to all future SAS-holes

Tuesday, December 13, 2011 (9:16am) - Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA

now that i am an official SAS graduate as of convocation last night and can currently see AMERICA outside my window, i feel like it's necessary to share a few words of wisdom to all future SAS-holes. this is what i learned in the past 111 days that could potentially help you out. maybe it will... maybe it won't. take it or leave it. but here's just a few things i think you should know:

1. never go anywhere alone and don't blackout too hard. don't get taken to the drunk tank... it sucks! (from what i hear haha)

2. do everything they tell you not to do... eat crazy food, get lost... this is your voyage, not theirs.

3. have the time of your life. cheesy? yes. but when's the next time you're going to sail around the world, besides never. that's what i thought.

4. make new friends. if you don't know anyone, then this should be pretty easy. if you come with a posse, breakout and meet someone new!

5. DO NOT organize independent trips. let someone else do it. too much work, believe me! someone will want to do what you want to do, but let them plan it. and avoid SAS trips at all cost. they're wayyy overpriced and kinda strict. but i do recommend doing homestays (which you have to do through SAS).

6. whatever it is, it'll all work out. i promise. don't stress. if you don't wake up in shackles, game on!

7. tabasco tabasco tabasco. i don't care if you don't like it at home, you WILL like it on the ship. whenever you get sick of the food (and you will, i promise), adding tabasco to anything make whatever it is edible.

8. get to know the crew, especially in the dining halls. they have interesting life stories! and they figure out what you like and will bring it to your table for you. and tip your cabin steward early and get on their good side. then they won't get you in trouble when you hoard 50 boxes of cereal in your cabin.

9. speaking of cereal, when they have your fave cereal at breakfast, steal a couple boxes! technically, this isn't legal... but everyone does it. and it's key for those days that you're like "you're serving what for lunch? i'm gonna go eat cereal."

10. girls... bring a ring for your wedding ringer. cus guess what? being a woman in a muslim country will get your ass killed... unless you're "married." or ugly. "i'll give you 5000 camels for your sister." not if you're already married, you won't!!!!

11. don't do anything until you see a local do it first. such as, using a little old lady as a shield to cross the road in vietnam. or if you don't know how to eat whatever they just put on your plate on your homestay in ghana, wait til a local does it... and do as they do.

12. want to people watch? those two red chairs by the computer lab are where its at. and those two chairs rock anyways... so claim them early on.


i can't believe this is over. i don't ever want to leave this magic bubble called the MV Explorer that i've been living in for 4 months. i'm insanely jealous of all you future voyagers. you're in for the ride of your life. go conquer the world... and leave it a little better than you found it.

and a huge thank you to the entire Fall 2011 voyage. thank you for changing my life and most importantly, for being awesome. i love you all.

the british are coming, the british are coming!

Monday, December 12, 2011 (12:38pm) - Gulf of Mexico

and by the british, i mean the US coast guard. and no, not for some fancy escort into america or anything like that. cus someone is dying on the ship!!!! well, i don't actually know if they're dying, but we're going 25 knots and have diverted away from our original course. and they kicked everybody off all the outside decks cus the coast guard is on their way to pick the person up. so much for tanning all day and doing all my last minute packing. the coast guard helicopter is supposed to be here in 20 minutes so i'm gonna go try to see them if i can. never a dull moment on this ship.

other than that, just doing all our last minute stuff. picked up my SAS certificate just now, and doing my last minute packing. today is linda's birthday so jake put together a surprise ice cream social for her tonight so we're going to that! other than that, just hanging out with all these people for the last time. it's kind of like high school graduation... it's not that i'm gonna be missing most of these people... just kinda sad that this group of people isn't going to be together ever again. wah wah wah.

BUT i get to see my dog friend, my family, my friends, eat real food, drink the water, wear real clothes, not wear a money belt... you know, the little things. okay, i gotta go find the coast guard yo.

loves.

