Township in the rain...

Turns out Africa can be VERY cold and rainy! Who knew?! The weather today was so cold and lots and lots of rain. I had an SAS trip to a township outside the city of Cape Town to work on a Habitat for Humanity project, building houses for families with some pretty depressing living conditions. It was very cold and very wet but a great experience. Also a very sad experience. At the same time that it was sad, I also didn’t leave feeling sad because the kids we got to play with and the women who welcomed us into their homes for lunch were so nice and so happy despite their poor living conditions. Honestly before today I had not seen extreme poverty until I saw the shacks these people were living in, some literally made out of cardboard and sheet metal. It was raining for most of the afternoon and one family basically had a waterfall in the middle of their one-room house from the rain collected on their roof. It was sad to see that. We also witnessed another very sad scene, one family’s house caught fire while we were in the area and we could see the smoke from a few blocks away. It took only a few minutes before the whole house was up in flames and no one could do anything except try to stop the spread so it didn’t catch another house on fire. I know everyone got out safely, but a family is now homeless tonight, and that made me sad to think about as I headed back to my room on the ship to take a hot shower and get out of the rain. None of the families had a shower or even a bathroom, each house had an outhouse. It was interesting to see, though, that while the houses leaked and had no bathroom, almost every adult had a cell phone and most of the houses had a sound system and a TV. A few people even had cars. But one girl in my group brought stickers with her and she was handing them out to the kids and the kids were SO excited and grateful for the stickers, which they stuck all over their faces, that it was obvious they were growing up in a situation of simple pleasures, not instant gratification and definitely not having the world at their feet.

So the day involved playing with the kids, talking to locals, helping build cinder block houses, and listening to our project leader, Rasta, tell joke after joke...he was hilarious. One of the families whose house we were building served us tea and bread and then later made us lunch of mashed potatos with curry which was delicious. It was a very interesting contrast, having a meal in a township house compared to having dinner in jazz musician Robbie Jansen’s house the other night. Both were great meals and an awesome experience, but completely different contrasts of the gap separating wealth and poverty in South Africa.

Today was a very eye-opening day, but also very fun. The kids especially were so much fun to interact with. It was also a hilariously unfortunate day weather-wise for building houses and being outside. Many of us didn’t have rain coats (it wasn’t raining when we left in the morning!) so they gave us trash bags to wear so we were pretty stylin’ all day long! Haha.

That’s all for now. I got some great pictures from the township today which I’ll try to post before leaving SA!

Take care.
*peace*

Cape Town thus far = AMAZING!

Hello from South Africa!!
Today was my second day here in Cape Town, so far it’s been amazing! We got here yesterday, Friday, in the morning after spending two days at sea from Namibia. The waters got really rough the closer we got to SA so by the time we got here everyone was ready to walk around on solid ground again! Some friends and I decided the first thing we wanted to do in Cape Town was climb the famous Table Mountain! So as soon as we were allowed to get off the ship we took off to find a taxi to take us to the bottom of the mountain so we could find a trail and make our way up the 3,500 ft. mountain! As soon as we got there I realized how much I miss mountains! We got to drive through Cape Town to get to the mountain and the city is beautiful and green with trees and mountains above. Being away from mountains for over a month already is crazy for me! I’ve never been away from them for that long. So even though the summit of Table Mountain is lower in elevation than Boulder (not to mention the mountains above Boulder) it was really exciting to get out and do something active outdoors.

