South Africa

First day in South Africa. A few hours docking late. Seems to be something pretty commonly occurring actually. Sucks because this is my only full day in Cape Town. The view from the boat is spectacular, Table Mountain is shrouded in clouds, there are seals jumping around in the water everywhere.
       
Cape Town is a very special port and an absolutely amazing city. I have always wanted to go to South Africa, and Cape Town was more beautiful than anything I expected.

       The first day all of my friends were busy so I set out finding people to hang out with. I asked Justin if I could go geocaching with him. Geocaching is quite an interesting pastime. Basically he uses his GPS to take him to the coordinates of hidden treasures that people hide all over the world and register online for others to find! How interesting, right? He has found them everywhere and I really wanted to go treasure hunting with him. So we set out as soon as we could get off the ship. Our first find was unsuccessful unfortunately, but no worries, there were two more within a couple of miles. Our walk took us all over the place, into the main part of the city, on the outskirts, even up a mountain. We found our first cache in this field in the back of a circus school. Yeah, a circus school. The description for the cache included directions to record your own performance and leave a picture of it. The cache was instead of a tree, a little glass jar, we pulled it out and looked at what people had left, a log book with everyone’s name who had ever visited and little things like a Pez dispenser, pencil, stickers, and little cards that say the person’s “name”on them, like Cow N Chicken. He left his University of Vermont pen. We signed our names. That cache had been there since February 2008 and had been visited by many geocachers.

       We followed the GPS to our next cache, which just so happened to be all the way at the top of Signal Hill. I was in no way prepared to climb a mountain, and it ended up pretty embarrassing for me. Justin was in sandals and basically raced up the hill while I struggle to keep up. Once I was pretty much having an asthma attack so I had to stop for a little. Actually I’m pretty sure I have bronchitis because I am often out of breath for really little things, I mean I’m not that incredibly out of shape.

       Anyways after much sweating and panting we made it to the top, all the way to this abandoned cannon shelter, where we found the next cache hidden inside one of the bricks. This one was like a small Tupperware, and more items were in it because there was more space. It had been there since 2005! There were two logbooks inside. Everyone seemed to comment on whatever weather they had dealed with that day as well as the beautiful view. And the view was beautiful. Standing on top of that hill and feeling the breeze rush past me after that climb was very gratifying. We signed our names then climbed down again to catch a taxi. Justin went off to his MICE performance and I went to Long Street to meet up with Smith.

       Smith, Jessica, Heather, and Luisa had just finished eating, and we all explored the flea market for awhile. I bought some great gifts for people at home, as well as for myself, and grabbed some food and beer for the go. Smith and I brownbagged it as we hopped on the Red Bus Tour. I am so so happy I decided to do this tour. You see them in every big city in the world, but for this little time I had in Cape Town specifically, it was the perfect option. I saw so many things and places I would have never seen, and I really learned a lot! For the whole day it was only twelve dollars, or 120 rand, so worth it. We listened to the info as it went all over the city. We hopped off at Table Mountain but unfortunately it was cloudy on top so we decided to wait till another day so we could experience the great views. So we took some pictures and hopped back on. The bus next took us over to Hout Bay, one of the most beautiful beach areas I’ve ever seen. We hopped off here and had a great time exploring the beach. We really wanted calamari so we sat down at this great café and had some sea food and drinks. The drinks were incredibly strong and Smith and I shared a few and were laughing a lot by the time we left.

    We hopped back on the bus and Smith and I headed over to Mama Africa to meet up with Hannah, Kendra and Lexi for dinner. They were all booked up for dinner so we all had a seat at the bar. This restaurant was fantastic. We all started off with a springbok shot, which tastes just like mint ice cream. Then we had dinner, which consisted of crocodile, kudu, ostrich and springbok. Delicious. All of it. Especially the ostrich. We had some more drinks and listened to the AMAZING band. There were three xylophonists, a guitarist, a sax player, and the icing on the cake, baritone/opera-singer/Christina-Aguilera main singer Zwelibanzi. Hannah and I loved him, we made “I love you”motioning to him until he brought both of us on stage with him for a dance party. It was fantastic.

    We left from there around 9 and stopped into a bar for a little while, just happened to see Alicia and Caroline and Greg walking by, and traveled with them over to a club called Chrome which was selling shots for 1 rand each, or 10 whole cents. Wow. So we go into this club and it is entirely Arab, which is strange because I have barely seen an Arab person the entire day. And the dance floor is empty. But whatever Hannah and I change that rather quickly. We got out on the floor and did our best choreographed Zumba moves. Then Smith taught me the Texas two-step. Unfortunately I had to be up at 4 so we left rather early to head home to pack and all that good stuff.

    Set my alarm on my phone to get up. Unfortunately the clock on my phone was an hour off, and I woke up in a panic to my friend calling me telling me I was running late. AH! So I scrambled and got all my stuff together and ran upstairs. I made it fine, we headed to the airport, most everyone was hung over, some people hadn’t even gone to sleep. I had at least gotten three hours or so. Unfortunately I barely slept on the two hour plane ride or the three hour bus ride, but Smith slept pretty much the whole time so I just listened to my ipod and tried to rest. The part of the drive I do see is beautiful though. The countryside is everything you would imagine it to be.

    We finally get to our campsite. Our tents are pretty awesome, beds made, mattresses off the floor, even a little side table with a light on it. Mackenzie and I room together. At this point the heat is unbearable, maybe 100 with an incredible amount of humidity. Sitting down is too much, I have to stand to avoid the thigh and back sweat.

    But we all complained a bit too soon. I have had the immense pleasure of having near perfect and unusual weather for the season in every country I have gone to. Like in Spain, we had amazing weather in Cadiz. In Namibia, we went to the sand dunes at just the perfect time, when the weather was cool and there was cloud cover. And, in South Africa, we had three days of warm weather but often with cloud cover, making most of our stay completely comfortable and unusually cool!

    We hop into our safari cars and take off for an afternoon game drive, after grabbing a quick lunch of egg salad sandwiches, delicious green apples, chicken nuggets and juice and sodas. The food at this place was amazing and just kept getting better. So our driver was named Caz…little did we know that Caz is pretty much the most badass person I have ever encountered. In fact, I will go so far as to say she is a BAMF, and I have never used that word as a descriptor before in my life. She has been a safari guide for six years and grew up in the bush with her parents who were also both guides. She has some crazy stories and I will tell some of them later.

    So we first have a twenty minute ride over to the actual game park, Hluhluwe. The ride over passes by a very rural area where as far as I can see only poor black people live. Everyone is walking, and the couple of bikes I did see, the tires were completely gone so that the bike was running solely on rims. There are cows and goats all over the roads, we have to slow and honk at them so that they move. As we drive by some young boys yell at us in Afrikaans, “Don’t touch my cows! Leave my cows alone!”It is the young boys’jobs to care for the family cattle. I saw a boy that couldn’t possibly be older than five tending to a herd. Most people wave at us as we pass. I feel a bit stupid sitting there in a safari vehicle passing by all of this poverty. The houses are nestled all along the hills. The houses are more like shacks, but some are painted brilliant colors of blue and pink, and most have little enclosures for crops and cattle. Kids are walking in their school uniforms home from school. Caz informs us that most kids walk about three miles to school, and they really are kids. Not everyone that passes by us is nice, however. During the few drives from the park we had back and forth, once we had boys throw rocks at us. Caz immediately stopped the vehicle, got out, and started chasing them, and they ran like hell. She said that sometimes she’ll go get a rock, take her car back and go throw one back at them. Another boy flicked a switchblade as we drove by.

    Anyways, we get into the game reserve, and the first animals I spot are a family of warthogs all hanging out in a grassy patch. They had six babies, and all the babies crawled on their front legs to munch on grass. They were so cute! Next we encounter the African jumping gecko…there was this awesome gecko crawling around our seat. It tried to crawl on my leg so I moved my leg over, then it jumped like a foot and a half to the seat! Well being the girls we are we screamed, and Caz laughed, and we had a brush with a lizard. Caz said we would never make it in the bush. Next we ran into zebra. They are absolutely gorgeous, their designs are spectacular. We would see many of those before our trip was over.
Next we ran into four rhino feeding right by the road, about ten feet from our car. They were so huge and cool! We watched them for about five minutes, when suddenly we heard an elephant cry from somewhere in the distance. The rhinos were instantly alarmed, and all four of them startled and ran away! Watching them run was hilarious. Ca said the elephant cry had been a distress call and had come from five kilometers away. It sounded like it had come from no more than 100 feet away!

