Sea Olympics!!

Sea Olympics!



A tradition on the semester long voyages for Semester at Sea is the
Sea Olympics! Basically each hallway of students competes as a team
(or a sea, for example, I live in the Caribbean Sea hallway!) in a
bunch of different fun games. The opening ceremonies for the Sea
Olympics are always a lip-syncing competition the night before the day
of the Olympics. Each team is supposed to have 10 people from each
team to put together a performance for the lip-syncing. I ended up in
the wrong place at the wrong time so I got roped into participating in
this event. My team became really passionate about our lip-syncing
performance, we only had 2 days to make up the whole thing, but we
practiced a lot and it turned out hilarious! We lip synced to 5
different songs: Don't Stop Believing, She Thinks My Tractors Sexy,
International Love, Danza Kuduro, and Pound the Alarm by Niki Manaj.
It was such a random mash up of songs. I lip synced Don't Stop
Believing to open up our performance. And all our hard work paid off,
our lip-syncing won first place!! The next morning everyone met in the
Union at 10am to go over all the events (and announce my team as the
winners of the lip sync) and then at 11am the events began. There was
close to 20 different events and each person could sign up for a
couple different events to participate in. I participated in Taboo,
Phase 10, Pass the Orange (passing an orange down a line of people
only using your chin and chest…hilarious game), Tug-o-war (our first
round of Tug-o-War we competed against the adults who just happen to
have 2 body builders on their team…slightly unfair! Haha we lost
pretty quick.). The closing ceremony was a synchronized swimming
competition. Keep in mind our pool is pretty tiny! The synchronized
swimming was absolutely hilarious. Every team (there was 10 teams) did
something different with the music and dancing. Sea Olympics ended
around 4oclock, and since classes were cancelled we had the rest of
the afternoon to catch up on homework or just hang out. They didn't
announce the winner until the following day (Monday) in our Global
Studies course (the class that the whole ships attends). But my sea
tied for first!! Which means we get to depart the ship first in Ft.
Lauderdale so hopefully the lines at customs and things don't take
hours! So proud of the Caribbean Sea win!

Cape Town, South Africa

South Africa



Day 1: I woke up at 530am to watch the ship come into the Cape Town
port. I got to see the sunrise as we pulled up right in front of Table
Mountain. After the sun rose and we were docked, I went and laid in
bed until 730am when Randy (the guy who makes all the announcements)
came onto the PA system to wake everyone up and remind them that every
person on the ship has to have a face to face 'meeting' with South
African immigration before anyone is allowed to debark the ship. This
was the first port we have had to do this so Kelsey, Dylan and I went
and stood in line for our passports before we went to breakfast. The
line was really long but luckily it moved fast and we were able to
catch the end of breakfast at 830ish. Then of course there was like 5
kids who ever one had to wait on to go have their meetings, once
everyone finally did Kelsey and I met up with some friends to head
into the Victoria Albert Waterfront. We took a cab to the waterfront
with Sean, Kyle, Kelsey, Brooke, and Alex. We walked around the mall
and the whole waterfront and then ate lunch at Hindebrands, which is
right near the water. I got a cappuccino (which I have realized I have
come to like cappuccinos!) and ate an awesome Caesar salad Panini. I
had made plans to stay with a woman who lives in Cape Town named
Maureen. Maureen's sister lives in Arizona and plays tennis with my
dad so it all worked out wonderfully that I was able to stay with her.
Maureen asked me to call her when we arrived in port to figure out to
meet. So after I ate I took Kelseys phone (since my phone doesn't work
in port) and called Maureen. We decided to meet at 430 outside the
hotel at the waterfront. My friends didn't have plans so we headed
over to the info centre for a while, while they all looked for tours
to do. Then they all left around 1pm to go on their tours and I
wandered around a bit by myself (luckily found a novel in the mall I
was supposed to get before the voyage for one of my classes, good
thing I had one last English speaking port!) then walked back to the
ship (and of course got a little lost). One I got back to the ship I
finished packing up my bag and headed back to the Waterfront. I timed
it perfectly to meet Maureen in front of the hotel. I had only been
sitting there for a couple minutes when I saw a woman looking around.
I had told Maureen I was wearing red pants so she spotted me! We
finally met and got into her car. She then drove me around the
peninsula and we stopped at a gorgeous beach, I had no idea Cape Town
had beaches like this, Maureen said the water is too cold to swim
though. After driving for an hour or two we headed back to her place
and waited for her son to get home from work. Then when her son
(Adrian) got home we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. I was
so excited to have Mexican food! It was really delicious (I tried a
cheese stuffed pepper, really good, definitely going to try to make
them at home!) Then we went home and went to bed after watching a
little TV.

