There's No Place Like Home

Little things about being back home catch me by surprise still. At first I had to get over the urge to not drink the tap water and to keep reminding myself that I don’t need to carry hand sanitizer everywhere. For some reason, chain restaurants and book stores are bizarre because they appear so casually and confidently THERE, like they have a right to be there, even though the rest of the world has never heard of them. Seeing friends and family is probably the best thing in the entire world, but something happens every day that makes me want to be back laughing with my SAS friends. It feels a little like having two different homes. One is the one you know and love, and the other is this new home that you can’t quite place anywhere because it traveled incessantly and the only constant was the people. I no longer have a doctor telling me about the risks of leaving my front door so today, when I was walking down the notoriously safe streets of downtown Boulder, I felt slightly threatened because I was alone. That never used to happen before we traveled to a gazillion different big cities. Everyone has their giant panties in a bunch about American politics, especially with it being in an election year. I feel like people are incessantly frightened by our political leaders, but I can’t quite tell what they’re afraid of. I feel like, even if the worst happened, our standard of living would still be far higher than what most people. Even if the standard of living does drop, people can still be happy! What a concept. People also express everything from an amazingly United States-centric point of view. How could they do otherwise if they haven’t traveled outside of it? But the weirdest thing about it is that most Americans don’t even think about the people living their daily lives in the rest of the world unless their country posses some type of threat to us. Why should we ever ask “What’s best for Americans?” when the people in Cambodia are just like the people here. It doesn’t make sense that we’re not asking “What’s best for everyone?” When Semester at Sea began, everyone kept talking about how it would be a “transformative journey” and at different points of the voyage I would keep asking myself if I had transformed yet. Honestly, I never knew the answer. I still don’t know, but I do know that before I left I was asking “What’s best for Americans?” along with everyone else and never second guessed it. I love that everyone in Boulder knows what gluten is. I love the snow and the way it melts under the Colorado sun. Certain things, like making my own dinner or doing laundry feel about twenty times harder than they did before I left. I was afraid that everyone would be sick of my “One time in Vietnam” stories, but no one has said anything yet and my friends know how to be blunt so I think I’m in the clear. Every time I see someone that hasn’t seen me since I left I get the exact same question, “How was it?” And I have no good answer to tell them. My go to response is “amazing” because it was, but that doesn’t quite cover it. It was so many things like eye opening, terrifying, boring, heartbreaking, frustrating, exhilarating, funny, fresh, exhausting, and beautiful. Everything was intensified because I was doing so much in such a short period of time. This voyage has opened me up to travel like nothing else could. I feel like I could go anywhere in the world and be confident in myself. I love how peaceful being home is, but I also miss the drive and energy of GOING SOMEWHERE that living of a ship perpetuated.  I wouldn’t give up my memories from this voyage for anything and I know it was only the start of more adventures to come. THANK YOU SEMESTER AT SEA FALL 2011!            

Holla Honduras, Goodbye Semester at Sea

When we studied Honduras in Global Studies, we basically learned that it was a country full of crime, drugs, and violence, with a struggling economy. This raised the question in all of us, “Uh, so why exactly are we going there again?” We were especially skeptical after our course had been diverted from Cuba because the US government is still afraid of communism for some reason, and then again from Guatemala because it was deemed too dangerous. Instead of going to REAL Honduras, however, we went to Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras and were forbidden to go to the mainland. After learning about the mainland, I don’t think any of us were exactly fighting to break that rule and get ourselves killed. Roatan Island is a site for eco-tourism and a great place to spend the last couple of days in port with friends. On our first day, we took a bus across the island and went on a walk through a nature reserve where we got to see giant rodents, or as Wesley and I call them, ROUS (Rodents Of Unusual Size), iguanas, birds, and a spider monkey that was probably one of the most adorable creatures I’ve ever seen. He started off all the way across the beach and, as I was taking pictures of him, he began running directly at me with his teeth bared. I stopped thinking he was so cute until I ran to the safety of hiding behind my friends. Instead of biting any of us, he jumped up on one of the showers they have at the beach and motioned for us to turn on the water. We turned the faucet and he began drinking the water out of his cupped hands. He instantly became cute again. Monkeys are so entirely humanoid that I don’t know how anyone ever found it hard to believe that we evolved from them. 

