Kaelynn's Travel Blog

After Costa Rica began the Re-Entry process. There’s a whole term for going back into the US and it’s really necessary. It’s not so much necessary because we had bags to pack and schedules to adhere to and the like, but it’s more of a term to help us start wrapping our heads around the fact that Semester at Sea is going to come to and end.

Monday there was a panel discussion from faculty and staff who had previously sailed on Semester at Sea. They talked about their experiences and gave us advice. The scale of reentry experiences went from basic to extreme, but the important point to notice is that is happened to everyone. The panel of 5 was a representation of the thousands of people who land on American soil after running around the world on the ship and go “what the f***?” I already had an idea it was going to happen…it’s been too weird being away from my friends as they continue hanging out without me. It was too weird being back in Hawaii and being a part of the familiar.

The panel took turns talking about their experiences and translating that into advice for us. Donna mentioned that it was hard for her to adjust to not living on a ship. We all grew attached to the ship and started calling it home, but now we can’t get back to the ship. Where you can fly back to London, Paris, Beijing and revisit your old house, it’s a lot more difficult to revisit your old room on a ship that keeps traveling the world. Many of them told us how much hard it is to deal with the fact that no one back home is going to really understand what you went through. No matter how hard you try to explain it, it’s just incomprehensible. I completely agree: before January, I thought I knew what Semester at Sea was about and what would happen, but I really had no freaking idea. They said that people aren’t going to be interested really. They’ll be interested at first and ask you where you went, but by the time you’ve said “Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius, India” their eyes have already started to gloss over and they’re not really hearing everything. They told us to have a 30 second spiel to tell people who really don’t care much about you, a 5 minute spiel to tell people who care a bit more about you, and the ones who really really care will hear everything in due time. They said to start somehow figuring out what your favorite country was because you’ll get asked that a lot (when really, they’re so different it’s hard to compare). They also said to take the momentum we have from the trip, the passion we now have for the environment and people around the world, and roll with it. Spread it, get involved. Go. I have every intention of doing so and getting as many people as possible to understand that they need to get their ass on this ship if they can, among other things…

After the panel there was a reflection period for students just to talk. There was usually something similar after each port where students could just come together and discuss whatever was on their minds: something they did, someone they met, some way their perspectives were changed. This time, it was for the whole voyage, and a lot of it was concentrated on ship life. The ship was community was so close and unique. People started getting emotional. We’ll, we’ve had been starting to get emotional but now we started to get emotional in front of one of another. And most of us didn’t care. It’s going to sound like we’re a bunch of hippies to some of you, but we all have so much love for one another and this whole experience and the people in all the countries. We’re all bonded together through this experience and it started snowballing with everyone’s stories. Finally, there was a multimedia presentation that finally got to me. It was about people we met and it was a student project. If anything gets to me it’s images, and these miraculous images were set to music and played alongside touching narration, and it started to pull at my heart.

That night there was a meeting to help describe how we should be packing, what to expect in Miami, and to start really realizing that this trip is almost over. Over.

Today was a long day of…

GOING THROUGH THE FREAKING PANAMA CANAL.

Ok, that’s ridiculously exciting. I never even imaging I would get to see the canal let alone go on a ship through it. Not only that, but there were webcams stationed in certain areas of the canal so people back home could enjoy in such excitement with me.

I was up at 5:00 AM, ready to go through. I sat for an hour and a half, and nothing happened (except the sun started to rise). We started going through an hour behind schedule, but it was awesome! From what I understand, few passenger ships really go through the canal because they’re too big and it’s too expensive. But not for the MV Explorer! Our little ship went through will all the gigantic container ships like it was nothing.

It was a long process, especially because we had to follow other ships through, but I tried to watch as much of it as possible (despite how hot it was outside). Watching the ship rise and fall in the locks was so interesting and cruising along a lake while there was a barbeque on board the ship was surreal. As we went through the last set of locks my sea (Caribbean what what) was entitled to a champagne toast in the Faculty/Staff lounge, which has wonderful windows on the front of the ship. I don’t mean to brag, but I sipped champagne on a ship and watched us go through the Panama Canal. Yeah.

That’s really all the day consisted of. I packed my bag here and there when I needed to get out of the sun and when we weren’t near locks.

The End. What an unusually short entry for me.

I haven’t had a chance to blog since the last week has been a whirlwind. Finals ended on Thursday which also marked the beginning of a cold, the first time I got sick on the voyage (other than seasickness in the beginning). By the time I was sitting and trying to fill in bubbles on my scantron sheets, my head was so plugged and my body so tired that I had a hard time focusing on my finals. I did poorly on my Magic, Witchcraft, and Religions test, and I’m not entirely sure how my Rights, Identity, and Gender final turned out. The only grade I know of is Global Studies, in which I got an A-. Luckily for me the +/- doesn’t transfer, so I really got an A. I’m annoyed though because no one got a grade lower than a C. So the people who never went to class, never studied for tests, and didn’t work at all got away with passing grades anyway. Bah.

Before Costa Rica though, I stared my ballet lessons that I won on in the Students of Service Auction. Jena joined me and it was a wonderful, unique experience. Wes, the girl who taught us, had us go on a side deck because there were hand railings we could use for bars. We got to look out into the ocean, feeling the sea breeze, and do our plies and jumps. But wait! It gets better. To round out the end of our lesson, we were greeted by 50 or so dolphins jumping, splashing, and doing tricks for us as the ship went by, the baby dolphins included. I finally saw dolphins, and they were close! And they had babies! It was FANTASIC! It was also the first time Jena had seen dolphins, and it was right when we were beginning to thing we would be the only people on the ship to not see any.

Anyway. Costa Rica was a port that none of us were really prepared for I don’t think. I was really looking forward to it but by the time we got there, most of us were feeling drained. More than once I heard someone say “I feel bad to say this but…I’m kind of tired of traveling.” We had been focusing so much on finals and getting ready for Miami that we didn’t put much energy into Costa Rica, the faculty and staff included. We didn’t learn anything about Costa Rica in Global Studies and we didn’t have much of a pre-port like usual. We usually have a general understanding about tipping, taxis, exchanging money, but this time we weren’t really told much. We didn’t really need to be though, as the dollar was accepted most places and we were too tired to dealing with cab drivers to even go near taxis. The ship was only docked for a night so it was hard to make plans. Krista, Charlie, Chelsea and I basically decided to stay in Puntarenas and take it easy the whole time we were there, and we were very successful in that endeavor. The first day we wandered around, ate food at little restaurants on the beach and shopped at local vendors. It wasn’t a whole lot but it was nice all the same.

