed emerald Buddha and several Stupas that held the remains of some of the Kings. The Silver Pagoda has more than 5,000 silver tiles lining the floors. They try to protect the tiles by covering them but they almost look like metal and one wouldn’t know they were actually silver. It was a really cool area.

Then we went to lunch, which was no where near as good as dinner was. We wandered around on the pretense of shopping but Cambodia was expensive especially in comparison to Vietnam! They were like American prices for Cambodian quality so we didn’t get much. Then we headed to the National Museum, which was sort of ehhh. It had a lot of statues that were taken from Siem Reap and Angkor Wat when the Khmer Rouge took power (because art and history was against their “plan”). So it was just a precursor to what we were going to see anyways.

We hopped on ANOTHER plane and flew from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. From the airport we headed right to Angkor Wat. Our tour guide was a sweet guy but extremely annoying. He literally said “you know” every 4 words like we would say um or like. It was painful. We got to Angkor Wat and got to watch the sunset over it, which was gorgeous. Dinner was ok there was a “cultural dance show” after dinner, which was frankly pretty boring and we were all exhausted. The best part was the end. The place was pretty fancy and there was this HUGE group of Japanese tourists and during the last dance a group of them went and put dollars on the stage…like this was a strip club. Then at the end when they came out to bow all the Japanese people ran onstage and took pictures with them! It was horribly embarrassing and hilarious all at the same time. Not only were they taking pictures they were doing the very stereotypical Japanese peace sign. So ridiculous but we got a good laugh out of it.

We headed back to the hotel and passed out.

Our last day in Cambodia had a LOT of temples! I got up at 4:15 am and we headed back out to Angkor Wat to watch the sun rise over it. There were so many people there watching the sunrise it is amazing to think that 100 people are there every day watching the sun rise over the temple when we are doing our own thing every day. Then back to the hotel for breakfast then BACK to Angkor Wat for a tour. There was a lot of Angkor Wat. The tour was nice. It is a very cool building but sorta like the Taj in the fact that once you get in there isn’t a ton to see. Our tour guide actually lived in Angkor Wat during the Khmer Rouge and fed off the bats that live there. The bats are the main reason the whole thing is turning black…it’s the acid from their urine. Cool. Angkor Wat was found when the French were colonizing Cambodia. The jungle had completely reclaimed it and the locals knew about it but it wasn’t like a huge important site. It has gone through years of restoration to look the way it does now. It was originally a Hindu Temple and then became Buddhist.

After Angkor Wat we headed to Ta Prohm Temple, which I thought was actually in a way cooler then Angkor Wat. Ta Prohm is a temple that has not been restored unlike many of the other Angkorian temples. The jungle has almost completely reclaimed this temple and it is absolutely indescribable. There are these amazing ruins mixed with vines and trees. It is very cool and my pictures will do more than I can. They also filmed parts of Tomb Raider there.

We went back to the hotel for lunch and to check out and then went to Angkor Thom. Ankgor Thom was the walled city in Siem Reap. The temple there is known as the face temple and is most famous for this as well. We walked around and went to the little market there. There isn’t a lot to say about these places and it is best shown in pictures.

Then we headed back to the airport and back to Vietnam! I was amazed at how some of the kids on my trip treated their parents. Appalled is a better word. I mean I am no angel with my parents but if they paid a fortune to drag themselves out to Vietnam to visit me on top the small inheritance they paid to send me SAS and I hadn’t seen them in 3 months I would be pretty nice. Nope. Not these kids. One girl wouldn’t even sit with her mom at meals. Like seriously? It was so upsetting. There was also this one kid. Oh man. Well lets just say someone finally got sent home from SAS and he was on my trip. It started the day we left for Cambodia. He was missing in the airport and then he almost missed the plane but got on by the skin of his teeth. Then we got to Cambodia and he lost his passport and was MIA with him mom all day trying to get it back. When he did join us on tours it was very obvious he was def. on drugs. Probably xanax it was a bad scene. He was from Greenwich (obviously) but the icing on the cake was in the airport back from Cambodia. Unfortunately, he got arrested….for trying to steal cigarettes in the airport in Cambodia. Great. Well somehow the authorities let him come back to Vietnam and then Semester At Sea decided to dismiss him from the program. Whoops.

Anyways, we got back Friday night and I immediately found Gen and showered. It was Sam’s 21st birthday so we were ready to go! A bunch of us headed out and tried to get cabs but we all couldn’t fit in one. So 6 of us piled into one and Drew and Kareem hopped on the back of some guys motorcycle. This is the norm in Vietnam. Instead of cabs people pimp out their motorcycles. This was big time against the rules cuz SAS says we should only ride on things with 3 wheels minimum. Well obviously they got split up from us and their driver ended up taking them to yet another whore house. Finally they found us and we started our night! It was crazy lots of bar hopping and cabs and all that, but I am proud to say we all survived slightly unscathed and it was a ton of fun!

The last day in Vietnam Gen and I went out and found a great coffee place and got food and coffee and then shopped all day. I got all the last minute stuff I needed and we picked up all the stuff we got made at the tailor. Then we ran into Drew and got Pho. Pho is traditional Vietnamese soup with glass noodles. There are all these chain restaurants that just served it and it is so yummy. A little hard to eat with the chopsticks but I am getting a lot better with them. Then we decided to go get massages. Vietnam is famous for their affordable massages so Gen had found this place that was $12 USD for 1.5 hours. It was great and super fun and clean and relaxing. We got these robes and all got our hot stones massages in the same room. It was great and we were giggling the whole time.

It was pretty much time to head back to the ship but we realized everyone else was going to be getting on wasted so we decided to hit up a bar on the way back….cutting it close to onship time. The first place we tried to go in said that Drew could come in but Gen and I were not welcome…whorehouse. We found a cute place with happy hour and the bar tenders were really nice. Over the half hour we sat there we realized that that too was a brothel. All these women kept walking in and going up the stairs and then this one guy came in had half a glass of wine and he went upstairs too. We were cracking up at this point. We also realized he had like 15 minutes to get back to the ship. It was a mad dash and thankfully we made it in time!

