The Musings of a Wandering Stranger.

I posted some more photos to flickr
so
to view the latest, go here (CLICK HERE!)  they will probably be on at least the second page, just look for Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and one Japan pic (i still have to edit the majority of the japan ones. And a few from the crew talent show.

I have been so behind on my blog posts and e-mail its not even funny.
I’m loaded down heavily right now and struggling a bit with my classes but I should be able to pull through.

I am really behind on my e-mail, my e-mail is only synced up to April 26th, and its now the Second May Second, (I am currently living May 2, 2007 for the second time in two days.)

But as to what I have done.

It’s going to be brief. Just for the sake of my own mental state and the emotions it brings, and for the sake of time.

In Malaysia I went to Kuala Lumpur with An, Monica, and Lindsey. We just walked around; saw the sights, nothing to special. I wasn’t all that thrilled with Malaysia, but it was a MUCH needed break from the mental rigors and changes that shook my foundation that were brought about by India.

In Vietnam, I saw my parents; we did the Chu Chi Tunnels, the War Museum, and the Mekong Delta. We also did the School for the Deaf and Disabled Children’s Home. I think they got a small taste of what I’ve seen. While that was a very worthwhile trip, I wish we had a service project at one of the locations instead of just a visit.  I also showed them the way we traveled and how price tags mean nothing, meters are always broken, and if it’s steaming, it’s probably safe to eat and amazing.

In China, I took a calculated risk. I spent the first night in Hong Kong, in order to get a feel for the city, and then I went out on my own. The next morning I took the train to the airport, and flew to Beijing by myself. In Beijing I was completely solo, given I ran into a few SAS’ers here and there but never for more than 5 minutes. I had an amazing time; I saw the Forbidden City, the Ming Tombs, Tiananmen Square, and the Great Wall. I hiked twelve stations (according to my guide its 1km between stations, and nowhere near a straight walk. It was extremely steep, windy and pretty beat up in some places, but once I got away from the crowd, put away the camera, and got to hiking it was amazing. That night I had dinner and went to the bar with my tour guide, talked about topics that are “off limits” for the Chinese, for the tour guide’s sake cause I never know who is reading this, I’m going to leave it as we discussed the Chinese Governmental oppression and suppression of the Chinese people. Then I hiked around the city, and just had an amazing time by myself in a country where almost no one speaks English taxi’s wont stop for the foreigner that’s trying to hail them, you have to put your arms out make whooshing noises and act like your flying, in order to explain you want to go to the airport. (Yes, I did this, while a good 50 people stared at me)

It was amazing, then we got to Qingdao, I went out with some friends that had a horrible experience in china, Jayme and Carley. We went to New York Bar, which had amazing band that was all classic and modern American music sung by a Chinese band that was surprisingly good.

Then Japan
In Japan I traveled right from the get go with Dan, we went to a baseball game. It was mostly empty, but the Japanese that were there are nuts, they love their baseball. From there, we missed our first train to Tokyo, so we went to Kyoto. Spent one day in Kyoto and then took an afternoon train to Tokyo, Spent the first night in the very shady Shinjuku District. Then the next day Dan headed back to Osaka/Kobe and I went to the Akahbara (SP?) district and spent the night there. Over all met a ton of locals, and had a blast in Japan.  (Ask for stories regarding the dive bar on the last night, and the sketchy Nigerians in Shinjuku.)

Overall, while Japan, and Malaysia and Vietnam were an amazing experience, China is just slightly ahead of India in my book. I want to do the LSSU summer study abroad program to Beijing.

I loved China. India taught me how wrong I was about the world, and what its really like, and what people are capable of even in the most dire of circumstances.
China taught me how wrong I was about myself. I’ve learned that I can be self reliant, I don’t need support (while it is appreciated and welcome) to be on my own and be comfortable even when I know I don’t fit in and stand out. (The fact that Chinese children and Chinese tourists to Beijing wanted their picture taken with me.) That I have come to know more somewhat where I am going and now how where I have been shapes me.

I came on SAS looking for something like China, along the way, I discovered India, but eventually I had the experience I had been searching for, and I found that in China.

India, What I did. Not what India did to me.

