Comedy Night and Neptune Day

I have always talked about doing a stand up show, I figured that couldn't be so hard. Well finally my chance arrived. We had an open mic comedy night where me and another kid signed up. I was completely nervous about doing the show cause it was my first time telling real jokes in front of people that I made up. I was driving Greg crazy cause I kept asking him if my jokes were good and I would practice on him. I was the first person to perform at the show and I ended up killing it. Everyone said I did an amazing job and that they were genuinely laughing. I heard from Greg and others of my friends that people were like rolling around in the audience. It was just a complete rush to get up there and have people react. I was pacing and sweating before my set but once I got up there it was like auto pilot and I did a better job telling my jokes and not stumbling on my words then when I was practicing it. Greg ended up videotaping the whole thing so I can show people at home. The event was so successful that they are considering doing it again and maybe even having a last comic standing competition, I cant wait… Its just too bad I wasted all my good jokes in one shot

Neptune day is a Semester at Sea tradition where all of those who have never crossed the Equator by ship must be initiated and become a Shellback. Basically, what happens is we get woken up really early by the crew dressed up as Trojan warriors banging on our doors and on pans at 7:30 in the morning. After that we go up to the pool deck where some of the crew and faculty are dressed up and our captain is painted green and is the God Neptune. You line up and have this fish guts smelling stuff poured on you then you jump into the nasty pool which is full of this terrible stuff. You wait your turn before you get out of the pool kiss two fish and finally kiss Neptune's ring giving your allegiance to him. Another optional thing you can do and a lot of people do is shave their heads. I however am worried about balding and fear that shaving my head may send the wrong message to my hair so I didn't do it. I heard rumors that we broke the record of most girls who shaved their heads, basically we have a whole boat of Sinead O'Connor's running around. The highlight of the day will be the BBQ tonight cause it will be a break from the usual food we have.

All in all this has helped break up the long trip to Capetown.

Salvador and Lencois

Day 1:

Salvador has been known to be our most dangerous port due mostly to petty theft and the fact that Brazil has one of the largest divides between rich and poor in the world. The Semester at Sea Staff made sure to make us completely aware of the fact that crime is an issue here and that we should be careful especially since we were going during Carnivale. Taking their advice I hid money on me and was very careful as to where I took my camera out. I did not have a single problem of being pick pocketed even though many other students did.

I spent the first day in port by going to the market and buying a few souvenirs from the port. Getting off the ship was interesting cause Candomble ladies met us and placed ribbons on our rest and there were drummers there to greet us. I joked that the ribbons were placed on us to make it easier for the criminals to identify the tourists. Everywhere around us were people doing Capieora and playing music. The city is divided into upper and lower parts and one of the only ways to go between them is through this huge elevator so me and a group did that to get up to the Pelourihno district. The whole area was covered in decorations for carnival and was heavily monitored by police. You couldn't look anywhere without someone trying to sell you something but aside from that the city itself was beautiful and was painted using a lot of pastels. Some of the group left but I stayed with another kid in order to eat dinner in port. We had a traditional dish of soft shell crab moqueca it tasted interesting but I am not running to try it again. After that I returned to the boat to prepare for Carnivale

A large group of students met up so we could all go to Carnivale together. I was placed in a smaller group of 4 to get there and the rest of us would meet up in order to be safer in numbers. Carnivale in Salvador is listed in the Guiness World Record Books as the largest party in the world. There were 2 million people dancing in the street starting from 7 and ending at 5 in the morning. The highlight of the Carnivale are the Trios Electricos these huge floats that are loaded up with enough sound equipment to make the ground shake and famous musicians on top like Shakira and others. Being in the crowd was incredible every couple minutes we would turn to each other nad just be like I cant believe we get to do this for credit. Unbeknownst to us where we stopped to watch Carnivale just so happened to be right in front of the police station so we didn't have any problems of being harassed or robbed. It was interesting cause we were the only white people in the crowd so whenever one of those floats would come by they would stop and give us a private concert and throw us beads. We headed back around 12 because a lot of us had to wake up early to go on trips including me which leads too…

Day 2:

Lencois is heaven. It is just the most beautiful little town that works perfectly with its environment. 27 of us were on the SAS trip to Lencois and our guide was an American named Roy who came to Lencois for a week or two for the peace corp and never left in the 70's he ended up writing to the government and having the whole area (Chapiada Diamintina) turned into a national park and served as its first director, he knew the area well lets just say (he also looked like Don Quixote). Our hotel was a 5 star eco-friendly gem named Canto das Aguas. We didn't think we were allowed to stay somewhere nice like that. The first day there we spent hiking up the Lencois River and walking through all the weird rock formations. It ended in us swimming in a waterfall that you could actually get behind. The weather wasn't so great since it was raining but the rain just made things more interesting.