I really enjoyed Vietnam & Cambodia. Cambodia was extremely eye opening and I really had no idea the horrors that happened there so recently. Vietnam was a ton of fun and I can't wait to get back. There is so much I didn't get to see (Hanoi, Ha Long Bay etc).
Asia has been super fun so far and I have loved it!

White Boy Magic; India

THIS IS THE BIG ONE- from our ship doctor the night before we docked into India. Every time we get into port we have 2 meeting the 2 nights before. One is cultural preport and one is logistical preport. At logistical our ship doctor speaks about health issues we are facing in the port. He has this cute hat that says “Dr. Dave” on it and has a red light. The light is off when we don’t have to worry, on if we should be aware, and flashing if we need to be cautious. When he came out for India the light was flashing, they also turned on the disco light, laser lights and played the song “staying alive”. Just a little precursor to India.

Before we pulled into port they started covering the carpet with cardboard and plastic. They also took in most of the deck furniture, covered chairs in plastic and closed many of the watertight doors to the outside. It was like they were in lockdown mode for India. The first and hopefully the only port that this happened for.

We got to Chennai on October 23rd and everything about it was different than what we have had to deal with so far. Customs was RIDICULOUS. They don't allow us to get our passport in India for some strange reason so we have to carry this onshore visitor passes and customs declarations for what electronics we are carrying (very strange). Indian authorities had to distribute these when we docked and I was just waiting to hear my name called and be questioned about my necessity of a 10-year visa but thankfully I got through fine. It usually takes us 40 minutes to clear the ship after it docks but here it took 2 hours.

The port was grossly dirty. not like garbage dirt, which I am used to in India but there is this weird ash everywhere. I guess they were right about covering every surface. I took pictures on my feet after the first day and it was DISGUSTING. I loved it. Drew and I met Bernie once we got off and she was right at the gate when we walked out! It was super nice. It was a 15-minute walk from the ship to the gate.

 Drew was in sensory overload for the first 3 hours and didn't really say much. I felt bad and like he wasn’t having a good time, but I think you just have to take in everything you are seeing and doing. We got on a public train within 10 minutes of getting out of the port, which I don’t think helped. Then we got in an auto rickshaw, which DEFINITELY didn't help. they are this little motorized things. wikipedia it only a picture can do it justice. not to mention whenever Bernie would haggle for a price she made me stand with drew like a block and a half away so they didn't know it was for a white person and then we would walk over and the vendor would try to change the price. We dubbed it white boy magic. We shopped around and wandered. We found this tiny fire temple, which was very cool. Chennai is know for being super religious, so most of their food is vegetarian and there are tons of temples everywhere.

We shopped around Pondy Bazaar and Spencer Marker. I found silk soy milk! I was ecstatic. this trip is making miss really weird things like fresh healthy stuff. When I get home I just want fresh spinach w. Italian dressing and goat cheese and soymilk. we had a great south Indian lunch Drew was in awe the whole time and I got my mango lassi and sweet lime soda! So, I was happy. We got dinner at this place called Hot Bread. I wanted Cafe Coffee Day, my fav coffee place in India, but this place was right next to it and had this delish looking sandwiches. so I got a chicken tikka Panini it was super yummy! We got very good cold coffee too. It was late by this point so we took an auto rickshaw back. Bernie left us and went to her place (she was staying on the navy grounds.) We had some issues with finding the right gate for the port. We finally got in and they checked our dumb shore passes like 5 times. we were finally right in front of the ship and I started getting shit. drew said it was the first time all he day he was happy he was the white kid. We called this “Reverse White Boy Magic”. The security people were questioning me and stuff because I look Indian. they asked my name like 4 times and asked me where I was from and all this shit. Finally, they let me on it was amusing. After we got back on the ship we found Kareem and convinced him to join us the next day.

Day #2 we woke up and headed out to meet Bernie. Obviously, Indian Standard Time made her driver late and we had to stand in the sketchy port area waiting for like almost an hour, but I had both boys so I was safe for the most part it was amusing and toasty warm. We piled into the car and headed to Pondicherry. We all fell asleep and after about 2 hours the car stopped. Pondicherry was a French colony and still maintains its separateness, so we had to get a pass for the car to enter. Dad had wanted us to find an orphanage to donate Jeramy’s sedaka box money to, but hadn’t given us specifics and Bernie I were both in a city we didn’t know. However, karma had it arranged for us. When the car stopped to get the permit we stopped directly in front of the Salt Children’s Home. Bernie decided we would go in and we met all the kids and the director of the orphanage. There were about 30 kids there in total and they were all super friendly. We got the guys credentials and saw that he was legit and the kids all seemed happy so we donated about $5000 rupees and took pictures and left. It was very random, but I think we helped out in a way that was more effective than if we just gave to another Mother Teresa Orphanage.

We got back in the car and headed to a commune called Auroville. Bernie has heard good things about this place from friends and in lonely planet, but we didn’t know exactly what it was. We got there and it was a little commune village with shops and a restaurant. If we had watched a video and gone through a basic training we would have been able to go into the commune, but we weren’t there for extremely long, so we just strolled through the shops and had a very yummy lunch.

After that we continued out to Pondicherry. We got there and found a hotel and then wandered around. We saw the Mother Pondicherry Ashram and walked around there and then walked up and down the beach. It was interesting to see how well the coastal area had bounced back after the tsunami.

We walked over to the shopping area and Drew and I picked out some glasses frames. Then Drew and Kareem experienced real Indian shopping, or at least how I do it. We went into this fabric/clothing store and asked if they had shawls they said yes and pulled the first package out. Then we started with the MORE NEXT words. And more and more shawls came out. Bernie and I were unfolding them and making split second decisions. Finally, Kareem started getting into it since shawls are the perfect presents for all his family since all the women wear them as head coverings. Drew was just hysterical the whole time. More and more shawls were flying everywhere and Kareem got out a pen and paper trying to figure out who would get which. After about 1 hour and over 100 shawls we walked out with about 20 in total. Success. Finally. Then we headed to dinner. I wanted Buttar Chicken, but since we were in Southern India and most of the cuisine was vegetarian this was a challenge. We found this one place that was a little sketchy, but the food was decent. Then we headed back to the hotel and passed out.