Our nature walk was followed by snorkeling. We were given extremely fashionable belly life vests because apparently American tourists can’t swim for more than an hour in buoyant salt water. They then boated us out to a ship wreck full of marine life and we arrived there right when it started raining. The rain detracted from the visibility but we were able to dive down a little to get a better view of the ship wreck. I don’t think I will ever get a hang of that pressure thing where you hold your nose and exhale in order to equalize the feeling in your ears, but none of us were good at it except the guides so all of us shook out our ears in uncomfortable missery together. We spent the rest of our time snorkeling through the reef, which, unbeknownst to me, was the second largest reef in the world only behind the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. We saw tons of coral and beautiful blue fish. It’s moments like this where I’m envious of anyone who ever lived in Atlantis because the ocean floor is such an extravagant and peaceful place. Yes, I am implying that Atlantis is real. I also enjoy making fun of how goofy everyone looks in snorkeling gear.

 

I made up for my zip line abandonment in Costa Rica and went in Honduras instead. We were driving to the zip lining site and our guide had just finished describing how he was glad it wasn’t raining because it’s usually too dangerous to go in the rain, when the skies opened up and released a total downpour. Just our luck. The tour company did not seem to have a problem with this however, and everything went on as usual. They suited us up with their harnesses and helmets and off we went through the canopy! There was something extremely freeing about torpedoing through a jungle canopy in the rain with no need to break because the zip lines were so slippery that the hand breaks wouldn’t work even if I wanted them to. Instead of breaking, the staff just jumped in front of us and caught us before we went flying into the tree at the end of the line. It didn’t hurt that all of the staff were Black-Latin men in very good shape who kept on hitting on us and giving us complements. Tori and I both decided that if we ever went through a particularly hard break-up we’d just take a vacation back down to Honduras. We also enjoyed that, on certain platforms, there were no railings to keep people from falling so they just connected our harnesses to the tree and kept shoving us together around it. We decided that horses must feel like we did when they get tied to things. Unfortunately, having to catch us didn't always do wonders for the staff. At one point, a portly older woman came cruising down and was headed directly for a tree when the man working there jumped in between her and the collision to receive a direct kick in the balls. His exact words were, “I need a vacation.” I would too if I were him. We were just on a four month vacation, I highly recommend it. We were sad to leave our last port but not so sad to leave the rain behind us as we scanned our ID cards to get on the ship for the last time and made a b-line for the United States.

 

The last two days consisted of trying to shove all our souvenirs into bags that, unlike Hermione’s purse, did not magically grow in size. Everyone had flash drives and went around to friend's computers in order to steal their pictures, and no one slept because we all wanted to spend as much time with each other as possible. I managed to fit some more tanning time in as well because I knew that I’d be headed back to snowy Colorado. I was never able to stay out for too long though, because they finally drained the pool and the heat got to be too much without a way to cool off. Interestingly enough, my father and I had debated whether the pool was going to be fresh water or salt water, and it turned out to be both! It was fresh water for the first half of the voyage and salt water for the second half. Curious, very curious. The last night on the ship was one of the clearest nights we’d had the entire voyage. We went out and star gazed and attempted to do gymnastics, with attempt being the key word *cough Michael cough.* And, because I’m a sucker for cheesy things, I made my friends write messages in my journal as a yearbook substitute. We went to the commencement ceremony where they played a slide show that actually felt a little creepy because they had all sorts of pictures of us that we didn’t know they had taken. Captain Jeremy then said goodbye to Dean Jill because this was the last of her eight voyages as Dean. He gave her a bottle of expensive Champagne and a pink Semester at Sea sweatshirt. I thought that he should have just stopped with the alcohol. If she really wanted a SAS sweatshirt, she probably already had one from one of her eight prior voyages. To add insult to injury, he then put the sweatshirt on her in front of the entire ship. I’ve never seen a grown woman being dressed before. Dean Jill’s speech put the cherry on top of the ice cream. It was a seven page list of random things about Semester at Sea. Everyone in the Union was looking around at each other like, “yeah, we know, we were all here.” The highlight of the list was the extended description of different things we waited in line for, concluding in, “They should call this Semester in Line!” I personally do not think the marketing team should follow her advice; Semester in Line is not nearly as catchy as Semester at Sea. Just saying.  The next morning, we pulled into port at 7am and waved eagerly with bacon in our hands to the group of parents standing to great us with waving flags, and one particular parent in a Santa suite. Christmas? Oh yeah! December 13^th feels a lot different in the tropics than it does at home. There was then a lot of anxious waiting to get off the ship, hauling around of luggage, and a small amount of crying, mostly from my end and no one else’s. It was hard to believe that when I got off the MV Explorer, I would probably never be getting back on it.