    We drove around for about three hours that day before returning to get ready for dinner. It was cool enough now to shower, so we did quickly, then they picked us up for dinner. It was pitch black, and the area we were in was entirely lit by candlelight. It was such a beautiful and romantic setting. We were the only guests there other than a French family. The food was all traditional African food and served in large quantities…many different meats, a delicious plate of many cheeses and crackers, and amazing desserts with all sorts of toppings. We ate and drank our fill and even got a little show when all of the workers came out and danced for us. After that we headed back and everyone hit the sack pretty early as we were all exhausted. Smith and Teresa and I sat around listening to music from our childhood and I went to sleep in my bug-free tent in shorts and a bra and feeling very content.

    The next morning we woke up to the sound of drums around 6 am. Smith and I took an early morning walk and were attacked by caterpillars hanging on strings off the trees and a million gnats. We all got up, put on safari gear, and hopped in the jeeps. We ate a delicious breakfast with lots of fresh fruit and headed out on the road by 7. We were on a game drive until about 4 that afternoon. The weather all morning was amazing, nice and cool. The first thing we see are a herd of about 30 elephant crossing the road right in front of us! Babies and everything. It was amazing, they were so close! They were just scuttling along, Caz said they were kind of skittish and that she was paying close attention to the women because they are the most aggressive. Suddenly one of the big adult females turns on us and gives a warning yell, then starts charging! Caz started the car in a flash and quickly backed up. The elephant backed off, but Caz said we were seconds away from a potentially very dangerous situation. Fun!

    We saw a ton of giraffe all day long. The coolest giraffe sighting were of these five all hanging out, three of which were right in the road and could care less that we wanted to get by. Caz would scoot the car up by them and they would slowly and barely move out of the way. They were snobs. We loved it. We also saw the herd of elephant all playing in the watering hole. And two water buffalo having a mudbath.

    I think possibly the funniest thing on the planet could be personifying animals. And trust me, I did a lot of it. I invited others to join but nobody thought it was quite as enjoyable as I did. My favorite was when the water buffalo opened her mouth and I said, “Oh yuck, got a fly in here.”Haha.

    The coolest thing by far we saw was a huge male elephant that we just happened t run into on the road. He walked on the road as we backed up for about 2 miles! It was amazing just watching him eat, play in the water, his huge trunk scraping the ground. He was also in heat, so Caz was very cautious of him. We thought he was peeing, but turns out that’s just a huge glob of testosterone. And then, all of the sudden, he flashed us! Elephant penis is pretty huge. Apparently they can control them, like slap it against their bellies and stuff. It was probably as long as my lower leg and a little smaller around than my thigh. It was pretty funny. The boys said they were going to show off theirs in return, but they felt intimidated haha. It was scary at times too because he was about five feet from the car at times and he was gigantic and could easily flip us if he wanted to, but Caz watched him carefully, and he just walked us down the road. It was really great.

    Unfortunately we never did see any lions or leopards, but we had an amazing time nonetheless. It got extremely hot only for about an hour, and the rest of the day was so pleasant. Dinner was at the lodge, delicious once again, and we all got pretty tipsy at this dinner. So afterwards we hopped in a car with Peter, who took us straight over to the pool. The night consisted of skinnydipping, playing “never have I ever,”listening to good music, singing, and playing mafia. It was a great night. Smith and I were drunk enough that we felt comfortable laying on the ground, not a very good idea, but we stargazed for awhile with Win and I woke up about 30 minutes later still on the ground haha. After that it was bedtime, sleeping outside was not a good idea.

    The next morning we were up at 5:30 am, again to the sound of drums. We had a quick breakfast, walked over to the pond to check out the crocodile, then had a 3 hour bus ride and two hour plane ride back. We were back in Cape Town by noon. So I took off with some people to go to the District Six Museum, which is a museum about a neighborhood that was demolished during apartheid to clear all of the black people out. Most of the area remains covered in grass today. Next we hit up Long Street to the flea market again, but they were closing up and I didn’t nearly have enough shopping time. South Africa was the first country I didn’t get a T-shirt or postcards in. ☹

    So we all sat down in a café and had delicious pita sandwiches and drinks and coffees. Mmm. Then back to the boat to get ready to go out for dinner and nighttime festivities.

    The next day I visited a township called Kayelitsha. Townships were originally places groups of people were forced to live during apartheid, and Khayelitsha is one of the biggest. Today townships remain some of the poorest as well as racially segregated areas, and also the most dangerous. The experience was great. Everywhere I went in South Africa I was surrounded by music. It was a Sunday so there were church services going on. I got to sit in on two of them. They were beautiful and the voices of the people were very moving. I particularly enjoyed the black Jesus. I loved listening to the preacher speak Afrikaans and hearing the congregation break out in laughter. The children were my favorite part. They clamored all over us to get gifts of stickers and candy. One little girl gave me one of her stickers, which moved me to tears. Another little girl grabbed my hand and walked with me for quite some time. That hand felt so supportive to me.

    We visited Vicky’s B&B and talked to Vicky herself, then had a walking tour of the township. We came on a very special day. South Africa is about to have elections and one of the candidates, Zuma, was speaking in Khayelitsha that day. People were being bussed in from miles around to hear him speak. We could just see the auditorium and it was packed. People were yelling and cheering and wearing supportive T-shirts everywhere. Everyone raised their fists in the air and shouted “Viva Zuma!”It was funny because SAS tells us specifically to avoid rallies of any type, and here we were right in the middle of one, taking pictures. It was a great sight to see, these people gathering behind a candidate they believe in. The current South African president, Mbecki, has been a huge disappointment for the people after Nelson Mandela. Mbecki has put forward such measures as denying the seriousness of AIDS in the country.

    I still hadn’t seen Table Mountain so Sarah, who shaved her head, and I took a taxi to the mountain to take the cable car up. Unfortunately it was closed and would be for the rest of the day due to high winds. Very disappointing as it was my last chance to go up. So we decided to go to the botanical gardens instead, called Kirstenbosch. They were so beautiful, Sarah and I were both really enjoying taking photographs. It was a very peaceful place on a wonderfully warm day, families were everywhere, I was that creeper taking pictures of the little kids. There was a concert going on too, the philharmonic orchestra of the area or something like that. On our way out, I ran into Canadian John, who we skydived with in Namibia! Small world huh?

    When we finally returned it was time to get back on the boat.

    Now we are en route to Mauritius, which is basically going to be a day of sunlounging. It is a very popular celeb vacay spot, hopefully I’ll run into Perez.

    We had our first global studies test and I’m pretty sure I failed it but so did everyone else so no worries. I got a B on my first art test and an A on my first Islam quiz. Sweet.

