Sara's Adventures around the World!

Japan!

2006-04-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

Japan was 5 incredibly amazing days on the voyage. I was able to experience so many wonderful moments that it felt there was no way I did it all in 5 days, yet, I felt that I turned around and it was already time to re-board the ship. Japan is so many absolutely incredible things….Cherry Blossoms, nicest people, order, clean, breathtaking, cold, fresh, amazing, new, soar, strong, culture, honor, fashion, unique architecture, JR railways, expensive, prompt, safe, interesting, tatami mats, geishas, nature, peaceful, temples, vegetarian pleasures, lights, Kobe skyline, great friends, new ideas, bakery delights, chocolate, pachinko….

Kobe, which is where we docked, is much like a normal city you would find in the US, only that it is much cleaner, the buildings have more interesting architecture, and everything and I mean everything is on time. The train station in Kyoto looked like some sort of national exhibit more than a train station. It had to be more than 15 stories high, all very open, very slick and modern. The city is amazing at night, all the lights are bright and luminous. The railways, subways, buses, all forms of transportation are the most efficient in terms of tickets, timing, everything. If the train is set to leave at 1022 am, it will leave at 1022 am, not 1023 or 1021. It doesn’t really matter if you miss a particular train time, however, because there will surely be another train in about 5 minutes time. Its wonderful.

Japan is expensive. I did not buy one gift, one souvenir, I spent absolutely no money on anything superfluous; lodging, food, transportation and entrance fees put me over $300 for 5 days. Let me break that down a bit for you though so you truly understand how ridiculous that really is. First of all, I only stayed at a hotel one night, and it was only $22/night. I ate on the ship nearly every day 2 out of 3 meals or just grabbed little snacks. I only was at a restaurant 3 times the entire 5 days, all other meals were just snacks here and there. I had already purchased a rail pass for the 5 days, so I was only paying for the subways and a little tram to take us to the ship, as well as any local city buses to take us around. Entrance fees were at the most $4 per location. So where did all the stinken money go!? TRANSPORTATION!! Transportation was the biggest cost. The subways, trams, trains, buses were all $2-4 PER way, making you spend $30 or 40 a day just to get around. Everyone was complaining about how expensive Japan was. Despite the previous bitchfest above, it honestly wasn’t that expensive, not relatively anyways. Its more a matter that we have been to extremely poor countries where we can get a 40 minute taxi for $5 or $6 versus $50-60 in the states. Its expensive compared to the previous countries visited, but completely comparable to the United States. Unfortunately, they saved the most “expensive” country for our last port, where everyone is already short on funds, so it seemed 10 times worse.

Japan is clean and very orderly. I never saw trash on the ground, which was a bit ironic because also never saw garbage cans. Not only transportation, but in regards to where to walk on the street, how to order food, everything had method and reason.

Not speaking Japanese was hard at times, being that there were so few English signs. Id say 99% of signs and information you would need to read was in Japanese. Even in countries like India with 50 thousand more times in poverty, they had more English. You had to be extremely animated in your questions, and pray you have some sort of picture to show otherwise communication would be limited. It is overwhelming to be walking down the street and every single sign you see and person you hear speaking is in Japanese, something that might as well be… well, Japanese. That saying “it might as well have been in Japanese” I guess all of a sudden has new meaning to me now.

The Japanese all dress very well, no matter if its to go grocery shopping, to a temple, or to a club. They are always wearing their best clothes and acting a bit reserved. The Japanese are not loud, and tend to keep to themselves. On the trains and subways they rarely talk to each other, its more just sit and get to their location. It was so weird because you would be sitting there with your friends chatting about whatever, and then you look around and realize you are the only, and I mean only, people talking on the ENTIRE train. No one seemed to care nor get offended which was nice.

I couldn’t believe how high fashion everything was. Everyone walked around wearing all brand label stuff with their latest and greatest little technology gadgets and cool cell phones.

The Cherry blossoms were right at their peak when we arrived which made for spectacular scenery. They actually had a festival where they lighted up the parks and different temples to illuminate the blossoms beauty that was the exact week we arrived… finally something we are not too late or too early for. In all seriousness, I think I took 99% of my Japan pictures of the blossoms, maybe a few of Hiroshima, more of the blossoms, some of temples, but mostly the blossoms! It was hilarious because we would be walking down the street seeing all these important sites, saying “wow what history, these are beautiful.. OH WAIT! Look at those cherry blossoms! There AMAZING!!” click click click for 5 minutes then on to the next monument, again, reading about it, taking a few shots here and there, saying to each other how lucky we are to be in Japan and how grea… WAIT! Do you see that Cherry Blossom?! I think its even more beautiful than the 10,000 we saw in the past 20 minutes! They pretty much look the same, however, each time you come across one, no matter how frequent or infrequent they appear you have no choice but to stop and admire the beauty.

Japanese women are so nice, pleasant, shy and amazingly wonderful. They command a type of respect you can only imagine. Their voices are very quite and calm. This society is a society of respect, tradition, peace and happiness. I cant tell you how many times I heard my guy friends saying they were in love with the Japanese women, how they seemed to have cast a spell on them.

DAY 1 (Maris and I discover Kobe)
We cleared the ship around 1145 in the afternoon, and Maris and I were outta there at about 1146! We went to the train station to validate our train passes and to get to an internet café. The line for the train passes was ridiculously long, being that us and the other 500 SAS’ers all needed to do the same trail validation. We took one look at the long line, said screw this and were off to the internet café. The internet café was fairly expensive, $4 an hour. It served food, snacks, had a crapload of computers, but even more impressive were the comic books. They boasted they had more than 5,000 books inside the café. It was really fun to see all the locals come to read for a bit, drink coffee, or what have you. So you see, even in an internet café you can see culture!! (ok so that was my poor attempt to justify going to an internet café for like 3 hours as my first thing to do in Japan).
After the internet we went back to the train station, got our tickets validated, and walked around the city for a bit. It was raining and a bit overwhelming in the fact we couldn’t read any of the signs or buildings to get our bearings. We found a mall(of course, what girl cant find one of those)?! The fashion in Japan is incredible, its like a more fashionable New York city. I didn’t buy anything because the prices were the same in the states so there was no need in wasting my money. It was fun to people watch however. We found a few of the most amazing bakeries I have ever been to in the train station on our way back to the ship. Im talking pastries full of chocolate, fruits such as raspberries and blueberries, everything just made fresh and hot. I probably spent close to $30 on pastries in Japan if not more.

DAY 2(Hiroshima and the baseball game in Kobe)

We had an early night because we wanted to leave for Hiroshima early the next morning. I actually ended up running into Sherman(thanks to Nicks help), so he joined us for the day. Scott’s always so interesting, hes very energetic so if we were about to feel tired or bored, he would get us going again, which was fabulous because I felt I saw a lot more than I would have without him.

The bullet train was nearly 2 hours from Kobe to Hiroshima. It feels like its going a thousand miles an hour, its incredibly sleek and fast and efficient. It left exactly on time, I mean to the second. We sat down and were very impressed by how big the seats were and how far they reclined. Unfortunately one of the train employees came and informed us we were in the wrong seats. At first we were like hmm lets play dumb American foreigners and being that the Japanese are not very confrontational, maybe he would have just let us slide and sit there! Of course, we ended up switching seats. For the most part we slept the entire train ride as looking out the window going as fast as we were would have made us throw up.
When we arrived in Hiroshima we obtained a few maps and headed for the Atomic bomb sites. This was very exciting for me because it was something I had learned about in history classes for years yet never got to see first hand. In fact, most Americans never get to see Hiroshima and learn about the atrocities and Japanese perspective. I felt very lucky to be experiencing this wonderful opportunity.
We were in the Hiroshima museum for about 3 hours. I had no idea we would be there for so long. Normally I hate museums, and get extremely bored after about a half hour. This was an exception. I read all about the history of the bombing, saw tons of artifacts, and looked at many pictures throughout the museum with showed the atrocities and events. Im not really sure how to explain my experience at the museum. I went there in the hopes that I would learn about the bombing from the Japanese perspective, and that I would see and learn about the atrocities. It’s not that I am a sick human being and like to see pictures of dead people, but, I needed to see what horrible events had taken place in order to truly understand it. The war remnants museum did a great job of selling the message that what happened in Vietnam was horrible and should never be repeated. I thought if anything I would be more moved by the Hiroshima museum than the Vietnam war remnants. I learned more about Hiroshima in class and had always heard about the people burned on the steps and skin melting off their bones. It was the opposite though.
The Hiroshima museum was more for historical purposes than to show the results of the bomb. I felt like they ran out of things to say so just repeated time and time again. Instead of telling us the history and the scientific specifics over and over and over, they should have focused the majority about the people who were affected, the message the bomb was selling and what’s wrong with using this type of warefare, or any war at all for that matter. When you think of Hiroshima what is the first thing that comes to your mind????? Is it that the bomb was x by y in diameter?? Is it that it was dropped 600 meters above the ground??? No. You remember the pictures and stories about people’s skin being melted off their bones, about little children suddenly becoming orphans….you remember peoples bodies burned into the ground leaving only a faint shadow in the cement…..

Museums are about selling, you are selling an idea to the public. If used accurately, you can make people believe whatever you want. Its one of the most powerful and efficient ways to inform the public about an event and means of persuasion. I didn’t come out of the museum hating the US and hating war enough like I did in Vietnam. I felt horrible about what we did, don’t get me wrong, but I wanted to feel worse, I wanted the museum to explain to everyone how this cannot happen again. Anyways, I am definitely glad that we went and I am going to spread the information I learned to others the best way I can.

Oh one more thing.. at the end of the museum exhibit there were about 3 or 4 books with famous people such as politicians, athletes, celebrities, peace leaders, etc and their thoughts of the museum. When Maris, Scott and I were looking through the book, Scott pretty much knew every single person in it. He either had met them, worked with them, read their books or just heard a lot about them. He was in no way bragging and obviously should be proud of all he knows, but I couldn’t help but say to myself, “Sara, why the hell don’t I know who over half of these people are?” I was ashamed of myself for not knowing more about the world and the influential people in it. I have a responsibility to keep up with the important events in the world and Im not doing it. I made a vow right there and then to seek out these inspirational people, to watch more world news and to start caring more about what’s going on around me.

Ok so back to life.. We walked around Hiroshima looking at the monuments, statues and other parts related to the bomb. We also found this cute little path running along the river that was lined with Cherry Blossoms. We must have taken 100 shots just in that one area. All the Japanese had laid out tarps and were having picnics, it was so cute. The weather was perfect, the cherry blossoms were at their peak, it was just perfect.

We decided that the best way to end the night would be going to a baseball game back in Kobe. So, we quickly caught the next train, arrived at the stadium about 20 minutes late, and proceeded to spend the next 4 and a half hours watching Japanese baseball and cheering our heads off. The Japanese like baseball like the Brazilians like soccer… its just that serious and insane. The team we watched was not the main team so it was not as crazy a crowd, but it was still so awesome to see a professional baseball game in Japan, my FIRST professional baseball game!! I had so much fun with Scott and Maris. The food was amazing, we had crepes with ice-cream and bananas and things, chicken, fries. It was so funny because some of the food stands were your typical hot dogs, ice cream, etc, and some were like full restaurant types with rice, curry, chicken, it was hilarious and ironic. I was just so excited to be at a game, with the lights shining, all kinds of people around me, the ambiance of my first game and sharing it with good friends was perfect. Scott noticed that the locals started laughing and really enjoyed it when we got a bit louder cheering, so we decided to run with it.. literally..! I stole a little flag and proceeded to run up and down the stairs of the stadium screaming ahhhhhhHhhhHHH!!! It was hilarious, the Japanese went nuts, started screaming and laughing and cheering me on. Maris and I had so much fun getting the crowd all excited, especially these 3 little Japanese boys, everyone was so cute. I never would have done that back at home, so, however small of a feat that might seem, for me… it was another example of “always dancing”. I have not laughed so hard in such a long time. It was the first time in awhile I was just enjoying the moment, laughing, living life, and being 100% truly happy.

DAY 3 (KOBE)

This was a relax day. Nick and I had lunch, and decided to see what the wonderful city of Kobe had to offer. We found these mountain trails and decided to walk around and take in the beauty. It was raining a bit, but we didn’t let that deter us from a nice day. It was really great just having some time to chat and enjoy his company, it only took us 6 countries to have the time!! Anyways, it was really fun and a perfect rest day for the next 2 crazy days in port.

DAY 4 and 5 (Kyoto with Nick and Scott)

Spending the last two days in a port with my two good friends Nick and Scott was the perfect ending to an amazing 5 days in Japan. We headed for Kyoto via the amazing and incredibly efficient subway system, arriving in Kyoto around 1130. It was freeeeeeeeezing and I mean freezing, so we decided to run into the mall in the subway to warm up. We lost track of time and ended up running to catch a bus to a park where we were supposed to meet Scott. Kyoto was beautiful. There were cherry blossoms everywhere, all in full bloom and all absolutely gorgeous. I wish I knew more adjectives because I am just not describing Japan the way I saw it. Imagine just nature perfectly harmonized with the city, Japanese people so pleasant and beautiful and everything completely and utterly spotless. Respect is given and honor is maintained regardless of social stature or culture. We took a zillion pictures in Miyajima park, and people watched for awhile as well. Id rather spend time in nature such as parks and things rather than cities. I get my energy and happiness from just fresh air and beautiful scenery. I was incredibly happy and felt fulfilled just doing nothing but taking pictures and soaking up the sun and beauty.

We had lunch in this cute little place where food was ordered via a vending machine. It was so weird, you literally saw a small picture of the food, the price, and that was that. Put in some money, press the button that corresponded to what dish you wanted, and out prints a ticket. Give the ticket to the waiter…so efficient.  We tried to go to the Nijo castle but it was closed, so we decided to go get a hotel and freshen up. We really lucked out and were able to book a traditional Japanese hotel with tatami mats. It was amazing, amazing amazing amazing! We were all worried that it would be some silly place or it wouldn’t be a real Japanese house, I was very thankful we were wrong. It was this big room with a typical Japanese table, 2 tatami mats lying next to each other and traditional Japanese robes. The whole thing was so perfect.

We dropped off our stuff and headed back out to see two temples at night as we were told they would be illuminated for a festival in Japan. We walked around the Kiyomizu temple and went back to the park we were earlier in the day to see this ginormous cherry tree lit up, it was incredibly romantic and beautiful. We just kept saying wow, this is amazing, wow, look at those cherry blossoms, wow, wow wow!! I probably took 99% of my pictures of nature and about 1% on the buildings and people I was with. Afterwards, we found a little vegetarian restaurant that could literally only sit like 8 people. It basically was a kitchen in someone’s home. We had amazing vegetarian food and chatted for awhile. We of course had to make a pit stop to the internet café, where I had one of the most interesting bathroom experiences. The seat had controls on the side, I kid you not. You could have music played, there were two different features that sprayed water upwards to clean, you could have the seat warmed(which I found out the second I sat down), it was just so cool. I had to take a picture, man the Japanese know how to indulge. Technology in the bathroom, perfect idea.
On our way back to the hotel we stopped into a little convenience store next door and bought sake(famous Japanese drink), beer and some ice cream to top the night off. We just drank, told crazy stories and enjoyed our last night in port. Needless to say, we had a great time telling stories, making each other laugh and just relaxing. I really respect and admire both Scott and Nick, and felt lucky to spend the last days traveling with them. It was just funny to think that people could be out there doing amazing things, changing the world, be so intelligent, yet at the same time be dressed up in a Japanese robe stomping around and making bad jokes. It was perfect! We woke up early, went to see the golden temple and then Nick left and Scott and I had lunch in the park. We headed back to Kobe, I went to the internet and then met up with Valerie to see everyone get on the boat just in time. It was sad as we walked back on the ship knowing it was our last time getting back on from a port.

