Falyn's Adventure Time

2008-11-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

I have to say, when I left for this program I was excited to see the world and indifferent about the formal education I would receive. The first few weeks were rocky. Between getting yet another rocky assigned roommate, to struggling to find people I could more than tolerate. Of course I managed to find when to bite my lip with my roommate, meet some good friends and talked with interesting people. The class environment reminded me of my high school and my memories of how to work a teacher who actually knows your name came flooding back to me. Meanwhile, our small ship (okay, not that small) was cut off from American society with very little internet access and almost no phones. While, I found my niche on the ship, I still wasn’t completely sure about the trip on a whole. The rules and regulations were obviously far more limiting than back packing with Sarah two summers ago. Today I find myself with a complete change of heart. I’m not exactly sure how yet, but I have come across I different way of thought. Without fully understanding it myself just yet, I’m having a hard time putting it into words. Perhaps by the time I get home, it will be more clear. Either way, the world has gotten to me.

We started our way around the world and in the beginning it was rather surreal. Brazil, Namibia, and South Africa flew by in a flurry of extreme sports, beaches, partying and befriending locals. Then we got to India and, because of the large population size, the problems plaguing the world could not be ignored. Malaysia gave us a temporary break from heart-ripping issues, but made us think about racial relations both worldwide and back at home. Then we got to Vietnam. I spoke to some of you before I left about my unexplainable excitement to see Vietnam. Perhaps my interest in the Vietnam War sparked this and part of me definitely wanted to see how the Vietnamese people would react to a boatload of spoiled American college students. Academically speaking, I understood how the culture was able to bounce back from a war that stole 3 million of their people. At the same time, I didn’t understand how a people could recover for the death, destruction, and the after effects of such a violent war. In America, I feel we are still very much recovering from the same war that killed just about 60,000 soldiers and wasn’t fought on our soil. I was eager to see the country outside the pictures of the war.

The first day in Ho Chi Minh City I went on a tour of temples and churches in the city. The country of Vietnam is largely Buddhist, but also has populations of Catholics and Muslims. We visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, which represented a pretty classic Cathedral. Cross-shaped in structure, tall dome ceilings, and a beautifully decorated entrance and podium area. This Cathedral was not the largest I have ever been to, which directly reflected that Catholics are only about 10% of the population. A classic Catholic wedding was setting up with a bride in a stunning white dress taking photos right outside. Another stop we made was to the Xa Loi and Vinh Nghiem Pagodas. Each of these Pagodas included a giant, gold-painted Buddha in the center and areas to worship. Both Pagodas were decorated with bright and vibrant colors and smelled of incenses. The Mariamman Hindu Temple could have been pulled right out of India. I wasn’t able to go inside the Saigon Central Mosque because I didn’t bring anything to cover my head, but the outside was basic and subtle. Finally, the Le Van Duyet Temple was a beautiful Buddhist Temple that consisted of three areas. All the rooms were well aired and had incense burning. Each were colored with a spectrum of reds and yellows. A small coy pond had one fish that was so friendly I literally was able to pet his head. We got back in the evening to shower and get dinner.

We went out and got a Vietnamese dinner. I really wanted pho, but we happened across a place that didn’t have it first. It was an okay meal, not the best I’ve had, but not the worse. After dinner we went to this area that’s known as the backpackers area of Ho Chi Minh. We started at a club called Allez Boo, they were having happy hour till 10pm and we got there at about 9:15pm. The happy hour special was buy two cocktails and get one free. They had to be finished by the end of happy hour to get the deal, so naturally we each got three cocktails at once and chugged them while we played “never have I ever.” The game can be a lot funnier with people you know but don’t know super well. We decided to go find a dance club, but got sidetracked when these American guys asked to sit with them at this outdoor bar we passed. They turned out to be kind of boring so after a few drinks we left them. While with them we did meet a guy who regularly dresses as a drag queen and lives in back of the clothing store next door to the bar. His name was Quan an he was pretty cool. At this point we hadn’t seen any other SAS kids, which is always kind of nice. One of the girls I was with really wanted to go to the club that we knew all the SAS kids would be at called Apocalypse Now (weird irony, I know). So we get there and me and my friend Becca are totally not feeling it and decide to hang out outside until the other two girls are ready to go. The funny thing about hanging outside is you get to see everyone who goes in and say your hellos, but even funnier is seeing who is leaving… with who… About an hour later, we head back to the ship.

The second day Goldie and I have a class-required trip to a rural school for disabled children. We thought we had to be at the bus at 7:30am but it turned out that it left at 7:30am… so we missed it… Luckily there was another trip that met the same requirement that left at 8am! This was a school for the disabled in Ho Chi Minh City. We went around to a few of the classrooms and the children sang for us. After we saw all the performances the kids were released from classes to play with us. This school was for sure a reality check on the affects the Vietnam War, which they call the American War, had and still has on this country. Their environment being soaked with or their parents reproductive systems being messed with by Agent Orange directly caused almost all of the children’s disabilities. We are now almost 35 years past the end of the war, yet it is still greatly affect the individual lives of the Vietnamese. Meanwhile, a good majority of the people on my ship didn’t even have the slightest idea what the reasoning behind America entering Vietnam. We seem to have been able to forget a lot easier… While the children were great, it was hard to know that our country is the reason many of them struggle. When we got back to the ship we were physically and emotionally drained and decided to nap. After a short nap, we went out to the local market for shopping and lunch. I had amazing pho at the market that cost about $1 American. Got a few pairs of sunglasses, a few DVDs and some gifts. It was Halloween so our next goal was to find costumes. We spent the rest of our day searching the city for costumes. Finally, we were able to find a Halloween store and get some cheap costumes. I was a pirate. We grabbed dinner and headed back to the ship to drop things off and get ready for our night.

