Ship Life

591 feet is not a lot of space for over 900 people to be living in for over 9 days straight without seeing land. We are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean right now on our way to Cape Town, South Africa. 2 days to go.

Ok, so it’s not really THAT bad. I am actually getting very used to living on the ship and almost feel like it’s my new home (almost). We are now over 3 weeks into the journey (the point I kept telling myself I wanted to be at before I even left Philadelphia). To tell you the truth these 3 weeks have been a whirlwind…slow at times, but now looking back on it; definitely worth it. My group of friends is still expanding, as I’m sure it will until we arrive in Miami in May. I feel like I’ve known them for so much longer than three weeks…it’s weird how close you can become to people when thrown into unfamiliar situations together.

My classes are also going really well for the most part. I had my first Global Studies exam a couple days ago which went pretty well (I hope). And I have another “midterm” coming up after we leave Cape Town. The other classes I am taking are:
Media Writing: consists of a lot of writing assignments (duh), but they are pretty interesting. Last week I had to interview “someone of significance” on the ship so I decided to interview a Lifelong Learner named Alvin from Boston. (Lifelong learners are older people that are coming along for the journey who live with us, take classes with us, do trips with us and experience SAS at a later age). My next writing piece has to be a Travel feature story due after South Africa. I really like this class and am sure it will help me in the communications world after I graduate.
Social Scientific Foundations of Communication: Although it has a fancy name it is basically an introduction communications class. Right now we are learning the fundamentals of communications. It is lecture based so I can get boring at times, but overall I am enjoying it. The professor is also really cool and has some great insight.
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology: It is what the title of the class is…an intro to anthro. This class has been a little bit disappointing. Although I love the teacher, I am not very drawn to the information being taught. We haven’t had any tests or quizzes yet so I’m not sure how hard it is going to be.
Expository Writing: This class is basically just a writing class that I find very easy. We write about a page a day that goes into a “working portfolio” and by the end of the semester we will have a “presentation portfolio” of our best writing. This I think will be good for my portfolio at home to show my writing skills.

Classes are definitely keeping me busy which is good because I certainly need something to distract myself from missing home, or wondering about the upcoming ports. Another distraction that was really fun was Neptune Day which took place on Thursday.

At 7am I was woken up by people running up and down the halls banging pots and blowing whistles. My roommate and I quickly got dressed, ate some breakfast then went up to the 7th deck aft (where the pool is) and were greeted by King Neptune and his crew. They then proceeded to “initiate” us “pollywogs” into their kingdom of the seas. One by one we each had fish guts poured on us (I don’t actually think it was because a) it was blue and b) it didn’t smell THAT bad). Then we jumped in the pool to rinse off, kissed a fish then got on our knees and kissed king Neptune’s ring. You didn’t have to participate in any of this if you didn’t want to, but my friend Leila and I decided to do it and I am so glad that we did because I am trying to make the most out of every possible situation during this trip. After the whole fish guts thing they proceeded to traditionally start shaving peoples heads. The head shaving went on for hours. My friend Todd shaved his head and a ton of girls did it which was surprising. And NO I did not do it, so don’t worry. Overall this was a really fun day EXCEPT for the incredible rocking of the ship. As we were passing over the mid-atlantic ridge it was REALLY wavy for about 36 hours. Eventually it got a little better, but it is still however pretty rocky and will be until we arrive in South Africa.

Talking about the rocking of the ship…I am getting a lot more used to it. At first I couldn’t sleep well and had a hard time concentrating, but now it is just background movement and I don’t really think about it. At times I feel it is very comforting and at times it gets really annoying but I am sure that by the end of the voyage I will love it and miss the ship rocking me to sleep when I get home.

Other things that I have been up to during these days on the ship include A LOT of card games, watching about 50 episodes of Friends (buying the entire series was a great idea- thanks aunt Julie and uncle Michael for the birthday amazon gift certificate!), hanging out in the piano lounge, and getting to know more people! We also had a dance the night before Neptune day that was really fun. We had to dress as our favorite animal…I dressed as a parrot because I borrowed my friends feather earrings. I also helped my friend make a lion costume out of construction paper that turned out great.

I am also involved in the Vicarious Voyage program which has been really fun. Me and two other girls have been paired up with a 5th grade classroom in San Francisco, CA. The basic idea of the program is that as we travel around the world they travel vicariously through us and study the countries as we tell them about our experiences. They write us letters and we send them back packages from the countries we are visiting. I collected a lot of things in Brazil to send back to them such as newspapers in Portuguese, bracelets, some brochures and little things like that. The first package we got from them was so cute. Each kid wrote a little index card about him or herself and drew pictures. Hopefully this summer I will be able to travel out there to visit them and talk to them in person.

Other than that everything is going really well. I am SO excited to go to South Africa…and you will hear about that when I get back to the ship on the 25th!

Thanks for reading and “traveling” with me! Keep commenting and emailing me…I love the feedback.

On a side note: I have tried to upload pictures but it takes a lot of time so I will try again if I find time and an Internet café in Cape Town. If not I guess you’ll have to wait a little longer for pictures…sorry!!