7th inning stretch

December 9-10, 2011 - Roatan, Honduras

so this blob should've been about cuba! still upset about that... but i've learned to deal with it. so instead we went to roatan. another one of those places nobody's heard of. so let me fill you in... it's this tropical island out off the coast of honduras. since honduras is too dangerous for us to actually go to, we went to paradise. and SAS restricted us to the island. fine... take me to heaven, and don't let me leave... twist my arm a little harder, please! so we got there on friday. first stop when we get off the ship is to the duty free shop to buy all kinds of alcohol. patron for me, duhhh. cus even SAS told us that this was vacation time... no cultural sightseeing for us! there was 10 of us and we had booked two beachfront villas at this resort in west bay. a van from the resort was there to pick us up. win. it took us about 30 minutes to get there from the ship because the roads were in such bad condition. i thought the potholes on la jolla village drive were bad... nope, not even close.

so we finally get there and check in. there was a little bit of an issue, but it all worked out. once we got all our shit in our respective rooms, it was straight to the beach. it was SO nice. we all got beach chairs and laid out reading our books, listening to our ipods... just enjoying not having to be responsible for anything since finals and everything were over. after a little, all of us went to the bar because the resort had given us all a coupon for a complimentary drink. so nice of them. i got a miami vice (half pina colada, half strawberry daiquiri)... SO delicious! and exactly what i wanted to be drinking as i lay on the beach. but then like an hour after we got to the beach, it started POURING!!!! and it did not stop pouring the entire time we were there. but that was okay. me, maddy, and audrey walked up the street to this little sub shop for lunch. i had a chicken fajita sub that was DELICIOUS. then we walked back to one of the villas. maddy & i laid on the porch in the hammocks, listening to the waves and rain, reading our books and napping. sooo relaxing. so even though it wasn't ideal since the sun wasn't out, we still got to relax and everything. we all kept running to the bar to buy drinks and we all ended up getting dinner there too. eventually we all went to this other hotel down the beach cus a bunch of SAS kids were there too, but it was kind of a bust so we just came back to our hotel. everybody was pretty tired from drinking and running around all day, so we went to bed fairly early.

the next morning we all woke up and had complimentary breakfast at the bar. it was pretty good. it still hadn't stopped raining, so we all went back to one of the villas and just hung out all day. we were all lazy and just reading our books and sleeping around the house. we got lunch and drinks at the bar again, then we had late check out at 1. we took the van back to the ship and walked around the port area for a little bit. but it was raining, and so i got back on the ship. i went to turn in our passports, then showered, and maddy & i crashed and took like a 5 hour nap. woopsies. then i got up and i had to go to my last family dinner. then i came back to my room, watched some friends, and finished my book.

i can't believe roatan was our last port and i'll be back in america in like 48 hours. it's insane. brewer & i are just starting to pack right now. my worst nightmare. i hate packing, and we have so much shit all over the place that i don't even know where to start. i just had work for the last time. so many "lasts" going on this week. pretty sad. but i'm totally ready to get home already. and i know that once i get home, all i'll want is to be back on the ship. but until then, GET ME HOME! haha. tonight we have the SAS musical to go to. and as if i don't already love musicals enough to go, brooke is the female lead!!!! i'm so excited. it should be really fun. okay well i should go start to pack. this is going to suck.

see you all so so soon!! love love love.

pop, lock, and drop it

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 (11:13pm) - Caribbean Sea

hi friends! lots to say today. so yesterday i had my three hardest finals. i woke up at like 7 and got breakfast and did some last minute studying for my ethics & the making of US foreign policy class. then i had lunch, followed by my international organizations final, then global music final. was pretty much brain dead at the end of that day. so i spent the rest of the night watching friends before i had to go to work. then last night alyssa put on an explorer's seminar about all the research she's been doing this semester at the health clinic. it was really interesting... and fun going to support her. then we all met up after and planned to meet up on deck 7 at 11. why? because us geniuses decided what could be better than sleeping on deck 7 before the panama canal?? i mean it's been super hot lately, so why not? so it was me, maddy, bri, courtney, brooke, alyssa, brandy, and brenna. we all grabbed the lounge chairs and set up camp by the pool. not only was the going to be fun to wake up to the sunset and panama canal, but this was strategic too cus we'd be reserving our seats to lay out all day. winners. we didn't fall asleep until like 3:30 cus that's what slumber parties are all about. but holy shit was it windy. we all literally had to make cocoons with our blankets to make sure they wouldn't go flying overboard. so that was kinda a struggle and made sleeping a little difficult.

