halloweiner

Monday, October 31, 2011 (11:55pm) - South China Sea

hi peoples. the only reason why i'm even posting again today is to say happy halloween. we had today off school and just had global studies discussions. i woke up at 8 to have breakfast and watch us leaving the saigon river... then just went back to bed until i had discussion. after discussion, we had lunch with jake. thennn it was time to watch friends. went through an entire disk and still aren't done with the first season. i got 10 seasons of friends for $20 in vietnam. don't worry, i tested it on a computer in the lab to make sure it wouldn't crash my computer. just in case. but it's legit and that's all brewer and i have been doing today. to the point that i forgot i had work until my friend abby called when i was 15 minutes late being like "where the hell are you?" woops. and since today is halloween, there was a halloween dance tonight in the union. halloween isn't really my jam though, plus i had to work. it was funny people watching though. what's more awkward than a sober halloween dance on a ship? NOTHING. some people were pretty creative with their costumes though. i printed a sign in the library that said "my costume: work study student" and put it on one of our signs. people thought that was funny. now i'm back in my room, showered, and going to bed! have two days of classes, then it's time for china! so crazy!! this trip is seriously insane. like who sails around the world in 111 days?? fjkal;dfja;dsjf. okayyy, goodnight loves. hope you have a fun halloween. all i want right now is a costco sized bag of fun-sized candy bars. the little things. xoxo.

i'll show you mine if you show me your's first

October 28-30, 2011 - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (Part 2)

okayyy so i left off my last one with brewer & i sitting at dinner on the ship and skyler inviting us on a spontaneous trip to the mekong delta. obviously we said "YES!" so we hurried up and gave perry our plates, went to our rooms to grab our computers, then ran to the sushi restaurant next to the ship to find some free wifi. all our 15 minutes of research was totally useless... we couldn't find bus times or where to go or anything... so we just decided to pack our bags and see where the night was going to take us. once we packed a backpack with essentials (mainly toothpaste, a change of underwear, and malaria meds... i mean really, what else do you need in life!?), the three of us headed to the bus station. even though everybody we talked to told us there was only one bus station in hcmc (ho chi minh city), we knew that wasn't right. but we can't really argue with the locals who are trying to get us there. we tried to communicate to a taxi driver to take us to the bus station... but taxi drivers did not speak a lick of english here. actually, nobody really spoke english here. vietnam was the first country where communication was a huge issue. so what did we do? got on the back of a bunch of motorcycle taxis. that's what vietnam is known for. there are roughly 10 million people in hcmc... and 5 million motorcycles. you can imagine what traffic looks like. try crossing the street with that. pretty much the rules were "do not stop, do not turn around, do not pass go, do not collect $200." and i think the only criteria to turn your personal motorcycle into a taxi is to have an extra helmet with you. really regulated, you know. so we told three guys to take us to the bus station for a dollar, threw on our helmets, and away we went. it was really fun and i'm pretty sure the first time i've ever been on a motorcycle in my life. that is, until the three of us split up. i thought for sure i was getting sold into the sex trade (cus vietnam is seriously the hub for that), and so i was just praying that maddy & i got sold together (not that i wanted her to get sold... but i mean if i'm gonna get sold, i might as well take her down with me). the peak of the ride was when we ran out of gas. and had to push the bike 2 blocks to a gas station, where my driver had no money for more gas, put me on the back of a different motorcycle to hopefully take me to the bus station. i had no idea what was going on since again, nobody speaks any english. so i FINALLY reach the bus station and maddy & skyler are there waiting for me. they both thought i had died, which i thought was a definite possibility... but it all worked out. it always does. so we get to the station around 10:45, the last bus to can tho leaves at 11:30. we rock. so we buy our tickets, skyler buys a coconut water, and we each buy a baguette from a guy on the corner and we are ready for an adventure (though technically it probably already began with the motorcycle ride).

so 11:30 finally rolls around. turns out we are not taking a bus. instead it's a mix between a minivan and a passenger van. because why not? the three of us are in one row, then the rest of the van is filled with vietnamese people. i love being the only white people anywhere. 3 hour van ride down to can tho. could not sleep at all, mainly because people outside of america do not understand the concept of putting their phone on vibrate or silent... or even turning the volume down! people's phones where ringing at all hours... then they had the audacity to answer them and have a full conversation. this happened on the overnight train in india too. like come on, it's common courtesy to not be on your phone in a minivan full of strangers at 2 in the morning. but maybe that's just an america thing. we roll up to can tho at 2:30am. the "bus station" is really just a gas station. there is nobody around cus it's so late. except for some more motorcycle taxis. since we really have no other option, we again get on the back of them. we tell them to take us to the river, but instead we end up down an alley. again, definitely getting sold into the sex trade or shot in the face. but managed to not die again. instead this guy turned out to be a travel guide or something because told us it'd be $50 for the three of us to take a 7 hour boat tour of the mekong delta. which was exactly what we had come to can tho to do. it was definitely overpriced, but we didn't really have any other option. so we agreed to do the tour. but it was 2:30 and the tour didn't start until 5:30. there weren't any hotels or anything, so we walked down the street towards the river and stumbled upon the food market. which was in full swing. fresh produce, seafood straight from the river, and meat butchers. it was so cool seeing the market and all these locals pulling up on their motorcycles to do their shopping for the day. once we walked through the market for a while, we stumbled upon this "cafe" that was open. it was really just like a garage... but the family that was there served us coffee and tea. have you ever had vietnamese coffee? because i'm pretty sure i will never be able to drink regular coffee again. i have no idea how they make it, but it was SUPER thick and so strong. delicious. and just what we needed to keep us awake. cus keep in mind, we haven't slept yet. then all of a sudden this woman starts bringing puppies out from the back. brewer & i were like little teenage girls... sitting and petting the cutest little puppies that probably all had rabies and fleas, but in the moment we didn't care. seriously the most random time, but they were so nice. then we noticed the road was beginning to flood. my dad had emailed me earlier that day asking if we had been experiencing flooding like bangkok, and i assured him we hadn't and i wouldn't unless i went to the delta. and what do i do? go to the delta like 3 hours later. woops. so we were like "well shit, what are we gonna do?" so brew and i ask the woman to go to the bathroom so we can change into nike shorts. wait, the bathroom is literally like in their house in the back. there was a woman back there breastfeeding this brand new baby. so random. once it gets to be time to leave, we pay for our coffee, then start our hike through the flooded streets back to where we needed to meet for our tour. i've never actually seen and experienced flooding before, and it was really intense. i mean we hear about major flooding all the time on the news, but it's so different to actually experience and walk through it. we finally got back to where we met the travel dude, and he handed us off to this woman who was going to be our guide for the day.

our tour began by us getting on this little fishing canoe thing. we watched the sunrise from the middle of one of the rivers of the delta. then our guide took us to three different floating markets. the floating markets consist of a bunch of people in their little boats filled with whatever they have to sell (pineapple, lettuce, onions, etc.) and whoever is there to buy them would tie their boat to the other one and fill their boat with whatever they needed. i bought more coffee from one of the guys, and our guide bought fruit at some of the markets for us. we had the freshest pineapple and oranges i've ever had... plus some other random fruit that i didn't recognize. our guide took us all around the delta. it was a 7 hour tour. she took us to this place where they made rice noodles. it was really cool to see after eating so much pho and noodles at all these meals. except for the fact that i lost my sunglasses either getting off or back on the boat when we stopped there. i didn't know if i should punch a hole in the wall, curl up in a ball and cry, or just kill myself then. dramatic, i know. but i don't think you understand how obsessed i am with my sunglasses. like, they're on the same level of obsession as my eyebrows. i've had the same sunglasses since high school. i mean, not the same pair. but i continuously order the same ones every time i lost them. i had to do so 2 days before i left for this voyage... and ordering a new pair is not really an option when i'm on a ship. so i had to suck it up and buy a pair of knockoff ray bans on the side of the road the next day. but i'm still crying, and probably will be until i get a new pair of mine again. but our tour guide gave me a rice hat to wear the whole day, which was a blast. you win some, you lose some. she also took us down these really small creeks to this village that was on the side of the river. she let us get out and walk to meet her a couple hundred yards down the river. skyler made us stop at this random person's house. even though he didn't speak any english, he gave us chairs to sit on on his front porch, and he hacked a coconut off a tree outside and gave us fresh coconut milk. we were a little skeptical as to if we should drink the water or not cus we had just seen his wife clean the glasses in the dirty brown river we were just in, but we couldn't be rude! so we went for it. haven't gotten sick yet, so i think i'm in the clear. it was a really cool and unique experience. but it was cut short when our tour guide came looking for us. we walked a little further and arrived in a random little restaurant. i had a really good lunch. i don't know if it was good because it tasted good, or if it was good because i hadn't eaten anything yet. maybe a combination of both. but this one guy that was there was seriously blacked out. it was like 10:30 in the morning and he was pouring everybody shots of this disgusting banana flavored grain alcohol and singing karaoke by himself. such a winner. after lunch we got back on our boat and road back to where we started. the tour ended at a little after 12:30. skyler was talking about trying to go somewhere else to walk around, so we went to a little cafe to get some internet so he could try to figure out if he really wanted to do that. brew & i weren't really into it. at that point we had been awake for like 30 hours and were pretty ready to call it a success and get back. so we sat in the cafe a little bit, then decided to just go back to the ship. first we needed to find the bus stop again. but the whole language barrier thing was a huge problem. first we couldn't find motorcycle taxis (we figured out pretty quickly that they were the only people who knew where anything ever was and they spoke the most english). so we asked a taxi and struck out with him too. so we decided to just walk it. as an asian person myself, i feel like i'm entitled to my next statement... but let's all face the fact that asian people are horrible drivers. so why we thought they could give us directions to the bus station, i have no idea. we pretty much got a walking tour of can tho in the billion degree heat and humidity. we finally called it quits after about an hour of walking around. i found a cafe that had free wifi and air conditioning, so we stopped there to regroup and figure out our next move. somehow we got the people who worked there to call the bus company who sent us a free shuttle to take us to the bus stop. thank goodness! so we finally got to the bus station at like 1:45 and go on the 2:00 bus back to ho chi minh. this time it was actually a bus, so i got to sleep a little bit but i was more interested in the beautiful lightning storm outside. there were major lightning storms pretty much every night we were in vietnam, which was really cool. we got back to the ship at about 7:30, ran and got some dinner before it closed in the dining hall, then showered and crashed. another night where we closed the blinds and decided to set an alarm at noon "just in case." yeah that "just in case" alarm was what woke us up. 15 hour sleep... pure heaven after being up for 36 hours.