The next day Drew and I woke up early to head to the Internet café so I could skype mom and dad, but when we got there it was closed. He went back to sleep and I finished my book and then Kareem, Bernie and I headed back to the Internet café when it opened. It was a cute little place with nice drinks and a great signal. I didn’t get to talk to mom and dad but I got Tim for a while and even got to upload some pictures, which was great. All those people who said I wouldn’t miss the Internet and would get over it were liars. I am not addicted to it as much as I was but I constantly miss it. We then went to the Sunday market, which was a bit of a disappointment. After eating lunch we check out of our hotel and headed to Mahabalipuram.

Mahabalipuram is a seaside city that was a very popular port city in the 7th century. There are a ton of temples and other rock sculptures all around this area from the time period. We toured the temples and walked amongst all the rocks. There were loads of goats everywhere and it seemed like a local meeting place. Another main attraction is this giant boulder that is suspended on a hill. It is huge so we climbed up and took a bunch of pictures around it. We also got to go into a functioning Hindu temple, which was super cool.

As we headed back into Chennai stuff started looking familiar from the last time I was in Chennai. I remembered going to this restaurant in the trees last time we were there. I asked our driver about it and I was right! It had since closed but I was so impressed that I actually remembered stuff from 9 years ago.

We headed back to Chennai and stopped at the Citi Center, which is a giant mall and when we walked in I immediately remembered it from my visit in 2000. It was very strange going everywhere and recognizing things from such a long time ago. We left Bernie at this point and went in to find Internet and dinner. We got food at the rooftop restaurant, which was really nice and had great views of the city. Then we headed down to the food court and got some Internet and I was able to skype mom and dad. Then we headed back to the ship and finally got to shower and go to sleep.

The next day I had an SAS trip that I didn’t know what to expect from and ended up being pleasantly surprised. We headed to a rural village that was about 45 minutes out of Chennai. When we arrived a local woman whose sole job is “hospitality” greeted us. She was old and great and blessed us all and gave us dots. We were welcomed into a family’s home in the village and showed around. It was very interesting to see a different side of living in India then anything I have seen in the past. We saw their sleeping quarters, their shrine and the area out back where they cook all their food. It was explained how the entire family (extended) lives in one home. They offered us chai and then we continued on to other parts of the village. We had a demonstration on the white designs that are traditionally drawn in front of homes. We were told that the powder used formerly was made out of rice and was laid out so the small animals (ants etc) would have a little bit of food. Nowadays it is made out of a combination of chalk and rice powder. The woman who did the demonstration was incredibly talented and whipped out these intricate designs in minutes. After she showed us several of hers she asked us to try…which was a joke! We just proved how inept we are.

We hopped on bullock carts (carts pulled by bulls) and headed out to the rice paddy fields. As we walked out there we passed a super deep well and I looked at it and thought man it would suck to fall in that. 3 minutes after that a girl on my trip dropped her SHORE PASS INTO the well. This was a huge debacle and one of the villagers had to climb down into the well and retrieve it for her. People are dumb and careless/

We headed out into the fields to watch the women, in their gorgeous colorful sari’s, up to their knees in mud planting rice. They showed us how the rice is bundled and then placed in the mud for cultivation. Then they asked if any of us wanted to get in and help them plant rice. At first I was like hell no I am going to get a parasite in the standing mud water, but then I thought about it and was like hey next time I come the odds are I am not going to have a chance to wade into a rice paddy field so I took off my reefs and waded in. in my pink seersucker shorts. Up to my knees in mud. In India. Oh boy. It was super fun and the old Indian ladies helped me plant. Then we hopped back on the bullock carts and drove through the village. We headed to groves of coconut trees and they were whacking open coconuts and offering us the water. One of the villagers then demonstrated how he climbed the coconut tree and gave us the option of trying that. Rice paddy fields were enough for me and I did not participate in the tree climbing but some kids were actually pretty good at it!

After the village we stopped at a school and met some of the 12th standard economic students. We asked them questions and they asked us some too. It was very interesting and I thought it was really cool. They asked us all our names and everyone went through with the usually Laurens and Marys and the kids giggled at the weird names then it was my turn and I said Sanya and they all oohed and awed that I actually had a name they heard of. It was pretty funny.

Then we went to the Dakshinachitra Heritage Village. This was not particularly special or enlightening, but was interesting to see the developing tourism in India. This is a re-creation of different homes that are found in the 4 southern “states” of India. We had a nice lunch here and wandered around. They had several people demonstrating local arts and we even had the option of trying some of them. There were very talented artists and I even got some henna done. They also had some stalls selling VERY over priced arts and crafts. We headed back to the ship at around 4:30.

My friend Natalie and Drew and I headed back out to Citi Center where we met up with Kara. We just sort of hung out and shopped a little. In Chennai electricity is sort of a variable factor in life. We were shopping in one of the high-end department stores and the power went off for a solid fifteen minutes. So we stood in the dark and Kara was stuck in a dressing room and it was quite amusing…we didn’t really know what to do but finally the power came back. We got dinner (sort of) and headed back to our rickshaw and this is when the night sort of went downhill. Our rickshaw driver back to the ship was obnoxious. We got in a fight over the price and Natalie just gave him the extra money-, which I wouldn’t do, and it was just annoying. I said 100 and he agreed we got in we got to he port gave him 100 and he started screaming and was like you said 100 madame I said 150, it was a bad scene. I know it wouldn’t have happened if Dad was. I felt so helpless knowing I was getting ripped off and taken advantage of and being a girl and not being capable to doing anything alone.
 After we got the rickshaw thing handles there was this beggar that wouldn't leave me alone till I yelled at her to get away. Then bureaucracy of this port is extravagant and it was just annoying. They look at our shore pass 3 times and they are supposed to "sign us out" and then back into the port in this ancient ledger. They hadn’t signed us out when we left this time so obviously and they couldn’t find us to sign us back in.
 It was just an all around frustrating night, which is ok because every night cant be perfect!