Pura Vida en Costa Rica

“Pura vida” literally translates to “pure life” in Spanish, but in Costa Rica it’s used to mean “the good life” and can be a response to pretty much anything. If someone asks how you are, you say “pura vida,” if someone says goodbye, you say, “pura vida,” if you agree with what another person is saying, you say, “pura vida.” Well, I think you get the picture. I don’t know if the Costa Rican people are just being overly optimistic, but I know that I certainly lived the good life during my too short stay in the country so I won’t argue that the term is overused.

We were down to out last nine days of the voyage but the responsibility of classes still loomed over us. The ship only stopped in Costa Rica for two days and I had to spend one of these precious days on a trip with my drawing class to go see the world’s largest ox cart. I was determined to go sip lining the next day, so as Tori, Allison and I ventured off on our field trip, we left CJ and Hillary in charge of finding a cheap hotel for the night. The bus took us to a metal church which had been mailed to its location piece by piece, which was relatively cool I guess, but all I could think of was the Tea House in Boulder which had also been mailed overseas but happened to be much prettier. Instead of gawking awkwardly at the church (it was in the middle of a service with actual church goers inside), we made a mission down to the nearest coffee shop for some café con leche to get a taste of Costa Rica’s famous coffee. It took the baristas a lot longer to make our coffee then we thought it would so we ended up having to sprint back up to the bus. We were five minutes late and everyone was already sitting down in their seats waiting to leave. My drawing teacher just scowled at us, she already wasn’t my number one fan. Tori and I were very embarrassed, but settled down nonetheless for the bus ride, until two minutes later when the lid of Tori’s coffee popped off and her entire scalding cup spilled all over her lap and into the bus isle. Oops, strike number two. About ten minutes later, the bus stopped and the driver told everyone to get off the bus if they wanted to look at a coffee plant. We were feeling lazy and could see the plant from the window so we all remained seated and Tori and Allison shared head phones and danced while I had I silent dance party next to them. Tori then, believing we were alone on the bus, chose to sing along to the single most vulgar line that she possible could have. Her voice echoed off the silent bus walls…and I mean it was INAPROPRIATE in capital letters. She then turned around to see a sweet old man sitting directly behind her. Allison, Chase and I burst out into hysterics but I think all of us were a little mortified. Strike three for the day. 

                                                Tori, some coffee, Chase, and an Ox Cart

We then continued on our journey to see the world’s largest ox cart. To be fare, ox carts have a large traditional importance to the Costa Rican people because that’s how they used to export the coffee that fueled their economy. All of them are handmade and beautifully painted. Still, the trip was about as anti climatic as it sounds. The cooler part followed when we got to go to an ox cart factory and we watched them make a wheel, run the water powered factory machines, and observed as a woman painted a souvenir ox cart using the traditional method. By the time we returned to the ship, CJ and Hillary had found us a cheap hotel in the form of an expensive all-inclusive resort. I resigned my hopes for zip lining the next day.

Most people spend the weekend before finals studying. We spent our weekend partying. The all inclusive did not only include food and drinks, but a night club. The five of us girls and Chase basically started the dancing at the club ourselves. Tori had the stage to herself for a while and was showing us some moves that she seemed to think were good…I should add that they weren’t good. At one point there were a couple of younger kids in the club (about fourteen I think) that Allison pulled into a dance circle with us. They seemed to be having a great time before the hotel staff kicked them out. We must have looked like we were having a blast or in some way inspiring  because the place was empty when we arrived and completely packed a half hour later. Hillary kept on babbling to people who didn’t speak English and I kept on having to translate for her which was difficult because most of the people talking to me in Spanish were very drunk and difficult to understand anyways. We partied ourselves out relatively early and crashed around 1AM. Don’t worry, the next day we were up at nine and ready to continue the shenanigans. We ate breakfast, found some lounge chairs, and went for a morning swim. Tori was just speculating on my spirit animal being a badger when, to my horror, a white gift from a bird dropped directly into my mouth. Luckily, I was able to spit it out and rinse my mouth with the pool water immediately, but I don’t know if I should interpret this as a sign from the world to stay away from badgers or something. 