so we woke up the next day, got ready, went up to the dining hall to grab some lunch then we had to catch the bus for a field trip. the first part of the field trip was going to the house and meeting a former upi photographer from the war. he showed us his personal memorial to the 200 photographers and journalists that had died in the war. then we all went to little cafe nearby where he had all his pictures and the two jeeps he used during the war. his story and all his pictures were awesome. after the war he spent 9 years in hiding, then spent 7 years in one of the re-education camps the government started. he said he was forced to do hard labor and was tortured while he was there. we got to look at all his pictures too, some of which were really hard to look at. then after we talked to him for a while, we got on the bus to go to the war remnants museum (formerly known as the museum of american war crimes). it was really hard being at the museum as an american. i don't know enough about the war to know what is fact and what is blatantly false, which kind of sucked. the pictures of the effects of agent orange really got to me though. it was really hard to look at them, and then there were even people there who had physical deformities from the lasting effects of agent orange in their gene pool. it was really crazy. and the entire museum was incredibly anti-american, which was really uncomfortable. the museum, the cu chi tunnels, and the vietnamese arlington were really weird to be at as an american. i think it's kind of like when you're young and think your parents are superheroes and can do no wrong. then you grow up and find out maybe they're not so perfect after all and it crushes your whole world view. i think it's kind of like that. how you grow up thinking your country is the best and then you learn that maybe we weren't always so great. very interesting to be at all these places, and i'm so glad we went.

we got back to the ship around 5:30. we got dinner and met up with a bunch of our friends. we had all been doing different things so we exchanged stories for a while. then me, brewer, will & jeremy decided to go to the night markets together. we had so much fun! it was basically just like the regular market, but it was out in the streets instead. and it was so funny how into it will & jeremy were. they bought just as much stuff as me & maddy, if not more. after a couple hours there and spending way more money than i wanted, we headed back to the ship, got ready, then went out. we were going to go back to apocalypse now because there was going to be a wedding party there. i guess america doesn't recognize marriages from vietnam, so a bunch of kids from the ship decided to get married while in port. yeahhh, no thanks. so we were going to go to the after party, but we ended up meeting up with cassie and a bunch of people on the street and we all decided to go to oscar's instead. it was just another club, where we again ended up getting free bottle service somehow. and i really don't understand why nobody dances in these countries. nobody danced in morocco, in south africa, and now not in vietnam. what's the point of a club with no dancing? so again, we were the american assholes dancing around with everybody else starring at us. whatever. we were there til about 2:30 in the morning, then will, brewer, brian & i walked back to the ship. it wasn't that far, so it was perfect.

the next morning we woke up at 7:45, got ready and grabbed breakfast then took the 8:30 bus out to the rex. i don't think i've actually said what the rex hotel is. for you non-vietnam war history buffs... the cia used the rex basically as their headquarters during the war. and the buddhist monk who emulated himself in protest of the war... yeah that happened in front of the rex. there's now a huge statue as a memorial for him outside the hotel. crazy stuff. so we take the bus to the city, then walk a few blocks to the notre dame cathedral to go to mass. the cathedral was really beautiful, but i thought it was really funny that they had like neon l.e.d. lights as the halos around Jesus or the saints. and they had tv screens with like a powerpoint slide with the order of mass. kind of tacky, but it was really nice being able to go to mass. especially since everybody at home keeps emailing me about going to church every week. after church we talked to the priest for a second, turns out he's from orange county. such a small world. then we sat in a coffee shop for a little bit to write our postcards then went to the post office. the post office was really beautiful too. then we walked to a different coffee shop back closer to the rex and grabbed some lunch.

then we headed back to the rex. why? well we knew we wanted to get a massage while we were in vietnam. and i'm pretty sure everybody on the ship has a "spa" story for you. but i think maddy and mine's right up there. so a few days before, we were on the shuttle to go shopping and we were talking to a lifelong learner who was going to go book her spa day. she was going to book it at the rex and she said it was really cheap. so we followed her up to the spa to just look at prices and stuff to see if that's what we wanted to do. we ended up booking a couples massage. and not just any couples massage... a 4 hour couples massage... also known as the love melody. now, we don't know if we should be more embarrassed by the fact that they offered us a couples massage, or the fact that we took it. i mean, it's not the first time we've been mistaken as a lesbian couple on this trip, and i'm assuming it's not going to be the last. (for the record, we are not lesbians. good. glad we got that settled). so at 12:30 on sunday, we found our ways back to the rex to start our romantic day together. i mean, we started the day at mass to like pray the gay away or something michelle bachman-style. so i figure we were okay, right? we brought bathing suits and everything, to at least attempt some modesty. but that went right out the window when the first thing they did was basically rip our clothes off. i'll show you mine, if you show me yours first. so we started with a half hour steam bath (which was either way too hot or we had to much alcohol in our systems still cus we didn't last). then we had a half hour full body scrub. and when i say full body, i mean FULL BODY. i didn't think i needed my ass and tits salt-scrubbed. but hey, jokes on me i guess. then we had an hour long full body massage. then an hour long facial. heaven is what that's called. then a half hour foot massage. our romantic day ended with a naked candle lit rose petal filled jacuzzi, complete with fruit and chocolates. i mean, they totally thought we were lesbians. but that was seriously the most romantic day of my entire life. it's going to be awkward when my future husband has to compete with my spa day with maddy brewer in vietnam, but that's not my fault i don't think. after our massage, we went downstairs and got dinner in the lobby. did some last minute shopping, then headed back to the ship.

all around, vietnam has to be my new favorite port. which is really surprising to me. when i first looked at the itinerary for the voyage when i was applying, i saw 7 days in vietnam and was like "wtf am i going to do in vietnam for 7 days!? let's spend 7 days in south africa or japan!" but i seriously wish i had a month in vietnam at least. so much history and so much fun. can't wait to come back!

good morning vietnam!

October 25-27, 2011 - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (Part 1)

gooooodddd morning vietnam! for those of you really on your game, you'll notice by the dates above that this blob is only going to cover the first half of my week in vietnam. this is partially because we were here for a week (longest port of the voyage) and partially because i had too much fun and have wayyy too much to say for a single blob. so here's the first half...

we arrived in ho chi minh early tuesday morning... and by early i mean we were here at 7am. we bunkered in singapore a few days before that to refuel... and while we were there a couple of vietnamese customs officers got on the ship. so they were processing our passports and stuff while we were sailing to vietnam. asian people are so efficient. as a result, the ship was already cleared when we landed. but we did all have to go up to glazier to pick up our landing passes... whatever those are. so brew and i woke up to the voice (as always), got ready, ate some breakfast, then took the 8:30 shuttle from the ship. while sas is kind of a huge pain in the ass sometimes, they rocked it in vietnam. they provided a free 10-minute shuttle ride every half hour from the ship to the rex hotel... which was like the center of the city. perfecttt! so we got to the rex, basically ran around the corner to a little coffee shop and i got my ass on skype as fast as i could. skyped melissa for a couple hours maybe (i don't really know the time frame... just that i was in love the entire time) and got to sit in on chapter meeting! best part was def skyping steph sibley... i mean, i'm pretty sure i could die happy now. i also skyped my aunt for a few minutes. this was the first time i've been on real internet since august. went on facebook... it totally sucks. not only do i not understand the new version, i just have no interest in how drunk you were last weekend. sorry i'm worldly and cultured now, and don't have time for your mundane lifestyle. hahaaa jokes. but yeah, don't need to go on fbook anytime soon. so after spending the better half of the morning starring at melissa's face, brew and i caught the 12:00 shuttle back to the ship. i'm usually so annoyed with all the people from the ship that immediately run to the nearest internet cafe when we get to port cus i feel like we should be exploring these crazy places! but it was definitely necessary to get to see and talk to someone from home for a second since i've been a little homesick... and it was super reassuring to know nothing's really changed at home. thank goodness! so i definitely started vietnam off on the right foot... and i think it set the tone for the rest of the week.

so we got back to the ship and ran up to the dining hall, stuffed our faces real quick, then i had to run back off the ship to catch a bus for a field trip for my global music class. the field trip was called "traditional music in modern context" and we visited the music conservatory in ho chi minh, and met with my professor's old friend who teaches at the school where we walked around for a little bit. then we drove across town to this random cooking school where the teacher gave a lecture and there were three musicians who performed a few songs for us. it was a pretty random day, but it was really cool seeing some of the instruments we had learned about in class. then we came back to the ship. brew was already here when i got back... so we met up with audrey & bri and decided we needed to eat something and find a bar. so we got ready and took the shuttle out. audrey led us the wrong way for kind of a long time, so bri went home when we turned around cus she has a broken ankle from malaysia. so maddy, audrey & i went and found a "wrap & roll" for dinner. it's a chain restaurant but was really good. i got these really good shrimp spring rolls. it was kind of awkward when the dean came in and they sat him at the table right next to us... but it was all good. once we were done, we walked into this bar around the corner... but it was really expensive and we were kind of tired so brew got a glass of wine then we headed back to the rex and caught the shuttle back to the ship where we just went right to bed.

