Hey everyone!
We just got back from Thailand and are on our way to Vietnam. Thailand was so much fun! It was completely different from India, and neither of us felt as much of a connection with Thailand, but it was still a great port. One of the things that we noticed almost as soon as stepping off the ship was that it was very westernized. India was full of shacks and animals, whereas Thailand had high-rise buildings, sports cars, and a pretty good transportation system. Actually, at times, it reminded us of Chicago, Michigan, and especially Cleveland (there was even a huge sign that said "Lakewood" on it). It made us very homesick, but we'll get to that later.
We docked in Laem Chabang, which is about two hours south of Bangkok, and the first day we went to an orphanage in Pattaya- about a half hour south. It was not what we expected at all, especially coming straight from India. The kids here did not really want to play with us, and we almost felt like intruders. I love kids, and I was looking forward to bringing them stickers, playing soccer with them, and getting to know them. But when we got there, they just took the stickers and went to play with their friends. It ended up being us and another few girls from SAS standing around watching the kids play, and it wasn't for lack of trying. They just weren't interested. And I heard that was how it was with all the groups that went during our stay. We were talking about it and said that it's probably a good thing that they don't want to play with us because that means they're content and not desperate for attention. In both India and South Africa, the kids literally latched onto us and would not let go. They wanted us to sing and dance for them and show them how to play "duck, duck, goose". But they just played with their friends at this orphanage, which was good, and at the end of the day, I was thankful that they were happy...even if we didn't benefit from it. We did get to see the babies/small children, though, which was adorable, but I didn't feel anything at all, which made me sad. I usually have some sort of connection to all the kids I run into, and there was nothing. To be honest, we all just wanted to leave. I'm glad we went, but I feel like we could've seen a lot more of something else instead of wasting the day doing that.
Well, after we got back to the ship, we just hung out with Kevin, Amy, and Ellie and had dinner. We also talked to Heidi, our favorite person in the crew, for about an hour and a half. She is super nice, and she told us all about her crazy stories, including the time when she lived in a car for a week to win it! It was great just to relax without a lot of people on the ship. We couldn't really leave the ship because the port we were at was not like any of the other ones we've been to. There was nothing within 15 minutes, and even then, they told us it wasn't safe to go out in the town at night, so we just stayed in and got some homework done before going to bed early.
The next day, we were able to get tickets for the Bangkok day trip, which left at 7:30 am. Guess who was on it! Yep...Kevin, Amy, and Ellie (aka our adopted family). There were 3 busses of us going, so there were a lot of other people, too, and we all drove the 2 hours to Bangkok. We spent the entire time playing with Ellie and reading her books, and talking to a girl we met named Emma. It went by pretty fast, and then we got into the city. It was huge! There was so much going on at once- so much traffic, people everywhere, high-rise buildings, music playing, and the skytrain zooming overhead. We drove through town to the riverfront (Bangkok is called the Venice of the East because it still uses its rivers and canals for transportation), hopped on a boat, and headed down the river. It smelled so much like Cleveland and reminded us of the Flats- all the resturants and boardwalks lining the river! We took a tour down the river, took way too many pictures of the beautiful Asian architecture, and stopped at the Sleeping Buddha. It was inside a building surrounded by vendors and other, smaller buildings and temples. I had heard that it was huge, and it is the 3rd largest in the world, but I was not prepared for how big it was! The feet alone were probably twenty feet high, and it spanned about the length of half a football field. It was gigantic!! We walked around and put coins into little dishes (Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and to make sure you have a good next life, you pay homage to the Gods. One way to do this is by giving money, and if you drop coins into these steel buckets, the Gods are supposed to be able to hear you and you will then have something good happen to you in your next life). It was SO hot. I can't even tell you how it felt to be outside at around noon. The temperature was about 100 degrees, and they told us that the humidity was between 95 and 100%! Can you imagine? We all were just unbelievably hot and feeling gross. Not to mention the heat made us so tired! It was crazy and we are NEVER going to complain about summers in the midwest again! So, anyway, after finishing at the sleeping Buddha, we got back on the boat and took another tour of the canals, past houses and small businesses. We also got to feed the fish that swarmed and jumped around the boat. They were very odd looking, but they ate every single speck of bread that we threw at them, and Ellie had the greatest time trying to feed them! Our next stop was Wat Pho, or the Temple of Dawn. Wat means temple in Thai. This temple was gorgeous and had a tall tower that we all climbed to the top of. It looked like something they would have in the Asian section of Epcot, but it was in fact real Asian architecture, and it was really cool!
We were getting really hungry after this, so we took the boat to a restaurant (with air conditioning!!) that served us plate after plate of delicious Thai food- most spicy, some not. It was so good, and our first encounter with real Thai food. Let me tell you- we LOVED it! We will definitely be needing to find good Thai resturants back home because this is now one of our new favorites. Get ready to cook, Kathy! haha. We spent about an hour there, just eating and eating, and for dessert we had all kinds of fruit. I swear I ate about an entire watermelon. Needless to say, we were all very stuffed! We got back onto the boat and went back to the busses to go to the Grand Palace. The whole complex covers about 60 acres, and we walked most of it for the next 3 hours. I'll have to show you pictures because the architecture of all the buildings was so beautiful, and the gardens were even better! They had guards in front of one of the palaces, like they do in Great Britain, and we took a picture with one. haha. They must've thought we were really annoying, but it's a funny picture! As soon as we were done there, they took us to what they called a "souvenir shop" aka a jewelry factory/showroom. Of course, we did not buy anything, but just hung out for a while. Our plan was to stay in Bangkok after the group left, so our tour guide helped us book a nice hotel for about $75 US and even arranged a car to take us there! So we said goodbye to everyone and headed to the Asia Hotel in downtown Bangkok. Quick story: we were really rushed when we left so we didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Ellie or Amy, and apparently on the way back, Ellie kept saying "Ara!.....Ate!....Where are you?" Students came up to us the next day and were like, "Yeah, she was really sad that you weren't there!". I felt so bad. That child is so attached to us, and I gotta say, we are just as much! I have no idea what we're gonna do when this is over. But anyway....... So, Kate and I got into the car and it took us about 35 minutes to get there because of traffic. So I pulled out the video camera and we just started talking.....about nothing. It was really hilarious at the time, and we were really hyper, so we were basically laughing the whole time. It'll be really fun to watch it later! We finally got to our hotel and went inside, and we already had a room booked and paid for, so we checked in and went up. We were so excited because this was the first time we had stayed in a hotel just the two of us. We've travelled independently on this trip, and stayed in rooms by ourselves, but we always have someone telling us what to do and when to do it. This time, it was just us, with no real plan, so we knew we were going to have a lot of fun! We put our stuff down and went down to the restaurant, had dinner and the best chocolate cake ever, and then went up to the health spa for our massages! We've never had massages before and they were really cheap (about $15 US), so we decided to do it. We both got oil massages, and they were an hour of pure heaven! It was awesome! And afterwards, they let us take bubble baths because there were bathtubs in the room! We were REALLY happy afterwards, and we are definitely looking forward to getting another one in Vietnam (to compare the two for class, of course....not for enjoyment or anything...) teehee. So, yeah. We had a great time. And then we went out and walked around bangkok for a while, just the two of us. It was such a good time. We can definitely entertain each other, and we were laughing the whole time. We called it a night at about midnight, and we didn't set an alarm or anything. And, for the first time on this entire trip, we slept in! We didn't get up until 10, and it was just what we needed! We took a relaxing morning, since we didn't have to check out until noon, got some internet in the lobby, and had the best continental breakfast we've ever had! It was free, so we expected toast and some runny eggs. But they had delicious cereal, pancakes, fruit, milk, tea, eggs, omelets, and so much more. It was great!
So after breakfast, we walked around for a while, and then decided to go to the Sky Tower downtown so we could see the whole city from the 80th floor observation deck. So we got in a cab and asked him to take us there. After 40 minutes, we noticed we were not in downtown anymore, and we had no idea where we were going. Obviously, he had not understood us and was not taking us to the sky tower. After another 10 minutes, he dropped us off on the outskirts of Bangkok. We did not pay him the full amount, obviously, since he had not taken us where we wanted to go, and we planned to just jump in another cab and head back near the hotel. As we were standing there, this woman struck up a conversation with us about where we were from, what we were doing, etc., and we talked for a while. She asked us if we were hungry and told us she had a restaurant down the road, so we went with her to get something to eat. Before we ordered, she also told us she taught cooking classes during the week, and asked if we wanted to learn how to cook, and we were like, "Duh!". Okay, so we didn't say that, but we were pretty pumped about it, and she took us upstairs where we sat down on the ground, next to a table with all these good-smelling ingredients on it. We then spent the next 3 hours cooking 10 delicious Thai dishes and eating them all! It was such a random experience, but it turned out to be amazing! We talked to this woman, named May, for over three hours, and she told us about her family, and her love of cooking, and basically everything! She even turned on a Thai soap opera and explained everything that was happening. It was kind of addicting, and we were all on the edge of our seats by the end of the show. haha. We definitely had a great time! And now we know how to cook authentic Thai dishes (she gave us all the recipes), and we even know a traditional Thai cooking song :-)
After leaving May, we decided that we wanted to ride the Sky Train (Bangkok's version of the "El"), so we spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to pay for the tokens and where we wanted to go, and we just hopped on and went. We rode it for about a half an hour, to the end and back, and just watched the city from up high and all the people. It was gorgeous because it was about sunset, and we took a few pictures and just stared out the window. Chicago has a thing or two to learn from Thailand regarding the El- they had TV's and it was huge and smooth and fast! Definitely a good way to spend time! On our way back, we saw a night market going on near Victory Monument, so we got off and went shopping! Let me tell you- we bought waaayyy too much stuff! But we never paid more than $6 US for one item. We bought a couple skirts, dresses, shirts, and two pairs of shoes. They are so cute, and we were really excited to get it all for so cheap! After this little shopping spree, we headed back to the hotel where we had a car waiting to take us back to the ship at about 2100.
