South America is in Sight!

So here is the blog post that makes me seem spoiled.  This morning we had to turn the clocks forward again, but since it was a reading day everyone got to sleep in.  I woke up at 7am, like I usually do, but since my roommate wasn’t awake yet I sat down in the hall and did some schoolwork.  No one else woke up until it was around 10am.  One of the crew members who was walking around the deck gave me some Starburst, which I thought was pretty awesome.  Also while I was sitting there Sontero (the cabin steward) left a coupon on my door for an ice cream cake that Mom sent!  I decided to wait for dinner to get it.

                I went to the spa around 10am.  Mom and Dad had given me a manicure, pedicure, and hot stone massage for Valentine’s Day.  I am saving the massage for a few more weeks, but I scheduled the mani/pedi for today.  It was great!  I talked to the lady who was doing my nails for a while, she was from South Africa.

                After that I went straight to lunch and spent the rest of the day sitting in the hall outside of my room studying.  The hall in Deck 2 is the best!  Everyone hangs out there when they are doing homework, or don’t feel like going all the way up to the piano lounge to work.  We stayed there until dinner reading, listening to old Relient K songs, and talking about random stuff.  I barely had any homework left to do by dinner time.

                At dinner I got my ice cream cake!  It said "Happy Friday" on it.  I had to give my coupon to the waiter, who immediately started singing happy birthday.  I told him it wasn’t my birthday, so he stopped and went to get my cake.  He brought my cake to my table, along with one other waiter.  They seemed to REALLY want to sing happy birthday to someone…  So they put a candle on my cake and sang ‘happy Friday’ very loudly in a very crowded room…  Then I had several people come over and wish me happy birthday.  I had to explain to several people that we were just celebrating Friday and not my birthday.

                Straight after that I had to run to the piano lounge and go to a meeting to help with starting worship services on the ship and then straight after that I had to go to a sea meeting.  Now I am sitting in the Deck 2 hallway drinking my tea.  Back to classes tomorrow and no more pampering until after Brazil.

We can already see South America through our windows!

Another Day at Sea

Classes were on again today.  Turns out I will probably be using this blog for my journal in Travel Writing class, so I will be sure to keep it up!  Today felt very long, even though class was over my lunchtime.  I woke up at 6am…  Not on purpose, I just did.  Then I had Global Studies and Travel Writing.  After lunch I spent most of my time reading and working on homework.  There is still a lot to do, but since tomorrow is a reading day with no classes, I think I can get it all done easy enough.

A few friends and I found a nook beneath the stairs where we could sit and watch episodes of The Office!  It was a bit uncomfortable, but still really fun.  I think next time we will probably bring blankets or at least something to sit so we don’t have to sit on the floor.

Tonight they were having a Family Feud night in the Union, but it was really loud so I decided just to go to my cabin once I finished my tea.  By the way, I need to figure out how to wash my tea cup and water bottle since I don’t have any dish soap.  I didn’t think about it while packing, but I am pretty sure my cups will get pretty gross after three months.

I got to do some yoga today!  It felt great to be able to stretch some since all the exercise I seem to get is just running up and down the stairs.  I haven’t gotten sea sick at all, except for one minor headache, which is great!  But I do tend to run into walls on purpose when the ship shifts.

So there is another boring blog post…  I probably won’t have too many interesting things to say until I get to Brazil, but you never know.

I love getting emails from friends!  So if you have the time please send me a note!  Lydia.sizemore.s12@semesteratsea.org

Larry the Octopus

Today we went back to classes.  Since my classes don’t start until 1pm on A days I spent a lot of time reading.  Which sounds fun, but it was all school books.  I already have over a hundred pages worth of work to do.  Nothing much interesting happened today, so this blog post will be pretty short.  I was able to sign up for all of the FDPs that I needed, so I am now going to see a Kabuki performance in Yokohama and an Indian Village cultural performance in India.  I was able to keep a lot of time open in different countries, which I am hoping will leave enough time for independent travel, since that is what I most want to be able to do.

Earlier tonight the bible study group met for the first time.  We are going to start having services too, which should be really fun.  I told them I could play guitar for worship.  They have guitars that we can rent on the ship, which is good since I am not sure I could lead worship on my ukulele.  The group sounds like it will be good.  There are at least twenty people, so we will have to split into a couple of groups and then have a worship service.