Our taxi driver was really nice and welcomed us to South Africa and upon learning that we were from the United States he asked “so, how is Mr. Bush?” we said oh who knows...then he asked if we liked Obama and we said yes. Yet another country on my list of countries supporting Obama, haha! South Africa has some interesting politics going on right now too actually, about their president resigning recently. I don’t know much about the details though so maybe if I find out more I can write another blog about it later. It’s hard to get news on the ship with such limited internet! I did hear from my mom, however, that Paul Newman just died...so sad! :-(

Anyways, after an interesting taxi ride making conversation with our driver and seeing a little bit of Cape Town, we got to the foot of Table Mountain and started walking up the road looking for a trail head. We found one called Platteklip Gorge, so we took that trail and it turned out to be a gorgeous hike! Probably one of the best hikes I’ve ever done, actually. It was definitely tough but not impossible. My legs are super sore today though! It took us about an hour and a half to hike up and the view from the top was AMAZING! One of the cool things about the hike up was that there were little waterfalls all along the trail and it was very green, with lots of flowers too. So we had a PB&J lunch and walked around the top of the mountain for a while, then hiked back down which took maybe 45 minutes. The top was SO cold! It was hard to remember I was still in Africa, it felt like it could start snowing at any time, it was that cold. But as we headed down it got lots warmer again.

So most of yesterday was the Table Mountain adventure (I have pictures of the hike on Flickr if you want to see!!). The first half of today was spent doing a little walking around near the ship, shopping, and stopping to watch street performers and live music that was all around! Then this evening I did my first SAS-organized trip in SA, it was a “Jazz safari”, not a safari at all but VERY fun! We took a van to the homes of two local, well-known jazz musicians, the first was Robbie Jansen, and the second was Hilton Schilder. Robbie is an older guy who plays the sax, and has been in a few bands and still plays in Cape Town and has played all over the world. His family made us an amazing South African dinner with wine (South Africa has great wine!) we had fish, curry, rice, chicken... so good! A couple of students from the ship that were in the group also played instruments or singing so Robbie got them playing and singing along with him, doing a little improv. It was really cool. His house was small, but beautiful and his family was so nice. Then we went to Hilton Schilder’s house and we had coffee and cookies and listened to him play several instruments, one was a “mouth bow”, I can’t remember the actual name of it but it was very cool, and he also played some piano, drums, and guitar. All around, a really cool night that made me get really into jazz and wish I played one of the instruments I got to listen to tonight!

And now it’s getting late and I’m pretty tired. I’m not sure what I’m doing tomorrow. We’ll see!

Keep those emails coming, and check on my photos!

*peace*

Random thought..

Well we are now on our way to South Africa! Namibia was awesome, I had so much fun there. And now I’m really excited for South Africa. An interesting thing I thought I’d write a little blurb about tonight is something I was emailing with my mom about, and I just finished writing a paper for one of my classes about. My tour guide for my sea and sand dunes trip was, as you can see from my pictures, a white guy. But he wasy saying that he was born and raised in Namibia. So really, he’s a white African. Not something you usually think about, right? I wondered then how far back he can trace his family history in Africa. Probably only a couple generations at most, but he considers himself African. I also asked him about the languages he speaks and he said that fluently he speaks Afrikaans, English, German, and a local native language. I asked which ones he learned in school and he said in school he was only taught in English and Afrikaans. I think Afrikaans is his first language, when he spoke English he had quite a thick accent. But there are many German speakers in Namibia because of the original colonization of the area by the Germans. Anyways there’s your little tidbit of history and culture for the day! Haha.

I hope all is well with everyone! Keep those emails coming so I have something to read :-)

*peace*

Namibia photos

Hi all! Go check out my Namibia photos. I wish I had time to load more, but there are a few!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennieturcios/

Africa: Sand and wind and FUN!!!!!

Hello Hello!!!
I am currently in Africa!!!!! It’s amazing! I still can’t believe I’m here. We got into Walvis Bay, Namibia Friday morning. When we arrived it was very foggy so we couldn’t even see Africa, just the water around our ship. It’s also a LOT colder than I ever imagined Africa to be! It feels about like fall weather in Colorado. The temperature has been upper 60s I think, but at night it gets very cold and windy. Today is another foggy, cold day. Friday we checked out the town a bit. It’s really cute! It’s small, but very nice. It’s clean and relatively safe, although we were still warned to look out for pickpockets and apparently cell phone theft is pretty common. But everyone here is super friendly and they’re curious about all of us 700 American college students arriving on a huge ship. This is the first time SAS has done a trip to Namibia so it’s new for us and new for Namibians. So we checked out the town, there are a lot of little thrift-store-type places selling about the same things, clothes, shoes, luggage, toys, etc. there are a couple grocery stores similar to ones in the U.S. and there’s a KFC. Haha...on Friday we went to a little sit down burger restaurant, not exactly traditional African food but we were hungry and it was good. The money exchange rate is great for us. 1 USD is about 8 or 9 Namibian dollars and stuff is cheap here.