Day 3:

We had a 10 mile hike ahead of us today through the valley near the town. Throughout the hike we faced periods of torrential rain then baking sun. It was actually nice because it got really hot. Because of all the rain all over the valley and in the hills waterfalls started up and the river below us was raging. We had to cross the river which normally is just at our knees but know it was roaring and we had to use a rope to cross it. One of the highlights was eating lunch on top of these rocks overlooking the whole valley we were about 1000 feet up eating sandwiches it was surreal. We continued our hike until we got to a large cave that you could go inside which we did. A big group of us went as far deep as we could and turned off all the lights and sat inside the pitch black cave (the cave would play an important role later in my Lencois experience). Finally, we headed back into after 7 hours of hiking, all of our feet were covered in blisters and we were dead tired.

We headed to the pool and steam room to relax our aching bodies. While in the steam room we met a 21 year old Brazilian who spoke really good English who lived in Salvador but was from Lencois. We wondered how anyone from this town could have the money to live in Salvador if his family was from Lencois and why he would be staying at this relatively expensive hotel if he was from the area. We found out at dinner that we were staying at his parents hotel and then we talked about Brazil to try and learn more about the country.

That night a bunch of us including John headed into town to the local bars. John introduced me to a couple of his friends and even got me some local drinks to try out.

Day 4:

This was the best day in Lencois for me…

Towards the end of the day Roy took 8 of us to a rock slide in town. The rock slide basically is a solid sheet of rock where a waterfall rushes down it and you can go down it pretty safely. Because it had been raining for the past week there was a lot more water going down it then normal which means it was that much faster. It was about 40 feet long and you couldn't only do it two or three times before your butt got sore from bouncing over the rocks. After we did that we saw that locals were diving into the water so we decided why not. All of us jumped off a cliff into the water which was about 25 feet high. It was really safe cause the water at the bottom of the rock slide was really deep but it was still a rush to jump from that high up. The locals were all great cause they directed us where to jump and would demonstrate for us. I think it's a real treat for them to see American teens. This was our last night in town so instead of going out into the town we brought the party to the hotel. We bonded as one big group over drinking games the whole night.

Day 5:

This was our last day in Lencois and Brazil. We started the day off with a hike up to a plateau that overlooked the whole area called Pai Inacio. We basically went up there and spent the next hour just taking fun pictures and goofing off on top of the mountain. After that we headed back to Lencois to grab our lunches and drop off our guides. To some up this beautiful place all I could tell the Guide Roy was Thank you for letting me fall in love with your home. I hope someday that I can come back and get to see this town again.

The 6 hour bus ride back seemed to fly by but we would be getting back too late to head into Salvador one last time. So I ended up having dinner on the ship and then watched the boat pull away

Puerto Rico

Day 1:

As a ship we got very lucky that in the morning before getting off the boat the governor of Puerto Rico came on board to speak to us. He was very eloquent and funny and highlighted the pride of the Puerto Rican people and his belief that Puerto Rico was best served by staying a Commonwealth. There was a lot of local media on board for this event we had reporters also from Telemundo and Univision so maybe we made it on TV. I guess last year they could not get the governor to show up but this year we have some leverage. How are you going to turn down seeing Tutu.

The first day Greg and I had decided to visit old San Juan. On the way off the boat we met a kid named Kyle who was waiting for some people to go into town. We were planning on going in one big group but I guess the other group got confused and Kyle got left behind. We took him under our wings. We walked along the wall of San Juan trying to make it ot El Morro. We spent some time in El Morro which was pretty much a bigger version of most forts I have seen. The best thing about it was the view you got of both the ocean and Old San Juan. By this time we were starving and wanted to try and get some traditional Puerto Rican food. We walked around old San Juan and met up with another group of SASer's. This old lady who spoke English on the street helped us out finding a restaurant to eat at called Barrachina. This is when I had a moment of Déjà vu. I had been to Puerto Rico once before for a day and I kept telling everyone about the fact that the Pina Colada was invented in the city. As we entered the restaurant I was like this seems very familiar and Greg pointed out that this was that place. I grabbed some free samples and sat down for lunch. This is where we had the best meal of the trip Pollo Mofongo and a Medalla beer. This was not only a filling meal but tasted unbelievable. And then suddenly things got strange. The same lady who told us to go to this restaurant showed up there and started talking to us and making sure the meal was great. Obviously she was getting a cut or something to bring us there, we all felt so used.