The next day, we got up for a trip to the Pattaya Elephant Village, which turned out to be awesome! We drove for about 45 minutes to this park in the middle of nowhere, where there was a pavilion with bleachers and we got to watch elephants perform certain tasks and we got to feed them. Then some people in the group got to get on the elephants and ride with them into the water to take a bath with them! It was really funny! Especially because one of the kid's grandmothers was with him, and she went in the water and almost fell off. Quite entertaining. Then we all got to ride them- on their backs! We just grabbed onto their ear, stepped on their legs and sat on their necks for a ride around the complex. It was so much fun! I love elephants!!! They are so cute! After hanging out with the elephants for a little while longer, we headed back to the ship. Before getting to Thailand, we decided to meet up with the twins and Pat in Bangkok for dinner and shopping, so the first time, when we went to Bangkok, we arranged a car to pick us up at the ship at 1800 and drive us to Bangkok, and then take us back at about 1 am. We invited Amy to come with us, so we all got dressed up and left, talking the entire ride to the city. When we got there, we took the Sky Train to the Blue Elephant restaurant, a very upscale place for really good Thai food. We had a couple drinks in an upstairs bar (very sex and the city. haha) before being seated, and then we had delicious food and talked for about 2 1/2 hours. It was a great time! We of course didn't stop talking the entire time, and it was so much fun! It was so nice to hang out and talk to just Amy, and she is the sweetest person ever! I'm glad she came with us. Victoria, Stephanie, and Pat never ended up showing up because there was a lack of communication, but we had a great time just the three of us! After dinner, we took the Sky Train and then the subway to the night bazaar which was crazy! There were stalls in every direction selling everything you could possibly imagine- clothes, shoes, paintings, spices, candles, furniture, fabrics, purses, food, etc. We only had about a half hour before the bazaar ended, so we went straight to the clothes stalls and bought more. I know, I know...you're thinking, "shopping...again?". But everything was so cheap and really, really cute, so we just had to. We ended up getting a couple nice dresses, more skirts, and I even got a shirt that's red and it has an owl sewn on it with yellow button eyes!! I was so excited when I saw it!! And it was handmade and only $4 US! Amy got a couple skirts and dresses that we talked her into buying, and they were so pretty! We started to head back to the hotel where the car was going to pick us up, only to find that the subway and Sky Train were both closed because it was after midnight. So we ended up walking for a really long way and finally took a cab the rest of the way. Our cab driver went about 110 km/hr on the main roads, and he kept talking about Obama, so it was a fun ride! We were exhausted when we got back to the hotel, but we took out our clothes bags and went over what we bought again. We basically had a fashion show in the lobby at about 12:45 am. It was fun. The car came at about 1, and instead of sleeping, we again talked the whole way back, and finally went to sleep at about 3 am.
The last day, we had to wake up at 6:45 for a trip to the Nong Nooch Cultural Village, which turned out to be really fun. We saw a cultural dancing show, where they had different "scenes" with all kinds of traditional Thai dances as well as Thai boxing. Then we saw an elephant show where elephants did everything from playing basketball to bowling, and painting pictures to riding bicycles. It was hilarious and a lot of fun! On the way back, we had the bus drop us off at the Harbor Mall, right by the pier, so we could go to the grocery store there. I don't know if we told you or not, but the peanut butter on the ship is NOT normal. I'm not even sure it's really peanut butter, and it's really gross to try and eat PB and honey or PB & J for Kate. Especially with the monotony of the food here, making sandwiches is kind of a staple. So, anyway, WE GOT PEANUT BUTTER! Real, honest-to-God, JIF creamy peanut butter. We were so excited, we got 2 jars! We also got fruit loops and frosted flakes (well actually, Fruit Circles and Frosties), cookies, and some crackers. We were basically in heaven! Then we kept the American-food trend going, and we got some pizza. But when we tried to order, it turned into a language-barrier fiasco. There was a special where if you bought one medium, you got one free. But we can't take food back on the ship, and we weren't going to finish two, so we told our waitress we didn't want the free one. She did NOT understand. She kept saying "free...it's free", and we tried to explain with hand gestures why we couldn't take it. She brought over 3 different waitresses and her manager to make sure we understood that we get a FREE pizza, and we kept saying, "No, that's okay. Thank you. We'll jut take the one pizza". And eventually they said they'd bring us one. And they did, and about halfway through, they brought us the second pizza in a bag all ready to go. We just laughed and said thank you, and ended up giving it to a couple other SASers who hadn't ordered yet. And both pizzas were delicious, so we were all happy. We headed back to the ship and hung out with the twins and Pat, everyone sharing stories and pictures from their time in Thailand.
So now we are on our way to Vietnam- we'll be in Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow morning, and Kate and I leave for Cambodia a couple hours after we port. We are so excited! We'll try to keep up with the blog after Vietnam, although we only have 2 days before we get to Hong Kong, so we'll see how it goes. Other news: Kate got accepted to the College of Education at Michigan State recently!! She's really excited and now can become a teacher like she's always wanted! So yay! Also, the crew talent show was last night. It was HILARIOUS!!! There were members of the crew from every department on the ship doing different acts. The dining room staff did a dance, Alan juggled bottles while dancing (awesome!), Mandi (a guy) dressed up as a girl and danced around while the "Barbie Boys" (a 3 guy singing group from the dining staff) sang in the background, Heidi and Sandra did a skit that ended with them covered in baby powder and lipstick, a guy dressed up as a nun and finger painted a picture of Jesus while dancing, Davon (our favorite waiter) sang a song from his home country of Jamaica, and our steward, Kenton, even came out at the end to sing "We Are the World" with the rest of the crew! The saddest thing was when Sparky (head of A/V and Kate's boss) played the keyboard and sang a song that he wrote about SAS. He kept saying, "in May we'll all leave and we love you all" and stuff like that and it was so sad! Vicky and I almost started crying! It was a really good time, and it went on from 2100 to almost midnight! I got the whole thing on tape and tons of pictures that I can't wait to show everyone!! We love the crew so much....they are pretty amazing and I'm definitely going to miss them when this trip is over!
Okay, well, that's all for now. Amy's birthday is today, so we're having a kind-of surprise party for her tonight, so that should be fun. Then we have logistical pre-port, and Kate and I have to pack for Cambodia. We miss you all and love you!! Talk to you after Vietnam!
-K & S
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Bangkok
Hey everyone!
We are currently in a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand and we bought some internet for about 150 baht, so I just wanted to say hello! I checked facebook very quickly, but wasn't able to write anyone back, so I want to say thank you so much for all the wall postings!! Annie- I couldn't watch your video, but I will next time I get on. We miss everyone so much and wish we could just call and talk to everyone right now! Hopefully that can happen soon.
Today we saw the Grand Palace and the sleeping Buddha which were both really cool. We're currently staying at the Asia Hotel in downtown Bangkok (just the two of us), and we're going to get real Thai massages for an HOUR, and we might go see a show or go out for some drinks because tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day! Tomorrow we're going to Choolalonghorn University (Dad...sound familiar?? The King and I....) to talk to some students, walk around Bangkok, and go shopping. Then we're heading back to the ship because Wednesday we're going to an Elephant Village! Yay!
Okay, well, I'm almost out of time. We miss everyone sooooooo much and wish you were here with us. We love you!!!!! Talk to you soon! Please keep the comments/e-mails coming so we know how you're doing!
-Sarah and Kate
We are currently in a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand and we bought some internet for about 150 baht, so I just wanted to say hello! I checked facebook very quickly, but wasn't able to write anyone back, so I want to say thank you so much for all the wall postings!! Annie- I couldn't watch your video, but I will next time I get on. We miss everyone so much and wish we could just call and talk to everyone right now! Hopefully that can happen soon.
Today we saw the Grand Palace and the sleeping Buddha which were both really cool. We're currently staying at the Asia Hotel in downtown Bangkok (just the two of us), and we're going to get real Thai massages for an HOUR, and we might go see a show or go out for some drinks because tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day! Tomorrow we're going to Choolalonghorn University (Dad...sound familiar?? The King and I....) to talk to some students, walk around Bangkok, and go shopping. Then we're heading back to the ship because Wednesday we're going to an Elephant Village! Yay!
Okay, well, I'm almost out of time. We miss everyone sooooooo much and wish you were here with us. We love you!!!!! Talk to you soon! Please keep the comments/e-mails coming so we know how you're doing!
-Sarah and Kate
Saturday, March 14, 2009
More Pictures!!! From India...
The Taj! Amazing....
"Throw what you know"....at the Taj Mahal. No big deal. haha. Love you girls!!
Our awesome heart picture for our parents at the Taj. We love you, Mom, Dad, and Kathy!!!
Us jumping in front of the Taj
A boy and his brother, begging, in Jaipur, India.
Pictures!!!