Who knew Halloween in Vietnam would be so big? I sure didn’t. Once we were all dressed up we went out to meet up with Quan, the drag queen from the night before, who said s/he would take us out. We met up with him at the clothing store and pre-gamed the night. He was super glamorous and we realized quickly it was a good thing we decided to go out with him. He and his friends took us to a drag queen rave like thing at this club called Hollywood. Long story short, it was pretty crazy. At some point we lost them and decided to go somewhere else. We ended up at this dance club called Go2 that had a lot of backpackers at it. My friend was Jamie Lynn Spears and we had put a balloon under a wife beater to make her pregnant. All the Vietnamese people thought that was possible the most amazing/funny thing they had ever seen and kept touching it. Finally, one of the girls we were with was really too drunk to stay out so we all decided to leave. We couldn’t all fit in one cab so me and Goldie decided to try one of those motorcycle taxis. The ship told us they didn’t recommend them because they can be dangerous, but it looked like so much fun! The driver was this really old (60+) Vietnamese man and he said he could fit both of us for $1 American all the way back to the ship. I got on behind him and Goldie on the back. I let Goldie have the extra helmet since she was on the back. Anyway, this ride was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. Our driver was a little creepy and kept touching my leg and like giggling, but he was so old he was harmless and we were drunk enough to think it was funny. We decided then that we would only travel by motorcycle taxis from then on. Got back to the ship just fine and went to bed after some drunken socialization around the boat.

Day three was yet another early morning to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels and a Cao Dai Temple. We started at the Cao Dai Temple to witness the morning service. Caodaiism is a Vietnamese religion that combines ideas from multiple other religions. The temple was very large and open. The service involved everyone wearing similar robes and sitting cross-legged chanting. Definitely was nothing I had seen before on such a large scale. The actual temple was full of color and light and truly beautiful. We headed out to get to the tunnels, so we’d have plenty of time there. On our way to the tunnels we stopped at the American War Cemetery, which was hard to walk through, but was important to see. Then it was off to the tunnels. As some of you may know Cu Chi is an area of Vietnam that took a particularly brutal beating during the War. In the same area, there is part of Vietnam’s complicated underground tunneling system created in the 1940’s to hide from French attacks. The tunnels consist of about 70km and have everything including strategy rooms, traps, secret get-aways, and air vents. These tunnels were used by the Viet Kong and were particularly critical for the Tet Offensive. American forces continually tried to figure out and destroy these tunnels, but mostly failed. In fact, the American army had a base camp directly above part of the tunnels and was baffled when the Viet Kong was able to enter the base multiple times. These tunnels were the cause of a large percentage of American casualties. Today, the tunnels are protected by the Vietnamese government and used as a tourist spot. We were given the chance to crawl through a part of them. We thought it would be fun experience, so we did it. An experience it was, fun it was not. The tunnels are cramped, pitch-dark, and generally creepy. While the tunnels were definitely one of those moments where someone who did not live to see the war, like myself, had an intense connection to brutality of it, it wasn’t the tunnels that really got to me. Before actually going through the tunnels we were walking all around the area of Cu Chi. We were able to spend a long time there just walking and taking it in. At a certain point I was just looking down on the ground and it hit me exactly how many people must have died exactly where I was stepping. I couldn’t help but be flooded with thoughts of the fear, anger, and pain that had been felt in the exact spot I was standing. It wasn’t until after leaving that I realized I didn’t connect any of those emotions to a particular side, but rather the experience on both sides. Here I was standing in a wooded area, in the middle of Vietnam, 33 years after the war ended and the emotion of the area was still so heavy that it couldn’t go un-noticed. We got on the bus for the two-hour trip back to the ship for dinner and to get ready for the night. That night we met up with Goldie’s friend who had been a foreign student at UCSC last year from Australia. She just happened to be in Ho Chi Minh City at the same time. So we went to their hotel and pre-gamed a bit before we went out. We went out to the clubs for a while, but they were all kind of dead… At 2 we called it a night, got some motorcycle-taxis and headed back to the ship.

The next day, Goldie, Becca, Dan and I did a little more shopping (got a few more DVDs and gifts). Then we stopped in a internet café for about an hour since we don’t get any internet on the ship other than our email. When we decided to get lunch, Dan told us about this all-you-can-eat conveyor belt sushi restaurant. So we got sushi and ate until our bellies were so full it hurt. For those of you in Seattle, imagine Blue-C, but all-you-can-eat. After our amazing lunch, we went to the War Memorial Museum. It’s pretty much just one open room with pictures and texts on all the walls, but it still leaves a very strong impression. After taking a minute to digest everything outside, we walked over to the Norte Dame Cathedral. I had already seen it, but the others hadn’t and it’s definitely worth seeing. Across the street from that is the Ho Chi Minh City Post Office. It sort of looks like a giant train station, but somehow they do mail there. We got stamps and postcards and went outside to figure out what to do next. We looked up and saw this terrible, giant, grey cloud and before we knew it, it was pouring. I’m not talking Seattle rain here - this was serious downpour. Dan and I decided to head back to the ship, while Becca and Goldie tried to go out shopping. That night I was pretty tired from everything and stayed in to watch PS I Love You with Goldie and Sara.