Overall thoughts-

Japan was perfect. I was with the people that matter most, I was doing fun things and had no particular plan which made everything I did seem that much more pleasant. The weather was perfect for us, nice and sunny and just very comfortable. Japan was a great country to end this amazing voyage with. After speaking with Valerie we both agree that we would rather teach English is Japan rather than China, and are now that much more excited for it!!

CHINA!!!

2006-04-09T15:56:00.000-07:00

Condensed version:

I had a great time in China. We were in Hong Kong for a day, and then left for a 4 day trip to Beijing which included The Great Wall, Forbidden Palace, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven, an acrobatic performance, and staying at a local university called Tsinghua. Everything was incredibly beautiful and just amazing overall. The Great Wall is in some of the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen—and I will DEFINITELY be returning. Tiananmen Square is ginormous, just amazing to think of all its history. We ate traditional food the entire time, stayed at a university and had the students take us around. I am seriously considering teaching English in China for a year, and it was great to have the opportunity to check out the country and its people before making a commitment. Hong Kong was AWESOME. Its all these skyscrapers, yet cute little streets and just lots of culture and wonderful people. Chinas amazing….. for more, read the full version. Miss and love you all!! See you in 3 weeks! HOLY CRAP!! Xoxox. Sara.

Full Version:

(DAY 1:Hong Kong)

Hong Kong is so beautiful, even though it’s a city, and probably the first port that was most close to what we are used to in the states. There are a lot of skyscrapers and western influence such as McDonalds and Skyscrapers. I couldn’t help noticing how clean, organized and just developed the city was. I have never seen such a clean city in my life, which is incredible when you think about how many people live in Hong Kong. Valerie and I were little travel buddies yet again. I am so lucky to have her as a friend, we love to do the same things, have the same opinions, its just so great. The weather was about 70 or so, just perfect. I was soooooooooo happy to finally be in weather that didn’t exhaust you and make you sweat to death. It was comfortable, which really made the whole experience that much more enjoyable. The people were friendly, but not as friendly as some of the other ports. The streets were filled with people and shops, just a great atmosphere. You never felt overwhelmed or stressed by the hustle and bustle, more excited and interested than anything. When arriving into port we saw every company logo you could imagine on all the tallest buildings. Epson, Samsung, Panasonic, Hitachi, Siemens, LG, AIG, Olympus, etc to name a few. We went from such poverty stricken places to built up Hong Kong, which, I kid you not, I did not see one single homeless person. The thing is, even though we went to many different cities in China, that only represents 30 percent of the population… 70% of the Chinese are farmers, and live in incredibly rural areas. So in that sense, I kind of wish we could have seen the “real” china so to speak, but I still had a great great time. There is a lot of smog in Hong Kong, but you cant really see it unless you are at a highpoint overlooking the city. It didn’t feel overcrowded despite the fact that millions live there.
We walked to a few gardens, had dinner, went to the highest point of the city on this tram that I swear was at a 45 degree angle. It was insane, I didn’t even want to think what would have happened if the breaks or something broke, we would have catapulted so fast down a steep mountain, surely to our death. We watched the sun go down and took some amazing night shots of the city. We then took the ferry back to the other island and had dinner in the middle of these amazing night markets. We bought a few things, went back to the ship and packed for our 4 day trip to Beijing that left at 6am the next morning. I loved Hong Kong, even though I was only there for a day, and I can’t wait to go back and visit again for a longer period of time.

Beijing trip day 2-5

Beijing is also very built up, but in a more ugly way I guess. There just seems to be a lot more construction everywhere which takes away from the beauty of the city, especially at all the tourist sites were visited. There is more traffic, its just more like a big city and I really don’t like those very much. I had a great trip, however, just didn’t think that the city was all that pretty.

First day in Beijing:
We took a early 3 hour flight and arrived in Beijing around 12 noon. We had lunch, took a nap, and then went for a campus tour with some university students. After, we had a welcome reception and had the night free. Everyone, including me, was totally exhausted and we just all called it an early night. The school was huge, I couldn’t believe how big the campus was. The students that took us around, Harold and Bell, were so sweet, they taught us a lot and were very welcoming. We ended up going to a bar with them the next night. Walking around the campus, with the weather very crisp and a bit chilly reminded me so much of UNH, I really for the first time started to miss home. I missed my own campus, I haven’t been there since last spring. I miss my friends and just the feeling of being on a campus. I cant wait to go back this fall.

Second day in Beijing:
We had breakfast and then headed for the Great Wall around 8am. Everyone was so excited and just kept their eyes peeled for the first sight of this amazing place. It was freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing, the second we got to the wall everyone bought cheesy “I climbed the Great Wall” sweatshirts, mittens, hats, anything and everything to keep warm. We had about an hour and a half to walk around, which in my opinion was a complete tease. How can you experience one of the most amazing structures in the world in an hour?! I quickly broke off from the group, hiked it up(its like 3 miles long, so obviously I only did a little bit of it). I found this little nook and separated myself by putting my headphones on so I could blast my classical music. I wanted to tune out all the vendors trying to sell things, and all the tourists blabbering. Probably one of the smartest things I’ve done. I was able to just sit there, stare out at the most amazing mountains I have ever seen in my entire life. The wall is so long and beautiful. You just sit there thinking how hard it must have been to construct, how many people died in its making, how many people have visited and what the structure means to everyone. I felt so lucky to be there and just talked to God for awhile about life and how privileged I felt to be experiencing all of this. There is an heir about the wall. It just feels so strong and powerful. Full of solitude and peace. I loved watching the people, old and young, every culture, religion, every everything just trying to see a part of this magnificent structure. I thought I saw some of the most beautiful mountains I had ever seen in South Africa, nope!! China is where its at. Holy crap were they huge, unique and just breathtaking. I am 100% most definitely returning to the wall, and going to walk a significant part of it, maybe even try and camp out or just do as much as I can to see and experience the wall. After the wall we had lunch and then went to the Yonghegong Lamasery temple. All our food was traditional Chinese meals, which made it really a cool experience. We only used Chopsticks and I made sure to try as hard as possible to eat everything I was given. Using chopsticks is damn hard let me tell you. My grandfather only uses chopsticks, and I now give him a lot more respect cause those things are damn hard. No wonder the Asians are so thin, by the time they actually get food in between those chopsticks they are full and never eat! The temple was HUGE. Everyone was praying, lighting inscents and bowing to show religious respect. Dinner was great, we had a Mongolian Hot Pot, which basically is this pot on top of a little fire that you cook your food in. It was really fun and interesting. I loved how even though this was an SAS trip and we were with a zillion other Americans doing very tourist things, we still were able to get a sense of the culture by eating like them and other facets throughout the trip. We went back to the university, freshened up and then had a “party” with the university students. This ended up being very interesting to say the least. They wanted us to play musical chairs and these other silly games. It was silly and we felt like we were in third grade, but it was their way of welcoming us and so we did not want to insult them. We played the games and listened to them sing and do a dance for us. Afterwards, they asked us to do some sort of talent for them. We all sort of stared at each other for a moment and then finally asked our trip leader Paddo (he’s about 35 40 years old) to sing the song he did for our talent show on the ship. Me and a few other girls stood up behind him and did the backup singing and dancing. It was so much fun, I had a good time and the students seemed to love it. We then invited the two students that gave us the tour to take us to a few bars and enjoy the night. We went to this bar lush where there were TONS of students, both from Beijing and other countries. I met an Italian guy that spoke Spanish.. I was so excited to be able to practice my Spanish. We talked in Spanish for about a half an hour, and then I left and went back to see my friends. We just had fun drinking, talking, listening the music and enjoying our time with the students. We got back to the university around 2am and went to sleep.

Third day in Beijing:

We left at 8am for Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City, and a lot of us were definitely hurting from the night before.
Some facts about Tian’anmen Square: One of the largest public squares all over the world. Its 880 meters from north to south and 550 meters from west to east. It can hold over half a million people. There are historical building that surround the square and its entrance to the Imperial City. Of course im sure you are all aware of that famous picture of the one student standing in front of the tanks fighting for liberation and peace in the square.
When we got to Tiananmen Square it started raining. At first it wasn’t that bad, it was really cold but the rain was pretty light. By the time we got to the Forbidden City it had turned to pouring rain, then pouring hail. It was insane, none of us were prepared for such temperature changes. For the past 75 days its been 80, 90 degrees at least everyday whether at sea or in port. Now, here we are in our shorts and new sweatshirts freezing our ASSES off in downpour hail. We all just tried to huddle and made the best of the situation. For some reason we started singing the 80s song “we built this city on rock and roll” at the top of our lungs. I got it on video, it was hilarious. The design of the city reflects the dignity of the royal court so they say. Over 24 emperors lived here over the course of history. In 491 years, the Forbidden City was the political center of China. It was gorgeous and I really enjoyed visiting it, despite the cold weather. Afterwards, we had lunch and then visited the Temple of Heaven. This place was HUGE. It was really beautiful. The temple is the place where the emperors worshiped heaven and prayed for good harvests. Its regarded as one of the greatest architectural structures in the world. In order to make the heavens-like structures, the designers made good use of color, sound, geometric figures of the circle and the square, and changes in height. It makes the buildings and gardens appear magical and mysterious. I sat in the gardens, again, by myself and listened to some music while I took in the experience and just relaxed. The times I was alone and without SAS’ers was the best times. I could actually take in all I was seeing and process it without having to hear stupid drunk stories or comments from everyone else.
After the Temple of Heaven we went to by far the best market I have ever been to in my life. It was 6 floors of vendors selling everything, and I mean everything. They had designer clothes, bags, jackets, backpacks, everything you can imagine for like $5. You had to bargain your ass off though that’s for sure. They were pulling on your clothes, standing in front of the hall you couldn’t get out of their shop, yelling at you, but trust me, it was worth the haggling. They would start at 800 or 600 and we got them down to 50 or 60 Yen. It was incredible. You had to walk away at least 3 times and keep your whit’s about you, but you got the price you wanted or you went next door and bought it for 10 times cheaper. I got a lot of presents and things for myself, it was so much fun. I could have stayed there another 3 hours. It was so funny getting on the bus and seeing everything in their north face jackets, fur hats and Coach knockoff bags. We went to an Acrobatic Show, which I had never seen before. Wow are those people flexible and talented. I couldn’t even believe it. The one girl was about 15 feet in the air, balancing her entire body with one arm on this little wooden block about 6 square inches, for like 5 minutes!! I had all I could do just to keep my arm up that long videotaping her, and there she is balancing and moving her body on this toothpick for god sakes—it was impressive to say the least that’s for sure. Called it a night after the show.

Fourth day in Beijing:
This was our last day in Beijing. After breakfast we headed for the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is one of the four most famous Chinese ancient gardens. Its on a beautiful lake and has all kinds of structures, bridges and pretty spots to relax and enjoy the day. I was feeling very sick due to the extreme weather changes and my cold I already had. I laid down on the grass and people watched again. We then had lunch and headed back to the market because so many people wanted to buy more things. We then took off for our 1 hour flight to Qingdao, where our boat was docked. Our boat ported in Hong Kong for 2 days, left for 2 days and arrived in Qingdao where it was docked for 2 days. Only 100 people were on the ship, the majority of the people took SAS trips and were in Beijing through the transition from one china port to the next. This was the first time we arrived to another port by plane, and not boat. It was crazy arriving to a place you had not been briefed on and had no idea what was going on. A few of my friends and I had the bright idea of getting a cab to the port, because we knew there would be about 300 people arriving with the busses that would have to go through security. We wanted to be first so we wouldn’t have to wait in line and could just go right up to the ship. Well, we did end up getting to the port before the busses, unfortunately however, the cab was not allowed to go through the gates so we watched all 5 buses drive past us and make it to the boat before us. We had to walk 15 minutes to the bus with allll of our shit, and arrive behind everyone we were making fun of for taking the bus. Who was the idiot then?! Man were we pissed, we were so close we just had to laugh. We ended up being last in line and waited an hour last night to clear security. Oh well, it was a good idea to begin with, just ended shitty. Just imagine our faces when we saw all 5 buses pass us, knowing we would be last and would have to walk all that way with all our crap. I couldn’t stop laughing I was so angry but yet kept humor for the situation. We were back on the ship around 915 at night, had pizza and I chatted with Valerie on how our trips were and made plans for our final day in China.

Last day in China, in Qingdao:
This day was just for errands basically. I got my Japanese rail pass, we did a bit more shopping because Valerie wasn’t able to buy some things, and then spent a few hours in the internet café so I could look up housing, internships, etc. We ended up being very late and arrived back at the ship around 830, only 30 minutes before on ship time. Normally the hour before you have to be back on the ship, there is a huge line of drunk people all waiting to board the ship. If you arrive even a few minutes after on ship time(which was 9pm) you got something called “dock time”. Normally this is a few hours in which you are required to stay on the ship while everyone else gets off the first day. Luckily, there was not a big line and we made it in time. We had some food at the pool deck, hung out, and went to bed.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:
China was fun, but very touristy. It was one of the ports in which I really did feel like I was separated from experiencing the country. We were always in the city, in the rich hotels, never in the country and not really getting fully immersed. I wish I could have done it on my own, and am definitely going to recommend to future students that they do it independently. Im not too upset however, because Valerie and I are going to teach here in 2 years so I will be able to really experiencing everything then. We are all getting a bit tired of traveling. It takes a lot out of you touring around 24/7. You want to see as much as you can, but your exhausted and each temple begins to look the same, each mountain the same. When we are on the ship were frantically trying to do all our work, and while in port were trying to visit everything we can, so we rarely get sleep and are always go go go. I know I am so lucky and would do Semester at Sea over in a second, im just saying at times it can get to you and you need a break. It doesn’t help me that I was just in another country last semester, so Im just traveled out. It will be nice to be in one place for awhile once I get home.

WRAP UP:
Japan is in 2 days, and we stay for 5. I am going to try and see Hiroshima, Kyoto, Osaka, and a few other places. Im really excited, I hear Japan is awesome. I cant believe the trip is nearly over. I don’t want to go back!!! Its going to be hard leaving my friends here, especially Valerie, Maris and Nick. I guess I should be used to this after all the moving and traveling I’ve already done though! I miss and love all of you guys, take care and write me on what you are all up to!

Vietnam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-04-03T01:10:00.000-07:00

Vietnam description:

How to describe Vietnam. Most people think of the war when they think Vietnam. Does anyone know the capital, what there major exports are? I certainly don’t. I can tell you without hesitation that Vietnam is absolutely more than just a war, just a bad memory. Vietnam is beautiful, pleasant, inviting, warm, caring, special, hot, its so amazing. The weather is very tropical, especially during the time we were there as it was the summer season. It must have been at least 95 degrees. I was a little sweat ball for 5 days, but it was worth it!! I never got heat exhaustion until Vietnam. I also have not felt more welcome in a place than in Vietnam.

75% of the people who live here are under the age of 30, so they have no memory of the war and thus no hatred towards Americans. It was not their generation, but rather their parents generation that experienced everything. I was a little hesitant of how we would be received by the Vietnamese. I was afraid they would hate Americans, that they would hold a grudge to a generation in which had nothing to do with the war. Luckily, most of the people in the city were the same age as us, and had no bad feelings toward us at all which was a great relief.

Vietnam is clean, busy, the traffic is the most insane thing I’ve ever experienced, I think worse than India. People smile at you and wave, so eager to help and befriend you. It’s a busy place, but you don’t feel overwhelmed or like you are in the middle of this raging city. It still seems to maintain its innocence despite the overwhelming population on mopeds and such things to distract you. I didn’t see that many tourists, or at least that many recognizable tourists, we seemed to be the majority there.