Ellie...aka the cutest little thing ever after leaving Namibia
The V & A Waterfront with Table Mountain in the background. Cape Town, South Africa
The twins, Blair, and us at dinner on Long St. in South Africa
A sunset on our safari in Namibia
Th
The twins and us at Robben Island in South Africa
Crazy, Wonderful India
India. How in the world am I ever going to describe this place? We spent 5 days there and we still are trying to make sense of everything we saw! But I'm going to try to tell you all about our wonderful, shocking, and sometimes very sad stay in India. The first morning when we pulled in, we could literally smell Chennai before we even docked. Our windows obviously don't open, and the smell of smoke and spices woke us up- it was that prevalent. We pulled into the dock, which was very industrial (much like Namibia and Casablanca were), and we headed to the diplomatic briefing held in the union. We've had 3 of these briefings before, but never like this. As soon as we sat down they started talking about the dangers of traveling to India. I sat next to Victoria, and there were times when she'd grab my hand and we'd both look at each other like, 'Holy Crap, I really hope that doesn't happen'. We were all very weary about spending 5 days in India without each other, having gotten so close lately and spending every waking moment with the twins and Pat since leaving South Africa. During the briefing, they talked about the high terrorism threat (India had the most terrorism attacks outside of Iraq in 2008), the traffic accidents, violent crimes, petty theft, and pretty much anything else scary that they could come up with…when it was over, we seriously considered staying on the ship. But, alas, we had to get going for our trip. The ship was cleared at about 9:30, and we had to leave for the airport no later than 11, so we went to finish packing and get our shore passes (instead of taking our passports off the ship, we just had to carry around a piece of paper that was our ‘shore pass’ and a customs card). We said a sad goodbye to Vicky and Stephanie and quickly packed 5 days worth of clothes, shoes, and pepto bismol into our backpacks. We walked down the gangway and immediately boarded a bus, complete with curtains, along with the 89 other students who signed up for this trip through facebook. After the Namibia safari fiasco (it was fun for us but basically a booze safari for everyone else), we were weary about doing another facebook indy trip. But it was too late to join SAS trips and I really didn’t want to walk around India just the two of us, so we went. It ended up turning out really well, but there were definitely times I was embarrassed to be an American with this group, and I’ll tell you about those throughout the blog. Anyway, I digress. So we got on the bus and drove the hour and ½ to the airport. As soon as we left the port, India hit us square in the face. We saw people everywhere…in every corner or open space there were people standing, selling things, and begging, and I felt as if I were watching a movie instead of actually looking out the window at India. We passed through the slums of Chennai and it was the first time we had seen this degree of poverty. Even the townships in South Africa were upscale compared to these. The “houses” were made out of sticks or hay placed against a wall or other shack, and everything was muddy and smelled like nothing I’ve ever smelled before- a mixture of human sweat, feces, spices, animals, and smoke. This was the first time on this trip that my heart broke…and it wouldn’t be the last.
When we finally reached the airport, we checked in and went through security. It was pretty easy and quick, except that the ladies who were patting us down got mad at us for wearing money belts because they didn’t understand what they were for. But after getting through all of that, we sat down in the airport and basically talked, half-slept, and people watched for an hour. We walked outside when our flight was called and boarded a small plane that SAS basically took over. Let me tell you- this flight was the best I have ever been on! The seats were big and comfortable, and they fed us the most delicious meal of chicken curry, rice, vegetables, rice pudding, and tea! It was awesome! After taking a quick nap, we landed in Delhi. Walking outside, we felt like celebrities. Everyone wanted to stare at us, take our pictures, or shout things at us, and I felt very uncomfortable and just wanted to get on the bus. Quick side note about the busses- at the diplomatic briefing, they told us that western tourists were targeted in terrorist attacks and to not hang out at “western” establishments or draw too much attention to ourselves. Well, guess what our bus had in big white letters across the front….TOURIST! We were all laughing, but with three tourist busses driving down the street, we were a tad scared. Anyway, we drove through downtown Delhi to our hotels, and Delhi looked a lot like Chennai with a little more of a “business” look to it…high rises and nice hotels downtown. We ended up splitting up into three different hotels, and without having a cell phone, it was hard to know what everyone was doing and where to find them, so Kate and I ended up walking around looking for people, and finally had dinner with a few other people on the rooftop of our hotel. We had chicken soup, which was basically noodles and fried chicken, without broth. It was good and cheap (the rupee right now is pegged to the US dollar at 50, which means for every 50 rupees we spent, it only cost us a dollar! For dinner and drinks for two people, I think we spent about $5). The hotel was nice, and we had a third roommate, Chelsea, who stayed with us. Kate and I were exhausted so we went to the room and watched Indian music videos (which are awesome by the way), American Idol, and Cops. haha. This is the first of those stories I’ll tell you about where people were stupid on our trip. Apparently that night, a few people went out, drunk, and crashed an Indian wedding. Yeah, that’s right, they went to an Indian wedding, danced, rode an elephant, and got thrown out. Now, this is a very cool story to tell and I’m sure it was fun for them, but that is so disrespectful to the Indian culture, especially because this culture does not condone drinking. So these people came back, along with about half the trip who had gone out to drink all night, at about 5 in the morning, and we left at 7. Needless to say, we had a lot of hungover people that day, which became a trend on the trip.
That morning, we started driving to Agra, and we stopped at a giant Hindu Temple where we walked around barefoot to see all the gods and people praying. We even got kum-kum put on our foreheads to give us luck in our love lives. Cool, huh? We also stopped at an old fort that surrounded the ruins of the oldest temple in India, and the India Gate, which was gorgeous! Everywhere we went people tried to sell us things- flying helicopter toys, chips, postcards, etc. It got old very quickly, trying to tell them no, and it was only the first day! We got back on the bus for the long drive to Agra, which was about 5 hours in all. Kate and I listened to our iPods/slept the whole time, and we saw so much of the Indian countryside. We saw shacks, factories, schools (lots of colleges everywhere), cows, gas stations, markets, kids, traffic, and so much more. When we finally reached Agra, we finally got to go to an ATM and get out money, and then we went to dinner. We got to our hotel, which was literally in the middle of nowhere (apparently we were about ½ km away from the Taj Mahal), and paid $1 for almost an hour of internet. It was great- we checked our mail, our bank accounts, and caught up on world news. It was fantastic to be able to just be online, since on the ship we can’t check anything else except our ship-mail. Surprisingly, we did not check facebook. Anyone who knows me probably just gasped because I was definitely a bona fide facebook stalker this past quarter, but after so long without it, I’m kind of over it and don’t really miss it. Shocking, I know. Anyway, we played P’s and A’s with Chris and Sylvie until we finally went to sleep at about 1.
The next morning we woke up at 5 and went outside to meet everyone to go to the Taj. When we got outside we saw about 20 horse-drawn carriages waiting for us, and after everyone finally got there (we waited for some people for 45 minutes), we all rode 15 minutes until we almost got there. You can’t go past a certain point with any car or carriage, you have to walk the rest of the way because of pollution, so we walked until we reached the entrance, where we waited in line for another 45 minutes. ***Anna, don’t read this part.*** They searched our bags and wouldn’t let us take Afras in for some reason, and they took him away and we never saw him again. We’re sooo sorry!!! It was so sad and no one would tell us where he is because a lot of people didn’t speak English and we couldn’t find him. I guess it’s a cool story to tell that we lost him at the Taj, but he is gone. RIP Afras!
So now let me tell you about the Taj Mahal. When you enter, you have to walk through a building that’s sort of a gate, and the first view we got was framed by this magnificent building and the heads of about a thousand tourists, all bathed in warm light from the sunrise. It was absolutely gorgeous! It was very surreal standing there in front of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and even when we were right there, it looked like a movie screen or a backdrop picture…not the real thing. It was too beautiful. The marble literally sparkles as you stand there watching it, and the grounds are literally immaculate- so colorful and lovely. We stood there for about 5 minutes, just staring and trying to capture it all on our cameras. And then the coolest thing happened. I talked before about how we were having separation anxiety from being away from Vicky and Stephanie, and on the walk there, we said, “I wonder if we’ll see them there since they’re on a trip that’s going to be there”. And while we’re standing there, Kate says that we should look out for Pat, since he’s the tallest, and literally 10 seconds after she says that, we see them! They were walking back from the Taj along the walkway, and we just dropped everything and started running. And they saw us and started running, and it was a very cheesy, movie kind of moment! We were just so overwhelmed with the shock of it all, and we were all exhausted, and we just stood there and hugged for 2 or 3 minutes. They told us how their trip was not going well at all, and we only had about 5 minutes to talk to them before they had to leave, so we were all very sad. I just wanted to stay with them! But after they left, we had more time to look around, and we walked up to the Taj, put on shoe-covers, and went inside. It is a lot more magnificent outside than it is inside, but it was still cool to see the “tombs” in the big center room, and the architecture (Dad, I can’t wait to show you pictures…the architecture was so well-done and intricate!). We walked around to the back where we saw the huge river that runs behind it, and across the river, there was a huge dirt field, and we saw kids playing cricket there. Isn’t that cool? I bet they said, “Hey, I’ll meet you behind the Taj at 10. Nah…we went there yesterday…” haha. It was cool to be standing on top of this awe-inspiring monument and be watching the daily life of India be going on like it’s nothing. We walked back around to the front, saw the two temples that flank the Taj on both sides (gorgeous as well), and walked through the gardens for 15 minutes talking to Erin and Dalia and taking it all in. There is a platform halfway between the Taj and the entrance, and it’s a prime picture-taking spot, so we went to stand on it and snap about 50 pictures. We were trying to get a jumping picture, and while the four of us went up to jump, there was an Indian woman walking behind us, and we kicked her and almost knocked her off! It was crazy and we felt so bad! Everyone stared at us with their hands clapped over their mouths, and it was SILENT until at last, the woman laughed and said it was okay. We eventually got our jumping picture, but we were really embarrassed for a while there. We got a few more great pictures (including me in a “throw what you know” picture!! Love you guys!) We stayed there for almost 2 hours, and then it was time to leave. That was a weird feeling, like, “Yeah, we went to the Taj, let’s go have lunch”, ya know? On the way back to the hotel, the beggars and sellers were the worst they’d been yet. They were literally everywhere- pushing you, touching and tugging at you, and yelling in your ear. We felt so claustrophobic and just wanted to get back on the bus. It was insane, and we were really overwhelmed. And then we saw the saddest thing ever. Out of the crowd, we saw a man on the ground. When we looked closer we saw that his legs were twisted around his body and he was pulling himself along with his hands. I didn’t have any money to give him, so I just stepped around him as he pulled at my legs. As soon as I got on the bus, I started crying because I couldn’t make sense of everything going on, and I couldn’t help everyone…which I really wanted to. Everyone was so emotionally exhausted.