Yesterday I went on an awesome adventure and it was SUCH a fun day! I did a “sea and sand dunes” trip organized through SAS. First we got on a bus and it took us to a dock and we got on a little boat. This old guy native to Namibia was driving the boat and he had some hilariously bad jokes to tell us the whole time and he was telling us about all the sea creatures we saw and everything else which was really cool! We saw pelicans, seals, and dolphins! The seals were the most fun because they would just jump up onto the boat and hang out and our boat guy could get them to do tricks sometimes. But then they’d just jump back off the boat when they were done. It was so cool! I got some great pictures of the seals. I tried to get pictures of the dolphins but they were tricky because they’d only come out of the water for just a second and they they were back under the water. But it was really cool to see dolphins! We also saw where they were growing or “raising” oysters in the ocean which was really cool! Apparently the water is too cold around Namibia for the oysters to live naturally so they have them in these barrel things and raise them that way and that’s a huge export for Namibia. We also saw a diamond-extracting ship. Pretty awesome! Didn’t actually see any diamonds though, haha.

So then after the boat ride which lasted about 2 hours I think, the boat dropped us off on the beach by the sand dunes where we had a bunch of Land Rovers and drivers/guides waiting for us. There were thousands of seals laying around on the beach too! So we got in the Land Rovers and they drove us along the beach and then went into the sand dunes which was awesome, some of the hills we went down were so steep! Every time, our guide would say “oh here comes another roller coaster!!” and it really was like a roller coaster. Soooo fun! We also stopped and played in some “quick sand” the guides were saying it’s not exactly like the quicksand that can be deadly, but you’ll still sink a little when you walk on it. So we did, and we could sink about up to our waist! Haha. We stopped at another dune and one of the guides had a sandboard with him (well his was just an old snowboard he’d taken the bindings off and put straps on instead for your feet) so people got to try that out which was so cool! I didn’t do it yesterday but some friends and I are hoping to go out today and try it :-) then after a while we stopped for lunch which was so funny because the guides just busted out like tables, chairs, table clothes, dishes, wine in wine glasses, sodas, water, and really good food! They served us oysters first which I tried but didn’t really like a whole lot. It kind of just tasted like ocean haha. But there was bread and different kinds of quiche with fish in them and egg rolls and veggies and all kinds of tasty things to get the taste of ocean out of my mouth haha! So we had a fancy lunch right there in the middle of the desert. And they had little fudge cubes for us for dessert mmmm! Then we went driving around some more and eventually headed up to see Sandwich bay from on top of the sand dunes. It was gorgeous up there, I got some great pictures. It was an all-day trip and by the time I got back I was ready to just pass out and sleep for hours. So I just hung out on the ship and relaxed last night and went to bed early. Today we are hoping to go sandboarding and play around in the dunes but this morning it was foggy and windy and cold, so we’re waiting until after lunch to see if the weather gets better. We are also hoping to go to Swakopmund tomorrow, which is a German town near Walvis Bay with some fun stuff to do there. We’ve heard tell of camel rides available there so I want to try that out! I hear they’re not the nicest animals and not that comfortable to ride but how many times do you get to ride a camel in Africa anyways?! So I hope I can get to do that!!

So pretty much Africa is totally awesome so far and I’m having so much fun! I’m excited for South Africa next week too! If I can find some internet here in Namibia somewhere I’ll post some pictures up on flickr, and if I am not able to do it here I’ll try in South Africa. I want you all to see all the cool stuff I’ve seen so far! I took nearly 200 photos yesterday!