(thats for the next post)

Day one:
I left the ship in the early afternoon to go shopping with some girls, mostly to take photos and make sure they didn’t get harassed. After plowing through the first wave of rickshaw walas, we hopped on a rickshaw outside of the port. We were supposed to go to Spencer’s plaza. We never actually got there; we ended up going to all the shops that the wala wanted to go to for about two hours, before going back to the ship. I hopped back on the ship and grabbed a bite to eat before heading back out with another group who was just wandering the area outside of the port area. The area outside of the port area was poor, and was the first real shock I had in India, but more on that in the next post. We walked around while a local Indian man followed us and was sort of our unofficial tour guide. He took us by a temple and a few stores, we then stopped watched and made a pathetic attempt at playing cricket with some local kids. Everywhere we went there were kids playing cricket.

Day Two:
At 11am, I boarded the bus and left for the shady cricket stadium to meet my home stay family. When we arrived and they called my horribly misspelled last name (Mishler) I stepped out of the bus and was greeted by Avinaj, the son of our host. First, he took us the beach, which evidently is a big deal to them because it is the second longest beach in the world. (I have 5 Indian Rupees for whoever can tell me what the longest beach is.) From there, we toured his medical college; saw a bunch of hands, fetuses and other random things bottled in formaldehyde. There were also a few cadavers, nothing worse than any of the stuff I’ve seen from classes at school, except for the fact of how skinny they were.
From there we went back to the Mahender family’s house, had lunch which was amazing, and then went to an art gallery. From there, we went to the Rotarian meeting. After that was all said and done, we went out to dinner with another one of the families.

Day Three:
We had to be at the cricket stadium again at 7:30am to catch the bus to the temples at Mahabalipuram. After a spending some time there and then buying a painting from a local artist we headed back towards Chennai. Along the way, we pulled the bus over and Matt, Ashley, Candice, and I hopped of. We were greeted by Dr. Mahender who drove us to their beautiful “beach house” which is not near the beach at all, but has a very cool swimming pool. There things got interesting. We started talking about family life and such, eventually marriage came up, and the fact that they estimated 70% of marriages is arranged. They were shocked at the divorce rate in the US and the fact that we practically have utter freedom in who we chose to marry. What was even more shocking to them was that sometimes people marry against their parents wishes, or the fact that we don’t live at home until we are married, or sometimes after. The topics of conversation for that night went round and round. From American movies (which they love) to censorship. The conversation that hit me the most was the one in the car ride home, but that’s not suitable for the blog. To sum it up, they believed that pickup lines like “girl you must be a traffic ticket cause you have fine written all of you” actually work. (I have another entry drafted on that and will post it at a later date.) All I know, is I crawled into bed that night, realizing how lucky I am to live where I live and how much I have taken my freedom to live my life the way I choose for granted.

Day Four:
We were awoken at 8:30 and told we were leaving in 15 minutes for a Rotary meeting. At the meeting, they served some traditional food and we met the Rotary Governor again (and the way they treated him, you’d think he was the actual governor). From there, we headed to a Hindu temple and we met up with Candice and Ashley along the way. After the Hindu temple, we went around shopping and then returned to the ship. We were allowed to take our host family onboard and show them around. They were really impressed by the ship and the fact that we could fit so much into our cabins.
All in all the home stay is one of my best experiences yet, but India in and of itself has challenged the way I think.