The traffic was the most insane part about Vietnam. I cannot even begin to explain what it was like. In pre-port they tried to warn us, but I could never have been as prepared for what I was about to see. The streets are filled, and I mean filled with mopeds, bikes, motorcycles, its craziness. They are everywhere, going in all different directions. One way street has no meaning, along with traffic signals, signs, no traffic rules are followed other than the one where it is secretly written that everyone drives like maniacs. You basically need to forget everything you were taught when you approach the street. You can forget looking both ways, there’s ongoing traffic, it never stops so waiting to cross is just impossible. So, basically, you look, say oh my god I’m going to die, step off the curb and proceed in a forward moving direction trying your damnest not to look at the zillion motorcycles and cars racing towards you. As you cross you are brushed with the vehicles at a million miles an hour and you just pray to god to cross alive. 45 people a month die in the city from getting hit while crossing the street, its that bad. Your heart races 1000 miles an hour, its actually kinda invigorating, that is if you can survive it. My teacher friend was nearly hit, and a few kids who rode the bikes for taxi purposes actually got into accidents, and one girl was thrown 20 feet off, she’s ok just badly bruised.

I didn’t see as many poor people at all as in the other countries. The poor do not line the streets, and you don’t see half as many beggars. The market is much more intense though, the sellers grab you and literally pull you side to side fighting over which one will get your attention so they can try and sell you clothes, trinkets and such. Its overwhelming, but eventually they get the point if your interested or not. Taxis, clothes, massages etc were muuuch cheaper than in the other countries and the US, but restaurants were equal price. The food is soooooooooo good ohmygod. I ate out as much as I could, probably spent most of my money on eating out than anything else. People said they spent the most in this port, I think I spent the least. I wasn’t really into buying a thousand north face backpacks, even if they were $5.00 each. I have one, don’t really need it. Polos and stuff were also only like 3 bucks, but again no point in getting a zillion of the same shirts. So I bought a few gifts and things for myself, and called it a day. I want to save my money for China and Japan.

Everyone wears pants, never shorts. Women do not seem repressed at all, they all wear what they want and seem to voice their opinion and have a lot of the same rights. They wear bandanas or scarf’s over their faces just leaving their eyes open, not because of their religion or because the are trying to cover up, they wear them to avoid the pollution while driving their mopeds around. You also will see the women wearing those pointy triangular hats on their heads to prevent the sun.

Ok, so now that you know a little about the general culture and overall description of the country, or at least the city I stayed in, I will now begin talking about what I did for those 5 days in Vietnam. Enjoy!

Day 1(Sunday- War remnants, general day 1 stuff):

On the first day Valerie, Scott Sherman and I went out around the town to see the sights and do some desperately needed internet work. I was really excited because this was the first time I was going to be going out with Scott and we would be able to talk about all the things I had been waiting to discuss for so long. It was steaming out, we were all soaking wet with sweat, but at least in this port we were able to wear shorts and tank tops without worrying about offending the public. We left late morning taking the bus to the center of town, which was only really like 5 minutes away. We found a great internet café about 5 minutes from where the shuttle bus dropped us off and we were there for about 3 hours. I know it seems like a lot, but when you have no internet on the ship and your trying to find housing, a job, etc you really need that time. Finally we left and decided to go see some sights. We ended up meeting with a few more SAS kids, and went to the war remnants museum. This was a place where you could learn about the Vietnam War through the eyes of the Vietnamese. It was incredible to see the techniques, thoughts, and experiences from the other side.
At the war museum we found a teacher who was in the Vietnam war as a professional photographer for Time magazine and such things. He spoke to us a few times before arriving in port about his experiences, often times getting choked up. At one point he nearly lost it while giving a presentation in our global studies class, he started tearing, and we all started clapping for him in respect and appreciation of what he had done and seen, his friends lost, and to help him get through that momentary lapse of hurt. It was an incredibly moving moment in class. When we saw him at the museum, we immediately latched onto him and asked to walk around to learn from an actual patrons eyes. He was on an SAS trip there, and yet, out of all the people, maybe 30, that were there on the same trip, not one person thought to walk around with him. We saw him and the first thing we did was latch right on. It really made the experience that much more fulfilling and educational to hear it first hand. I expected him to be very emotional, and not be able to handle going back. Of course I have no idea what was going through his house as he walked through, but I felt honored to be going through the museum with him, and I just tried to show my respect and attention the entire time. He explained the bombs, the planes, the strategies, and the atrocities. When we got into the section which had pictures about the atrocities, that’s when he started to become a bit overwhelmed. He still maintained composure, but there was a moment when everyone but me left to see the next picture, and I watched him just looking into the picture of some children burned, and he shook his head, turned to me, both of us with tears in our eyes, and he said, “I just cant do this, I cant do this”. He walked on to the next part of the museum and continued the mini tour he was leading with our 3 person group. I was really lucky to have seen and experienced that moment with him, and I wish I could have done something to make him feel better.

After the museum, we walked around and went to another tourist site. We got a bit lost, and Scott and I started having conversations about the ship,and life in general. It was so nice to have a good discussion with him. We ended up getting a bit lost, and came upon the back of this big stage where people were working on creating a show. I wanted to go on stage but was afraid of getting in trouble. However, I quickly thought to myself, hey, “always dance”, and ran up the back steps up onto the stage, where Scott and Valerie quickly followed. I was scared of getting in trouble, of course, but realized, hey, there not going to arrest me, just do it! I know it seems like no big deal, but it was a good step for me, to break out from doing all the things I’m supposed to do. We got on stage, and noticed their was a big festival going on in front of us and they were setting up for it. We talked to the stage workers, sat around for awhile, and then took off. Valerie and I went back to the internet café, ended up staying until 10pm, and then came back to the ship. I hung out with Nick, since he had dock time the first day and could not go out. It was a great first day.

Day 2 (Monday- shopping, lunch, more shopping, dinner):

Day 2 was really fun, shopping always is!! We had breakfast and then headed out to the market, which is one of the biggest I have been to probably since London. It was this huge warehouse where everyone had their little stands selling everything from peanuts to DVDs. I suggested we separate so that we could get what we wanted and not be bombarded with people trying to sell us everything, as what often happens with so many people in a group. I ended up buying like 1/3 as much stuff as my friends. I got a few gifts for my grandfather, which I’m really excited because I know how much he loves Asian things. I also got my best friend Julie something which I cant wait to give, so shopping really made me happy that day because I was finally getting the gifts I had been waiting forever to get. I got a few things for myself, didn’t spend more than $5 on anything(things are DIRT CHEAP in Vietnam). I of course bargained my butt off, which is so fun. I ended up getting a bit of heat exhaustion, and had to leave early. It got so bad that I actually sort of blacked out and don’t remember a lot of the market what so ever. We had lunch, continued shopping till about 7pm if you can believe that. A whole lot of shopping I know. They wanted dresses to be tailored so we went into every store in the entire city I swear. Valerie and I finally had enough, and told them we were going to separate and do our own thing. We ended up finding a cute little restaurant and ate dinner for a few hours. Our waiter was studying at college just like us, and wanted to go to America to continue studying. We talked to him about Vietnam, what it was like for him, what his dreams were, it was a great conversation with a local. We got back to the ship around 11pm and called it a night.

Day 3 (Tuesday- Mekong Delta, Cu Chi Tunnels, bars):

The Mekong Delta and Cu Chi Tunnels were amazing!!! Maris, Melissa, Valerie, Nick and I hired a private van and tour guide to take us to the two sites for our private day tour. It was so nice to have our own bus and guide, not having to be with a bunch of tourists and be in a much smaller group. It was a two hour bus ride out to the delta. We then were transferred to a little boat which took us to a few different islands for the first half the day. The delta was like a river, with little fishing boats and people who actually live right on the water. The first little island we walked around on, we held a bee tank, a python and drank snakes wine. Again, I just tried to live on the motto “always dance” and did as much as I could despite being afraid. The bees were a bit difficult, my mother would have freaked out if she was there. Zillions of bees flying around us, it was insane. Afterwards, we had some honey and food. We then held a python, which everyone did except Maris. I actually had a mini anxiety attack. I thought I would be ok, but the second I started touching the snake I freaked out, started breathing extremely heavy and tears just came pouring out of my eyes unable to stop them. I wasn’t even prepared for how I reacted. I felt like such a baby, but that damn snake just scared the crap out of me. After I pulled it together, I let the snake be on me for probably 10 seconds, then got the hell out of there as soon as possible. We then opened a wine jar with a few dead snakes, and I took a shot with Maris and Nick. Melissa and Valerie did not want to try the wine. It was so disgusting, but I had to do it. I was very proud of myself despite my little heart attack with the snake!!

We then had some more food and a few locals played some music for us. Nick tried out some of the instruments they were playing. We then went to a place where they made caramel, it was so cool. I bought a few gifts and then we proceeded back to the boat to go through a little tiny river inside the river. This was the true Mekong Delta experience. We were in these incredibly tiny boats with just a woman at the front using a tiny oar to row us through. The water was very low, and the river only maybe 5 feet wide. It was really really cool. I of course have it on videotape. Once we got out of the little area, we switched to another boat and went to the final island. There we had some lunch and took in the areas views. We left the Delta and headed for another 3 hour drive to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

It was really difficult going in and out of AC, doing all those vehicles and walking, I became motion sick and got heat exhaustion, yet again. When we got to the tunnels I thought I would be ok, but only got 5 minutes into the tour and had to run back before I threw up. I was so upset that I had to miss the tunnels, but I was too drained and sick to continue on. So the rest of my friends went through and about an hour later came back and we took off for the ship. It was a great day despite the end. We had dinner, took a nap, and then went out to a few bars for some drinks. Valerie and I didn’t want to be with all the SASers, so we left early and called it a night.

I am so incredibly lucky to have a friend like Valerie. We are always on the same page, like to do the same things, and have goals for life. I always end up finding one person when I go abroad that really is a true friend. In London I found Elissa. In Spain I found Jenna, and here I have Valerie. So a quick thank you to god for all of them.
Day 4 (Wednesday-Service visit. Dinner with Valerie):

Wednesday I had a service visit from 1-530. We went to a deaf school and then an orphanage. I was a little bit worried about how we would be able to communicate with deaf Vietnamese children. I soon realized that smiles and laughter are universal. We began playing games and just trying to make them smile and enjoy our time there. After the deaf school, we visited a severely handicap orphanage. They took us through the facilities and talked a bit about the program and its history. When we walked through the rooms, most of the SASers didn’t know what to do, being that these kids were very badly handicap. They just sort of stood there and looked with blank stares. I decided to walk in the rooms, and just touch each kid on the arm, head, just show them any affection and bring any smile I could to them. They might have no idea what’s going on, but everyone understands affection. It was extremely difficult to see so many children with such disabilities, but I tried my best to be as positive and upbeat as possible. There was one child that when I went over to see him noticed he had a tear in his eye. I knelt down so we would be on the same level, and he turned his face and looked me straight in the eye. His stare was so powerful. We connected, I know it. I just stared back, gently rubbing his hair and his arm. He seemed in so much pain, and I did whatever I could to help. I immediately teared up but kept it together for him. I have not had such an intense moment for a very long time. People must have thought I was nuts just staring at this little boy, but we were experiencing something far beyond what they were comprehending. I gave him a kiss on the head and left the room.

Valerie and I had dinner at this nice restaurant at the top of the Rex hotel. It was the top floor which was completely open, and a live band was playing. We ordered food and a cocktail and just chatted about Vietnam, life, our goals, everything. I absolutely love our chats, there so fun. It was a perfect night. I just sat there thinking how incredibly lucky I am to be on this voyage, how lucky I am to have my family and how lucky I am to have met Valerie and Nick, my two good friends on this ship.

Day 5 (Thursday- Service visit, internet, bit more shopping, back on ship):

On our last day I had a service visit in the morning at an elementary school. There were 1,000 students, 46 classrooms, about 40 per room and something like 175 teachers. We walked around and checked out all the facilities, got to go into many different classrooms and interact with the students. We taught them the song “I’m a little teapot” and “hokey pokey”. They really enjoyed singing and dancing with us. The facilities were very nice, they all had air conditioning, they even had some computer classrooms. I enjoyed visiting the school because I do want to teach at some point in my life, and I want to teach English in a foreign language which was what they were learning, so it was good to see how I would be able to interact with them. It made me even more excited about teaching, the kids were so nice and excited about learning.

I went back to the ship, Val and I had lunch, and then we went back out for some last minute shopping and internet. We left the next morning at 6am and are now at sea with two more days to go till Hong Kong!!

Special Questions of the Day

2006-03-20T08:32:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to put a little fun in between all these dramatic blogs of mine. Enjoy!!

SPECIAL QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.

The assistant dean, Tom, AKA “the voice” gets on the speaker system every day to give us general info. This mans hilarious, he is so damn monitored when he does jokes and it makes it 10,000 times funnier. We all love it when he comes on the loud speaker or gives presentations on during pre-port because we know there’s going to be wicked funny. He started reporting these questions whenever he hears one or if someone submits it to him.

Quoted from Tom:
“And now for the special question of the day, now remember, these are not stupid questions, just special questions”. We sometimes think they are made up there that stupid, but, unfortunately there 100% real. Enjoy!

- “when were in China and we want to eat Chinese food, do we just ask for food?”
- (the gangway is usually on the 2nd deck, but depending on the port its on the 5th deck during low tide...) “If the gangway is on deck 5, does that mean that deck 2 is underwater? “
- “If we keep advancing our clocks does that mean were going to miss a sunset?”
- “Is the reason lobsters are so expensive because they are extinct?”
- “Does the sun set in the east now that were in the southern hemisphere?”
- “Is table mountain the flat one?”
- “Can elephants hear so well because they have such long trunks?”
- “What does ‘SAS’ stand for?” (semester at sea, what the program is called…)
- (this was asked by a student when walking out of a test over South Africa) “What the hell is an “A-par-teed”, dude?”
- “Do people speak Asian in China?”
- “Is this bad weather being caused by a Cyclops near India?”
- (between every port we have inter port students…for example, before leaving Mauritius students from India flew there and lived on the ship until we got to India- where they live) “How are the inter port students getting back to India?”
- (in global we learn about each country we will be visiting. In Mauritius the Dodo bird was extinct shortly after the Dutch settled there and killed them all off…) “Did anyone see any Dodo birds when we were in Mauritius?”

MYANMAR

2006-03-20T08:22:00.000-08:00

This is the first time I have sat down to write an email/blog and been a little confused on what to write, I think it has something to do with the fact that we had so little time in between India and Myanmar, that I’m still trying to process India, and now also have to do Myanmar. To make matters worse, we get into Vietnam on Saturday, it just seems to be go go go! We only have 8 more days of classes, I can’t believe it. This is the lag of the journey where its just one port after another, with maybe 2 or 3 days of sea time in between. We are going through the straights of Malacca, one of the most if not the most dangerous waters in the world, as far as piracy is concerned. luckily for us, as Sam Sheldon our global studies professor would say, we have the four “S’s” on our side (speed, size… well ok so I can’t remember the other two but..!!), our ship is the fastest passenger ship in the world, so basically we have nothing to worry about. there are 1,000 of us, and normally just 10-25 pirates and they normally are in a little tiny boat, and we are on a 7 deck vessel, so I’m not worried. However, it will be pretty cool because once we do start to go through it, there will be men manning different parts of the ship for safety purposes. We have water hoses, and I’m sure some sort of weapons on board, although they will not confirm nor deny that. Don’t worry though, those pirates wouldn’t dare mess with this ship, trying to hurt 700 American students would just not be in their best interest. Anyways, I will stop stalling and get into the email for you all.

FULL VERSION:

3 days at sea (day one, gay marriage debate):

We left India, and the first day after India we had classes, but I think it was something like 1/3 of the ship was sick and/or mentally exhausted so it was a pretty lax day. I had my social debate the first day after India, I was so angry about that. Luckily, the seas were extremely calm and I did not get sick. This was the first time on this entire voyage that I was not sick the first day back on ship, normally it’s a day from hell. We had to do an entire class long debate on gay marriage. Earlier in the course we had to pick which topic and side we wanted to be on. Our teacher suggested that we pick the opposite side that we believe in, that way we don’t get emotional, or have a personal interest in it.

