Gaps, Ambassadors, Tacos, and Bollywood

 Here is a compilation of randomly super awesome things that have occurred while we have been sailing from Rio to Manaus!  *please note that these are not necessarily listed in chronological order just whatever popped into my brain next*

Over this 8 day crossing from Rio to Manaus we have had a host of superbly awesome events and such that have occurred which seriously made  up for the mostly really crappy food—just kidding (or not).  We are in the midst of our ship board drive which is our big fundraiser on ship as SAS is a non-profit organization.  The theme this year is Mind the Gap as in reality we as students only pay enough money to get us to some random location off the coast of Brazil, the rest of our way is paid by alumni and other donations.  Therefore we are now paying it forward so that the next group of SASers can sail.  The goal is to have each person on the ship donate at least one dollar so that we can have 100% participation and right now we are getting closeish—I believe we are at about 70-75% or so.  Thus far it has been really exciting because we are one of the smallest voyages ever but we have raised the most money—a lot more than they expected us to so YEAH F12!!!  We totally rock!  We have had a spirit week of sorts to get everyone involved and it’s been pretty fun.

We also had an auction the other night!  Over the course of the voyage people have been buying things in port and donating them to the auction.  In addition, people can auction off a free stay at their house with a visit to a local attraction or a free weekend at their vacation home in Belize, and stuff like that.  It is a really fun way to make some money for the program.  I personally donated a traditional blue and white painted tile from Portugal that depicted four ships (which I thought was very appropriate) and my music class as a whole pooled together to buy one of the Ghanaian drums to put in so I donated that (in part) as well.   Danielle had a really good idea and she bought a bar of chocolate in every country and put that in the auction and it went for over $100!!! Yikes!  There was a silent auction and a live auction.  The silent auction was comprised mostly of gifts that people bought in port such as scarfs, bags, chocolate or coffee, whisky, flags or pins from every country, etc (though our drum was in the live auction) and some of the trips that people had offered.  The live auction had the rest of the trips, some traditional SAS gear and things around the ship.  Here are my favorite examples (if you want the whole list I can send it to you—some of the stuff is pretty ridiculous):

·         Milk and cookies served to you in your cabin by Dean John (our executive dean)

·         The Capitan’s (signed) hat

·         A map that we have been tracking our voyage on that hangs in Tymitz Square (this little map went for $2,600---two thousand and six hundred dollars!!!!  The Union was going fricken bananas as two students kept upping the price and this is what one girl finally bought it for!

·         A bath in the tub in the dean’s office (glass of wine included)

·         First dance with each of the Dean’s at the Alumni Ball

·         Someone to personally pack all your luggage at the end of the voyage

·         First off the ship in Florida

·         Raising the US flag as we pull into port

·         A SAS graduation stoll that Dean John found in his closet that is one of a kind

·         A picture of Dean John in the stocks wearing a sign that says ‘Village Idiot’

The list goes on and on but I won’t bore you now.  I collectively won one thing in both the silent and the live auction.  In the silent auction Danielle and I won a trip to Disneyland with the Paul-Rios family (the family I mentioned in Rio that we went to the beach with) and we are super super excited about going with them!  Then, in the live auction our friend Megan Drew bit on sitting at the Dean’s table for the Alumni Ball dinner and won so we each chipped in about $14 so that we could join her and that is going to be cool!

Hmmm other things…oh yeah we had over 50% participation in the ship-board drive so we got Taco Day!!!!  And we had a cake for the Sea Olympic Committee to celebrate the best Sea Olympics ever!

I already told you about the meteor shower…..though did I mention that after getting up for that and going to bed at about 0330 we had to get up for Astronomy class at 0800 during which our professor decided to try to explain special relativity….needless to say I don’t think a single person could keep their eyes open long enough to pay attention.