The next morning pretty much everyone was back so Gen, Corinne, Sam, Kareem and I met up with Bernie for a shopping day. It was super fun and I got a lot of presents that I needed to get. We went back to pondy bazaar and made a serious dent with jewelry and blankets. Everyone was super grateful to have Bernie with us it helped a lot. I ended up getting a bunch of tunics too and Kareem got stuff for his nieces. Everything worked out really well. We finally had to say bye to Bernie so she could catch her flight. So we piled (5 of us and all our shit) into a rickshaw and headed to Spencer Market again for some last minute things. Sam and I picked up some horribly tacky leopard print pashminas, which were great. Then we headed back to the ship and that was that!

I think a lot of people really enjoyed India, but it was also an eye opener for a LOT of people. One kid actually went to Kashmir by himself…some people are so dumb. Our passage from India to Vietnam was pretty busy. We had the Crew Talent show which was amazing. They performed in bands, danced, sang and did stand up comedy. They are such an amazing group of people and are so dedicated to what they do and just so kind.

We also had Halloween, which was cute. At dinner the crew made a like "Halloween" menu and made stuff like borscht and called it blood stew and all that kind of stuff. The little kids on the ship trick or treated through some of our cabins. They threw a Halloween "dance" and there was NO beverage service. I haven't celebrated Halloween in 3 years without drinking and Gen and I do not plan on doing it again in the near future. We made a pact. Having a few drinks makes it a lot more fun to be in a costume. The dance was in the union and they had a costume contest and the student life workers did a thriller dance. It was fun and we all danced, but it was really weird not being at school. Halloween has become such a college holiday for me I was definitely homesick (school sick). Sam and I wore our tacky India leopard pashminas and made ears and were leopards. Gen and Corinne were dominoes and Drew was a ninja. People actually got really creative with the limited resources that we had. I was pretty surprised.

We also spent a whole day docked in Singapore refueling. It was weird just seeing the city all day but not being able to get off. Thankfully, I picked up their cell service and was able to call Emma Kate and Tim. With everything going on in Charleston I have really been thrown off kilter. I don’t want to say I am homesick because I am having a great time. I just don’t understand why something as major as what is happening in Charleston would happen when I can’t even be there to help. Drew says there is a reason I am not there with everyone dealing with this, we may not know what the reason is yet but eventually we will. I hope there is a fucking good reason too because it just seems like such a misappropriation of resources (it is the best way I can explain it as of now). Anyways, we all know everything is going to be fine in the end it is just a little rocky right now and I love you so so so much Emma!
That is all for now! Kisses and hugs from East Asia!

Delicious. Mauritius.

Our trip to Mauritius was definitely a little rocky. We left Cape Town and could immediately feel “the motion”. It was so bad that the captain actually had to change our course to try to avoid it. We ended up hugging the coast of South Africa so closely we could actually see land for a whole day (which NEVER happens). We didn’t break from the coast till the last possible second.

We docked into Port Louis, Mauritius on October 15th nd it was very pretty. I got off with melissa, amanda, sam, dani etc. The easiest way to get across to the waterfront shopping area was to take a water tax,i which was quite an adventure. You had to climb down this rickety ladder right near the hull of our ship and then wait for enough people to get in it for the guy to deem it full enough to leave. It was a 5 minute ride through the harbor to the Caudan Waterfront. Again, we were immediately met with a mall with all these kitschy touristy shops. We walked outside the mall and we were met with a Mcdonalds. We wandered around that area and there was another mall, but it was expensive. There was also a casino in the shape of a pirate ship...that was funny.

Sam and I ended up losing the rest of the giant group and doing our own thing. We asked for directions to the Grand Central Market, which i heard had a food market- which i needed for class. It ended up being a very cool market right nearby. We just wandered around for about 2 hours I got a magnet and bracelet and we looked at all the food being sold. There was so much ridiculous fruit everywhere. We wandered out and found ourselves in Chinatown. Mauritius is mainly inhabited by Chinese & Indians so their influence is seen/felt everywhere and much of the food sold is either Chinese or Indian (great precursor to what we are going to get for the next month). Chinatown was fun they had these big towers done in the Chinese architectural style and lots of restaurants and stuff. Sam and I made our way back to the waterfront and had Mcdonalds for lunch, after ship food junk is necessary every once in a while. Then got back on another water taxi to the boat to meet everyone to head out to the villa.

We finally found out shuttle and all piled. There were more people then just going to our villa as the guy we rented it from had 2 villas and the shuttle was for people going to both. Kareem, Deborah & Kyle were also just coming out for the day and they were on the shuttle too. It took about a half hour to get out to the villa and it was super nice. There was a property manager whose house was out front and the house had 5 bedrooms, a pool and a huge living room. Kareem, Cynthia, Corinne, Deborah, Kyle, Vicky and I all decided to head out to the beach. Cynthia, Vicky & I wanted drinks and the property manager was walking us out towards to the beach he said there was somewhere we could pick stuff up. He ended up taking us to this really nice but fancy and expensive restaurant right on the beach to get drinks. We just wanted to go but Cynthia is typical texas loaded and she goes "money isn't an issue for me ill just buy as all a drink". So we had pina coladas and it was really pretty.

After our drinks we headed down to the beach and it was really pretty. There was blue blue water, it was a little chilly it wasn't hot out but it was fun. It started to cool down a lot and we walked back to the villa.

When we got to the Villa we immediately asked the property manager guy to take us to the store to get alch. and snacks and he was super nice and took us to the store and even came in with us. It was the Mauritian equivalent to Wal-Mart. It was HUGE and had everything- clothes, electronics, food everything. Very cool. We got snacks and booze. A bottle of Mauritian rum was 86 rupees- 30 rupees to the dollar so yeah that is about 3 dollars. It was great. So Cynthia and I split and got 1 bottle of Good Will rum and a bottle of Smirnoff. They also had these like mixed drinks in a bottle called "Bad Girls" we thought those were hilarious so we got some of those too. Then we headed back to the villa to hang out and drink there. We ordered pizza and Cynthia and I went antisoc and brought our bottle upstairs and started our own party. Very few girls can party like us southern sorostitutes.

Gen, Drew, Kara and a bunch of other people showed up and we played kings. We basically just hung out and drank all night it was super chill and fun. Sam's camera also goes underwater and so we all got back in the pool and took a bunch of pictures, which was wicked fun. I hopped a cab back to the ship with Kareem, Deborah & Kyle since I had a trip super early the next am. It was a good choice and I was happy i got back ok.