Day 2 : The next day we woke up and Maureen and I headed into
Stellenbosch (there is a good chance I am spelling that wrong but I
don't have internet to look up how to spell it…But Stellenbosch is one
of the wine lands!). Before we drove all the way up there, Maureen had
to run some errands so I tagged along. One of her errands was to pick
curtains from a woman who lives in one of the very poor townships. I
thought it was really interesting to see the extremities between the
first world and third world neighborhoods in South Africa. After that
we headed on a Stellenbosch where we went to a bird sanctuary (there
used to be cheetahs there but they moved, but we went into the
sanctuary anyway to look at the birds!) The birds were way cooler than
I thought they would be, I got to hold and pet owls! Then we walked
around this awesome restaurant where the tables are all up in the
trees, it was one of the coolest restaurants I had ever seen. And then
we headed to the wine farms. The first one we went to we ate lunch
there and tried a couple different wines. The restaurant/lounge we
were in was absolutely beautiful. Then we drove around some more
looking for anther wine farm to go to. Every left and right turn you
can take off this road takes you to another wine farm; it was amazing
how many there were! We got a little lost but ended up driving up onto
one Maureen was excited about that she had never been to. So we drove
up to it. This wine farm was less crowded than the last so one of the
guys pouring the wine gave us a whole history on each wine and was
really interesting. We also got to see one of the workers use a sword
to chop off the top of a champagne bottle. After spending a while
there we headed off out of Stellenbosch. On the way back to Maureen's
house we stopped at some little shops and art galleries and walked
around them. And then we drove back to Maureen's house. That night we
ate burgers for dinner, they came with bbq sauce, but it tasted like
what I know of as sweet and sour, they were really good though! Then
Maureen's daughter's flight was landing around 930 so she went to pick
her up. We went to bed after watching some tv after her daughter
(Lauren) got in.

Day 3: The next day I happily slept in and went out for lunch and
drinks at a restaurant by the gorgeous beach in Camps Bay with Lauren
and her friend. Then we drove around and drove down into the port to
attempt to show them the ship. Sadly our ship was docked behind a huge
building that help security, so you couldn't get through the building
unless you had a SAS id card, so instead I only got to show them a
portion of the ship, a little anti-climatic. Then we drove back to
Maureen's house and Adrian and I got ready to go hike Lions Head.
Lions Head in the small peak to the side of Table Mountain. Table
Mountain was incredibly foggy all weekend, very few SAS kids actually
got a chance to go up to the top of it, but Lions Head was the next
best thing. Lions Head was a great hike, the top was pretty
treacherous because you had to rock climb on chains and ladders and
handles and things, and it was pretty scary at points but really cool.
It was also the most ridiculous wind I have ever experienced, if you
were wearing baggy clothes I wouldn't be surprised if you just flew
away. I don't think I will ever experience such extreme wind ever
again. Then we hiked back down which was just as treacherous because
we had to climb down all the chains and handles. I loved the hike, it
ended up being almost as exhausting as my hike in Ghana, but it was
very different scenery! Then when we got back to Maureen's house,
Lauren was there with a few of her friends about to go out so they
waited for me as I quickly showered and got ready and went to dinner
with them. We ate some delicious sushi at the end on Long Street and
then walked over to one of the bars (called Neighborhood) to try to
meet one of Laurens friends. Her friends never ended up coming so we
went to a bar right near Maureen's house. I was so exhausted from the
hike but I rallied and had a lot of fun at the bar. Adrian and some of
his friends came and met us at the bar. We danced all night and ended
up walking home (since we were just 2 blocks away) around 230am.