Our final day in Vietnam we did some wondering around a neighborhood that we hadn’t been before. We had asked a taxi driver to take us to Chinatown, but he didn’t speak English and ended up dropping us off in this really non-tourist area. We walked around for a while. I met this very cute Chocolate lab puppy that had mange, but still managed to be super cute. We decided to get lunch, but couldn’t find anywhere that had anything that we wanted. Finally we found this cute place and went in. One of the waiters spoke English and helped us order all this great food. We had these little circles of egg with a shrimp in the middle that you put with lettuce and some sauces. At first sight it didn’t look very good, but turned out to be delicious! Then we had some fried rice and dumplings. Our waiter stood over us the whole time we ate, which was kind of uncomfortable, but happened our whole time in Vietnam. He then went on to tell us that his brother works with George Bush and showed us a picture hanging up in the restaurant of them together. It was pretty funny. We got him to put us in a cab and tell the driver, in Vietnamese, to take us to Chinatown. Chinatown was very busy. We went to a market and it was soo crowded and had fake everything. There were fake bags, fake sunglasses, fake jeans, it was crazy. We left the market and walked around Chinatown for a bit before we decided to head back into the direction of the ship. It took us a long time to find motorcycle taxis, and when we did they could speak a word of English. We manage to show them where we needed to go, got on and had a really fun, long ride. We got a small dinner before heading back to the ship.

Overall, Vietnam was emotional, beautiful, eye opening, and fun. Vietnam alone made this entire trip worthwhile for me. Vietnam is definitely a place I want to go to again and may require a backpacking trip including Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.

I'm sorry this was so late! I will write and send my China and Japan updates this week! Love you all!
Falyn

2008-11-02T01:06:00.000-07:00

I’m once again overwhelmed by updating my blog. I hope you guys are enjoying this (*cough* Zoe *cough*), it’s actually been nice to re-cap after each country. We left Malaysia on Sunday night (Sunday early morning for you guys). It was definitely a nice break after India. Malaysia is very clean and safe and friendly. Very rarely do people try to rip you off for being a foreigner, which is not how it has been everywhere else. Overall, Malaysia was a great time.

Day one in Malaysia I had to go on a trip with my professor for a class about ethnic communities. Malaysia is kind of a combination of India, China, and… Pakistan (kind of). There are three kinds of people in Malaysia. There are the Malays, who are Muslims; the Chinese, who are Buddhist; and the Indians, who are Hindus. While there are issues of inequality – Muslims and Hindus don’t generally do well together, on a day-to-day basis that country is extremely peaceful. We ported in Penang, a large, metropolitan city. Because of our ship’s size, we couldn’t actually port. Instead we had to do this process called tendering. So we anchored the ship about ½ a mile from land and had to get on a little boat to get to the pier. It was pretty annoying because you had to plan your day around when the little boats went back and forth. We just stayed off the ship as much as possible to avoid this. So anyway, we went on this tour of the different communities in Penang. Close to the ship was little India, which was exactly what it sounds like. Pretty anti-climactic after being in big India… Then we went to the Chinatown, which was pretty cool. Most of Chinatown is set up on Jettys, which are homes on stilts on the water. They consist of homes, small stores, and restaurants. Almost all the food in Malaysia is small carts on the street. Finally, we went out to rural homes of the Malays, but we didn’t stay there long. After the tour was over, Goldie (Jew friend) and I went to a local mall to get to an internet cafe. To our surprise, there was a Starbucks at this very non-globalized mall. Other than the Starbucks, it was all super Asian stores. I got an amazing sweatshirt from one of the stores that is basically indescribable. I was super excited and we enjoyed are lattes like no other. I had signed up to go to a shadow puppet show later that evening and I left Goldie at the Starbucks to meet up with our friend Julie*. Unfortunately, as I was getting on the bus to go to the puppet show, I saw Julie at the pier without Goldie. I ran off the bus and told her where Goldie was and she got into a cab with this guy TJ (known as a super creeper on the ship) to go find her. We had all made a meeting time at the pier at 10pm in case we got lost from each other. I got back from the puppet show at about 9:30pm and just hung out at the pier for the others. At 10pm Goldie showed up and said that Julie had never found her… So we decided to go to the hotel I thought they would check into for us and hope that Julie was with the others. We got to the hotel and they had checked in and we went up to the room. We figure they had already gone out and we never would find them, but then we heard voices in the room! They were there! We reunite, but realize that Julie isn’t in the room. Well, it turns out she’s in the shower because they found her at about 9pm at a bar and creepy ass TJ had been buying her shots all evening. She was super wasted. So we all get dressed and I tell everyone that I’ll take care of Julie and we can go out still. I go into the bathroom, get her dressed, get her hair dried and brushed, and she’s ready to go with some help. People were impressed I was dealt with her so well, but she’s really a happy and helpful drunk! I was surprised everyone wasn’t used to that… Hah. So I had Julie make me a deal, for her to go out with us she had to try to vomit before we left to make sure it wasn’t in her and if we decided she needed to go home, she had to be willing to go to bed. She agreed. So in Malaysia it’s super illegal to be publicly drunk (hence us making sure she wouldn’t vomit in public), so we were a little worried, but we thought we’d give it a try. It wasn’t long before Julie fell off a chair and I brought her home. I put her to bed with a bucket next to her and a pillow propping her on her side. I also had her pinky-swear to me that she wouldn’t leave the room. The rest of the night was pretty normal. It was Wednesday and that meant ladies night at all the clubs, so all our drinks were free until midnight, which was fun. We got back to the hotel that night, Julie was still there and everyone had a good night.