we had to wake up really early the second day because we bought tickets for a sas trip from rob and kelly. so we got up, ate breakfast, and met at the bus at 7:45. it was about a 3.5 hour bus ride out to the cao dai temple from the ship. i did not know anything about the cao dai faith (in retrospect, i still don't), but when i was looking at the guide books before we got here, one of the things it said not to miss was going to the temple and watching a service. so that's exactly what we did. i'm pretty sure it's kind of like the bahai faith in that there is a mix of religions together. but i'm not really sure. the temple was really amazing though. the colors and decoration were beautiful. obviously unlike anything i'm used to as a catholic. we got to walk around the temple for a little bit, then we had to go up to the balcony before the service began at noon. it was really interesting watching the ceremony. men and women sat on opposite sides of the temple, and they sat in perfect, uniform rows. like, if someone was an inch out of line, an usher person would correct them, even in the middle of them praying. it was also neat because the different "priests" were wearing different color garments based on what religion they come from. so we watched a bit of the service, then we had to get back to the bus to drive another roughly 2.5 miles to the cu chi tunnels. but we stopped at a random restaurant on the way and had a seriously delicious lunch. noodles, fried rice, soup, chicken. yum.

now i don't know why, but i don't know much about the vietnam war. i think it's really confusing, so maybe i just tuned out whenever it was brought up in history classes because i don't understand it. so i had no idea the cu chi tunnels even existed before i opened a travel guide book on vietnam. but man am i glad i got the opportunity to go out there. if you don't know what they are, google it cus it's kind of a lot to explain. but basically the viet cong constructed this elaborate tunnel system to hide from american soldiers during the war. the tunnels are now super touristy, but what can you do. the first thing we did when we got there was watch this documentary on the tunnels. in global studies the day before we arrived, they warned us about how much propaganda we would encounter surrounding the war and the history of it. and they weren't kidding. i mean, granted i'm biased and the facts the american government provides could be just as false, but it was crazy to see what the vietnamese government can get away with as "fact." i mean, it's already awkward and uncomfortable to be in vietnam as an american, especially being out in the tunnels... then we're forced to watch a movie basically about how much america sucks and all the war crimes we committed. i wish i knew more about the vietnam war to be able to better distinguish between fact and fiction. after the documentary, we walked through the forest/jungle where our guide showed us some of the booby-traps the viet cong used to use. they were seriously insane. my first reaction was how disgusting and atrocious they were... but then i had to remember that this was war... and everything in war is awful. we also saw how the viet cong would take unexploded weapons (mainly rockets) and turn them into their own weapons. then we got to the tunnels. we were just walking down the path looking at all the gigantic crators that are still there from the american bombs, then our guide stops and points to what seems like nothing. then he brushes back some leaves to reveal a rectangle about the size of a shoe box. he then picks up the rectangle to reveal a whole. turns out, it was a camouflaged entrance into the tunnels. it was insane. we had been walking over the tunnels the entire time and had no idea. so our guide got in because he was this tiny vietnamese guy, and then closed the lid on top of him and we seriously would not have known there was a tunnel there or a man under the ground if we hadn't just seen it ourselves. so stressful. he got out of the tunnel, then let whoever wanted to try it out go ahead. pretty much everyone in the group was apprehensive. i heard some people on other trips got stuck in the hole cus it was seriously SO small. but this voyage i feel like i have to try everything, so me, this guy brian, and a lifelong learner were the only ones who tried it. the three of us could only stand up in the hole... there was no way our shoulders were going to fit through. it was SO crazy! after that, we walked a little further to another entrance to a tunnel. this one was made bigger for tourists, so our guide led whoever wanted to go down in the tunnels for about 40 meters to the other side. game on. i can't accurately explain to you how crazy those 40 meters were. i was underground in a tunnel that the viet cong had used to hide from and attack american soldiers. i was basically squatting the entire time, cursing my father for being so damn tall and giving me his genes. i could barely fit. and it was SO hot down there. vietnam was hot the entire week... but never as hot as in that tunnel. it was dark, creepy. i can't even imagine the viet cong living in those tunnels for months, even years at a time. really intense and powerful stuff. and to add to the ambiance, the entire time we were walking around all we could hear was gunfire in the distance because there was a shooting range where you could pay to shoot some of the actual weapons from the war. so it was kind of like we were back in time a little bit... especially being with our guy friends who would have been there fighting given the draft and everything. and no, i did not shoot the guns. when we got there we were running out of time so our guide wouldn't let us stop. but my dad still owes me a trip to a shooting range that he promised me for my 18th birthday!

so after the tunnels, we headed back to the ship. me, brewer, and alli decided we wanted to go out, so as soon as we got back to the ship we got ready and met at the gangway where we ran into elaina and sophie who decided to join us. we took the shuttle out to the rex and walked to the beer garden where we met up with alyssa, audrey, and some other girls. but the five of us went upstairs and ordered some much needed dinner. i had some delicious shrimp fried rice. but the best part of dinner was when these two australian guys decided to join us at our table. at first it was just ben and some other guy. then the other guy left and a different guy came. but ben sat with us the entire time. i'm becoming skeptical as to if there are even people left in australia, because i have met SO many australians in every country so far. i guess they're really into travelling or something? but ben was really nice and it was funny that he just sat at our table and drank with us until we left. after dinner the five of us decided to go to apocalypse now, which is a club. everybody from the ship had gone the night before, but i was not into going clubbing with everybody from the ship that i'm stuck with 24/7. but i guess everybody was too drunk to function and everybody was hooking up with everybody. fun times. not when we went! here is the demographic of apocalypse now when i went: vietnamese prostitutes, middle aged white business men, and us 5 girls. oh my God it was so disgusting. alli & i were trying to figure out how the men choose which one they want to take home. but it was seriously so gross. like these guys were my dad's age, picking up hot little vietnamese girls my age. so warning to all women out there... when your man says he has a "business trip" to vietnam, it is a dirty dirty lie. don't let him go. cus he'll be at apocalypse now, or any of the other whore house bars in vietnam. just a heads up. so after like one drink, we were like "let's get outta hereee!" so we just came back to the ship.

maddy & i made a big decision to close our blinds and sleep until we woke up. we NEVER close our blind because it seriously turns our room into a cave and we would never get out of bed if that was the case. but we were pretty exhausted and could use a sleep in day. so that's exactly what we did. slept til about 10:30ish, then leisurely laid in bed for a while. got up to eat lunch on the ship (which was amazing! why they decide to make good food while we're in port and nobody's on the ship baffles me). then we got ready and took the 1:30 shuttle out to town. we had one plan for the third day. shopping, shopping, and more shopping. we were told to go to saigon square, so that was our first stop. not sure why people told us to go there, cus it was just a bunch of shit. so we walked to the ben thant market which was like 2 blocks away. we had a lot of fun walking around, bartering, buying fun stuff. and whoever told me that vietnam was the cheapest country and that everything here is a dollar is a big fat liar. i mean, clearly in comparison to america it's cheaper. but it definitely was not the home of the one dollar bill as i had been promised. after we shopped for a few hours, we decided to head back to the ship. but not after stopping for a banana split at one of the bajillion ice cream parlors in ho chi minh. it was delicious and just what we needed to break the heat. then we got back to the ship. our original plan was to get like a bite to eat on the ship, get ready, go out to dinner, then go out. but while we were pretending to eat the ship food, our friend skyler came up to our table and asked us what our plans were for the night. we told him we didn't really have any... so then he goes "wanna go to the bus station and go to the mekong delta right now?"

so i'm gonna stop there. cliff-hangerrrr! but really, this is a huge long story and it's a good place to end this blob. you'll notice that i'm posting on october 30th, even though we don't leave until the 31st. vietnam is a different port. if you look on a map, you'll notice that ho chi minh city is not on the coast... instead we had to travel up a river to get here. so because of the tides, we physically cannot leave tonight. usually, on ship time for ports is 6pm and we set sail around 8pm the same night. but for vietnam, on ship time was 9pm tonight and we set sail at 6am tomorrow morning. so confusing... but it was really nice having the entire last day to explore and do all our last minute things. now, i'm gonna go watch friends because i just bought seasons 1-10 for $20. winnerrrr.

i'll post vietnam part 2 tomorrow. we have the day off school and just have global studies discussions in the morning. and tomorrow's halloween. how did that happen?? strange. well goodnight! but really good morning. you people probably aren't even awake yet, let's be real. i still love you anyways. xoxo.

don't be a drag, just be a queen

Monday, October 24, 2011 (9:43pm) - South China Sea

what's up my people?! just getting ready for vietnam! we land there tomorrow and we're there for a week! it's our longest port of the voyage, so i'm expecting big things out of this country. don't have any definitive plans, but do have a general game plan. been watching the cultural/logistical preport on tv and we're learning some very interesting and funny things. we're literally drooling at all the food they're showing us. ready for some delicious pho! but NEWSFLASH... there's a threat of landmines. yeah. landmines. millions of landmines in fact. because that's really normal. but that's only on hikes or in random fields. oh wait, brew & i are planning on hiking. so all i'm picturing is me walking up ta cu mountain to the gigantic reclining buddha and tropic thunder is going to happen and i'm going to blow up and lose my arms (not politically correct, and maybe too soon... but deal with it!).

and the traffic. i know i've spoken a lot about traffic in every country (cus it's friggin' nuts! san diego ain't got nothin' on the worlddd!!)... but apparently vietnam brings traffic to a whole different level. google it or youtube it or something. they basically told us "just keep walking... don't stop and don't turn back... then you won't die." oh. okay semester at sea... thanks so much for that. other words of wisdom went something like "find a little old lady that's crossing the street... and use her as a shield." hahaaa... like the DEAN told us to do that. cus when in 'nam... right?

just getting really excited for vietnam. at first when i saw we were in vietnam for a week i was like "wtf am i going to do for a week in tropic thunder land!?" like, why not spend a week in south africa or japan, for instance?! but i think this is going to be awesome. lots to do in ho chi minh city... or saigon. means the same thing, i think. so get excited for some cool adventures! and YOU have an awesome week while i'm gone. cus the world doesn't revolve around me! orrr so i'm told. still up for debate, really.

so don't be a drag, just be a queen. chyeahhh bro. see you on halloween dudes. over and out.