Day 4: The next day I woke up and Maureen was skyping with her sister
Marion (who is friends with my dad in AZ, which is the reason I was
able to get in touch with Maureen and was able to stay with her) so I
met Marion over Skype and chatted (since I have never actually met her
in person, I'll have to do that once I get back to Arizona. Then we
all got ready and Maureen and Lauren and I headed to Boulders Beach to
see the penguins! We bought our tickets and headed down the walkway to
where the penguins hang out. Most of the penguins were molting so many
of them looked like they were in a very awkward stage in life, with
half of their bodies with nice new feathers and the other half of
their body with frayed and fuzzy crazy looking feather. It was very
funny to see! I took a think about a hundred pictures of the penguins,
such goofy creatures. Then we drove a little farther down the coast
and ate some fish and chips by the harbour near the boulders. Lauren
had to make sure she was back in time to get picked up for the airport
so after lunch we hustled back and Lauren's dad came to pick her up
and then Maureen dropped me back off the ship after I thanked her. I
found my friends once I got on the ship and we headed back over to the
waterfront and went shopping for little gifts in the mall and market
and then went to a sushi bar for dinner (I have learned that I love
sushi!). The sushi was delicious, and I was starving. After dinner we
walked back to the ship. I was exhausted so I went to bed pretty soon
after that.

Day 5: Then the last day I woke up early because I signed up for a SAS
trip to the AM Biehl Foundation. (I missed breakfast by like less than
a minute) so I bought a muffin from the snack bar (which was way
better than I expected) and caught my bus to the Amy Biehl Foundation.
Once we got to the offices of the foundation we watched a dvd about
the whole Amy Biehl story, which I think is such an amazing story, all
of the people involved are incredible. I have never heard of such a
story that shows how forgiveness can really make such a difference. I
won't attempt to explain the whole Amy Biehl story, but in short
(really really short) Amy Biehl was killed because she was in the
wrong place at the wrong time and was assumed (because she was white)
that she was against the black population is South Africa when really
she was an American on a FullBright Scholorship trying to help every
race register to vote, she was very much an advocate for equal rights.
She was stabbed to death, and her killers were sentenced to 18 years
in prison. After 4 years her killers applied for amnesty, which they
were granted. Amy Biehls parents started this foundation to carry on
what Amy believed in. Now after many years, 2 of Amy's killers
actually work for the foundation and have made big improvements with
the foundation. The whole story is quite remarkable. After the DVD the
owner Kevin came and spoke to us and then we had the opportunity to
buy some Amy Biehl things (bracelets and books and things, I bought a
couple bracelets to support the foundation) and then we headed to a
few schools to see what the foundation actually had done to improve
the education in the townships in South Africa. One school we went to
we watched some 7th graders read to 1st graders (to have the younger
have role models to look up to and learn how important reading is).
After that we just wandered the school, though we were definitely
being disruptive because the kids were stop paying attention in class
as we walked by, I felt bad we were causing such a ruckus! Then we ate
lunch at a local popular restaurant in one of the townships (that was
basically a giant open area with a roof over it) but we ate an
assortment of sausage, chicken, mealie meal (don't know how to
describe this, but it was plain but good!) and salsa. Then we went to
2 after school programs where the kids were very talented. We saw them
play instruments, dance and helped them with their new gardens they
are building on the school ground to help feed the kids and teach the
kids how to grow their own food. I wish we could have spent more time
at each school but we were on such a time crunch that we could only
spend like 20-30 min at each school. I would have rather we went to
less schools and spent an hour or more at each school so we could
actually meet and chat and get to know the people and the kids at each
school. We got back to the ship at 5pm and had to turn our passports
in with another face-to-face meeting with immigration. We were
supposed to sail at 20:00 but the port agent advised us not to because
the winds are so rough outside the port. So we stayed the night at the
dock (though sadly no one was allowed to leave or enter the ship) and
ended up not leaving until 11am the next morning!

Neptune Day!!