Ok to be honest I am tired and my fingers are starting to hurt but I promise I will finish this segment early tomorrow

~Colleen

Brazil—Rio

"I'll take you to Rio, Rio.  Fly over the ocean like an eagle, eagle."  --from movie Rio

Day 1: Yay I am finally posting Rio!  We watched the movie the night before we came into port (ok so maybe I fell asleep halfway through but it's the thought that counts) and now this song is stuck in my head.  The morning we came into port we got food and then went to hang out with our best friends the Paul-Rios family.  They have a five-year-old girl and two year old twins (a boy and a girl) and one of their cousins (Heather) who came along to help babysit and they are an awesome family with really cute and fun kids so we hang out with them a lot.  We figured out that we were all headed to the same place so a little later that morning me, Danielle, Sarah, Briana and their family headed out to find an ATM which we thought would be nice and easy and we would be on our merry way.

Seven blocks and at least seven, if not more, stations with ATM's later we were about to give up until we found a station that actually worked.  There was at least on station on each block and each station had anywhere from five to twenty ATM's.  The problem is that most of the machines only accepted cards from certain companies and the CITI bank station wouldn't even let you in the door unless you had a CITI card—there was literally a place to scan your card and the door would only unlock if you scanned your CITI bank card.  SO after trying what seemed like dozens of ATM's we finally found the one that worked and then located the nearest subway station.  SAS told us to be leery of the subways but as it was Sunday morning and we had a big group we were fine.  To help pass the time I had the five year old countdown how many stops we had left by holding up ten fingers and asking, "If we have four stops down, how many more to go?"  She thought it was a great game and had fun announcing to everyone how many stops were left each time.  The twins were on Mommy and Heather's backs and were being entertained by everyone else.  The funny part was that most of the people on the subway kept giving us weird glances because they couldn't figure out which of us were the parents haha. 

Ten stops later we had finally reached our destination and after a quick stop by the Starbucks (yeah I know—typical American—but hey we haven't had coffee in awhile) we got to the Hippie Market.  It was definitely the best market we have been to so far and it covered the entire open park-like area in the middle of the open square.  Whatever you wanted, someone was selling it and I was very tempted to buy some corn on the cob but managed to refrain.  We wandered around there for almost an hour before heading to the grocery store to buy some stuff for lunch which we carried with us to the iconic Ipanema Beach. 

When we got there we set out all our towels, ate lunch and sun-screened up.  Then we noticed another family from the ship (they have three kids, a girl in fourth grade I believe, a boy in sixth and a fourteen year old girl) and moved our camp over to them.  Sarah, Danielle, the fourteen year old who we have hung out with before, and I took a walk to the tip of the beach where we watched a match of what looked like soccer and volleyball combined.  It was played on a volleyball court with volleyball-like rules but you could not use your hands.  Just your feet, legs, chest and head.  It was pretty intense and we were all fascinated by it and also the "muscle beach" near by where people were working out with dumbbells that looked like they were made out of cinder slabs.  As the fourteen year-old said, "it looks like the Flinstones." 

After walking back we played with the kids for a while before going out deeper into the water and riding the waves for awhile.  We had been there for about four hours before we decided to head back so we could put the kids down and get ready for dinner. It was Heather's birthday and we got invited to go out with them to celebrate.  We went to a bar near the Arches in Rio (I think it's called the Lapa district??) and had some really good pizza and drinks then went to another place with music and people watched for awhile—there were some crazies.  "Mom" is in a psychology class and she was analyzing the people there for a project she had and the rest of us ended up joining in.  We also swapped stories and heard about when they were in college, talked about how we need to stay in touch after and at midnight everyone shared what they love about Heather and we toasted her birthday!  Then "Mommy" Danielle and I got henna (as in temporary….got that mom, temporary) tattoos on our ankles.  They got flowers and I got a sun and they look awesome!  It was a really fun night and we plan to go out with them and some other people again in Manaus.