pick me, choose me, love me

Saturday, October 22, 2011 (8:21pm) - Straight of Malacca

so i'm pretty sure i speak for the entire shipboard community when i say that i'm starting to get homesick. and it's not so much that i miss "home"... it's just that we've been to so many crazy countries and been experiencing such different things, that we have no sense of normalcy anymore. there are big things that i miss about america, but there are a lot of little things that i miss that i used to take for granted. like not having to wear a money belt, being able to have ice in my drinks, not having to squat over a hole to use the bathroom... things that i would never think would be an issue in america. i mean obviously i miss my family, my dog, being home. i'm really starting to miss being at school and being with all my friends. i miss my soror and going to slp dinner with everyone before meeting on mondays. i'm in this middle ground where i can't wait to get home, but i don't want the voyage to end. i can't believe it's the end of october and we'll be in vietnam in a few days. where has the time gone!?

i'm just feeling a little left out of "real life." like today i read an article that listed the top 10 songs and albums on itunes for this week... i knew a total of one song on the entire list. just little things like that... or like how lars emailed me that she watched my favorite grey's anatomy episode the other day ("pick me, choose me, love me") and my only options on the tv are ridiculous "educational" movies nobody has ever heard of in their lives. like if i could lay on the couch and watch keeping up with the kardashians for 10 hours, i would be a happy girl. or even just drive my car around the block. just being in a different country every week and having to figure out the currency, the language, and the different customs is getting a little overwhelming.

and the food. maddy & i are strategically planning what we're eating when we get back to san diego. on the list: mexican food mexican food and more mexican food, any and all slp food, urbane, rose's donuts, in & out... so many good things. like, it's to the point that i would probably cry if you gave me some slavinsky's (in)famous chili cheese turkey hot dogs. like, this is getting ridiculous. the exotic and foreign food is awesome, don't get me wrong... but how often do you crave indian or ghanaian food? maybe once every so often.

so we'll see. it's just funny that pretty much the entire ship is feeling the exact same way at the same time. makes it a little easier to deal with. i never want this voyage to end, but if i was given the chance to go home tomorrow, i probably would. such a dilemma, i know. alden, maddy, martha, & i were talking at dinner tonight about how at least we're going home at christmas time... one of the happiest times in america. if we were on the spring voyage and coming home in may to nothing, that would totally suck. but believe me, i'm super excited for asia. can't believe we're in vietnam in a few days. then china and japan the two weeks after that. in my head, our voyage ends after japan... which is so depressing! but i know we still have hawaii, costa rica, and cuba (i'm not going to guatamala, i don't care what they say). cannot wait to get home, but i know once i'm home all i will want is to be back on the ship. such an issue.

in other news, today is founder's day... i think they said 47 or 48 years ago was semester at sea's first voyage. so we had cake at 3:30 in the dining halls to celebrate which was awesome. today we had our second global studies test, so we had the day off classes which i spent sleeping and being bored since i had nothing i needed to do for school. then i just had a birthday party for my extended family, the other librarian's extended family, and the work-study library staff. so more cake. such healthy choices, i know.

but i have work in ten minutes so i should probably get ready for that. or at least figure out what i'm going to do there. since i literally have no homework or anything that i have to do. oh well. and by no means does this post mean to stop emailing me about life at home... those stories keep me sane. i miss you all so much!

love love love.

mamma mia here we go again

Friday, October 21, 2011 (10:46pm) - Malaysia

sooo about malaysia. just spent three days there and still not really sure what there was to do or see there. i don't think i did malaysia right, but then again i did the same thing as everyone else for the most part. so we land in penang on wednesday. brew and i expect it to be another lazy day landing in port... get up at 8, go eat breakfast, lay in bed until we have to get our passports, then leave the ship whenever we're ready. jokes on us... and the rest of the ship for that matter. the beginning of the morning was the same, but as i'm laying in bed and brew is in the shower "the voice" gets on the intercom in a panic that EVERYONE on the ship has to physically get off the ship and walk to the customs area in the port to do a face to face check with customs there. mostly this was just a huge pain in the ass because i hadn't packed yet and they were making it seem like we wouldn't be able to get back on the ship for a good chunk of the day. so malaysia did not get started on the right foot. brew & i hustle over to the customs area where we spend like 45 minutes in line for customs sweating our balls off cus it's sooo humid and there's like 800 people in this non-air conditioned building. but once we went through, we were allowed to get back on the ship to pack and breathe for a second.

once we were ready to get off the ship, we ran into sam, ryan, osh, natasa, and susie who were also trying to get to kuala lumpur, which is the capital. we ended up being able to book a bus ticket from these people on the ship... so they took us to the bus station. on the way, we were shocked to see a 7eleven on like every corner. though we're used to seeing american places in these countries, this is the first time we've seen a 7eleven. on the same note, i'm really shocked at how international kfc is! i've seen more kfc's than i have mcdonalds. anyways, on the way to the bus station we also saw a starbucks... and brewer lost her shit. so we had to run over to starbucks before we got on the bus. when we got on the bus we started laughing. and this time not a "we're definitely going to die" nervous laugh. this time we were like dying at how luxurious the bus was. in the place of normal bus seats were recliners, with foot rests and everything. i've been on some LONG bus rides this trip, so a 4.5 hour bus ride in a luxury air-conditioned bus was not a problem.

if you look at a map, you might be a little confused thus far with my story. mostly because penang is an island and kuala lumpur is on the mainland. but don't fret, there is the penang bridge that took us across. on the drive to kl (that's what all the locals call kuala lumpur), i was amazed at how gorgeous malaysia was. i had no idea what to expect, but the freeways cut through beautiful forests with huge hundred foot tall trees and gorgeous mountains. i had no idea how green malaysia was. but then we'd be passing trucks on the road full of timber, and i saw deforestation in real life for the first time so that was really sad. and then it started POURING. i've never seen rain like that in my life. josh wasn't lying when he said it rains at 4:30 like clockwork in malaysia. but we got to kl around 5:15 safe and sound. nice and rested from our naps in our recliners. the five other people we traveled with had plans to stay with one of their friends, so michael, maddy, and i took a taxi to the golden triangle area of the city since that's pretty much where everything is. i'm an idiot and left the paper with all the information i had gathered in my cabin, so we were truly winging it. we had the cab drop us off at the kfc, cus why not really? then walked into the nearest clean-looking hotel and booked a room for the night. brewer wasn't feeling good so we rested for an hour to see if she'd feel better to go out, but she never did. so michael & i left her at the hotel so she could sleep. and when you have the flu, i'm gonna leave you in the hotel room and i'm gonna go drink. cus i'm a good friend.

so michael and i walked a few blocks down the street from our hotel where there were a TON of cute restaurants and bars. it was raining when we left the hotel so we just kind of picked the first restaurant that looked good. we decided on flam's... home of traditional french pizza. cus what's more malaysian than that? but it was SO good. i got a chicken "flam"... chicken, cheese, sour cream, "salsa"... pretty much a malaysian attempt at mexican food on a flatbread pizza. WINNING. and i had the first margarita of the voyage to go along with my fake mexican food. it was sooo bad, but it was real strong so i can't complain about that. after dinner, michael and i walked up the street a little bit and stopped at this bar called "never mine." i don't know why we picked it, but it was maybe the best decision of the trip. why? THEY ONLY PLAYED ABBA MUSIC... so mamma mia all night long! best bar ever? i think yes. so in addition to listening to abba hits all night long, it was also happy hour all night. which kind of defeats the purpose of happy hour, but i'm not gonna complain about buy one long island get one free... all night. nor am i going to complain about "ladies night" in all of malaysia where i get to drink for free on wednesdays. check the calendar... YES this was a wednesday. malaysia is starting to sound like a great place now, right? the owner of never mine absolutely loved michael and i since we were the only white people there. so he brought us these free drinks that were basically coffee and patron. sounds disgusting, right? WRONG. best thing everrr. coffee and tequila are probably my two favorite things separately, so why not combine the two? genius shit here people.

so after the bar we decided to head back to the hotel. mainly because we had to wake up early the next day, but i guess also to make sure brew wasn't choking on her proj-vom and dying. cus what's worse than waking up with a dead body in your bed? a sister is... anywaysss, game plan was to wake up and be out of the hotel room by 7:30 the next morning to go get in line to get tickets for the petronas towers. google image the petronas towers, cus that's pretty much the only reason why we went to kl was to see them and go up on the walkway. turns out, the walkway is closed for three months for renovation. malaysia's not sounding so good again, right? i was so pissed off. i not only woke up early to get in line to get one of the "limited number of tickets" they hand out everyday, but i also only came to kl to do that. so that was a serious buzz kill. and add in the fact that brewer looks green and may or may not drop dead at any second, this was not going to be a good day. so we walk through the city center that is around the towers for a little, sit at "san francisco coffee" and get some breakfast. then take a taxi to the kl/medera tower. google image that one too i guess, or just invision the stratosphere in las vegas and you're picturing this tower. this time we were able to go to the top and we had clear views of the entire city which was really pretty. but not too much to do up there so we left and took a cab to the central market. we left brew in a restaurant outside (again, such a good friend, i know) because she couldn't walk around... and michael and i roamed around inside for a little. wasn't really much to buy. pretty much just stuff we just bought in india, or stuff we're about to buy in china. so we came back to brewer after a while, got some lunch... then headed to the bus stop early. we had bought bus tickets back to penang when we first got to kl, but that wasn't until 7:30 cus we figured we were going to explore all day. but brew was dying so we got on the 2:50 bus and headed back.

once we were back in penang we took a cab back to the port to catch a tender to the ship. this is the first port where we couldn't just walk right on the ship at all hours of the night. instead, the ship was anchored in the middle of the harbor, and we had to catch a tender (fancy word for one of the lifeboats) to the ship and get on from there. it was actually really fun... though i really hope we don't sink cus i can't imagine being stuck in one of those with 150 people (maximum capacity). once back on the ship, i was seriously starving. but with the tendering process and my actual genuine concern for brew at that point, i just ran up to the pool bar and got some food there. then brew and i showered and went to bed.