Neptune day is the day the ship crosses the Equator. But we are lucky
on this voyage because we were able to cross the Equator at the Prime
Meridian! In maritime world this is a pretty big deal because 0,0 is
not on any route that many ships take. When someone crosses the
equator on a ship you become a 'shellback' (where before you were
considered a polywog) but if you cross at 0,0 then you are an emerald
shellback (the rarest form of shellback, might I add) So the morning
after we left Ghana we were awoke with a parade in the hallway. The
Resident Directors and dependent children (professors kids) had a
bunch of instruments and came banging on everyones door. This was all
happening at like 730am....a little early for the loud noises in my
opinion. Then over the PA system they announced that King Neptune and
Minerva were here and ready for the initiation of the polywogs. So my
roommate and I rolled out of bed and went up to breakfast. After
breakfast we didn't really know what to do so we headed back to our
room and sat around for a while. At 9am we decided to go up to Deck 7
outside to see if anything was going on. Well we somehow missed the
memo because most of the ship was out there jumping in the pool or
getting their head shaved our kissing real fish. So we ran back
downstairs, changed into our bathing suits and got in line for the
'initiation'. The initiation consisted of getting a pitcher of fish
juices (it was the water from where they keep the frozen fish in the
kitchens...so it definitely was fishy) dumped over your head and then
jumping into the pool, then kissing a fish (yes a real-dead- giant
fish) smack on the lips and then kissing King Neptune's ring (which
was our Executive Dean dressed in a wig painted green in a skirt, and
then getting salt drizzled on our head. After all of that we were
officially shellbacks! (and smelled gross). All of our professors were
painted and dressed up and super into it, it was hilarious, my
anthropology professor was the one who was making everyone kiss the
fish hahah. Then another tradition for crossing the equator is to get
your head shaved (goes back to the military/navy days on ships). So I
got my head shaved...JUST KIDDINGGGG. Yeah right, hope I scared you, I
don't think I could pull off the bald look. But quite a few people
(even girls) shaved their heads! After the nonsense had calmed down a
bit we headed back to our rooms to shower and then went up to lunch.
We didn't actually cross 0,0 until 4pm-ish so when that time rolled
around we went and stood outside, taking in the thought that we are at
the center of the world! It didn't look any different (obviously there
is no flag floating out there with a 0,0 sign on it...though that
would have been cool!) but it was still cool to be there! Everyone had
a lot of homework that night since most of the midterm exams were
before we got to South Africa so I studied for a while and then went
to bed early. But now I can offically put on my resume I am an Emerald
Shellback!! haha!

Ghana!

Ghana!



During our logistal pre-port the night before we got to Ghana (a
mandatory meeting where we learn the important logistical things we
need to know for each country) The entire ship sang Happy Birthday to
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (sang over a video message)! He was supposed
to be on our voyage (he has a long history with Semester at Sea) but
he is accepting an award during our voyage so he had to cancel. He
wrote to our ship saying how sad he is that he cannot come on our
voyage.



Day 1: The first day I had a field lab with my Psychology class to
the Department of Social Welfare of Ghana. We met a woman named Helena
who talked to us about the Care Reform Initiative and how there are a
ton of orphanages that don't abide by any guidelines (foreigners come
start orphanages to save the world and then just fail) so now they
have laws and rules and all have to be registered. The Care Reform
Initiative started in 2008 and they have a long way to go but they
have made tremendous progress. After we left the DSW we ate lunch at
Buka- A Fine African restaurant. We ate real Ghanaian food like Fufu,
but most of it was really spicy and it was already really hot and
humid outside so we were all sweating bullets. Helena wanted to take
us to a registered home so after the lunch we went to Kinder Paradise.
Kinder Paradise was chosen for us to visit because it was always
consistently ahead of all other orphanages and basically had it
together from the beginning. Kinder Paradise was started by a German
woman who 1998 (pretty sure 1998…give or take a year or two maybe).
The owner/founder lady talked to us about her life and work. Daniel
(15 years old) toured us around the whole place, he wants to be an
architect and has lived in the home for 7 years. Then we showed us
some African drumming and some girls danced and then 5 of us went up
and attempted to dance with them. We were all terrible dancers
compared to them; it was very entertaining. Then we headed back to the
ship, and we had just enough time to catch the end of dinner on the
ship so I ate dinner and chatted with some friends on Deck 7, then
headed off to bed because I was exhausted.