After the meal we spent some more time walking around Old San Juan before returning to the boat. The only other thing that really happened was a group of us wanted to find a local place to hang out at night and kept asking the taxi driver to take us to a local salsa place or something. Instead we got brought to Senor Frogs which was full of SASer's (not quite what we wanted) we were looking for some local flavor. Greg and I only stayed for a little before returning to the boat and passing out.

Day 2:

The previous day Kyle, Greg, Laura (friend of Greg and Kyle's) and I met to go to the beach and try and surf. Kyle knew how to surf a little bit and we were all excited to give it a try. We had heard that good beach for surfing was Ocean Park just east of Old San Juan. We got there and found out that the place to rent surf boards was a 15 minute walk away from the beach so we walked out there to pick up the boards and then head back to the beach. We walked along the beach looking for waves that would be suitable for surfing and we kept walking saying things like oh they are too small here or too close to the shore. We finally picked a place and decided yea lets run out there and give this a shot. WAVES ARE BIGGER THEN THEY APPEAR FROM SHORE. We got our butts handed to us by the ocean. We tried for like 15 minutes just to make it out to the break and we were getting hit by 8-10 foot waves and to make it worse the waves came one after another so as soon as you recovered you were pummeled again. At one point I thought I was doing well and almost out there and then I turned around after a big wave and noticed I was only 3 feet from shore. I was only able to make it out to the break once and wasn't able to make it up on the board but I was happy just to make it past those knockout waves. I couldn't imagine how they do it in Hawaii.

We made it back to the boat in time to stop by McDonalds which had free internet and then grab dinner on the boat. That night I had my trip to biobay which is one of the 6 bioluminescent bays in the world (2 are in the process of being destroyed because they are very fragile ecologically). One of the highlights was when the tour guide came on the bus and was asking questions and someone responded in spanish to him. His only answer was "your killing my language". The guide was hilarious and made the prep work a lot less annoying. We took a two person ocean kayak out into the bay. We went through a narrow Mangrove channel to make it into the bay. We went in a single file line to the bay where the guide explained a little bit more about the fragile ecosystem. Now imagine a .25 mile wide bay devoid of lights and other people with a sky full of stars, now imagine jumping into this dark area and swimming in it, finally add to this an amazing blue light that follows your every movement and you have biobay. After swimming in the waters for a little bit we made our way back to the harbor and I headed back to the boat to pass out.

Day 3:

Greg and I had been planning to go to the rainforest indy but after talking to locals we found that transportation was inconsistent and we didn't want to risk not making it back to the ship on time. We placed our hopes on joining up with a semester at sea group that was going to the rainforest. We made it on the trip and headed into the rainforest. The walk through the rain forest was really relaxing and was like a spa. The oxygen level and moisture in the air cleaned out your skin and made you feel refreshed. The rain forest doesn't have much in terms of animals but had lots of great vegetation. The highlight of the trek was being able to swim in La Mina falls. The water was so clean that you could smell the freshness. All of us jumped in, it was cold but amazing. We just sat on the rocks and let the water fall on top of us. Kyle showed me that there was this crevice underneath everyone that you could swim through and come out the other end. So I followed him 8 feet deep and underneath everyone through this beautiful water it was amazing.

Our tour next took us to a great restaurant called "El Dajao" that had a buffet line of food set up for us. The food was incredible and I couldn't tell if it was because we were starving from walking or cause it was really that good. The meal consisted of rice, beans, chicken that was falling off the bone, and sweet plantains. After that we found our way to Luqiullo beach. The island of Puerto Rico has 365 beaches but only 7 of them are blue flag beaches which are top of the line this was one of them. The water was like a bath tub, the sand felt like silk, and in the background we had the rainforest. We all swam around and even used the sand to create a sort of mud bath. This was probably the best day I had at sea. Greg and I finally made it back to the ship and headed into old San Juan to finish some last minute chores and we took the chance to get some Coldstone which will probably be our last taste of that until we make it back home. I ended the night on a great note by talking to all of my family and my Natalie as the ship left Puerto Rico. This was a great start to an already amazing voyage.