Day 2: is a secret surprise (mua-ha-ha) I will tell you about it if you e-mail me :)

Day 3: Danielle and I went on a SAS trip of the caves and waterfalls of the Tijuca Rainforest which is not a part of the Amazon, in case you were wondering.  As can typically be expected in a rainforest it was raining but it was awesome so no one really cared.  We were with a really fun group of people and we all talked and whatnot as we hiked and helped each other navigate the particularly muddy or slippery areas.  We hiked for awhile to reach one of the waterfalls where we took pictures and took a bit of a break before continuing onto the caves.  Unfortunately, due to the rain we could not go into on of the caves but we still got to go in………the BAT CAVE.   Yeah, that's right Batman lovers, I visited the bat cave (which was really just a cool cavern where bats normally sleep but lets pretend it's the actual bat cave for posterities sake).  We all started to sing "na na na na, na na na na, BATMAN" and it was awesome.  When we got there it was just a little crevice opening in the rock face but inside was a huge cavern that was a lot taller than it looked.  We all took pictures and shined our flashlights into every nook and crany looking for bats but sadly there were none (or maybe not so sadly as none of us got the rabies-prevention shot—oopsies).  Then we all stood in a circle and held hands as the guides explained how important nature is to them and how they want to preserve their natural resources like the forest.  We all shared how we felt in that moment and decided that peaceful was the best word, though soaked came very close :P  We snacked on cheese and crackers and granola bars and then headed back out into the rain to hike back down to our vans.  We ate boxed lunches from the ship on the way back but to be perfectly honest all we really wanted was the Capri Sun and then rushed in to take hot showers and done sweatshirts before our special BBQ dinner—which ended up being inside due to rain, fail :(  But it was still fun!

Miss you all and I will post some about ship life tomorrow

~Colleen

Best Night Ever

Hey all I first want to establish that we are sailing up the coast of Brazil just about to cross back over the equator.  I will post about our time in Brazil after this so don’t worry :)

Early yesterday morning from about 0130-0330 our shipboard community got to experience one of the best nights I think any of us has had here on ship!  Starting at about 0100 we started to crowd the fore of decks seven and eight.  Clutching pillows and blankets and rubbing sleep from our eyes we stumbled around in our pj’s until we found the perfect place to lie down.  By 0145 there were hundreds of students, faculty, staff, life ling learners and children covering the decks and anxiously awaiting the security staff to come up and turn off the lights.  The constellation of Orion was almost directly above us and Jupiter and the star Sirius were shining brightly, illuminating what we thought was an amazingly clear sky.

Then with the flick of a switch and a huge gasp followed by almost dead silence the lights went out and we found out just how wrong we had been earlier, it wasn’t until the lights went out that we could truly see the sky.  Our astronomy professor started to point out some basic constellations and used his laser to once again show everyone Orion and Jupiter.  Then he showed us the constellation of Leo which we had all been waiting for as right we are at the peak of the Leonid Meteor Shower—one of the best and most visible meteor showers of the year.  We anxiously searched the skies for any sign of movement and got confused by lasers and the rocking of the ship but soon enough the gasps started and everyone started pointing.  The first dozen or so were short and not everyone saw them but then there was a huge meteor whose tail went across at least half the sky and everyone went crazy!  Our astronomy professor kept moving around with his laser and binoculars (or as he calls them ‘binos’) and pointing out constellations and showing people the moons of Jupiter.  Those of us who are in his class regaled everyone else with the stories of Orion and the scorpion in between meteor sightings and it was honestly perfect.  All in all it wasn’t the best meteor shower in the world but not one single person cared because of how sheerly amazing it all was.  I truly cannot put into words how that night felt and I know that I will never forget it.

As promised I will post Brazil soon!

~Colleen

Uruguay Part Two (cont.)

So my brain died and I forgot to tell you one of the coolest parts of going to the weird hand beach—ahhh—Danielle says that all the sun is starting to bleach my brain because this is like the third or fourth air-headed thing I have done today and the umpteenth I’ve done since we got to South America and back to sunny weather but that’s beside the point.  Moving on. 