The evening was a great time. After going back to the ship to change and drop of new souvenirs, the four of us met up with Tyler, Will, another Will, and another girl Haylie and we went out for dinner. After wandering around we ended up in a place where SASers recommended the food and they were right on target. The food was delicious (I had pollo empanadizada) and the ticos (Costa Ricans) around us were friendly and fun. One guy was infamous for donning his cowboy hat and boots and singing along with the music playing in the restaurant—that’s all he did the whole time we were there—serenading us in Spanish. Another man was excited that we were all there and he kept taking pictures of us and with us. The energy was so uplifting and happy and jovial and the food was tasty. The weather was warm and it was hard not to have a good time.

Most people generally had similar prerogatives for the one night in Costa Rica: hang out with friends. It was the last time we could all hang out together, experience a country together, and really do anything together. We saw SASers all over, and it was one of the few times that people stopped caring that we kept running into other SASers; instead of getting annoyed because we couldn’t avoid each other, we embraced that we were all together, whoever we were. I might be making it sound more blissful than it really was but I appreciated it.

After dinner we went upstairs to a sports bar for a little while. I loved the place because the people were friendly and the bar opened up to the street. Nothing in Costa Rica was enclosed and there was no air conditioning, but it was much nicer that way. After staying in the bar for a while, we wandered to the beach where we had heard about a bonfire. There was a group of exchange students who were studying at a university right up the road and they had invited some other friends to check it out. It was the last bonfire they were having before they all had to start heading home, too, so we were coincidentally all at the same stage of our experiences: winding down. Everyone we talked to from the bonfire was so friendly and so down to earth. I think it takes a certain type of person to decide to go to Puntarenas, Costa Rica to study abroad. We walked by their university and it was tiny. Not only were we all on our way home, to show that the world truly is small, one of the guys I met went to NAU for a semester (to study Astrophysics and I was jealous) and knew all about Flagstaff. Of course, the odds of finding someone who went to NAU is pretty good but I’m still pretending it was extraordinary, haha.

That brings me to something I didn’t realize about Semester at Sea beforehand, despite knowing someone studying in Hong Kong: I would run into American exchange students in so many places. Granted, I only hung out with students in Hong Kong and Costa Rica, but I know there were others in almost every country we went to. I really liked sharing my experiences with theirs and comparing the similarities and differences. I was able to take what some people said in Hong Kong and see how people felt in Costa Rica and compare them to one another. Few people get to do that—see different students like yourself, all over the world, as they are living their unique experiences rather than as they reflect on the back home. As short and simple as it was it’s something else that I’m going to value about Semester at Sea.

Anyway, it’s no surprise that we stayed out late that night. No one really wanted to go back to the ship because it was the last “hurrah.” It didn’t help that the weather was perfectly warm and everyone we kept meeting were equally warm and inviting.

Once we did drag ourselves home (the ship had been home to us for a while at this point) we all decided to sleep in. The next day, Krista, Charlie, Chelsea and I again met for lunch before…

ZIPLINING! One of the few things I was hoping to get to do on the voyage. Krista and I had tried to arrange something independently but failed, so we joined the SAS group that Charlie and Chelsea were on. It was a good way to end everything. The group of students that went were filled with people that I enjoyed being around at some point in time on the voyage. For my last trip with Semester at Sea I got to spend a relaxed afternoon harnessed to cables and swinging over trees and through canyons with Costa Ricans and some people I had grown close to over the last few months. How awesome.

After some last minute shopping and dinner at a beachside restaurant at sunset, it was time to head back to the ship for the last time. It would be the last time everyone stayed up late to share their stories about everything they did. The last time there was a dock time watch to see who came back too late or too drunk. It was our last country. :(

That basically kicked off the emotional roller coaster that was to come for the next few days.

Another thing I learned on this trip (this one is a little heavy):

There is a lot of suffering in the world.

I knew this was true to a certain degree, but I didn’t really know. I couldn’t define it and tell you who suffers really, only that it happens. We all know about war, about inhumanities. Maybe I’m too young, I’m too removed, I don’t watch the news enough. I’m pretty insulated. How freaking stupid to say…I’m so insulated I don’t even know about most of the shit that goes on all over the world. I’m lucky enough that I don’t have to experience it…I don’t even know anyone who knows anyone who deals with a lot of the things we’ve learned about in class. I’m so protected from the world I have no clue… until now.

I wasn’t going to take Donna LeFebvre’s Rights, Identity, and Gender (Violence Against Women) class because I didn’t need the credit ever since my advisor worked her magic and turned my Superheroes class into a Social-Behavioral credit. If not for Donna being such a cool person and drop/add being such a hassle, I would have bailed in favor of Geology. But it didn’t work out that way, and I really learned what a fucked up place it is. Man, the world is amazing and beautiful and amazing. And it’s fucked up. How can there be such big disparities?

This doesn’t even have anything to do with the state of ecological hell the world is in…caused by humans. I’m really referring what humans do to each other.

Did you know that slavery still exists? Yeah. Totally does. It didn’t stop with the Civil War like I, for some reason or another, tended to believe. Slavery is real. Slavery is happening. Does that freak you out? If it doesn’t, that worries me. Say it out loud and let it out: “Slavery is happening today.” Are you cold yet? I was when it first hit me.

There are people being taken from their homes to work as workers, as prostitutes. It’s men. It’s women. It’s children. It’s everywhere. Parents are so poor they sell their kids so they can survive. These kids end up working…long horrible jobs…jobs that no one would want to do so they find kids to do it for them. Instead of learning. Boys make bricks in Pakistan, all day long. Girls to work as prostitutes. Kids work to pay back their parents debt, a debt in which the terms are too absurd to reach (on purpose) and they’re stuck in slavery.