Right now I am watching this strange German movie for World Theater and Performance and I have no idea what is going on…  At this point I kind of just want it to end so I could read some and go to sleep.  Anyway, sorry for being boring today…  Here is a picture of an octopus to make up for it!  He blends in with the rocks a little bit, but he is at the top of the rock in the middle and to the left…  I call him Larry.

Dominica Day 2: Snorkeling at Champagne Reef

Today started with breakfast and a walk into town with my friend Catherine.  We were on a mission to find the post office and send some post cards, which we did.  Like yesterday, it was very hot out, but we were still able to walk around the pier and take some pictures.  We were back to the ship by 10AM, when most people were finally leaving for the day.  We took a lunch break before meeting in the Union with the other students and lifelong learners to head out on our snorkeling tour at 1330.

The snorkeling was amazing!  We took buses to Champagne Reef.  It is called ‘Champagne’ because there are bubbles coming from the reef that look sort of like champagne bubbles.  I brought my own snorkel and mask, but rented the rest.  They made us wear these funny orange vests that we had to fill up with air…  I didn’t like them.  I ended up deflating mine completely by the end of the trip because I wasn’t able to go completely underwater with it filled.  I took my GoPro with me, but because of my aforementioned floating issues, I had some trouble taking good pictures.  We saw a ton of different fish, an eel, an octopus, and whole bunch of sea urchin.  The octopus did not attack my face, which I am very happy about.  We also got free drinks!!!  Coca-Cola is one of the things I miss while we are at sea.  Then we all headed back to the ship.

We have about six days at sea before arriving in Brazil and I still haven’t been able to figure out exactly what homework I am supposed to be working on.  Hopefully I will just read too much and be ahead of everyone else!

 

(I didn’t get a lot of good pictures today, but here I am under water!)

Dominica Day 1

I woke up this morning as Dominica came into view outside of my window.  It was both a beautiful and welcome sight!  I spent the morning watching as we pulled into the dock before heading to breakfast.  I wasn’t sure what to do since my Carib Indians tour didn’t start until 12:30, so I stood beside the line of people leaving the ship until someone invited me to come with them.  That seemed to be a pretty good strategy for figuring out what to do, so I may keep doing that in the future.  I ended up leaving the ship with Ko (the resident director for my ‘sea’ or deck) and a bunch of the other RDs.  I think there was one other student there too.  We passed a KFC on the way to the market, which we all thought was funny.

(Here’s a picture of me somewhere in town)

                We spent the morning walking to town and the market.  It was very hot; turns out I shouldn’t wear jeans in this country.  I took lots of pictures!  But I don’t think I will be able to upload very many…  Sorry…  I had to go back early to catch my tour, so two of the RDs and I walked back to the shop.  Terrie (one of the RDs) and I stopped for lunch at a place at the side of the road while the other RD returned to the ship.  I had the fried fish, which was very good!  They were also selling pig snout…  But I wasn’t quite brave enough to try that yet.  We also stopped at a market on the way back where we picked up a few things before boarding the ship.

                I ran down to my room and changed since it was so hot outside…  And put on more sunscreen and bug spray.  When I was filling up my water bottle one of the kitchen staff told me I have a very beautiful smile.  I like that guy.

 

(Driving around the island)

                We met up in the Union for the Carib Indian tour.  There were about 55 of us that were divided into buses and set off for the tour…  Until our bus realized we didn’t have our tickets to see the Emerald Pool.  That added about an hour of driving to the already long ride.  We didn’t get to the Carib Indian Reservation until about 3:00.  It was very interesting to see how they lived.  There was one guy that took us around his yard and showed us what each plant was good for (I wish I could remember all that he said, but I can’t) and cocoa beans, among other things.  We saw a part of the set from the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  The chief’s sons were extras in the movie, he was very proud.  We were able to eat some snacks that they had made before loading back onto our buses and heading out for the Emerald Pool.

               

(This guy was telling us all the medicinal purposes of his plants)

It was getting dark by the time we reached the Emerald Pool so we were unable to walk all the way down the path to the water.  We ended up just walking to an overlook and taking pictures.  I wasn’t able to get a good one since it was getting pretty dark by that point.  It was completely dark when we made it back to the ship.  I found some people going out to dinner as soon as I got back onto the ship and decided to go out with them.  We found a nice restaurant downtown, after taking a taxi to get there.  It was not the best service and the food was a bit pricy, but it was good to have to chance to go out with people.  I am now back in my room and getting ready for bed.  Going snorkeling tomorrow!