Now, I’m sure your all thinking oh boy, Sara in a debate class, you’d all drop it the second you saw me. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out I love to argue, love to win even more, and almost always get “emotionally/personally involved”. So, I decided it would be a good idea to argue the side I don’t believe, so, being that I agree with gay marriage, I chose against gay marriage. I didn’t realize I choose a topic in which almost everyone agrees on one side, the side we are NOT on. So in addition to the fact that the entire class would be against us, one of the kids on the other team was actually gay and for the entire hour of our debate I would be up there trying to argue why he should not be allowed to get married. It was a disaster let me tell you.
I polled the entire ship trying to find people who did not believe in gay marriage, but I could not find one person, and the only suggestions I got for arguments were religion and children, 2 areas that I did not think had merit for the debate. needless to say, we were able to figure out our stance on the debate and pulled together a surprisingly strong argument. We argued about the actual term “marriage” and how we’d rather for civil unions, and we brought the Defense of Marriage Act as well as other state wide bans (38 out of the 50 states do not believe in same-sex marriages).

Although we lost at the end (the class votes on the strongest arguments, wait.. let me rephrase, they are SUPPOSED to argue on the strongest arguments, but instead they always just vote on their opinion so we lost 15 to 7. Our teacher later said to us however that we had the stronger debate and she would not hold it against us that we lost in the class poll. We dressed up in professional attire and our opposing side were wearing sweatpants. We had handouts our opposing side did not. All 3 of our group members were present for the debate, they were missing one student. We did not get emotional, raise our voice, get personal, they did. We kept our cool and did the best we could.

I was SO glad when the presentation was over. It’s so hard to work on that when you don’t have free internet access. We had EBSCO host, thank God, but still it was very stressful. there is a library, but its not exactly like there are volumes of info on same-sex marriage. Anyways, the point is, we nailed the debate despite our limiters, and I’m proud of us.

The other two days on ship nothing big happened. I went to another Change the World seminar, worked on figuring out which classes I need for next semester, applying for internships, looking for housing, the usual.

Myanmar (general info and overall view):

Myanmar, to the left of Thailand, 13 hours ahead of east coast time, a regime, a dictatorship, lack of human rights, wait, let me rephrase, NO human rights, tropical weather, nice people, Buddha, great food, 1,000 Kat, meditation, monks, hospitality, crazy cab drivers, negotiations, Scott market, face paint, hot sun, laughter, this is Myanmar.

None of us had any idea what to say or think about Myanmar, and even fewer knew where it was until the night before we arrived in port. This place was completely foreign, thus, incredibly exciting and provocative. We had an inter-port lecturer from Australia, she has been to Myanmar many times and written a few books about the country as well.

Let’s see what I can say about Myanmar. Well first of all it’s a dictatorship, run by a military regime and its scary as hell. The people here have no rights and I mean no rights. To put it into perspective, the United States has a little handy dandy document, not sure if you’ve heard of it or not, the Bill of Rights. It has 10 very famous rights, and out of all those 10 rights, can you guess how many of them they people of Myanmar are able to exercise??? NONE. That’s right. They are not allowed freedom of speech, freedom to congregate, freedom of arms, freedom of the press, they have nothing. The military monitors everything, the best way to describe it is to compare it to George Orwell’s book 1984. I’m pretty sure he wrote the book describing Myanmar. There is always this militant hand watching everything you do. You can’t talk about the government, can’t walk in groups more than 4, all communication is monitored, they have no universities, the elementary/junior high schools have curriculum based on what the government wants them to learn and know. Businesses that are profitable are taxed up the butt, you can be randomly stopped and be made to pay a “tax” or “fee” AKA lunch for the soldier. They basically eat, sleep, and crap what the government tells them. The US has a trade embargo against Myanmar, in addition to nearly most the world.

There was a huge debate of whether or not we should come because we would be supporting the economy run by this crazy regime. While I don’t actually know anyone who stayed on the ship the entire time, I am positive there were people who refused to get off because they did not want to support it. I chose to get off the boat for a few reasons. First, I need to see with my own eyes the injustices going on in this country. I am positive that the government regime will be overthrown one day, and I want to be able to have experienced for myself this culture. Also, we have read in our history books time and time again communist and regime type of societies, but never have I visited or seen first hand how it effects the people, the world. After everything I said, you can imagine how desirable Myanmar is to tourists. We are among the EXTREEMLY few who have been to Myanmar, and I want to take advantage of it. While if given the chance before they made the itinerary, I would have voted not to go. But, since we are here, and I can’t change that, I might as well go out and experience Myanmar, try to find out what I can, and support the people. I did not choose to do any hiking trips or mini vacations, rather, I stayed in the city the entire time and went to an orphanage, fed the monks, and tried to experience local life.

Our teachers and inter-port lecturer told us that either everyone in Myanmar was going to know we were coming, or no one was. The government is afraid of US invasion, it actually thinks we are going to be invading any day now. They are in the process of moving their capital city 50 miles inland to a fort for further protection. So having 1,000 Americans coming to visit is definitely newsworthy information. For many of the Myanmar people, we were going to be the only westerners they ever meet. They are not allowed to choose what they read, not allowed to travel freely, so SAS told us to bring any books or pictures off the ship, so they could experience in what little way possible, the rest of the world. While India is extremely poor, they are still a democracy and have many more rights than this country. It was very interesting to go from the most poor country I have ever seen, to the most oppressed.

The inter-port lecturer was bombarded with questions, no one could believe places like this actually existed still. Yangon, the city we arrived in, was the minority view of the country, not the majority. The majority of the people are poor, do not have access to running water, electricity is rationed, they only have it for 5 hours a day if they have it at all. Most are agricultural workers. My marketing project is on Myanmar. We have to pick a product or service that we think would be successful in the country we were assigned, and then write a 30 page report on it. We have to do an economic, social, cultural, political analysis then a preliminary marketing plan. That’s hard to do when everything you will research on the country will be government monitored, that you cant actually get into a conversation with the people because they are afraid of being arrested. Luckily our teacher is cool shit and will not be anal about it. Why do I always end up picking the hardest things to do!?!

Ok, without further hesitation, here is a write up about what I did in Myanmar over the past couple of days. Enjoy!

Myanmar (day 1Thursday/Friday):

For the first time in all our ports, we did not arrive in the morning, but rather the night before. We had to go at full speed as the waters in between India and Myanmar are dangerous. We arrived around 5pm and watched the sunset as we were docking. We had our diplomatic briefing at 7 and our cultural and logistical pre-port right after. When we were pulling it, it was surreal. Everyone had been scared to death by all the talk about the regime, and all the things we had to be careful about. Although I was a bit nervous, I was also extremely excited. The port is actually on a river type thing that leads into the ocean, it was only 42 feet deep. The water was disgusting, due to trash and just the fact that the sand was being turned by our engines. I taped the whole thing of course. :) It was SO NICE not to have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to do immigration. Our port is actually 45 minutes from the city center, but luckily there were buses that left every 2 hours taking us back and forth if you had a bus pass(which I did not on day one but quickly got a hold of one for the rest of the time there).

Heidi, Michelle, Maris, Melissa and I decided to do a girls day and went to town to do some shopping, and get lunch. We got a cab, all 5 of us packed into this little like 1985 Nissan chugging down some of the worst quality streets negotiating other cars, pedestrians, animals, bicycles, man what a mess. It was a thousand degrees, and, of course, women were required to wear long pants and shirts that covered our shoulders. We went to Scott Market, this huge outdoor market with everything you can imagine. I ended up buying a few paintings, some gifts, and the two most amazing tapestry wall coverings, ohmygod amazing. Once we felt our wallets had a significant burn in them, we left for lunch.

Since the food was unsafe to eat, we were advised to eat in 5 star restaurants(same in India). Luckily the exchange rate was in our favor and things were cheap anyways. The hotel was incredible, the architecture very Asian and just beautiful. Our restaurant overlooked this beautiful lake. We had about 7 waiters surrounding the table just on call. We ended up staying for 6 hours, yep that’s right, 6 hours. It might have something to do with the fact that mixed drinks were only $2 each, and the food and atmosphere was amazing, but who knows. :) Our bill ended up being 99,950 Kat, or $100. I think I had the least amount of drinks out of anyone, and I had 6, so just think about how much we were ordering. They were very happy to have had our business. We talked about everything. It was so nice to have a girls day without the guys making fun of us. We had each of us ask a question that the rest of the group had to answer. We asked stuff like have we changed since the voyage, what was our favorite port or moment, and other things, however, as I promised.. “what we say at this table in Myanmar stays in Myanmar”, sorry guys. :)
We left the restaurant around 8, and headed back to the ship. The ride home was so much fun holy crap. We were so ridiculous, the entire 45 minute taxi ride back we sang Disney songs, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, backstreet boys, anything and everything at the absolute top of our lungs, completely out of key, in the tiniest car possible, sweating our nuts off, and I got it all on tape. Man was that fun. So you would think after 45 minutes of singing we would have had enough. Unfortunately not. It is about a 5 minute drive from the port gate to our ship. SO, once we got onto the bus that takes us to the ship, which, we were on, I asked the guy to give me the microphone, and proceeded to be videotaped while I say “I will survive” in the front of the bus. It was hilarious. Although to you it just seems like a typical day, it was for me one of the better days in port because it was so relaxed, the girls bonded and I did things I never would done, and as Nick and I say, I “danced”.

Myanmar (day 2, Saturday):

On Saturday, I went to an orphanage with SAS. It wasn’t the same type as what I had done in India, but it was a good time and I know we made the kids happy by being there. We played soccer with the students, gave out stickers, watched them meditate, be in school, and eat. Our money had donated their food and uniforms, and so that day they were able to eat pork. We were all brought into the room and watched as they ate, but I decided to ask if I could help feed them. I took over from one of the local women and proceeded to give out soup to the little kids. It meant so much to me. Nick grabbed my video camera and videoed it, I was so thankful that he thought of that and was nice enough to do it, he’s so good to me. J At night, Valerie and I wanted to see the Shewadegon Pagoda at sunset, so we hired a taxi and did it independently. An SAS trip ended up being there, but we just found our own path and had a good time. I couldn’t believe this place, it was insane, over 100 little temples and Buddha’s everywhere and I mean everywhere. People were meditating on the ground, putting water and flowers on the Buddha’s, meditating in the temple type things, monks were walking around, tourists, it was just so cool. We walked around and did the typical tourist thing, but then Val and I sat down and we just people watched and tried to take in the whole essence of this place.

We left the Pagoda and decided to go to an Italian restaurant our tour guides at the ship suggested. Yes I know, Italian food in Myanmar, but hey, its still Myanmar food. At first we were a little scared because the taxi took us off the main road down these little side streets in the middle of the night near nothing, we were like ahhhh should we have gone just us two, but then luckily out of no where this beautiful restaurant appeared, with guards and taxis so we knew it was safe. Again, it was a 5 star restaurant so we wouldn’t have to be worried about getting sick and our safety. I wish I could describe the atmosphere to you, holy crap was it amazing. They had outdoor seating, which was like a tropical oasis. Palm trees and just beautiful plants everywhere, there was a little guitar type thingy that a man ended up playing for us all night. There were maybe only 10 people in the whole restaurant, and were the only ones sitting outside. The tables had white table cloths with candles and inscents, just so pretty and incredibly romantic. We ordered an appetizer, two big dishes of the most amazing pasta, followed by a bowl of strawberries and the best chocolate cake I’ve had the entire trip. Man the food was good. The taxi we got for the ride back to the hotel where the bus was waiting was hilarious. It had like techno lights on the outside, a big black light that he turned on once we got in, it was so ridiculous. He then proceeded to turn on some techno/rap mix for us. It was just so pathetic, it was like a club in a taxi. We felt ridiculous and on display but we had fun and just danced around until we reached the hotel. We got back and just went to bed.

Myanmar (day 3 Sunday):

Sunday Valerie and I went to the reclining Buddha and then to the glass factory. The reclining Buddha was crazy, it was this HUGE statue of a Buddha that was laying down on their side, with their hand holding their head up. Id say it was a good football field long. It was probably at least 30 or 40 feet tall, it was friggen huge that’s all I can say. We just starred at it and watched people pray. This time, Val and I sat and sort of prayed silently, just took some time to appreciate everything going on and feel the essence of it all. The eyes were made out of glass, at the factory that we went to after we saw the Buddha. We met Nick at the glass factory. He had been 2 days earlier and met the owners. They told him if he came back they would let him be the second person in history to blow glass at this factory(the first person was over 35 years ago, he was an astronaut that went to the moon). Pretty cool huh?! Nick was very excited to be the next person, and I wanted to get the more personalized tour and see him make history. He was so excited, it was really cute, like a kid in a candy store. The people there were so nice, and the glass was incredible. I ended up getting a few things of course, the shop-a-holic that I am. Nick told me that they made him a chess set completely out of glass, for $10!! Can you believe that deal!?! They gave me a set they had made for another customer since they would not be returning for a month and they could easily make another one. I was very grateful for that. We did a little grocery shopping and then went back to the ship.

I took a shower and got a little dressed up for our Myanmar Dinner and Dance Performance. They took us to this amazing restaurant, holy crap it was like this huge temple/palace looking thing with like a 500 foot red carpet lined with people in costumes welcoming us. It was right on the water, just gorgeous. We all felt like royalty. There must have been 30 tables inside this huge ballroom with a stage in front. We saw about 10 different dances and performances, had some really interesting food, it was a great time. Really nice to see everyone all dressed up enjoying themselves. We got back around 10pm, I just stayed on the ship and went to be because I knew I was going to have the feed the monks trip at 7am.

Myanmar (day 4 and 5 Monday and Tuesday):

Today I went to a few monasteries where we learned about meditation, the life of a monk, and then were lucky enough to go to a huge monastery where we fed about 2 or 300 monks. It was a rare privilege, but because our tour had contributed so much money they allowed us to feed them. They had monks in training as young as 3 years old and as old as 80. What an opportunity, I really enjoyed the trip and was glad I signed up for it. We got back around 1, I had lunch and then slept till about 6, had dinner, and have been writing this damn email ever since. I kind of ran out of money so I couldn’t go back out tonight, and tomorrow we have to leave at 10am, so there’s no point in getting off the ship just to have to get back on. We have about 5 days and then we are in Vietnam.

Well, that’s all I’m going to say. I’m sure I have already driven you nuts with all my silly little details. These emails are also my journal entries so you get the bad side of that I guess. I miss and love you all. Take care of yourselves, Ill see you in a little over a month!!

Love,

Sara

INDIA POST!!

2006-03-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

Hello!!

Ok, so I hope you all really thought a bit about the pictures I sent you. Here is the email to follow up on those pictures. This will be the only email I send WITHOUT a condensed version. You want a condensed version, the pictures will say enough. I truly believe you all need to take some time and read about my experiences in this country, because for about 99% of you, you will never visit this amazing country and need to hear all that goes on, feel all I felt, and try to get an idea of what is called home to over 1 billion people.

This email is going to serve as my journal of India, as well as my email to you all. I am sorry that this is going to be long, but I promise you will enjoy it. I cannot possibly take the time to explain India in both a lengthy email as well as my journal. Thank you guys for reading my posts and emails so far. I have been getting a lot of emails back telling me how nice it is reading them, I’m just glad you actually do, goes to show how bored you all must be!! I miss you all terribly, and love you even more. If its one thing I learned from this country its to appreciate what you have, who you have, and life in general. I consider myself the luckiest person on the earth to have you all in my life, and to have been given such great gifts from god.