Sex tourism, which I have learned about before, is big. It’s growing. It’s getting easier and easier with the internet for rich, white, American CEO’s to fly to Thailand and sleep with a 13, 12, 10 year old girl. Think about it. Is your latte helping someone sleep with a child?

And this whole thing is organized. It’s all figured out. Of course, these slaves can’t stay in their own countries because they’ll know the language. So they’re smuggled across borders and taken to anywhere unfamiliar. These men, women, children forced to be slaves are stuck in areas where they don’t know the laws so they fear for their lives because they’re having sex so their pimp can get money. They can’t ask for help because they can’t speak, read, write the language.

It’s everywhere, too. Japan had its comfort women. Asia has massage parlors. It’s in your own backyard. There are people desperate to get into the United States, risking their lives to get across the border, paying coyotes to smuggle them in because it’s too hard to stay home. How many of them are sold into slavery? If someone doesn’t give enough value to a human life to actually drop them at a gas station instead of the middle of a desert, who’s to say they won’t give them to the slave trade? They’d actually get money out of it, too! How many illegals are working in sweatshops in New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix? In your backyard? You can’t deny it’s not happening, how do you know?

Then, in places where laws exist, the law enforcement doesn’t even know what to do. Prostitutes get punished for being prostitutes! Slaves get punished for being slaves! They get sent to jail, where their pimps bail them out, and guess what…it’s back to work. JAIL WAS A BETTER OPTION FOR THEM BUT THEY CAN’T EVEN STAY THERE. The pimps don’t even get a slap on the wrist. The harsh punishments are like a month in jail all over the world. For human traffickers.

HUMAN TRAFFICKERS.

It’s not drugs. It’s not marijuana, not cocaine, not opium…it’s PEOPLE.

And I can’t even get started on genocide. What the fuck? I’m just now learning about Cambodia. Before this trip, all I knew of Cambodia was that Angelina Jolie adopted her baby from there and she has a house on stilts in the jungle. WHY DO I KNOW THAT? Why didn’t I know that so many people were killed in Cambodia? After the Holocaust? The Holocaust freaked me out when I learned about it. I vaguely remember hearing about Pol Pot at some point, but I would have remembered killing fields. Was I too young to be told? Too young to care? Why didn’t I care? Why didn’t I absorb that, if it was taught to me? How did America take so long to get involved with Nazi Germany? With Cambodia? Is anyone going to do anything about Darfur? Ever?

Why does it take a written description of a 6 year old boy murdering a pregnant woman with an axe in a book about the Cambodian genocide for me to be like… “uh…holy shit”? That in Cambodia people with glasses were killed because glasses was linked to being studious which was linked to being educated which meant that you might be a threat to Pol Pot. So kill all the unfortunate four-eyed people.

The sad thing is about all of this…I’m still not that affected. I’m pissed off, but I haven’t shed a tear. I’m disgusted, but it’s still not real enough to me. I saw people in Vietnam working in legitimate, sanctioned sewing factories. They could go to the bathroom when they needed and talk to one another, and it still seemed like a sucky job. Yet there are people who can’t pee, can’t talk, can’t sleep, but must sewsewsew so I can get a shirt for $20 which has a 95% markup so some millionaire can sit in Beverly Hills and drink a nice, minty mojito. And I’m still not getting it, not processing it.

Then, there is this trip around the world. We’re spoiled kids, we are, circumnavigating the globe. Many of us let the money roll out and don’t think much of it. Lots of my shipmates spent hundreds…thousands of dollars… on internet minutes. Some of my fellow shipmates got so drunk, so trashed at the Ambassador’s Ball, a charity fundraiser, that they vandalized this gorgeous ship and racked up $1000 in damages. Know where that $1000 is coming from? From the charity fund! That $1000 can disarm a minefield. It can help get Invisible Children in Africa out of their war and get the gun out of the boys hands. Instead, some of my fellow comrades snuck enough alcohol onto the ship to get recklessly plastered. And people wondered why students have drink restrictions on the ship.

Ok, I’m stereotyping a little. I’m not blaming myself much. I’m not a whole lot better, but at least I’m trying. At least I am thankful for every penny I received to get on this trip. I’m really quite flawed…it’s taken me way too long to realize how much of this is happening. How much women are beaten all around the world; domestic violence is real for everyone. Rape is almost a non-issue compared to everything else, how sick is that? Pedophilia is a global issue. Female genital mutilation still happens in Africa, and people still believe that it’s necessary in order to raise a healthy child. War still happens, and it’s still brutal. It’s not going to end. People are too desperate for change. People are too uneducated. There are millions of girls missing in India because so many of them have been killed, because boys are so desirable. It’s called infanticide and fetucide. There are names for it but there aren’t viable solutions.

My professor told us all of this is way too much for us to help with everything. We can only do so much to stop things, we really should focus on one issue and try to make a difference…

This has changed how I’ve looked at my future a bit. I can’t imagine just working for a living, just raising a family and living in a suburban bubble. I have do to more than buy an extra meal at Village Inn for the women washing herself in the bathroom because she had nowhere else to go. I did that once and that was like a year ago. A whole year! I’m not ready to join the Peace Corps like a bunch of my friends on the ship or anything, but I can’t imagine not working for charity or an NGO or volunteering once a week or something. And now it’s in writing. Now I have to do it, I can’t go back to my regular goals of being an event planner. I can do that, I want to do that, but there has to be more. I don’t know what yet, but there will be. And if you see me in 5 years, and I’m not helping me, hold me accountable. Make me feel uncomfortable and ashamed because I haven’t done anything yet. I need to start helping people like, now.

My final for Rights, Identity, and Gender is in the morning. I spent an hour writing this blog instead. Even if I don’t do well on the test, I know I walked away from that class with a lot. A lot.

There are a lot of things that I wanted to write about over the course of the voyage but never got a chance to because things were busy. At least now I’m getting a chance to organize a little bit better and go back to things I never got to properly reflect on.

Now I’m taking you back to the Sea Olympics, one of the most entertaining days on the ship by far. The ship community is divided up by “seas” or groups of cabins. We form up teams and compete with each other. The prize: being the first people off the ship in Miami. That seems like a lame prize until you’re one week away from seeing friends, family, and getting on planes and suddenly getting off the ship quickly makes a whole lot of sense.