Day Five:
There was a SAS trip to the disabled children’s home I had been trying to get on for days, finally at 3am the night before I bought a ticket off of one of my neighbors who wasn’t feeling well. The trip was the most overpowering experience of my life, it makes you sit back and think about all that you have and take for granted, the fact that if I chose I can climb a flight of stairs, or even just stand up. However, all of that is a topic for another post. Which is why this one is going to be so brief, it is near impossible to separate the overwhelming emotions from the events of the day.
We left on the bus for the children’s home first thing in the morning, and upon arrival, we were given a tour of the facilities. They train the older people there (some who reside there some don’t) to have some basic work skills, we saw some women using sewing machines, some men making paper cups, and then some computer training. They even made a welcome SAS PowerPoint that had things in it I didn’t know PowerPoint could do. After that we toured and talked with a few of the children who ranged from what seemed to be 4/5 or so to 18 or just beyond. They all loved to have their picture taken and then see it on screen. Then we went outside and did some general cleanup of brush and stuff, until lunch. Lunch although delicious is I am sure what made me sick two days later. After that, we spent almost three hours just playing with kids who ranged from 5-19. All of which had different disabilities. Some had mental problems, some had polio, and some had other debilitating problems that didn’t allow them to even stand. Many of them could not walk. There was one kid, who was older, I think he said he was 17, who had his leg crushed by a bus and lost it. He now lives at the home.
After we finished at the home, we returned to the ship with 12 children following in their bus behind ours. After carrying some of them up the stairs, we gave them a tour of the ship. Sashia and I ran ahead of the group on the sixth deck and quickly each bought a few packs of starbursts and passed them out to the kids. Eventually we toured the entire ship, and I had to carry one girl with polio around for quite a bit of it. We took them down to my cabin to show them were we live, and I let her rest on my bed for a minute so she would be able to make it to the gangway. She pointed to the picture of Sam and Sarah that’s on my wall, and said “your child?” it probably took 5 minutes to explain they are my niece and nephew.

India in an of itself is overwhelming, seeing the poverty and the beggars the first day was beyond what I expected, it was intense. The home stay was eye opening. The children’s home has made me sit back, and rethink almost every perception on life that I hold. They said India will have an impact on you. They said nothing of how much one country, one port, and five days out of one hundred can really change the way you look at everything.

I recieved your letters today, and i plan on replying to each one individually, its just going to take me some time as i have 12 pages to write in the next 48 hours and a long entry on India.

I just wanted to let you know that i recieved your letters, and they are much appreciated.

p.s. Aunt Kelly, could you pass the previous post along to ryans class?

Dear Fourth graders of Forest,

Thanks for your letter; I received it on my cabin door today (March 30.) This trip has been fun, and has already changed my whole perspective on the world. In response to the questions you mailed me, the weather in general has been warm, if not blistering hot. Brazil was in the 80’s and mildly humid, it was mostly the hot sun that stood out in Brazil, it also rained a bit while I was there but only in the evening. In South Africa, it was an INTENSE dry heat, almost no humidity but temperatures that hit 110 and shade did not grant much relief from the heat. Mauritius was a lot like Florida, 80’s and high humidity, but there was almost always a cool breeze and we spent a fair amount of time near the beach with the cool sea air. India on the other hand, was a beast of a completely different nature, it was unbearably hot, easily topping 100 and humidity was very high, the heat was the most intense I have ever experienced, and air conditioning was hard to find. When we first reboarded the ship, it felt like an igloo even though it was in the 70’s onboard. I’ll keep you updated on the weather from the other parts of the world as I get there, I am currently set to arrive in Malaysia on the 2nd.
Cage Diving in South Africa was scary, we saw 9 sharks some of which neared 20ft long, a few rammed the cage while I was in it.
I’ll e-mail some pictures to my aunt so you can see them. They really are scary animals, and the teeth look like they could tear you to shreds.
The time changes, while the past few days have been interesting, as of this moment I am 9 and ½ hours ahead of Michigan, I am still on Indian time at the moment. Tonight at midnight I move my clock ahead ½ hour, and then 1 hour each night for the following two nights. This will put me exactly half way around the world from home!! Therefore, when the sun is setting here, it will be rising there!!!
The coolest thing I have experience so far, that’s a tough question to answer. A very tough question, so I’ll give you two answers. In South Africa, I went sky diving, which was the coolest physical experience I have ever had. We rolled out of the small 4 seater plane backwards and seeing it tear away from view as I fell for 6,000ft before the parachute opened. Although that was the coolest physical experience, I have had, by far the one experience that has had the most profound effect was working with handicapped and disabled children at a home for them. They were between the ages of 5-19 many of them around your ages. I will be posting pictures of it later. But we spent all day cleaning up the place and playing with the children. Then we brought them back on the ship, I had to carry several of them up the stairs in order to board the ship. It truly was a humbling experience.

Thanks for the letters, and I hope for more.

-Bryan

these cannot do justice to the thousands i can say.

…which has given more to me.
There is so much more, so much more I need to know.