Day 2: I woke up early and scarfed down some breakfast. I had an
overnight trip leaving at 8 and I had to be on the bus by 730. After
my quick breakfast I had to run back to my room for my ankle braces
and my water bottle, two very important things I'm so glad I didn't
forget. I got on a bus and we drove for over 4 hours to this village.
This is where our 'medium' hike was to take place. Two local boys (in
flipflops…) were 'hired' to take us up to the top of the mountain.
This hike was not medium…it was extreme. It was straight uphill the
entire way (if you tripped…you were going down) not to mention it was
so hot and soooo humid out. Another girl on my trip and I ended up
sticking together because we were about the same pace. We were
5minutes from the top of the mountain, on the edge of death, when
another local boy walked up behind us, grabbed our hands and quite
literally dragged us up the mountain. The girl I was with was
struggling hard to keep hiking, so the local boy let go of her and
dragged just me up the rest of the way. When I got to the top I
realized it was definitely worth the ridiculous hike. The view from
the top was amazing. So proud I made it, we sat at the top for a long
while waiting for the last people to come up, one girl didn't make it
but everyone else eventually did. The local boy that dragged me up
the mountain had a bag full for ice creams for us which we were all
very excited about something cold because most of us had finished out
water. Then we hiked back down the mountain, which was just as
treacherous (if not more..) than the hike up. When we got to the
bottom the local boys were really angry that no one had paid them for
the ice creams…because we had no idea they were for sale. So our tour
guide starting yelling at the boys in their language about how they
didn't tell us they weren't for free so we shouldn't have to pay and
all of this nonsense. Eventually everyone on my trip decided we would
pay for them because we were so grateful to have these little ice
cream things. Then we got back on the bus and drove another hour to a
waterfall. Camera fee of 1 Cedi or $1…but I didn't have any money so I
just decided to leave my camera. We had a 45min walk in to he forest
until we came to the HUGE falls. It was amazing. I'm glad I didn't
bring my camera because it would have gotten soaked. It felt like a
shower, which was good because we all desperately needed one from our
hike. I was standing easily 100ft away and could still feel the spray
of the waterfall. We all stood near the falls for quite a while, and
then the sun was about to start setting so we had to get out of the
forest. I was feeling great and got a little cocky so I didn't wear my
ankle braces on the walk back…I tried my best to be careful until
(yup, you guessed it) I rolled my ankle. It hurt so bad but I didn't
fall and I played it off like it was all good (telling myself in my
head to just walk it off) It's a little swollen but not too bad. Then
we got back on the bus and drove to the Tafi Atome village. We ate
dinner once we got there(rice and tomato sauce with eggs in it) then
the village put on a little show with singing/drum-playing/dancing for
us around a fire. Then we got up and danced with them, furthered the
stereotype that white people can't dance but it was really fun. Then
we were all walking to the bus to get our bags and one kid on my trip
fell in a ditch and sprained his ankle, which ended the fun vibe real
quick. He wanted to cab it 3 hours back to the ship…but we were in the
middle of nowhere and we doubted a cab would be easy to find. Luckily
he got talked out of it and just went to sleep with it elevated. Went
all slept in 3 different guesthouses because there was 20 of us. All
but 2 kids in my house stayed up and talked and played cards til late
which was fun because I had never met any of them before. Went to bed,
had to share a bed with a girl who snored and yelled casual
conversations in her sleep…it was sleep talking taken to a whole new
level…so I did not sleep much. Also it was really hot, but I had been
sweating consistently for 12 hours at this point so it really didn't
bother be too much.