Namibia

Feb 16
       First of all, I have no voice right now. And I haven’t for three days. At first I enjoyed singing Britney Spears songs and laughing at how I sounded, just like I used to do in eighth grade if any of my elementary classmates may recall, but by this point, I am overly frustrated. Tomorrow morning my vocal chords better be ready for action. I’m lossenging them back to health.
       We have one day now before we get to South Africa, the country I am most excited to be at on this whole trip! I am anticipating amazing things.
       But maybe I should tell you about the amazing things that happened in Namibia first. I am going to go through it step by step because there were a lot of firsts had as well as a lot of challenging emotional moments, and I really want to write down my feelings while they are still rather fresh.
       We dock at Namibia and are first told that they are stamping our passports, but they happened to only bring one stamp, so it might be a couple of hours. Very efficient. It’s okay though because we have a diplomatic briefing to go to. They tell us general cultural outlines of Namibia. The country is as big as Texas and is populated by only 2 million people. Just think about it for a second. Nobody lives there. That’s what makes it awesome. Animals live there instead of humans. Good for them.
       So a black man speaks to us, he is from New York and has lived in Namibia in his diplomatic position for two and a half years. The crime label for Namibia is high, having only recently come down from critical. The crime level in South Africa, in comparison, is critical. He tells us this charming story about the night he heard a scratching at his window, went to open, and there found a man all in a black who proceeded to stab him with a screwdriver through the window. So he picked up a wicker chair and battled him for seven minutes! That is a very long time, especially in crisis mode. But finally, after a valiant chair battle, the guy fled. But he ended his talk by telling us not to be scared, just wise. Good advice I guess, but kind of hard to follow after he just told us a story about a guy in Namibia that was ballsy enough to rob a guy with just a screwdriver, and not even that, but freaking stab it through the window at him then proceed to still try and get in. Ballsy.
       So off we go feeling very safe.
       We all flocked to the seventh deck where we could see, far below us on the port deck, a girl’s children’s choir singing to us. It was an innocent and beautiful sight. There were perhaps fifteen girls singing, one playing a drum, all dressed in kind of Wilma Flinstone-esque outfits in animal prints. There are some very young girls, perhaps 6, and they are the best dancers, by far. What is it with African children? Are they just born with the beat? Are any of them not? They were great, the songs were in the local language, Afrikans, and were very culturally unique. The girls were all so animated. They had these great choreographed dance moves, and then had some songs where each girl got a chance to break it down freestyle. When we were able to exit the boat, which was much sooner than we thought, we were able to talk with them, hug them, and take pictures with them. They were so sweet and smiling and loved posing with us.
       The children in all of these countries always make a lasting impression on me. It just kind of blows my mind that there are actually people that grow up in other countries. Do you know what I mean? Like, I am amazed by every person I meet that grew up in a different country, because that is a totally foreign concept to me. No pun intended.
       I start on the trek out of the port with Nancy, Katherine, Tessa, and Whitney. This walk out of the port, at a normal pace, is no less than 25 minutes. Gotta love ports. In fact everything about our port city, Walvis Bay, just seemed very roundabout to me. From the ship I could see the bay about three quarters of a mile away, if only I could find a route to walk to it. But there is none, so you have to take a five minute taxi ride.
       We explore town for a few hours. The people are very friendly. I have definitely felt more welcomed in Namibia than anywhere else. We had not one but three separate people, some policemen some not, come up to us and tell us to keep our purses close to us because there were bad people around. And a lot of other people just came up to chat with us. And still many other people asked us for money.
       We made our way back to the bus after walking around town for a few hours and eating lunch by the bay at a restaurant called The Raft. There we had two of the most delicious pizza I have ever tasted. The bay is beautiful and many different birds, huge pelicans, and seals can be seen everywhere.
       We packed up our stuff quickly and changed to make our way to Dune 7. We headed there, a group of ten of us in one taxi van. We bartered with the guy and he agreed to drive us to the dunes, sit for three hours until we were done, and then drive us to Swakopmund, for 80 Namibian dollars each. 80 Namibian dollars= 8 American dollars. Think about it. It was an amazing deal and he was so nice.
       So we have this thirty minute drive through the desert to get to the dunes. The drive is beautiful, ocean on one side, endless stretching desert on the other, with these little bushes growing about every ten feet. When we finally get to the dunes, I am amazed. The san dune is the size of a small mountain, bigger than anything I expected. And soon I would be flying down it. We stop at this little hut where you can rent the sandboarding equipment, go ATVing, and other things. Also a bar. This little hut is the only thing for miles and miles. They also had a freshly kept patch of grass. That really cracked me up. I wanted to rent a snowboard at first, but it was 40 dollars compared to the 5 dollars to rent a sandboard, and going down with a snowboard was apparently very slow, hard, and not worth it. So I rented a sandboard, which is basically a big piece of wood. A board of wood, about five foot long, two and a half feet wide. You lay down on this board on your stomach, headfirst. Crazy.
       All ten of us hop in this truck with our beers, all squished in and cozy, and the driver takes off and drives us about halfway up the dune, which is already really really high. From there we hike to the top. The hike is tough but I was happy for the exercise, and the view is gorgeous. The dunes are eerily beautiful, the wind threw the sand right over the side of the cliff. The left side of the mountain was more curvy, that’s where I figured we would go down. Wrong. We were going off of the extremely steep, almost straight down side. Oh my god. It is so high up, I thin about 300 meters. Which means it is so far down. On the left side are trees and on the right side there is an ominous bush and some wooden pegs, so we needed to go down the center path. Even the center path isn’t so great because there is this rocky patch that you may or may not go right over depending on how fast you are going.
       Oh well here we go!
       I was the third person to go down, and everyone said I went really fast. I wasn’t that scared until about halfway down…that was when I had a pretty serious face on because I realized how fast I was going, and after I caught air after hitting a bump I was really getting nervous. So I just dug my toes in some to slow myself down a little, but it really didn’t help. At all. So I was at the fate of the sand gods as I sped along. I ended up coming to rest just barely before the rocky patch. I scratched up my knuckles and elbows some, but all in all it was a blast, and five of us got another ride up to go again! I have a great video of it I’ll show you later, it really shows how high up we are.
       We go back down and decide to go WATERBALLING. I caps lock this word because it was so so so so fun. Basically it is this huge hamster ball that they put some water inside of. Then you go in it and roll down a cliff. Hahaha it was fantastic. Nancy, Mary, Alicia and I all went together, all at the same time! The first time we had no idea what to expect, so when they pushed us off this 15 foot cliff we screamed but we loved it, it was a blast. The ball rolls but the water slips along with you so you stay in one place. We liked it so much we did it again!
       This entire day of fun only cost me thirty dollars, including taxi. Way worth it. Everything is very cheap in Namibia. A lot of people went ATVing but I didn’t want to because our insurance through the ship program does not cover us for motor vehicle accidents as we are not supposed to rent them. We also aren’t supposed to any extreme sports though so oh well.
       I spent my Valentine’s Day with a group of great girls, and we have a great video of us all cheering our beers and saying Happy Valentine’s Day ladies.
       Finally we make our way to Swakopmund. The taxi drops the girls off at their hostel and Alicia and I off at the house. It is a beautiful home, two story, three bedroom, three bath, kitchen and living room. Nicely furnished. Pretty much beach front. It was like Spring Break 09 in San Diego. A ton of kids rented beach houses all along this area. One house that I went to a couple of times had 40 people in it. It happened to be the house right behind Brangelina’s beach home. That’s how nice these homes are. The whole city is really nice, it is a mostly German town, with German architecture. German, English, and Afrikans are all widely spoken in Namibia, and the tourists that frequent the country most are German. All of the menus are in German and English.
       So we settle in, watch the sunset, I take a shower and walk downstairs to a home cooked dinner being served to me, macaroni and hot dogs on regular bread. Kind of strange but we made it work. We had about 10 people stay in the house this night…Taylor, Alicia, Rosalee, Megan, Chazz, Nate, Justin, Leah, me, maybe someone else I’m leaving out. The alcohol supply was high, and we all partook. We had a couple of visitors that night, two guys from South Africa that were living in Namibia, they brought over three bottles so we loved them. After hanging out at the house for a couple of hours we decided to head over to the house with 40 people where they were apparently having a party.
       Also the 14th was Anthony and I’s one year anniversary, so I was a little sad off and on. But I was able to talk to him for awhile and that was nice.
       We hung out at the house for awhile, I knew a few people staying over there, then we walked back to our house around 1 am. That was when all of the real drama ensued. Somehow Nate got left behind the group, and when he finally found his way back to the house, he had sliced his foot open pretty badly. Badly enough that an insane night of trying to find him medical care ensued. Alicia made many many phone calls to MedEx, our insurance, hospitals in the area, and so on. Quote from Alicia, “It is ridiculous how hard it is to get medical treatment in this country.”She called the emergency number for the Walvis Bay police because we didn’t have the Swakopmund number. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the number for either the Swakopmund police department or the hospital. WHAT??? None of us could believe it. This town is only thirty minutes away! That’s Africa for you. The other problem was getting a taxi, or any transportation, to the hospital, when they finally found a hospital that was even open. The nearest place to even possibly get a taxi was a fifteen minute walk away, and Nate definitely wouldn’t make it. They finally were able to get an ambulance to come pick him up, after many phone calls and a lot of hard work, and they would have to pay for it. So Taylor, Alicia, and Nate finally get to the hospital around 4 am. It is dark. No one is there. They bang on the door and a woman comes to get them. Alicia said it was exactly what you would picture an African hospital looking like. Bugs everywhere. Old fashioned equipment. A doctor finally did see them and flushed out a still drunken Nate’s wound, pulling objects out of it. He then got five stitches. They paid him about 100 dollars, and none of us really carry that much cash, so they asked to pay in credit card, and they were not too happy about that. Basically everyone they talked to anywhere wasn’t helpful in any way or nice. Except for MedEx, which is a great insurance program. And thankfully, the doctor gave all of them a ride home. Alicia fell asleep at 5:45 am.
       By the way, I pretty much slept through all of this.

Namibia cont.