The next morning we checked out of the hotel, bought bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur and I went back to the ship to shower and pack. We spent the day exploring Penang. We got a small lunch (food didn’t sound amazing at the time) and shopped around. One of the people I was with had heard there was a Borders in town and really wanted to buy a guide for Japan, so we went to this mall called Queen Plaza Mall. It was a pretty impressive mall. It had a lot of stores we knew including Borders, Forever 21, Converse, Coach, and a bunch of other random ones. I bought Obama’s book for my plane rides in China. I hear he’s doing well, but nothing we hear on the ship can really be confirmed, so I hope that’s true! We headed back into town to grab an early dinner and catch our ride to the bus station. We ate at a food court, which are very common in Malaysia. It’s pretty much a bunch of tables in the middle and then all these little vendors selling you parts of your meal. It was super good food and the whole meal with a beer was $2.50 American. We met up with everyone for our shuttle to the bus station and got on the bus around 7pm. The bus ride was supposed to be about 4 hours, but we hit some bad traffic on the bridge to the mainland and it took 6 hour instead. Most of the girls we were traveling with slept, but a few of us stayed up and messed around. We got into Kuala Lumpur around 1am and went around to a couple of hotel before we found this gross little place for $10 each a night called the Dragon Inn. After putting towels on our gross pillows, we crashed out.

The third day in Malaysia we wanted to try to fit in as many Kuala Lumpur’s must see spots as possible. We went and got breakfast at another food court and I translated to the people I was with what dim sum and other Chinese dishes were. I’ve been really surprised how people don’t know that kind of stuff. It happened a lot in India too. Anyway, after we were fed, we started walked to the KL Tower, which is basically the Space Needle of KL. It’s the third largest tower in the world. It was cool to see the whole city, but it was basically the same as the Space Needle. I ended up taking a bunch of these cool pictures by putting my camera up to the telescopes. That entertained two of us, while the others finished looking around. When we were done with the tower we hopped in two cabs and went to the old train station to buy tickets back to Penang for the following day. Unfortunately, our cabs dropped us off in two different places and we got lost from each other for a while. Somehow we found each other roaming around the station. The train station was very classic. It was very much what I think of as an old school train station. We asked around a bit and found out we need to go one stop further to KL Sentral to buy tickets. Everyone was pretty tired at this point so we headed back to the hotel. A few people decided to take late afternoon naps, and the rest of went off to get cheap massages. So the four of who decided to get massages went into a place close to the hotel. It was happy hour so we got a really good deal on an hour and a half “full body” massage and something called ear candling. Two of us had gotten massages before and the other two hadn’t. We all asked to be in the same room because we thought it’d be nice to talk to each other if we needed to and there were curtains in between our tables. Okay, so this massage was probably the most intense and completely unexpected experience I’ve ever had. Clearly in Malaysia boundaries that exist in America do not exist. Without getting into too much graphic detail, let’s just say we were all kind of violated. Any massage I have ever gotten in the U.S. they have a stopping point on you leg. This one did not. A butt massage was also included. Again, it was a fairly traumatic experience, but I do not want to get too detailed. You can ask me about it when I get home, I will not be forgetting it anytime soon. Overall, we were all good sports about it and laughed it off when we left. The back and neck part of it was really good too. The ear candling was pretty cool, don’t know exactly how it worked, but we were all happy the massage was over. The whole experience, with a tip, was $30 American. It’s a great story that has been laughed about everyday since, so I suppose it was worth it. They also must have done a great job on our backs, cause we were super sore the whole next day.

That night we went to Chinese fondue, which I didn’t know existed. It was on the street and in the middle of your table you had boiling hot water you stuck your food in. It was pretty good. Everyone stayed liked the idea of cooking their own food because besides for me, the food was not working well in people’s digestion. I have yet to get sick off of anything I have eaten, including everything they tell us not to eat (like fruit from a street stand in India, yum!). After dinner we went back to the hotel to pre-game the bars with a bottle of Stanley Morgan, we figured he was the Captain’s cousin or something. KL had a really big and happening club scene, but they all had about a $10 cover so we had to pick a place and stick there. I managed to talk to the front door girls at this place called the Rum Jungle and got it where if we bought a bottle of vodka we all got in free. This translated into us each getting 3 shots and in the club for $15 instead of paying $10 to get and $6 per shot. We finished the bottle pretty quickly but managed to attach ourselves to these 30-something year olds partying at the table next to us. One of the guys was from Texas and decided to buy us a bottle of Absolut. We finished that one and got us another one… Some of the girls went off to another bar, and four of us stayed with the Absolut. Once we finished it, Sara and Goldie went back to the hotel and Brittney and I stuck around. We were pretty drunk at that point… We ended up making lots of friends, but didn’t do anything too stupid. At one point we went to the bathroom and there was this secret passageway of sort that a bouncer told us to go through. It brought us to this dance floor, but after a few minute I realized it had brought us to a different club. Brittney hadn’t noticed. So we leave this club to get back to the other one, although I’m not exactly sure why we were so set on going back. We dance around and make more and at about 3am we decide to head back. Brittney is focusing on walking, so I try to get us a cab. All the cabs are trying to rip us off because they can see we are drunk and need to get home, but being the Jew that I am, will not accept it. Then this random guy comes up to us and offers us a ride back. I take a look at him to size up the situation and he’s probably the darkest little Chinese man I’ve ever seen. He’s really skinny, with big glasses, and a tucked in shirt. I decide Brittney and I could take him if anything bad happened, so we head to his car. We get in and Brittney passes out in the back seat and I chat with the guy. It turns out he saw the cab drivers trying to take advantage of our drunkness and just felt bad. He’s actually from China, but working in Malaysia with a N.G.O. working for world peace. Him and I have a good/me being way drunk conversation about politics and he gives me his email address telling me to let him know if I’m ever interested in working for a N.G.O. Yes, this is my second job offer since being on this trip, and both occurred while I was browned→blacked out drunk. Go figure. We make it back and pass out in our room.