We made the pool with the swim up bar our home and became friends with a bunch of people who worked as staff on a cruise ship. Amongst their company was a crazy Italian man who kept on skipping around in his Speedo and confessing his undying love to every female in sight. Towards the afternoon it began to poor rain but it was so warm that we all danced in the pool under the down poor. We finally had to pull ourselves away and call a cab to take us back to the ship. Right as we pulled out of the hotel driveway, Allison freaked out and asked the cab to stop because she’d left her passport in the room. Her and Chase went upstairs to search for it while I shared a cigar with our taxi driver and chatted with him in Spanglish. I felt very suave, but only because I was sitting behind the cab driver and he couldn’t see me when I choked from the cigar smoke. I don’t think it’s a habit I’ll be picking up. Crisis averted, Allison found her passport and back to the ship it is. I had to study for two finals that night and did surprisingly well on both of them. Maybe I should market a new “de-stress” study method…or I just got lucky that I actually paid attention in my classes reviewing it wasn’t too hard.

PANAMA CANAL:   

The next day our ship passed through the Panama Canal. Everyone was outside tanning on the seventh deck in the blazing sun. Passing through the locks was very exciting. The ship would sail into the lock, stop, the gate would close behind it, and slowly but surely the water was forced into the lock and our ship was raised to the level of the Canal. I still have no idea how it’s possible that the Pacific Ocean is lower than the Atlantic Ocean. Isn’t all the water connected? The ship barbecued on the deck for us and we all had a relaxing afternoon before we got ready for our last day of finals and started to get excited for Honduras!        

Let's Get Pacific

            We’ve all heard of sailors getting stuck out at sea, sustaining themselves on rum and the leather from their shoes, and occasionally turning to cannibalism. Well, that didn’t happen on Semester at Sea, but the crossing of the Pacific Ocean was still a very long eighteen days. In 2005, a giant tsunami wave hit the MV Explorer and knocked out the windows in the dining hall. We’d all seen the youtube videos of students from sliding back and forth across the Union so, needless to say, we were all a little apprehensive about going through those same waters. See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51_XcpMX2gk&feature=related Our voyage got lucky. No one got bombarded with furniture, Mary and I just spent several sleepless nights tossing and turning, making yipping noises when the boat almost tossed us out of our beds, and sighing loudly every time something fell off of our walls or tables. There were a couple mornings where I rolled out of bed and gagged over the toilet before I was able to pull myself together and make myself go to Global Studies. Ah yes, Global Studies. Seeing as how we had school every day at sea, the Pacific was all about studying, and Global Studies had officially become the world’s most painful class. It was early in the morning, the Union was always freezing, and we weren’t learning about the new and exciting places we were going because we’d pretty much already been everywhere. On the bright side, I didn’t have to write papers for that class. I don’t really know where I ever found the motivation to finish my History papers because the computer lab was always full of chatting students and Life Long Learners yelling at the internet for not working and friends walking by…so basically, the process felt physically painful, but I ended up getting an A in the class so the misery is better in retrospect.

Four days into our Pacific crossing, we had a “study day” which was actually designated for filming a video called a Lip Dub. Lip Dubs are videos taken in one single shot of people lip sinking and dancing to a song. I once saw one involving an entire city where the camera went up in a helicopter. Ours wasn’t quite as high budget, but the video runs through the entire ship. Everyone got together with their seas (the same groups we competed with in the Sea Olympics) and put together some type of choreography. We did a couple practice run-throughs and then Adam, the camera man, actually filmed us three different times and chose the take that looked the best. Luckily, the tape that looked the best was the third try, which also happened to be the take that the kid with the South African apartheid flag was not in. I don’t think the promotion of apartheid is really what Semester at Sea is trying to advertise. The Bering Sea was designated the outside deck six filming slot so Alison and I put together a little yoga choreography. What we didn’t know when we choreographed it was that it was going to be ridiculously windy. Balancing was a wee bit challenging, and if you watch the video closely you can actually see Allison almost fall over when she steps out into warrior pose. Several people’s miniature flags got blown out into the great blue ocean as well. Neptune must have had a very international lunch. Basically, the filming was a lot of fun and I will be content to never listen to K’naan’s ten minute song ever again. Seriously, I heard that song at least seven times just that day and that’s not including all the practice sessions we had the week leading up to it. Here’s the video, I’m four minutes in wearing green pants!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pA_I2GrwpQ