The morning started early. I was at breakfast before the Sea Captains were banging on everyone’s doors to get up. I was in the Caribbean Sea and assigned the color white, the one color I DIDN’T bring with me because it would get dirty too fast. We began by heading into the Union with our team and doing a chant…ours was the “Superman” song with the words changed (I though I left that song behind in the States…I was proven wrong multiple times). The union was soon filled with people shouting at each other and there was serious competition happening between us all. The events started almost immediately. I was on the photo-scavenger hunt team, which involved running around and getting random pictures in more creative ways than the other teams. I also watched a lot of events which included Slippery Twister, Pie Eating, Basketball, Synchronized Swimming, Flip Cup, Relays, and more. It was a tense, hot day. I was running around checking on things, watching my team win at Global Studies trivia and checking the tally board periodically, happily to see that my team was in the top few teams. I was never really athletic in high school and wasn’t really competitive, and this was probably the first time in my life I embraced that side of myself and smack-talked my friends and cheered for my teammates, many of whom I didn’t really know.

People put a lot of work preparing for some events. The morning chants got really creative and impressive. The synchronized swimming was pretty amazing. I was in the last event as well: the lip-sync competition. There were 8 of us girls I had found a mix of 8 Britney Spears songs all together, and someone had the idea to throw in a surprise ending. We took that idea and rolled with it, although we weren’t entirely sure how great it would turn out. While we were rehearsing during the afternoon, a bunch of guys walk from the Caribbean Sea come and tell us that the lip-sync competition is going to decide the outcome of the entire Olympics since the top teams were neck-and-neck. That put a lot of pressure on us, but it also got our team helping us out and I really dug it, because it wasn’t just 8 girls trying to figure it out. Anyway, by the time the lip-sync evening rolled around, I was both pumped and nervous. Everything had come to that point, the union was completely packed with everyone from the ship and everyone on the lip-sync teams had been working really hard.

We performed our routine, all of us dressed up as a different Britney and “performing” a different song, with the other 7 girls dancing together in the background. We came up with some funny stuff to do and we had a lot of fun with it. The end took the cake, where we had someone in our hall mix in “Gimme More” at the end, and one girl ran out in black underwear and did a really good impression of Britney at the MTV VMAs. It was hilarious being offstage, and there was a beat that you could tell everyone in the audience was processing what was happening, and then there was an eruption of laughter.

I can’t say that didn’t happen a lot though. There was a lot of creativity happening that whole night, a lot of innuendos, cross-dressing, dance routines, and more. Our shipboard community is pretty awesome.

We ended up getting like 2nd in the lip-sync, which meant we had no idea if we did well enough to win Olympics. After a LOT of waiting, we learned that weeeeeee……came in 2nd. BAH. If we had done better in the lip-sync, we would have been the champions, and would have had been able to get off the ship first in Miami and a lot of bragging rights. Instead, since the order of seas disembarking is drawn out of a hat, we’re dead last. I heard a rumor a little while ago that the points were tallied wrong and we actually won, and I know that there was a discrepancy with one event (someone didn’t write down the right winner) so instead of figuring out who actually won, they scrapped the whole game altogether. That was another factor that would have tipped the scales in our favor, because the sea we lost to hadn’t even placed in that competition.

I don’t want to sound like a sore loser, but I really embraced the craziness that was the Sea Olympics. I wish I would have blogged about this when it was fresh in my mind, but I was too busy, living too in the moment. I actually don’t really regret it, because I know everything else I did was worthwhile. The night ended with an impromptu dance party in the union, as we crossed back across the equator and back into the Northern hemisphere. I ended my night with a dance party on the equator. Word.

There is just over a week left of the voyage. I never thought I would ever really be saying that. A few months ago Semester at Sea seemed like to most outrageous thing I could have tried to pull off. Now, I’m in my cabin, number 3099, and it still seems impossible.

Last night there was a “Coffee House,” which really means it’s more of a music/poetry-oriented talent show. We had one a few months ago, and the feeling definitely changed. The first one we were all still peeling back the layers and discovering the talent aboard the ship (I’m intimidated and feel like I wasted my 20 years of existence). For the second coffee house, a lot of people performed songs or poems they had written about Semester at Sea or things that had influenced them from the trip. The most recurrent theme was the fairytale we’re all living in and how we’ve completely changed; how every single person has changed us and we’ll pretty much always remember them, even the people we don’t know. Even the people we wanted to avoid made this trip better because it made it real: the little bit of annoyance and despair reminded us that we are human and this is, in fact, not a fairy tale at all. It’s only going to get harder and harder. As soon as we’re done with Costa Rica it’s going to be 5 days of serious anticipation. I’ve learned that I’ll be one of the last people off the ship. I have no idea how long it’ll be before I actually am unleashed in Miami and reunited with David, but I’m hearing it’ll probably be mid-afternoon. They don’t tell us a lot ahead of time on the ship…it probably doesn’t matter, because what are we going to do with a ton of information we can’t do much with?

It’s now day 102, there are 7 days left before we arrive in Miami, and it’s one of the biggest things on my mind. I am so anxious to get home, see my boyfriend, but I am trying so hard to hold on to every moment that I can while I’m on the ship. I should be studying, but how can you study when you know people have been seeing hundreds of dolphins jumping and flipping outside? I keep running upstairs to see if I can catch a glimpse of the multiple sightings of sea creatures. So far, I’m at 2 sea turtles and a handful of birds…no dolphins. :( You can’t see land at all, which actually we’ve pretty much been able to at least see land the majority of the trip. And if we couldn’t see land, we could see other barges, ships, or boats. I get the impression that not much crosses the Pacific because I’ve seen nothing. We’re getting closer and closer to the coast of Latin America, but as hard as I try I can’t see Guatemala on the horizon. For the first time on the trip, I’m really comprehending (almost…not quite) that we’re completely surrounded by water. It’s actually a difficult thing to conceptualize, even when you’re on a ship, because I can’t do a full 360 anywhere on the ship. I have to run from the back to the front and piece those images together. It still doesn’t seem totally real. This is the first chance I can even see the back and then the front, because the front is usually closed. We usually go a lot faster and it’s too windy up on the front of the ship. Now, we’re going so slowly and the weather is so beautiful and the water is the calmest I have seen it yet. The past 5 or so days have been really warm, and you can lay out all day because we have finally left behind the mist. The past 4 sunsets have been astonishing and unique, and right around dinner time it’s an event to head out to the back decks of the ship with friends and camera in tow and take gorgeous pictures. It hasn’t gotten old. Last night they turned off some of the ship lights so we could have proper viewing of stars. I thought this trip would offer the best star-viewing I could ask for, but they keep the ship illuminated at all times for safety reasons. But then they let us look at the stars and it was another big event that people poured out for.