this morning we were woken up by the voice at 9. sometimes i love her, but when she wakes me up i want to kill her. but she told us that the last tender was leaving at 9:30 and then we wouldn't be able to get off the ship until 11:15 when the ship was docked again. so brew and i rallied and i met michael and audrey to go explore the city together. michael, audrey, and i didn't really have a game plan, so we got on the hop on/hop off bus that was free that would drive us around georgetown so we could see the city. not really much to see so we got off on the last stop, went to the post office, then realized we were pretty much right back where we started. we all wanted to get lunch so we stopped at this restaurant. michael and audrey didn't want to go there, but i saw jake and linda there so i stayed with them instead. i had the most delicious spicy noodles with chicken... and i also had fresh orange, apple, and banana juice. it tasted like jamba juice and i was so happy. jake & linda left after lunch but i needed to do a few things so i stayed at the restaurant for a little while longer. plus i had ringgit that i needed to burn, so i had some fun ordering different drinks. i had a dragonfruit juice, a frozen chocolate milk, and a sprite float thing. they were all so good, and super cheap. then i had nothing left to do, so i headed back to the ship that was like a block away.

back at the ship i changed and got ready because i had an fdp in the afternoon. we left at 2 and went to st. joseph's home, which is an orphanage in georgetown. we only got to spend a few hours there, but it was a lot of fun playing with the children. brooke brought bubbles and play-doh which were both a huge hit and a lot of fun. after the orphanage, we came back and cassie and i turned in our passports at customs so we wouldn't have to wait for the line. then her and i went back to the cafe i had lunch at. i still had ringgit i needed to spend, so i got spicy chicken fried rice, she got noodles, we shared a tomato cheesy bread, and we each got a juice. all that was for less than 10 us dollars. crazy, right!? we were so full after dinner, and it was time to get back to the ship before on-ship time.

overall, malaysia was alright. not a huge fan, but not opposed to coming back. some of the people who went to the different islands had a better time, but not those people who got so stung by jellyfish they had to be admitted overnight in the hospital. we're definitely getting to the land of knock-offs though. saw so many fake designer purses in the malls and stuff.

i'm sorry this is so long, cus there's really no reason for it to be. but now there's lightning outside so i'm about to turn off all the lights in the cabin and go sit in the nook for a while. cus it's like the weather channel, but real. and i need to study for the global studies test i have tomorrow. so, signing off.

malaysia or bust

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 (11:01pm) - Straight of Malacca

what's up my people!? so we arrive in malaysia tomorrow. when i saw it on the itinerary when i was applying for sas, i was like "wtf is there to do in malaysia." and 10 hours out from arriving in penang, i'm still feeling just about the same way. should make for an interesting three days.

you'll notice that my location is the straight of malacca today. i could have put that for yesterday too, but i didn't know we were there until global studies this morning. i only mention this because the straight of malacca is pretty significant. while yes, it is still home to lots of pirates... it is also the only route from the indian ocean to the pacific ocean without having to go around australia. and for all you people that are going to go grab a map to be a pain in the ass to prove me wrong, you can't go between indonesia and australia even though there is water there because there are super huge coral reefs that you'll crash and die on. so i guess it's pretty neat that we're here right now.

other than, didn't really do anything out of the ordinary today. except that matt decided not to show up for work today without telling andrew so i had to stay at work for an extra 45 minutes. but it was okay because i was just trying to figure out malaysia anyways and now i have like an hour work credit i can use. winning!

so now i just finished a paper and am going to go shower and go to bed. we make up that last random half hour tonight... so that makes it an even 15 hours ahead of pacific standard time.

be back on the 21st. until then, keep it real.

no matter where you are in the world, the moon is never bigger than your thumb

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 (12:19am) - Bay of Bengal

technically we've been in the bay of bengal for a while now. since october 9th to be exact... but i just now looked at my map. so deal with it. i don't really have anything to say tonight. but i just went stargazing on deck 7 forward and it was AMAZING. they turned all the lights out up there so we could see sooo many stars. and i've never seen the moon that bright before. though it was a little titanic deja-vu-ish cus brew, michael, and i were standing up on the top and looking straight ahead all we could see was black glassy water and then below us these two people were making out under the moonlight. so i was like "cue celine & where is the iceberg?" and obvs i did the whole 'dear john' "no matter where you are in the world, the moon is never bigger than your thumb" corny thing. so whenever the moon comes up in san diego, go outside and do the same thing. it'll be romantic, i swear. i'm just glad we were actually able to stargaze tonight since it's been storming monsoons the past two days. and this time when i say it's monsoon-ing... it actually is a real monsoon. hopefully it's not pouring the entire time we're in malaysia. we get there the 19th and i don't really know what i'm doing yet. this is the first port that we're pretty much just winging. could go either way, but i'm excited.

okay well i'm going to bed now. cus we have to turn the clocks ahead another hour tonight. which i'm kind of confused by because i'm pretty sure we only need half an hour to be on malaysia time. but either way, it's really 1am here, not midnight. and i have to wake up for breakfast and global studies tomorrow... wah. so that'll make it 14.5 hours ahead of you beautiful people. so i hope you guys are enjoying monday, cus it's tuesday here. such a blast. so i can't even say sweet dreams to you, but i will anyways.

ps brewer thinks she's going to convert me to country music. and it's just not going to happen. lars has been trying for forever, now my dad & sister listen to country music for no reason. currently listening to a guy singing a love song to his dog. all of you that buy into this shit are ridiculous human beings.

love & rockets

man overboard

Sunday, October 16, 2011 (11:12pm) - Indian Ocean

today was india reflection day and a much needed day off of classes. but we did have global studies discussions. thank goodness brew & i are in the last session so we didn't have to be real people until 11am. but we were woken up at like 10:30 this morning by some guy yelling "man overboard, man overboard, man overboard" over the intercom. so brew & i were like "WTF!?!?!" thennn like 10 seconds later... "exercise, man overboard." okay guy, "exercise" is the first word you need to say before you start yelling man overboard. but don't worry, they definitely threw a dummy overboard, then an emergency ring, lowered a life raft, and turned the entire ship around. no big deal or anything. just practice since a student really did fall overboard in 2004... but that's a whole different story. anyways, after discussions we had lunch then went straight back to bed until like 4:30. productive day, i know.

i had family dinner tonight at 6. fun exchanging stories and experiences for a few hours, then i had to go to work at 8. we closed the library today at 9 instead of 11 because tonight was the crew talent show! it was so much fun. it was in the union and literally everybody on the ship was there... students, lifelong learners, faculty, staff... everyone. it was so much fun seeing a side of these people that we see and interact with everyday that we never knew about. like we got to see perry & dante (dining room staff) dancing and jesse (my cabin steward) singing. other acts included vic singing frank sinatra, some of the women from the campus store doing a comedy skit, and my new eyebrow lady angela dancing with edward from the dining hall. it was a lot of fun, and ended with the entire housecleaning staff singing we are the world and everybody in the audience joined it. so much fun!

now i'm procrastinating from doing homework and studying for my last midterm that i have tomorrow. i figured out what the "code blue" was last night. i guess a crew member had a heart attack in the main dining room. but no worries, they're okay and recovering in the hospital on the ship. oh and last night in our delirium, i came up with the idea of a mandatory ship-wide hunger strike to force the us treasury to sign our cuba visa. now i don't know why hunger strikes are ever effective cus it's just like "fine, starve yourself that has no effect on me"... but for some reason they always work. thoughts? i think it's a definite win.

omg and here's a huge revelation i had last night. at this point i'm pretty sure we are no longer sailing away from america, but are instead beginning to sail towards it. crazy, right!? only a few more countries until i get to see the pacific ocean again! it's been so long!

alright, i think that's all i got for now. except for the fact that we have to set our clocks ahead one hour tonight. that'll make it 13.5 hours ahead of the 760, 619, 858, 949 and whoever else is following this. time zones are so weird. well, goodnight.

love love love.

if you can't drink the water, drink the beer

Saturday, October 15, 2011 (10:28pm) - India

where do i even begin with this?! i guess i'll go with a play-by-play for now, then do a reflection or something the next few days because i have so much to say. so this is going to be long... don't say i didn't warn you.

so as many of you know, i planned a trip for india. pretty stressful before, but miraculously everything worked out once we got here. so on day one it took us a few hours to get off the ship because indian customs is crazyyy. had to do face to face again, plus "landing passes" (who knows what those are?). so once everybody got their passports and everything we all met in the library. there were 14 of us, which was a perfect number for a trip of this magnitude. as soon as we walked off the ship we were met by mr. rhoda and a sign "discovery full circle tours welcomes sam, alex, & friends." um, check that off my bucketlist. always wanted to be greeted by a sign in an airport or something. so the 14 of us packed into two vans and ventured to the chennai airport. it took us about an hour because holy hell is traffic crazy in india. i remember watching ice road truckers extreme that took place in india (cus i'm a boy, i think) and everything that was on there was true! i mean, why follow stoplights, acknowledge road lanes, or give the right of way to pedestrians!? pretty much a free for all. oh and the kicker, they don't use sideview mirrors because motorcycles and autos and rickshaws just buzz around like they own the place, so people honk the entire time they're driving just to let other people know where they are. because following the traffic laws would just be too easy. not sure how i'm going to be able to drive in america again after these crazy countries.

anyways, we get to the airport without a hitch. who knew there could be stricter flying rules than american tsa? but there is, and they live in india. here, you can't fly with ANY liquids, gels, etc... even the travel size. so we all threw our toiletries in ricky's bag and checked it. plus you have to put tags on all your carry-ons and get them stamped when you go through security (if not, they won't let you on the plane). and everyone gets "frisked"... not just me who has to go to secondary every single time i fly in america. so that was a blast. our plane was a little delayed, but not too bad. it was a 3 hour flight to delhi and i pretty much just slept the entire time. i had a window seat, which was nice... but it didn't really mean anything because i couldn't see anything on the ground because of the crazy amount of smog in this country. so kind of a waste of a window seat. and one other difference from american flights are that they play music on flights. and by music, i mean the instrumental version of heaven by dj sammy... for three hours on repeat. casual. oh, and they won't even give you complementary drinks and peanuts... you have to pay for them! not okay.

