I dream of Africa...

I cannot believe that we have been at sea for 8 days crossing the Atlantic Ocean. We have lost a totally of 5 hours since leaving Brazil, setting our clocks forward almost every night before going to sleep. We come into port in Cape Town, South Africa early tomorrow morning! It hasn’t really hit me yet that I am actually going to get to be on solid land soon. And it’s not just any solid land, it’s Africa! For me I think the continent of Africa might be the most mysterious and exotic one that we are visiting. I don’t know much about it aside from the stories I’ve always been told about apartheid, aids, and poverty. I have so much to learn and so much to experience there within the next week. I have to admit that I am still very bummed that we can’t go to Kenya, and so I feel like I need to experience as much of this continent as I can through my visit in South Africa. Although I have never been before, I feel like I have always had a heart for Africa and a fascination with the people and culture. Coming into the harbor in Cape Town is supposed to be one of the most fantastic moments of this voyage. The port is supposed to be just stunning. I am thinking that I might stay out on the deck all night to make sure that I don’t miss it. At this point I don’t have any solid itinerary for Cape Town, but I have a list full of places I hope to go and things that I hope to do. I am really excited that my mom is going to meet me in this port. Hopefully we will be hiking the famous Table Mountain, visiting the old political prison on Robben Island, touring the winelands of Stellenbosch, driving down Cape Point, and just experiencing the beauty of Cape Town. Who knows… maybe we’ll even be adventurous and try some skydiving of shark cage diving. More to come on my African adventures this week…

Madness at Sea…
So what do you do with 684 college students stranded on a ship in the middle of the ocean? You throw an 80s dance party of course… and let the good times roll. This party was the most insanity I have seen to date aboard the Explorer. It was crazy! We had no classes on the day we crossed the Prime Meridian and so everyone decided to go to pub night and the 80s festivities the night before. My friends and I got dressed up in our best 80s gear and makeup and headed out to the 7th deck for a little pre-party. People were so creative with their 80s outfits even though we all had limited resources. The entire night people were going back and forth between the 80s dance party in the student union, and pub night out on the 7th deck, and everywhere in between. When you take hundreds of secluded college students, some crazy themed outfits, blasting 80s music, a rocking boat, and add a little alcohol in the mixture, it can be described as nothing short of madness. There was even some choreographed dancing and a costume contest. The greatest part of the night though had to be watching everyone falling over each other while attempting to dance in the crowded student union. The ship would suddenly rock really hard and everyone would be on the ground. Good times, good times.

The perfect day…
The following day no classes were scheduled in order to give us a break. I made a point to do all of my homework in advance so that I would have the day completely free to do absolutely nothing. If I were to dream up what my ideal perfect day would be, it wasn’t it exactly, but it was about as close as I think I will ever get to it in real life. It started when I woke up to the noon bridge report over the intercom system. It seemed like pretty much everyone on board slept through the entire morning, which was awesome. I met up with some friends and grabbed a quick lunch in the dining hall. Next we went outside in hopes of spending the day lounging and laying out in the sun. The day started off cloudy and chilly, and so not a lot of people were outside on the top deck. My friends and I grabbed some lounge chairs and within a half hour the skies cleared and it turned into a gorgeous sunny day. Lucky for us, we had the prime lounge chairs on deck 7 (the deck 7 tanning spots are always hard to come by- its like the prime real estate of the seas). I spent the entire afternoon lounging with friends in the sun and chatting about how tough (not!) our SAS lives are. Later that perfect day, the crew really out did themselves and prepared us a surprise barbeque on the deck for dinner. It was incredible. There were hamburgers, ribs, fish, chicken, and suckling pig (yet another bad time to be a vegetarian on SAS). They even had the tables decorated with really intricate fruit sculptures and flowers. The desert table had about everything sweet you could possibly imagine and more. I have never seen people eat so much in my entire life. Dinner was followed by one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. Like I said, it was the perfect day.

The Shipboard Community…
One of the greatest things about living on the ship is the sense of community that we all have formed. We are literally like our own floating self-sufficient village. There are clubs students have formed, Bibles studies, yoga classes, you name it, somebody on board can teach a class on it. We have a place to share books, there are organized movie sharings, music sharings, picture sharings, ect. But than there are also those moments when it feels really strange to be so close to everyone. Like when I look over at the treadmill next to mine and there is my art teacher. Or I go to breakfast and see the dean walk in in her pajamas. Or topics of conversation always lead to who has had the worst case of traveler’s diarrhea since the last port. Despite all its oddities, shipboard life is truly a unique experience. Everyone on this ship, every last one of us now share this common weird crazy amazing bond that I don’t think we will ever find again in life.

Somebody told me today that our semester is 25% over! I can’t believe how fast it is all going. So far this trip has been great. I could end my semester right now and still have memories for a lifetime. The mind boggling thing is that we still have 8 more ports! This last week at sea flew by quickly. The seas were incredibly smooth most of the time. This last night we had to slow down speed a lot and the ship is rocking a great deal. We are supposed to secure our stuff down before we go to sleep. It feels kind of like our first four days at sea, when the ship really rocked a lot. I am having to get my sea legs all over again! Just a few more hours until Africa! As always, I’ll keep you posted…

P.S. Happy Valentines Day!

Quote of the Day: "I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list."