So onto the next day! Alicia and I awake at the tender hour of 7:15 am and make the long walk over to the gas station to catch a taxi. On the way she fills me in on the madness of the previous night.
       We catch a taxi to the hostel to meet up with Tessa, Nancy and Katherine. All of us kick around and eat breakfast until a car comes to pick us up to take us to our next adventure, which is…get ready for it Mom... SKYDIVING!!!!!!
       When we climbed into that van that’s when it first really hit us…holy s***, I am heading to an airport to jump out of a plane right now. We drove out to this middle of nowhere place. The “airport”is basically a big dirt area with a couple of buildings. They run their skydiving out of a pub. No big deal. But I did see a sign that said “No drinking and skydiving.”We paid and signed our lives away, then got a literally five minute training segment. Five minutes to jump out of a plane. Insanity. But that’s all we needed. We put on our jump suits and headed to the jump site! In our group were Nancy, Tessa, Katherine, McKenzie, Maverick, this Canadian guy named John, and this South Korean guy named Kang. Kang had never skydived before and could barely speak English! But the girls met him at the hostel and he just asked to join us. Isn’t he crazy? John was a really nice guy, him and his friends were finishing up a three week tour of African countries, he showed us a pretty sweet video of lions having sex. Maybe I’ll get to see the miracle of life in action in the wild of Africa!
       So the drive to the jump site is funny because we are REALLY in the middle of nowhere now. I can’t see a single thing but desert, and we are pretty much four wheeling it. We were like…and this is the drive to our death. When we finally get there, “there”is two shacks and a shaded area. And a firepit. That’s it. This is where the airplane will come in and take off and where we will land from our jumps. We all sit around anxiously waiting for the plane to get there. We had all decided to get a video of our jumps, so for each jumper two more workers were needed, one cameraman who jumps out right before us, and one tandem jumper who is strapped onto our backs. So each plane load could take two jumpers. They chose who went with who. Katherine ended up going first. We heard her screams from hundreds of feet in the air! She came down and was totally elated, and it just made us more excited. Each plane ride took about 25 minutes. Finally it was my turn! And I just happened to be going up with Kang. Hahaha.
       My jumping partner was named Mias and he was a very touchy feely guy, but my life was in his hands and I trusted him. I kind of had to. He was really nice though. The plane was very small and the door was open the whole time. We were all crammed in, by the time I was getting ready to jump out my feet were pretty asleep. The view was beautiful and I just tried to take it all in, I really wasn’t even that nervous surprisingly, just excited and anticipatory. So finally, he tells me to get ready. I shuffle up by the door and he straps onto me and puts on my goggles for me. This was the insane part. The cameraman hangs out of the door, then Mias put his right leg out the door, and I did the same. Then I put my left knee just on the edge, sitting on my left foot. Then I was looking outside of the plane! And the next thing I knew, Mias leaned back, then pushed out, and I was falling! Flying! The wind in my face! I let my arms and legs go and just felt the rush. It was amazing and something I have never felt before. We fell for a very long 35 seconds before he pulled the parachute. That was actually a really scary part too because it feels as though you’re being released rather than pulled up. From that point on, it was all coasting. Mias gave me the reins and let me turn us in fast circles all the way down. And then we landed, and all was well in the world!
       Everyone had a blast, there was one mishap though, but thankfully nothing too serious. Alicia’s first chute was all twisted up, and her guy had to cut it and use their backup chute. Very scary. I gave her a huge hug when I found out that had happened, but she just thought it was a cool story to tell.
       We went back to the pub, had a few drinks and food for an hour or two while watching our DVDs and cracking up, then got our DVDs and photos and left.
Alicia and I decided to head back to the house because we were both tired, and Alicia especially was exhausted. Unfortunately, when we got there, we were locked out. They had left us a note but no key. And no door open. And no window open. Very very frustrating. First sign to us that we were not too high on the priority list for them, though I do understand that we should have figured that out with them beforehand, but what with Alicia being at the hospital and everything, it just didn’t happen. So instead of sleeping and showering and having some quiet time, we headed over to our friend’s beach house again. We tried to sleep but it was too loud, so we just sat around talking with people. Then we headed back to our house because everyone was on their way home from the dunes. We all go in the house, and no one says a single thing about the fact that we waited for four hours, and we were the last ones to shower. But we shake it off and don’t say anything, it’s not worth it. I felt a lot better after I showered and got ready to go out that night.
It was another frustrating night, we couldn’t get a taxi, no restaurants were open and everyone but me wanted to eat, then we finally got to a restaurant, it was closed, they called a taxi for us, he took four of us first then was going to come back for the rest of us. He didn’t come back for forty minutes. And the place he took us to eat was just a gas station. So Alicia and I take off to a bar we heard might be open. It’s a Sunday so the town of Swakopmund is literally dead. There was not a single shop open, nothing. And no one was on the streets but all the SAS kids. So we see one bar open, and of course it is swarming with SAS kids. Not my idea of a good time. I can get picked up on by an American guy at home right? Kidding. And by this point I had completely lost my voice. I was hoping to maybe meet a few people but I couldn’t even speak, so it was very frustrating. We stayed for about an hour then took off. The bartenders were sweating like crazy, I know for a fact it will be their busiest night at least until the next SAS shipment of kids comes in.
So we get home and everyone is still up just kind of hanging out. We hang out for awhile, but when it gets around 2 am Alicia and I are ready to go to sleep. I go downstairs and ask everyone if we could have a bed that night since we didn’t get one the night before. My answer is complete silence. So that’s a no. Their solution is to move upstairs to watch the movie so we can go to sleep on the couches. Thanks, I guess. Leah, who I really like, did offer hers up, and so did Megan. But that’s about it. Just really disappointing and the final sign to me that I wasn’t considered a part of this house or even an actual friend, though I paid just as much as everyone else did. I’m just tired of being under someone else’s run of things, and I’m not going to do it anymore if I can help it. It was kind of sad though, I just miss traveling with people that love me and are actually interested in my best interests. I really felt like just common courtesies were missing. I didn’t feel welcome there and I won’t be traveling with them again, which is unfortunate because Taylor is Melissa’s other best friend and I really do want to get to know her, but she is probably always going to traveling with that group.
Anyways, enough negativity. Alicia and I woke up at 8 am and hiked thirty minutes on the beach to this hotel and spa to get wonderful massages. My sickness was ridiculous this morning. I couldn’t breathe at all and my cough was terrible. All through the massage I struggled. But the fact that it was only 23 dollars for an hour made me feel pretty good! But my masseuse was great and she worked on my respiratory system and put eucalyptus on my chest and back and helped me breathe some in, and it actually really really helped. I felt much better the rest of the day.
Alicia and I got a cab back to Walvis Bay and stopped by the boat. Nancy and I set out to go kayaking, but unfortunately the place was closed. On the way there, though, something pretty shocking occurred. We witnessed a man get hit by a car. Nancy and the cab driver actually saw it, and I saw the man on the floor about a second after it happened. It was horrifying. The man was lying on the ground on his side, half sitting up, gripping his chest. It was clear he was in immense pain and shock. He was hit pretty hard. His hands were bloodied. A black woman ran over to him, talking to him, until she was holding him and crying. Another man was holding him too. A huge crowd gathered around him, watching. No way I was getting out of that car to go witness this man’s demise. Human nature seems so unnatural sometimes. An ambulance came within about a minute and a half. We eventually drove away. I cried for about ten minutes. It was just so shocking and a huge reality check. Someone on Semester at Sea died last semester in Hong Kong when he was struck by a car. It was just a big reminder of our mortality and how important it is to stay alert and take care of each other. More the reason for me to travel with people I trust.
It felt very strange to go on with our day after that, and I was shaken up for quite awhile. We just walked around town, bought some postcards and souvenirs, ate a great meal of this amazing sandwich with egg, mince, onion, tomato, and cheese, then headed back to the boat.
Namibia was a beautiful and unique country. A lot of SAS kids ruined it though, a group of about 100 kids got kicked out of a hotel for being too rowdy at the bars and so on, and some kids were kicked out of their beach houses. It’s disappointing to see that that is all that kids from my age group care about. I mean, I am doing my share of drinking, but I am not belligerent, yelling, obnoxious, or disrespectful. Ever. Just control yourself. It’s not that hard. Being on the ship sometimes makes me lose faith in humanity a little, or at least my own age group. But being off it, immersed in all of these amazing cultures, helps me regain it again.
I am so tired now and really need to go to bed. Today we didn’t have class, just a lot of meetings about South Africa and a mustering drill. And TACOS FOR LUNCH!!! My back is sunburned because I fell asleep and I am mad about it.
And tomorrow morning…SOUTH AFRICA!
Tomorrow: Watch the sunrise from the ship at 6:30 am. Geocaching with Justin till noon. Meeting up with Smith at noon and taking the red bus tour around the city. Dinner at Mama Africa with Hannah at 6:30. Going out.
Thursday: 4:15 AM meetup time for my safari. Two hour flight. Three days of seeing amazing animals.
Sunday: Khayelitsha township visit.