Our final morning in KL started out a little rocky. Our friend Carolyn wakes us at 8:30am… Brittney and I are particularly hurting, but some are a few of the other girls. When Brittney and I were not getting up, Carolyn takes the detachable showerhead and sprays us with water. Not really the best way to make some who is super hungover/still drunk very happy. They all head to out while Goldie, Brittney and I check out of our rooms. They tell us to meet them at Starbucks. After we check out, we realize we have no idea where a Starbucks close by is… So we ask around a bit and no one know where the Starbucks is. Fuck. We had become lost yet again. The three of us get into a cab, thinking they must have gone to this Starbucks downtown, that we had stopped at the day before. The cab driver doesn’t really understand us and takes us to a completely different one (okay, globalization does suck). At this point we give us and decide to get coffee and breakfast and find them at the cave we were planning on going to. When we get to the cave/temple we find them. It turns out there was a Starbucks just down the street. We were all find frustrated with each other and just wanted to get back to the ship. This cave was also a Buddhist temple. It was pretty cool, I’ve seen cooler caves, but it was up there. There were a few weird things about the visiting the cave experience. First, there were these little monkeys all over the place. Second, every few steps we took there would be a group of Chinese people asking to pose for a million pictures with us… This has happened to us in other countries a few times, but not to this degree. Our train home is at 2pm so we head to KL Sentral to wait for it. The train kept getting delayed, which made us nervous because we had to catch the last tender boat to the ship at 1am or we would have to get a hotel room. There was talk of buying a flight, but I was pretty set on having the experience of taking a train completely up Malaysia. We agreed we would make it and the train left at 4:30pm. After an entertaining, beautiful, and restless 8 hour train ride back to Penang we still need to get from the mainland to the island of Penang. It was a weekend, so the traffic usually took about an hour. We got off the train at 12am. We got back to the pier at exactly 1am, ran from the taxi and just barely made it.

The last day in Malaysia I slept in a bit, having been tired from so much travel. We got off the ship at about 11am and did our last bits of shopping around town. We also had a delicious Thai lunch. I hadn’t had Thai food in sooo long and I’ve kind of grown accustom to eating it once a week. On-ship time was 6pm, so we got came back on at about 4:30pm. You never want to push your luck by trying to get back on the boat right before on-ship because usually a SAS sponsored trip will be coming back around then. If you are late for on-ship time you get at the next port, one hour of dock time (can’t get off the ship) for every 15 minutes you’re late. If you’re with a SAS sponsored trip you don’t get dock time for being late, but if you get stuck behind one of those trips you do. It’s annoying, but we don’t like to mess with it.

Okay! So that was Malaysia! We are porting in Vietnam right now, so I need to go get ready. I will hopefully update again after Vietnam and before China!

Miss you guys!
Fal

2008-10-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

It’s been awhile and now I’m kind of overwhelmed in writing this, but I will do my best. It’s almost the half way point of my journey around the world and time has gone by fairly quickly. I imagine it’s going to start going by a lot quicker considering in the next 30 days we will go to 5 countries (Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong –not actually a part of China anymore, China, and Japan) and only be on the boat for 7 days. It should be a good time.

Okay, now for updating. We had 12 days on the ship before reaching India. These days included 11 days of class with the Sea Olympics smack in the middle. Classes were intense, because that’s a lot of straight days of class and everyone had midterms and project due all over the place. Everyone was pretty much over the boat by the end of it and very excited about getting off. The Sea Olympics were a nice break, but didn’t allow anyone to really forget the mounds of work they had waiting for them. Basically the ship is split up “seas”based on where on the boat you live. Each floor is generally split into four different “seas.”My sea is called the Arabian Sea and our color is black. During the Sea Olympics all the seas battle at various games to gain points. The sea that wins first place gets to get off the boat first in Miami in December. This wasn’t that big of a deal to me because my flight out of Miami isn’t until 8 or 9pm. Either way, is was a day of ridiculous games and was pretty fun. I was in the Pictionary team and we managed to get 3rd place. Other of the games included Twister, Pizza Making Contest, Limbo, Tug-of-war, Human Knot, Flip Cup, Sudoku, Volleyball, Push-up Contest, and other games involving mental or physical strength. Again, overall a good time, but only made our work pill on even harder the next day. In the end, the Arabian Sea got 3rd place overall, which gets us squat. Oh well.