So now my thoughts that I promised I’d commit to writing on South Africa.
Upon arrival in South Africa I was greeted by an extremely westernized waterfront, western dressing people, stores I was familiar with. All in all, it didn’t feel foreign, not at all what I was expecting. It wasn’t until I returned from safari that any of that truly changed. When I started talking to some locals in the bars and restaurants, and finding out how much different things are outside of the tourist area. I also learned quite bluntly, how deep harm from the past really is. One of the afternoons after safari, I randomly started talking to a taxi driver, and the townships came up and how I wish I had time to see them up close. I soon discovered that he lived in one, and wanted to show me how life really is for some South Africans. So, he drove us through almost every street of the township and what I saw was more than I expected. Among some of the poorest of the poor in South Africa, there was this overwhelming sense of pride. I had my camera in hand, but was too awestruck to even put the viewfinder to my eye. The utter poverty was apparent, yet everywhere he drove he pointed out friend’s shacks, and told their stories. Eventually we arrived at what seemed to be one of the most pitiful of dwelling I had ever seen, with a roof made out what looked to be old aluminum siding, and walls of corrugated steel and plywood. With an utterly overpowering sense of pride, he told me this was his home where he, his wife and his three kids live and that they hoped to one day have a house from the government. I began to realize that this is a side of the country tourists never see and I could no longer continue on this as a tourist, as then I am still a complete stranger to the diversity of the places I go and I have to make an effort to do more than visit. I have to see beyond the exotic landscapes and people.
There is so much more to the events and the experiences that I just cannot express in writing or even in coherent English. The contrast of the utter poverty and the waterfront side by side, the pride in his voice and his words, the sorrow of the past and yet his hope for his children’s generation all amount to a realization in me that this voyage has already begun to change me. It has begun to change way in which I view this world, its as if I was focused on something close up and the background is just starting to come into focus, with each passing day more and more does. Yet now as I sit writing this one day away from Chennai, struggling to put my thoughts into words, I honestly wonder if this extremely personalized tour of the township has had this much of an effect on me, what I am in for when we reach port tomorrow.

gonna live it up knowing
in this life you only get one go around
and i cant live it down
gonna live for places i aint been
make alot of good remember whens.
right up to the end…
-Dierks Bentley

Before i get into anything else, please visit my Flickr page to see more photos. There are more quite a few more up there then are posted here.
If i auctually get online in Mauritius i will update the photo page. Until then www.flickr.com/photos/gitgat/ Under the set called Semester At Sea

Cape Town.

It’s honestly hard to comprehend the fact that I just spent six days in South Africa. I have only begun to process the experience and the people I met. From the taxi driver who told us about life in the townships, to the Iraqis at Quay Four who were trying to get to Dearborn and the Irishman who was on business.
Since my own internal processing of the events of the past week has only begun and is having difficulty understanding how much more there is to this planet than I originally realized, I’ll try to make this anecdotal and entertaining, with a much deeper post to follow.

I’ll start with the 28th of February, two days before our arrival in Cape Town. We were honored to have Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak to us about his thoughts on South Africa and on his admiration for our generation’s commitment to service. The next day he had a question and answer session led by a panel, which was unfortunately semi-predictable in its choice of questions. I was lucky enough though to get a great seat.
The night of the 1st was a very long night where the anticipation was clearly present in the air and around the entire shipboard community. I spent the majority of the night polishing off a paper that was due, and I quote “before we arrive in Cape Town” which I took to mean, 8am on the 2nd. Around 12:30, I made my way to the side of the seventh deck to relax and possibly sleep outside. Well no sleeping actually took place as I was up all night talking with friends about every façade of life, from religion, to politics, to obtaining a “global perspective on events” and other topics that I am still trying to analyze in my head. (There will be another post hopefully before Mauritius of a much more philosophical nature. Once I get through he next three days of tests.) Around roughly 4:15am local time, they shut off the overhead lighting and the stars came into view. After wandering over to the starboard side of the ship, I finally located the Southern Cross, in the process I caught of slight glimmer out of the corner of my eye. After allowing my eyes to adjust to the light, I realized I was looking at Table Mountain on the horizon and Cape Town situated at its base. The concept of being this far from home and actually circumnavigating the planet finally began to take hold. We spend the next two hours or so unable to sleep because of excitement. Then at sunrise, we made our way to the front of the ship to watch the sunrise over the mountains and the ship dock in port. Then if was off for a short two-hour nap before the consulate’s briefing and a speech by the Premier of the Western Cape.

