Ghana, Morocco, and home

I know I am really behind and I apologize… the last few weeks on the ship were a rollercoaster of emotions and finals had me very stressed. Since I’ve been home, I have been avoiding this last blog post as I refusing to accept the fact that this journey is finally over. But here goes nothing: I…

SAfrica

Archbishop Desmond Tutu joined us as we sailed from Mauritius to South Africa. It was such an honor and pleasure to be able to live and learn with such an amazing man. As one of the major opponents to South African apartheid, the archbishop has made international history. He willingly told us about his experiences in…

In the middle of the sea somewhere & Mauritius

As we traveled from country to country our ‘studious’ days at sea are broken up by a few days of fun. The biggest of which are Sea Olympics and Neptune Day. Semester at Sea is very similar to camp in the sense that there is always a bit of friendly competition. Sea Olympics I think I may…

India: The Colorful Country

Considering how Seema taking me to get my eyebrows threaded was the extent of my exposure to Indian culture, I was really unsure of what to expect from this massive country. The library flooding with requests for Slumdog Millionaire and Bollywood films definitely didn’t help either. The Indian inter-port students kept referring to India as the…

Myanmar the Smiley Country!

Myanmar was surreal. For those of you who don’t know where or what Myanmar/Burma is (don’t worry I didn’t either before this trip), I encourage you to look it up. It is the most fascinating and happy place I have ever been in my life. The country has been experiencing a great deal of governmental…

Back in ‘Nam

I have been trying not to use the phrase “out of my comfort zone” since there are very few times in which I have felt truly uncomfortable, but it is hard when trying to explain the dissimilarities between Vietnamese and American culture. Vietnam was, by far, the most different and unfamiliar culture I have ever…

China Smells

China was so much different than I had ever expected. WOW. I would have posted this blog sooner if it weren’t for communism… Every enjoyable internet site is blocked, google included. The first day we docked in Shanghai and wandered around the city. The city skyline was unbelievable and looked almost futuristic. The architecture was…

OHIO! Japan

I’m moving to Japan!! Kidding (sorta) but I did fall in love. The culture in Japan is so unlike anything I’ve seen before. Everyone is so kind, thankful, and respectful. I was truly amazed. Everywhere was so clean, the food was so good, it was so safe, ah so amazing! Ohio means good morning in…

Holy Ship

So much and so little has happened in these last few days at sea. We are only 2 days from Japan WAHOO! The boat has finally started to feel like home. I catch myself saying “let me go home first” referring to my room, which I find odd yet comforting. We have been discussing the…

Aloha!

I’ve made a BOAT load of friends! lol I think my puns are funny but they definitely aren’t.

Anyway. Since I last wrote we’ve had our first pub night. It was very similar to my first middle school dance: awkward and chaperoned. Since we are in the Bahama waters you only need to be 18 in order to have your few glasses of wine, so it was interesting to say the least.

Today we arrived in Hawaii! I had a field lab, which is a class field trip, so I didn’t get to do anything super fun. We toured several of the royal homes and areas. My class is the anthropology  of tourism so we are studying how Hawaii presents itself to the vacationers and what tourists look for in their “Hawaiian paradise”. The field lab was focused on visiting Hawaiian tour stops that the native Hawaiians want their tourists to see, aka the historic sites, instead of the stereotypical Waikiki beach visit. It was interesting but exhausting. We sang some traditional luau songs and pretended like we were Lilo and Stitch. YAY!

Before every port we have a cultural pre-port and Hawaii’s was especially insulting. We got lectured on how we need to treat the land with care and “remember to bring out manners” because American’s have a poor reputation. I’m sorry but is Hawaii not part of America? Anyway, the pre-ports are interesting because we learn facts about the country. For example, it is against the law to touch the turtles in Hawaii. Also, in Hawaiian culture, keeping land in the family is so important that people call their aunts and uncles mom and dad and their cousins brother and sister- weird.

Overall, Hawaii consisted of making as many phone calls as possible, ensuring everyone got the perfect instagram post, and restocking snacks. It is off to Japan where the real journey begins. We have 10-11 days at sea before we arrive in Yokohama. I have attached some pictures of the boat and Hawaii, as promised!

Meryl and I are keeping a running list of funny/interesting things that are happening so I thought I’d share some with you.

1. The very first day we had a mandatory lifeboat drill that was super quiet and serious. I, of course, couldn’t stop fidgeting and ate it on the deck. I fell to the ground with a loud bang, all of which felt nothing but typical for me. It was awkward but funny considering no-one understood me at the time. Meryl died laughing, and that’s when we decided we liked each other.

2. The to-go coffee cups on the ship have HANDLES!! This is a brilliant invention, and I’m not sure why it hasn’t caught on in the United States.

3. The lady of the speaker announcements keeps threatening us saying that a  Komodo dragon will eat us if we don’t stop walking through an area of the boat we aren’t supposed to. She finds it very amusing and even includes that they have been “starving it so that it is hungry for students”. I swear we are treated like small children…

4. Every Vietnamese word is one syllable.

5. The Hawaiian language only has 13 letters, one of which is a backwards apostrophe

I accidentally made friends with girls from Michigan, not sure how to feel about it.
MAHALO!! (thank you) for reading my blog!!