This country is going to amaze me.

Feb 13
       Oh my gooooood. I am so ill and so ready to be in Namibia. This stretch went by much more slowly for me than the last stretch did. But now we are finally in Africa! It is going to be three days of extreme sports for me. Tomorrow I am going sandboarding with a bunch of friends, kind of like snowboarding in the giant sand dunes. The next day I am doing something very fun, but also very secret. I’ll tell you after. And the third day I am probably going to try to go kayaking around the bay before heading back on the ship for our one day trek to South Africa. I decided not to go shark diving in South Africa because the day I was going to do it will be the only day I can spend in Cape Town. It definitely would have been something awesome and exciting and I was all signed up, but I feel that day could be used in a more culturally fulfilling way. The next three days I am going on a safari! And the last day I am in South Africa I will be visiting a township all day. I know Africa is going to be a very special and exciting experience. And they speak English. Sweet.
       In Namibia I will be staying in a house in a town called Swakopmund with about 7 people. It’s $100 a night haha. Swakopmund is a heavily German town, as is a large section of Namibia. The town has a brewery in it, so I assume I will be getting into some mischief as well. Actually I also heard that some people have rented out a row of houses and are throwing…a kegger! How college. I didn’t think I would be experiencing a kegger on this voyage haha.
       I aced all three quizzes I had this week. This semester should be a breeze.
       Last night we hit up pub night and played Thumper for about a solid hour. And it really did take that whole hour for it to get old. Tonight we are all going to watch Wall-E and this season’s episodes of The Office! They are playing them in the Union. We also have our logistical preport where they tell us all the stuff to watch out for and blabla.
       I’m going to try to get to bed early tonight as I know it’s the most sleep I’ll have in awhile and my head feels like it’s dying and I am exhausted despite having slept till 11:30 this morning.
       My group of friends and I exchanged Secret Valentine’s.. and Hannah got me. Thank God.
       Just finished watching two episodes of The Office. And now I’m heading to bed. Early morning manana.

Feb 12
       Today I am feeling very sick and sad.

Feb 11
       Last night I sawr a film…as I recall it was a foreign film. Actually it was a documentary called “Cocaine Cowboys”and it was all about how Miami was overrun by druglords in the 80s and became the most violent city in America, with over 700 homicides a year just in the city alone. It was so entertaining and funny and interesting. One of the students on the ship just happens to be writing the biography of the main hitman in the film who will be in jail for life. WHAT??? How did he just decide he was going to do that? It blows my mind, I have to meet him and ask how he one day was like you know what I’m going to write that man in jail then write his biography. And why did the guy let some white kid write it?? Crazy. Seriously there are some very impressive kids on the ship.
       Today was a good day. Went to breakfast which is now extended till 9 yessss and then to global studies. Then tanned for two hours. Then studied for a bio quiz which I aced. In the afternoon Hannah and I went to a workout class on the ship called P90X. It was really intense, and it was made much more intense by the fact that all 25 of us were crammed into a very small room, filling the room with heavy and rancid smelling sweat. Gross. It was just too hot and too cramped and we don’t know if we can do it again. But it was a great workout. After dinner tonight Caroline, Greg, Alicia, Nate and I played LIFE. It was a pretty good time, I was a salesperson, entertainer, and tech analyst throughout my lifetime and I married a woman and had one kid. And I shaved my head in my twenties. Haha. About halfway through our game though this random jam session started in the piano lounge where we were sitting. There was a guitarist, pianist, bass guitarist, electric guitarist and a couple of singers. They played a lot of songs and they were all so talented, just picking up on the songs and running with it. The show lasted about an hour and put me in the best mood.
       Then Leah and I went to write Valentine’s cards for everyone who we like a lot on the ship. I wrote one for all of my crushes. Hannah, Caroline, Alicia, Taylor, and Leah. All of these beautiful women in my life.
       And now Hannah and I are in my room lying in bed (together) watching a nature documentary. “The Challenges of Birth.”Awesome.
       Also. I HAVE NO CLOTHING. I hate SAS for telling me not to bring clothes. Laundry is legitimately done around once a month. What the hell. I have all this storage place and no freaking clothing. I didn’t bring nearly enough sweats, I only have one freaking sports bra and I work out every day. It is so so frustrating. We gave them our laundry two days ago and will be lucky to get it back tomorrow. We have nothing left. I had to borrow socks from Caroline. I am seriously down to one shirt. I worked out the other night in embarrassing heart pajama shorts. I’m getting desperate.
    Two... more... days....

Feb 10
       Sailor’s Log- Day 5 At Sea
       The shipboard community is going crazy here. All we have to do is eat and sleep. Not even Disney movies can distract us. Some of us spend up to seven hours at a time suntanning to pass the time. Homework? Only as a last resort.
       I have three quizzes in the next three days so I’m having a fun time preparing for those.
       The last few days have definitely been long but also entertaining. We have watched Aladdin and the Lion King. Two nights ago we hit up pub night and it turned out to be a pretty excellent night. It was the most people I’ve ever seen at pub night, maybe 300 kids, super loud, the “MOD”crew, or mediocre dancers, all came out in crazy eighties wear and started a dance party. Smith and I decided to finally spoke the cigars we got in Spain and we ventured out to the smoker’s deck. Interesting place, the smoker’s deck. Definitely interesting people. I seem to meet every person from the University of Vermont on this ship, and I met a guy there from UVM who happens to make about $30,000 off of the syrup business he and his boss started. He said he’ll ship me some to Cali. Huh.
       The next day was Neptune Day! And I’ve already written about that. It was a really fun day, I’m still getting used to my naked head though. I get cold inside. The weather is absolutely perfect now, I think I’m going to move to Africa. Wait…I’m pretty sure I have this same weather in San Diego. But it is very hot and humid, about 82 degrees, including the water! We all finally ventured into the pool which felt amazing after being in the sun for hours on end. I’m finally getting my Latina skin back. They had a delicious American dinner of hot dogs and burgers and ribs, all barbecue style.Neptune Day might have possibly been the longest day in my life. Sometimes I’m just hoping to nap for a couple of hours just to pass the time. We are always up super early and up late…it.. just…goes…on…and …on. But it is beautiful and now that the weather is warm again there are ongoing wars for deck chairs and sunny spots. Dinners spent sitting outside are very enjoyable.


And now for the funniest email I have ever received:

Jan Anthony to her eldest daughter Jillian:
       
“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND???????????????????????????
YOU ARE GOING TO SOOOOOOOOOOOOO REGRET DOING THAT JILLIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YOU ARE INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY DID YOU FEEL YOU HAD TO DO THAT?????????????
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT.................COULD YOU HAVE AT LEAST THOUGHT ABOUT IT A LITTLE AND MAYBE JUST GONE SHORT?????????????????
YOU ARE GOING TO BE SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SORRY YOU DID THAT. YOU ARE CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT DID YOU ACCOMPLISH BY SHAVING YOUR HEAD JILLIAN??????????????
WHAT IS THE POINT????????????????
iT WILL TAKE YOU A YEAR TO GROW YOUR HAIR BACK AND IT MAY CHANGE YOUR TEXTURE OF YOUR HAIR.
YOU ARE NUTS!”

Wow Mom. Glad to know I have your support. She also left me this sincere facebook message which I laughed about for about five minutes straight.

"Jillian, are you out of your mind?
You are going to regret that decision.
Now for the rest of your amazing travels, you will be BALD!"

HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHA. Oh Mom…








I didn’t shave my head.
Are you kidding? Me get rid of my only temptress quality???
But seriously, is hair that big of a deal? What if I had really shaved my head? Pretty sad for me that that is my mom’s reaction…but I’m also pretty sure Anthony purposely didn’t email me about it to wait and see if I was lying or not so as to not walk into a trap. Smart thinking, baby.

Jan 9
       Today is Neptune Day!!! The day we cross the equator. Unfortunately the REAL day we cross the equator is tomorrow, but who cares I guess. All sorts of activities were had today. We were all awoken at 8 am by King Neptune and his gang of shellbacks parading through the halls with drums and whistles and banging on our door then threatening us with cellophane spears. The pollywogs all assembled on the seventh deck to pay respect to King Neptune through initiation. We all got in our bathing suits and went through initiation, which includes having fish guts poured on our heads, kissing the king’s ring and bowing to the queen, and jumping into the pool. And then…shaving our heads.
       I SHAVED MY HEAD!!!! I can’t wait to show you guys pictures!!! It is crazy and insane but I did it and it feels very freeing!!! AHHHHH! There were about 15 girls that shaved their heads and we are all bald and beautiful.
       And the entire rest of the day was spent suntanning and I made sure to block up my newly bald head. Everyone who had hair longer than eight inches and decided to either cut it short or shave it could donate their hair, and that’s what I did.
Surpise!!!!