We finally docked the ship in Chennai, India last Tuesday. Chennai is a large city on the South East coast of India. It is considered more religious and more conservative than the big cities in the North but less so than more rural India. All and all, if I need to describe India in one hyphenated word, it would be over-stimulating. Every sense and emotion is pushed to its limits and then pushed a little farther still. This is by far the most tiring place I have ever traveled in. The first thing to consider is there is a shit-ton of people in India. It’s really not even describable. You never have more than a couple inches of space to yourself and people are constantly pushing, grabbing, and/or yelling at you. You also had to share your space with the random cows, goats and hundreds of dogs roaming the streets. It’s also extremely dirty in every sense of the word. The streets literally have trash all over them, the pollution and smog genuinely sticks to your skin, and everyone is always sweating from the intense heat. Yet another extreme feeling in India is the weather. The entire time we were there it was 90 degrees with 85% humidity, but about once or twice a day it would start down pouring for 15-20 minutes at a time, at complete random. Then there was the smell of India. I figured that the smell people talk about India having would be similar to that in Indian restaurants…Boy was I wrong. While there are hints of curry and spices, it mostly smells like dead people rotting in the sun…that completely could have been one factor to it. Okay, so far we are hot, overwhelmed by people, and can barely breathe. Now let’s add in the noise. The streets are crazy! Traffic lights and road lines are merely suggestions and rickshaw drivers (the main form of transportation, a three-wheeled scooter with a bench seat…I have pictures…) drive like maniacs and regularly hit each other and cars. They also see no problem in driving against the flow of traffic is they think it will get them somewhere faster. Felt kind of like a roller coaster. The rickshaw drivers were also getting paid off by some really expensive stores to ignore our requests and take us there. That really got old so before getting into one I would tell them if they didn’t take me directly where I asked to go I wouldn’t pay them. Haggling with the rickshaw drivers was really an emotional experience within itself and when you got to you destination they usually changed the price to four times as much and you would have to throw what you agreed on at them and walk away while they screamed at you. Most people spoke some English, but hardly anyone spoke it very well. The drivers knew the key terms. Finally, the poverty pushed every emotion and feeling you had. When driving back to the boat at night thousands of men, women and children slept side by side on the streets and in alleyways. Nothing like I had ever seen before. Families would sleep in the middle of the sidewalks and next to them a cow, then another family, then maybe some goats, etc. Very intense. While all these things were a lot to take in they usually made both the positives and negatives of my experience in India. The smell really always a negative, except in restaurants. That’s my overall description of Chennai, but I haven’t gotten into what I actually did there!

So day one I got off the ship as soon as we were cleared by immigration and got on a rickshaw to get a general idea of the city. This was one of the scariest, but fun rides of my life. We only had an hour till I had to get back to the port to go on a trip organized by Semester at Sea for my Education to teach at a school. After very little exploration we headed back and I left for the school. We ended up going to two schools. One was an all girls public and the other was a co-ed private school. Both schools gave us a grand entrance involving music, songs, and welcome speeches. It was somewhat overwhelming considering we were just teaching them small interactive science lessons. None of the kids we worked with had ever done interactive science in their lives. While they were all under 15 years old, they had only been lectured in science, we could hardly believe it. That evening, we went out to dinner and had amazing Indian food. Most of the restaurants served both Indian and Chinese food, which was kind of weird and the place we went to was called Wang’s. We decided against getting Chinese food considering we were in India…After our amazing meal we went to a hookah bar called Moche. It closed at 11pm, as did just about everything else, and we were home by 11:30pm.

The next day I traveled around with this guy named Brooks who is also from the Bay. We started out at a famous local silk shop to look around. They had amazing silk saris for less than 1000 rupees (it’s about 50 rupees to 1 American dollar), and although a lot of girls bought them, I just didn’t see a sari fitting into my life. We then walked around the streets and tried this crazy fruit that was nothing like anything I had before. On the outside it was green and kind of bumpy. The inside, the part you ate, was white and sweet and broke up into pieces with individual seeds. They told us not to eat fruit or anything from street vendors, but we were feeling brave so we ate this fruit from a street vendor. Hah. Then we went to this really good lunch and had a fest for $2 American each. Brooks accidentally ate a pepper and almost died, but managed to get through it. All the food here is pretty spicy in general, but this pepper looked particularly bad. After lunch, we got into a rickshaw and went to the Pondy Bazaar. This was yet another extreme situation. It’s a street market where the sidewalks have shops and vendors on both sides, leaving a very narrow space to walk. Everything was super cheap and anything you could ever want from India was pretty available. There were also really bad fake bags and wallets and belts, like worse than in Mexico bad. We spent a couple hours there, shopping and went back to the boat to shower and nap. That night, we met up with a few other people and went out to dinner for more amazing Indian food for $2 American each. Then we went to a Bollywood movie. Bollywood is the film industry in India, which is super big. They make like 800 movies a year. It’s not a physical place like Hollywood, but the name for the general industry. The movies are often in either the most common language of the area of in English with Indian accents. The movie we saw was in Tamil, which is the most common language of South East India. We got the deluxe seat because they were only $2.15 and got super fancy leather seats that reclined and balcony seating to better see the giant screen. The movies play so loudly! It kind of hurt my ears at first, especially considering we couldn’t understand what they were saying. Even without understanding any of it, we got what the movie was about. It was an action film about the important government official whose daughter gets kidnapped. At the same time these four guys are on a road trip but because of a series of unfortunate events end up at this abandoned factory that just so happens to be where the bad guys are keeping the daughter. After a lot of really fake but hilarious fighting and bad things happening they save her and kill all the bad guys. It was a three-hour movie, but there was an intermission in the middle. It was pretty funny.