After making it back to the hotel, we barely had time for some toast before we headed out again. We checked out of our hotel and drove to the Agra Fort. It was really cool, but by this point, we were all so tired and it was about 97 degrees out, so we all were kinda out of it. We stayed there for about an hour and then went to lunch. We had another delicious lunch of chicken, naan, soup, and ice cream, and got on the bus for another long drive to Jaipur. We slept a lot and then had a 2 hour long conversation about Jodi Picoult books, old Nickelodeon shows, and what kinds of food are we most looking forward to when we get back (we said Kathy’s tacos and our mom’s chocolate logs!!) We stopped again for dinner, and of course, people used this as an opportunity to drink. But this time, they went crazy. By the time we got to the hotel in Jaipur, people were literally wasted. Some kids didn’t even know where they were, and apparently a few of them threw up on the bus all over others. Yeah…what a great way to spend your time in India!
So anyway, the next morning we got up and met at 7, and when we got on the busses, we were told that about 15 people wouldn’t be joining us because they couldn’t get out of bed they were so hungover. And they missed out on a lot because this was the most fun day yet! We went to a palace on top of a mountain, and it had a wall that we called “The Great Wall of India” because that’s exactly what it looked like. It was a long way up the wall to the top, and they provided us with elephants to ride! Kate and I rode one together, and ours was called “Chumpa”. He was huge, and he was the slowest one of all- it took us twice as long as anyone else to get to the top! But it was so much fun and something I’ve always wanted to do! We made it to the top and took a tour with the coolest tour guide ever- his name was Vikram. There were so many rooms and secret doorways…we got lost once or twice. But it was a blast, and afterwards we drove to the city palace in the center of old Jaipur. It was gorgeous, and we looked around for a while before buying a couple scarves at the store. I think we got 3 silk scarves each for about $10!
After leaving the palace, we went to a textile and carpet place where the man in charge showed us how they make carpets (by hand), clean them, and sell them. Then he gave us free sodas while he explained to us all about the export industry in India and all about his different carpets. After he was done, he took us to the textile part of the complex where he showed us how they do imprinting with wood stamps and ink, and then the storeroom where you can buy saris, scarves, and even dresses. A few girls had dresses made, and then we went back to the hotel. When we arrived, they put a show on for us! A little boy danced while his father and another man played instruments, and then they even gave us a puppet show! It was fantastic!!
After the show, we all wanted to go to Pizza Hut. That’s right, Pizza Hut in India! We wanted to take a rickshaw, so we found one that looked good and climbed in- there were 6 of us! If you’ve never seen a rickshaw before, it’s basically a seat for two people on wheels with a plastic roof. And we fit SIX people in it. We thought…oh, okay, it’ll only be 10 or 15 minutes- not too bad, right? WRONG! It took our driver 48 minutes to make it to the Pizza Hut because he didn’t speak any English and didn’t know where he was going. We found out that it was partially our fault because Kate had asked our guide what street it was on and he said what she thought was “Emay Rd” So that’s what we told our driver. After driving up and down Emay Rd, stopping every 20 ft to ask someone where the Pizza Hut, and our driver stopping to re-negotiate the price, we finally found someone who spoke English to tell us that there was no Pizza Hut on Emay Rd., but there was one on M.I. Rd. And they sound the exact same with an Indian accent, so Kate thought it was Emay instead of M.I. Funny tourist story, huh? Well, it wasn’t very funny at the time, and we both still have bruises from that ride, but we finally found the Pizza Hut and it was amazing! There was also a little girl there that we ended up playing with (kids just attach themselves to us, I guess), and we had some chocolate cake to finish with. On the way back, we all piled again into a rickshaw, although it was a bigger one with more room, so we made it back to the hotel without incident. A perfect ending to a great trip! Then we all went straight to sleep because we had to wake up early to catch our flight back to Chennai.
Our wake up call was 4 am, since we had to leave the hotel by 5. The drive to the airport didn’t take long, and we waited for check-in, trying not to fall asleep. When we were called to board the plane, we walked directly onto the tarmac to get on the plane. Like out onto the runway. There was a plane taking off not more than 100 feet away from us. It was pretty crazy. The flight was soooooo long. We went to 2 different airports (Ahemabad and Mumbai) before finally making it to Chennai. We took a bus back to the ship and basically cried when we saw it, we were so happy to be home again!
So, that’s what happened in India. The cut and dry. But let me tell you about the feeling of being there, the craziness of it all. One analogy I thought of while I was there was…imagine if you lived in the country of central Kansas your entire life. You’d never been to another town and were very comfortable in your surroundings and culture. Then imagine you take a trip to New York City. And you stand in the middle of Times Square on your first day there, and are forced to stay there, in the crazy traffic and throngs of people you don’t know, who have a completely different culture than you do, for 5 days. This is basically what it felt like to be in India…only times a thousand! The whole time we were there, I just felt mentally and emotionally incapable of taking it all in and processing it. There were so many things we saw that we never had before and probably never will again. For example, we were driving down the road in Agra and saw people using the bathroom. Right there, along the side of the road. And it wasn’t just a few. We must’ve seen someone going to the bathroom every 50 ft or so…just wherever there was room. Just imagine the smell when we got off the bus. Something else I noticed while we were there was that things were being constantly put into perspective for me, and for everyone else. When we’d get back on the bus, we’d start complaining, as young people like to do, about something stupid such as “it’s too hot” or “I’m tired”, or something like that. Then we’d look out the window or step off the bus and see all these people- with nothing. Literally nothing. Not even food or shoes. And we would immediately shut up. We had an air conditioned bus, food, clothes on our back, and the promise of going back to a 4-star hotel to sleep in a nice, warm bed. It made me really sad to think about everything we take for granted, and I have, on more than one occasion, caught myself before I complained about the ship food or the amount of homework I have, and thought about India. Another thing we saw a lot were the children. Children were everywhere- begging for food or money. They would wave at us or come up and hold our hands and it made me so sad. All of these smiling faces that didn’t seem to match up with the sick-looking bodies…so hungry and no food to give them. I wrote a poem the night we came back about the children we saw and it’s called “The Children Were Everywhere”:
The children were everywhere.
From the bus I see them smiling,
Waving and chasing us.
Seeing the world come to their town. Wanting more.
The children were everywhere.
In the streets and the slums.
Walking barefoot, dodging traffic.
Begging for the food they’re not sure they’ll get,
The food I don’t have to give them.
The children were everywhere.
Comfortable in their culture.
The sights, sounds, and smells that are so foreign to us.
If you look closely,
You can see all of India in their eyes.
The children were everywhere.
Everywhere I look, I see the Indian children.
And yet, everyone walks by them without a second glance.
And they are nowhere at all.
That’s about all I have right now. There is SO much more to tell you all about India, but it would take way too long, and I’m sure you’ll hear all about it when we return. We arrive in Thailand tomorrow, and Kate and I are going to the Pattaya Orphanage, which should be really great. Then I think we’re going to take a train to Bangkok and get a hostel and just explore it on Tuesday. We are so excited to see this beautiful country!!
We hope everyone’s doing well back home. Since we were in India and couldn’t post it: Happy Birthday, Kristina!!! We love you and hope it was wonderful!
We miss you and love you all!!
Sarah and Kate
When we finally reached the airport, we checked in and went through security. It was pretty easy and quick, except that the ladies who were patting us down got mad at us for wearing money belts because they didn’t understand what they were for. But after getting through all of that, we sat down in the airport and basically talked, half-slept, and people watched for an hour. We walked outside when our flight was called and boarded a small plane that SAS basically took over. Let me tell you- this flight was the best I have ever been on! The seats were big and comfortable, and they fed us the most delicious meal of chicken curry, rice, vegetables, rice pudding, and tea! It was awesome! After taking a quick nap, we landed in Delhi. Walking outside, we felt like celebrities. Everyone wanted to stare at us, take our pictures, or shout things at us, and I felt very uncomfortable and just wanted to get on the bus. Quick side note about the busses- at the diplomatic briefing, they told us that western tourists were targeted in terrorist attacks and to not hang out at “western” establishments or draw too much attention to ourselves. Well, guess what our bus had in big white letters across the front….TOURIST! We were all laughing, but with three tourist busses driving down the street, we were a tad scared. Anyway, we drove through downtown Delhi to our hotels, and Delhi looked a lot like Chennai with a little more of a “business” look to it…high rises and nice hotels downtown. We ended up splitting up into three different hotels, and without having a cell phone, it was hard to know what everyone was doing and where to find them, so Kate and I ended up walking around looking for people, and finally had dinner with a few other people on the rooftop of our hotel. We had chicken soup, which was basically noodles and fried chicken, without broth. It was good and cheap (the rupee right now is pegged to the US dollar at 50, which means for every 50 rupees we spent, it only cost us a dollar! For dinner and drinks for two people, I think we spent about $5). The hotel was nice, and we had a third roommate, Chelsea, who stayed with us. Kate and I were exhausted so we went to the room and watched Indian music videos (which are awesome by the way), American Idol, and Cops. haha. This is the first of those stories I’ll tell you about where people were stupid on our trip. Apparently that night, a few people went out, drunk, and crashed an Indian wedding. Yeah, that’s right, they went to an Indian wedding, danced, rode an elephant, and got thrown out. Now, this is a very cool story to tell and I’m sure it was fun for them, but that is so disrespectful to the Indian culture, especially because this culture does not condone drinking. So these people came back, along with about half the trip who had gone out to drink all night, at about 5 in the morning, and we left at 7. Needless to say, we had a lot of hungover people that day, which became a trend on the trip.