Jan 6
       I forgot to write about something really funny that Hannah reminded me of. The pamphlets at the mosque in Casablanca were hilarious. It was like they went on freetranslation.com and typed in the words and French then used whatever came out. Hilarious.

Like this sentence: The work of the Moucharabieh limiting these mezzanines is of a very high fineness.

Interesting. Lots of fineness.
You would think a multi million dollar mosque that caters to tourists would be able to afford a translator for their pamphlets. Guess not.

Just one more quick disclaimer. Yes, I see my typos and that I spelled "our""are."I am embarrassed about it and really need to start proofreading these things before I send them. Please overlook them and don't judge me, haha I am usually very anal about these things and it makes me mad when I see that I sent these entries in with typos and then cannot edit them. Urrrrgh.

MOROCCO

Jan 5
       I am exhausted after three whirlwind days in Morocco but I can’t wait to catch everyone up on what I’ve been up to. But first shower, dinner, and nap.

Okay. Ate my fill, I was starving, and now I am ready to start cataloging the last few days of my life that has suddenly become a nonstop learning experience.

Alright, starting from Fenruary 2nd…
       We lost a day in Morocco but this turned out to be a really great day. I hung out with friends and laughed a lot, ate lunch with the cameraman who is on his third SAS voyage, and both voyages he was on before this were ones where disasters struck, the first being when Asia had SARS and they had to reroute to Japan and then Alaska, and the second being when the ship was caught in an intense storm and a 60 foot wave knocked out the tower and the engines. The ship was extremely close to evacuating everyone and the ship had to be repaired for weeks while SAS, of their own expense, FLEW all passengers to Asia for the entire time the ship was being repaired and put them up in four star hotels. This is his third voyage and people are just waiting around for something crazy to happen, but anyways he is a really nice guy and very interesting, and he has interviewed our group several times in different places. Hearing about those crazy SAS incidents is very scary but also reassuring that SAS and ISE really do take care of their students first before anything else. They are not here to jip us or see us hurt.
       Okay I have to just interrupt this journal entry for a minute. Our TV has one channel that plots are course and is constantly playing techno music, and it is the most hilarious thing ever. The stewards turn it on and blast it in every cabin they go into, and we always turn it in when we’re in the mood for a good laugh. Right now a song from Night at the Roxbury is playing. Anyways…
       So that day was just hanging out, and they announced they would have an open mic night, and I had planned on changing the lyrics to a popular song and performing it at an open mic, and my friend Greg suggested the song “No Air.”So we set to work writing new lyrics for it. The end product was genius. After we were done I went to the gym and had a great workout, I am really feeling more in shape and healthy since I’ve been working out for about a month now. And every day I’m in a country I am constantly moving, I have to cover several miles every day. I just feel stronger in general and it feels good.
       So then we got all gussied up, went to a talk about avoiding being pickpocketed which made us all paranoid, then open mic night began. We were slated for fourth. There are some extremely talented people on the ship. Many kids write and sing their own songs, on the piano or guitar, a couple of people we are amazed that they aren’t on the radio already. They are some really funny people as well, one kid performed stand up comedy and he was great! Greg and I go up pretending we wrote a song then No Air came on and we had the lyrics we wrote on a powerpoint behind us while we sang the words. I’ll put the video up and link it when I have the chance, but for now I’ll post the lyrics.

Tell me how I’m sposed to live with no land

It was so tough before Cadiz
Hitting the walls it hurt my knees
Plus puking everywhere was like living in a world with no land
ooooooh

Four drinks for me is not enough
I can’t walk when the seas are rough
Wish I could steal a boat to get myself to land

BUT HOW
DO YOU EXPECT ME
TO LIVE THIS LIFE ON THE SEA
all this water all around me is making me crazy

tell me how I’m sposed to live with no land
can’t live can’t breathe without land
Les McCabe don’t you understand
There’s no land no laaaand

Got me out here in the waters so deep
Lose an hour every night there’s no sleep
Guess I’ll go watch the MICE band
Cuz there’s no land, no laaand

No land land
no land land
no land land

I hopped a train north to Madrid
Tapas vino I’m lovin it
That Spanish gypsie cast a spell on me for real

Somehow I’m still awake at five
Churros and chocolate keep me alive
I don’t know Spanish but the guy in the club didn’t even care

So how
do you expect me
to get back on the MV
cuz Espana all around me it’s so hard for me to leave

Tell me how I’m sposed to live with no land
can’t live can’t breathe without land
Captain Jeremy don’t you understand
there’s no land no land

Got me out here in the waters so deep
Estrogen everywhere makes me weak
If there’s no more men I’m gonna scream
No men no men

no men men
women men
no land land

B R E A K ***

LAAAAAAAND

Tell me how we’re sposed to go without fuel
Can’t see Morocco without fuel
Wanna ride a camel or mule
NO FUEL NO FUEL

Sometimes it gets really hard
That’s what she saiiiiid
I can’t wait to get off
she said she saiiiid


What were doing for six hours last night
I’m sick of card games all night
Watched the superbowl until it got light
NOT TIGHT not tight

Got me out here in the waters so deep
If we don’t get there soon I’m gonna weep
Off this ship I might leap
time to sleep time to sleep