The third day in India I spent my whole day at an orphanage that Mother Teresa opened. I didn’t know this until I got there, but it turned out to be a home for children with disabilities. They had a far range of disabilities and most of the kids weren’t actually orphaned, but rather just dropped off when their parents realized they weren’t “normal.”The orphanage was extremely dirty and had almost no toys anywhere. Many of the kids were both physically and mentally disabled. There was a couple with what seemed to be Autism too. I spent most of my time in the room with the severely disabled kids. They all were just laid down on a blanket on the cement floor. They were all extremely skinny. When feeding time came around I saw why they were all so skinny. If in the U.S. everyone one of the kids I was with would have been on a feeding tube, probably since birth.; none them had one. Even if they did have feeding tubes they would probably get infections from the unsanitary conditions. So to feed these kids they would make a liquid meal and just fill there mouth with it over and over again in hopes that most of it ends up in their stomachs. For sure this was the most shocking and emotional day I had in India and it really made me appreciate everything we have in the U.S. to help kids in those situations. I stayed in that night; I was pretty exhausted after that experience.

The next day was my last full day in Chennai. I got an early start going out with a friend for our last bits of exploring and shopping. We grabbed a rickshaw driver who offered to let us drive the rickshaw. Of course we jumped at the opportunity! He brought us down near the beach and let us each drive around for about 15 minutes. The actual rickshaw was a lot of fun to drive, but it was a little weird to be driving on the opposite side of the rode then we do in the U.S. and scary avoiding all the other cars and people. It wasn’t as crowded near the beach, but it wasn’t empty at all. After our driving lessons, we decided to go back to Pondy Bazaar. We had really only gotten through half of it the first time before we got overwhelmed and tired. We shopped the rest of the morning and had one more amazing lunch. After lunch we went to this mall like place called Spencer’s market (I thought of you while there Spencer). Did some more shopping and tried to go to an Internet café, but about 5 minutes after we got on computers the power of the entire mall went out. I guess the government will randomly shut down power of different areas to control usage. So I didn’t get back to a lot of people, but I promise I will try again in Malaysia! We got dinner and headed back to the ship for the night.

My last day in India I had to go hear a speaker for my class, she spoke about the organization she works for that deals with Women’s and Children’s rights. Interesting topic, but the speaker was not very good and presenting or organizing her ideas and it went on kind of long. We had to be back on the boat that afternoon and we set sail that evening.

Another long one I know, but there was a lot to say. I’m now 14 hours ahead of the West Coast and will be 15 hours ahead when we get to Malaysia the day after tomorrow. I have a few tentative plans in Malaysia to see a couple of temples and possible fly to this city called Kuala Lumpur that is supposed to be cool. As always, we will see where the wind takes me!

I love and miss you all!

2008-10-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

We are at the 1/3 mark! I’ve been gone for just about five weeks and will be back in the U.S. in about ten more weeks. While this travel is amazing, I felt a little homesick getting back on the boat after Cape Town. Of course classes started back immediately and I realized I had no time to be homesick when I have three major papers and two midterms...

Anyway, Cape Town was pretty incredible. The actual port reminded me a lot of San Francisco’s port. There’s Robben Island, just like we have Alcatraz; and they have the same type of expensive seafood restaurants. Although it’s 8 Rand to the American dollar, so expensive still wasn’t very expensive.

I tried to go to Robben Island four times! Each and every time the ferry got shut down because of winds... and it wasn’t that windy. I was really upset about it, but managed to find other cool things to do. For example, the first day we got to port I had tickets to Robben Island (which then got cancelled) so I got into a cab with some kids I knew and went over to District 6. This area of Cape Town was known for it’s particularly vicious devastation because of apartheid. While originally an all black neighborhood, during apartheid, the white government literally threw all the black families out into the countryside in squatter camps and demolished their homes with all their things inside. Now District 6 is one representation that shows the devastation that occurred. After we walked around and went through the museum we decided to explore Cape Town a bit more by foot. While exploring, we happened upon Green Market Square, which is a popular crafts market in the city. With some shopping under out belt we went on an adventure to walk back to the port. It was a very long walk. We did stumble into a flower market and it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. There were rows and rows of flowers and nothing else. That night me and three other girls accompanied my best friend on the boat, Jonah, to the gay bars of Cape Town. The city has a surprisingly large gay population so there are a ton of gay bars. The first one we went to we ended up staying at for most of the night. It was called Bronx. We had a great time there, although Jonah had to buy our drinks because he got them for way cheaper than we did... I met this guy there who actually lives in LA and comes to Africa a couple times a year to do AIDS education workshops. Anyway, he works for the LA school district and I was talking to him about how I want to teach high-risk kids and he gave me his card and told me to give him a call when I get my degree. Not so sure I’d want to live in LA, but a funny way to get a job offer.