we were woken up at like 5:30 this morning by people taking our pictures. not great. but then we were all up and watched the sunset. it was SO pretty... but super early. it took us a while to actually get to the canal. it's kind of like a parking lot of giant ships outside, just waiting their turn to get in. so we got breakfast and sat in our chairs until we got to the first locks. it was SO crazy. i can't even explain how cool it was going through the locks in the canal. i was really impressed by the technology and stuff. and it was cool because we saw all the expansion stuff their working on. we all took turns after we went through the first locks to go downstairs and put our bathing suits on. my game plan was to just lay out by the pool all day since i only have one more final and it should be pretty easy. oh wait... like 20 minutes after i come up from changing they kick us all off the deck because we were having a bbq for lunch and they needed to set up all the tables. wah. so courtney, alyssa, maddy & i went down and found lounge chairs on deck 5 to lay on. then like 30 minutes later, it starts POURING. sooo annoying. i tried to hold out, but it wouldn't stop. so i called it quits and went inside. brewer & i each took showers, then it was nap time since we didn't sleep at all the night before. we set an alarm to wake up for lunch. i was glad i got up because we were going through the next set of locks. then i came back and woke maddy up to watch us leave the last set of locks. it was so so so cool. i'm so glad we got to see it and go through it. and my dad saw us go through the locks on the webcams! so much fun. then i went and grabbed my book and laid in bed and read for a little bit. but the voice made afternoon announcements and said that maddy's group project was having a last minute explorer's seminar so i got out of bed and went to that. it's really cool cus they're trying to plan a blood drive for for ghana on future voyages. but after that i went back to the room and crashed! maddy came and woke me up at 6 to go to dinner. i told her i'd meet her there in a second, and had every intention of getting up. i turned on all my lights and everything. but i definitely passed out again. woops. but i woke up by myself before dinner ended, so that was good. then i was walking back down to my room to go read or sleep, but as i was walking past the piano lounge, i stumbled upon christmas caroling! how could i say no to that? anybody who wanted to sing could, and dr. phil played the piano. i sat with alyssa, courtney, brandy, and bri... and the caroling just made us want to be in sweats next to the fireplace with our dogs. (only 6 daysss!!) after caroling was over, i went to work for an hour. pretty boring cus everything is pretty much done. but afterwards, pure magic happened.

so in hawaii, i bought a gingerbread house kit. cus really, why not? and i couldn't do it because i was so busy studying up til now. but i'm pretty mentally done at this point, so i was like "10pm, garden lounge, see you there." and it was game on. you should see how ridiculously awesome this gingerbread house is. it's sitting in my room right now, but we're going to try to put it in one of the display cases on the deck 6 walkway. so hopefully the housekeeper guy approves it tomorrow! me, alden, maddy, bri, and brooke all made it. it was SO fun! that needs to start being a tradition or something. and we walked it through the ship trying to find someone to help us put it in the display case, and everybody was so jealous. sorry i'm awesome! don't hate me cus i'm beautiful.

and now maddy & i are laying in bed blobbing, listening to christmas music. today was a wonderful day. we move our clocks back an hour tonight, because some dumbass made us move the clocks ahead last night even though honduras is on central time just like costa rica. so today we lived on eastern time for funsies. i think they're doing it just to screw with us at this point. alright well i'm gonna go to bed or something cus i need to study tomorrow before my last final! only 6 days until home! i can't believe it. i cannot even begin to tell you how excited i am. today at dinner, this lifelong learner nola asked me if i could visualize home... and i was like "that's kind of all i do these days." haha so exciteddddd! okay well good night. love you all!!

pura vida

December 4-5, 2011 - Puntarenas, Costa Rica

can i just tell you how over this blob i am? sorry but this takes so much time. good thing in only have a week left!!! weee. but as for costa rica...