No land land
no land land
noooo lan
Les McCabe……


So I’m sure it’s not as awesome without actually seeing it, but let me tell you, it was a HIT! We got the only standing ovation of the night, and everyone was falling over with laughter. Greg and I have gotten countless compliments and we plan on writing a new one for every open mic night. We had a great time doing it and everyone was asking us to put the lyrics up on the public serve right away. Good times!
       Also, the last stretch coming into Morocco was extremely rocky, so we all sat in Tymitz Square near the purser’s desk and rolled around, sliding from one end to the other with the waves. It was hilarious and should happen again tonight on takeoff, so we are all going to put socks on and go enjoy the slip n slide.
       Oh also something happened this night that I figured my friends would appreciate. I had met this guy the night before that was doing all of these really cool things, like using his GPS to find hidden treasures that people leave all over the world and using this home exchange program to stay places in every country we were going to. He was an interesting guy and we talked for awhile, and I met him when my hair was up in a greasy ponytail and in sweats. So the next night I see him, except for this night my hair is down and down and I’m wearing makeup. I say hi to him and he looks at me quizzically, “Do I know you? Have we met?”Ummmm yeah we met last night? had a conversation? I’m Jillian? “…Oooh! You’re Jillian. Your hair looks really nice.”HAHAHA he didn’t recognize me in makeup and with my hair down! Man that is the first time that’s ever happened to me. I mean I know hair and makeup adds two attractiveness points for me, but really, I barely wear makeup when I do, I mean I definitely don’t think it is that extreme of a change. It was kind of like that time the guy at the party looked at me and said, “I thought there were going to be attractive girls here.”
       The next morning Nancy, Katherine, Tessa and I journeyed to Morocco’s capital, Rabat. Morocco is definitely the most different country I have experienced to date, culturally, socially, just in every way really. It is a Muslim country that speaks predominantly French and Arabic, and maybe bits of Spanish and English here and there if you’re lucky. Well I speak zero French or Arabic and neither did any of the THREE BLONDES I was traveling with. I say they are blond not to say that they are dumb or anything like that, but to say that I am traveling in an Arabic country with four women, which already ensures that we will be harassed, but also that I am with three white blonde girls, which means we will be harassed by men and people looking to gouge us even more.
       It was a challenging atmosphere from the minute we got off the boat. The port we had docked in, Casablanca, was gigantic, and SAS did a bad job of telling us where to go. We just kind of bobbed along with the hundreds of other SASers trying to find the train station, which is where we are all headed. In the midst of hundreds of gigantic trucks, giant cranes, a cruise ship three times the size of ours, dirt and muck from a lot of rain, men yelling and whistling at us, “hello, hello, America, spice girls, Christina Aguilera, Shakira, skinny, sistah.”It was chaos. Just generally really dirty. SAS told us the train station was ten minutes away. Wrong. Just to get out of the port it is a solid twenty minute walk. After that, we have no freaking idea where to go because the train station is being renovated and is not where it used to be. Well great. So we stop by a bank and I take out Moroccan money since I don’t have any, the Dirham. It is about 8 and a half dirham to one American dollar. I would end up spending more money in Morocco than I did in Spain, but that is only because I had a prepaid trip in Spain and therefore all of my hotel and meals were included. At the bank I saw the wife of the Moroccan speaker I had eaten with, and she was extremely helpful to us, asking for directions in French and showing us how to get to the station.
       Once we got to the station, it was trouble once again. Everything was in Arabic or French, we couldn’t figure out which train went where, what was the arrival time or departure time. We finally just went up to the ticket counter and said, “one, Rabat.”The ticket cost about four dollars for an hour train ride. The train ride was fine, I slept for some of it. Katherine and Tessa go to Point Loma and we discussed why they hate the school and are transferring to Boston next year, and Nancy, who goes to USD too, talked about being from South Dakota and how much of a culture shock it is. But you know what’s really a culture shock? Morocco.
       We get off at Rabat and already like the atmosphere better. I had written down a few names of sights to see off of wikitravel. First we walked down the street to the souq, or marketplace. It was so…I honestly don’t even know the word to correctly describe what I’m thinking. Primitive. Crowded. Something I’ve only seen in movies. Remarkable. Intimidating. The market we visited was much more of a “local’s”marketplace than the one I would visit in Marrakech. It would be really hard to adequately describe the essence of the scene. Food in piles sitting on just a sack on the floor. Goat heads roasting, entire cow legs sitting out with flies all over them. Fish being gutted and descaled on a dirty wooden panel. Spices in huge piles. Sweet breads being sold with bees swarming all over them. Small alleyways with smarmy characters, the women in outfits from everything from something you would see in everyday Spain to fully covered with only their eyes showing. Men dressed in jeans and shirts to traditional robes and fez hats. We spent some time walking through and that was our first true taste of Moroccan culture. 
Next we set out to find a taxi to the Kasbah. We got to the Kasbah and weren’t quite sure how to get in…we didn’t want to offend anyone. We had been told not to take pictures near any policemen or military buildings and to be respectful of religious areas. So we kind of inched near the area and this guy sort of ushered us in, saying that it closed in an hour for prayers. So we are following this kind of sketchy guy in, but he speaks English really well so we are sticking with him. He starts giving us a tour, and we know we are going to have to pay, but our mistake was in not asking how much right up front. He showed us around to all the different areas. The Kasbah was beautiful. It is a community that has shifted religious meaning through the years, first Jewish, then Portuguese, and now Muslim. The walls are painted a bright blue on bottom and white on top, like half and half, kind of like traditional Grecian colors. The blue color was to keep mosquitoes away, because apparently they are deterred by blue. I dunno, I mean the guy could have been lying about everything he said, but he gave us a pretty solid tour and even would pick plants out and have us smell them and tell us what foods they are used in in Moroccan culture. I kept them and stuck them in my journal, lemon grass, germanium, and something else. The Kasbah overlooked the ocean, and the view was beautiful. He showed us all of the historical sites in the town. Then he charged us 220 dirham, or somewhere around 25 dollars. Definitely more than we would have paid, but that taught me the lesson of always being assertive about things such as that from then on.
At one point he asked us, “Are you Chinese? You take as many pictures as the Chinese do!”And you know what, our tour guide in Spain told us that too. A little bit racist. A little bit funny.
       From the Kasbah we took the fifteen minute walk over to the tower of Hassan II and the Mosoleum. I don’t know who this Hassan II character is but there are mosques and such for him all over the place. The tower was iconic and used to be part of a grand palace, the ruins of which still stand in the area. After seeing this area we were hungry and looking for something safe to eat. We stopped into a hotel but it was far too expensive so we caught a taxi back to the area around the train station and had a pizza haha. I stopped by the post office and got some stamps, then we caught a train back to Casablanca to get back for our dinner with a Moroccan family in time.
       All of the people doing dinners with families went into groups of four, five, six, seven, or nine. The four of us were the only group of four, and we got lucky beyond belief with the family we got. The wife picked us up and she was immediately sweet, and a good friend of the wife of the Moroccan speaker. She took us on a tour of the...

Morocco cont...