The next day I woke up and thankfully Kareem was on my trip so we woke each other up. We headed up to the bus and ended up having to wait to forever cuz a bunch of the kids coming from villas hit traffic and called the field office and asked them to hold the bus. We had an hour ride and pulled through this sugar cane up to this tiny dock and all this gorgeous blue water. We got on a glass bottom boat and headed out to the Isle De Deux Coco. We could see so much going to the island there was a ton of coral and loads of fishies.

When we first got to the island it was a little disorganized and we ganked chairs. We were informed on the bus that because of an incident on the same trip last spring no alcohol would be served which was sort of a bummer, but it was so pretty it didn't really matter. After getting settled we headed back out in the glass bottom boats to the marine park area to snorkel. They didn't have enough gear for all of us so 3 of us just went on the glass bottom boat out there and i sorta chocked it up to if i get to snorkel i do if not its not the end of the world. Some people only went out for like 5 minutes so we switched out and i put on the gear and in i went. There was so much to see! I saw a dory (from Finding Nemo) and a ton of zebra fish. The coral was amazing and we were so close that when i stuck my head out of the water i was nervous i was going to kick it. The fish were super friendly and kept swimming right up to us. It took a little while to get the hang of the snorkel and the breathing under water i did a lot of hyperventilating at first. It was very very fun and i had a bit of an issue getting back onto the boat because there wasn’t a ladder and it was slippery it took some teamwork. We headed back to the island and laid out for a while and then they had this huge bbq for us and all this fresh fruit it was so yummy. We explored the island a little. It was very very tiny and they have one villa. it sleeps 4 people and it costs 3,000 euro to rent the island for 24 hours (that is like 5 grand) and it includes a full staff of 30. The villa was pretty but i dunno if i would say it was worth 5 grand. They said there are a lot of people who get married there and stuff too. We looked for shells and laid out and it was a super relaxing afternoon. We headed back to the ship at about 4 and I got back and showered and stuff. Kara got back from her trip and I convinced her to head back out to the villa. It did take some persuading, but we met up with liz and steven who were also going back out and we all split a cab.

We got to the villa as everyone was getting ready to head out. I pregamed with gen, drew and cav and then all 15 of us headed to the bar/restaurant area. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant and then headed to the Banana Beach Club. I had heard of this place from my jazz professor in class as a possible place to go to hear jazz. I expected it to be a little beachy place but this place was hopping and PACKED with SAS kids. As we walked up there were just drunk kids everywhere. It was a mess. One girl even lay down in the road and was like rolling around and stuff. Getting inside was very hectic and somewhere in the process we lost Drew. Turns out his Midwestern charm took over and he decided that the girl rolling in the street who was too drunk to stand up and the bouncer wouldn’t let in the bar needed to go home. He was right, but it turned into the whole big dramaful event. Oh did I mention said drunk girl is also the girl that hooked up with my safari ranger? Yup, one in the same. She is a baby and that is part of the problem. She just graduated high school in June and is going to Middlebury. They have this program where you can study abroad 1st semster frosh year. It is took young to be trying to keep up with kids who have been doing college for 3 years.

Anyways, so we lost drew. We only stayed in Banana Beach Club for a little because there were all these wasted annoying girls and professors and life long learners were there and it was awkward. We went to some bar called the Godfather for a while and then headed back to the Banana Beach Club. Cav and I were trying to arrange cabs for everyone back but it was futile. Finally, I gave up and Cav told me to run across the street to get the best sandwich ever created. Cav then came running over and was like I got a cab we have to go! So I was said eff the sandwich and ran to the cab. After all the work Cav put in they left without him and we found the cab and they were full and kept going without us. This is why I do not trust most of these kids to really go out hard with. So Cav and I chilled and ate my yummy sandwich. We watched all the drunk SASers and even saw a HUGE SAS fight break out…all very interesting. Finally, we found a cab back and went to sleep.

In the morning there was 6 of us left at the Villa. We cleaned up and were leaving and saw that we were leaving behind a ton of booze. We couldn’t bring it back onto the boat with us, but we realized we could bring it back to the port and drop our stuff and then go out and drink it somewhere. We took cabs back to the port. I spent more money on cabs then anything else in Mauritius. The girls ran onto the ship dropped all our stuff and the boys stuff got changed and left to meet the boys who were waiting outside the gangway with our alch. We went to get on the water taxi to head to the waterfront. The water taxis don’t leave until they are full so when we got on our executive dean was just sitting in it waiting for it to leave, so we offered him a beer and he accepted! This was the highlight and one of the juxtaposing situations that SAS puts you in constantly. We hung out on the water taxi drinking with our dean at noon. It was great! Then we headed to the waterfront and walked around Port Louis all afternoon. We had Chinese food for lunch, but since it was Diwali most everything was closed. It was a fun day just exploring, we stopped at a little café for drinks before we got back on the boat for India.

Mauritius was fun but it really was just like Delta Upsilon beach weekend or fall break. It was a party port (one of our last) and it was a good adventure!

Africa Tree, Africa Sun, Africa Cloud

There are very few words that I have for how AMAZING South Africa was. After 2 very hard travel ports (Ghana & Morocco) and our 3rd six-day stretch at sea we were beyond anxious to get to Cape Town. The seas had also been particularly rough and my roommate situation was coming to a head, so Cape Town was looking to be a welcome reprieve. We got there on October 3rd and Drew, Corinne and I got up in time to watch the sun rise over Table Mountain as we pulled into port. The view was breathtaking and eating breakfast in the cafeteria under the shadow of Table Mountain was amazing. Not to mention one of the first things we could see was the massive World Cup 2010 Stadium at the base of Table Mountain, it was gorgeous and reminded me of the boys, which made me happy. We RAN off the boat once we cleared customs. We later found out that security coming into Cape Town was particularly tough and we even had drug-sniffing dogs come on and go through random rooms. I am sure some kids have drugs on the boat and I am very curious to see what happens if anyone gets caught- it couldn’t be good.