Ok, I hope all is well with everyone. Stay in touch via email!! :-)
*peace*

Africa! Yeah!

I'M IN AFRICA!!!!!! It's foggy right now, so I can't see much. But I'm in Africa!!! We're just waiting for them to let us off the ship!

I'll write more later!

-Jennie

Goin' to Africa!!! woooo

Hi all,
Well I’m almost to Africa!!! So I thought I’d just write a bit today before I get there...I’m done with classes until we leave Namibia, yay! And I’m definitely ready to get off the ship again...For one thing, the food on the ship is definitely not bad but it’s repetitive. It’s a lot of pasta and salads over and over again. So I’m hoping for something new at least in Africa! Then again, I hear they have McDonalds in Namibia so there’s always that, haha. But they do always have PB&J and desserts and toast as options on the ship so that’s nice.

Anyways...For those of you who are asking yourselves “Namibia??” Here are some fun facts I’ve learned about Namibia so far:

1.      No one on the ship (not the captain, crew, staff, faculty, or students) has ever been there!
2.      It’s the first time Semester at Sea has ever gone there
3.      The official language is English (other languages include German due to German colonization earlier on, and the bushmen language which has a “glottal stop” as part of the speech, which sounds like a clicking noise)

4.      Even though English is the official language, English is the first language of only 7% of Namibians
5.      It is one of the least populated countries in Africa
6.       It gained its independence in 1990 after colonization and rule by Germany and then by South Africa (they saw some of the effects of apartheid in Namibia)

7.      It’s very desert-y! (yay sand...)
8.      Their current president is only the 2nd president Namibia has ever had.
9.      The high temperatures while we will be there are going to be around 68 degrees F. Kind of chilly compared to the Bahamas and Brazil!

10.     The actor from the movie ‘The Gods Must be Crazy’ is from Namibia
11.     They have a McDonalds (What?! No Starbucks and Wal-Mart? Psh)
12.     There’s an asparagus farm near Walvis Bay, where we will be docking. Haha...anyone want me to bring them back some asparagus?

So there you go...a few things I’ve learned so far. I’ll get back to you with more when I find out. And I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures! I’m pretty excited to be going to a place that very few people have been to. I hadn’t heard of it until I found out I would be going there with SAS!

So we’re arriving in Walvis Bay, Namibia tomorrow morning. We can tell we’re getting closer to land because there are birds flying around our ship! Yay, land is near!!! Either that or we’re in the movie The Birds. Hopefully it’s just land though.

No one on the ship really knows what to do in Namibia. We know it’s cooler weather, windy, and sandy...but we’ve read in guide books that there are things like sandboarding (not sure what that is but it sounds fun!), camel rides, skydiving, camping, and wandering around the desert. Haha. I think it will be very fun actually, even if I don’t know what I’m doing there yet! I’m sure we’ll find something!

Then we leave Namibia on the 23rd, spend 2 days at sea, and then we get to Cape Town, South Africa!

Oh, by the way, I’ve found out that some of my emails I’ve sent from my SAS account haven’t gone through so if you’ve been expecting an email from me let me know and I’ll try again. And even if you haven’t been expecting an email from me, please send me one anyways because I need something to read!!! I’ll write back I promise! ? Thanks!

(Reminder, my address is jmturcios@semesteratsea.net)
Love, Jennie

*peace*

Brazil!

Hi everyone!!!!!!!
So I typed up this whole blog about Brazil and I thought I sent it to my blog but then I checked and it didn’t get posted, so sorry about that! Didn’t mean to not tell everyone about my time in Brazil!

Well we’re on our way to Africa now and I’m super excited!!! We left Brazil on Thursday night. I had a really great time there! A lot of students went on trips to the Amazon and Rio, I stayed in Salvador though partially out of lack of money to do a more expensive trip, but it was really fun to see what there is to see in Salvador! It’s a great city, very pretty and really nice people! The weather was warm but not unbearably hot like the Bahamas, haha. We got there on the morning of the 7th. Which turned out to be Brazil’s independence day, so that was pretty cool! Not a lot was open but there were some parades and things going on in the streets in celebration! So on Sunday we just kind of wandered around the city a little bit, checking out what there is to see and we also went on a hunt for a place to change our money.