My goal is to make it to a few sunrises, but my sleep schedule is crazy and I would sleep through lunch if I didn’t feel like a bum. I’ve missed a few breakfasts recently, and I LOVE breakfast! It’s unlike me. But I’ll be at breakfast tomorrow, because I have the last two finals and then my classes are over. The semester is over, and Costa Rica marks the beginning of summer for me.

This isn’t my usual blog entry. I had a really good day and I just wasn’t in the mood to recount it like I usually do. It made more sense to list things and then think more about how I feel about them. I didn’t think about it too much but this is what I ended up with:

Today was a good day
Got up early to study
Ate a good breakfast
Ate with lots of friends
Took a test…didn’t get an A… that means a B for Global Studies
Watched Friends….was reminded of friends and love and home and David
Ate lunch
Good conversation…God? Religion…we’re not alone…life is good and bad and perfect
Read about stereotypes of illegal immigration…pisses me off
Sat out in the sun…read about genocide in Cambodia…pisses me off
Packed my suitcase, organized a bit
Watched V for Vendetta
Went to dinner…sunset dinner
Gorgeous sunset…not much dinner
Sunset that lasted forever, now seared in my memory…amazing colors…clouds…ocean…colors…darkness…rainbows of colors that never wanted to leave me…
Went up to pool bar for cookies…miraculous chocolate chip cookies…with milk from Hawaii
More Friends…more home, more friends, more David
Organized more…washed dishes…washed clothes
Today I organized my life
Organized my thoughts
Organized things
It more than likely will fall apart soon, if not by morning
I’ll forget things I organized
And forget where I wanted to keep things
Watched Into the Wild…with friends…people…good movie…still
Can’t wait to get home
To live normal life again
Went up to each deck
Watched the moon
Watched the sea
Watched the stars
Thought a lot
Less organization, but good things
No real resolutions
But I wasn’t looking for any
Now I’m just happy
Happy happy happy content happy
I did this trip right
I did this how I wanted
I succeeded
I can conquer anything
I want to go everywhere
Live everywhere
Meet people
Understand people
Misunderstand people
Everything
On my own
And with David
I can’t forget
How I want to be when this is over
How I changed
How I am
How I was
What I learned
What I still need to learn
What I gained
What I lack
Who I met
The world
I can’t forget the world
How it was yesterday
Today
The past three months
It’s completely dark outside now
The ocean is still loud
The air is warm and cold
I’m back to Arizona time now…we changed time tonight
I’m so close to home
So close, but I’m not there yet
I’m still not quite ready to be there yet…
Today was a good day

Oh man, was crossing the Pacific a long journey.

It actually wasn’t too bad…but I did get cabin fever. One friend on the ship Krista said she was going to be a recluse for a few days following Japan, and I followed suit. That country needed processing. Luckily being a recluse allowed for lots of time by myself to do homework and sleep, because we quickly became bombarded with classes and losing 5 hours of sleep in a row. The people of the ship were reversed, staying up until 6:00 AM and sleeping through classes. I slept all night, went to class, and then slept some more…I just slept a lot.

Needless to say, Hawaii was welcomed with open arms and lots of excitement. The ship was cleared by 7:30, and Chelsea, Charlie and I headed out with no particular plans. We found ourselves a Starbucks and the post office, and I had my phone glued to my face nearly the entire morning. As soon as we were port side that morning, almost everyone was on a phone chatting because we had normal cell service for the first time since Puerto Rico. I talked on the phone so much that my battery actually died by mid-afternoon, and I had charged it fully in the morning.

I didn’t care what we did for the day as long as we saw a beach, so I followed Charlie who figured out the bus system and got us to Waikiki. We hung out for a few hours, running into more and more SASers and the SAS camera guy Avi until we were an interesting bunch of kids hanging out at the beach. It was lovely. Lunch followed soon after where we sprinted to the first Mexican restaurant we could find (Chelsea had bought chips and salsa almost right away and that’s what we ate in 2.5 minutes on the beach). The food was not amazing and expensive, but it was Mexican!

That afternoon I walked around with a handful of people, stopping at a gajillion little stores. It was weird at first to be back in the US again. We didn’t have to bring a calculator to punch in money conversions and we could speak normally to everyone. The funny thing was that we were near a lot of Asian populations, so no sooner do we expect to find everything in English and we find a bunch of stuff in Japanese. Hahaha….

We decided we wanted to get ourselves to a grocery store, and it was getting later, so we had a cab driver take us to a Safeway. When I got inside the Safeway I just starting laughing…I was standing in a SAFEWAY where I always shop at home and I have a membership and I’m surrounded by BABY FOOD. I can’t describe my frame of mind but it was hilarious to me. It was so familiar and easy and intuitive of a store and it made me laugh.

I got a bunch of food for the next few days (I didn’t think I would want snacks but GOD you most definitely need your own snacks on the ship). We headed back to the ship with our oodles of bags and caught dinner just in time. The ship was nearly deserted…everyone was staying in Hawaii as long as they possibly could. We didn’t want dock time so we decided to stay on ship for dinner. A bunch of the shipboard community came back after 8:00, and it was a crazy mess of people trying to get on the ship by 9:00. It was a sight to see…an angry (drunk) mob that ended up not getting dock time because it was such a safety hazard.