Second Day- Day Four

Up at 6:45 the second day in order to head out on Safari to Kawazulu Natal. We left for the airport at 7:45 and after a two hour flight and a three hour drive, plus a delay to fix the air-conditioning on the bus, we finally arrived at the tree lodge at around 6pm. Just in time for an evening game drive and dinner.
I’ll let the pictures sum up safari itself but, I’ll elaborate on the rest.
When at nights, when we had the little bit of free time that was available we spent relaxing by the pool and celebrating Tyler’s 21st birthday. Other than that, I made some new friends and met some interesting people.

Day Five
On the fourth night, after returning from Safari, I met some friends at the local Irish pub and called it an early night in order to catch up on sleep. (early night is 2am)
The next day, I slept in so I could function and not be in extreme sleep deprivation, as I had slept less than 12 hours in 3 days. After emptying my camera of all 800 some photos that I took on safari, I made my way with some friends down to Long Street to look around. That night I met up with Owen and we went to a local microbrewery and had Ostrich burgers, which were unbelievably good. We eventually made our way back the ship to play some cards, when I was greeted by another group who was going to Mitchell’s to watch a soccer game at the local pub.

Day Six
Waking up at 5am, I scrambled to get ready to catch the van that was going to take us on a two-hour drive to the north east coast of South Africa. The van was driven by one of the owners of sharkcagediving.net Two hours later we were in their office going over the details of the trip and having breakfast. The wind was near gale force that day and the seas were extremely rough, especially for the 36ft catamaran that we boarded. After a short boat ride to the spot, the crew began to chum for sharks.

Soon one shark after another appeared and began to bite at the bait that was being pulled away from them. They were monsters, some over 4 meters in length the largest one at an estimated at over 6 meters. As soon as the crew thought they had attracted enough of them, and by enough I mean five of them circling the boat at any given time, they lowered the five-person cage into the water and we managed to cram 6 of us into it. As the sharks swam around us, the crew tossed a tuna head on a rope over the cage and dragged it back to the boat. This made the sharks swim directly towards us who were cowering in the cage holding our breaths. Eventually some of them were angry enough that they rammed the cage once or twice, one with its mouth wide opened. The girls started feeling a bit nauseous and cold after roughly an hour.
I stayed in the cage because we had to wait for the tide to rise a bit more before we could enter the harbor again. While I was in there by myself I gained a much better perspective as I could now see them on every side of me. Occasionally they would rub up against the cage and once or twice putting their noses right up against it looking straight at me. Both the ride there and back from cage diving were eye opening into how much tension is still present, and to a South African’s view on the last 15 years, but more on that in the next post.
We arrived back in port at roughly 7, when I ran into Ally who was looking for someone to go to the Jazz club with. Unfortunately, when we got there all the tables were reserved until after 10pm. We eventually ran into Rhea and some others. Since none of us had eaten since lunch, we went to a Belgium restaurant called Das Ankor. Where we had the house specialty, South African oysters on the half shell, and 1kg (2.2lbs) of steamed muscles prepared “Belgium Style”. Between that and the bottle of South African wine (it was our shark diving guides best friends winery) it was an amazing meal, and came to a grand total of 128 Rand apiece (one of the most expensive bottles of wine on the list), that roughly converts to 18USD. After leaving the restaurant Rhea, Ally, and I made our way to Quay Four.
This is one of the highlights of the trip. We sat around, and talked to two Iraqi men, who were both trying to get to Dearborn to meet their families who had escaped several years ago. They had been in South Africa for four months. Then, out of nowhere an Irish man comes up to me and asks about the Detroit Tigers hat that I was wearing. Through the thick accent and broken English it eventually became clear that he was a hockey fan and recognized the English D and connected Detroit with the Wings. It is amazing the people you can meet when you go out, don’t stay in a resort or tourist central and mix in among the locals. It can be truly eye opening. After closing down Quay Four, we made our way back to the ship and called it a night.