Salvador is divided up into the upper city and the lower city, and there is an elevator which connects the two. It costs 5 centavos (around 5 cents USD) so it’s cheap and the upper city is really beautiful! I hope you all have a chance to check out my photos that I put up on flickr! I couldn’t post ALL of my photos but I tried to pick the best ones and put those up.  So Monday was cool, I went on an SAS trip to visit a family planning clinic which was interesting, we got to talk to a doctor who also does research there and it was interesting just to hear his views on things like abortion. It seems like Brazil is just as conflicted with controversial issues like that as the United States is right now. Speaking of the United States, it surprised me how many people were involved in American politics. I saw posters and even oil paintings of Obama all over the city and one day while I was in a market in the city a young guy about my age came up to me and my friends and he spoke very little english but he was asking us if were were from the ship and we said yes and he said to us “Oh you’re American then. Are you voting for Obama? You should. We like him here” It was so funny! The same sort of thing was common in the Bahamas as well. I have a picture of a poster that said “Bahama for Obama” haha...So it seems like other countries are really interested in the outcome of this upcoming election. Very interesting.

Another interesting thing in Salvador was that I felt particularly useful with the groups of students I was traveling with because I speak a little spanish. And although they speak portuguese, not spanish in Brazil the two languages are very similar so by speaking spanish and saying things slowly enough Brazilians could usually understand what I was saying and I could sometimes understand their portuguese if they spoke slowly enough. It was kind of fun to be able to overcome a language barrier just a little bit. Something I will not be so able to do in places like Namibia or Asia or India. I’m sure many people in those countries speak english as well but it’s fun to learn little bits of their language as well, I know it is appreciated when visitors at least try to speak the language of the country they are in. But the basis of all the classes on the ship are revolved at least somewhat around each country we are visiting so that’s helpful in learning a little about the history or culture of the places we are about to visit. So right now we are learning about Namibia and South Africa.

Anyways in Brazil Monday night I got to go to a dinner with a friend of the SAS program who lives in Salvador. It was a group of students from the ship as well as the dean, and this man who lives in Salvador and he brought several friends of his too including some Brazilian students. We ate at a fancy restaurant which was right on the water with all the walls made of glass. It was beautiful. And it was a fun evening to get to talk with students from Brazil who were our age. I had a funny conversation about iced tea with one of the students. He had never heard of making tea iced, and he thought that was so funny! On Tuesday I went to a Brazilian circus school which was SO fun! It’s a cool program which has been around for about 20 years and it gives kids a chance to do something fun with their time as well as encourages them to do that with their time instead of being on the streets. So the program is geared toward high risk kids and kids with no where else to go. It also helps kids go to school. But we got to see some of the circus stuff they do and then try it out ourselves! I wasn’t that great at some of them but the trapeze was probably my best one, I’d done things like that when I was younger in gymnastics classes. So that was a really fun afternoon!

Then most of the rest of my time in Salvador was spent seeing the sites and checking out little markets and things. We saw some beautiful old churches, which I took pictures of.

I’m really excited fo Africa...we get to Namibia on Friday morning, spend 5 days there, then 2 days on the ship and then we arrive in South Africa.

Oh, one other update is that the Vicarious Voyage program I am doing is getting underway now and it’s kind of exciting! I’ve got a partner in the program, her name is Lizzy and together we have adopted a 4th grade class in Virginia and we write them letters and postcards and send them packages. So today we got a package from our class and each kid had written us a letter! It was so fun to read all the letters, they’re so cute. And some of the kids drew us pictures of the ship and things they liked...it was really fun. So we’re putting together a package to send back to them with a letter to each kid and a couple little things from Brazil.