Boat leaving port

Leaving port

My Picassa photo albums

Click on this link to see some of my pictures so far from this great voyage:

http://picasaweb.google.com/slavaatsea

For my heart

Climbing the coconut tree

Me and Kyle getting attacked by pigeons

Looks like a postcard

Sunset from the Boat

Bahamas

Pulling into Nassau International was interesting. You hear international airport and you think Heathrow / Logan instead we land at our local 7/11. On my flight there were several SASer's (I think that's the current term we are called) so that meant some quick bonding and taxi planning. I got my bags decently which was a big worry because one of my bags is the same as a bag I had on my last trip which almost ripped open (this comes up later). So everything in Nassau is good with a side of 100% humidity. The whole taxi ride I was hoping that my hotel (Nassau Palm Beach Resort and Conference Center) was not as bad as the reviews for it online said (I love sharing my bed with bed bugs). I get to the register and I heard the beautiful words "overbooked". We were offered a stay at the hotels sister all-inclusive resort (food and drinks…cha ching) on Paradise Island right near my friend Greg and the Atlantis for no extra charge. A lot of the SASer's where staying at the same hotel and got switched over to the much more luxurious one we are at now. Luxurious compared to bed bugs and bath tub size pool. Of course when we made it to the new hotel what happened my wheel on the stupid piece of luggage broke off, at least it wasn't the whole bottom.

Alright so here comes the drama. I was staying with Isaiah and Nicole from my school. I was on the same flight as Isaiah and Nicole was suppose to come in like 3 hours later and we would meet up at the original hotel. Well lets see we jumped at the first opportunity to go a great hotel and basically decided well we could leave a note for Nicole, things may work themselves out, we will be at the bar (no 4 pm is not too early for comp'ed drinks). Luckily Nicole has a caring boyfriend who called our hotel to let us know her flight was delayed he found we were switched and let her and us know that things were changed. So while I waited for Nicole, I went out to dinner with Greg and his parents to the Hard Rock Café. One the way over we saw something that has been hanging over our heads for about a year now, The Explorer, and it was glorious. Its blue was the bluest and its dollar store Christmas lights lit up the sky…until you saw the carnival cruise ship that was twice its size and had Christmas Tree Store lights.

Greg and I went back to my hotel in order to wait for Nicole. We got into stealth mode. We had to sneak Nicole into the hotel so we didn't pay an extra charge. As soon as her taxi pulled up we grabbed her bags and told her to go to the sixth floor at which point we would meet her. Everything went perfectly including the dirty looks I got from the hotel staff. All of us Babson kids finally went to the Atlantis hotel where we did a tour of the hotel. The place is amazing and I wish I could be sarcastic about it but I can't. It's like a Las Vegas style super hotel except on the beach and 3 times the size. We stopped over to the Casino where I made my one good comment for the night Nicole was talking about the women and noted how though they looked really good they were all older at which point I came in with the zinger "well parts of them are new"

DAY 2

    I woke up rather early cause I felt the big bed to myself was spoiling me. Today I spent most of the day at the Atlantis resort which I snuck into for free through Greg. We got to use their beach and equipment in particular their rides (there is a video). One of the rides was a water drop that led you into a tube filled with sharks all around you. I tanned for a bit and hung out at the pool def. could not complain. After that I snuck Greg back into my hotel for food and drinks, shady business. The whole time I told him to keep his hands under the table so they wouldn't see he was missing his wristband. After that me and a group walked the 2 miles to downtown Nassau to sightsee and buy gifts (maybe you will get something ;) Someone planned a dinner for all the SASer's in our hotel so there were 20 of us out for one of the more fancy dinners we will get on this trip. After that we had a group (including all the Babson folk) tripped planned to a Club called Bambu which was right across the street from our boat. It was amazing clubbing and seeing the boat outside of the window. To be honest I spent more time starring at the boat then trying to dance. Ive spent a year thinking about this blue ship and looking at pictures and finally I get to see it in person.

    Side note: I should go to the casino more often my buddy Zeek from Babson came back 1000 dollars richer pretty much covers all his current expenses. I hate being risk-adverse.

    Well that's it for now tomorrow I will be on the boat and getting settled in…Let the Voyage begin.