That morning, we started driving to Agra, and we stopped at a giant Hindu Temple where we walked around barefoot to see all the gods and people praying. We even got kum-kum put on our foreheads to give us luck in our love lives. Cool, huh? We also stopped at an old fort that surrounded the ruins of the oldest temple in India, and the India Gate, which was gorgeous! Everywhere we went people tried to sell us things- flying helicopter toys, chips, postcards, etc. It got old very quickly, trying to tell them no, and it was only the first day! We got back on the bus for the long drive to Agra, which was about 5 hours in all. Kate and I listened to our iPods/slept the whole time, and we saw so much of the Indian countryside. We saw shacks, factories, schools (lots of colleges everywhere), cows, gas stations, markets, kids, traffic, and so much more. When we finally reached Agra, we finally got to go to an ATM and get out money, and then we went to dinner. We got to our hotel, which was literally in the middle of nowhere (apparently we were about ½ km away from the Taj Mahal), and paid $1 for almost an hour of internet. It was great- we checked our mail, our bank accounts, and caught up on world news. It was fantastic to be able to just be online, since on the ship we can’t check anything else except our ship-mail. Surprisingly, we did not check facebook. Anyone who knows me probably just gasped because I was definitely a bona fide facebook stalker this past quarter, but after so long without it, I’m kind of over it and don’t really miss it. Shocking, I know. Anyway, we played P’s and A’s with Chris and Sylvie until we finally went to sleep at about 1.
The next morning we woke up at 5 and went outside to meet everyone to go to the Taj. When we got outside we saw about 20 horse-drawn carriages waiting for us, and after everyone finally got there (we waited for some people for 45 minutes), we all rode 15 minutes until we almost got there. You can’t go past a certain point with any car or carriage, you have to walk the rest of the way because of pollution, so we walked until we reached the entrance, where we waited in line for another 45 minutes. ***Anna, don’t read this part.*** They searched our bags and wouldn’t let us take Afras in for some reason, and they took him away and we never saw him again. We’re sooo sorry!!! It was so sad and no one would tell us where he is because a lot of people didn’t speak English and we couldn’t find him. I guess it’s a cool story to tell that we lost him at the Taj, but he is gone. RIP Afras!
So now let me tell you about the Taj Mahal. When you enter, you have to walk through a building that’s sort of a gate, and the first view we got was framed by this magnificent building and the heads of about a thousand tourists, all bathed in warm light from the sunrise. It was absolutely gorgeous! It was very surreal standing there in front of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and even when we were right there, it looked like a movie screen or a backdrop picture…not the real thing. It was too beautiful. The marble literally sparkles as you stand there watching it, and the grounds are literally immaculate- so colorful and lovely. We stood there for about 5 minutes, just staring and trying to capture it all on our cameras. And then the coolest thing happened. I talked before about how we were having separation anxiety from being away from Vicky and Stephanie, and on the walk there, we said, “I wonder if we’ll see them there since they’re on a trip that’s going to be there”. And while we’re standing there, Kate says that we should look out for Pat, since he’s the tallest, and literally 10 seconds after she says that, we see them! They were walking back from the Taj along the walkway, and we just dropped everything and started running. And they saw us and started running, and it was a very cheesy, movie kind of moment! We were just so overwhelmed with the shock of it all, and we were all exhausted, and we just stood there and hugged for 2 or 3 minutes. They told us how their trip was not going well at all, and we only had about 5 minutes to talk to them before they had to leave, so we were all very sad. I just wanted to stay with them! But after they left, we had more time to look around, and we walked up to the Taj, put on shoe-covers, and went inside. It is a lot more magnificent outside than it is inside, but it was still cool to see the “tombs” in the big center room, and the architecture (Dad, I can’t wait to show you pictures…the architecture was so well-done and intricate!). We walked around to the back where we saw the huge river that runs behind it, and across the river, there was a huge dirt field, and we saw kids playing cricket there. Isn’t that cool? I bet they said, “Hey, I’ll meet you behind the Taj at 10. Nah…we went there yesterday…” haha. It was cool to be standing on top of this awe-inspiring monument and be watching the daily life of India be going on like it’s nothing. We walked back around to the front, saw the two temples that flank the Taj on both sides (gorgeous as well), and walked through the gardens for 15 minutes talking to Erin and Dalia and taking it all in. There is a platform halfway between the Taj and the entrance, and it’s a prime picture-taking spot, so we went to stand on it and snap about 50 pictures. We were trying to get a jumping picture, and while the four of us went up to jump, there was an Indian woman walking behind us, and we kicked her and almost knocked her off! It was crazy and we felt so bad! Everyone stared at us with their hands clapped over their mouths, and it was SILENT until at last, the woman laughed and said it was okay. We eventually got our jumping picture, but we were really embarrassed for a while there. We got a few more great pictures (including me in a “throw what you know” picture!! Love you guys!) We stayed there for almost 2 hours, and then it was time to leave. That was a weird feeling, like, “Yeah, we went to the Taj, let’s go have lunch”, ya know? On the way back to the hotel, the beggars and sellers were the worst they’d been yet. They were literally everywhere- pushing you, touching and tugging at you, and yelling in your ear. We felt so claustrophobic and just wanted to get back on the bus. It was insane, and we were really overwhelmed. And then we saw the saddest thing ever. Out of the crowd, we saw a man on the ground. When we looked closer we saw that his legs were twisted around his body and he was pulling himself along with his hands. I didn’t have any money to give him, so I just stepped around him as he pulled at my legs. As soon as I got on the bus, I started crying because I couldn’t make sense of everything going on, and I couldn’t help everyone…which I really wanted to. Everyone was so emotionally exhausted.
After making it back to the hotel, we barely had time for some toast before we headed out again. We checked out of our hotel and drove to the Agra Fort. It was really cool, but by this point, we were all so tired and it was about 97 degrees out, so we all were kinda out of it. We stayed there for about an hour and then went to lunch. We had another delicious lunch of chicken, naan, soup, and ice cream, and got on the bus for another long drive to Jaipur. We slept a lot and then had a 2 hour long conversation about Jodi Picoult books, old Nickelodeon shows, and what kinds of food are we most looking forward to when we get back (we said Kathy’s tacos and our mom’s chocolate logs!!) We stopped again for dinner, and of course, people used this as an opportunity to drink. But this time, they went crazy. By the time we got to the hotel in Jaipur, people were literally wasted. Some kids didn’t even know where they were, and apparently a few of them threw up on the bus all over others. Yeah…what a great way to spend your time in India!
So anyway, the next morning we got up and met at 7, and when we got on the busses, we were told that about 15 people wouldn’t be joining us because they couldn’t get out of bed they were so hungover. And they missed out on a lot because this was the most fun day yet! We went to a palace on top of a mountain, and it had a wall that we called “The Great Wall of India” because that’s exactly what it looked like. It was a long way up the wall to the top, and they provided us with elephants to ride! Kate and I rode one together, and ours was called “Chumpa”. He was huge, and he was the slowest one of all- it took us twice as long as anyone else to get to the top! But it was so much fun and something I’ve always wanted to do! We made it to the top and took a tour with the coolest tour guide ever- his name was Vikram. There were so many rooms and secret doorways…we got lost once or twice. But it was a blast, and afterwards we drove to the city palace in the center of old Jaipur. It was gorgeous, and we looked around for a while before buying a couple scarves at the store. I think we got 3 silk scarves each for about $10!
After leaving the palace, we went to a textile and carpet place where the man in charge showed us how they make carpets (by hand), clean them, and sell them. Then he gave us free sodas while he explained to us all about the export industry in India and all about his different carpets. After he was done, he took us to the textile part of the complex where he showed us how they do imprinting with wood stamps and ink, and then the storeroom where you can buy saris, scarves, and even dresses. A few girls had dresses made, and then we went back to the hotel. When we arrived, they put a show on for us! A little boy danced while his father and another man played instruments, and then they even gave us a puppet show! It was fantastic!!
After the show, we all wanted to go to Pizza Hut. That’s right, Pizza Hut in India! We wanted to take a rickshaw, so we found one that looked good and climbed in- there were 6 of us! If you’ve never seen a rickshaw before, it’s basically a seat for two people on wheels with a plastic roof. And we fit SIX people in it. We thought…oh, okay, it’ll only be 10 or 15 minutes- not too bad, right? WRONG! It took our driver 48 minutes to make it to the Pizza Hut because he didn’t speak any English and didn’t know where he was going. We found out that it was partially our fault because Kate had asked our guide what street it was on and he said what she thought was “Emay Rd” So that’s what we told our driver. After driving up and down Emay Rd, stopping every 20 ft to ask someone where the Pizza Hut, and our driver stopping to re-negotiate the price, we finally found someone who spoke English to tell us that there was no Pizza Hut on Emay Rd., but there was one on M.I. Rd. And they sound the exact same with an Indian accent, so Kate thought it was Emay instead of M.I. Funny tourist story, huh? Well, it wasn’t very funny at the time, and we both still have bruises from that ride, but we finally found the Pizza Hut and it was amazing! There was also a little girl there that we ended up playing with (kids just attach themselves to us, I guess), and we had some chocolate cake to finish with. On the way back, we all piled again into a rickshaw, although it was a bigger one with more room, so we made it back to the hotel without incident. A perfect ending to a great trip! Then we all went straight to sleep because we had to wake up early to catch our flight back to Chennai.
Our wake up call was 4 am, since we had to leave the hotel by 5. The drive to the airport didn’t take long, and we waited for check-in, trying not to fall asleep. When we were called to board the plane, we walked directly onto the tarmac to get on the plane. Like out onto the runway. There was a plane taking off not more than 100 feet away from us. It was pretty crazy. The flight was soooooo long. We went to 2 different airports (Ahemabad and Mumbai) before finally making it to Chennai. We took a bus back to the ship and basically cried when we saw it, we were so happy to be home again!