Day 3: Woke up at 6am and went and fed Mona Monkeys in the forest.
They are cute little monkeys that live around this village. The
monkeys jump onto your back and steal the bananas out of your hand, so
cute! Then after that we went and ate breakfast and walked around the
village saying hi to everyone. One of the little boys in the village
was super shy (not many kids were really shy) and he was hiding so I
kept waving at him and he would giggle and run behind his mom and she
kept trying to get him to wave at me so I bribed him with a toothbrush
and then after some long staring he walked over and took the
toothbrush. I gave his mom one too and she was very thankful and
funny. I don't think she spoke English but she knew Hello and Thank
You and laughed along with me as I waved to her son. I danced with 3
girls walking to school as well. They didn't have much electricity in
the village, but if they did the first thing they would get is a
really loud stereo system so the one pub-like kind of place was
blasting music that you could hear down the street. It was still so
humid, still sweating from the day before, and my only shower was
standing next to that waterfall, you can bet I smelled greaaatttt.
Then we got on our bus/van at 930 and drove to a beautiful resort and
ate lunch at noon which was delicious. It rained pretty hard but
luckily we were under a solid roof. Then we came back to the ship and
I was smelly and exhausted but I knew if I laid down I would never get
back up so I went back outside to the tents set up right outside the
ship to buy some little gifties. The sellers are SUPER aggressive and
just throw things at you basically and expect you to buy them. But
luckily they take really any currency (the exchange rate is just
awful) so a lot of us spent all of our left over Euros and Pounds.
After like 45-hour out there I was exhausted from being pulled in a
million directions and bargaining (I'm not good at haggling so it took
a lot out of me to haggle) I went back onto the ship, showered a much
needed shower and laid in my cozy bed….soooo happy to be in my
comforts again. I woke up a while later and got a burger cause I slept
through dinner and chatted with some friends about their experiences,
we all pretty much agreed we would love Ghana so much more if we were
constantly being pulled to buy something from every person we passed,
but when I was in the village nobody was aggressive to buy anything,
so that was much more enjoyable. I even walked right up to a stand
selling bottled drinks in the village and the woman just happily said
hello but didn't pressure me into buying anything…which actually made
me want to buy something from her because she was so calm. It was
complete madness in the markets I guess, I never actually went into
one (besides the one outside the ship) which is probably good because
I would have been so overwhelmed.



Day 4: On the last day I signed up to go to Torgorme Village for a
naming ceremony. Dylan signed up for the trip as well so I had a
friend with me. We took a bus ride for about 2 hours (and then a van
ride for the last 10min because our bus couldn't fit over a bridge).
When we got the village everyone that lived there ran us to greet us
and show us to our seats and they played music and danced and were all
so excited. We got to sit in the front row next to all of the school
kids-pretty prime seating if you ask me. Then they showed us a few of
their dances while we waited for the other van full of kids to show
us. I had one little girl (couldn't have been older than 3 or 4) who
latched onto me from the beginning. So I danced with her and then she
sat on my lap through the entire ceremony. Once everyone showed up
they started the naming ceremony where they called everyone up one by
one and told them their new name and what it meant. Just call me Abla
Segbedzi! (Abla-I was born on Tuesday and Segbedzi- means I have the
will to get anything done). We got a handmade pot with our name on it
and a bracelet made from beads made in the village. After the ceremony
was finished we had 20minutes to look around the village, so the kids
instantly grabbed us and gave us a tour. They took us down to the
river where they get all of their water. They all love cameras and
think they are the funniest things so they kept taking pictures of
themselves and then looking and laughing hysterically. Then as we were
walking back up from the river I met the mother of one of the girls
showing me around. She didn't speak much English but one of her
daughters had gotten a Frisbee from the donations and didn't really
know what it was. I was trying to motion how to play with it but they
didn't understand do I grabbed it and threw it into a bush. The woman
just stared at it and said "and its finished..?" The I realized that
was an awful way to teach the game so I picked it up again and threw
it to a little girl and then taught her how to throw it back to me.
Everyone around me started laughing but then they started playing by
themselves, it was pretty funny. Then the little girl with my camera
took a picture of the older woman and showed her and the woman just
laughed some more at the picture. I called her beautiful and she
denied and called her baby beautiful. It was really adorable. Then I
kids grabbed me and we headed back to the van because it was time to
leave. We all squished into the van and headed back to the ship. Ghana
was very fast paced but the people were all so nice. They all had very
interesting stories and I wish I had more time to spend in the
villages (not so much in the markets…too much going on for me). I cant
stress enough how kind the people were, no matter where we went they
were always so nice.