Day Seven
Another early morning, another adventure; waking up at 8am for breakfast and then meeting down in Pursers Square, we were getting ready to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. We met another van at the aquarium and took a 45-minute drive to a private airstrip. After a very short briefing on how skydiving works, I was sitting in the back of a stripped down Cessna. We climbed to 9,000ft. They slid open the side door. Inching my way to the door with my tandem partner on my back, I hung my legs out of the plane, crossed my arms, and held my head back. We rolled out of the plane backwards and then this sense of falling and pure adrenaline kicked in as I saw the plane tear away from me and we rolled over for the remaining thirty seconds of freefall before the five minute parachute ride to the ground. It really is something that everyone should try to do once. It’s an amazing sensation.
For the rest of the day we wandered around the local market. Unfortunately, on ship time was 8:30 so Amanda and I had an early dinner at a place in port. While we were eating, we ran into her roommate, Jayme. We joined them at the cantina. There I met her boyfriend who flew into Cape Town to meet up with her, and was flying to Mauritius. After finishing out drinks, we made our way back to the ship to watch a township choir perform.

If I had one regret about South Africa, it’s that I could not stay longer. You really need two week or more to see everything. Even pulling 20 hour or more days will not allow you to see half of the sights. One day I’ll come back, hike Table Mountain, tour the wine lands, tour Robin Island, and visit the District 6 Museum. (Anyone looking for a very good read, and a very interesting topic, look up District 6. I highly recommend it. (You can use this as a starting point, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_6)
Also, I know the grammar in this post is horrible. But I am just typing the thoughts as it comes to mind. I was checking my e-mail earlier and received the daily digest for the Semester at Sea MSN board (hi to everyone out there) and stumbled upon a post by Gretchen, “A lot of what has happened will not and cannot make sense to you as it is neither a feeling, nor an event, nor even an outward experience. It may just be an emotion of the moment or a memory.” That is the closest description to what I have experienced that I can find.
But feel free to ask questions, in fact I welcome them especially from family, friends, the students in Shane and Ryan’s classes, or anyone else who happens to stumble upon this blog. Either post them here, or e-mail them to me. Either way I’ll respond via e-mail, or if I get enough questions, I’ll make a post out of it. I’ll respond the best I can.

P.S. I’m sorry for not responding to those of you who e-mailed me, Mrs. Doughty and Aunt Kelly. I don’t check my e-mail when I am in port because I don’t want to be spending my time behind a computer terminal. Even though I kept saying I’d find the time to get to the Internet café that was only a five-minute walk, I never found the time.
But when at sea I check my e-mail at least once a day. So it can be at least a day before you get a response, because I download my e-mail and sign off the internet as quickly as possible, then I reply and it gets sent the next time I sign on. If I check my e-mail in the morning like I did today, and then I don’t get online till the next night, it can be a while especially when taking into account the current 8-hour time difference.

Thanks, and I will post my personal thoughts on South Africa in a few days when I get the time to sit put into words what I saw and experienced.

-Bryan

Sorry about the outages, evidently an ice storm is messing with the connection.

“We are carnival, we are Bahia. We are the world of carnival, we are BAHIA!!!”

Sorry about the delay in posting this, between two days of heavy classes with papers and Neptune day all day yesterday.