I don’t want to end my entry with an angry (drunk) mob, so I’ll end with how HAPPY I was to be able to talk to people back home. I was able to text and talk all day (until my phone died, which I recharged once I got back to the ship) and it put the wind back in my sails for two more weeks of the voyage. I was reminded that I was in face missed by my friends back home and that I make good decisions for myself. It doesn’t need to be explained much more than that…I was having some mental struggles and homesickness for a while, and Hawaii was a stop I needed to make.

Now there are only six days left of classes, the Ambassador’s Ball, finals, Costa Rica, the Panama canal, and HOME to go! In that order. Whoa.

As usual, I don’t really know how to start this blog. Japan was crazy… intense… awesome...HOLY #&%$ JAPAN! Is really the best way to begin. So.

HOLY #%&$ JAPAN!

We came in on time, but the customs process was extensive. They warned us the night before not to make any travel arrangements before 1:00 in the afternoon, the longest we would have to stay yet. After breakfast, they started with checking our temperatures. We had cards and we walking into the faculty/staff lounge like always, and then we walked right out again. I was in there a total of 30 seconds and all I did was hand my quarantine card to someone and then walked out again. They had taken all of our temperatures as we walked in front of a camera, I’m assuming infra-red. This was our introduction to Japan.

I went back to sleep and then showered, only to hear the announcement that they were starting from the back of student IDs instead of the front, and my number is almost last. I had to run out of the shower and hurry to get ready so I could wait in line for my passport. After receiving that, we met with a customs official who stamped us into the country, took our fingerprints on little finger scanners and took our picture. We were waved through with nothing to declare and I decided to head back to the ship to wait for all of my friends. That process took about 30 minutes because of the lines.

At around 2:00 Rachel, Anna, Krista and I headed out into Japan. There was a train station right next to the ship, and the center of town was 2 stops away. We stopped at Sannomiya station and went on a quest for an ATM. Most ATMs didn’t work so we had to search for one that took international cards and consequently only gave ¥10,000 ($100) bills. All around us were people and tall buildings and madness. All the women had nice shoes on, usually heels, and a lot of them had knee-high or over-the-knee socks on. Some had amazing boots and I fell in love with the women of Japan who spoke to my soul a little bit. We passed an occapella singing group and Rachel was really excited to watch them. She bought a CD and they spoke some English, so we asked if there was an internet café nearby. One of them led us a few blocks and told us it was on the 8th floor. Six of us (we ran into 2 more SASers on the way) were chattering away in the elevator, happy to be in Japan. When the doors open we fell silent, because Café Media Popeye is crazy! The front desk was in a little tunnel where lights all over the ceiling changed color. Behind us were racks of food, and lining the walls all around were bookshelves filled with manga. It was hard to get a computer with the language barrier, but after some gesturing and smiling we finally arranged some computers. One of the attendants led Krista and I first to our computers, and on the way she asked us if we wanted to drink and pointed to a vending machine. I didn’t want to spend money and Krista told me it was free…and there were tons and tons of drinks. I decided to choose something I knew wasn’t familiar (rather than Coke or coffee) so I chose a hot drink with happy strawberries on it. I think I ended up with hot strawberry milk. Then the attendant turned us around and there was free ice cream cones. So with vanilla ice cream in one hand and strawberry milk in the other, I followed the attendant through the maze of cubicles and lined bookshelves to the cubicle Krista and I would share. Inside there were two computers side-by-side, with big screens, Windows Vista, and a leather loveseat for us to sit on. It was by far the best internet café ever.

After taking care of internet business, we went wandering around with the hopes of finding food. We were in a major section of town where the JR (Japan Railway), a few local train lines, and buses all meet. The buildings were tall and lights were flashy. We eventually found a restaurant that served strange crunchy appetizers and I ate potstickers and fried chicken and we all shared hot sake which was awesome. After dinner we walked around a little more and found a band playing in a square which pumped all of us up. It was led by a female singer and after they gave us a sampler free. At that point we had been wandering for a while and it was getting late so we went back to the ship to sleep.

The next day, Saturday, we went to Kyoto to check out some cherry blossoms. It was relatively easy to travel around after a little bit of work. This and China are probably the two hardest countries to communicate in with India close behind. Krista had a rail pass so Anna, Rachel, and I bought a day pass to get to Kyoto and into Osaka where we had made reservations to stay the night. We got to Kyoto around 12:00 and the train station was huge. There was a ocapella festival happening outside so we watched some amazing singers and beatboxers (all Japanese) before buying our bus tickets. We then took the bus toward the Philosophy Path, a popular area in Kyoto for cherry blossom viewing. We grabbed lunch and then walked along the path, stopping in a ton of different shops along the way. The pathway was beautiful and many people were doing the same as us: taking pictures and enjoying the trees. We had great timing because the cherry blossoms (sakura in Japanese) had peaked a few days prior. The trees were just starting to lose their petals, so when then wind blew it looked like giant snowflakes. The petals would land in a peaceful canal that was parallel with the path and watching the water flow with the petals was really peaceful. We never finished the path because we took so many pictures and stopped in so many shops so we eventually had to turn back.

Catching the bus back to Kyoto station was a little more interesting, because instead of turning around and repeating the route we came on, we had to find a different route. We were successful after a little confusion and we were packed onto the bus like sardines. It’s no surprise buses and trains at rush hour have reports of groping and pickpocketing…there wasn’t much you could really do. It was as bad as the front 5 rows of a concert. But it was fun at the same time. Kyoto was a cool little city that had tall buildings but didn’t seem as fast-paced at Kobe had. The Philosophy path was still in an urban setting, but there were mountains around the area. The weather was a little cool for me but beautiful outside.

We went to Osaka to find our hotel, and by the time we got there it was dark. We stayed in the Namba area of Osaka which was close to a lot of nightlife. We were wandering around this little area between 2 railway stations and a major street trying to find our hotel, and the hotels we were passing were nothing like I’ve ever seen. They were painted in colorful colors and had characters on them. One had a gigantic teddy bear at the entrance. Like, 3 stories tall teddy bear. We finally found our hotel which was basic and plain. We had wanted to stay in a capsule hotel and we were successful. It was a lot more like a hostel than a hotel. You rented a little capsule with a bed and a TV inside, and it felt like crawling into a motor-home bed. You could sit up in your capsule which was nice. A lot of people joked that it was like a coffin but I thought it was cool. There was a communal bathroom and lockers to story your stuff in. It was one of the cheapest accommodations we could find, too, at $25 a night (most hostels we found started at $28).