Thing I learned in/about Ghana: They are named by the day of the week
they were born. So there are really only 7 boy names and 7 girl names.
But when the Europeans were in Ghana they forced everyone to adopt a
'Christian name' so they all have 2 names. Like Stephen and/or Koffie
would be both of my tour guides names, and they are interchangeable.
The Ghanaians didn't know for a while that the Christian names they
were all adopting were average Europeans names.

There are about 46 different languages in Ghana, though English is the
official language for business and things. Most of the language are
similar just have different dialects, my tour guide compared it to
American English versus Irish English versus British English.

There are 10 different regions in Ghana. I was in the Greater Accra
region and visited the Volta region for 2 days(where the hike and
waterfall was).

The other countries next to Ghana don't have ports cause they are
landlocked so they drive all the way through Ghana to get their goods
from Ghana's port so Ghana wants to build a rail system to the
surrounding countries so the other countries trucks don't congest
their cities and roads because their roads are crazy. Many kids on the
ship saw multiple car accidents, some of them really graphic!



Things I tried: Fufu, cocoa right off the tree (white and squishy and
weird, but tastes much better than it looks), rice balls, plantains,
Ghanaian bananas (so delicious, way better than any banana I have ever
tried), spicy food in really hot weather-so sweaty

For those of you concerned...

(Chelsea Woit) I was in Santa Cruz de Tenerife!!

A few more pictures from Tenerife

Looks like I'm in Az!

Tenerife, Canary Islands (Our Stop Instead of Morocco)

Tenerife, Canary Islands



Day 1: I woke up early to the ship coming into port (or rather…the
train coming through my window, violently shaking my room). I didn't
have any plans for the day but one of the SAS day-trips sounded kind
of fun so Dylan and I planned to just show up at the gangway when the
trip was leaving (around 830) and try to get on at the last second.
(Most of the time you can go to the gangway early and get a 'dock-
sale' of SAS trips, its really nice we don't always have to sign up
before-hand. Signing up for anything ahead of time is not something I
am good at) Luckily we showed up in time because we got two of the
last seats on the Tenerife Jeep Tour trip. We hopped in one of the 5
jeeps and after everyone was ready we headed off driving through
Tenerife. Tenerife has a huge volcano on it (it is an island after
all…) so the jeep tour took us up to the top of the island where the
volcano was. Many kids on the ship were planning on hiking the
volcano, which after doing some research (and my fear of hurting my
ankles) I decided that just cause I made through hiking around
Gibraltar, doesn't mean I can do a 6-7 hour hike up a volcano. Our
jeep tour stopped every once in a while so we could take pictures of
the amazing views. The higher we got up the island, the colder it got,
and my regret of wearing shorts and a t-shirt grew. The middle of the
island had big trees and was very forest-y, then when we got up near
the top it turned very rocky (from all the volcanic magma). At one
point on the tour everyone was amazed at the red rocks we stopped near…
but to me I felt like I was in Sedona, I was home! Except not really…
because there was a volcano in the distance. Then at the top we
stopped for some hot chocolate and cookies and there was a couple of
vendors. One of the vendors was selling chocolate covered dried
bananas and almonds, I couldn't resist buying the chocolate covered
bananas, they were too good, so I bought a tiny box. Then after our
short break we headed back down the island with a few more stops (one
looked like we had stopped at the moon, it was really cool!) We got
back to the ship around 2pm and were pretty hungry so Dylan and I
walked over to the city center. We forgot that everything closed
between 2-4ish so the only thing we could find for a while was
McDonalds, but we refused to eat there, so after some more walking we
found a cute little restaurant open. There was about 7 other SAS kids
eating in there so we sat near them and enjoyed some lunch, and a
local Canary Island beer (Dorada)! I was exhausted by the end of lunch
and I knew I would be up late so we walked back to the ship and I took
a nap and then showered and got ready. That night was my friends
(Alex) 21st birthday so 8 of us were all going out to dinner to
celebrate. It was Sunday night so not a lot was open but we were sure
(well one of the girls were sure, so we believed her) that this nice
restaurant would be perfect. So we hopped in 2 cabs and headed off to
this restaurant…it wasn't open, so one of the cab drivers said he knew
of a good place that would be open, so we believed him and he drove us
about 10-15min away (up the side of the mountain where it looked
completely deserted…the scenes from the movie Taken was running
through all our head for a moment) and then we got to this restaurant
and it was closed as well…at this point we were all unhappy and hungry
so we told the cabs to just drop us off in the city center and we
would find something. Luckily right where we got dropped off there was
a cute little restaurant open. We enjoyed dinner (though we were with
some people with awful restaurant manners, especially because the
waiters didn't speak any English, so by the end they would just look
to Dylan and I because at least we were understanding most of what
they were saying and could reproduce some broken Spanish which I think
they appreciated.) but I was happy it was over because by the end the
entire restaurant knew that we were being those stereotypical loud
annoying Americans, and the people we were with didn't even seem to
notice. After dinner we went to a bar a few doors down on the same
street to meet up with everyone else to help celebrate Alex's (and a
few other peoples) birthdays. I didn't stay up too late; I was tired
from the long day on the jeep tour, but it was still a fun night after
a great day, I'm glad I took the jeep tour so I got some really great
views of the island.



