Okay! I left off with us heading to Swakpmund. We had heard it was more happening there. We booked two hotel rooms in town (which were only about $25 per person per night) at this pretty nice hotel. We didn’t get there till almost 3pm because we all needed to sleep in a bit after our African bar adventures from the night before... After putting our stuff down, we explore the town a bit. There wasn’t much to see, but it was cute. Two friends and me ended up getting lost from the rest of our group and had to explore alone. Luckily, we had set a plan to meet in case we separated. It’s really annoying not to have cell phones or texting. I have learned to appreciate it much more.

Jumped around bar to bar that night and had a pretty good time at the dance clubs. We got home at about 3:30am and crashed out. At 4:30am (ish) there a knock on our door. I hear men’s voices so I tell me friend Jonah to get the door. Long story short... it’s this guy that is on Semester at Sea with us but we don’t personally know. Turns out his roommates kicked him out of his room for being a drunk asshole. So we let him into our room, because the manager told us he would be kicked out otherwise... So morning (ie. Afternoon) rolls around and the guy is like, “So how did I get here?” We didn’t have the heart to tell him so we told him that he accidentally knocked on our door. Oh well.

So after, we managed to get clothes on and went out and got a quick breakfast. Then I jumped out of a plane at 10,000 feet in the air. It was pretty awesome.

That night we went out to the bars again, but they closed early because it was a Sunday. Semester at Sea kids, being the creative souls they are (hmm...) set up a bonfire at the beach. It reminded me of high school and California in general. It warmed my heart; although the pulls from the 1/5 of vodka we were drinking probably also attributed to that.

The next morning I woke up and was super sick and drained. We got in a cab and heading back to Walvis Bay so I could get into bed. We went out to dinner that night, but I skipped out on the bars. I stayed on the boat our last day in Namibia because I wanted to get over my flu before Cape Town.

We’ve had two days of class and we will be in Cape Town first thing in the morning. I’m happy I stayed on the boat for the day and pumped myself with vitamins, because I feel all better now!

Tentative Cape Town plans include bars (including hitting up the giant gay bar scene), hiking Table Mountain, bungee jumping, a few wine tours, and touring Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was locked up)... Only time will tell!

I don't miss the rain, but I miss all of you!
Falyn

I have 15 minutes at an internet cafe here in Namibia. hopefully I'll be able to cover everything in that time!

Okay! So we left Brazil to cross the Atlantic Ocean over to Africa. It took 8 days at sea to make it, but we finally ported in Walvis Bay, Namibia (pronounced Wall-fffish Bay). This is the first time Semester at Sea has ever gone to Namibia so no one had ever been there, which also meant we didn't really know what to expect. Namibia was a German colony until 18 years ago (crazy!), so it's surprisingly nice. People are pretty poor here and there's a 40% unemployment rate, yet, everyone is sooo cheerful!

The first day we spent walking around Walvis Bay, exploring, shopping and such. Namibian food is really German food because the Germans were here for so long. We got a Namibian lunch and it was super yummy. Later, we decided randomly to go to this place call "Sushi Pizza Seafood Bar" sounded like something we could like! We knew we'd be drinking that night so decided to start dinner with a shot and some beers. Oh us stupid Americans! It turns out the rugby game was on... Everytime one of the teams scored we got a free (yes free) blue shot, everytime the other team scored we got a free (yes free!) green shot... Oye. We ended up going back to the boat like 8 shots deep to get ready to go out for the night with our new Namibia friends that we made at Sushi Pizza Seafood Bar. Went to a couple of bars with these guys from dinner (here's where things get a little hazy)... Let me point out that $1 US = $8 Namibian... Shots are about $9 Namibian... Well another 5 shots and 4 beers later, I may have made out with a super hot Namibian guy...

The next day we went to a city about 30 minutes away from our port city. Oh shit, I only have 4 minutes left. I'm going to say to be continued and finish this up when I'm back on the boat. Here's a hint of what happens: there are more bars and eventually skydiving involved!

Love you and miss you all!
Falyn

Back to classes and life on the boat, although after four days on the Amazon I couldn’t be happier to get back to the MV Explorer with beds and showers!

Let’s backtrack a bit. So we’ve had 3 days of each of our classes so far. I’m really enjoying my classes and its kind of fun to be back to small classes like it was in high school. Some of the people on this trip are complete idiots and say jaw-droppingly dumb shit all the time... Basically if you can pay for the trip and have a 2.0 you’re in... Luckily, there are definitely some really smart people too. The classes give us a ridiculous amount of reading, but since we are stuck on a boat anyway I’ve actually been doing most of it (shocking, I know).

I was getting a little down on the social situation on the boat for a couple of days there, but have fully recovered. My roommate was a little too attached for me considering how different we are and what we like to do. I was also getting somewhat frustrated by the booze-cruise mentality of a lot of the students too. There’s 3 hours period where a bar opens and sells Bud Light cans for $3.50 each and we are limited to 4 a night. A good amount of people have been spending the $14 to get the 4 beers every night... That should be a nice bill at the end of the trip. Luckily, I’ve been able to find some cool people and have a good time. My roommate and I now have a nice balance of having breakfast together once and awhile, but having separate friends. It’s working for us.