After four more days of waves and studying, we voyagers received a wonderful gift, LAND HO! This Thanksgiving I was thankful to be in Hilo Hawaii. We only had a brief eight hour stay there but we made the most of it. We did our best to uphold the true American tradition of eating way way too much food and gorged ourselves on crab omelets in the morning and returned in the afternoon for giant dishes of pulled pork. It wasn’t exactly mashed potatoes and turkey but I really wasn’t complaining. After we fulfilled our food priority, Allison, CJ, Tori, Hillary and I made our fist stop Walmart because it’s one of the few placed that’s actually open on Thanksgiving Day. We bought leis and snacks and Allison and I found turkey hats that kicked and gobbled so naturally we ran around the store making fools of ourselves. We then paraded next door to the Starbucks to Skype and call our friends and families. Having call phone service and free wifi are privileges that we Americans take for granted way too much, so I was thankful for those as well. After playing catch up, we hopped in a cab and went to the beach. Our cab driver’s name was Junior and the fact that he spoke English made it much easier to befriend him. He ended up giving us a free tour of the Island before dropping us off. CJ then promptly got caught in a phone conversation with one of her sorority sisters and completely missed swimming with the turtles. Before we left her we overheard some of the conversation, and I quote, “Tell Stacy she’s a hoe for me!” Do I even need to add that the rest of us mercilessly made fun of her for saying that for the rest of the voyage? What she missed was Hillary and Tori adorning coconut bras that they’d bought at Walmart, which was probably one of the best purchases ever made there, and a lot of underwater pictures. The coolest part, of course, was the turtles. They were swimming right next to the beach and one in particular kept on swimming up to us and brushing us with his fin. We named him Junior after our cab driver. Tori was obsessed with him and kept of saying that he was her spirit animal and doting on how much he looked like a dinosaur. I must say, having a giant turtle chase you through the water is actually much more terrifying than you might think. By the time we were done swimming, we were able to coax CJ off the phone and begin a very competitive game of Yahtzee. Allison and I both rock at board games so naturally we both tied for first and called Junior to take us to giant meal number two while gloating. Junior was very touched that we had given him a name-sake and seemed very surprised that anyone would actually wear a coconut bra. Thanksgiving dinner was great right up to the point where Tori got homesick because she couldn’t get a hold of her boyfriend and started weeping loudly and inconsolably at the table. Our walk back to the boat was a relatively long distance in the pouring rain with a crying friend, but she eventually got over it and customs let me take my lei on the boat with me so I thought the day was a success.    

    

We were thrown back to our small cabins and left at the mercy of the sea for another nine days. This period of time was broken up by several board games, movie nights, the leering knowledge of finals, and a ball. The ball was Bollywood themed and anyone with a sari from India made walking through the halls much more colorful and exciting than usual. I had dragged a fancy dress from home all the way around the world and had yet to use it so it was nice to get a chance to dress up. Don’t worry, I made an effort to go in theme, I had a sparkly bindi on my forehead that matched my dress perfectly. The food that night was fantastic. They served us shrimp in a mint yogurt followed by a lentil soup with the grand finale of stake and mashed potatoes. Knowing that the ship’s chef was capable of such incredible food made eating the normal ship meals afterwards a little heart breaking. I will admit that my grumble-meter increased to the orange high alert status. The desert buffet outdid the dinner exponentially. There were at least thirty different desserts decorated with delicate chocolate flowers and all of it was surrounded by a beautiful display of carved fruit. We all desperately needed to dance after our meal just to help settle out full stomachs. The dancing was on the seventh deck under streamers and tinkle lights. The best way I can describe it is as a very fun middle dance. No one danced with each other, but everyone bobbed their heads and fist pumped and a solid three dancing circles formed around a few kids who could dance really really well while the rest of us watched. My favorite part of the night was actually right after the dance. All of my friends stayed out on the seventh deck with the wind cooling us off and fooling around taking pictures and dancing under the stars. 

This is when the end of our voyage started feeling way too near, but it was still another four days to Costa Rica which wasn’t near enough. Boredom at sea inspired things like banana peel dances and songs about boobs. You wouldn’t understand unless you’d been there yourself, but that’s probably a good thing.