After dropping off our stuff we went to find food and ended up in a western-style restaurant. I ordered a pizza which came with a full partially-boiled egg in the middle. We made plans to check out Dotombori street, a major shopping and entertainment area a few blocks away. We wanted to find karaoke as well and then call it a night.

Well, Dotombori street was freaking crazy. Lights were everywhere, advertisements, shapes, rainbows, EVERYTHING. Every inch was lit up! We went a block down and the street was narrow. The buildings were so tall and so flashy. It was crazier than Las Vegas, I’m not even kidding. We just kept looking around and had no idea what to think. I am doing a horrible job of explaining our reactions to the area. We saw a ferris wheel in the distance so we decided to search it out. The wheel circled around a building so you had to go inside to board. We take two steps into the store and our jobs immediately drop. At the entrance there are racks and racks of dresses to the left, stockings/tights/knee-high socks to the right and sweatsuits with matching animal heads in front of us. It was like taking one of the stores that pop up around Halloween and cramming it into a really tiny space. We were so overwhelmed by all the clothes, wigs, costumes, risqué outfits, socks, pants, bags, shoes, everything. We just wandered around the area with stars in our eyes and pointing a lot saying “did you see THAT?” We then realize it’s getting late and we need to get to the ferris wheel. We go up a floor, thinking that’s all that could possibly be in this store, only to find a full-on grocery store with appliances and food everywhere. It was ceiling to floor of stuff! Every floor was like that, only it was a new category. There was a floor for cosmetics, a floor for lamps and blankets, a floor for designer things at the very top. And everything was bright, flashy, crazy. There wasn’t anything simple in that store. We were in that store probably an hour just looking at things. When we finally got to the ferris wheel it was closed.

At that point we went outside and sat on a bench next to the main canal that went through the area and all we could do was look at each other and mutter things like “what the hell…where ARE WE?” My eyes burned from looking at so many different things. Our heads were spinning. I’ve never really understood what that meant until then. Krista said it felt like her brain had exploded and I knew what she meant. We were on such a weird level and we were all totally sober which is the funniest thing of all. At that point, we couldn’t even make it anywhere else to karaoke. We were suffering from serious sensory overload. It was about 1:00 then, and that’s when all the “cool kids” started to come out that we hadn’t yet seen. Everyone had big hair (the guys had David Bowie in the Labyrinth hair). There were chains, leather, accessories, boots, socks, tights, earrings, colors, no colors all over these people. I’m in love with Japanese fashion. But we couldn’t stay out anymore. We went back to our capsules to sleep and absorb what the heck when had just seen.

The capsule wasn’t an amazing sleep because you could hear other women getting in and out of their capsules to get ready to leave. We had to check out by 10:00, so we headed out for breakfast a little earlier (after our free toast at the hotel). We stopped into a bookstore we had seen the night before with a Starbucks in it. It was a great place to sit and people watch, because the Starbucks had a little patio. It was Sunday, a day when a lot more people were off, so there were a lot fewer people in business attire. There was a lot of younger kids (around my age) who either just came out all dolled up or were still hanging around from the night before. People were talking, mingling, whipping out their phones to take pictures (some trying to inconspicuously take picture of us) and it was a good way to start the morning. We headed up a few levels in the store to look at DVDs and such, and we got stuck on the CD floor for a really long time. I got to listen to music that has been out in the States for a while as well as listen to a gigantic variety of Japanese music. I’m a fan of J-Punk and J-Rock. The CD’s were really expensive though, so I only bought 1 with 3 songs on it for $12. Those of us who bought CDs are probably just going to trade MP3s or something so we can have all the music.

After that we looked in a few clothing stores and then went back to the crazy gigantic store from the night before. It was a lot busier but I still managed to walk out with a few pairs of socks and tights and everyone else picked up food and other random things. Right next door to the giant shop was a crepe place. You order your crepe (filled with fruit, cream, custard, chocolate, corn, hot dogs, fries…whatever really) and they make it fresh, then wrap it up so it’s in a cone shape. It was delicious! I’ve always loved crepes but this took it to a whole new level. Best crepe of my life.

At that point it was getting late so we headed back to the ship on the train. After dropping off our stuff and changing, we got back together (we traded Anna for Jenna) and headed back out into the night. Krista and I wanted to try Kobe beef (since we were in Kobe, Japan) so we searched for a steakhouse. After passing up super-expensive places ($100 a person) we found a more moderately priced place called A-1 (named for the location in the building, first floor room A rather than the steak sauce, haha). A-1 was a small little restaurant with 2 tables, a bar, and the only thing on the menu was beef, rice, vegetables, and drinks. They cook the beef right behind the bar so you can watch the flames engulf it. As an appetizer we got an amazing salad, which tasted like a potato salad and made be think of backyard barbeques. We put on our plastic bibs before they put the steak in front of us, snapping and sizzling fresh from the grill. It was an amazing meal. It came with potato slices which were the best potatoes ever. The steak was so delectable, and I don’t really like a whole lot of red meat. When I say red meat, I mean red, too…the steak was the rarest piece of meat I have ever dared eat. I’m pretty sure my mother would have died a little watching me eat it. I think I died a little eating it, haha. But it was delicious!

After dinner we went to Dipper Dan’s, a crepe place we had scouted out in Kobe. Again, most amazing crepe ever. We then went to sing karaoke. The way it works in Japan is you rent a room. They have karaoke bars but those are really for tourists who are used to singing in front of a ton of people. The four of us went into a room with a booth, table, TV, and huge sound system. It took us a while to figure out the karaoke remote (since it was entirely Japanese) but as soon as we did it was Bon Jovi, the Beatles, and pop songs all night. It was fun but really random.