so we arrived in costa rica on sunday. it was basically the first time we've been on land for three weeks since we only got 10 hours in hawaii since november 15. not great. so we were all more than excited to finally see some land. the first day i had a ziplining tour booked. so we met in the union and left the ship around 10. there were 18 of us, and our guide met us at the dock. it was about a 45 minute van ride up to the mountain. we hung out there for a while, then we all got on horses. yeah, horses! i'm a little scared of big dogs... let alone a big giant horse. plus, i'm pretty sure that was the first time i'd ever been on a horse. but, i didn't die so that's good. so it was like an hour long ride up into cloud forest. it was really really pretty, but hurt my ass a lot. thought not as much as the camel ride in morocco. we finally got to the first platform, cus the whole point of the trip was to go ziplining. there were 25 ziplines over 11 waterfalls, plus 2 repels across waterfalls. it was SO fun! i've never gone ziplining before either, and it was so fun. except now i'm SO sore. pretty sure i have a 6-pack or something, not sure why... but i'm not complaining. then after the last zipline, we got driven back to the hotel where we had a delicious lunch. i was expecting burritos from costa rica... but turns out, it wasn't mexico. but we still got rice, beans, and chicken... which was delicious. then they took us back that evening.

i didn't end up going out that night because i had so much freaking studying to do. plus if you weren't on the ship by 6:45, you couldn't get on until 2 in the morning because we had to leave the dock. so i stayed in and studied a little. but mostly just went to bed. then the next morning, maddy, brooke, courtney, her roommate, and i went into town. we were supposed to dock in puntarenas, but at the last minute had to switch to puerto caldera or something. there was nothing there, so we went to puntarenas instead. we walked through some markets when we first go there and bought all our last minute gifts for people. then we laid on the beach for a while and went swimming. officially have gone swimming in every ocean we've been in. the water was SO warm! then i laid out and studied some more. why SAS scheduled finals for the day after costa rica, i have no idea. then it kinda started to rain so we left the beach and went to lunch, which again was delicious. then we walked around the markets some more and then ended up catching the tram back to the ship.

costa rica was beautiful. i wish we had more time in latin america though, because i think i'd love it. plus, i could use my super sweet spanglish skills! costa rica was beautiful... and according to some paper we had to read for our global studies class, costa rica ranks as the happiest place on earth (sorry disneyland)! no wonder americans are starting to retire in costa rica these days. plus it was pretty cheap, which is always a fun time.

okay well that's all for costa rica. pura vida (good life?) is their motto. so much fun. love.

school's out for summer!!!!

Friday, December 2, 2011 (2:35pm) - Pacific Ocean

so yesterday was our last day of classes! which is strange because we still have like two weeks until we're home. and last night was the alumni ball! which was kinda like prom... but on the ship. it was bollywood themed... since everybody lost their shit over bollywood when we were learning about it before india. so some girls wore the sari's they bought in india (which is so stupid because sari's are well over $100... and when the hell is it going to be socially acceptable for these girls to wear sari's again... besides never??). but otherwise all the guys were dressed in suits and all the sane girls wore dresses from home or that they bought in port. i wore the dress that i wore to my confirmation... cus i'm a good little catholic girl, duh. haha. so i got out of class at 5 & our dinner seating was at 5:30... so i hurried up and got ready, met some of my friends out at the pool deck to take prom pictures before dinner. then had a formal dinner. continuing the india theme... we had these prawns with indian spices, this soup, caesar salad (what's more indian than that, really?), then i ordered the chicken tandori thing. it was actually really good. where these cooking skills have been this entire voyage, i have no idea. so then they kicked us out and the second dinner seating came in. meanwhile, we were just sitting around waiting for them to be done. then at like 10, we had the premier of the lipdub!!! it was so so so awesome! i can't wait for you all to see it. but it was a little bittersweet because it kind of hit us all that this is almost over. like, i won't be able to hang out with jake and linda all night writing papers next semester cus they go to berkeley. it's gonna be so weird not seeing all these people all the time. but then after the lipdub, we had this giant dessert buffet which was really good! then there was the dance, but i was really tired from not sleeping for the past couple days so i just came back to my room, watched a little tv, and went to bed.

today we have a study day, which i really just wanted to spend laying in bed watching friends... but my cabin steward julius kept coming in so i finally left the third time he came in so he could clean my room. i just had lunch with jake, linda, alexa, and will. now i'm back in my room cus i'm backing up my entire computer on my hard drive and my computer was about to die. i have work later tonight. which is going to be awesome because my boss ordered cookies for all of us. i already stopped by and stole a couple. so delicious. my friends & i were going to go to dinner on deck 7 tonight to celebrate our 100th day of the voyage (which is today by the way... so crazy!!!) but then i just looked at the menu, and we're having breakfast for dinner! just like we do at school before finals. so we're going to wait to eat on deck 7 when there's a meal we can't eat. because i literally cannot eat this food anymore. i'm subsisting on the oatmeal, chips & salsa, and hot chocolate that i bought while we were in hawaii. not great.