so we get to delhi where we meet mr. chaman, our tour guide for the trip. i heard about him from some friends who've been on past sas voyages... and my were they right. but more about that later. so we walk to our van and the first thing chaman does is "lei" us all and hand us a beer. because if you can't drink the water, drink the beer. that quickly became our motto of the trip. so we were pretty stoked on that. because our plane was delayed, we didn't get to go to the orphanage... so we just went straight to dinner at jor bizarre. first indian meal... success! we pretty much ate a variation of the same meal everytime... but it was okay because it was so good. it was usually spicy chicken masala, spinach and cheese, spicy cheese, yellow lentils, beans, and some other things. oh and i'm pretty sure i ate my body weight in naan this week. not complaining, at all. though i'm pretty sure i never want to see or smell indian food again in my life. too much. so after dinner, we headed to the train station. we were almost late, but we caught our train on time. this was the first of two overnight trains we took. i can't even describe my first impressions, other than the fact that i was certain we were all going to die. as did everyone else. it was an old train full of sleeping indians that i'm pretty sure hated us just for being there. and we weren't all together in the train. so chaman told us that the next set was for a group of four, so nick, duggan, chad, and i grabbed it right away. the four of us walk into our area and an older indian couple  are asleep on the first level, cus oh wait there are two triple bunk beds in these rooms. and by bunk beds i mean beds hanging out of the walls from sketchy hooks. so the four of us just start laughing. chad tries to get us to take shifts keeping watch so none of us die. but we quickly get pretty comfortable. so duggan and i are on the second level and nick and chad are on the top. we had the giggles for a while, just laughing at what we got ourselves into. i could NOT get comfortable all night. the beds were so short and every time i stretched my legs out people would bump into them. i slept on and off all night. woke up around 3 in the morning to a random indian man plugging in his cell phone right near my head. thought for sure i was getting murdered. nick was up and i made eye contact with him, then rolled back over and went to sleep. he told me in the morning he was about to jump on the random dude if he was in our room any longer. so stressful. other things from the train... people walked up and down the walkway ALL night saying "chaiiiiii??" oh my goodness, soooo annoying. nobody wants chai, dude. oh wait, except nick who got it like every other time someone walked by. such a jokester.

so we finally reached varanasi around noon because our train decided to stop at one of the stations for 3 hours in the middle of the night for no reason. but we met our vans at the train station that took us to our hotel. driving through the streets of varansi, i was so confused and a little stressed about where we were going to stay because all we were driving past were shacks and rundown buildings. but then all of a sudden we were on a street lined with luxurious hotels. so we stayed at the meraden grand hotel where we again got "lei'd" again. we immediately ate lunch and then were given some time to relax in our rooms. i shared a room with jordan. i get so excited when there is cable tv, so i watched a ton of cricket but also watched some bollywood which was pretty funny. then we met down in the lobby around 4:30. once everyone was there, we all broke into pairs for our cycle rickshaw ride to the ganges river. duggan & i decided to share a ride and omg was that an experience. when we're in a giant van going through this crazy traffic, we felt pretty invincible. but when you're in one of those petty-cab bicycle things that they have at like qualcomm but in the streets of india instead it was SO sketchy. i could have touched any car or horse or whatever that went by us. not great. and i'm pretty sure i got black lung from that ride. all the smog and dust and whatever else is in the air could not have been great to breathe in. and now i can't stop coughing. woopsies. so we road our rickshaws as close to the river as we could, then all gathered together and our guide told us a little bit about the city. for those of you that don't know, varanasi is one of the oldest cities in the world and is a major pilgrimage site for holy/spiritual people. so we walked around some of the original alleys of the city, which were smelly and dirty but really cool. we actually passed by a building where they were teaching young men to recite and memorize all the prayers. after we walked around for a little bit, we headed down to the ganges river to witness the evening prayer called the ganga arati. we were a little early so we got on one of the boats that was there and we went to see the funeral pyres. SO intense. for those of you that don't know what those are... when a man dies, his wife commits suicide by throwing herself onto a fire. then we came back to the main area where we saw the evening prayer. there were hundreds, if not thousands of people there too. every night at 6:30 young priests offer a prayer to the river ganges. it involved a lot of singing, chanting, and rituals. we were given these small wreath kind of things that had candles in them that we all lit and put them in the river as a prayer and watched them float away. even though i'm clearly not hindu, the entire experience on the river was really overwhelming and powerful and something i'm not going to forget anytime soon. once the prayer was over, we walked through the throngs of people back to our rickshaws which took us back to the hotel where we got in our van to go to a different hotel for a rooftop dinner. it was really nice on the rooftop, but we couldn't really see anything because there weren't very many lights in the city. after dinner, we headed back to the hotel for an extremely necessary shower and bed time.

meeting time in the lobby the next day was 5:15am. so unnecessary, especially when we were up pretty late the night before celebrating the fact that we were in india! so we all got into our bus again which took us back to the ganges river so we could witness the locals morning bathing. sounds creepy and a little perverted, but bathing in the ganges river is one of the most sacred rituals in the world. 5 people from our trip got in the river. though bathing in the ganges is on my sas bucketlist, i couldn't bring myself to do it. mostly because women can't just strip down and go in like the men can... we have to be fully clothed. so that meant walking around in wet clothes all day, which wasn't ideal. plus i was wearing my favorite shirt. and side note, the ganges river has 500 times the legal amount of fecal matter in it. so all those things combined kept me in the boat while some of the others went and got their sins cleansed. but it was a pretty crazy experience seeing them go in, even though i didn't. while we were there the boat driver also took us to see the two crematoriums that are on the river banks which was crazy too. then we got off the boat and walked to the golden temple, also known as the monkey temple because there were SO many monkeys everywhere. that is one of the holiest places in the city, which was really cool. then we also saw the bharat mata (also called the mother india temple) and we drove through the benares hindu university which was really interesting to see. definitely did not look anything like usd. we got back to the hotel around 9am where we ate breakfast and were allowed to nap until we had to meet back in the lobby at 12:30. we all got back in the van and headed to sarnath. but first we stopped at this restaurant called brownies for lunch. after that, we drove to sarnath which is considered the birth place of buddhism. it's where buddha revealed his doctrine and founded his monastic community. so we saw a temple there and the bodi tree where buddha gave his first lecture. like, i was literally standing under and touching the same tree that buddha gave his first lecture. are you kidding me!? after that we walked to the museum at sarnath that had carvings from the 3rd century bc through the 12th century ad. it was all really neat, then we went to the ruins and excavation site across the street where all the artifacts were found. it was a huge area where there were a bunch of excavated monasteries and this HUGE mound that we all sat and meditated in front of. it was so amazing sitting there knowing that buddha himself was there at one point too. sarnath is a main pilgrimage site for buddhists and even though i'm not buddhist myself, i could still appreciate the magnitude and importance of the place for other people. after sarnath we returned back to the hotel where we ate dinner. after dinner we went to a silk factory where we saw them making silks by hand. it was crazy to see because they still make it how they always did, which means it takes two men to make 3 centimeters a day of a design. such tedious work, but they had beautiful things for us to buy. it was really awesome to be able to see first hand a dying art before it ends and machines take over. after that we went to a carpet factory. chaman arranged for there to be a traditional dance for us there with traditional music. after the dance, they showed us some beautiful rugs. i wish i had a house to decorate to buy one, but i don't think i want to bring a genuine silk kashmir indian rug to mission beach for drunk bitches to puke all over. not sorry. this is what happens when diva 20 year olds go to india and can't buy a rug cus they don't even own a house yet. wah wah wah.  but after a while there we headed to the train station.

this time our train was delayed in a major way. our train was supposed to leave at like 10:30 but we didn't end up getting on the train until 2 in the morning. normal. this time i roomed with chad, ben, and andi... but when i woke up andi was gone and duggan was there. i don't really know what happened there, but it's okay. so obvs we got there a little later than planned, but we met our vans when we got there and skipped lunch to start sight-seeing right away. our first stop was the agra fort or red fort. on the way, duggan was the first one to spot the taj mahal for the first time which got everyone excited for the day despite how disgusting we all felt from not showering and overnighting in a train. but the agra fort was amazing. it's where the five mughal rulers lived and each built their own palaces. it was huge and we only got to see a quarter of it because the indian military still uses most of it. but we got to see a bunch of the palaces, including akbar the great's and shah jahan's who built the taj mahal (not by himself obvs). after a few hours seeing the fort we took our van to the taj mahal. honestly, no words can explain how amazing seeing the taj mahal in person is. yes, you can google image it and what not... but i don't think you can truly appreciate the magnitude and size of the taj (cus we're on a first name basis now, duh). chad, nick, duggan, ben, and i walked around the taj and the surrounding gardens together for the hour or so we had there. we didn't end up going in the taj because the line was seriously a billion people long. but it's okay because i heard that the inside was a huge let down. after seeing the sunset at the taj mahal (which was amazing because the taj changes colors with the changing light) we all booked it out of the taj grounds where we caught horse drawn rickshaws. imagine a romantic horse-drawn carriage ride through central park... then delete that image cus it was nothing like that. duggan, chad, nick, and i were together and the driver guy let duggan and i drive for a little bit which was so stressful cus like i said, traffic is such a mess. then we got to this local theatre to watch a play about why the taj mahal was built. the play was really awesome and a lot cooler than i thought. it was pretty much half a play and half a musical. i don't really know why they were singing and dancing cus it had nothing to do with the play, but it was really beautiful since they had really elaborate costumes. for those of you that don't know, shah jahan had the taj mahal built as a memorial to his wife who died giving birth to their 8th child. attention future husband, if i die before you... taj mahal part 2? i think yes. but the play was obviously for foreigners since the entire audience was white for the most part. and it was the first time i had to listen to a play with headphones in english which was pretty fun. after the play we headed to a marble factory where we got to see how they did the in-lay work at the taj mahal. it was really cool to see another dying art and shop around for a little. after that we went to the hotel for the first time to have dinner. i roomed with jordan again and we pretty much just showered and went straight to bed after dinner cus we were dirty and exhausted.