surrounding town, showing us the mosque of Hassan II in Casablanca, the second largest mosque in the world next to the mosque in Mecca. It is only 13 years old and looked absolutely luminous at night. We took some pictures, it was freezing out and I was only in a sweater, then she took us around to some of the nicer neighborhoods and showed us the beach hangouts and clubs nestled on the hilltops. I asked her what they wear when they go to the beach, perhaps a stupid question, but supposedly Muslim countries are supposed to be very modest, chaste, forbidden to drink alcohol, but I never saw someone pray during the call to prayer a single time, there was alcohol in many places, and our mom said that everyone at the beach wore “bikinis of course, or topless.”Oh, okay.
       Then we get to her house. WOW. These people are filthy rich. The house is exquisitely decorated. The family speaks French to each other, and they are also rather fluent in Arabic and English. It was completely surreal sitting down to eat with this family speaking French all around me. There was the wife, who was sweet and tried very hard to speak English with us. The dad, who reminded Katherine very much of her own dad and made her a little homesick. He was hilarious and so warm. They have two kids, a daughter who is 28 and was recently married in May and a son who is 26 and was recently engaged. They were both rather quiet, but also very friendly. The daughter could have been a French model. Her pro tennis player husband arrived and was the hit of the party. He studied in Missouri and Miami on tennis scholarships. He was so great, he turned on Snoop Dogg and said it reminded him of his time in the States, and warned us about smoking the weed in Tangier. Then Abba came on and the entire table started dancing and singing. There was also a Philippine cook/maid named Liza who spoke great English and was very sweet.
       The meal was SUMPTUOUS. We began with appetizers of vegetables soaked in some sort of salt water, sounds weird but it was amazing, and then chestnuts that had been roasted…you guessed it, on an open fire. But seriously…they really were. And vodka and pear juice. Then we sat down to dinner. First course, delicious bread, spinach mix, the best eggplant mix I’ve ever tasted, fish, and soybeans. And delicious Moroccan wine. Everything tasted great.
       Next was the main course, cous cous. But definitely not the cous cous in a box like my mom makes. A gigantic dish was brought out and placed in the middle of the table. On top of the cous cous sat five different types of whole vegetables that had been soaked in some sort of amazing broth, as well as lamb. I took pictures because I have honestly never seen food served like this in any fashion. After the cous cous, which all nine of us combined barely finished half of, that’s how much there was, they brought out our last course, which was a dessert of another ridiculous sized bowl of the freshest fruit I have seen in about a month. I went right for the mangoes, and the pear melted in my mouth. After dinner we all just sat down and watched French news and chatted. They let me use skype which I happily used to talk to Anthony and my mom. The wife and brother finally brought us back to the boat around midnight. It was a great night and probably one of the best experiences I will have on this trip. But then again after what I have experienced in only two countries I can only imagine what is to come for me in the next few months.
       And another funny little racist comment from Morocco…they had a little black dog named Naomi, and the daughter explained to us, “Because she is black like Naomi Campbell.”haha.
       The next morning I had a super early wake up time of 5:30 AM to catch our 6:50 AM train at the larger Casablanca train station. We needed that entire time too. The four of us were out making the long walk to the main road before dawn, so in mostly dark. The trucks and cranes were all hovering menacingly and only a couple of people were about which made it worse rather than better. Then the call for prayer started going off, and it sounds a little like a tornado siren. Eerie. We were practically jogging to get out of the port, that was a very very long walk for us. Caught a taxi to the larger train station and got our first class tickets to Marrakech to meet up with Hannah, Caroline, Taylor, Greg, Nate, Brady, Stacy, Brendan, Aaron, and a few other people that were all staying in a riad there together. The train ride was about three hours and I slept for a couple hours of it.
       We taxied to the riad and found it after searching for awhile. The place was great, the rooms were very nice and there was a great rooftop view. Hannah and I shared a room with a couple of guys, and we got the honeymoon bed all to ourselves. It just seemed funny to me that someone would actually honeymoon there, but the guestbook held records of all the couples that had been there before us. Hannah and I had a magical night and we can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together.
       Anyways, the whole group trekked over to the souq, which was very different from the last one I had been to. First of all it was much much bigger, and the stores were in a way more organized and orderly, but in other ways things were crazier than they were in Rabat. Marrakech is apparently a huge tourist destination but I saw many more locals at this marketplace than tourists, especially surrounding the street performers. There were snake charmers that would forcefully place their cobras around your neck then force you to pay for it, women with henna syringes that would grab your hand and start painting before you said no, men with monkeys in diapers, musicians playing primitive instruments, acrobats, and men and children alike telling stories alongside animals such as hawks or chameleons and a huge circle of people gathering around them just to listen to the tale. That was something that I was amazed by…storytelling is a lost art form in the US, but here the people are standing captivated by whatever images the person is twisting in the air through his words.
       We spent probably about four hours throughout the day at the market. There was just so much to see and so many great things to buy! We all experienced the sultry art form of bargaining. I think I did a pretty good job of it, I could have saved myself maybe another 10-15 dollars but overall I was proud with my skills. Sometimes if you named a price too low they would get mad and shoo you out of their store. My most intense experience was bartering with this guy for these two rings that I really wanted. I named a very low price and he seemed legitimately insulted. “Be honest! This is real silver! I am being honest with you you need to be honest!”And when I wanted go past 150 riad he turned me away. But about a minute after I walked away I had sincere buyer’s remorse for not getting them, then had a hell of a time finding that specific shop again. I eventually did with the help of friends and ended up buying them both for 240 riad, or about 30 dollars. They were worth it, I felt so happy after I successfully retrieved them haha. I also bought a couple of Moroccan glasses, couple of magnets and postcards, couple shirts, and these very cute keychains for friends when I get back. It was a very interesting day in the market and we all came back with some great items. We had lunch at a traditional place along with about 100 SAS people that were in Marrakech on their designated organized trips. Brendan had rabbit and somebody else had pigeon. Just like chicken, right? I couldn’t help but wonder if this meat was bought from a store of the fashion I had seen in Rabat and within Marrakech’s marketplace, just slabs of meat laying out, flies all over them.
       After the market we headed over to the Palacio Bial, which was a ruined palace. We took some great pics and checked out the huge storks that have made their nests along the palace peaks.
       We made the walk back to our riad and relaxed for a little before heading out to a hookah bar. This was a very stressful time for all of us.
       Rule number one: never travel with more than five people in one group. Ever.
       Rule number two: never travel with stressful or paranoid people.
       Rule number three: roll with the punches. Be flexible.
       We went out to grab a cab and we were on a little bit of a sketchy corner, and there were fourteen of us, and one guy agreed to drive us all there, he would make three trips, each trip for forty dirham. So the first taxi goes, and people start to freak out. Oh my god how do we even know if this guy is coming back this is so sketchy oh my god look at that guy he is scaring me we are like sitting ducks here this is so stupid hagdoasdosabdoabsjf. Ugh. I couldn’t stand it. It was a little bit of an intimidating situation, but looking back on it, we were being so dumb. I mean if we had just gone around the corner we would be on the main boulevard and we were all together and we were freaking out for no reason, but some people definitely more than others. Hannah and I just gripped arms and stayed put, we knew the cab driver would come back. And he did and he got all of us there safely and from then on I pledged not to travel with a couple of the people we were with.
       The rest of the night I hung out with Hannah, Caroline, Greg and Brendan. Perfect amount of people and a really enjoyable time. We drank delicious mint tea everywhere we went, it is the Moroccan delicacy and everyone that usually hates tea was addicted to the stuff, especially Hannah who couldn’t stop talking about mint tea. We had hookah, the strongest I have ever had before. I was wired for the rest of the night. After that we headed to a hotel bar where a lot of SAS kids were and we drank and ate a little, we got a pizza and it was literally gone in 30 seconds. Ravenous. Then we headed back to the riad. Greg and Caroline wanted to go sit up on the roof and hang out more, but Hannah and I had gone up to the roof already, seen the stars, and then said okay well we did that, and headed to bed. But instead of actually going to sleep her and I stayed up for at least another hour talking in the honeymoon bed. Even after we stopped talking I lied awake for a long time, I just couldn’t sleep. Seems to be a common thing for me lately.
       Next morning, up at 6:45. Love it, not. I was already awake when the alarm went off. Went downstairs to have breakfast, as our riad was a B&B. Delicious mint tea and fresh fresh OJ, many different types of bread with honey, marmalade, orange and strawberry spread. Took off from there to catch our 9:00 train back to Marrakech. Talked the whole way home and slept for about half of it. Took a taxi to the mosque in Casablanca, the second largest in the world. It was very rainy and very windy, probably the strongest wind I have ever felt in my life. It was a struggle to walk against it. We took a tour of the mosque after waiting around for an hour or so. It was beautiful inside and it was interesting to see their bathing areas, or hammam. After that half of the group headed over to Rick’s Café from the movie Casablanca. We walked the half hour there only to find it was closed. Poop. So we just walked back to the ship since we only had about three hours till on ship time. Half hour back to the boat in the pouring rain, my feet are soaked, but it was just Hannah and Win and I and we really enjoyed the walk, and I know it would be my last time walking on land for eight long days.
       Back on the boat, call Mom and Anthony, pig out on dinner, then we all settled into Tymitz Square where there is a big tile floor to slide around when we exited the harbor because we know we would be sliding all over the place. We were sliding from one end of the floor to the other, and one time we all smashed into the wall in a pile. After that I got out because I didn’t want to get hurt. A couple of people did get injured in various areas around the ship, one bashed her face on a chair, another apparently got a concussion. We went back to our room and our dresser was flipped over, everything had fallen, there were papers and bras everywhere even though Caroline and I had thought we hunkered down pretty well. Apparently not. So we cleaned up and had ten people over in our room to watch Aladdin, which is a very racist movie but we identified with some things in it after visiting Morocco. It made me think of home friends a lot and how much I sincerely miss sitting on the couch watching The Lion King or A Goofy Movie or (insert Disney movie here) with my besties.
       And now. Eight days of class.
       I love and miss you all.

“I might be sorry but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it at the time.”

Jan 2
        Today was one of the most simple and simply good days I have had in a very long time.
       
        I feel healthy and whole.

Jan 2
        Here we are. On the ship. Still. We refueled sometime in the wee hours last night, but weather is rough and we won’t be into Morocco until this evening, and we can’t disembark until tomorrow. Bummer, especially for people who had trips booked. In the large scheme of things this is one of the few ports where I would be okay with this happening, so I’m rather lucky and today will be a pretty fun day.
        We watched the superbowl last night. There are some very diehard fans including sexy Les, our dean, who rooted for Pittsburgh. The first feed we got was an American feed and it was pretty fuzzy, so they switched it over to a German feed which was much better picture quality but also really funny because it was in German. And no American commercials, which was the big draw for me, so I pieced out when it was about half over.
        We played Apples to Apples for hours last night, but we switched it up and all wrote down our own words every round to be judged. It was pretty hilarious. Tonight there is an open mic and Greg and I will be doing a very special performance… I will post it later… be excited.

February 1
Wow. It is freaking February. I can’t believe it.
Today was a limboland day. We can see two bodies of land out the window: Gibraltar and Morocco. We can’t step foot on either one though. Tomorrow begins my grand Moroccan adventure. Day 1: Casablanca. Day 2: Rabat and dinner with a Moroccan family in Casablanca. Day 3: Marrakech. Day 4: Back to Casablanca and the boat. I’ve got every day planned out with different friends and already have a hostel, or riad, booked for the third night. It’s actually more of a bed and breakfast. Really looking forward to doing some serious independent traveling.
The weather was crazy too. Cold and window all day until the afternoon when it brightened up for about an hour, and now it’s been POURING for about two hours. So we all just sat inside and played never have I ever and ate our lives away. How juvenile. And fun.
At lunch they served sherbert!!!! YESSSSS. And I sat down with our Moroccan speaker and his wife and they told me all about life in Morocco, they have lived there for 17 years and raised three kids there who now all go to college in the States, one who goes to Azusa Pacific, which obviously is about five minutes from my house in good ol San Dimas, so we were able to meet on common ground about that. I was very surprised that a girl who had lived in France and Morocco all her life decided to attend… ASU??? Very strange, but they said it has a great art program and is actually highly ranked. Who knew?

Great. Just got back from global studies and it was announced that today when the fueling ship was by us for like two hours, it never actually gave us fuel. So we have to stick around here for the night and probably for a long while tomorrow as well. They said they would hope to have us into Casablanca by TOMORROW EVENING! WTF MATE. A whole day in Morocco gone. But at least I didn’t have anything substantial planned tomorrow, and since I’m coming home very early on the 5th I can still explore Casablanca on that day. Gawwwwwwwwwd tomorrow is going to be a long day. At least I can sleep a lot. And work out. I ate an INCREDIBLE amount of food today. I broke into my Goldfish today, after finishing the Cheez It party mix. The first box at least. We got leftover birthday cake and dinner tonight and I’m about to keel over.
Alright well the superbowl is on at 11 so I’ll hit that up. And play games. Woo. I wish I were in Spain dancing amongst the Spaniards until dawn.