so only 11 days left of the voyage. tomorrow we have our global studies final, then the rest of the day is a study day. the next two days we're in costa rica. then the day after that is our A day finals, then we go through the panama canal the next day, and the day after that is our B day finals. then we're in honduras for two days, then two days at sea... then we land in florida!!!! i can't believe it's so close... but i still kind of have a lot to do. i don't even want to think about packing. but it's so weird that we're almost done. i coulda sworn morocco was like yesterday... and yet at the same time it feels like it was so long ago. so strange.

well i'm gonna go watch some more episodes of friends until my computer is charged... then i'm gonna pretend to study or something. okay well, love you and miss you all. happy december! i don't know how that happened. oh and we move our clocks ahead again tonight. that'll put us in central time. 2 hours ahead of san diego. can't wait to not have to change my clock every night! alright well, love love love.

weird meats, funny music, side of rice

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 (4:03pm) - Pacific Ocean

okay sorry for not blobbing lately. but it's cruch time on the ship right now. i've written 2 term papers in the last two days, need to write 2 more today, and i just wrote 3 reading reports since yesterday. you may call that poor planning, i call it school. wah. this is just the first time i've been motivated to do anything. so that's what i'm doing. need to write an international organizations term paper tonight, as well as a global music term paper. so much fun. not.

lots has been going on around the ship these days. i think they want us to be doing anything but studying... which would be nice, if i didn't have so much to do. i think i might've written about the talent show we had maybe a week ago (i have no sense of time right now, so bare with me). but sometime between when we left hawaii and now, we had the GAY talent show. i know that doesn't sound politically correct, but i forgot what they actually called it... and that's pretty much what it was. i'm pretty sure i'm on the gay cruise, seeing as everybody is gay. which is fine. but when the first question i get from my mother and half the people i talked to on thanksgiving was "so, do you have a boyfriend?" well... nooo. first off cus the percentage of female to male is like 70:30... and then chances are the guys are gay anyways. such a dilemma. anyways. the gay talent show was SO much better, obviously. it was hosted by this gay guy named adam on the ship. except he's started dressing in drag... and his drag name is eve. so it was hosted by "adam & eve." clever, right? but seriously, adam is the most beautiful woman i've ever seen in my life. it's so funny. there were a bunch of amazing performers, some really great poetry and monologues. the best was this guy singing britney spears while playing the piano. i was dying. (sidenote, the other night at open-mic night at the piano bar, he sang adele "someone like you" and all the girls were crying. he has the voice of an angel... and he's a beautiful gay man. can it get any better? NO!) so i watched the gay talent show with courtney, brenna, bri, maddy, and alyssa and we all painted our nails. so fitting.

oh and today we filmed a shipwide lip-dub to the song "wavin flag" by k'naan. it's gonna be so sick! so look for that soon. it'll be my youtube debut. so excited. right now maddy and i are getting ready to do a bridge tour. which means we get to see where the captain drives the ship and everything. it's gonna be really cool. we had global studies discussions this morning for the last time. then for the rest of the day i'm just gonna do homework, then go to dinner on deck 7 with the AXO girls to celebrate the fact that we're finally in the same time zone as san diego! tonight in the union they're also doing a thing to celebrate world AIDS day... so hopefully i have time to go to that. and i also have work tonight. so much to do in such little time. we're still a ways away from getting to costa rica. hopefully i'll be able to finish my work soon because it's SO hot outside... i need to be out at the pool tanning. but priorities people! anddd as of today i'm only 2 weeks from being home! so crazy how fast the time has gone.

okay well i need to go help steer this ship or something. haha what a disaster. oh and the title of this blob comes from how i met your mother... when they're trying to figure out what to eat and ted suggests chinese... and barney says no. then ted suggests indian and barney says its the same thing. then ted is all confused and so barney goes "weird meats, funny music, side of rice... same thing." i think brew & i were going to die when we were watching that the other night. i think this is bad that i've just travelled around the world... cus as non-politically correct as i was before i left... now i feel justified in being super non-politically correct. woops. okay well i gotta go, byeee.