had to wake up early again the next day to meet in the lobby at 6:00. we all got in the vans to drive to mehtab bagh which is a huge 25 acre garden across the yamuna river from the taj mahal. it was the sight where shah jahan had planned to build the counterpart of the taj mahal for himself in black marble. though that would have been sick, i think it's more special that there is only one taj. and the views of the taj from the garden were amazing, especially because we were there at sunrise so we could again see the taj under changing light again. but we could only stay for a few pictures and stuff because we had to go back to the hotel to eat breakfast, check out, then start our drive back to delhi. it only took us like 4 hours which was much less than expected. we skipped lunch, and when we got to delhi we went straight to the bahai temple which was amazing. it was huge and in the shape of a lotus flower. i didn't really know much about the bahai faith before, but it seems really cool since anybody can be bahai regardless of what faith they are. so i could be catholic and bahai at the same time, which was really interesting because i'd never heard of anything like that before. so we spent like 15 minutes meditating there before we had to leave and go to another rug/gift shop place where chaman arranged for me to get hennaed. omg i was so happy. that was all i wanted out of india (okay, not really but kind of). i've never gotten henna before (not even at the del mar fair or anything) so it was really neat and it was like the real deal. so i got both my hands hennaed and it is SO gorgeous. but i'm already kind of over it and get confused when there's all this brown shit on my hands. after a bunch of us got hennaed we got back on the vans and drove past the india gate which separates old and new delhi. then we went to the presidential palace to take a few pictures. after that it was time to head to the airport to catch our flight back to chennai.

it was really sad having to leave chaman at the airport. he is honestly the most genuine man i've ever met in my life. i'll never forget india, and i have only chaman to thank for that. so thank you chaman for some of the most incredible experiences of my life. and thank you to danny, brando, michael, alex, duggan, chad, nick, ricky, ben, angela, andi, jordan, and maddie for an amazing 5 days in india. but back to the airport... we nearly missed our flight because it took us so long to say bye to chaman. literally we were the last people to get there. in india you have to be there like 45 minutes before your flight because you have to be bused to where your plane is on the tarmac to get on the plane from there. a little stressful but when we got on the plane it was a party because there were a billion sas kids on it. it's always fun getting together after ports to talk about what we all did. so we landed in chennai after about 2 hours and met mr. rhoda to take our vans back to the ship. so nice being back on the ship, breathing fresh air, taking a shower, reuniting with brewer, and sleeping in my bed.

then today i told brewer not to wake me up because i needed to sleep after a long first five days in india. but i realized today was our last day so i told her we would def get up and leave the ship. so we got up around 10:30 then laid in bed reading emails and stuff, then went and got lunch. i got a caeser salad from the pool deck because after 5 days of strictly indian food all i want is fruit and salad. then we came back to our cabin, got ready, and took an auto to spencer's. an auto is basically one of those three wheeled motorcycles with the exterior of a car on it. pretty stressful, but a little more safe than a cycle rickshaw. spencer's is a local mall. but not like an american mall. imagine horton plaza, but wayyy more confusing. i can't get my way around utc, how do you expect me to get around india's horton plaza?! there were random alleys and three different buildings with like 5 floors of mazes of hallways. stressful. but we did a little shopping for a few hours. oh and NEWS FLASH brewer got her nose pierced. cus what's more sanitary than a sketchy mall in the middle of chennai, india? and clearly i'm not going to talk her down cus i'm a good friend, duh. but it looks really good, so no worries there. but a ton of people got it done and it looks really bad on a lot of people. kind of waiting for these people's noses to start falling off. and deep breath family, i did not get mine done. that was a high school wish that never came true, and now i feel too old to do stupid shit like that. it's called maturity people. then we headed back to the ship where we showered again, got some dinner, and face-to-face checks with customs again.

india was seriously amazing. i had some of the most spiritual and overwhelming experiences of my life here. this week is something i won't be forgetting in a very long time. one thing i could forget about though is the smell. i wish you guys could scratch-n-sniff my pictures or something, because you can't truly experience india until you experience the smell. a mixture of smog, raw sewage, cow, body odor, street food, and lots of other things i don't want to know about. i got black lung from it, pretty sure. but, when in india...

they just announced code blue over the intercom which apparently means medical emergency so brew and i are going to go investigate. over and out.

jai ho

Sunday, October 9, 2011 (11:46pm) - Indian Ocean

india tomorrow! i'll be in india from october 10-15 and won't be on the ship so don't worry about me being dead or something if i don't respond to emails for a while. currently watching the logistical preport on tv from our room and i'm so stressed out and we're not even there yet. dr. phil (yes, that's really our shipboard doctor's name) just got on and told us that after a week in india, studies show 25% of the group will be sick. based on that, about 150 people will get sick. um, WHAT!? our green sheet basically said "remember what we told you not to do in the past ports... REALLY don't do it in india." so water/ice, fruits and vegetables... basically anything fun and socially acceptable in america are off limits. yayyy. and i've heard from past voyagers that we basically just throw our shoes away after india. yeah sure, whatever you guys say. then, three days ago the crew began taping cardboard and syran wraping the ENTIRE ship. why? we're SO dirty when we get back on the ship that they have to replace the carpet because they can't get it clean enough. if that's not a huge, giant red flag i don't know what is!?

also, who knew we could get crazier than american tsa!? turns out when flying on domestic flights in india, you can't take any liquids, gels, etc. of any size. so that means no toothpaste, shampoo/conditioner, etc... for FIVE DAYS!!!! again, i'm from america... the land of hygiene. no wonder it smells so bad in india (or so i'm told). but don't you fret, i emailed our tour guide and was like "under no circumstances am i going five days without toothpaste and proper shampoo... so we're going to need to figure something out here. because i'm a diva.

in other news, i got my eyebrows done today. that was another fun time. pretty sure my eyebrow lady is going to slap me right across the face when i get home, but that's okay. i feel so pretty when i get my eyebrows done. and i figure if i'm going to be crying in the corner trying not to die in india for five days, i might as well feel pretty.

okay well, india ready or not, here i come!

xoxo

30 more minutes

Saturday, October 8, 2011 (10:59pm) - Indian Ocean

agh midterms suck! had two midterms today (ethics and the making of us foreign policy and then global music). tomorrow i have gender and development... then after india i have international organizations. taking five classes sucks! everybody else i know is chillin... but it's okay cus i'll be able to laugh at them when they have to take real classes senior year and i won't. but for now, sleep deprivation is killing me! and the lack of distractions. no facebook to lurk for fifty hours or keeping up with the kardashians to keep me busy. but brew & i discovered (with will's help) all the games that people have begun putting on the public folder. so now in addition to playing angry birds all the time, i can play bubble. tomorrow i plan on downloading mario kart. the pre-teen boy in me is so happy.

we're two days out of india. we had cultural preport earlier tonight and it's basically the same stuff every time... but i was seriously drooling at the pictures of the food. so excited for some spicy curry and anything else they want to throw at me. and india is in the middle of their festival season while we're there so it should be a fun atmosphere. but india seems like a pretty stressful place. what i mean is that there are a lot of people and not a lot of order it seems like. might be another one of those places where i just have to hold on and hope i don't die haha. but really. at the same time i'm really excited for india. for whatever reason, i've spent a lot of time studying india in school... so it'll be cool to actually be there and see everything for myself. i want to eat yummy food, get henna'd EVERYWHERE, see the taj mahal, and not die. best game plan ever.

i think this is our last big stretch of being on the ship until we sail from japan to hawaii next month. i think it's pretty much just 2 or 3 days between ports from here on out. it's going to be really hectic and i have no idea how we're going to manage "school." but that's okay with me. need to start figuring out what we're doing in malaysia, vietnam, and japan. it seemed like we had so much time to figure everything out, but now all those countries are right around the corner. normal, right?

other random stuff... remember my earlier blob about our ghost friend marcus? well marcus sucks these days... brew and i have searched high and low for one of our bags of goldfish. it is gone, and i could not be more sad. i mean, there aren't really very many places for it to be hiding. it might be in our nook... but i can't tell cus there is so much shit in there... but i definitely looked in there like fifty times. wahhhh.

and last night brewer and i went to an explorer seminar that was a q&a with the senior shipboard officers. explorer seminars are usually every night we're sailing and can be about anything. for example, tonight is bollywood dancing. anyways, the q&a was really fun and very informative. did you know that the budget for gas for this voyage is over $4 million!? that's outrageous. anddd the ship consumes on average 28 pounds of peanut butter a day!! and don't worry family, the captain does not have the authority to marry anybody on the ship. sad day.

guess who moves clocks forward again? BUT this time only 30 MINUTES. so weird, right? how is that even possible?? and why aren't we doing this every time? i wouldn't hate changing the clocks so much if we only did it half an hour at a time. so tomorrow we'll be 12.5 hours ahead of san diego. which got me thinking... why didn't we do this voyage the other way. like we should be sailing west, not east. that way i'd be gaining hours of sleep everyday. i can't be the first person to have figured this out... come on semester at sea. you can do better.

okay bed time. signing out from cabin 3011. xoxo.

travel warning - WORLDWIDE

Thursday, October 6, 2011 (10:16pm) - Indian Ocean

i have very few actual contributions to this blob, but i have some random things to tell you so bare with me. first off, my new favorite website is the state department website. yes, i'm a big polisci nerd. but what do you expect when we have like 10 free websites to play on and facebook isn't one of them?! anyways, i just got brewer hooked too... so game on. my favorite game is to look up these countries we're going to and look at the passport restrictions. but i just started reading all the travel warnings and stuff. normally the state department issues travel warnings for places after natural disasters or terrorist attacks or something. but they're limited to a single state... oh but wait. the latest travel warning out is WORLDWIDE. they can't do that! the gist of that one is "we just killed a bunch of important al-qaedas... so they hate us, don't leave your house." um. okayyy. the travel warning for japan that recently expired was about to keep us from stopping in japan... now what do we do about a worldwide travel warning? that's not even real.

in other news, we move our clocks ahead again tonight. that'll be 12 hours ahead. doesn't even seem real. wait until i'm like a day ahead of you all, that'll be fun.

i don't know what else to tell you all. except that i have a bunch of midterms to study for right now. my hands are cramping from typing so much, which is lovely. oh and brew & i have been rationing our snack supply. but since we're in the indian ocean now i okay'd opening one of our bags of dark chocolate covered pomegranates. best decision ever! we still have a couple boxes of tiger milk bars, two bags of gold fish, mangoes, candy corn, and two bags of pomegranates. we're doing good so far!