We saw Squishy!  And yes, by squishy I definitely mean the little jellyfish that Dory tries to adopt in Finding Nemo.  Actually we saw cone jellyfish which are super cool, transparent, slimy and most importantly do not sting you.  Here’s the story:  we had been at the beach for awhile and Amy and Sarah had claimed that they had seen jellyfish.  A statement we quickly discounted.  Then they found a slimy thing on the beach and we decided that it didn’t really look like a jellyfish but maybe.  We went back out again and started to see almost transparent little balls floating around but didn’t know if they were harmful or not.  After feeling many brush by our legs without any damage caused we decided the best way to get to the bottom of our dilemma was to catch one, so that’s what we did.  We ohhed and ahhd and threw it on Amy who screamed and ran away and decided that it was, in fact, a jellyfish. 

We proceeded to catch more and show them to the other SASers on the beach and eventually I suggested that we get a picture because otherwise no one would believe us.  So if you are rolling your eyes as you read this and are seriously considering Danielle’s bleached brain theory then shoot me an e-mail and I will send you picture proof :) We proceeded to take one to the shore, making sure to keep dunking it in the water so as not to kill our little squishy, and took pictures of each of us holding it. 

Ok that was pretty much it.  I already told  you about the first two days and to be honest we were really boring on the third day so we’ll just skip that.

Rio’s up next!

~Colleen

Uruguay Part Two

Before I get to Uruguay……..I SAW A WHALE TODAY! (keep in mind that we were in Uruguay eight days ago and are currently sailing up the coast of Brazil, my blog hasn't quite caught up yet) I haven’t seen one all voyage and I was super bummed out about it but we were playing ninja on the back deck when Harrison (one of the dependent children) spotted a whale.  It was smaking it’s tail against the surface of the water and I was so excited that I finally saw one!!!  Ok now back to your regularly scheduled bloging…

 

The second day in Montevideo was a beach day!!!  Unfortunately, the closest nice beach was located about two hours away and the bus station was so far from the port that we had to take a taxi to the station and then a two hour bus to the beach but it was worth it in the end!  We had a bit of a miscommunication at the station so Danielle and I ended up on a bus about an hour after Sarah, Amy and Jared.   It was ok though because we found baby bottle pops while wandering around :)

Once we arrived at the beach we texted the others (we had borrowed Amy’s phone for this purpose as the beach was about 10 miles or so long!) and the response was, “go to the pointer and you will find us.”  Danielle and I looked at the text, then at each other, then at the text again just to double check that we hadn’t read it wrong, then at each other again in that cliché cartoonish manner.  Our basic train of thought was:  Okay…..what?!?!?  Go to the pointer…..yeah sure whatever you say guys.

Figuring we might as well look around outside and seeing if we could find this so called “pointer” before asking people for help we ambled out the door and gave a half-hearted look around.  And there it was, the pointer.  Turns out this beach is weird or something and there is a gigantic statue of a hand half buried in the sand on the edge of the beach.  No joke, a giant hand just sticking out of the sand looking awkward and random.  We made our way across the street frogger style and up the dunes to the pointer finger dodging the bulldozer that seemed to be moving sand around for no apparent reason whatsoever except to make it that much harder for people to walk.  We scanned the beach in front of the pointer finger and didn’t see anyone.  We proceeded to walk from finger to finger looking for the rest of the group and finally sighted them……on the beach just out of line with the PINKY finger.  Apparently Jared thought that it was a left hand sticking up and got his fingers all in a jumble lol but oh well, we deciphered the crazyness and all was well.

We spent the day lounging on the beach, looking for shells, swimming, reading and writing messages in the sand and taking pictures to taunt people back home.  My favorite picture was of us sitting in our bikini’s and sunglasses above the message “Hey, it’s November” hahaha.  Sorry to all of you stuck in the land of the snow and ice right now…..but yeah I’m chilling in the tropics as we speak :P  We stayed there for about four hours or so and then decided to head back to the ship for dinner so after another two hour bus ride and a dumb taxi we were back.  That night Sarah and Amy went out to get wifi and due to the potentially unsafe nature of the streets decided that it would be a good safety measure to carry around pointy rocks and bricks in case anything happened.  The way they tell the story is absolutely hilarious but I will spare you.  They got back safe and gave security a good laugh on their way in and Sarah still has a brick sitting by the end of her bed should she ever feel the need to use it. 

More later

~Colleen