Love and miss you all,

Sara

FULL VERSION:

India Day 1(sunrise, diplomat briefing/yoga):

Well, lets see. This was the port, the only port mind you, where everything went on schedule. We arrived in India around 730am, and were alongside and docked at 8am. I woke up at 530 to see the sunrise, which, did not end up coming up till 6am(thanks Tom, way to be on top of things!). There were probably 50 people out on the 7th deck, all of course in their pajamas with the video/digital cameras. I was so tired, but knew that I would never forget seeing the sun rise over India. We could see the strip of land to our left as we sailed in, but we were not near any substantial land so early. We were pretty far away from land, and yet, we saw tons, and I mean tons of fishing boats everywhere. I swear these things couldn’t have been much deeper than a canoe, yet it was extreeeeeeeeeeemly far away from shore. The water was very calm, so I guess they weren’t too worried about that. It just seemed so silly that we were surrounded by little wooden fishing boats(maybe 8 ft long by 5 ft wide). I’m surprised the waves our ship made didn’t capsize their boats. They waved to us as we came in, it was kind of nice. After sunrise I went back to bed for a few hours and then woke back up for breakfast. By that time we were docked and stationary. The port is pretty much in the middle of no where, there are just a few buildings around, no real scenery at all to see. The smells, oh boy, I cant even begin to explain the smells. We are fortunate enough that where we dock is not as bad as other places. After breakfast I made sure to go to the diplomatic briefing, and then see a yoga demonstration. The yoga demonstration was really cool, we learned all about why yoga is used, how to do it, and saw some incredible moves to say the least. I had no idea where yoga was founded, or why it was used. I just thought it was a type of exercise, without realizing its intense physical as well as mental benefits. Yoga positions can help everything from menstrual cramps, to liver problems, depression, stress, sex, and can also give you a good workout. You are at peace, concentrating on your breathing, the desired position, and just being one with your body and with your soul.

India in general:

I’m going to refrain from talking about how it all made me feel until the very end. Right now I just want to give an accurate description of what I saw.

**Disclaimer: I’m not even joking, what you are about to read is very disturbing, and will 100% hit your soul as well as your stomachs at the same time.

Describe India—

I pretty much would submit to you that its impossible to explain in words. I’m one of the most talkative people I know, and yet, with this country I feel speechless. How do you show the most intense poverty, smells, culture, people, eyes, fear, joy, pain, sights, architecture, food, religion, you’ve ever seen? I’m still trying to process it myself, let alone try to take you over 8,000 miles, past 3 oceans to this amazing place that over 1 billion people call home. India has over 3 times the amount of people as the US who live in less than 1/3 the space. I’m going to say that again, because it will be the underlying theme and cause of most of India’s problems, population. So once again, India only has 1/3 the space of the US, yet it has over 3 times the population. Try remembering your freshman year dorm room, then throw 200 people in there, and that is about the people per square foot I am talking about.

The trains are just like you see in the movies, tons of people crossing the tracks trying to jump on the train and fit just one more person. The buses must be at least 3 times over max capacity. You literally have people hanging out the windows, off the back of the bus and even sometimes on top of it. Traffic is crazy, you have all forms from horse drawn carriages, to rickshaws, to taxis, buses, bicycles, motorcycles, all going 9,000 miles an hour honking their horns. The two biggest dangers for tourists in India is traffic and beggars, if not disease as well. Flies and mosquitoes carrying malaria, dengue fever are everywhere.

Cows are sacred in India, they run wild and free. Wild and free being the operative words. You will see cows(which look more like oxen), everywhere. In the street, in peoples yards, stores, trying to steal food in markets, just everywhere. Monkeys are also sacred, and so in addition to the smelly, dirty, un-nourished cows running around lose in India, you have a zillion, and I mean zillion monkeys running around as well. I have seen enough cows and monkeys to last me my lifetime. It certainly does not add to the sanity of the area.

The streets of India are filled with people, trash, from babies to elderly, from insects to cows, trash, from venders, to rickshaws, to the most crazy traffic I’ve yet to encounter, trash, trash trash. I did not make a mistake, I really did mean to put trash in every other word. Besides the insane population, monsoons, cows and monkey problem, trash is nearly the second thing most pertinent in my brain when talking about India. Its everywhere, and I mean everywhere. The entire country is one big waste site, its so sad. I have yet to see a trashcan, garbage truck, anything trash-pick-up related. People live in trash filled everything. The trash is a mixture of actual trash, cow excretion, and even worse and more prevalent, human excretion. Poor people(which from what I saw, made up 70% of the population), have no bathrooms. They literally go to the bathroom wherever they want. I saw a little girl, she was probably 7 or 8, going to the bathroom(and no not # 1), on a sidewalk near a tree. I cant tell you how many guys I’ve seen peeing in streets, and worst of all, on our train ride to Agra, we saw the people who lived right near the tracks, all going to the bathroom actually ON the tracks. They would cross the little piece of land separating them from the tracks, and go to the bathroom. It was so disturbing and saddening. Literally the entire 3 hour train ride we saw slums and people just going pee and crapping in the middle of the day, on the tracks, in front of everyone. No toilet, no toilet paper, no privacy, no sink to wash their hands, just go and walk back to the kitchen, walk back to pick up your child… Trash is a good intro into my next topic, the smells.

India has some of the most tasteful yet disgusting smells in the whole world. When smelling the fresh flowers, the curry, the ocean breeze(in some places), you wonder if you have smelt anything more wonderful. That wonder is soon diminished when smelling all the sewage. As I mentioned earlier, there are really no bathrooms for these poor people, so they go wherever they want, as do the animals. I can honestly say I have never smelt anything more worse in my entire life. You try and cut your breath down to the minimum as to not breath it in too much. I could only think, as I was sitting there holding my breath, how these people have to LIVE in these smells and insanitation all their lives. Imagine smelling bad food, the worst bathroom crap smell you can, animal crap, dirt, old trash, all combined, plus car exhaust and everything else hitting you at once, its overwhelming. I’ve never been overwhelmed just by a smell like that.

The beggars are by far the worst I’ve seen so far. Every one is following you around telling you how you are such a “pretty girl” as they offer to give you a “special price”, on their “one of a kind” merchandise. They will not take no for an answer, are so overbearing and so in your face. You have to not even look at them and pretend they do not exist or you will basically be forced to buy something they will harass you that long. Its hard to turn away little children and people who you clearly need the money 5,000 times more than we do. The problem is, if we give to these beggars, in about 5 seconds flat the word will get out that “rich Americans” are giving out money and we will be bombarded. Tourists die in India all the time from giving out some money and then being stampeded. I’m not even joking. This is a serious place, definitely in your face.

Poverty---I don’t even know where to begin. I saw so much poverty. I saw many many many handicap people, mostly those who had polio or some other disease so bad, that they lost use of their legs, and were now walking around on all fours like an animal, who had lost their legs and just had little stub like ends, or who had to try and lift their lower body up as they walked on their hands. I saw many extremely skinny malnourished people, people who clearly had not showered in weeks, teeth falling out, face and all type of body deformities. I saw people living on streets, under billboards, in train stations. Anything they could use to build some type of cover/home they did. The more saddening thing, poverty related, was not the people living in the streets, but the people who lived in the slums. The “houses” AKA shacks that we saw all throughout India were insane. I’m talking the size of a closet, made out of straw roofs, or abandoned little buildings, one on top, and I pretty much mean on top of the other. Dirt floors, no window or roof coverings, about 10 people to a hut the size of my dorm room. Children running around barefoot, people going to the bathroom the same place they eat, it was just overwhelming. The amount of people who have no shoes in India will break your heart. We were on the train and would pass these slums, where you would see a hut with people outside talking, about 2 feet from a cow “grazing”, a child peeing next to a guy eating, next to a person cleaning next to a person sleeping……………. It was insane. India is so incredibly unsanitary, but, unfortunately the people don’t have a choice and are forced to eat, drink, live in conditions not even fit for animals let alone humans. Everyone walks around barefoot for they cannot afford shoes.

Random thoughts/sights:

I didn’t realize that everyone would be wearing the traditional dress. Even the poorest had some sort of cultural dress. The air quality was incredibly poor. So humid, very hot, and you could literally taste the dirt in the air. Thank god we got back on the ship for a few days so we could get some clean air. I can’t imagine having to deal with such smog and crap on a daily basis. I also didn’t understand the advertisements, they were everywhere, for cell phones, houses, vacations, and yet you were surrounded by poverty for miles. Who was buying these products? It was so hard to imagine a middle or upper class after seeing all the poverty. I even saw this cart that had a huge Pepsi sign, and then inside the cart was a homeless person who had turned it into their bed. It was ironic. When we arrived at the train station for the first time we saw a guy who was chained up(a chain around his wrist), to another guy. We were all scared of him a bit, I guess he was a prisoner being transported, but the thing is the guy who had him chained up didn’t look like a cop, and the guy who was chained up just looked scary in general, he had this very mischievous smile and he was physically deformed. A few minutes later at the same train station these few kids came up to us begging for money and then started performing on the platform- these little kids were doing crazy things with their bodies(double jointed like rolling together like a ball, doing all kinds of flips and weird positions, anything they could that would possibly make someone want to give them something like money or food). The train stations are so crowded, I cant believe how many people they pack into one cart, their literally hanging out the windows, off the back, anything they possibly could do to fit one more person they did.

I got very upset at various times throughout the trip because there were so many kids being just rude to the beggars, were saying very rude and insensitive comments. They made fun of the people going to the bathroom on the streets, mocked the beggars, insulted them with the prices they were offering, man it was just so rude in general. I had a hard time to get violent I swear. I honestly don’t know why they came on the trip if they just were going to be so inconsiderate and not learn anything at all. Besides that there were many that said, wow I feel bad, but what can we do? That also got me upset. India is not a hopeless place, we can all help. What can we do? I say what CAN’T we do?! We can tell people about the injustices these people have to face, we can do service work, we can appreciate our own lives and we can pray for them. These people are not different from us, we are all humans and they deserve the same things we have. I just got upset at how pessimistic everyone was. We need to embrace this culture, these people and try our best to make some sort of difference. Think what would have happened if all the slaves had said, “oh there’s nothing we can do, its hopeless”. Its really sad when we lose faith in humanity.

Feelings-.
I cried many times throughout the past 4 days, and even as I sit here now I weep. How can we let these injustices happen? Why are there so many people who sleep on the streets without food, shelter, or clothing? Why, when we have enough food and money to feed everyone in the entire world are so many hungry? I should not have a 56 inch TV, a sports car, an education, and the 2 month old baby I held in my arms have a fatal disease and be left to die. You cant help but get angry and feel guilty with your own life when you see how many others have it so bad. You feel overwhelming gratitude for everything you have. I wanted to give my mom a hug, and cry in her arms. How dare I complain, how dare I ever complain again. For so many of these children and people in general they will never have a hug, never see outside their town, and will live in absolute hell for their entire lives. When I held those children at the orphanage, seeing their faces, you just wanted to die. I felt so helpless. No matter how many times I played with them, touched them, held them, told them how beautiful they were, sang to the babies, it seemed to not matter. I knew once I left things would go back to normal for them. How do I react when there is a poor child with flies all over their face? I felt so angry, so helpless the entire 4 day trip. I cant tell you how many times I would look over and see people crying on my tour, girls and boys, college students and the guides, and even worse to see, the senior passengers crying. No one knew how to react or how bad it would be. What do you do when you are in first class train seats going past slums with people going to the bathroom 10 feet from your window. You just want to put blame on someone, but who? The government? The rich? History? Corporations? God? Who should fix this? Charities? The government? Me? Who is responsible, who needs to step up and do something? Can it be saved? Is it too late? Could I make a difference? There I sit listening to my iPod in my air conditioned van on a $1,000 trip to India, on Semester at Sea, staring at these people who will never see as much money as was in my pocket, or the worth of my iPod. I would have seen more in that one day than they would see in their lifetime. What gives me that right? Why am I so privileged? Its only luck, only the luck of the draw that I was born in the USA not India. I am no better nor worse than them. So why them and not me?

TOUR of India day one:

We arrived in India on Thursday, and my trip left at 330pm. There were 68 of us in total on the trip, going to Delhi, Agra and the Taj Mahal. I was so excited you have no idea. My roommate went, and a bunch of friends were also on the trip, I was really happy to be hanging out with new and old friends. We had about a 45 minute drive to the airport, in the most ghetto bus in history. I was overcome with everything, the traffic, the people, the smells. I thought we were going to die every time we took public transportation in India. You just had to close your eyes or not watch, otherwise you would have about a zillion heart attacks. We left from Delhi around 7pm, and got in at 11ish. Our hotel was beyond 5 star, it was one of the nicest places I have ever stayed, other than probably Atlantis in the Bahamas. They had made a sign that said Welcome SAS in flowers, we all got flower necklaces like what they do in Hawaii, and walked around catering wine and soda for us the second we walked in as well. It was an amazing welcome, we all felt like celebrities and very welcomed. We had dinner in one of their restaurants, drank a bit, and went to bed.

Day two of tour:

We had to be in the lobby at 545 in the morning, man was that early. We left for the train station, which was another crazy experience I will never forget. I’m telling you it felt more like Hong Kong with as many people were there. The train ride was over 3 hours to Agra, as the train wasn’t going faster than like 20 miles an hour, and that is when I saw all the slums and the people going to the bathroom on the tracks. It became too much for me to handle, but I refused to turn away because I felt it was my responsibility to watch and learn as much as I could about everything. We got into Agra around 11am, checked into our hotel, and went to this carpet/rug warehouse where we learned about the silk and wool carpets, and then were able to buy them. They were all really expensive so I wasn’t able to buy one, but they were some of the most beautiful rugs I’ve ever seen in my life, all hand made. We left the shop, went back for lunch and then visited Fatehpur Sikri, which was a deserted city that was built by the emperor Akbar as his capital. We visited the red sandstone palaces, wow was it amazing. The architecture was so interesting, very symmetric yet random and beautiful. The night was free for us.

Day three of tour:

We were out by 8am, going to the Agra fort before we went to the Taj Mahal. I was going nuts, I couldn’t believe in a few hours I was to be standing in front of one of the wonders of the world, something I’ve been wanting to see forever. The Agra fort had halls and palaces of the Mughals. We were walking around and then all of a sudden we looked out an opening and saw in the distance the Taj, and all of us just started saying oh my god oh my god. At that point we were just like we need to leave and go to it NOW!! We drove to the Taj, which was only 10 minutes from our hotel. The Taj is a 17th century mausoleum in white marble built by Mughal emperor shah jahan in memory of his queen Mumtaz Mahal. The emperor built it in memory of his wife who died during the 14th childbirth. He loved her so much he wanted to build something that was as beautiful as her, and Id say he succeeded. Its so hard to describe the Taj, its enormous, beautiful, old, new, full of history, its what everyone thinks of when they think India. I was only able to videotape outside, because they wanted to preserve its innocence. I didn’t take that many pictures of it either, I wanted to just look through my eyes and not the camera. I sat alone and just stared at it for awhile admiring its beauty. I also went into the mosques on either side, as well as inside and saw the grave of his wife. We had to take our shoes off to respect the culture, it was just so amazing.
We went back to the hotel, had lunch and then went to Mother Terresa’s Ashram, an orphanage. None of us realized there were actually going to be people there, we thought it was abandoned. We got there and were just kind of dropped off without knowing what to do. We didn’t realize we were going to see kids so none of us brought stickers or any gifts for the children. When I walked in and saw all the disabled people mentally retarded and young children, I just lost it. I cried for a good 10 minutes until my friend was able to calm me down, I realized I wasn’t doing these people any good crying for them, I needed to start smiling and playing with them. I ended up having one of the single best moments I’ve had on the trip at that orphanage. I played with the little kids, held new born babies, and just made sure to show as much affection and happiness I could to the people there. These poor kids don’t get this much attention in a year and here we are just showering them with love. It was really hard for a lot of the people who went, you would pass by other Semester at Sea students, even the faculty, guy or girl and they were teary-eyed. We just were overcome with emotion, both good and bad. I ran out of room on my memory stick so we went shopping and I bought another card and some gifts, I got some good things I’m really excited.
We got back on the train that night and returned to our old hotel the first night. The train ride was much more peaceful as it was at night and we couldn’t see the poverty, as sad as that sounds, we all kind of needed a break from reality for awhile. Jim and I danced to our iPods, we all sang, just chilled and had a good time. We got back to the hotel and went to bed.