So, that’s what happened in India. The cut and dry. But let me tell you about the feeling of being there, the craziness of it all. One analogy I thought of while I was there was…imagine if you lived in the country of central Kansas your entire life. You’d never been to another town and were very comfortable in your surroundings and culture. Then imagine you take a trip to New York City. And you stand in the middle of Times Square on your first day there, and are forced to stay there, in the crazy traffic and throngs of people you don’t know, who have a completely different culture than you do, for 5 days. This is basically what it felt like to be in India…only times a thousand! The whole time we were there, I just felt mentally and emotionally incapable of taking it all in and processing it. There were so many things we saw that we never had before and probably never will again. For example, we were driving down the road in Agra and saw people using the bathroom. Right there, along the side of the road. And it wasn’t just a few. We must’ve seen someone going to the bathroom every 50 ft or so…just wherever there was room. Just imagine the smell when we got off the bus. Something else I noticed while we were there was that things were being constantly put into perspective for me, and for everyone else. When we’d get back on the bus, we’d start complaining, as young people like to do, about something stupid such as “it’s too hot” or “I’m tired”, or something like that. Then we’d look out the window or step off the bus and see all these people- with nothing. Literally nothing. Not even food or shoes. And we would immediately shut up. We had an air conditioned bus, food, clothes on our back, and the promise of going back to a 4-star hotel to sleep in a nice, warm bed. It made me really sad to think about everything we take for granted, and I have, on more than one occasion, caught myself before I complained about the ship food or the amount of homework I have, and thought about India. Another thing we saw a lot were the children. Children were everywhere- begging for food or money. They would wave at us or come up and hold our hands and it made me so sad. All of these smiling faces that didn’t seem to match up with the sick-looking bodies…so hungry and no food to give them. I wrote a poem the night we came back about the children we saw and it’s called “The Children Were Everywhere”:
The children were everywhere.
From the bus I see them smiling,
Waving and chasing us.
Seeing the world come to their town. Wanting more.
The children were everywhere.
In the streets and the slums.
Walking barefoot, dodging traffic.
Begging for the food they’re not sure they’ll get,
The food I don’t have to give them.
The children were everywhere.
Comfortable in their culture.
The sights, sounds, and smells that are so foreign to us.
If you look closely,
You can see all of India in their eyes.
The children were everywhere.
Everywhere I look, I see the Indian children.
And yet, everyone walks by them without a second glance.
And they are nowhere at all.
That’s about all I have right now. There is SO much more to tell you all about India, but it would take way too long, and I’m sure you’ll hear all about it when we return. We arrive in Thailand tomorrow, and Kate and I are going to the Pattaya Orphanage, which should be really great. Then I think we’re going to take a train to Bangkok and get a hostel and just explore it on Tuesday. We are so excited to see this beautiful country!!
We hope everyone’s doing well back home. Since we were in India and couldn’t post it: Happy Birthday, Kristina!!! We love you and hope it was wonderful!
We miss you and love you all!!
Sarah and Kate
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Chennai, India
Hello everyone!
A super quick update to let everyone know that we arrived in Chennai early this morning and we are boarding a flight to Delhi to go see the Taj Mahal!! We'll be gone for 5 days and we're going to see SO much. We are extremely excited and more than a little anxious, but we're hoping everything turns out okay and we're looking forward to the impact India will surely have on us.
We'll write all about it when we get back. We love you all and miss you tons.
Talk to you soon!
Kate and Sarah
A super quick update to let everyone know that we arrived in Chennai early this morning and we are boarding a flight to Delhi to go see the Taj Mahal!! We'll be gone for 5 days and we're going to see SO much. We are extremely excited and more than a little anxious, but we're hoping everything turns out okay and we're looking forward to the impact India will surely have on us.
We'll write all about it when we get back. We love you all and miss you tons.
Talk to you soon!
Kate and Sarah
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Mauritius & Sea Olympics!
WARNING: This is a long entry. ☺
Enjoy!
The last few days have been some of the craziest and busiest days on this trip, but they have been extremely fun and refreshing. It was nice to not have class and to get to relax and recharge. On Friday, we pulled into Port Louis, Mauritius around 0800 to beautiful weather. Although we could tell it was going to be a hot day because by 0900 when we finally got off the ship it was very humid and hot. We got off the ship with Stephanie, Victoria, and Pat, and got straight on a bus to go to the Adventure Park. Our bus driver was crazy! He was very impatient and weaved in and out of traffic and slam on his brakes. We even rear-ended a car in front of us and got pulled over within 15 minutes of leaving the pier. It was kind of ridiculous. We drove for about an hour and a half through the capital city and up into the mountains. If any of you have ever been to the Blue Ridge Parkway in America, think of how windy and curvy those roads are and multiply that by 100. The roads that wound up the mountain were basically U-turns for 15 minutes! We would drive around a sharp curve and go right into the next one. And we were doing all of this in a big coach bus on tiny little roads. It was interesting to say the least. We finally got to the park and we were all relieved to get off the bus. There was a small building with a front desk and a sitting room and we went inside and got our harnesses put on and put tons of bug spray on and headed off. The park was essentially one giant high ropes course placed throughout the mountain in between the trees and hills. The view was incredible! And we were all just in awe of the beauty that was all around us. And then we started the course. Haha. It wasn’t too hard at first—just a couple of bridges that got more shaky or had a few more beams missing the farther we got in the course. Then we got to the actual ropes. There were a few that were basically tightropes in different forms that we had to walk across. It was so much fun and I got some funny pictures of Stephanie at one point when she lost her balance and was hanging on the ropes in an incredibly awkward position! One of the last things we came across was a giant cargo net hung between two trees that we just had to climb across sideways. This was the hardest thing and we are all still sore from it! But after that we got to go on a small and refreshing zip line before we returned to the main reception area for lunch. We were all exhausted and extremely hot and we had all been eaten alive by mosquitoes (even though we put on 2 coats of bug spray with Deet!) so we got back on the bus and headed for the beach.
We went to Flic-en-Flac Beach which is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. The sand was sparkling white and the water was incredible—blue and green and just the right temperature. We paid $10 for 2 chairs and an umbrella and we all jumped in the water and then took naps in the shade of the umbrella. It was the perfect way to end the day and we couldn’t stop thinking how lucky we all were to be laying on a beach in paradise with nothing to do. We only had about 2 ½ hours there before we had be get back on the bus, so we walked down to the supermarket and bought some newspapers, postcards, and some ice cream bars. The clerk rang us up for MAR1140 and we thought that was high but we were in a hurry and didn’t have time to do the conversion exactly. And she had a scanner and computer so we thought it was right. But Sarah and I got ripped off 610 Rupees! Which is only about US$20, but still, we were very surprised when we got back on the bus and realized what the clerk had done, but we didn’t have time to go back and confront her, so we let it go.
We got back on the crazy bus and held on for dear life the whole way back to the ship. We played word games and talked, and some people got dropped off at the waterfront so they could at dinner and drink before they had to get back on the ship. But we all wanted to go back to the ship because they told us they were having another BBQ for dinner and we were all very excited. On Neptune Day, the BBQ was very good—hot dogs, hamburgers, corn, ice cream sundaes, etc. But we were all very disappointed because all they had was some BBQ chicken and nothing else that even remotely resembled BBQ food. But it was too late to get off the ship so we just ate whatever we could and then stood at the railing and watched all the students pull up in water taxis and normal taxis and stumble into line. Everyone was drunk! It was pretty funny to watch.
We hung out for a while talking to people about their experience in Mauritius and then got ready for the Opening Ceremonies of the Sea Olympics!! We are the Bering Sea (our hallway on Deck 4 port) and our color is purple. So everyone painted themselves with purple face paint and donned scarves, bandanas, tights—anything they owned that was purple. And we got our mascot, Tiffany, ready as the best pirate ever! We are the Bering Sea Purple Pirates and she had on a pirate costume and a boat that hung on strings from her shoulders with an aluminum foil sword. We were all pretty pumped up and we were screaming and chanting and waving purple balloons around. The other seas got crazy, too. There are 10 seas on the ship and some of the other ones were: Arabian Sea (Brown—UPS), Adriatic Sea (Pink Panthers), Aegean Sea (Gang Green), Red Sea (Red Bulls), Mediterranean Sea (Blue Smurfs), Yellow Sea (Yellow Fever), Baltic Sea (Black Ninjas), Caribbean Sea (Orange-Convicts), and the “Oddies-C” (White—the faculty, staff, life-long-learners, & dependent children sea). It was a lot of fun watching everyone go crazy with their colors and their mascot. There are a lot of creative people on this ship! We all made flags, too, and ours was a big white cloth that was soaked in tea bags with a few holes burned into it and a big treasure map painted on it. We had even painted purple sea creatures in the waters and written “Bering Sea Purple Pirates” in old scroll. Our cheer was pretty awesome—we wrote an SAS-themed “song” to the tune of the pirate song. It went like this:
Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, a pirate’s life for me
We live on a ship, we try not to trip,
We’re here for the Bering Sea
We’re purple, we plunder, we’ll drag you under
We’re here for the Bering Sea
So join the ranks or walk the plank
We’re here for the Bering Sea
Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, a pirate’s life for me!
It was so much fun and we were really loud! A lot of us lost our voices after that. After the ceremonies, we watched “Slumdog Millionaire” in the Union. It was an incredible movie and we loved it, but it was very sad. It was set in India and it actually made us a little nervous to get to India—well, more than we already were.