Ok, well that’s all for now...but keep sending emails! There’s only so many things to do on the ship while we’re at sea so I LOVE getting emails from you all! Send them to jmturcios@semesteratsea.net! Thanks!!

*Peace*

-Jennie

Photos!!!

The rest of my photos are up on flickr! Go see!! :-)

More photos to come

Hi,
Right now I only have my Bahamas photos up, but I promise ~I will get the rest posted asap! Keep checking back to my flickr account!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennieturcios/

Flickr account

Ok, I think that my flickr account is ready to go. That address is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennieturcios/

Here it is...

Hi everyone!
So unfortunately my website, as pretty and fun as it was, turned out to be too much work and internet time to update and keep up. So...I am using blogspot instead for my blogs, and I am going to try to get a photo album set up online as well and I will post the link to that on here as soon as I get that going. I apologize for the lack of updates until now...I have been battling with the internet and computers in general for weeks trying to figure something out to keep you all updated! I think this will work though, so keep checking back and I will try to post new blogs as often as possible! And please keep those emails coming to jmturcios@semesteratsea.net
I miss you all and love you!!!
-Jennie

Neptune day!

9/5/08

Hi Friends...
Yeah, that’s me...getting a haircut. Not just any haircut, I got my hair shaved off! hahaha. I know. I’ve lost my mind. It’s great :-)
So today was Neptune day, and I don’t know all the details about it but basically after you cross the equator (which we did last night at 8:30!) it’s tradition to shave your head. I wasn’t planning on doing it...but I just decided to go for it at the last minute! My friend Bethany did it with me. I figured hey it’s just hair...it’ll grow back. Plus now it’s way easier to take care of! Don’t need to worry about humidity messing with it or anything! Besides, what a great story to tell...how I shaved my head while crossing the equator on a ship!! Yay!
So the Neptune day festivities started with some of the crew dressed up running through the halls at 7:30am playing music and banging on everyone’s doors to get them up. Then everyone went out to the decks and a couple people got their heads shaved by the captain of the ship. Then as per another tradition related to crossing the equator there were fish guts dumped on people and then they could rinse off in the pool, haha! I’ve never seen anything to crazy and hilarious. Everyone, the staff and crew and faculty were doing it. Then everyone else who wanted to could get their heads shaved....so I went for it. Aaah!! I have no hair now! I’m still getting used to it. It feels cool though, it’s all fuzzy! haha.
Well that’s all for now...to sum up: I have no hair. Hah! We arrive in Brazil Sunday morning!
Peace

Vicarious Voyage

9/3/08

Hi all!
Well today I went to the informational meeting for a program I signed up for a while back called Vicarious Voyage. It’s where I get assigned a class in a school back in the US and I send them packages and postcards and letters throughout my trip so that they can learn about the countries I am going to and follow where I am going this semester. So I got my class assignment tonight, it’s a 4th grade class in a school in Charlottesville, VA! I’ve got a partner in the project, her name is Elizabeth and we’ll be putting together little packages of small inexpensive things to send to our class a couple times during the semester. We get more information about our class once we get to Brazil, so we’ll know the students’ names and if they’re studying anything in particular that they want us to write them about. It should be a fun little project this semester to go along with everything else I’m doing! And it will be cool to meet the other people on the ship who are doing the Vicarious Voyage.
Other than that today was fairly uneventful. We had to fill out lots of paperwork for entry into all of the countries we’re going to. That took a long time this evening, making sure I fill everything out right.
I’ve also started going to the gym on the ship (yeah it’s that fancy...it has a gym! haha) because I started to feel so lazy because there’s not much else active that you can do on the ship, plus I eat a lot! The food is pretty good on the ship so I eat plenty of it so I figured I should probably balance that out with a little exercise! I’ve found it a little tricky to get enough protein with the food they serve though because the only meat they really serve regularly is various forms of beef, which I do not eat, and very rarely is there chicken. So I’ve been loading up on the beans and rice and things like that whenever I can. But I really miss chicken! Ohhh well I’ll survive :-)
Ok, time for bed. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow...2 classes, then the gym, then shower, and lunch, then 2 more classes, then work and then they’re showing Pirates of the Caribbean for everyone to watch so I think I’ll go watch that tomorrow night with some friends! Man, the days are going by pretty fast so far. I’m ready to get off the ship for a while and walk around on LAND soon!!! Yay! Brazil on Sunday!
Peace.