Day 4 of our tour:

We left the hotel around 9am for a city bus tour. It was a little disappointing, we had to stay in the bus and only look out the window at many of the parliament and president buildings because of security. We didn’t have that much time which also kinda sucked. We were able to get out of the bus and see the Gandhi museum where his ashes were buried. Tthat was amazing to learn about him and then to see the grave site. We went to a few temples and learned about the different gods and emperors and such. I bought some more gifts and just hung out.

Overall India was an amazing experience and I will definitely be coming back.

update and INDIA!

2006-03-09T00:02:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

This IS NOT the blog about India, it is about my trip between Mauritius and India, and a bit about India in general. I will be posting a blog and sending out an email about India when I get back on Monday. I love and miss you all!!

CONDENSED VERSION:
Well, lets see. We had 7 days in between Mauritius and India. During that time we had sea Olympics( basically they split us up into about 7 teams and we competed in events like limbo, karaoke, dodge ball, flip cup, etc). Our sea( the Bering Sea) ended up winning, BER-WHAT!!!!!! Our prize is being the first off the ship in San Diego( normally this is like an all day process and really hard to handle saying goodbye all day, so I’m really excited that we won). Plus, everyone got REALLLLY into it so its more of a pride thing that we won. It was a 12 hour day of events, no classes just games games and more games. We were the Bering Sea Bandits, we all wore black, black bandanas, face paint, etc. It was pretty cool. I don’t normally get into stuff like that, but I was cheering right along with all of them, just trying to have as much fun as possible and win. Other than that, just been doing work, laying out, enjoying life. I had my Marketing Exam the first day after Mauritius. I did horrible, got a 68. I couldn’t study because I was too sea-sick, and we had no time to study being that it was the next day after Mauritius(obviously not going to study on the beach and stuff). Its ok though, I can still get an A in the class, and it doesn’t factor into my GPA anyways. We will be in India tomorrow, I cant even believe it. It was definitely one of my most anticipated ports on this trip. I will be writing another email after my 4 day trip to the Taj Mahal and other sites to let you know how things go. There was a terrorist attack in Varagassi, and we had to cancel many of our trips there, but Semester at Sea promises that we will be safe, so we are still going to India thank god. Miss you all and cant wait to hear back from all of you. I’m having the time of my life!!!

FULL VERSION:
Days at Sea:
Day 1:
Well, I’m completely sea-sick. But at least this time the whole ship is as well. We are all sunburned, hung-over, and the ship is swaying the worst that it ever has (even worse than the first few days). I have been stuck in my bed all day (minus having to take my damn marketing mid-term). I feel so nauseous, it sucks. We have 7 days in between Mauritius and India. We have to start conserving water they said because the water quality in the next few ports is really bad so we cant refill them.

Day 3:
Nothing really happened yesterday, it was B day so I had no class. I was still really sick so I slept most of it. One of our teachers did a cello performance, holy crap was it amazing. I’m talking 40 minutes of straight playing, without music sheets, he was incredible. It really made me want to keep up my piano. He seemed to be at such peace while playing, it was awesome.

Day 4:
SEA OLYMPICS!!
Today was the best day at sea so far. We had 12 hours of games. They divided the students cabins into seas, the Caribbean sea, Bering sea, etc etc. Each sea had to pick a color, and elect students to participate in the different games throughout the day. There was twister, karaoke, limbo, board games, flip cup, dodge ball, etc. We made all kinds of cheers, it was crazy. People got all decked out, our sea is Bering Sea, we were the Bering bandits, wore all black, black bandanas and had black face paint under our eyes, sunglasses, the whole nine. They accumulated points all day, and at the end we had the final competition as a karaoke/lip sync. Our was amazing that’s all I can say. They did stuff to Eninem slim shady, my humps, its raining men, it was so crazy. We ended up WINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNING!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have never screamed so much in one day in my entire life. 12 hours of screaming cheers, but it all paid off. So the prize for winning is getting off the ship first once we get into San Diego(which is a HUGE deal, normally it takes allllllllllllllllllllll day, hours and hours to clear).

RANDOM THOUGHTS:
We will be in India in a few days. I’m starting to get scared. Everyone says it’s the most emotionally difficult port. There are literally thousands of children running around begging for food, begging for anything to keep them alive for a few more days. If you give them anything, the word will get out that there are Americans giving out money/food and you will soon be bombarded and then your safety becomes an issue. I am going to be giving the majority of my gifts to a service organization once I’m there, so that I can give what little I have and do it safely. I can only imagine how its going to effect me. I hate feeling helpless. Were going on tours to the famous sites(Taj Mahal), were going to be in air-conditioned buses, 5 star hotels, driving by one of the poorest regions in the world. How do I handle that? How do I not, at least in its smallest form, feel some responsibility towards the poverty? Do I not waste tons of food every meal, bitch about not having internet access on the ship when most of these people will never even see a computer. Anyways, Ill let you know how it goes, I’m going to try my hardest to learn as much as I can and maybe figure out a way to help these people.

Its Tuesday, so in 2 days we will be in India. I cant even believe it. The past couple of days have flown by. We crossed the equator for the second and final time last night, kind of a cool thing. Yesterday they also did a test, to make sure the engines were running correctly they pushed us up to top speed, 32 knots. The ship we are on is the fastest passenger ship in the world-- very cool. Anyways, the funny thing is no one even noticed how fast we were going unless you were looking at the water, it felt the same. The captain came on and told us we might want to go to the back of the ship and see the engines, because they were shooting so much water up the ship. It was a cool thing to see. I got a bit dizzy once I realized how fast we were going. Speaking of which, I forgot to say this about the Sea Olympics, but that day was the calmest water I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It was almost like a blanket laying on top of the water. There were no waves, just subtle little ruffles in the water. It seemed like silk, so soft and peaceful. We also had the most amazing sunset I have ever seen that night. Id say about 1/3 of the ship was outside watching it, taking pictures, oooohing and aaahhing and just appreciating life and our experience on board. Now the normal Sara would have ran down to her room and grabbed her camera, but I decided I’d rather just enjoy the moment instead of trying to capture everything into a picture which I’m sure could have not done any justice to the scene anyways.

In the past few days I’ve been going to these racism meetings, and of course Change the World seminars. I just realized that I’ve never talked to you all about change the world, and its been such a substantial part of my life at sea.

CHANGE THE WORLD:
Change the world is an organization started by this guy, Scott Sherman(Google him he’s probably all over the place). Scott works with non-violence at UCLA. He is a professor, but has done about a jillion other things thus far. He has gone to visit Sri Lanka, met the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. He’s got about a zillion degrees in environmental conservation, journalism, globalization, law, he’s just the man in about any light. He is my Gandhi, he is my light. Scott is exactly the type of person, doing the type of things I want to do. He is my role model. I have been meeting with different professors, resident directors and administrators who have done interesting things in their lives so that I can learn from them. Dorky I know, but I need to make these contacts for both networking and just for amazing inspiration.

He has created a program called Metanosis, and the UN is very interested in it and will probably implement it in the next couple of years. Basically the program is about social and personal transformation. You write down a list of things that cause you stress throughout the day, and then you assign a point value to them( lets say getting an F on a paper causes me 100 % stress, I put 100, traffic is about 50, so I put 50). Then, throughout the day, when these stressful events come up you see how you react to them. That also has a number system. -5 means you were destructive, maybe hitting, yelling, screaming, etc. Positive 5 means like having a plan of attack to fix the problem, being incredibly proactive. So you take the point value you have towards the problem, lets go with traffic of 50, and lets say I freaked out over the situation, I would take the 50, and multiply that by -5 because that is the response, so I would then have -150 total. The point is to try and have as high a daily score as possible. Clearly, when you react negatively, your points are negative, positive reactions, positive points. It becomes a fun game, instead of these goals with no way to track that become uninteresting and rarely change. It might sound a bit confusing, I can explain it better when I come back, but needless to say the UN is in love with it, thinks it can really motivate its workers both professionally and personally and is seriously looking into implementing it. Scott developed the program.

So during these seminars that he has weekly, we learn about different tactics to lead a happier life. He talks about personal transformation, as well as how to start a non profit, work in a non profit, or just do service things to help change the world. If you cant already tell, I’m all pumped up about it, because for the first time in my life, I have the tools to do amazing things with my life, I have a person who I can say, see guys, THAT is who I want to be like, and I can move forward and start living and fulfilling my dreams not just talking about them. Anyways, I’ll keep you updated on how my meetings with him go, I cannot wait to start developing a personal relationship with him. At first I was scared to approach him, because, once you finally meet your ultimate hero, you become afraid of how you will come off, how he will see you. I want him to be impressed with me, to think I’m going places and I need him to feel like he would be making a good investment by helping and talking with me. I finally got over that silly little dilemma and am going to meet with him right after India. I cant wait, I’m sure I will learn so much from him and hopefully start a great relationship.

NIGHT BEFORE INDIA:

Well, in about 6 hours we will be in India. How many people get to say that. I can’t even believe it. India is pretty much almost on the other side of the world. We are now 12 hours ahead of Eastern standard time. We had a bit of a scare today. In Varagassi there were terrorist attacks in a sacred temple(one that 2 Semester at Sea trips were going to visit). The entire ship was talking about it all day, will be still be going to India, will we not. I can only imagine all the parents calling Semester at Sea saying “you better not have my child go to a place where less than 24 hours ago were bombings bla bla bla.” Personally, I am not afraid to travel in India, or even to Varanassi, but I guess I can see other peoples sides. I have lived in dangerous places before, you just have to say when your time is up, its up. Anyways, a few hours ago when we had our pre-port the dean told us that we were forbidden by both Indian government and the US Embassy from going to Varanassi, however, we would still be going to Chennai, India as planned. I am going to wake up at 550am to see the sunrise over India. We have to do a lot of customs and immigration crap, so probably wont clear the ship till after lunch. My trip leaves at 3pm on Thursday and comes back late Sunday night. I’m going to try and get to the internet café on Monday, our last day, provided I don’t get sick or are just completely exhausted. India is very very dangerous disease wise, we have to wear bug spray to protect us from mosquitoes, cant really eat a lot of the food, drink the water, and we have to wear sneakers at all times because its so dirty. In fact, they are covering ALL CARPET on the ship, that’s right, allllllllll carpet with either plastic or cardboard to try and keep the floors clean. Say a prayer that I stay safe and don’t get any diseases. In India I’m doing a 4 day trip to the Taj Majal and other important sites, I’m so excited. I kind of have a few regrets, some people are trying to see the Dali lama, service visits, etc. If I hadn’t already paid $1000 for this trip I would cancel and do other things, but, I’m sure I will still see real Indian culture despite the tour group. I’m so jealous of Nick because he probably will get the chance to meet the Dali Lama, and I would have had the same opportunity if I was with him, oh well, there’s a point for everything. I’ll just have to come back to India another time!!

SOUTH AFRICA!!

2006-02-20T05:09:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!!

I thought its about time I gave you another update on my adventures around the world!!

Its Sunday, and we leave Cape town, South Africa tomorrow night, so my time here is almost up! :( Again, I will write a condensed version of this email below, and then go more into detail for everyone else after that.

CONDENSED VERSION:
Ok, so. It was 8 days at sea in between Brazil and South Africa; it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I thought I would get really antsy, and be begging to get off, but they had an 80’s dance, a live show, a pool day, and things like that to keep us busy. 80’s night was awesome, I cut up socks and made leg warmers, hand gloves, and a bandana for my head. It was so much fun, we danced all night, everyone got really into dressing up which made it even better. We arrived in Cape Town on Tuesday. I went to Robben Island(Nelson Mandela’s cell) on Wednesday, on a Safari Thurs-Saturday, and have been sick ever since I got back, so not really doing all that much. South Africa is so beautiful, I love it here. Cape Town is surrounded by mountains, there so gorgeous, and its not too built up so the town still keeps its charm. The Safari was amazing, I saw elephant, giraffe, rino, Zebra, Warthog, Leopard, and Lion. I have it all on video as well so you can watch it when I get back!! So that about sums up everything, classes are going well, im having a blast and am just trying to learn as much as possible! I miss you all very much and would love to hear from you! Take care, Love, Sara.

FULL VERSION:

8 DAYS AT SEA:
So I thought being at sea for 8 days would be near hell, not being able to get off, seeing the same people, classes everyday, but it turned out to be absolutely fine, I actually had a lot of fun and still don’t mind being on the ship. They keep telling us the ship will feel smaller and smaller, but so far, so good!! We had many things throughout the time to keep us busy. I have all four classes on the same day, so its like a day off every other day! They gave us a day off mid-way through the 8 day stretch, and I think nearly everyone was up on deck 7(the pool deck), buying ice cream, smoothies, and laying in the sun. We had a BBQ later that day as well, it was basically a perfect relaxing day. Classes are a bit boring for me, I guess I should be thankful though, at least there not hard! Its a lot of power points in Marketing, Social problems is interesting, but a bit basic. Art is fun, its my relaxing class. They don’t want to make the classes too hard because they know that everyone is traveling and wants to be concerned with other things rather than doing homework.
80’s NIGHT:
We had an 80’s night as well. It was my FIRST 80’s night ever, and if anyone knows me, they know that I’m obsessed with the 80’s. I got pretty dressed up: I cut up socks and made leg warmers, gloves, I cut up a winter hat I brought, and made a banana and painted SAS on the front. I took red paint and soaked everything so it would be pink and match. I cut up a tee-shirt so it would be slanted, wore A LOT of blue eye shadow, and had my hair to the side, it was really cute and totally 80’s. We danced on the pool deck till about 10 and then brought it down into the union afterwards. I couldn’t help thinking, as I was dancing my butt off, holy crap…. Here we are… in the middle of the ocean, on this cruise ship, dancing, partying, having an amazing time, and its COLLEGE!! I’m actually getting credit for this! I just laughed; I felt more like I was in a music video than at school. Again, I just paused for a minute, thanked god and my family and then continued the best night on ship thus far.
BIRTHDAY:
My birthday was two days after we left Brazil. The big 22. Now im starting those birthdays that sort of lose their lust, I only have really adult ones left, like 25, 30.. ew gross I don’t want to think about that anymore!! Haha. However, I always end up doing something insane for my birthdays (as all there for my 21st know!), so I’m sure the ones to come will be amazing. For my 22nd, my friends bought me a HUGE cake (you can order then on the ship), it was so good, put balloons, signs, and cards on my door, and bought me a few drinks up at pub night. This was one of those birthdays that not too much ended up happening, but yet it was one of my favorites. I’ve never had a group of friends before(normally I just like to float, have friends in all different groups), but they did so much for me, and I realized on my birthday how much these people already mean to me, and what this experience has done for me thus far, and it just made me feel so good.
MARTIN LUTHER KING
On February 12th, we had our culture pre-port (which is when we learn about the culture of the port we are about to visit), and afterwards we had a tribute to Martin Luther King and his wife, Coretta Scott King. Turns out, one of the kids on the ship, Nick, is the grandson, through adoption, of Coretta. He did a speech and goes, yesterday I lost my grandmother, and the world lost a heroic leader. We were all like, oh my god, this kids related to her! His speech was one of the most amazing things I had ever heard. He was so well spoken, and his story, so inspiring. He talked about how he quit school to move to Atlanta to be with Coretta and help her with all her causes. He met a zillion celebrities, learned so much. He’s been to 35 countries, been all over the world. I became so inspired, and was for the first time, looking at someone who had done exactly what I want to do with my life. I ended up meeting him and we have been hanging out a lot lately. We are starting to build a good friendship I hope.
ARRIVING IN CAPE TOWN SOUTH AFRICA!
We were advised to get up at 530am if we wanted to see the sun rise over table mountain(one of the huge mountains that’s in the background of Cape Town). I woke up real early, smacked my roommate with a pillow a few hundred times until she woke up, and we both ran up to the top deck with our video and digital cameras to catch the sunrise. I thought we would be pretty much the only ones up there because it was so early, ha.. boy was I wrong! I think like nearly everyone was up there, the boat was FILLED with people in their pajamas and video cameras waiting for the sun to rise over Africa. It was one of the most amazing times of my life. It was so peaceful, the ship slowly getting closer and closer to Africa. We were all in awe, you could tell that this port was one that nearly everyone was most excited to visit. Once the sun started to rise, everyone started screaming, clapping, and getting really excited. I just kind of put them all in the background of my mind, I closed my eyes and thought, for the zillionth time this trip, how lucky I was to be there, how amazing and special that moment was, and the fact that I was lucky enough to experience it all. I thanked God, opened my eyes, and tried to soak it all up as much as possible.
We were supposed to get into the port and be off the ship at 8am. NOPE! There was fog, in fact so much fog for the first half an hour 530-6am, we could not see 5 feet in front of us, it was kind of scary, sort of like pirates of the Caribbean in the beginning. The captain came on the speaker and said due to fog we were being forced to anchor about 500 yards from the port. It sucked; we were so close yet so far. We did not end up getting off the ship till 2pm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I felt really bad because there was a safari scheduled to leave around 10am, so they missed it and were reimbursed(not that getting their money back is any better than missing a SAFARI).
DAY ONE IN CAPE TOWN:
The first day I walked around Cape Town with some friends. Cape Town is kinda like York beach. Its like a fisherman’s village. Very quaint, full of little sailboats and cute little buildings. Its very beach-ish. At night, I had a trip with Semester at Sea from 6pm to midnight. It was INCREDIBLE! By far one of the coolest things I’ve done. We took a bus, about 30 of us, to a small town outside the city. We got to see a lot of poverty, yet, everyone we passed was smiling, and seemed really satisfied and happy. When we got out of the bus, there were tons of children there waiting to greet us. They all shook our hands and wanted to give us hugs and just show us their appreciation and welcome us to their town. We went to a small building where they educated the locals on how to make pottery and other things to sell in order to make income. We learned about how the village sustained itself, talked to the kids, they were all so cute and loved getting their picture taken. I have about a thousand pictures with the kids. Afterwards, we had a drum lesson and saw a performance. It was so cool. I got it on video tape of course. After that we went to another village and had a meal in this woman’s house/restaurant. She was so kind, taught us a few local words, and prepared probably the best meal I have had thus far on this trip. After that we went to a local bar where people were playing jazz, we danced around, it was just so much fun. The whole night was just perfect, the guide was really nice, it was his birthday so we sang him songs and I even made a card and have everyone sign it. He was really happy.
DAY TWO AT CAPE TOWN:
The second day we went to Robben Island. It was really educational and just neat to see the cells of all the political prisoners, and we got to see Nelson Mandela’s cell. I can’t believe how many people were locked up. Our guide was on the island locked up for 5 years. They arrested him for being a “terrorist”. In reality, he said what had happened was they were segregating the blacks and whites from going to school, and he tried to help abolish that law, in and turn, was considered a terrorist. It was CRAP. I felt bad for him, but he was free now and works at the prison. At night, I went out with my friends to Long Street, where we went bar hopping. It was the first time I had gone out drinking with them. I had to leave for my safari at like 345 in the morning, so I figured I’d just stay up until then. We left around 10 for the bars. We had a great time, trying local beers, talking to everyone. We found this one bar cool runnings and just danced all night. I left around 2am, went back, showered, and left for my safari around 330am. I was soooooooooooooooooooo tired. Never again will I stay up all night. I must have been crazy to think I could pull that. I felt like crap and slept the entire time on the plane, the entire 5 hour bus ride afterwards, I just slept and slept trying to feel better.
DAY 3-5 SAFARI
We arrived at Kruger Park around 3pm on Thursday. I was exhausted, but so excited for my safari I didn’t even care. We switched from our big AC vans, to these awesome rugged four wheel jeeps. They were just how I imagined, green, big, and just bad ass! It was a thousand degrees, but as soon as we started up, the wind blowing felt great, the scenery is by far the most incredible ive seen ever(I think it even beats Italy). Rolling mountains, hills, rivers, gorges, just everything you can imagine. I was expecting desert like land. Oh no, it looked more like costa rica, Venezuela, then safari land. We were taken to our campsite. They had tents set up for us, 2 people per tent, and a huge tent for our meals that was set up. It was so perfect. We were right in the park. It was kind of scary because there was just a bit of barbwire between us and all the animals. There were monkeys running around all the time, when I say we were right in the middle of the park, we were there, no joke. It was insane, but it made it that much better. I didn’t want to stay in a lodge, I really wanted to experience the real time safari. We left for a short game drive, we saw a rino and a giraffe. It was so cool. Again, I found myself praying to god thanking for this experience, and for the thousandth time, felt so lucky. I had been waiting to go on the safari, South Africa was one of my most anticipated countries. To actually be there, in Africa, among the most amazing animals in the world, for 3 days, and consider it COLLEGE… now THAT’S worth $16,000!! At night we had the most incredible dinner, it was a local dish that the women prepared for us. After, the entire tour group sang a few songs that would end up sticking in my head the remainder of the trip. We went to bed early as we had a 530 morning drive the next day.
At 5am our tour guide banged our our tent and starting singing dancing to wake us up. I can honestly say I will probably never have a tour guide singing/dancing to me at 5am in the middle of Africa again!! Our morning drive was incredible. We saw the sun rise, and tons of animals. I saw rinos, elephants, giraffe, wart hogs, a lion(but it was laying down). We went on another 3 hour drive later that afternoon after lunch. We saw a leopard sitting in a tree. Even the game drive people were excited about the leopard, I guess its pretty rare to see one that close. Don’t worry guys, I got it all on video!!! Later that night we went on our night drive. HOLY CRAP… it was so scary yet cool. Imagine being in an open truck, pitch black other than the few flashlights, driving around in the middle of the park where all animals are free to roam around. Just as we were about to turn around and start heading back, AN ENTIRE LION family was laying in the middle of the road just chillin. I screamed, “look! It’s a family of lions!”, after which everyone shushed me and ran up to the front to take pictures. I decided its better to film them and proceeded to just smile, say ohmygod a million times, and see the cutest thing ive ever seen. I had been praying to see even just one lion, but an entire family….. again, I felt the luckiest person in the world. It was 4 baby cubs, 2 mothers, and a father. To see them, licking each other, the cubs playing around, man it was just perfect. And they were not in cages, this is WILD LIONS, free to do whatever they want. In their natural habitat. Just AMAZING.
The next day we just had a morning drive. I managed to catch a cold that a girl had, and felt like CRAP the entire time. I wouldn’t let it stop me though and went on the drive. We left for the airport around 12ish and was back on the boat at 8pm. Nick ended up coming over, we talked for about 4 hours and then I went to bed around 230am. I HATE being sick. But, after a week like that, I’ll take it.

So what do I say about South Africa? Its beautiful. Huge, yet quaint. The people are so nice. Always smiling, willing to do anything for you. Everyone speaks English which made it so easy to communicate. The safari experience was everything I wanted it to be and more. I love nature, I love camping, it was just perfect. Every time I visit a country I call it my favorite, and we always end up saying “were definitely coming back”. South Africa is a beautiful place for so many reasons, and I’m so glad I got to visit this magnificent place.

We leave tonight for Mauritius, I think were at sea for 4 or 5 days. I miss you all very much and hope that things in the states are going good. Take care and thanks, once more, for reading my novel. Sorry this one was not as well written as the others, but as I am typing, I have already gone through two packets of tissues, which have now created a rather attractive mound next to the computer, while I am also being stared at with the evil eye by a girl sitting across to me, as to say “ I cant believe you sitting out here when your so sick”. I miss you and love you all very much. Please write me and say hello.

Take care, god bless!!

Sara

ALL OF BRAZIL! READ ME!

2006-02-06T05:35:00.000-08:00

NEPTUNE DAY:
When you cross the Equator you participate in an all day event called Neptune Day. Starts at 730am, when you are awoken by the staff dressed up as tribal members marching through the halls. Afterwards, you walk up to the top deck where you await for the “king and queen”( our two deans) to arrive with their possy and sit in their “throwns”. It was so cool, the staff really went all out with their costumes, and the drums and decorations to make this a cool event. Once they arrived, the fish guts started being poured. It’s a tradition that when you cross the equator you have to get fish guts(which were just some weird solution of something) poured on you, you then kiss a fish, and its official. Another tradition that happened after the fish guts, was the shaving of heads. I think about 50 people got their heads shaved(like 6 or 7 were girls) by the captain. Pretty cool thing, everyone was getting hard core into it. Im pretty sure ive never been in hotter weather than that day of the equator. The water was the same temperature as the air they said. Man it was hot, you could just feel the sun beating down on you, and you knew it was really close.

TEST:
The following day we had our first global studies exam(the one class that everyone including teachers has to take). I was really nervous of course, partly cause im insane and I always freak out before exams, and party because I missed the first three days of class because I was sea-sick. I ended up getting an 80, which made me very happy. All that worrying for nothing. It was hard to sleep that night cause the next day we were arriving in Salvador.

BRAZIL DAY 1:
I had planned a kindergarten service visit, a 3 day hike, and a soccer game. The kindergarten trip got canceled because apparently its like summer break, I was so pissed because it was my only service visit planned for Brazil, and I bought tons of gifts for the kids. You would think that the travel agent would have thought to make sure that school was in session, before they booked 200 kids to do this trip!! Just the beginning of the disappointing Semester at Sea travel agent screw ups.

So anyways, it was canceled, so I decided to walk around Salvador with a few friends, do some shopping, see the culture(not the sights, you all know how I feel about museums and churches). It was so incredible. I cant even explain. Brazil is full of life, it was infectious. Even though there are 2 million people that live in the greater Salvador area, the streets are small, cobble stoned, and full of character. It was about a thousand degrees, which, again if anyone knows me knows that I would have been complaining and would have stayed in the first air conditioned place I could find. NOPE! I sucked it up and walked around in the scorching heat and had a blast sweating my butt off. I bought some art, ice cream, we had the most incredible lunch, internet café real quick to let you all know I was still alive, and just enjoyed the charm of the city. At night we went out to a nice restaurant, had a few drinks and appetizers, and called it a night. Nothing was really open because it was a Wednesday and they were all preparing for Carnival.

DAY 2-5. LENCOIS.
Hiking. Holy crap did we do a lot of hiking. First of all it was a 7 hour bus ride to Lencois(which is pronounced len-coy-eees). We left around 8am and arrived around 3pm-ish. We put down our stuff and went for an hour hike to these water holes where the local village was swimming. It was a cute little spot, with a view of the entire town. Lencois is west of Salvador, and is in the diamond highlands(was mined for diamonds much like the California gold rush). Its absolutely beautiful, very lush and just so peaceful. Our hotel was 5 star, yet the town was very concerned with ecology and preserving the land, so everything was made from recycled paper, the lights automatically turned off, etc. It had a very Mediterranean feel to it, open areas, white couches, big pool, lots of flowers, just gorgeous. We took a swim after the hike, had filet mignon and the most amazing mashed potatoes ever, and walked around the town for a bit before going to bed. No one wanted to do too much because we knew we had a 6 hour hike ahead of us the next day. So Friday rolls around, we have breakfast, which by the way, had about 5 different kinds of cake(chocolate, carrot), it was insane. They offered cookies, all these interesting fruits and just weird food we had never seen before. We left the hotel around 845, and did not get back till 6pm. Our day was 8 hours long, hiking 6 of that. Im not even joking, it was a 3 hour hike, EACH WAY. Everyone, athletic or not, was DYING during and after the hike. I wish I could describe how insane it was. Most of it was steep uphill walking, all through the mountains. It was 95 degrees in the Brazilian equator heat. Man oh man. Luckily about every 45 minutes we would stop at a natural water hole carved out of stone and have a quick swim and fill up our water bottles(the mountain water was fine to drink). We had to hike a hour through this deep river canon with all these huge rocks, it was the most difficult thing ive done I swear, but I had the BEST time and really was glad I did it. We finally ended up at this huge waterfall, which everyone jumped off the rocks into the water. Youll all be glad to read that I jumped EVERY time you could, at each of the 3 water jumps along the way. I have it all on tape too. J
The one at the waterfall was brutal. I started jumping off straight, but then I kinda got into this chair position, almost like a cannon ball, but without holding my legs up, so I landed completely on my butt. I kid you not, the worst pain EVER, and the FIRST thing I said, no joke, when I surfaced to the water, was “OW, MY ASSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!” everyone was laughing, it hurt so bad! Haha what ya gonna do. When we got back, we took a nap, had another amazing meal, and then went to bed. The next day, only about half of us did the hike, most of us were too soar or tired to go on the final hike. We laid by the pool, did some shopping, etc. Had another 7 hour bus ride, and we stopped to have dinner before we got back to the ship. It was at this restaurant very typical of brazil in which the waiters walk around with all these different kinds of meats on skewers and give it to you until you turn your little paper over and say your finished. It was so much fun. We got back to the ship around 1130, went to bed.

LAST DAY IN BRAZIL:
Today is Sunday. I just got back from the soccer game. Basically today we just did some last minute shopping for souvenirs etc. I met an amazingly beautiful Brazilian guy, we talked for about an hour, but, yet again, it was time to leave. This is going to be the heartbreaking trip of the century, for both them and me!! Hahah. It sucks, you’re like hey your gorgeous lets hang out all week and then say goodbye forever. Oh well, don’t have to worry about drama, just have a good time and leave it at that!. Anyways, after shopping, we left for our buses to take us to the game. It was INSANE. HOLY CRAP I have never seen people react to a sport like this. The fans are just out of their minds. Everyone is wearing jerseys, screaming, having an amazing time. The stadium we went to seats 80,000. There were probably 20,000 there, plus or minus. About 400 Semester at Sea students went. We had about 10 buses. I loved seeing all the excitement in the stadium. You couldn’t help but scream with them. I got it all on video, I cant wait to show you all when I get back. They have about a zillion armed guards on call. The refs have to be escorted by 6-8 armed guards with dogs on and off the field. People go crazy at games. The cheers were so fun, they had fireworks, drums, just craziness. The game was 1-1. Apparently they were concerned with having a winner. It was really pathetic though because all throughout the game the Americans were getting up and down to get more beer. I swear, as long as people were playing the game, the Brazilians were watching. I was surprised at how little alcohol was being drank. I thought they all would get trashed at things like this, I guess not. Our group was 10 times more interested in alcohol. It just made me think about sporting events in American compared to other countries. For Americans, it’s a place to do business, to mingle, it’s a social event. Rarely does anyone ever watch the game. Not in Brazil. They are completely focused on the game, and if they do get up, its only during half time, but even then it seemed like everyone was staying in their seats. They don’t need alcohol to be wild, there like that enough just being themselves. Overall, Brazil was incredible. I wish I knew better adjectives to describe how special this place was. You have to come here to believe me. I will be going to Carnival next year if not the year after that, and am sure to consider it one of my favorite places ive visited. Id say Italy # 1, Brazil # 2.

I wish I could write more but Im so exhausted its ridiculous. Im so soar I can barely move. Thank god I have no classes tomorrow cause it’s a “B” day.

P.S. MY BIRTHDAYS ON TUESDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost forget its coming because our schedule is so crazy. Probably just head to pub night and have a few drinks, nothing too exciting as we will be in the middle of the ocean.

Miss you all, love to hear how your doing. Take care with everything.

:)

Sara

Hola from BRAZIL!

2006-02-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hey all!! I am currently on the streets of Salvador, makin a lil pit stop in an internet cafe so you all know im still alive..(we went through a "shadow" near the equator and everyone was unable to use the internet, phone, etc for 5 DAYS)!!! it was insane. Anyways, im having the time of my life in Brazil and its only been a few hours. Its absolutely georgous here. The people are awesome, the food is incredible, and luckily most speak a bit of spanish so we are having no problems getting around.