The next morning, yesterday morning, we woke up early to eat breakfast and get ready for the first event of the day. Sarah had volleyball at 0930 and they won 2 out of 3 games and got to move on to the 2nd round. My first event was the O-Relay. We stood in a line and passed an orange to each other using only our necks. We were the only team to get it all the way down the line on the first try without dropping it! Then we tagged another person who did a wheelbarrow race and when they were finished they came back and tagged us and we did a fireman’s pass. This is where we all stood in a line with a cup and the first person scooped water out of the pool and poured it into one cup, then we poured it into the next, and so on. We were the first team to fill our bucket at the end of the line and we got gold for the relay. We were feeling pretty good about our team at that point and we all dispersed to go to our next events. I didn’t have another event until 1430, so I walked around and watched some of the other events. They included a Paper Boat Construction & Float (we had a cool boat but it sank like the Titanic and went straight to the bottom of the pool), Twister, Spelling Bee (we got Silver), Pictionary, Texas Hold ‘Em (We got Gold), Dodgeball, Sudoku, Hula Hoop Contest, Flip Cup, Limbo, and a Mashed Potato Sculpting Contest! We got Bronze in the Mashed Potato Sculpting with a man holding the world and the words “Ubuntu” and “SAS 09” around it. I didn’t know mashed potatoes could be sculpted like that! Other teams made a Pink Panther, the Taj Mahal, and Les McCabe! There was food coloring and everything, it was pretty intense. Sarah’s next event was Tug-of-War, which we lost horribly because we have the smallest sea and only 10 guys on our whole sea, most of whom were off doing a different event. The Workout Relay was also around this time and it was the most hardcore thing of the entire day! The participants were so intense and have incredible determination. There was a push up contest, a chin-up contest, a sit-up contest, and a wall-sit contest. Les McCabe did the chin-up contest and he is so strong! And there was a girl that did 53 full sit-ups in 1 minute! It was tiring just to watch. I don’t think that our team did too well in the first three parts, but we dominated in the wall-sit. We had Tiffany (our mascot) do it and she did a wall-sit for 17 minutes!! And she wasn’t the only one—Abby (a dependent child, probably about 10 or 11) was right there beside her the entire time! It was unbelievable. At 5 minutes they had to raise their arms up in the air, at 8 minutes they had to lift their heels up, and at 10 minutes they had to cross one leg over the other and wall-sit with one leg. So for the last 7 minutes, they were sitting their with their arms up, their heels raised, and one leg crossed over the other. It was awesome to watch and we were cheering them both on even though Abby was on the other team because she was amazing and it didn’t even seem to phase her. SO we tied for gold in that one, but we didn’t place in the Workout Relay because we weren’t strong in the other three parts. But it was still really cool to watch. Sarah went back to play the 2nd round of volleyball and they lost, but they said it was still fun. My next event was the M&M Find. Basically, they put 10 M&Ms on 20 blue plates, covered them with tons of whipped cream, and 2 people from each team had to find all the M&Ms and drop them in a cup using only our mouths! It was held outside on 6th deck aft which was a really bad idea because it was SO hot and the whipped cream had melted and resembled old milk by the time we started. But it was so fun! It’s a lot harder than you’d think, and I only found 9 because one of them had slipped off the plate hidden inside a bunch of whipped cream. Haha. It was all over—in my hair, my eyes, and all over my face! After that, I had to go get ready for the Human Knot. There were 10 people from each team that stood in a circle and grabbed hands with 2 other people and we had to get untangled into a circle formation. It was SO much harder than it looked and we ended up getting ourselves more tangled up then when we started. And it was also held on 6th deck aft, so we were all sweaty and hugging and wrapped around each other. It was so funny and we never actually finished. After the 10 minute time limit we all had to just let go and head off to our next events. I was done after that, but Sarah had Synchronized Swimming at 1600. This was crazy! Everyone was gathered around the pool like we were on Neptune Day and we got to watch each team of 10 people dance to crazy music on the deck and in the pool. Most of them were awesome and very creative and funny. One of them made fun of Les McCabe and his weight lifting, and they even had Luke record a fake “noon announcement” about missing weights on their music mix. It was very funny. The Aegean Sea (who got gold) did a music mix that started with “Thriller” and it was really good. Most teams lifted people up and/or flipped and jumped. The Mediterranean Sea used “Umbrella” as one of their songs and even had a routine worked out with their umbrellas. There were many guys donning bikinis and some of the faculty in the Oddies-C even had balloons under their white t-shirts. Haha…you can guess why. And when they jumped in the pool the balloons moved and were on their shoulders! It was hilarious! Our team had some crazy technical difficulty with our music (“Put your Records On” by Corinne Bailey Rae was the song on the person’s iPod right before “Pump It” and the first 10 seconds of it played about 50 times. It was so funny and awkward and now everyone probably hates that song!) and half the team forgot the routine and it was bad! It wasn’t too bad, actually, but it wasn’t the best. Half of the team had shirts on in different colors that represented the other teams and we all yelled “Walk the Plank” at one point and the other half of our team pushed them in. And they did a routine to “Pump It” by the Black Eyed Peas. And at the end, Tiffany (in her mascot costume) yelled “Pirates Unite” and 3-4 of us from the audience ran and jumped in the pool in our clothes and we all started doing our cheer. It was awesome! Haha…at least we were spirited! We ended up getting dead last, but we had a lot of fun with it.
After all the excitement, we went and dried off and had dinner. We ate dinner with the twins and Pat and we had just been talking about how sick we were of ship food and how the dessert looked inedible when a group of girls brought half of a giant birthday cake over and asked if we would finish it for them. We all eagerly said “of course!” and finished it off. It was delicious and we were all very satisfied and went to play cards in the Union until Closing Ceremonies. The Closing Ceremonies were not as crazy as the Opening Ceremonies had been the previous night because everyone was completely exhausted from a full day of competitions, but we were all still excited to find out who won. We swept the awards from the first night, getting Gold in the Flag contest and the Mascot contest, and we got Silver for our cheer! We might not have done very well in the actually events, but we were very spirited. And the best part was that we got 3rd place overall! We honestly were not even expecting to place, and we tied for Bronze with the Arabian and Yellow Seas. The Red Sea got Silver and the Adriatic Pink Panthers got Gold. They really deserved it! The prize for the first place winner is they get to get off the ship first in Ft. Lauderdale. And for that reason I did not want to win. We’ll all have to get off eventually, but we’re going to try to stretch it out as long as possible.
We never want to leave and we can’t believe it’s March already. We keep hearing from alums and professors and staff to enjoy every minute and soak it all in because it’s over before you know it. We are making the most of our trip and every minute of every day I have to stop and ask myself if this is real and we are both extremely grateful to be on this unbelievable adventure.
We went to sleep fairly early last night after watching a movie because we had to go back to normal (well, normal for SAS) life today. Sarah and I both have midterms and projects due tomorrow so we’ve been studying all day.
We had our first meeting today about the SOS Auction and I’m excited to plan it, it seems like it’s going to be fun.
Other than that, we’re just getting ready for India—we get there on Thursday!
We love and miss you all and we hope you are doing well!
-K&S-
Enjoy!
The last few days have been some of the craziest and busiest days on this trip, but they have been extremely fun and refreshing. It was nice to not have class and to get to relax and recharge. On Friday, we pulled into Port Louis, Mauritius around 0800 to beautiful weather. Although we could tell it was going to be a hot day because by 0900 when we finally got off the ship it was very humid and hot. We got off the ship with Stephanie, Victoria, and Pat, and got straight on a bus to go to the Adventure Park. Our bus driver was crazy! He was very impatient and weaved in and out of traffic and slam on his brakes. We even rear-ended a car in front of us and got pulled over within 15 minutes of leaving the pier. It was kind of ridiculous. We drove for about an hour and a half through the capital city and up into the mountains. If any of you have ever been to the Blue Ridge Parkway in America, think of how windy and curvy those roads are and multiply that by 100. The roads that wound up the mountain were basically U-turns for 15 minutes! We would drive around a sharp curve and go right into the next one. And we were doing all of this in a big coach bus on tiny little roads. It was interesting to say the least. We finally got to the park and we were all relieved to get off the bus. There was a small building with a front desk and a sitting room and we went inside and got our harnesses put on and put tons of bug spray on and headed off. The park was essentially one giant high ropes course placed throughout the mountain in between the trees and hills. The view was incredible! And we were all just in awe of the beauty that was all around us. And then we started the course. Haha. It wasn’t too hard at first—just a couple of bridges that got more shaky or had a few more beams missing the farther we got in the course. Then we got to the actual ropes. There were a few that were basically tightropes in different forms that we had to walk across. It was so much fun and I got some funny pictures of Stephanie at one point when she lost her balance and was hanging on the ropes in an incredibly awkward position! One of the last things we came across was a giant cargo net hung between two trees that we just had to climb across sideways. This was the hardest thing and we are all still sore from it! But after that we got to go on a small and refreshing zip line before we returned to the main reception area for lunch. We were all exhausted and extremely hot and we had all been eaten alive by mosquitoes (even though we put on 2 coats of bug spray with Deet!) so we got back on the bus and headed for the beach.
We went to Flic-en-Flac Beach which is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. The sand was sparkling white and the water was incredible—blue and green and just the right temperature. We paid $10 for 2 chairs and an umbrella and we all jumped in the water and then took naps in the shade of the umbrella. It was the perfect way to end the day and we couldn’t stop thinking how lucky we all were to be laying on a beach in paradise with nothing to do. We only had about 2 ½ hours there before we had be get back on the bus, so we walked down to the supermarket and bought some newspapers, postcards, and some ice cream bars. The clerk rang us up for MAR1140 and we thought that was high but we were in a hurry and didn’t have time to do the conversion exactly. And she had a scanner and computer so we thought it was right. But Sarah and I got ripped off 610 Rupees! Which is only about US$20, but still, we were very surprised when we got back on the bus and realized what the clerk had done, but we didn’t have time to go back and confront her, so we let it go.