Day 2: Today was probably the least productive day I've had on the
trip. My roommate (Kelsey) woke up early and left to find WiFi in town
to get some Skyping in, once she left I fell back asleep and my alarm
never went off so I didn't wake back up until 10am. I called Dylan and
woke him up. We met at 11am and left the ship to go find breakfast
somewhere. Halfway to the city center we ran into Kelsey so she came
along with us to find food. We eventually found a little café and
ordered some sort of sandwiches and orange juice, none of us knew what
we actually ordered, but it turned out well. We all enjoyed our
sandwiches and then carried on to find a grocery shore somewhere. We
passed a computer store and since Dylan's computer charger has stopped
working, the three of us walked over. The computer guy didn't know how
to help without the computer there so Kelsey and I walked back to the
ship with him. The computer store was closing at 130 so Kelsey and I
strolled back to the city center while Dylan zoomed over there to make
sure he got there before it closed. He got a charger for his computer,
then we went over to McDonalds next door to use their free WiFi. The
WiFi wasn't too great so I basically just stared at Facebook for a
while but it wouldn't let me click much. Then we asked some locals
where the nearest grocery store was, and from what we understood, it
wasn't close. So we wandered up the city center and found tiny grocery-
like store that would be good enough. I bought some granola bars,
cashews, kinder eggs, and Pringles. Then after that we walked back to
the ship with all of our groceries and I wrote out some emails and
saved them because our internet/email on the ship was down (and had
been for about 2 days). Then at 530 there was a barbeque up on Deck 7
for dinner (where theres the pool (tiny pool) and a snack bar that we
can buy food that doesn't consist of pasta and potatoes) so we went up
there and ate some delicious food that was not the usual dinner food,
so we were all very happy with it. Then the tugboat came along right
next to where we were eating to pull us away from the dock and head
out of the port. It was really cool to watch first hand, tugboats are
amazing haha. We all stood at the railing and watched from the ship us
leaving the port, waving to every boat that passed us (I totally got a
wave from a little tiny boat going by us!)



I wish I had brought my computer to use the WiFi at McDonalds because
I have found out my computer no longer plays disks…it eats them for a
while then spits them back out. Which is very unfortunate because I
only have 2 movies on my computer (Mean Girls, and The House Bunny…
both are very educational, I know) and I don't have any Internet to
download the program that I need to play movies off other peoples
external hard drives. So basically the amount of times I have watched
Mean Girls and The House Bunny is disturbing, and I can now quote both
movies fully. I don't really like movies that much (solely because I
always fall asleep during them) but I would give anything to just have
my computer play a few more movies.