Each night before we arrive in port, we have whats called a "pre-port" lecture, and they basically said that if we dont die from malaria, dengue fever(which they call broken bone fever, in that, if you contract it, it feels like all the bones in your body are breaking), or AIDS, we will likely get mugged, shot, or raped! Everyone was friggen scared out of there mind, they wanted to scare us and they sure as shit did a good job of it. We almost had to laugh, because they made it sound so damn dangerous, and literally had on the slide("these are all the things you can die from" and should stay away from). Anyways, needless to say, we are all off the ship, having the time of our lives, and no one has gotten in trouble yet.

We had 6 days at sea in between puerto rico and brazil, it was a loooooooong time, but we layed out on the deck, had some classes, and just enjoyed the boat. When we crossed the equator, (its a reaaaaaaaaally big deal), we had a day off of classes and had a day called "neptuno day". The entire crew dressed up, our deans dressed as king and queens, and the tradition goes, you get fish guts poured on you, jump into a pool to wash off, kiss a fish, and can get your head shaved by the captain. That commemerates going across the equator, and gives you good ship luck for the rest of the voyage. I did not participate, but took video and had an awesome time. There were like 10 girls that shaved their hair, it was so cool to see everyone get so involved.

Anyways, we are in brazil for 6 days. Today Im just chillin in Salvador, then for the next three days im hiking in these beautiful mountains about 6 hours west of salvador. I come back on the last day(sunday), which, and this is AWESOME... THERES A SOCCER GAME!! There are over 300 of us that are going to watch, were all so pumped. Its going to be insane.

P.S... its 98 degrees right now. Enjoy the snow biatches!! :)

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxox

Sara.

FIRST POST from the ship!

2006-01-27T13:59:00.000-08:00

Hello finally from Semester at Sea(SAS)!!!!!!!!!!

So sorry about how long its took to write this email, I have been so busy lately and the internet is like a dollar a minute. Anyways, so much to say! Ok lets see if I can summarize the past week into a somewhat non-novel length email… Im going to arrange this so you can scroll if you want to which ever section seems interesting, or you can just be a good friend and procrastinate whatever homework or work you have and read the whole thing. :)

Right now, its about 1130pm, we just left Puerto Rico about an hour ago, and are headed on our 6 hour journey to Brazil. The ship is GEORGOUS!! Holy crap do I feel so incredibly lucky. Let me rewind a bit though.

TWO DAYS IN BAHAMAS:
I arrived in the Bahamas Tuesday (Jan 17th), late afternoon. Met some SAS students in the airport(my huge rolled up world map gave me away), and chatted with them about our excitement for this voyage. I ended up meeting about 30 people during my two days in the Bahamas before we boarded the ship. We did NOT stay at the Atlantis, however, we went there our second day and used our friends pass to get into all the beaches and activities for free. J Everyone we met was extremely friendly, I was really happy to meet such nice people just ready to have the experience of a lifetime.

FIRST DAY ON SHIP:
There were two board times for the ship on Thursday, mine was 8-10am. A bunch of us knew the line would be insane, so we got to the pier at 730 thinking we were being smart and would beat the crowd. WRONG. The line was already the length of the building and beginning to wrap around it when we arrived. Needless to say, we waited an hour and a half until we got into the building, went through customs and security, and were on the ship by 915am. There were so few people on the ship it felt like a private tour. We walked around the whole ship, its only 3 semesters old, so basically BRAND SPANKEN new. The ship is 7 floors(a regular cruise ship is like 13), so not nearly as big as a cruise ship, but still pretty damn big. Its fresh paint and pretty much brand new everything. We have two dining rooms, 3 outdoor decks with pools and lounge chairs, outdoor bars and snack/pizza bars as well. There are 3 or 4 lounges, about 7 classrooms, a wicked small library and internet facility, and the “union”, which is the main room which seats 600 people. There are 468 students, about 30 adult passengers, all the faculity, staff, and their families if they wanted, and the crew, for a total of 1000 people. Anyways, the union, is where we have our class that everyone takes and hold talent shows, guest speakers, etc. The staff is by far the nicest staff Ive ever met( better than any hotel, cruise, anything Ive ever experienced). When I say we are spoiled, I mean we are SPOILED. To give you an idea, tonight, at dinner, one of the staff saw I was nearing the end of the dinner line getting my food, so he grabbed my silverware for me and napkin, grabbed my tray from me, asked me where I wanted to sit, put my tray down, pulled out my chair, asked me for my drink order, and then cleared my tabled when I was finished. They do this for EVERYONE. Its INSANE. I felt so ridiculous having him do it, but its their job and they take pride. Everyday our cabin steward makes our bed, gets us fresh towels, vacuums, and cleans our bathroom and shower. EVERYDAY. We are literally treated like royalty on this ship.

Anyways, back to the first day. After I got on and toured the ship, I unpacked, (yes my room is small, if you’ve ever been on a cruise ship you know what im talking about, however, I was able to fit both 70 pound pieces of luggage filled with all my crap comfortably into all the drawers with no problem). Haha must have been all the practice living in that closet last year with Elissa!! Lol. Around 5pm, everyone was on the ship and we were sailing off into the distance waving to the parents and friends on the pier. I had about 3 hours of relaxation and happiness until the sea-sickness set in.

SEASICK:
That was the last time I would see my friends until Sunday. That’s right, I was in my room bed stricken for 3 days due to sea-sickness. They had to finally give me a shot and bring me room service to get me to eat I was so dehydrated and un-nourished cause I couldn’t leave my bed without feeling nauseous. I had no idea my body would respond so poorly. Needless to say, Sunday I managed to get out of bed and felt a thousand times better. I laid out on the deck and reassured all my friends that I had not died or fallen over the ship like many had started to rumor(rumors are like but holes on this ship I swear). I had missed ALL my classes, ALL orientation, I felt out of it. My friends from the Bahamas were really nice and helped me meet a lot of people and get acquainted with everything again.

PUERTO RICO DAY 1:
Monday morning, thank GOD, we arrived to Puerto Rico. I have been here before( came here when I was 16 with my mom on a cruise). I was so damn happy to be on land I think I was the first person off the ship. We had the secretary of state of PR come on the ship and give us a diplomatic briefing which was really cool and interesting, he even have a bodyguard(haha not sure why I thought that was worth mentioning but anyways). First day we just walked around and explored old San Juan, went to the beach, and then hit up the local bars afterwards. Although many students had Spanish i high school, most had forgotten, so I became everyones best friend being that I was just in Spain for 4 months before this. I must say, I probably spoke more Spanish in these past few days then in all 4 months in Spain combined! Haha. The people here are much nicer and more patient when you speak, they don’t have the stupid lisp and don’t have other silly Spain only grammar rules. We went to this bar Senor Frogs, with basically the entire ship of students ended up. It was fun dancing and meeting people, but the best part was the last hour and half when the locals showed up and they changed the music from Hip hop to Spanish salsa, merenge, and local bands. My friend is Puerto Rican and had her cousins there, so I danced with them all night and showed off all my newly learned espanol moves. :) haha.

PUERTO RICO DAY 2:
Second day I didn’t do too much during the day, but at night went on a kayaking tour of Bioluminescent Bay. Basically its this organism that glows at night, only 5 places in the world have this species in the water. It was a CRAZY trip to say the least. I had never been in water at night, not alone kayaking through like a 6 foot wide opening in the ocean with NO LIGHT and I mean NO LIGHT but a little glow stick on the back of the kayak in front of you. I cant believe we all made it through that without tipping over. We eventually got to the middle of the inlet where the luminescence was. Now, if anyone knows me, they know that I as TERRIFIED of “icky stuff” as I say. I refuse to go into the water unless I can not only see the bottom, but there is nothing there that scares or grosses me out. Well, not only could I not SEE the water, being that by this point it was 11pm, but there were catfish, icky stuff, and alike in the water. Needless to say, I said, this voyage is about going beyond your limits, so, I got into the water for the first time in my life and sucked it up. I swam around, literally glowing in the water. It was one of the coolest things Ive ever experienced. If you have ever seen the movie The Blue Lagoon you know what im talking about. Then we all decided to lay on our backs and float, so we could look up at the sky with all the stars, and then look around as our arms waved through the water illuminated. It was gorgeous, this like blue green shine on our whole body and any area we disturbed with touch or movement. We ended back at the ship around midnight and I called it a night. I did that trip independently because I did not end up getting a spot with SAS, and was glad I made the extra effort to do it.

PUERTO RICO DAY 3:

Today I ate lunch and then from 1-7 went Kayaking again on a SAS sponsored tour. It was about an hour and a half ride there and back. We went kayaking in the most beautiful ocean, to a private beach. We tossed a football around (I was very happy to show off pro football throw that I learned by my fav football boys, haha such a dork I know.) I quickly stopped this however when I saw a very attractive Puerto Rican tour guide chillin in the ocean(hey, porque no?!?). We ended up talking for about 2 hours about basically everything, and about 15 minutes into the conversation I ended up making him speak in Spanish to me and I responded in English so we could help each other out with our languages. It was really fun, I missed the Spanish and was impressed by how much I remembered. Time quickly flew by, and soon enough we were paddling off and saying goodbyes to our newfound friends. I ended up taking some pics with him and some others and exchanging emails. Prolly never talk to him again but it was a nice gesture for him to ask. Im an international heartbreaker what can I say, lol jk jk. Came back to the ship just in time for dinner, shower, and have been doing all my reading and assignments I missed cause of being sea-sick. We had to book the rest of our big trips, so I spent a lot of time with friends trying to figure that stuff out.

MY TRIPS PLANNED FOR THE SEMESTER:

Well, Puerto Rico is over, so that leaves 9 more countries.
Brazil- a 3 day hiking adventure in the brazilian highlands and diamond mines, a service visit there as well.
South Africa- Safari, Robben Island( the cell of Nelsen Mandela), a service visit, and probably skydiving(but im not sure yet cause in still a bit scared).
Mauritius- Nothing really here, its only 3 days and its basically a beach island so will probably relax, do some horseback riding, snorkeling, etc.
India- Doing the Taj Majal and other important sites.
Vietnam- not planned yet.
Hong Kong- doing hong kong for a day and then doing a 3 day trip to Bejiing.
Japan- not planned yet.

Im EXTREEMLY excited for everything. Cant wait to report on all my adventures.

MY NOTE TO YOU:
So, I miss you all terribly. I hope that your classes are well, that the bars are even better and that your missing me most. :) I miss my family very much, I love you all very much. Please take care of yourselves. Write me back when you get a chance.

ALL MY LOVE,

Sara :)

T minus 2 days!! Reflections, loooong but good.

2006-01-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

Wow. I can't believe it, only 2 more days and I'll be in the Bahamas getting ready to board my final semester abroad, the much anticipated 100 days around the world! I have been dreaming of this ever since I was a freshman and saw it advertised during our orientation. I literally sat down at the computer one day, and was like, "hm.. i wonder if there really is a ship that goes around the world for study abroad students.." So, I did what anyone else would do, pulled up good ol' Google and typed in "Semester at Sea", and to my surprise, there actually was a program called Semester At Sea, and that was the very program I would be signing up for 3 years later. Of course when I first saw the website I immediately fell in love, but then as quickly as I had fallen in love, clicked on "costs" and my heart sank as I read, $16,000 a semester. UNH for an entire year costs $16,000. My mother just laughed at me when I told her I wanted to do it, we had all we could do to afford UNH, doing this semester at sea program was completely out of the question, this is something only rich kids did, or at least kids with two parents supporting them! I, being the unruling and dreamer child I was, thought to myself, Im going to do this, and I dont care how much it costs or what I have to go through to get it. I told my mother I was going to do it, she of course laughed at me and said fine, but dont ask me for help. Well, needless to say, after writing endless paperwork and selling my idea of a major that incorporated 3 semesters abroad, applying for another $25,000, and begging my family, I sit here, 2 days before I board the ship, and complete the third of my 3 semesters abroad( London in '03, and Spain in '05).

Its so funny to think about those days when I was a freshman, dreaming of going oversees, I knew I would go abroad, but never realized I'd do it 3 times, pretty lucky girl for 22. :) I feel so blessed to be at this point. Senior year abroad. Everyone thought I was nuts, going away my senior year. I must say I have been extreemly sad a few times thinking about my best friends I left, but this is something I had to do for me. I know that they have created a whole bunch of memories without me, during, what many people would consider the best year of college, however, I know we will have a lifetime to create them. They know I am truely, as corny as this sounds, a wandering soul, and need to do this for myself. I believe that everyone was put on this earth to do a specific job, Im still trying to figure out what that is, and I honnestly believe that the people I have met in London and Spain have brought me one step closer to figuring out that purpose and dream I have.

The best friends I have made I have met abroad. I met Elissa abroad, didnt even know she went to UNH, we met the very first day in London, and were together everyday after. We ended up being roomates the following year, and I know will be friends for life. Then, as life would have it, the same exact thing happened to me in Spain. I met Jenna, another UNH student that I had not met until I was in Spain. We hit it off as well, and were the best of friends the entire time. I saw her during this break, as she lives in Mass, and when I come back for my final semester at UNH in the fall, she will be there to continue or AWESOME friendship. Love you both. :)

If you cant tell, my brain is going in a million different directions. I want so much for this final semester. 10 countries in 100 days. HOLY CRAP!! Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritus, Myanamar, India, Vietnam, China(twice), and Japan. I feel nearly snobish talking about it, I dont think someone my age should be able to experience something so wonderful, those things are supposed to happen to old people who have worked and done things to deserve it. I know that sounds silly, but thats how i feel. People ask me what im doing next semester and I tell them, each time laughing to myself and sometimes outloud, because I too have a hard time believing it. Just have to thank God for having this opportunity, and make each day count.

I have many trips already planned, safari in South Africa, Taj Majal in India, moutain hiking adventure in Brazil, etc etc. What Im looking forward to more, however, are the service visits I have planned in each country. I have the opportunity to go into orphanges, hospitals, etc, in each country, see how they are run, talk to the managers, and then interact with the children and people in need. I have bought school supplies, tooth brushes, etc, for some of the people I meet, I wish I could bring more but I can't wait to help in this way. Everyone that I have talked to or read their blogs all said these trips were there favorite by far, and could not even put into words accurately how they felt.

I have bought more things for this trip than London and Spain combined. How do you pack for 10 countries?! Im going to Muslim countries when its like over 100 degrees, yet as women, we have to wear pants and long sleeve shirts to cover up. Anyone who knows me must be laughing, cause they know I DO NOT handle heat to say the least, but I must respect their culture. Can we say Linen?! Also, its not like you have a walmart down the street where you can pick up things you need along the way. We have to pack EVERYTHING we will need for 4 months in 2 suitcases. If someone came up to you and said, what do you think you will need in the next 4 months, could you do it?! Didnt think so. All part of the experience I guess.

Oh, and getting everything ready for this thing was no picnic either. My poor mother, it seemed like everyday while I was in Spain I was asking her to do something to prepare for this trip. Fax this, mail that, buy this, fix that... man what a mess. Thank God for her. I've been in Florida for a week, and have spent everyday shopping and preparing. Each day something has happened. So far, iPod stolen, passport mailed back to me without my pages needed, meds for yellow fever etc were not covered by insurance, and the ones that were I left in NH, ISIC card company screwed up and UNH threw a FIT to say the least, loan is delayed 3 weeks giving me like no money. Thank God for my grandmother, she has lent me $1500 and also bought me a new iPod Nano to replace my stolen one. Family ROCKS!! There are a million other things that happened but I just cant remember them right now. My visas alone cost $600!! man what a pricy trip. Im trying to have $6000, but I had to pay nearly $2000 before I even left for crap to go and visas. Enough of that though!! Back to the good stuff.

so all in all, im extreemly excited, a bit nervous that I dont know anyone, but, I'll just rely on my charming self to get me through. :) haha

Hope you enjoyed this rediculously long blog. Have alot on my mind. Please keep in touch, write me love and make sure to check out my pics once I load them. All my love, Sara.