Right across from the ship was this mega mall with all kinds of stores and brands that we knew. We knew that we wouldn’t be seeing brands we knew for awhile, so we went shopping. There was one store that had up-and-coming designers of South Africa and there were a lot of cute and not very expensive things there. There was also an organic supermarket that we hit up for snacks on the boat. The rest of the day we spent exploring around the port. Just like in San Francisco, there are tons of things to do just around there. That night we went to a few bars on Long Street, which is Cape Town’s version of Bourbon Street. We went way big that night... I was hanging out with this one guy from the boat, but this local kept buying me drinks and I eventually would sneak the drinks over to my friend because I could not physically drink any more. It was a little intense, but fun!

The next morning we got up and took a taxi to Stellenbousch to see the big rugby game. I’m talking this is the Apple Cup of rugby. The game was University of Cape Town against University of Stellenbousch. We met a bunch of UCT kids in the parking lot before the game and tailgated with them. The game was soo much fun and probably a highlight of the trip. Everyone was super drunk at the game and I still don’t have the slightest idea of how rugby is played. Even with no concept of the game I painted my face blue (for UCT) and enjoyed myself. That night we went out to the bars on Long Street again and had yet another night of getting painfully drunk in Africa...

The next morning we woke up early (I was still way drunk from the night before) and went to a local flea market that a taxi driver told us about. It was kind of sketchy, but I went with two guys so it was legit. After some shopping we went to hike Table Mountain. This mountain is 3,600 ft but known for it’s difficulty to climb because it’s basically like walking of really steep stairs for 2.5 hours. Double unfortunate for me, the guys I went with are super outdoorsy and made us go a very fast pace, the longer route (hiking for about 3.5 hours and doing the steep part in only 2 hours) and being no longer drunk I was super hungover. Fun fun. Once we got to the top it was totally worth the view. We happened to get to the top at sunset and was able to see the sun set over the entire city of Cape Town. Again, I have many pictures of this to bring back. That night, a friend of mine had been invited to a wedding in town and was told to bring some friends. So, as soon as I got back from Table Mountain we got all dressed up and went to this really fancy Spanish wedding at a 5 star hotel. Definitely a fun and interesting experience, but got a little weird, so we left. Since we were already all dressed up we went to this really upscale bar and got cocktails. When we got back to the boat most people went to bed, but me and a friend went out to a bar at the port for a couple more drinks. It was a nice way to end a bazaar night.

Our last three days in Cape Town were mostly spent exploring and putzing around. One of the days we got a tour guide and went to Cape Point, which is the South Western most point of Africa. There’s a part of Cape Point where there are thousands of African Penguins, which are about the cutest things I’ve ever seen and we were able to get sooo close to them. On the way to Cape Point there’s an area called Whale Beach and it’s really amazing. I have never seen so many whale so close to me! It was very cool. The other absolutely amazing part of Whale Beach and Cape Point is that there are wild baboons running around and it is stressed that is there home before anyone who lives there’s home. When we were in the car a group of baboons came right up and looked in the windows and everything. One of the females had a baby that was just a couple of days old. Our tour guide told us they can be extremely nasty, but if they don’t think you have food, they’ll mostly leave you alone. Cape Point on a whole was just stunning. There were also wild ostrich running around throughout the tall grass. I guess the ostrich’s brain is smaller than their eyeball and if you ever come face-to-face with one you should just grab a big stick and hold it up as high over your head as possible and they will think you are too big to fight. That night we went out with this guy Thomas that we had met the first night. We went to this small bar that was inside a hostel and was only locals (a SAS-free bar is hard to come by at times).

Our final night in Cape Town we spent at the bar close to the ship, Mitchell’s. I met these guys from Scotland who had just gotten off being on an oilrig for six weeks. I talked them into buying me and my three friends like five or six rounds of shots because they’re on the Euro and it was so cheap for them, hah! It was another good night.

Okay I know this was a long one, but we were in Cape Town for a week and so far it’s my favorite port. As I said before, we have a bunch of days of classes... 12 days on the ship, with only one day off for something called the Sea Olympics and then we will be in India. This blog was a nice little distraction for the homework I have to do, but I think it’s done now. I miss you all like crazy, but time flys when you’re having fun, so see you soon!

Xoxo,
Fal

2008-09-25T15:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-21T22:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

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!

Nassau

2008-08-28T18:28:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I get on my Semester at Sea boat tomorrow morning. So far, I have spent the last two days in Nassau. I am staying at this super ghetto "hotel" that has gross bugs everywhere, but it's super cheap. My roommate is here is a girl that lived in the same apartment complex as Sasha in Davis. Her name is Karina. We won't be roommates on the boat and I won't know that roommate until I move in. We have spent a lot of time on the beach during the day. Last night we pre-gamed with fellow SASers and went out to Señor Frogs. There are a lot of beezy girls going on this trip. I have still met some really cool people too. My internet will be limited on the boat so I don't know how often I will be able to update, but I will try to keep it up at least once a week. Hopefully, for all your guys' sake, I will become less awkward in my blogging. I miss and love you all!

Peace Out - Falyn

I'm Really Going to Try

2008-08-21T09:11:00.001-07:00

I'm really going to try to do this, although I have never really blogged before. Wish me luck.

This is for you Zoe :-)