Gen and I were planning on just wandering for the morning and we met up with Kareem, Anjulie, Joey & Eric. We docked into the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront and man it was just what we needed. The second we walked off the ship we were met with a huge hotel and a giant boardwalk strip with tons of stores and restaurants and even a huge gigantic mall. This part was incredibly European & Americanized, but it was a great break. We meandered through the waterfront and into the city. We walked through the financial district, but since it was Saturday everything in that part of town was pretty quiet. Then we headed to Greenpoint Market, which is an outdoor market area and a big shopping area. This place was jumping on a Saturday morning! There were several groups of teenagers performing through the streets. They all had on costumes and were singing and dancing. It was great and super entertaining.

Kareem had his heart set on finding this sandwich they told us about at our preport called a “Gatsby”. Every time I asked someone where we could get one of these they laughed at us, so that meant it had to be promising. We finally found this cute little Middle Eastern place that served this and other Indian/middle eastern food. I got some samosas and Gen and Kareem ordered this famed sandwich. When it came we could only laugh. It was a giant sandwich with French fries, meat, lettuce, tomatoes, sauce and a ton of other stuff. They were HUMONGOUS, so I shared part of Gen’s with her. Kareem and I had to head back to the ship because I was going to the Khayelitsha Township and he was going to a rugby game. The owner of the restaurant pointed us in the direction of a “taxi” we could get for really inexpensive. We walked that way and talked to a cab driver who wanted to charge three times the amount the owner recommended we pay. We then saw a line of tro tro’s across the road. Tro Tro’s are these vans (which are usually illegal) that get packed with people and go to several different stops. They are like mini buses that make specific stops. Kareem and I asked the driver if they were going to V&A Waterfront he said “yes yes” and I asked him when and he said “when we are full” and I said well when will that be. Right after the words left my mouth a flood of people came rushing past us into the van filling it almost completely. The man started yelling “Get in Get in!” so we followed directions and jammed ourselves into the back row with 3 other women and a baby. At this point we are just laughing hysterically and we pay our .25 cents and the Tro Tro made several stops and Kareem and I have been in Cape Town for all of oh 3 hours we had no idea where to go. So we ask the lady with child next to us. She couldn’t fathom how two white kids found their way on a Tro Tro and weren’t scared shitless. Somehow we found our way back to the waterfront and I immediately got on the bus for my Khayelitsha Township visit.

We headed out to the Khayelitsha Township, which is on the far outskirts of Cape Town. Townships were developed in South Africa after the Group Areas Act was established in the 1950’s as an integral part of Apartheid. This act prohibited blacks from living within cities. In the 1980’s with discontent growing from the black population of South Africa they lightened up on many of the segregation laws to attempt to quell resistances. Many people flooded to the outskirts of cities to attempt to find work and that is how Khayelitsha was established in 1985. The townships became segregated towns where only non-whites resided. In South Africa people are not classified solely as blacks but instead as Blacks, Coloureds (mixed race) and Indians. During Apartheid each of these distinctions had different rights although all were limited. Now Khayelitsha is the home to over 2 million people. Technically there is extremely limited water & electricity although people have rigged up their own wires everywhere. At one point our bus actually had to stop while someone took out PVC pipe to lift a cable so we could drive under it. Most of the “homes” in the townships are shacks made of tin and wood barely pieced together. Most look like if the wind blew the wrong way they would tumble to the ground.

Our first stop was in a neighborhood within the township. They had laid out some crafts that were all fair trade goods that we could purchase. One of the community leaders told us about all these social initiatives they are beginning including girls groups and AIDS prevention meetings. Then we went to a store to see women doing weavings, which were incredibly intricate and beautiful. They then did a small dance performance for us. After that we headed to Vicky’s B&B. This is on my list of places to hit up when I come back. Oh yeah guys, our first grown up vacation we take together as cool grown up friends is going to be to South Africa, I planned the whole thing in my head don’t worry. Vicky is a woman who took her home within the township and turned it into a fully functioning B&B. She markets it as giving people the opportunity to get the full township experience. At $30 a night in that vibrant community it was something I wish I had had time for. In all of the 15 years she has been open she has had two visitors who were actually from South Africa, which just goes to show how interested wealthy South Africans are in the what they did to their fellow country men. This was not a frou frou fun trip in the least. It was the equivalent to wading into the slums of Bombay. Vicky also runs a program for the local children and tries to take them on field trips (table mountain etc) and get together Christmas gifts and things. After visiting Vicky’s B&B we went to another one run by another woman. It was amazing meeting all these empowered women who were fully vested into helping their community and the area around them that was important to them. The woman at the second B&B had actually studied at the University of Pittsburgh as a fellow in the mid 90’s after Apartheid ended. She had been a community organizer and worked for NGO’s before Mandela had reformed the government there. Then in the mid 90’s she spend time in the US studying community relations in depth. She returned to Khayelitsha and said that she did not know how to help. Then she saw that as South Africa was opening to the rest of the world there were buses driving through their towns every day with tourists. She said everyone felt as if they were in a zoo with tourists just driving through to look without ever stopping. So she decided to open a B&B so people could spend time with them. After that proved successful she decided to start seminars to show others in the community how they could do they same. She said she didn’t look at them as competition because she knew in the end they were all helping the community and not one single person needed to be the sole breadwinner. She also went into detail about how her B&B helps so many facets of the community around her from the people she employs to the dessert she buys for guests. There are many Universities from the states that come and spend time with her to give students hands on experiences with social action. She also provides these kids with homestays so they eat meals at her B&B but actually live with a family. She also went into detail about how she educated the families she organizes homestays with about cleanliness and how you have to change sheets between guests etc…that made me pretty happy since I have an inherent problem with germs. After visiting the last B&B we walked through the township for about 20 minutes meeting the people and seeing everything hands on. This was one of my favorite trips I have done with SAS so far. These women were so amazing and seeing the townships was definitely something I appreciated. It is easy to come to South Africa and only see the white parts, so this added a whole new dimension.