We got into Salvador, Brazil on the 7th. I spent the first day exploring the city, which is extremely poor and dirty. Very few people speak English, but my Spanish was able to get the group I was traveling with around okay. We to lunch in a place that had amazing food but took about 2 hours to make it! It’s the little things like customer service that you forget to appreciate in the U.S. Luckily the food was so good that it mostly made up for it. I was still frustrated. That night we went out to the bars on the beach. One of my friends speaks some Portuguese so we were able to get around a lot easier. We started out (after a 6 person $10 taxi ride) at a small bar kind of hidden away. There’s a type of liquor here made with sugar called 51 and a popular drink is a lot of it mixed with crushed limes and other things we couldn’t identify. It tasted like a mixture of a Margarita and a Mojito and is very strong. After downing a few of those and watching a bit of the football (soccer) game we decided to move on. Our next bar choice was the one that all the other SAS kids were wasted at. There we got a few liters of beer and people watched our classmates. I was surprised how drunk people were willing to get in a foreign country. Not to say I was sober... but some people couldn’t walk on their own and puking their brains out before trying to get back on the boat.  The bars were fun and we really enjoyed laughing at our classmates. There was a large group, about 15 kids, that got locked into a club they went to and was forced to pay over $200 each (one girl had to pay $750) just to be let out. The police in Brazil are really corrupt too, so they had to just kiss that money goodbye. This was just another example of why you shouldn’t get blacked out drunk in one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Anyway! The next day I left for the Amazon, which is completely across the country. After a long morning of bus rides and airplanes, we made it to our boat. The boat was pretty little and the two floors. The bathrooms went right out into the water and the showers came directly from the river... We all slept in hammocks on the top floor. We went on a long hike in the jungle and were introduced to all these natural medicines and things that the US and Europe imports to create things that we buy all the time. We got to take pictures with snakes, alligators and sloths that our guide caught or people owned. The ducks in the Amazon look like duck-chicken hybrids and it became an ongoing joke between me and later the whole boat with our guide. Near the end of the week he finally caught one for me to take a picture with, it was probably a highlight of the trip. I now want to one day own a Duck-Chicken as a pet. We got to visit a few villages and beaches. After swimming in the River Negro (which meets with the Amazon but strangely doesn’t mix), you were kind of covered in this thin layer of mud, but it was worth cooling off.

When we got back from the Amazon, after a very long journey back, I explored Salvador a little more on my own. I’ve found I’m a bit more of an adventurous traveler than some of the people I’ve traveled with so far so I wanted to check out some stuff on my own. Don’t worry I think I’ve found some others to travel with in future countries. Back on the boat and back to class today. I’ll be in Namibia in a week. I’m looking into either 4x4’s through the desert or sky-diving, we’ll see what I can pull together.

Miss and love you all!

Shabbat Shalom!
Fal Fal

Ok so I meant to post this last week but for some reason it didn't work. So read this as if you were reading it last week. I just got back from four days going down the Amazon River and am super tired for this last week's update will come tomorrow. Love you all!

So I started out in Nassau, Bahamas on Wednesday and spent two days on the beach and meeting my classmates around town. Met some cool people, some sucky ones. It was extremely hot and humid but the beaches were amazing. The bugs were not as amazing...

After a long line of check-in I made it onto the boat and into my room. The boat is nice and kept up really well. They feed us buffet style 3 times a day. There's a small pool and an even smaller gym, but lots of room the relax. My room is cute and little, but really not bad. Being at sea really isn't bad, I have yet to get anywhere close to sea-sick, while many others have. Tonight is extremely rocky and my roommate has already gotten pretty sick (luckily, I wasn't there for that...).

My roommate is a sorority girl from a small private college in Virginia, but we somehow get along extremely well and I see us being good friends. She is originally from Maryland and her parents and conservative Catholics, haha. She's a moderate, but I have an entire semester to help her find her way.

The last two days have consisted of a lot of boring meetings about what we can and can't do and how to do the things we can do. We start class tomorrow and have 2 of them every other day and the other 2 the other days. We got to meet the professors and they seemed pretty interesting and/or entertaining. A husband and wife couple are on the trip as professors because their daughter went on SAS last year and they both have PHDs The boat is 25% Californians, which is the largest California population they've ever had (sadly, there are a lot of gross so-cal orange girls). There's a good number from the Bay too. The boat is also 75% girls, 25% boys which I expected to be more intense than it has been so far... Although I'm sure drama will come eventually.

We get into Salvador, Brazil on the 7th and I leave for the Amazon on the 8th. They've been pretty big on warning us about Dengue Fever, which I hear can get pretty bad. The only preventative treatment is to use bug spray.... a little scary. 6 more days at sea (and of class) and then Brazil! I can make it!

With Love,
Falyn

P.S. My free email is fsokol@semesteratsea.net! I will only get 2 hours on the internet, but this email address does not count towards that time, so I can be on it as much as I want!