So, starting with Salvador de Bahia, it was one of the most interesting places I have ever visited. As is becoming a tradition, many people including me were awake and on deck at 5:30 to watch the sun rise over the city as we pulled into port. Thanks to the Breedloves I was able to go to a camarote (a viewing stand for carnival) on the first night after an amazing dinner at an all you can eat Brazilian barbeque. (Evidently, there is also one in Birmingham I am going to visit when I return) At the restaurant, they bring around HUGE pieces of meat on skewers and they slice a piece of each cut off for you to try. They have everything from lamb, chicken, filet minion, and chicken hearts (yes I ate some). Then after arriving back on the ship and catching up on some much needed sleep. The next day some friends and I walked around the old Pelourinho district. This is an old part of town that has very narrow and steep roads, many unique shops, and food. The food is a whole story in and of itself. On the street, there are so many kinds of food, from meat on a stick, to churros filled with caramel. My favorite is the friend bean cake called acaroje that’s fried in a palm oil, cut open and filled with peppers, shrimp, some spicy stuff. (Mrs. P, correct all my horrible spelling of these words.) There was also some cheese on a stick (see a pattern) that is cooked over hot coals while you wait.
However, I digress from the main point, Salvador was amazing, and is defiantly not anything like I have every seen. The language barrier was something that could be overcome with an earnest attempt and a slight knowledge of Spanish, and you can usually limp your way though a Portuguese restaurant, or bartering with merchant in the marcado. At the marcado, I bought some amazing things. A local soccer jersey for US$10, a painting and wood carving for around US$8 apiece, an amazing hand carved wooden ship for US$4, a cloth hammock (yes a hammock) for US$12, and a large brimmed and baseball cap for US$5 apiece. It was a blast just to barter with some of the local merchants. For example the one I bought the ship from originally wanted roughly R$40 (R$1 is roughly 50 cents, so two to one) for the ship, I said no, and asked about the smaller ones which he wanted R$20 for. Eventually he was down to R$8 for the medium one.
After the marcado, we went back to the ship and rested for a while before heading back to the elevator to the Pelourinho to participate in carnival. Up there is was night and day from the other evening. It was more of a chilled, laid back atmosphere, with street vendors selling food and drinks. African bands and dancers wandered the street with the crowds dancing behind them. Unfortunately, while up there I had a few dollars (R$15 or so) and a disposable camera that stolen off of me.
The next day Mr. Breedlove gave me a tour of the city, including the fort, a few churches, and the best ice-cream place in the city. That day, exhausted from the night before we went to the beach to relax, and then that night went out to dinner and crashed early.
On our last full day in port, we explored the city some more, touring San Francisco (a amazing church, with an unbelievable amount of gold leaf) and a few other places, went back to the marcado with some friends. That night was one of the most fun nights I have ever had though. We had an SAS trip to Trio Electrico, which are massive sound trucks with bands on top and another truck following that was nicknamed the B&B; Bathrooms and Bar. Surrounding the trucks are probably roughly 200 security people holding a rope, to get inside the rope you need a special t-shirt that is unique to that band on that night. With SAS, we had shirts for Areketu, which is an African percussion based band. We danced and sang inside the rope for what seemed like 10 minutes when in real life is was closer to three and a half hours.
After a long needed nights sleep we set out on our last few hours in Salvador, visiting the Marcado, trying to find a post office (still all closed due to Ash Wednesday and Carnival), and calling home. (I’ll call in the next few days again mom) I went out to dinner with Dia (the registrar) Shayla (another staff member), Shenkay (a girl from Japan) and her roommate. We went back to the Brazilian barbeque and had an amazing meal and a great time.
I apologize for the lack of photos from Bahia, as it was not safe to carry my camera. That I carried everything I need in my socks, hat, and a few small bills in my pocket.
After two LOOOOOOONG days of classes, and two papers later its Neptune day! We were woken up by some of the crew banging on drums and chanting while roaming the halls at 7:30am. Following them to the deck, everyone gathered and kind Neptune (the captain painted in green) appeared. Everyone who chose to celebrate our transformation from pollywogs to shellbacks, those who have crossed the equator on a ship, first had fish guts dumped on them, then had to swim across the pool, kiss a fish, then kiss Neptune’s ring. Then those brave or stupid enough had their heads shaved, the list included me, a lot of guys, and at least 30 women, some with VERY long hair, which was donated to locks of love. One girl Lindsey donated over 18 inches.
To round out the day, they cooked an auctual, over charcoal, barbeque on deck for us with burgers and ribs and chicken and corn. It was amazing.

That’s all for now, I’ll update with the pictures I have from Salvador and Neptune day later on tonight (early morning your time) when the internet picks up speed as everyone goes to sleep. Also, we are now on GMT, and Michigan is -5GMT. Cape Town is +2 GMT so we have to lose two more hours of sleep sometime soon. We’ve moved our clocks ahead 3 days in a row and lack of sleep is catching up with many including myself. So, I apologize for the poor grammar and chaotic train of thought.

For those tracking the position of the ship, they have started posting regular updates on semester at seas website, the link is: http://semesteratsea.com/voyages/spring2007/sp2007_positionreport.html