On the way to Brazil...

9/2/08

Hi all,
Well as you all know by now I’m having some trouble with my website... the problem is that I only have 125 minutes of internet time and it takes a long time to load the website onto the internet so I haven’t been able to load it without wasting a lot of minutes. So my plan is to find a place in Brazil where I can use internet for free or cheap so I can finally get all this good stuff loaded! So in the meantime I figured I should type some more updates so that when everyone can see this again, you’ll all have something to read! I’ve also been regularly putting my photos up here so you can see that too once my website gets back up and running!
So....we are currently on our way to Salvador, Brazil! I’m excited to get there. It should be really fun! We get there on Sunday the 7th and will be there until Thursday the 11th.
On Sunday we made a surprise stop to Puerto Rico. The ship was getting fuel, I think, so we were not allowed to get off the ship since PR wasn’t exactly a planned stop. But it was pretty form outside my window and the decks. I took a few pictures of what we could see of Puerto Rico, I don’t even know which part we were in but Jesse (my cousin, who lives in PR and flies helicopters) said he may have seen the ship as he flew over, haha. Too bad we weren’t able to get off the ship, otherwise it would have been fun to visit him! We were unable to meet up in the Bahamas, we just didn’t quite get our schedules organized and coordinated in time. We might see about Costa Rica, at the end of my trip, but we’re not sure yet.
Sunday was also my first day of class. We have class every day that we are at sea, so that includes weekends which I’ll have to get used to, but while we are in ports there is no class so that’s nice! Our classes are divided up between A day classes and B day classes, but all of my classes ended up being on A days so I’ve got every other day off which is cool!! So I’ve been to all my classes twice so far, and they seem like they’re going to be good! My globalization and development professor named Tracy Ehlers is from Boulder, wooo!!! So she gets bonus points for that :-) It seems like all of my classes are going to be group-discussion intensive but every interesting. I also have a TON of reading to do already but most of the readings are interesting at least!
Yesterday (Tuesday) I started my job working in the library as a work-study student. It’s a pretty great job so far and the librarians are very nice people! There are about 4 other work-study students who also work in the library at various times so most of the time I’ll be working with someone else which is nice so we don’t get bored and it’s also a great job because usually I think I’ll have some time to do homework too. So I work about 3-4 hours every day that we are at sea. My job follows the class schedule so when we are in port I don’t work, which is great!
Other than class and work I’ve just been exploring the ship, which I think I mostly know my way around now, and meeting new people. I’ve got a group of girls I’ve been spending most of my time with and they’re all great people. Krista, who lives across the hall from me, is from Estonia and she’s been telling me all about her home and showing me beautiful pictures. She’s a sweet girl, as is her roommate Bethany. My roommate, Estes, is from New Mexico and goes to UNM. She’s really nice and we get along great! We also hang out with a girl named Kristen who is from France. So it’s been really fun meeting people from other countries and even other parts of this country, I’m learning a lot! It’s funny though, there are a total of 42 of us onboard who are from CU Boulder, and even more people from Colorado! So I am constantly meeting more people who are from Colorado or even who go to my school. Speaking of CU....my mom emailed me that CU beat CSU yesterday, YAY! I’m always glad to get news from home.
I’ve been getting a little sick whenever the water gets rough but mostly I haven’t had too much of a problem with seasickness which is nice! I’ve had a couple spells of homesickness but that’s why it’s always so great to get emails from home, so everyone please keep those emails coming! I want to hear what you’re all up to this semester too! But for the most part, yeah, I’m just loving life on Semester at Sea!!
I’m off to work right now...more later!
Peace