alright, i think that's all i got today. byeee!

this is the way i live

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 (10:22pm) - Indian Ocean

hi friends! today was sea olympics aboard the mv explorer. that means another "study day" that wasn't actually a study day. depressing. but, we are broken into "seas" based on what hall we live on in the ship. for example, i live on deck 3 forward starboard (so much nautical lingo, i know) so i'm in the yellow sea! so we had to come up with yellow sea cheers, make a yellow sea banner, and dress in yellow. it kind of reminded me of the first day of spring semester when every girl is wearing their given sorority shirt right after recruitment. because even if i don't know every girl wearing an AXO shirt, i do know we're sisters, so therefore we are friends. just like today... i don't know everyone in my hall, but if they were wearing anything yellow, we were besties today.

anyways... back to sea olympics, every sea puts teams together and competes in a bunch of different events. some events today included a backward spelling contest, popcorn eating contest, synchronized swimming contest, and musical chairs, just to name a few. to get points you had to place in the top 4 for each given event. i really wanted to participate in volleyball, but i'm still kinda sick so i didn't. but our team still did fairly well. maddy participated in the human knot/lap sitting contest. i have no idea what that even means, so ask her. looking at the scoreboard at the activities desk throughout today, it didn't look like we were doing very hot. i spent most of the day in bed again, trying to fully recover from this annoying cold because i have a lot to do this week. i wrote a couple papers and have one more to write before bed. so that means i didn't really watch a lot of the events. but i DID make it to dinner. why?? TACO NIGHTTTTT!!!!! not even good mexican food, but at this point any mexican food is good. AND they had chicken fajitas!!!! (last time they only had ground-beef... gross). so i was one happy girl. two chicken fajitas tacos, rice, beans, and like a plate of guacamole (again, not good... but i'll live). oh my goodness i was so happy.

then after dinner was the closing ceremonies (opening ceremonies were at 9am). all the seas sat in their designated area of the union. the "sea squirts" (dependent children) were awarded the neptune award (no idea what that means). they were really excited and it was really cute. then dean jill told us "i know you guys have all been waiting for news on cuba..." (edge of our seats!) and that as of the first week of october, SAS needed to come up with a plan-b since we still don't have the travel license that would allow us to go there. so we OFFICIALLY changed our port from cuba to... wait for it... GUATAMALA!!!!! what a tease that was. we were all on the edge of our seats ready to lose our shit when she said "we're going to cuba djfka;dj;ajd" but nooooo!!!! but if we do end up getting the travel license in time, then we will change it back to cuba... but as of now we will be going to guatamala. why haven't we received our travel license yet? first because of the lifelong learners. obama recently signed a bill allowing students to go to cuba... but technically lifelong learners aren't students. so that's an issue. and then dean jill told us that our travel license is stuck in the treasury. i didn't even know they had anything to do with it... but with the state of the economy, i guess a bunch of spoiled college students' cuban travel license might not be the top priority. though i don't understand why not. so guatamala it is for now. kind of bummed... cus i really wanted to be able to have said i had gone to cuba. but i guess i'll live. now i need to come up with a game plan for guatamala. i have no idea what there is to do there. i don't even know if we have guidebooks for it in the library. this is awkward. so... any suggestions out there? hit me up.

thennn after this piece of heartbreaking news, dave announced the winners of the sea olympics! out of 10 seas, we came in 4th!!! so that means we get to get off the ship fourth when we land in fort lauderdale! which is good, because i think my flight is at like 5:30ish pm... so if i got off at 8am i would be chillin in the airport all day. not fun.

and as for the title of this blob... the song "the way i live" by baby boy da prince (normalll) has been stuck in my head for like three weeks. i have no idea why... this song was cool sophomore year of high school maybe. but i can't help it. so i've been listening to it all day. this and desperado. haha i can't get that song out of my head either. what is wrong with me? speaking of songs though... on our news channel a few days ago there was an article listing the top 10 downloads on itunes... i knew 2 of them. i'm gonna come home and know NOTHING. so stressful.

well i need to go write another paper. why do they think i should be in school? but brewer and i just spent an hour trying to figure out our schedules for next semester which is my favorite game to play. looks like i'll be taking more awesome classes! so weird that i have to plan next semester where they think i should be in class 5 days a week. every week. where's my 8 day weekend in vietnam? wtf. haha okay well paper, shower, then bed for me. love you all!

i'm sorry baby, get in the water!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011 (7:02pm) - Port Louis, Mauritius

whoever said mauritius is the "spring break" of semester at sea is a dirty liar! clearly these people are NOT from usd... land of the TWO spring breaks. so this whole "one day" spring break is not gonna fly with me. mostly blaming it on all you past voyages that BLEW it for us! when sas first started stopping in mauritius in 2005, they stayed here for four days. now it's down to one because all you drunk bitches trashed the place so the government here will only allow us to stay here for a day. so thanks a lot for that! can't even call it a day... maybe 9 hours at most! but that still didn't stop me from having an absolutely FABULOUS time in mauritius!

so we had a little bit of an unconventional docking here in port louis. we actually arrived early yesterday evening. i figured out what was going on... a lifelong learner had a DETACHED RETINA!!! i didn't even know that was possible, but turns out it is. so we had to get here ultra fast so he could catch a flight to somewhere where he could find medical treatment. and after all my eye problems in high school, i have nothing but sympathy for this poor guy. so we docked last night, but because sas HATES us, we couldn't get off until this morning. at 6am. yeahhhh... no! so maddy and i got up and got breakfast around 8 (most important meal of the day... duhhh), then i had to come back to bed cus i didn't feel good at all. (i haven't had a cold in years, so this blows!). so we (maddy, michael, and i) got off the ship around 9:30. we took a water taxi for a whopping $2 a person to the city. we walked around for a little, stopped at a craft market and bought some jewelry, then got a taxi to go to the beach. real quick, for those of you who are having a hard time even finding mauritius on a map (don't feel bad, i don't think anyone in north america has even heard of this place), it's a small island off the east coast of africa in the indian ocean. caught up? good. so we took a taxi to trou aux beach. we were expecting it to be like a resort, where we could get lunch and a drink. turns out we were wrong, but it was one of the nicest beaches i've been to. the sand was like powdered sugar (i can't think of any other way to describe it). and it was SO warm! thank goodness. everyone knows all i really want out of life is skin cancer (okay, not really... but my level of happiness may or may not be directly proportional to my level of tan-ness... not sorry). so i was like, game on... let's lay out! so we did for a few hours, but my fair-skinned friends maddy & michael were like "yeahhh we're going to the shade." wimps. (they're so sunburned right now... jokes on them!). we spent some time in the water too, but it was a little cold for me so maddy was yelling "get in the water!!!!" at me and i was like "what is this, the notebook??" (google it, if you don't understand the reference. kinda makes me want to watch the movie right now, wah). so we decided that "get in the water" is going to be our new way of saying "pull yourself together" orrrr "fix your hair" for all of my AXO followers. i eventually did get in the water, so i can now say i've swimmed in the indian ocean. can you say that? probs not. anyways, so since my friends SUCK and get sunburned, i was like okayyy we can leave a little earlier. we had told our taxi to meet us at the beach at 3, but he came back around 1:30 to just hang out so michael went up and told him we'd probs leave around 2:15ish instead. thennn mr. taxi driver (yusef) goes "okay, but hold on"... then proceeds to pull out a bottle of rum and gives it to michael. everyone told me before mauritius that my only game plan should be to find the sugar cane rum that mauritius is famous for. everyone knows that if you put a trophy in front of me or give me a challenge, i'm going to win. now my prize is a bottle of rum!? game on. so michael was like "how much?"... then yusef said the best words a poor college kid could hear "no no, it's a gift from me, cus we're friends now." yes yusef, we are DEFINITELY friends now! so then we scrambled to find some coca-cola and the three of us DIVASSSS drank sugar cane rum and cokes while soaking in the rays in the indian ocean in mauritius. lyfe's roughhhh. once we finished the bottle (don't judge), yusef took us back to the waterfront. but not before we had to stop at the ralph lauren shop for maddy because turns out this is where the ralph lauren factory is. and if you know maddy, you know she was NOT about to pass up this opportunity. once we got back to the waterfront, we gave yusef any and all money we could find on our persons because he's the MAN! then we ran to get some food in us so we could maybe get on the gangway and not taken to the drunk tank since thankssss to all you previous voyagers, they were on the prowl for anyone who looked like they had a sip of alcohol. so we got some food (real chicken for once! i could've cried!!) then we hopped on another water taxi back to the ship. oh wait, biggest line EVER to get on the ship. it was about 5:30ish when we got back, on ship time is 6. and on ship time means you need to physically be on the ship, swiped in, and through security. in line doesn't count. so we were like "shit, we're gonna get dock time." (dock time means if you're late for on ship time, you have to come back early in the next port... i think if you're less than 15 minutes late you have to be back 2 hours early in the next port... sucks!). but by some miracle we got on the ship with a whopping 5 minutes to spare! maddy & i RAN to our room (but not before walking past the LINE of people heading to the drunk tank), showered, and are now in bed. it's 7-something. just one of those days.

overall assessment for mauritius is a win. pretty much just like any touristy-island. i think it's kind of like africa's hawaii... if that makes sense. this was our one port that we were like "culture... nah." so don't ask me about that... cus you know as much as me for the most part. wish we had more time to lazily lay on the beach, but i'll live. i'm all kinds of tan now, and that makes me one happy camper.

in other news, you know as a child when you would play in the sandbox and be like "i'm digging to china!"? (or was that just me?? awkward). well turns out, if you are in san diego right now and could actually figure out how to dig through the center of the earth, you would pop up pretty close to me right now. you would come out right near madagascar, which we sailed past a few days ago. so right now i'm as far away from home as i could possibly be. CRAZINESS!!!!

well, i miss and love you all. someone go watch the notebook for me.

"if you're a bird, i'm bird." ahhhh, breaks my heart. xoxo.