We got back on the crazy bus and held on for dear life the whole way back to the ship. We played word games and talked, and some people got dropped off at the waterfront so they could at dinner and drink before they had to get back on the ship. But we all wanted to go back to the ship because they told us they were having another BBQ for dinner and we were all very excited. On Neptune Day, the BBQ was very good—hot dogs, hamburgers, corn, ice cream sundaes, etc. But we were all very disappointed because all they had was some BBQ chicken and nothing else that even remotely resembled BBQ food. But it was too late to get off the ship so we just ate whatever we could and then stood at the railing and watched all the students pull up in water taxis and normal taxis and stumble into line. Everyone was drunk! It was pretty funny to watch.
We hung out for a while talking to people about their experience in Mauritius and then got ready for the Opening Ceremonies of the Sea Olympics!! We are the Bering Sea (our hallway on Deck 4 port) and our color is purple. So everyone painted themselves with purple face paint and donned scarves, bandanas, tights—anything they owned that was purple. And we got our mascot, Tiffany, ready as the best pirate ever! We are the Bering Sea Purple Pirates and she had on a pirate costume and a boat that hung on strings from her shoulders with an aluminum foil sword. We were all pretty pumped up and we were screaming and chanting and waving purple balloons around. The other seas got crazy, too. There are 10 seas on the ship and some of the other ones were: Arabian Sea (Brown—UPS), Adriatic Sea (Pink Panthers), Aegean Sea (Gang Green), Red Sea (Red Bulls), Mediterranean Sea (Blue Smurfs), Yellow Sea (Yellow Fever), Baltic Sea (Black Ninjas), Caribbean Sea (Orange-Convicts), and the “Oddies-C” (White—the faculty, staff, life-long-learners, & dependent children sea). It was a lot of fun watching everyone go crazy with their colors and their mascot. There are a lot of creative people on this ship! We all made flags, too, and ours was a big white cloth that was soaked in tea bags with a few holes burned into it and a big treasure map painted on it. We had even painted purple sea creatures in the waters and written “Bering Sea Purple Pirates” in old scroll. Our cheer was pretty awesome—we wrote an SAS-themed “song” to the tune of the pirate song. It went like this:
Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, a pirate’s life for me
We live on a ship, we try not to trip,
We’re here for the Bering Sea
We’re purple, we plunder, we’ll drag you under
We’re here for the Bering Sea
So join the ranks or walk the plank
We’re here for the Bering Sea
Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, a pirate’s life for me!
It was so much fun and we were really loud! A lot of us lost our voices after that. After the ceremonies, we watched “Slumdog Millionaire” in the Union. It was an incredible movie and we loved it, but it was very sad. It was set in India and it actually made us a little nervous to get to India—well, more than we already were.
The next morning, yesterday morning, we woke up early to eat breakfast and get ready for the first event of the day. Sarah had volleyball at 0930 and they won 2 out of 3 games and got to move on to the 2nd round. My first event was the O-Relay. We stood in a line and passed an orange to each other using only our necks. We were the only team to get it all the way down the line on the first try without dropping it! Then we tagged another person who did a wheelbarrow race and when they were finished they came back and tagged us and we did a fireman’s pass. This is where we all stood in a line with a cup and the first person scooped water out of the pool and poured it into one cup, then we poured it into the next, and so on. We were the first team to fill our bucket at the end of the line and we got gold for the relay. We were feeling pretty good about our team at that point and we all dispersed to go to our next events. I didn’t have another event until 1430, so I walked around and watched some of the other events. They included a Paper Boat Construction & Float (we had a cool boat but it sank like the Titanic and went straight to the bottom of the pool), Twister, Spelling Bee (we got Silver), Pictionary, Texas Hold ‘Em (We got Gold), Dodgeball, Sudoku, Hula Hoop Contest, Flip Cup, Limbo, and a Mashed Potato Sculpting Contest! We got Bronze in the Mashed Potato Sculpting with a man holding the world and the words “Ubuntu” and “SAS 09” around it. I didn’t know mashed potatoes could be sculpted like that! Other teams made a Pink Panther, the Taj Mahal, and Les McCabe! There was food coloring and everything, it was pretty intense. Sarah’s next event was Tug-of-War, which we lost horribly because we have the smallest sea and only 10 guys on our whole sea, most of whom were off doing a different event. The Workout Relay was also around this time and it was the most hardcore thing of the entire day! The participants were so intense and have incredible determination. There was a push up contest, a chin-up contest, a sit-up contest, and a wall-sit contest. Les McCabe did the chin-up contest and he is so strong! And there was a girl that did 53 full sit-ups in 1 minute! It was tiring just to watch. I don’t think that our team did too well in the first three parts, but we dominated in the wall-sit. We had Tiffany (our mascot) do it and she did a wall-sit for 17 minutes!! And she wasn’t the only one—Abby (a dependent child, probably about 10 or 11) was right there beside her the entire time! It was unbelievable. At 5 minutes they had to raise their arms up in the air, at 8 minutes they had to lift their heels up, and at 10 minutes they had to cross one leg over the other and wall-sit with one leg. So for the last 7 minutes, they were sitting their with their arms up, their heels raised, and one leg crossed over the other. It was awesome to watch and we were cheering them both on even though Abby was on the other team because she was amazing and it didn’t even seem to phase her. SO we tied for gold in that one, but we didn’t place in the Workout Relay because we weren’t strong in the other three parts. But it was still really cool to watch. Sarah went back to play the 2nd round of volleyball and they lost, but they said it was still fun. My next event was the M&M Find. Basically, they put 10 M&Ms on 20 blue plates, covered them with tons of whipped cream, and 2 people from each team had to find all the M&Ms and drop them in a cup using only our mouths! It was held outside on 6th deck aft which was a really bad idea because it was SO hot and the whipped cream had melted and resembled old milk by the time we started. But it was so fun! It’s a lot harder than you’d think, and I only found 9 because one of them had slipped off the plate hidden inside a bunch of whipped cream. Haha. It was all over—in my hair, my eyes, and all over my face! After that, I had to go get ready for the Human Knot. There were 10 people from each team that stood in a circle and grabbed hands with 2 other people and we had to get untangled into a circle formation. It was SO much harder than it looked and we ended up getting ourselves more tangled up then when we started. And it was also held on 6th deck aft, so we were all sweaty and hugging and wrapped around each other. It was so funny and we never actually finished. After the 10 minute time limit we all had to just let go and head off to our next events. I was done after that, but Sarah had Synchronized Swimming at 1600. This was crazy! Everyone was gathered around the pool like we were on Neptune Day and we got to watch each team of 10 people dance to crazy music on the deck and in the pool. Most of them were awesome and very creative and funny. One of them made fun of Les McCabe and his weight lifting, and they even had Luke record a fake “noon announcement” about missing weights on their music mix. It was very funny. The Aegean Sea (who got gold) did a music mix that started with “Thriller” and it was really good. Most teams lifted people up and/or flipped and jumped. The Mediterranean Sea used “Umbrella” as one of their songs and even had a routine worked out with their umbrellas. There were many guys donning bikinis and some of the faculty in the Oddies-C even had balloons under their white t-shirts. Haha…you can guess why. And when they jumped in the pool the balloons moved and were on their shoulders! It was hilarious! Our team had some crazy technical difficulty with our music (“Put your Records On” by Corinne Bailey Rae was the song on the person’s iPod right before “Pump It” and the first 10 seconds of it played about 50 times. It was so funny and awkward and now everyone probably hates that song!) and half the team forgot the routine and it was bad! It wasn’t too bad, actually, but it wasn’t the best. Half of the team had shirts on in different colors that represented the other teams and we all yelled “Walk the Plank” at one point and the other half of our team pushed them in. And they did a routine to “Pump It” by the Black Eyed Peas. And at the end, Tiffany (in her mascot costume) yelled “Pirates Unite” and 3-4 of us from the audience ran and jumped in the pool in our clothes and we all started doing our cheer. It was awesome! Haha…at least we were spirited! We ended up getting dead last, but we had a lot of fun with it.
After all the excitement, we went and dried off and had dinner. We ate dinner with the twins and Pat and we had just been talking about how sick we were of ship food and how the dessert looked inedible when a group of girls brought half of a giant birthday cake over and asked if we would finish it for them. We all eagerly said “of course!” and finished it off. It was delicious and we were all very satisfied and went to play cards in the Union until Closing Ceremonies. The Closing Ceremonies were not as crazy as the Opening Ceremonies had been the previous night because everyone was completely exhausted from a full day of competitions, but we were all still excited to find out who won. We swept the awards from the first night, getting Gold in the Flag contest and the Mascot contest, and we got Silver for our cheer! We might not have done very well in the actually events, but we were very spirited. And the best part was that we got 3rd place overall! We honestly were not even expecting to place, and we tied for Bronze with the Arabian and Yellow Seas. The Red Sea got Silver and the Adriatic Pink Panthers got Gold. They really deserved it! The prize for the first place winner is they get to get off the ship first in Ft. Lauderdale. And for that reason I did not want to win. We’ll all have to get off eventually, but we’re going to try to stretch it out as long as possible.
We never want to leave and we can’t believe it’s March already. We keep hearing from alums and professors and staff to enjoy every minute and soak it all in because it’s over before you know it. We are making the most of our trip and every minute of every day I have to stop and ask myself if this is real and we are both extremely grateful to be on this unbelievable adventure.
We went to sleep fairly early last night after watching a movie because we had to go back to normal (well, normal for SAS) life today. Sarah and I both have midterms and projects due tomorrow so we’ve been studying all day.
We had our first meeting today about the SOS Auction and I’m excited to plan it, it seems like it’s going to be fun.
Other than that, we’re just getting ready for India—we get there on Thursday!
We love and miss you all and we hope you are doing well!
-K&S-
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