We headed back to the boat, and I took a much-needed nap. Then Drew, Gen, Corinne and I met up and went out to Long Street where all the bars and restaurants are. We ate at this fun place called Cape to Cuba, which had fun drinks and tapas and stuff. We sat there and ate and drank for a while and then headed to this place called Mama Africa. It was decorated all Africany and had a live band. It was fun and we got drinks and hung out there. We ran into Christie, Leigh Anne, Charis and Carly, which was good and the band was super fun. Corinne isn’t used to going out and drinking stuff. She goes to a Catholic University where they are super strict about it so she isn’t totally comfortable with the whole situation. So the band ended and she went back to the boat with Leigh Anne and everyone. Hell if Drew, Gen and I were going back even though I had to be on my safari at oh 6:45 am. We found this Irish bar with live music called Dubliners and there were a ton of SAS kids there. We drank and danced there for a long time it was great. There was crew there too, which got interesting because they have such strict anti fraternizing rules with the students. It was amusing. It was so much fun just to be off the boat and free and out I was ecstatic. Finally around 3:15 we figured we had to be up in 3 hours so we headed back to the boat. This was the point I realized that I should have really referred to Cape Town as No Sleep Ever for the 6 Days I am Visiting Town because it only got worse from there on out.

We got back to the boat and Fiana wasn’t in my room…thank god. And Gen and I had the brilliant idea that she should come to my room and we wouldn’t sleep at all just watch an epi of 6 Feet Under and then she would just go on her trip that left at 5. After eating some biscuits and nutella (drunk ship food? Nowhere near as good as majestic) I fell asleep till my safari where thankfully the potentially raging hangover that I knew was coming at some point had held off and I was smart enough to pack ahead of time. Mary and I called each other just to make sure we were both up and we got on the bus to head to the airport.

We had a short flight to Port Elizabeth, in which I slept in an attempt to recover from the few hours before. When we got to Port Elizabeth we saw another World Cup Stadium and then had about a 2 hour drive to Kariega Game Reserve. We stopped at what they called a rest stop but was really a gigantic supermarket type place. Here I met Kam, my new partner in crime. She is from Bermuda and is on SAS with her friend Rochelle. By this point my headache was setting in and we made an exec decisions to try the mac & cheese. It was delicious and I am now a big fan of shitty rest stop food in South Africa.

We also found out that some kid named Daniel did not make the flight and lived out all of our worst nightmares. He wasn’t in his room when the field office called (with a girl!). He got up right after our bus had left for the airport so he jumped a taxi to try and get on the plane. He missed the flight and his taxi driver then offered to drive him to Kariega. The cab driver then took him to his township to pick up his wife and then to his friend’s house to trade his cab for his friend’s Mercedes for the drive. He finally got to Kariega at midnight after paying approx $500 USD to get there. Hilarious.

We got to Kariega and checked into the lodge. Then we took game vehicles to lunch. The game vehicles were these open air keeps that had rows of seats each one slightly elevated about the next. Lunch was delicious the food was amazing. They had loads of venison (lasagna, meatballs) dad would have been in heaven. After lunch we went to check out our Chalets. They were beautiful. Ours had 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and there were only 4 of us in it. I decided to share a room with Riley. There was this one sort of strange girl named Marissa and she got her own room and so did Rochelle who is also from Bermuda. We played around in our gorgeous chalet with wrap around porch for a little while. The views were amazing. We also realized they had TV! With Satellite! We were beyond ecstatic (we also deemed that simple stupid things now make us inexplicably happy). So we even got to watch a little Extreme Home Makeover. Yeah. As Ellen is probably laughing right now- I was in heaven. After hanging out we got picked up for our first game drive. 10 of us piled into our game vehicle. We looked around and realized that we are all girls with a very hot game driver, named JR. He sped off and we were trying to be chatty with us and suddenly stopped in a huge field for the “rules”. He came off very strict and the 10 of us were joking around and trying to get him to smile continuously. It was drizzling a little and he very graciously provided us with really attractive green ponchos. It was also FREEEZING, but we were cracking up the whole time. It was just a great group of girls and we were constantly egging him on and cracking jokes. It took a little while, but eventually he warmed up to us. Kariega is split into two game reserves. The one our chalets were on had giraffes, impala, nyala and other slightly less harmful animals. The other side of the reserve held the lions, rhinos, elephants and more dangerous animals. This is where we got to go on our 1st 3 hour game drive. Within 45 minutes of our drive starting we had the good fortune of running into a sleeping lion! They do not tag their animals in Kariega so whatever you see is found by sheer luck/talent of your game driver. We got within 15 feet of this sleeping lion it was so cool. JR kept turning around yelling at us because he was so nervous for our safety. We couldn’t stand up or stick any limbs out of the vehicle because it breaks the line of car and the animal then realizes that there is an “intruder”. We drove around for 3 hours and saw so much game. Pictures will have to do it justice it is too boring to just list animals. We stopped around sunset and got “snacks”- chips and soda of our choice, and a pee break in the bush.

This is when we really got to know JR. Apparently to qualify as a ranger you have to LIVE in the bush for 180 days straight. Killing your own food and chilling with the Bushmen. So needless to say JR was a hotty but his social skills were a little inept. Definitely had a dark past.

Our first game drive lasted until about 7pm. As we returned to the chalets a HUGE giraffe just wandered out from behind a tree next to the chalet. It was so cool. We dried off and had a delicious traditional BBQ. We then went to sleep as we had another game drive at 5:30 am. We got up at 5:30 am and it was POURING out. We bundled up and had not packed for it being so cold and rainy. My totally awesome new waterproof (not just water resistant) LL bean rain jacket was hanging in my closet aboard the MV Explorer. We had another fun game drive. We saw hippos, which were very cool. We also made the find of the day with the Rhinos. JR was saying that they have recently been having problems with poaching on the reserve. 3 weeks prior to our arrival a rhino was killed on the reservation. Its head was completely cut off so they could take the horn. The horn is used in the Muslim faith and for other reasons as well. After that incident the rangers were doing all night shifts to try to protect the reserve. 2 nights before we got there they actually got shot at by the poachers and now they have stopped monitoring because it was too dangerous for them. After our game drive we got breakfast and napped. Then had lunch and wandered around the reserve. Since it had rained so much that morning all the trails were closed. Also they did not want us to wander by ourselves because the buffalos were herding across reserve and it was very dangerous.