The next morning I was on a quest to call home. It took me forever to figure out my calling card (again only Japanese symbols, but this time with numbers, only there were so many numbers I didn’t know which was the phone number, the access code, my ID number… bah). I finally called my mom quickly as well as David. Anna and I had plans to head out and be cultural that day, the last day in Japan. We grabbed some coffee and money, then stopped in a few shops near the ATM. I wanted to get some awesome gladiator style sandals but I couldn’t find the right combination of shoe size and price, and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice one to get the other. After we left a store with some sunglasses and earrings, we went to a Shinto shrine up the road. It was peaceful and many people were coming to ring the bell and give wishes to the Shinto gods. There was a garden behind the temple and you could barely tell it was in the center of a city. On the way out we happened to look back in the shrine to see two babies getting “baptized” (or the equivalent). They were dressed in white and were laid on a pillowed platform. A blank blanket with colorful decoration was put on them and then the priest blessed them and shook a stick over their heads, which made a tinkling sound because it shook pieces of metal tied to it. Then the babies were put in their mother’s (or grandmother’s) arms and the blankets were tied around the babies and the women. It was simple and really pretty.

After the visit we went on a search for sushi, ultimately stopping in a random place. I have never had sushi so I wanted to start safe. I wasn’t really hungry, either, so I ordered tuna rolls (which came in sets of 3). Anna got some sort of fish on rice, tuna rolls for herself, and rolls with fermented sesame seeds inside. The challenge about eating sushi is that it’s rude to take a bite out of it—you have to eat it all at once. The tuna rolls were so massive I could barely chew. I ate the first roll in one bite but not the second. The third I ate all at once and it actually tasted better when you ate everything at once. I really dug the tuna rolls, they were perfectly made. Another part of the enjoyment of lunch was watching the chefs who prepare everything right in front of you. I have never seen anyone carve a fish so fast…it took the guy like 3 minutes and the 2.5 foot long fish was ready to eat.

We went back to an internet café which was filled again with manga and food. This particular place had cubicles with giant cushions on the floor. One cubicle was littered with manga books and the person wasn’t even using the computer. We think you just pay for your cubicle and you can hang out for as long as you want. In this internet place I booked my flight home as well as a flight for my boyfriend to meet me in Miami so he can see the ship and meet some of my new friends (and carry my bags…haha). I figured that if I was going to have to pay for a bunch of checked luggage, I might as well just pay for another person who can carry some bags instead of checking and paying $25 each after the 1st one (thanks to all the airlines who implemented this…BAH). Anyway, that was exciting.

Anna and I went back to Dipper Dave’s for some ice cream and crepes and then went grocery shopping so we could have snacks for our trek across the Pacific. After we got normal groceries, we came into an area that was covered with sweets. I didn’t have a lot of money left for the delectable candy and cakes all around me, but I did get some sweet pastries that were pretty tasty. We went for one last Starbucks before heading back to the ship for dinner.

Japan wore me out. I was in bed by 10:00 and wasn’t awake to see us pull away. I figured it would be nice to see the lights and everything, but I was just exhausted. I guess it would have been more exciting to watch us leave because we left some people behind. A couple lost their passports and one was sick (at least that’s the rumors…who knows for sure) and I know someone else decided to leave. So if anyone was wondering…yes people get left behind and the ship leaves on schedule. I think the ship was held for 2 people in Shanghai, too, because they were lost without directions or phone numbers to get in touch with the ship. Hmm…

Ok I’m dead tired and have a lot to do! I’ve been really productive though and I want to keep it up. Only 23 more days left! AHHHH!!!!

Right now it’s April 15 again, as it was yesterday. We passed the international date line sometime last night and now instead of being 16 hours ahead of everyone back home I’m now 8 hours behind. I really don’t feel in the mood to blog but I have to post every week, so I’m trying figure out what I want to discuss because the words aren’t coming to me really. I didn’t get much sleep at all last night, in part because we’ve hit rough waters and it was difficult to rest when you’re body is rocking into the pillow and stuff keeps falling over (or I’m paranoid that it will fall over). I also kept thinking about selling tickets for the Ambassador’s Ball for some reason. I’m the chair of the publicity/ticketing committee and I must be stressed out about it because that’s all I could think about all night last night.

So I’m thinking napping is a good idea, but I haven’t even written about Shanghai let alone Japan. I think I’ll recap Shanghai for now because Japan was such an overload of information I need to digest it a little longer.

The ship didn’t get into Shanghai until about 6:30 in the evening because the fog was so bad and the ship couldn’t safely navigate up the river. We were supposed to arrive at 4:00 AM, and I didn’t mind getting in late but everyone on the ship was starting to get a little restless. We finally went through customs and disembarked at 7:30, only to have no plans or ideas of where to go. There was supposed to be a hospitality desk on board but it would have ended at 5:00 or something, and most of the museums or sights we did know about were closed. Rachel, Katie and I ended up wandering around trying to find The Bund but never did. It was nice to be back in China…it has its own feeling that I remember from Beijing and Shanghai was a lot similar, although it is a much cleaner city.

The next day was my day to shop, and it was pretty rainy. We went to an old town area where all the buildings were in traditional Chinese style. It was a good day to get in a lot at once: I did a good amount of bargaining and bought a jade bracelet (maybe), a stamp with my name on it, as well as other random stuff. We met a Chinese art student and I bought her paintings, partially because it was cool to meet the actual artist and also because she was a female getting an education in China and I liked that. Her paintings were of the four seasons in the modern style, which means they were colorful. They’re pretty awesome.

I also got my fill of dim sum and followed people down alleyways to find really amazing knock-off purses. I got myself the only blue purse among the bunch of neutral colors, as well as a DVD for 150 yuan. I was pretty happy about that.

But that was really it for China. It was pretty short lived and the weather was miserable. I would have liked to stay longer but I say that about everywhere I go. I am glad I decided to stay on the ship after Hong Kong though, because I would have probably flown to Shanghai early in the morning to meet the ship, and the ship wouldn’t have been there so I would have been stuck in Shanghai by myself.

It was interesting to see how different Shanghai was from Beijing—it seems more modern and the shipping areas were immense. It was nice to hear all of my friends’ stories about the Great Wall and China in general and have a sense of what they were talking about without having to travel with them. Unfortunately this is a pretty short entry for me because I can’t remember everything I did and I’m really just exhausted in general. Naps are going to be really really awesome again here as we head over to Hawaii.