We had another game drive that night. The weird girl Marissa had been super into all the drives and guessing what animals were. She hated the rest of us. She asked if 2 ostriches were sisters and I promptly asked or are the best friends or co workers? She did NOT like this and snapped at me saying “that is a perfectly legitimate question”. So she loved me. We were all discussing who was going to sit in the front with JR on a large group before he picked us up. He comes down the road and stops and we see that this girl was so adamant that she sit in the front that she walked down the road to get to JR before he picked up the rest of us. It was very passive aggressive and we all were hysterical at how weird it was.

It was a good game drive and we got to see a ton of elephants. They were mating and herding so it was sort of dangerous JR was very careful about where he put our game vehicle. JR then took us to a very romantic sunset overlook. It was gorgeous and we ribbed him about trying to woo all 10 of us. We also found out that he has given drives to a ton of famous people. His most famous was Elton John who he gave a one on one drive with. This made us super excited as we had been singing Lion King songs all day. We also made some nasty jokes about Elton John hitting on JR. After sunset we headed back to the lodge for dinner. With all the money we paid for this trip (which was totally worth it) we got a bunch of free wine and beer. This was great and only complimented the delicious food. We then decided to keep the party going in the bar and some of the Rangers joined us, including JR. Most of us drank till about midnight because we had another 5:30 am game drive. I went to bed and everyone came into our chalet at about 2 am. It turns out one of our girls decided to go home for the night with JR. YUP! She WENT HOME WITH JR and was just sitting in the game vehicle when he picked us up at 5:30 am. We can only speculate but rumor has it that some action happened in the game Vehicle. Cracked us up.

The morning game drive was a river safari as well. We got to go out on the water and see some birds and we stopped in a huge field and had coffee, tea and JR made me special hot chocolate! They really have all these drives figured out down to the second and they really are operating as 5 star resorts. We headed back for breakfast and then started to head out. Two of the boys had bought full on ranger outfits from the gift shop and had been wearing them for the past day. They had convinced JR that they deserved to become Junior Rangers. The rest of us jumped on the bandwagon and all started bugging him about the junior rangers. As we were leaving he whipped out these cute diplomas that said Junior Ranger on them. He said they normally give them to the 12 year olds that complete the nature programs but he figured us college kids would enjoy them just as much. It was great he was such a good sport and it was such a fun group of kids. Definitely worth all the money and I am a certified Junior Ranger!!

We flew back to Cape Town and dropped our stuff and went to find Internet. This was super stressful and so not worth the energy. I finally found a place I had to pay for, but I had a few glasses of wine and got to skype with dad so that was good. Afterwards Drew, Gen, Kara & I got dinner at Quay 4, which was a fun outdoor restaurant with great views of the ship. Then we headed to Mitchell’s, which was the bar SAS frequented the whole time. Apparently the night before one of our deans was extremely drunk and bought everyone shots. It was fun and we stayed until closing. We still didn’t want to go to bed, and thought there was a party on the pirate ship. Yes there was a pirate ship. There are these people who dress up a pirates and sail from port to port and let tourists party on the boat. Pretty sweet job. We got there and the pirates were all passed out downstairs. Lauren got the bright idea to steal one of their pirate costumes. So she ganked the jacket and proceeded to wear it around for the rest of the night. We grabbed a cab and headed to Long Street and went out there for a long time. We finally decided to head back home at about 5am. No one had any money, but me (always responsible) so I had to pay for our cab ride back.

The next morning we got up at 9 (town of no sleep) and headed to the Cape Malay quarter. We were supposed to hike Table Mountain but it was raining so that was no go. The Cape Malay quarter was just an area of brightly painted houses (reminded me of the Gingerbread houses on the Vineyard). Then we wandered to Greenpoint Market again and finished up our shopping. We also went to the Castle of Good Hope, which was supposed to be one of Cape Town’s big tourist attractions. It sucked. We amused ourselves and they had a really long table that sat 100 people, but then you would need to have 99 friends. We played on a cannon and defaced a wall.

After that we decided we would go see the World Cup Stadium. When I say we I really mean I wanted to go see it so I could take pictures and brag to Tim, tom, graham, dohnny cole etc. Our cab driver was a nasty bitch and dropped us off in the MIDDLE of the construction zone. At this point we had no way out and were trapped between massive lanes of cars and a do not enter construction zone. You hear this Tim? I did all of this for you, just to get a picture of the god damned stadium we are going to be looking at all summer long. We tried to walk out but we got about ten feet and there was a giant sign that said “NO PEDESTRIANS BEYOND THIS POINT”. By the grace of God a shining BMW pulled up and it was cab! He offered to take us back to the ship and we excitedly clamored into his car. We got back and took naps and decided to get sushi for dinner! I was so happy since I missed sushi so much. They had all these great rolls and even had a “sandwich” roll, which was shaped like a triangle of a sandwich. It was great and we had a coupon. Dinner ended up taking forever but we sat for a while and it was enjoyable. We met up with Drew and Kareem and headed to the Green Dolphin Jazz Club. We were beyond exhausted at this point and stayed until the club closed at 12 and then went back to the boat and went to sleep. It was a fun club and I had to go for my Jazz History class. Yup doing class work at a bar at midnight…sweet life.

The last day in Cape Town Corinne and I had bought tickets to head to Robben Island. You have to take a ferry to get there and it was very emotional and interesting. Our guide was a former prisoner; it is amazing that such a horrible thing happened and it was so recent that the freed prisoners can give tours. We saw Nelson Mandela’s prison cell and also toured the island. There were penguins! We headed back and went to get lunch & Internet so I could talk to Mom & Tim. We were debating on going to Table Mountain, but decided against it (since I KNOW I am coming back) and it was a good thing! Kara went out there to try to go and the Cable Car wasn’t working so it was good we didn’t waste our time. We ran last minute errands and headed back to the ship to leave Cape Town.

I had such a great time and it was definitely my favorite port so far. There was so much to see and do and the culture had so many facets from the townships to the V&A Waterfront. It took me two weeks just to process it enough to write about it. It was a pleasant surprise as I was not expecting that much from South Africa and was not particularly thrilled with its addition to the itinerary. It was fabulous.